Green New Deal Without Socialism

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The Green New Deal proposed by Rep. Occasio-Cortez and others has been met with a broad spectrum of responses, including accusations of socialism for 70% tax rate proposals and guaranteed income for people "unwilling to work." The proposals was also regarded skeptically by Hawaiians who couldn't imagine the prospect of replacing air travel with trains.

Assuming compromises and solutions could be achieved by good-faith participation in a progressive culture of reform, the biggest problem is whether it is possible to achieve such reforms without the socialism of 70% tax rates and other redistributive measures, and if so how?

Imo, it is of critical importance that anti-socialist sentiments/resolve be respected. People have a right to keep the money they make and save it for the future, whether they have saved $50,000 or $50 million. This doesn't mean, however, that they must be able to spend and/or invest it in any way they want. Obviously this is the case with blatantly criminal investments and purchases like recreational drugs and other illegal business activities, but what counts as criminal business activity could be expanded to include those that harm the environment, climate, and sustainability.

Why is it, however, that Ocassio-Cortez and others who support the GND and 'democratic socialism' can't imagine pursuing reforms without increasing taxes on the rich? I assume the reason is because they think the only way they can motivate the working classes and middle-classes is to pay them more; but if the kinds of far-reaching reforms are implemented that would be necessary as part of a serious GND, then people would actually need less spending money than more; i.e. because shifting from private motor-vehicle ownership to public transit would cost less, as would heating and cooling costs where building insulation was properly remediated.

In fact, the biggest reason for rejecting such green reforms is that shifting to more energy-conservative lifestyles would decrease commerce and investment opportunities. So while people would be able to save untaxed money, they would have less opportunity to invest it lucratively, and that is a prospect that many people/investors just can't stand the thought of.

Both investors and unionists feed off ideas like lots of new jobs producing windmills, solar panels, and battery storage; but they want to imagine that the growth potential for such an economy is limitless. In fact, we cannot convert too much wind energy to electricity, because that energy is needed to blow clouds over land where it can rain down as fresh water. The wind is part of a natural desalination system for the planet, so we can't expect to tap into all that energy for heating, cooling, and transportation. Really we have to learn to make the most of what we do use so that we can conserve as much resources as possible for the natural systems that underwrite the planet's long term sustainability and climate stability.

But within the parameters of what is sustainable and restorative for natural climate, there is plenty of room for economic activity; so to that extent people should be allowed to keep the money they save by reducing and/or reversing inflationary trends; and in that sense the Green New Deal can do as much to prevent and reverse socialism as it can to prevent and reverse climate change.

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@livinglava,

They're Progressives and firmly believe they, and their actions and statements, should be judged based on the supposed goodness of their intentions and motives, instead of the results they achieve or the logical content of what they say. Unfortunately they don't extend this presumption to other lesser beings who disagree with them.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

They're Progressives and firmly believe they, and their actions and statements, should be judged based on the supposed goodness of their intentions and motives, instead of the results they achieve or the logical content of what they say. Unfortunately they don't extend this presumption to other lesser beings who disagree with them.

I don't care about judging anyone. I care about solving problems and preventing others from occurring. Good intentions and motives are a starting point, but they are just the beginning.

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@livinglava,

The Green New Deal is as the President commented like an HS Term Paper.

It's the sort of answer you expect from Miss Universe contestants when asked "How would you change the world?"

Cortez is a young woman intoxicated with her sudden fame and incapable of wisdom. How are we leaving Markey out of the discussion?

As a bill, it would never pass even the Democrat-controlled House.

It might as well be called The Green National Suicide Pact.

The sad truth is that if "AOC" was a frumpy, overweight 50 year old, she would never get any attention.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Well the good state of NY must be happy - that combined with sending amazon packing must make everyone from NY very happy.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

The Green New Deal is as the President commented like an HS Term Paper.

It's the sort of answer you expect from Miss Universe contestants when asked "How would you change the world?"

Cortez is a young woman intoxicated with her sudden fame and incapable of wisdom. How are we leaving Markey out of the discussion?

As a bill, it would never pass even the Democrat-controlled House.

It might as well be called The Green National Suicide Pact.

The sad truth is that if "AOC" was a frumpy, overweight 50 year old, she would never get any attention.

Maybe, but they are at least trying to solve the problems instead of denying them.

A more conservative approach would involve avoiding socialism by simply outlawing environmentally-harmful and climate-unsustainable economic practices, the same way we outlaw recreational drugs and illegal gambling, etc.

