Millennials are Taking Governments to Court over Climate Change. And They're Starting to Win (cnnphilippines.com) 240
CNN tells the story of Luisa Neubauer, a 25-year-old woman who took the German government to court last year — and won:
On April 29, the country's Supreme Court announced that some provisions of the 2019 climate change act were unconstitutional and "incompatible with fundamental rights," because they lacked a detailed plan for reducing emissions and placed the burden for future climate action on young people. The court ordered the government to come up with new provisions that "specify in greater detail how the reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions" by the end of next year. The decision made headlines across the world...
"This case changes everything," she said. "It's not nice to have climate action, it's our fundamental right that the government protects us from the climate crisis...."
Climate lawsuits are becoming an increasingly popular and powerful tool for climate change activists. A January report released by the United Nations Environment Programme found that the number of climate litigation cases filed around the world nearly doubled between 2017 and 2020. Crucially, the governments are starting to lose. Neubauer's victory came just months after a court in Paris ruled that France was legally responsible for its failure to meet emission cutting targets. Another similar case involving six young people from Portugal was fast-tracked at the European Court of Human Rights last October...
The cases are most often centered around the idea that future generations have a right to live in a world that is not completely decimated by the climate crisis.
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares an Ars Technica story noting that in addition to the German suit, "A similar lawsuit in the U.S. has been winding its way through the courts." First filed in 2015 on behalf of a group of children and teenagers, the suit accused the U.S. government of violating the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property by not taking stronger action on climate change.
"This case changes everything," she said. "It's not nice to have climate action, it's our fundamental right that the government protects us from the climate crisis...."
Climate lawsuits are becoming an increasingly popular and powerful tool for climate change activists. A January report released by the United Nations Environment Programme found that the number of climate litigation cases filed around the world nearly doubled between 2017 and 2020. Crucially, the governments are starting to lose. Neubauer's victory came just months after a court in Paris ruled that France was legally responsible for its failure to meet emission cutting targets. Another similar case involving six young people from Portugal was fast-tracked at the European Court of Human Rights last October...
The cases are most often centered around the idea that future generations have a right to live in a world that is not completely decimated by the climate crisis.
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares an Ars Technica story noting that in addition to the German suit, "A similar lawsuit in the U.S. has been winding its way through the courts." First filed in 2015 on behalf of a group of children and teenagers, the suit accused the U.S. government of violating the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property by not taking stronger action on climate change.
Pointless (Score:2, Insightful)
This is just going to enrich a few lawyers while doing nothing for either the environment or the people. The government will not stop being incompetent just because they got sued, and the people will foot the bill for this. I hope the US courts will toss it out at the first opportunity.
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just going to enrich a few lawyers while doing nothing for either the environment or the people. The government will not stop being incompetent just because they got sued, and the people will foot the bill for this. I hope the US courts will toss it out at the first opportunity.
Where did this US American idea come from that US corporations are hubs of superhuman competence? US corporations are every bit as incompetent and inept as the US government is. The problem is not that the US government is less competent than US corporations, it is that US corporations have corrupted the US government after being given permission to do so by the US Supreme Court via 'Citizens United v. FEC'.
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This is just going to enrich a few lawyers while doing nothing for either the environment or the people. The government will not stop being incompetent just because they got sued, and the people will foot the bill for this. I hope the US courts will toss it out at the first opportunity.
Where did this US American idea come from that US corporations are hubs of superhuman competence?
I don't know. Where did this idea that corporations were part of this conversation come from?
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It's the new state of Slashdot. Before it's not RTFA, then it's not RTFS, now it's not even reading the comment you're replying to.
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Where did this US American idea come from that US corporations are hubs of superhuman competence?...
That is a straw man. The argument for capitalism is not that capitalists are superior people but that for most endeavors freedom and capitalism make for a better system of relations between people and yield better outcomes than any alternatives, such as crony capitalism, mercantilism, fascism or socialism.
US corporations are every bit as incompetent and inept as the US government is.
That is completely insane.
-NASA's SLS is at least fifty years behind SpaceX Starship; NASA's next-generation launch system which is over budget and behind schedule flies shuttle engines first launched in
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Your third example is completely bonkers. Horizon's origins *stem from the period in which the Post Office was privatised*. It was one corporation that was already on its way out of government control contracting with another private corporation which -- as you yourself point out -- wrote shitty buggy software, that caused this scandal to happen. UPS, FedEx and DHL could not have fucked over subpostmasters because they don't run branches offering the complex services that the Post Office does, because they'
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As with most things, you can cherry pick the best of category A and the worst of category B for a comparison.
