@Shivviness @steviesyerda Sooner or later, there needs to be a profound revolution -- I hope not a violent one. It has to start somewhere. It could start here.
Scotland is actually reasonably well situated for this. We have adequate agricultural land to feed our population, adequate energy sources, actually quite a lot of accessible minerals, plenty of timber, a highly educated population.
/Continued
@Shivviness @steviesyerda Economic blockade and sanctions would hurt, of course. But they wouldn't make life in Scotland impossible. On the contrary, we can operate on our own resources pretty well -- although there would of course be things we would miss.
We couldn't defend ourselves from a military invasion by the combined #capitalist powers of the world, but that wouldn't inevitably happen.
@simon_brooke @Shivviness @steviesyerda
I think we could manage the kind of restructuring that'd allow us to cement a lot of human rights protections and limitations on the power of capital within the framework of the EU, such that many interests weren't happy with us doing it, but it'd be counterproductive to attack us in any way that would disrupt that framework.
I'm not an idealist about the EU and its members, to be clear. We're just safer in a tree than out in the open with the lions.
@simon_brooke @Shivviness @steviesyerda
Socialism in Scotland would be pretty cool. You would be forced to leave the EU though, because of their policies that force capitalist economics on its member states
@burnoutqueen @Shivviness @steviesyerda Indeed.
I mean, we are European, some degree of co-operation with our neighbours is vital. And I have some hope that Scotland in the #EU could help shift the EU a little to the left; we would be by no means the only country in the EU that leans left, we could build coalitions.
But you're right that, as it stands at present, the EU is -- and is designed to be -- a block against serious social and political reform.
@burnoutqueen @simon_brooke @Shivviness @steviesyerda The fiscal rules to which you refer only apply to member-states that use the Euro, making them beholden to the European Central Bank. They have never applied to the UK which has its own central bank and issues its own currency. We remained monetarily sovereign throughout our membership, with parliament in control over over 98% of public spending.
Unfortunately the so-called "Lexiters" are every bit as confused as the Brexiters. 🤷🏻♂️
@ApostateEnglishman @burnoutqueen @Shivviness @steviesyerda We can't join the #Euro unless we first have our own currency, which currently we don't; and two complete changes of currency within a decade is not likely to be popular.
However, I think it's highly unlikely that #Scotland would be allowed back into the #EU unless we at least promised to join the Euro.
@burnoutqueen @simon_brooke @steviesyerda
I wouldn't personally advise for rejoining the EU, because much of it will soon be a dustbowl, not to mention skewing far Right politically.
@Shivviness @simon_brooke @steviesyerda
I'm an American leftist but from my viewpoint I am finding myself in agreement with soft euroskepticism
Since GEAS I have found both people around me and myself more EU-skeptical than ever before.
@Quasit @burnoutqueen @simon_brooke @steviesyerda
Because we've already blown past 1.5C of warming and are headed for 2C by the early 2030s.
@Quasit @burnoutqueen @simon_brooke @steviesyerda
The point is that different regions will be more adversely affected than others, and that it makes little to no sense to latch ourselves to the EU when most of the continent will be undergoing climate crisis, and with the inevitable drift towards fascism that such circumstances cause.
And I appreciate that we're all ultimately doomed in a 2C world with climate collapse accelerating.
@Shivviness @Quasit @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda I don't see the #ClimateEmergency.as inevitably leading to #fascism, rather the contrary. It's likely to lead to a breakdown of central authority, which will lead to localities self organising in one way or another. People of the left have skills, and should be developing skills, of self organisation. That is not to say I see a utopia; I don't. I see a great deal of disorder and suffering.
/Continued
@Shivviness @Quasit @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda but within that disorder there will be localities in which communities self-organise successfully and create islands of good order and relative prosperity. I see it as probable that those islands will be mostly more or less anarcho-communist. But that does depend on us laying ground work now, which is what I am consciously trying to do here.
/Continued
@Shivviness @Quasit @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda I would hope that, if there are relatively stable communities, people in neighbouring areas will learn from them, and gradually they will spread. This is not inevitable, and it isn't likely that under such circumstances the continuance of carbon emissions can be well controlled, so the world would continue to get less habitable.
/Continued
@Shivviness @Quasit @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda as the world becomes less habitable there will inevitably be vast population movements as people flee parts of the world where mass death events happen, and it's quite likely that such large movements would overwhelm even quite successful communities in their path. So, again, this isn't utopia. The future is undoubtedly bleak.
But not, I hope, everywhere.
@simon_brooke @Quasit @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda
Let's hope you're right, Simon.
Also, please excuse my doom mongering, which I am trying not to engage in, because it's ultimately not productive.
@simon_brooke @Shivviness @Quasit @steviesyerda
I'm more pessimistic. I could easily see the people of this world double down on racism, on paranoia, and prejudice and fall down into disunity
@Shivviness @Quasit @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda and probably a largely uninhabitable world by 2100.
#Capitalism can't survive that, and national governments probably won't survive the fall of capitalism.
Of course, a largely uninhabitable world means most people die. And in that degree of chaos, agreements to pursue any particular strategy to limit further #ClimateChange break down.
It's unlikely much can be salvaged from the wreck. I hope something can be.
@Shivviness @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda I think that's probably wrong. The Sahara will probably extend north to the Alps, yes. But the coriolis winds will continue to blow, and with more warming will bring more rainfall in from the Atlantic. More energetically, so more storms, more floods, but not overall less water
The amount of insolation, modulo cloud cover, remains the same, and the amount of warming north west Europe gets from #AMOC goes away...
/Continued
@Shivviness @burnoutqueen @steviesyerda so yes, we probably lose much of Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, the Balkans, Greece.
Scottish and Norwegian winters get much colder. I don't know what happens to our summers, because I don't have a model of what happens to the weather patterns if we have a large desert to the south. But we still have the same amount of sunlight, so we can do agriculture. Germany and middle Europe can do a lot of agriculture, if they can cope with floods.
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