People should be free to invest their own money and labor and keep what they make, but they should limit themselves to operating within the parameters of what's sustainable. If that means prohibiting coal, oil/gasoline, and natural gas; then we should be working around those restrictions, the same way we work around prohibitions against illegal drugs when we want to have fun.

The problem is all the climate-unsustainable industries are also the most lucrative, so there are business interests fighting against blocking those routes to easy money.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

If the Green New Deal was made law tomorrow it wouldn't solve the fanciful and dire Climate Change concerns

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

If the Green New Deal was made law tomorrow it wouldn't solve the fanciful and dire Climate Change concerns

The natural carbon cycle should be restored, and hopefully that will avert and reverse climate change. Restoring the biosphere to the most pristine state possible is the best we can do to achieve sustainability.

Humans don't have to go extinct or jettison all modern technologies and industry to achieve this. We just have to reform the way we use industry and land so that the natural climate is restored.

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Humans don't have to go extinct or jettison all modern technologies and industry to achieve this. We just have to reform the way we use industry and land so that the natural climate is restored.

Please provide more detail as to how this will be accomplished. Virtually all modern technology depends heavily on readily available electrical power roughly 60% of which is produced by fossil fuels. The vast majority of our emissions few power production (about 67%) is produced by nuclear reactors, and it is declining at about twice the rate as the growth of so called renewable sources. In short our dependence on fossil fuel is growing as a much faster rate than the growth of so called renewable sources.

We also depend on a road, rail and air transport network that is virtually all powered by fossil fuels (including the energy used to charge Tesla batteries) to move goods and people.

How will you replace these things without a catastrophic effect on our economy and the quality of life (even survival) of our people.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

What is the "the natural climate?"

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Humans don't have to go extinct or jettison all modern technologies and industry to achieve this. We just have to reform the way we use industry and land so that the natural climate is restored.

Please provide more detail as to how this will be accomplished. Virtually all modern technology depends heavily on readily available electrical power roughly 60% of which is produced by fossil fuels.[/quote]
Better insulation and more selective use of indoor space. There are coolers now that can keep ice frozen for two weeks. That technology and similar ones should be applied to limited areas where people can seek refuge from cold and hot weather. Also, smarter collaborations should be sought between essential machinery and its waste-heat, which can be channeled to provide heating for inhabited spaces.

The biggest challenge is how to reverse the proliferation of indoor spaces that happen because businesses want to compete with other successful businesses. When one complex or store is successful, others are created around it to try to tap into the customer base. Such competition is important in how free markets keep prices in check and quality at competitive levels, but it results in too much indoor square footage per capita. We need to find ways for distributors to compete within the same buildings and shelves as other distributors, so that land and development resources aren't wasted on sloppy competition. If you think about it, online marketplaces such as Amazon, Ebay, and Walmart already allow various producers/distributors to compete on their platforms, but that same logic should make it possible to consolidate and reduce brick-and-mortar retail space. Developers and other investors won't like that idea, but they can find other ways to invest and create jobs that are more environmentally-sustainable, such as building taller towers that provide develope-able real estate that is stacked vertically instead of sprawled out extensively where reforestation could be occurring.

The more successful developers get with building in-between and above the tree canopy of urban (re)forests, the easier it will be to achieve reforestation of developed areas without losing the ability for humans to live, work, and recreate there.

Restoring living carbon absorption as much as possible is important for restoring the natural carbon cycle of the planet.

Quote:

The vast majority of our emissions few power production (about 67%) is produced by nuclear reactors, and it is declining at about twice the rate as the growth of so called renewable sources. In short our dependence on fossil fuel is growing as a much faster rate than the growth of so called renewable sources.

There's just so much that can be done to reduce energy demand that isn't done because of the way business works. Energy is the base raw material that investors use to generate produce, comfortable commercial/retail/office/residential space, and to transport everything including people around. When you start seriously looking for ways to reducing energy use, the possibilities abound.

Quote:

We also depend on a road, rail and air transport network that is virtually all powered by fossil fuels (including the energy used to charge Tesla batteries) to move goods and people.

We don't really depend on all that travel. It is just built into the industrial-consumerism model that commodifies anything and everything possible to make more sales, transactions, and investments. Most of what we invest in and spend money on could change without altering the fundamental base of agricultural food production and textiles/housewares/etc.

Quote:

How will you replace these things without a catastrophic effect on our economy and the quality of life (even survival) of our people.