I'll see your outdated NASA and raise you all the Corporations where people at the public face don't even know anyone who knows anyone who is empowered to make a decision. I'll throw in a manufacturer of water heaters's warranty department that admits there is not a single person there who has ever successfully repaired a water heater.
As for the UK post office, you DO realize that it was privatized y
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Where did this US American idea come from that US corporations are hubs of superhuman competence? US corporations are every bit as incompetent and inept as the US government is.
I have worked extensively with both, and I'll take the government over corporations every day. Why? Because the government usually has well defined processes, and they're not motivated to squeeze the last dime out of everything they do. Sure, their processes may be convoluted and slow, but they're almost always well defined and well documented. Even if they are stupid.
Corporations? Half the time they don't have a process at all, and it's "joe does that" or some shit. The government sometimes takes ages to respond to me, but when they do it's usually coherent. I had a C* look me in the eye once and tell me that they couldn't pre-select the first entry in a drop down menu on a web page. Not that it wasn't in the scope of work, not that it would cost extra, that it was not possible with their technology. That technology was HTML and some AJAX.
I had a company tell me that they couldn't hold the shipment to a bunch of places closed due to the pandemic a week before stuff shipped, and that if it came back to them un-signed-for, we'd have to pay to re-ship it at a later date. I watched engineers waste a week of time diagnosing hardware issues on field equipment that was deployed 1000 miles away only to find out that the guy managing it skipped all the meetings about the new calibration process, and didn't replace the old process with the new one anywhere nor do any of the training of the field guys he was supposed to do. I spent a couple of months badgering the bosses to work with a super-critical employee to document what he did. He was a black box which did a magical amount of conversion work on critical business data. I finally gave up, and 6 months later he left, and did a half-assed job in the last 2 weeks to document what he actually did. Shut the department down for a month while we pieced it all together. I don't know what they told customers, but I bet it was wild.
I worked at a place that got bought out by a really huge company, and we'd been working on updating the 15 year old software that ran the business slowly, basically any time my boss had free time. Corporate decided to accelerate that, and brought in a half-dozen high priced contractors. They spent 6 months creating a giant turd which only was able to handle about half the use-cases we had, then they packed up and left. Of course, they did it in VB which neither I nor my boss used regularly. Ultimately it didn't matter because corporate ran the company into the ground and laid everyone off. Last I looked they had like 6 employees, reselling services apparently to someone who still thought the company name was worth something.
Government is slow and has tons of forms and rules and processes, but it's at least understandable. There's a form for that, there's a manual or handbook, there are requirements spelled out in law, there are rulemaking processes, etc. You can plan around the inefficiency of government. More importantly, you can plan around the government being there and doing what it always has done. I saw pretty much zero disruption on the government side of things during COVID, but the corporations I work with were a crapshoot. Some were mostly business as usual, and others completely shit the bed. It all came down to how well they were managed. The ones with shit management can't deal with challenging situations. The government has a process for that.
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Ah this guy gets it!
I think people don't really get it that big organisations by their nature are inefficient for a variety of quite good reasons. Ultimately, problems that plague (or don't even matter to) small companies cannot be hidden in large organisations and process is how they're fixed.
When I worked in a startup and wanted to buy a thing I just bought it and paid myself back. Great. If I bought it from cousin Bob no one cared. There was no process and none was needed because it was my (ish) company,
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Re: Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true (Score:2)
Re:Not true (Score:5, Insightful)
The Scandinavian countries have done a good job at reducing poverty though, most of them sitting well under 10%. Why can't we just start looking at what they are doing and implement some of that?
I agree straight handouts will not work but infrastructure, housing, public transport, worker protections, childcare services, education, healthcare reform are all things the government can do that will have improvements on the poverty level in society. The Social Security program alone has had huge beneficial effects on poverty. [pgpf.org]
The government can't just give people money but it can improve the systems people have to interact with.
