Thread by @swardley

X : Any advice on climate change?
Me : Read about "punctuated equilibriums" and "boiling frogs".
X : Summarise?
Me : Change is often a lot more rapid than you think (i.e. Younger Dryas) and people often don't realise how much trouble they're in until others start dropping.

... I'm not the best person to talk to about environmental issues. I was heavily involved in the field in the late 80s / early 90s when we really could have made modest changes. Today ... well, you're going to have to ditch neoliberalism if you want any chance.

I kid you not that you're going up against a system where some people believe the solution to climate change is for humanity to live in space - obviously a very small subset of humanity - and others, well, don't care if it negatively impacts their wealth. The real problem ...

... is not the individual fruitcakes though but the collective action created by the market. The system discounts the future, it always has and that impacts the group behaviour. The real problem is us, the collective us. That's the bit that has to change ...

... but we don't want to, we don't to give up our things, to have less but instead we want someone to wave a magic wand, find a magic solution etc etc ... can't they just sprinkle white paint on the deserts or suck the CO2 with big machines out of the atmosphere or ...

... anything but we're going to have to consume vastly less, massively redistribute wealth, tackle inequality in the systems and build an economy not on money but on purpose .... but, but ... what about my hoard of cryptocurrency!

Bitcoin ... the art of burning the planet in pursuit of "wealth" ... still, if you can get the industry to builds lots of renewable energy provision (to help bitcoin mining) because of a pursuit of wealth (bitcoin) just prior to outlawing bitcoin ... the surplus will be useful.

X : You seem negative about environmental change?
Me : No, not at all. I've just been down this path before. I very much support the Extinction Rebellion but we're not quite there yet ... the consequences are not yet so visible that people will take the necessary action.

X : But millions will die from climate change, it's a global catastrophe.
Me : Many millions die each year from poverty and other man made disasters (i.e. Yemen). The BMA estimates that austerity itself has led to 120,000 excess deaths. Has it changed? Has it stopped? ...

... just look at Extinction Rebellion, a group of young people basically saying to their parents "can we please have a planet to live on when we're older" and the media response varies from "shouldn't they be in school" to "causing a disturbance and impacting economy" etc etc ...

... will things have to change, of course. Will people want to change, of course not especially if it means them giving up stuff. They will in general ignore the problem until it's screaming in their faces.

X : Isn't that why we need leadership?
Me : Yes. But Look at the Conservative party candidates or recent appointments to the EU ... the sort of radical changes needed aren't going to come from there. None of them will tackle the neoliberal approach at the heart of the problem.