By ensuring adequate production and distribution of food, which is basically what the farm bill already does. The GND people are right to target meat agriculture as a greenhouse gas source, but no one is going to starve by reducing meat consumption and replacing it with other, healthier, foods.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

What is the "the natural climate?"

It is what happens when all the soil is returned to a healthy living state and plants and trees and animals are able to fully utilize the ecological 'infrastructure' to process energy from the sun using the water cycle and carbon cycle as it has occurred for many millions of years before humans showed up on Earth.

Since we don't want to remove humans from the Earth, we should be figuring out ways to return the planet to a state equivalent to that of nature before our arrival, while also managing to provide for ourselves as well.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

If there was for some reason an explosion of the bovine population on earth, methane levels would soar and add to and become part of the "natural climate"

Humans (for good or bad) are part of nature.

There have been periods of non-human climate change over the long history of earth that have led to species extinction. (Probably Neanderthals) There is no single "natural climate" in which all the birds and bees and buds will thrive.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

If there was for some reason an explosion of the bovine population on earth, methane levels would soar and add to and become part of the "natural climate"

Humans (for good or bad) are part of nature.

There have been periods of non-human climate change over the long history of earth that have led to species extinction. (Probably Neanderthals) There is no single "natural climate" in which all the birds and bees and buds will thrive.

I understand that. Natural climate fluctuates according to all sorts of factors.

What happened with humans, however, is that we developed intelligence and dexterity/skills to harvest resources more intensely than previous species. So if you look at the way the great plains were being used before Lewis and Clark discovered them, they were widely deforested and used as grazing lands for the 'wild' buffalo that were harvested by nomadic people since humans arrived on the continent. Humans hunt effectively, so tree-eating species like mammoths ate more trees to replenish their numbers, while humans were stimulating their population expansion by hunting them and then burning land cover to promote more grazing.

Other areas where humans settled also became deforested. Ancient Greece, for example, was supposedly forest before it became desert. Basically, humans have developed the ability to use land intensively until it is barren, at which point they move on to new land. In this way, humans basically kept their own populations in check for most of our history, i.e. because the land couldn't support that many of us. Still, we were using land/agricultural resources unsustainably and inefficiently, only with sparser populations, the damage couldn't pile up as much, so to speak.

So in terms of returning the biosphere to its natural climate by restoring the deep carbon cycle, etc., I am really talking about reforming human activities to minimize our footprint and allow other species, mainly trees, birds, and other eco-supporting species to thrive and perform the functions they do naturally.

Take armadillos, for example. These animals are natural insect-control machines, but they get decimated by motor-vehicles when they try to cross roads. The more you study nature, the more examples you can find of species that support other species in the ecosystem in various ways. This is because those species evolved in symbiosis with everything else in the ecosystem. We humans need to reform the way we use land, water, etc. to allow nature's well-evolved systems to function as thoroughly as possible. That is how we can keep the planet as close to the way it was before we started changing it.

Think about how much land has been deforested for development and pavement. Roof gardens have become a popular addition to buildings, but are they really as good from a climate/ecology standpoint as ground-level trees and everything that grows within and below the canopy? No, so we need to start reforming land-use so that new and re-furbished buildings are narrowed and the ground restored/reforested, with walking paths and roads narrow enough to allow the forest canopy to fully thrive.

Agriculture can also be reformed in a similar way. We just have to put R&D into more intensive farming methods that combine different species of crops with fruit/nut trees, etc. Companion-planting is already well-known, but underutilized because it is easier to plant mono-culture crops and draw as much groundwater as needed to water them. Trees can be used to partially shade crops so they don't evaporate as much water, but some trees will consume too much water and some crops won't do well in partial shade. So R&D is needed to work in the direction of more intensive farming with less waste.

All in all, these kinds of reforms should make it possible to reduce the resource-footprint of humans while continuing to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, etc. We just need to work smarter and work on innovations that will reduce our resource footprint instead of growing it larger. A big problem with this is that businesses tend to favor each other when they use more instead of less, because businesses want to increase sales instead of decrease them. So we have a lot of wasteful, inefficient business practices that basically try to buy more from their suppliers in order to share the wealth and make friends within their supply chains. That sort of thing is not good for making sustainability gains.