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So, how is "poverty" defined there? We could eliminate poverty in 20 minutes by defining it as a standard of living equivalent to what the average American had in 1960. Very few people in the US have a standard of living lower than 1960 norms. I mean, how many people in 1960 had a computer, much less a computer t
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Based on what i have read "poverty is being measured as the percent of the population falling below one half of a particular country’s median household income. This is what is known as a relative measure of poverty"
And based on that metric a number of countries in Europe have levels under 10%, the UK has a measure of 11.1%, the UK 12.4% and the US sits at 17.8%
Even by America's own metric we have 34 million under the federal poverty line ($26.5k) which is still at ~10%
And while yes, poor people here a
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Demarchy!
Aristotle's observation that elections lead to oligarchies has been been proven largely correct in my estimation.
So has Hayek's knowledge problem.
Having more direct oversight of government would certainly fix many of the problems (both citizens unaware of the complexities involved and lawmakers obliviousness to the common man).
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Point of fact, our founders had the same idea. That's why voting rights were restricted to land owners.
I vacillate between universal suffrage and restricted voting rights. The biggest problem I have with restricted voting rights is "who gets to decide who votes"? If that problem can be adequately and fairly solved then I think I'd be more comfortable with it.
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Interesting)
That's where I've come around to mandatory voting like Australia has. I think we would see much bigger legislative shifts, especially on the local level if we put the participation rate as close to 100% as possible.
I personally don't think there's a good answer to the idea of restricted voting that doesn't eventually lead to castes or other issues but I would also make the moral argument against it as well.
Re:Pointless (Score:4, Interesting)
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I see little evidence of any government, be it democracy or dictatorship, kingdom, or corporate management (any structure) being very competent. Some start that way, but they generally don't stay that way over time. The people claiming corporations would do better (privatize all the things) haven't actually seen the inside of any corporate management above the size of Mom'N'Pop.
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Re:Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
This post is almost all of the issue in one neat package.
- NASA's achievements are way, way more significant than SpaceX. There's a helicopter on Mars right now courtesy of NASA, FFS. SpaceX is doing great stuff but nothing like as challenging as this
- The post office has multiple universal service obligations: to deliver everywhere, for everyone, at low cost. FedEx doesn't do those things because they're unprofitable.
- Jeff Bezos did an impressive job running an organisation that does a few things (very well). It is orders of magnitude less challenging than running the US government, whose scope is absolutely vast by comparison. And of course it's far too early to know whether Biden will do a good job. Mao Zedong and the French Revolution and all that
Government takes on really really really hard tasks, often in partnership with the private sector for specific elements. It's absurd to think that the private sector is automatically better, when it just doesn't have to tackle things anywhere near as difficult.
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Never mind the fact that SpaceX at it's start was competing for the NASA commercial crew contract which gave them the seed money from DARPA for Falcon 1 and then COTS funds to develop the Falcon 9 and develop capsules. They were then able to turn those launch vehicles into profit centers.
NASA also had a very large role working with SpaceX on the ancillary and life support systems for the Dragon 2 capsule and will have a comparable role in working with them on developing the Starship platform into a viable
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If you have any illusions that government is anywhere near as competent as private industry, you must have your head jammed firmly up your suppository repository.
Having worked for corporate America for some time my experience is that they are every bit as incompetent as the government. They just tackle simpler problems than governments do -- selling widgets is a lot easier than solving poverty.
On top of that the corporations start with a head start over the government, specifically the government does the basic research, and corporations commercialize it. This is the story of the drug industry in the US, of all the industries that spun off products from the NASA s
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Time for "mod the mods". I would modify the Troll mod you got to "Mod was butthurt by the truth".
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I hope the US courts will toss it out at the first opportunity.
That's probably why US court system has the concept of "standing", which requires the plaintiff to be directly affected (as I understand it). Usually, it is annoying because you may not be able to sue.
But it is a good thing that you can't just sue on behalf of the "future of the young people" in US court (aka "think of the kids" argument).
"incompatible with fundamental rights," because they lacked a detailed plan for reducing emissions and placed the burden for future climate action on young people.
Re: Pointless (Score:3)
Not exactly.
What happens is: you can't win an election these days without at least some kind of environment regulation project to show for. Usually this is just unsubstantial lip service, but it's enough to tick the bix and show your (elderly) voter base that you're "doing something" and give thise that are prepared to believe your argument that "we mustn't rush or else we'll break economy" something to hold on to.
