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Policy levers that can push decarbonization into overdrive

7 Comments
By Marlowe HOOD

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In a mirror image, economic tipping points are small interventions that can drive large positive effects in society.

It could happen, if orchestrated wisely, such economic tipping points could be used to benefit society as a whole quite significantly.

The reality is "disaster capitalism", in other words has only been used as leverage to increase the influence of oligarchical capital.

9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, COVID and climate change; it will only change once the privileged influence capital, such as with the Davos reps, is removed from the political equation.

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@dagon,

I agree with your sentiment but unfortunately it's the very entitled capitalists who make up the WEF who are driving the SDGs and ESGs of progressive policy making. Make no mistake it is the polluters who are going to benefit from our sacrificial efforts to end pollution.

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Yes, it surely has to be stopped, that pseudo semi-religious eco cult. They can do or save or avoid whatever they want in their own influence zone or at their private home, but they are surely not entitled to force the whole planet under their weird ideology.

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Governments are already doing this up to a point.

They have hugely inflated the cost of fuel, food and everything else, wiped out millions of poultry, broken supply chains by starving them of workers, banned ICE vehicles from some city centres, and have hampered the movement of people and parcels across borders.

But their attempts to deflect blame on to Covid, Putin and The Demon Plastic have largely failed, in part due to their incompetence, obvious deceitfulness, and endless logical glitches. As a result, regimes are widely hated for keeping people away from dying relatives, destroying businesses, careers and jobs, and impoverishing people, leaving many cold and hungry. Strikes and shortages are wrecking economies. Local government restrictions upon vehicles are proving real vote losers, and 20mph zones may be increasing pollution, as it takes cars longer to pootle through them. They may also be increasing accidents, as drivers are not used to keeping to such a low speed limit.

In a democracy, we have a way of dealing with regimes we don't like. Johnson has gone and the Tories will follow him soon. Morrison has gone. Ardern has gone and her party may well follow her soon. Ditto Trudeau. Macron and Biden are hamstrung in their parliaments. Japan is more tolerant. Even if Kishida goes, the LDP will survive.

Incoming regimes will attempt to manipulate the electorate in the same way, but folk have less tolerance for it than they once did, are more suspicious, detect manipulation more easily, distrust state-controlled media, and get angry much quicker. New governments will be as hated as the old ones much more quickly than they expect. There will be no goodwill, nor any honeymoon period.

Ironically, Putin will outlast most Western leaders, as they all seem determined to keep him in power, untouched, as a Cold War bogeyman. I'm sure he is pleased with that.

Incidentally, despite living in what is (now only nominally) a G7 nation, I have only ever seen four electric vehicles, three of them delivery vans. They are simply too expensive. And the recent Chinese deal for Bolivian lithium, should the West freeze China out of markets, will mean that they stay that way.

And the first world still hasn't done anything to protect the rain forests and vital ecosystems of the developing world. I doubt there is the competency in government to save the planet.

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It has been a couple of years but I recall listening to NPR (US's public radio) about a statement from the UN that "we" need to reduce and eliminate meat to save the planet. I then looked at the UN website for their internal catering menu..., mouth watering roast beef and other meat dishes abound.

Then look at the UN carbon offsets, which include a hydro-power dam that "could have been" coal powered plant - so look how much carbon was offset that the UN purchased from China.

My take on all of this hysteria is the the gentlemanly, "After you."

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And then there is the fine state of Wyoming whos legislature is debating a bill to ban the sales of electric vehicles, claiming they go against their economic interests in oil production.

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