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@livinglava,

I believe your posts on this thread give the lie to the title you have given it. You are proposing the creation of a state with ultimate powers regulating most aspects of human behavior.. Specifically you are here talking about government management of agriculture, transportation land use and by inference manufacturing. If government is indeed making all these decisions it is effectively controlling our economy and will inevitably end up controlling consumption. The only governments in recent history that I know of that exercised that broad untrammeled power were the socialist governments of NAZI Germany, the late unlamented Soviet Empire and, of course, Mao's China. These governments each became tyrannies committing ghastly crimes against their people and others. Moreover their rule led to destruction, poverty and what are termed today as widespread crimes against humanity.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I believe your posts on this thread give the lie to the title you have given it. You are proposing the creation of a state with ultimate powers regulating most aspects of human behavior.. Specifically you are here talking about government management of agriculture, transportation land use and by inference manufacturing. If government is indeed making all these decisions it is effectively controlling our economy and will inevitably end up controlling consumption. The only governments in recent history that I know of that exercised that broad untrammeled power were the socialist governments of NAZI Germany, the late unlamented Soviet Empire and, of course, Mao's China. These governments each became tyrannies committing ghastly crimes against their people and others. Moreover their rule led to destruction, poverty and what are termed today as widespread crimes against humanity.

This is such nonsense. You haven't read anything I've said about avoiding socialism by using prohibition instead of stimulus.

I hope you realize that certain things are simply illegal, like recreational drugs, raising and slaughtering your own livestock in the city, etc. Some of those laws are regulations borne out of a will to control the economy for the economic benefit of some people or other. That I would call, 'socialism.'

What I am talking about is not socialism, though. I am talking about identifying climate-unsustainable business/consumer activities and making them illegal. That doesn't mean fining them for the sake of raising tax revenue, or manipulating businesses into installing expensive smokestack-scrubbing technologies or other 'safety' technologies designed to redistribute their revenues and manipulate their business. It just means stopping practices that aren't sustainable, so that the economy and consumers will adapt to not having them.

Now, when I give examples of good practices that should be adopted by industries and consumers, those are just suggestions. They are ideas from a lay person, which could be honed into real practicable changes by people in control of those industries. Am I saying that I want government to take over industries and businesses to force these goals? No, but I also don't accept it if business and consumers refuse to innovate and then whine that they can't survive with restrictions on fossil fuels or whatever other prohibitions are instituted, because the fact is that there are ways of getting around these unsustainable technologies and practices and people/businesses are shirking the responsibility to figure them out and achieve them.

The bottom line is that there are a million ways to complain about change and insist on the status quo because it's easier and it's what everyone is used to, but when you know that there are unsustainabilities, you have to work toward overcoming those problems. Many people have been doing so by choice in their personal and business lives for decades if not longer, and it is unacceptable that others simply keep denying the problems while science is telling us all the time how the climate is changing and we can see for ourselves how more and more trees and living land are getting cleared and replaced with development for the sake of maintaining and growing the economic status quo to the detriment of future generations.

2 Replies

@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

This is such nonsense. You haven't read anything I've said about avoiding socialism by using prohibition instead of stimulus.

I hope you realize that certain things are simply illegal, like recreational drugs, raising and slaughtering your own livestock in the city, etc. Some of those laws are regulations borne out of a will to control the economy for the economic benefit of some people or other. That I would call, 'socialism.'

What I am talking about is not socialism, though. I am talking about identifying climate-unsustainable business/consumer activities and making them illegal. That doesn't mean fining them for the sake of raising tax revenue, or manipulating businesses into installing expensive smokestack-scrubbing technologies or other 'safety' technologies designed to redistribute their revenues and manipulate their business. It just means stopping practices that aren't sustainable, so that the economy and consumers will adapt to not having them.

Now, when I give examples of good practices that should be adopted by industries and consumers, those are just suggestions. They are ideas from a lay person, which could be honed into real practicable changes by people in control of those industries. Am I saying that I want government to take over industries and businesses to force these goals? No, but I also don't accept it if business and consumers refuse to innovate and then whine that they can't survive with restrictions on fossil fuels or whatever other prohibitions are instituted, because the fact is that there are ways of getting around these unsustainable technologies and practices and people/businesses are shirking the responsibility to figure them out and achieve them.

The bottom line is that there are a million ways to complain about change and insist on the status quo because it's easier and it's what everyone is used to, but when you know that there are unsustainabilities, you have to work toward overcoming those problems. Many people have been doing so by choice in their personal and business lives for decades if not longer, and it is unacceptable that others simply keep denying the problems while science is telling us all the time how the climate is changing and we can see for ourselves how more and more trees and living land are getting cleared and replaced with development for the sake of maintaining and growing the economic status quo to the detriment of future generations.

Socialism involves the control of the means and methods of production and the terms of distribution of goods produced in an economy.

These powers are sufficient to establish an unaccountable tyranny in any government, and only a few small nations with well established monolithic cultures have ever been able to avoid that outcome. Moreover those that succeeded also significantly limited the reach of their policies, limiting government power, protecting the rights to property and enabling the continuation of capitalist enterprises that enabled import incomes. Instead they stopped short of the Authoritarian Socialism that stops individual economic or technical initiative and which has, within a few generations ,destroyed all the major Socialist governments of the last centuries.

The organization that you describe calls for the establishment of an unaccountable priesthood for sustainable living, enforcing the requirements of selected scientific "theories" about just what is sustainable. The fact is there is no general agreement among scientists about either the exact meaning of the term "sustainability" or just what actions may be needed.

You are proposing the establishment of a government with sweeping powers (far beyond those granted government in our Constitution) to regulate the production and distribution of everything to meet the imaginary goals of "science" for sustainability. Who will set those goals and by what process? What boundaries or limits will be placed on the power of those enacting these requirements regarding property owned by citizens or their liberty to behave and speak as they wish? How will they limit their proscriptions on "unsustainable means of production" in cases where there are as yet no affordable "sustainable" alternatives? Will they just tell the people that they will have to eat less; walk instead of ride; and deal with more extreme temperatures in their homes and workplaces? How will they handle those that don't comply or accept their prescriptions?

About six years ago ( after a decade of embarrassing errors on their short term warming forecasts), the IPCC acknowledged that they had made errors in its CO2 & warming forecasts by failing to account for the accelerated growth rates of green plants due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and misestimating the mixing level in the ocean for absorbed CO2 ( which with water forms carbonic acid which subsequently combines with calcium in the ocean to be sequestered in limestone. (Actually they disingenuously touted these, obvious to anyone who read their reports carefully, corrections of error as "improvements" in their models. In short they had significantly underestimated the removal rates for CO2 by both green plants and the oceans - this is pretty basic stuff and it is indicative of widespread and deceitful data manipulation by the pseudo scientific advocates of AGW.

So much for the reliability of power seeking humans presuming to dictate science to the rest of us.

Yours is an infantile idea, probably formed with good intentions, but one that reveals very little understanding of human nature or of the history of human civilizations. The result unfortunately is yet another "scientific" proposal for the forced organization of human life by an unaccountable authoritarian government. We saw the results of such systems in the Socialist "paradises" of the Soviet Union and China during the last century, and they were very grim.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

The few items you mention

Quote:

simply illegal, like recreational drugs, raising and slaughtering your own livestock in the city

are in place due safety/health reasons and also the fact that impose on others.

Large scale prohibition on the basics of every day life - like being able to freely travel, being able to start a business, etc.

I don't think that you see that businesses are already cutting emissions without all this prohibition. You don't need to always regulate to do so. It has become "good" for a company financially to do so. It cuts their own costs (i.e. moving to a paperless company, making their building more "green") - these all help businesses to cut costs - no more paper that is huge in costs, making your building green - cuts costs in utilities.

Just start looking around almost everyone is doing this.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Socialism involves the control of the means and methods of production and the terms of distribution of goods produced in an economy.

It's not socialism to prohibit harmful goods, services, and economic practices. Is it socialism to ban TNT fishing? Is it socialism to ban slash-and-burn agriculture and other land-management practices that are harmful and destructive? Some things are prohibited by law because they are bad. That's legitimate if it's not done for the sake of manipulating business and the economy to redistribute money for social-economic reasons, job creation, empowering unions, etc.

Quote:

The organization that you describe calls for the establishment of an unaccountable priesthood for sustainable living, enforcing the requirements of selected scientific "theories" about just what is sustainable. The fact is there is no general agreement among scientists about either the exact meaning of the term "sustainability" or just what actions may be needed.

Sustainable means that something can continue permanently without causing gradual harm for future generations. You can understand sustainability with the simple analogy of an account where you spend more than your income. Even if you are only spending $1 more than your income, your account will gradually run out of money. We are using fossil fuels faster than the planet is replenishing them, so CO2 is building up in the atmosphere and the living soil that allows trees/plants and animals to grow and absorb the CO2 is being progressively replaced with dead pavement and sand for building foundations.

Quote:

You are proposing the establishment of a government with sweeping powers (far beyond those granted government in our Constitution) to regulate the production and distribution of everything to meet the imaginary goals of "science" for sustainability. Who will set those goals and by what process? What boundaries or limits will be placed on the power of those enacting these requirements regarding property owned by citizens or their liberty to behave and speak as they wish? How will they limit their proscriptions on "unsustainable means of production" in cases where there are as yet no affordable "sustainable" alternatives? Will they just tell the people that they will have to eat less; walk instead of ride; and deal with more extreme temperatures in their homes and workplaces? How will they handle those that don't comply or accept their prescriptions?

How do you handle public drunkenness? How do you handle sexual abuse? How do you handle theft, drug dealing, drug addiction? How do you handle driving without a license, speeding, etc.?

I am not proposing any radically new governmental forms. I am just calling for people to take climate and sustainability seriously and modify their behavior and business/economic practices to achieve sustainability by means of their own free liberty, while avoiding socialist governmental control and redistribution.

Quote:

About six years ago ( after a decade of embarrassing errors on their short term warming forecasts), the IPCC acknowledged that they had made errors in its CO2 & warming forecasts by failing to account for the accelerated growth rates of green plants due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and misestimating the mixing level in the ocean for absorbed CO2 ( which with water forms carbonic acid which subsequently combines with calcium in the ocean to be sequestered in limestone. (Actually they disingenuously touted these, obvious to anyone who read their reports carefully, corrections of error as "improvements" in their models. In short they had significantly underestimated the removal rates for CO2 by both green plants and the oceans - this is pretty basic stuff and it is indicative of widespread and deceitful data manipulation by the pseudo scientific advocates of AGW.

Yes, my simple common-sense POV is that the planet has a natural carbon cycle that absorbs carbon and energy and gradually turns it into fossil-fuels. So if CO2 levels are rising and climate is warming, it means we are releasing stored carbon faster than the planet is re-capturing it. We are also blocking the re-uptake of carbon/energy by paving and developing land in a way that displaces trees and natural ecological growth. Once we restore living soil throughout the built environment, the land we use will be able to perform its natural functions again as it has since before the dinosaurs.

Quote:

Yours is an infantile idea, probably formed with good intentions, but one that reveals very little understanding of human nature or of the history of human civilizations. The result unfortunately is yet another "scientific" proposal for the forced organization of human life by an unaccountable authoritarian government. We saw the results of such systems in the Socialist "paradises" of the Soviet Union and China during the last century, and they were very grim.

What's infantile is debating common-sense understanding of climate and the environment to continue whitewashing unsustainable industrial economics and development. It doesn't take that much intelligence to look around at how cities are built and how humans live in them to see that we use resources in an unsustainable way that blocks the land from performing its natural ecological/climatological functions.

We put blinders on because we are addicted to the technologies and cheap energies that enable us to produce as much of whatever we want as we please and make as much money as we want by doing so. All that power is intoxicating, so we resist backing off and using it more judiciously and responsibly with attention to long-term consequences for future generations and the planet they inherit.

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

The few items you mention
Quote:
simply illegal, like recreational drugs, raising and slaughtering your own livestock in the city
are in place due safety/health reasons and also the fact that impose on others.

Large scale prohibition on the basics of every day life - like being able to freely travel, being able to start a business, etc.

Unsustainability is ultimately about the health and safety of future generations. It's like we're building a skyscraper for our kids to inherit without planning for the gradual deterioration and collapse of the building. We have to refurbish (or allow to refurbish) the natural functioning of land and atmosphere so that future generations inherit a planet as good and healthy as earlier humans did.

Quote:

I don't think that you see that businesses are already cutting emissions without all this prohibition. You don't need to always regulate to do so. It has become "good" for a company financially to do so. It cuts their own costs (i.e. moving to a paperless company, making their building more "green") - these all help businesses to cut costs - no more paper that is huge in costs, making your building green - cuts costs in utilities.

Great. That's what liberty is for. But there should still be open public discourse about ways to further improve. Otherwise what happens is that someone can say, e.g., that replacing all combustion motor-vehicles with EVs will not solve the problem of pavement and sprawl and that critique will be squelched because of the people who just want to greenwash EVs because reducing automotive ownership would cut down GDP.

The discussion has to be honest and open or it will only amount to business allowing a little bit of progress to greenwash its business models, while ultimately protecting those business models for the sake of maintaining maximum revenues despite the fact that they aren't optimal for sustainability.

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