Now if your lip service project is deemed unconstitutional, it's gone - you have nothing to sh
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Well this is Germany and in Germany suing the government actually works. You will see them take action due to this shortly.
The fact that it only enriches lawyers in the US shows just how fucked your democracy is.
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Don't be ridiculous, suing the American government works too, think of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. What's not going to work is this type of nebulous bullshit. Maybe I should sue the German government for not fixing the American healthcare system too?
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If they did that earlier before germany turned off their nuclear reactors which were mostly replaced with coal, they probably would have a real win here.
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... I hope the US courts will toss it out at the first opportunity.
If wishes were horses beggars would ride. You should be modded 'cynical' not 'insightful'.
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Nuclear was also ignored
No it wasn't. It was actively annihilated during the transition before even coal plants were. See Germany also isn't immune from short term political posturing, in this case to a bunch of protestors saying something about risk because a country on the other side of the world got devastated by a tsunami (something that people seem to forget because all they seem to talk about was a nuclear accident).
The fear-pressure is real. In my country the greens and protestors are insane on fear. To the point where I fo
I don't get it. (Score:3)
You elect evil people and then you blame them for being evil?
How convenient! You had absolutely nothing to do with it! Just blame your hand for punching somebody, and you're good. :P
*Is this a democracy or is it not??*
If you need somebody to blame, how about calling mom and dad and your grandparents again? Ask them why they "voted" for such people. And to fix their shit, stat.
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Well, most politicians cannot think further than the next election. Unfortunately, most voters struggle to get even that far. At least in democracies, you are perfectly correct that the human race is currently demonstrating its unfitness for survival nicely.
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You elect evil people and then you blame them for being evil?
Unfortunately for us, the people up for vote were all politicians.
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Firstly, a lot of the people suing are too young to vote, or were at the time of the last election.
Second, maybe they voted Green but their candidate didn't win. Doesn't mean they don't have rights, which can be enforced via the courts if necessary.
Third, even if their preferred candidate did win, the courts can be used to ensure that they deliver on their promises and take necessary action to defend the rights of the citizens they are responsible for.
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There was a choice? I must have blinked.
Exaggerated significance (Score:2)
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The problem is that there is no plan to meet the pie in the sky emission targets.
They'd have to start planning megaprojects right now, not just dealing out a lot of money to little fucking around in the margin initiatives. The politicians love being able to sprinkle money around to their friends, actually building stuff on a trillion dollar scale ... not so much.
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The problem is that there is no plan to meet the pie in the sky emission targets.
They'd have to start planning megaprojects right now, not just dealing out a lot of money to little fucking around in the margin initiatives. The politicians love being able to sprinkle money around to their friends, actually building stuff on a trillion dollar scale ... not so much.
On the bright side, the government in this case should take the court ruling as a free pass to borrow as much money as they want to pay for whatever these kids want them to do, because the great thing is, those kids, and their kids, are all going to get the bill in the end. If they want to give the government a blank check, spend baby spend!
You know what else German courts declared ... (Score:2)
Of course you know who they declared as legitimate chancellor, whose name is the last word in all sane debates on the internet.
[Of course, the debate will continue, except it would not be sane anymore]
Did a double take ... (Score:2)
Then realized it was the German supreme court. Not US. SCOTUS 's bout of insanity has just begun.
I applaud their intent, but *one small problem*: (Score:2)
Especially here in the U.S., where (it's still) 'government BY the people, FOR the people'. You want positive things done about human-caused climate change? You have to convince The People that (1) it's real, and (2) they need to take an active part in doing something to correct it.
Some people here in the U.S. do understand it's real and are doing what they can about it, but so far I don't think it's enough.
Now, then: how do you convince the people of countries like Chin
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"No one is too small to make a difference" - Greta Thunberg
"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." - Arthur Ashe
Probably too late (Score:2, Interesting)
The time to get the worst effects of climate change under control was 20...30 years ago when the science was solid and it was clear (to anybody that wanted to listen) what was coming. Sure, I support these efforts, because if we are lucky, we may still get away without a complete collapse of civilization. But gigadeath will not be avoidable now and partial collapse of civilization will not either. The only thing that could prevent climate change from doing that is if the next few pandemics are a bit more de
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Population control - it's coming, whether you like it or not.
We can do it the easy way, or the hard way...
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Have you been looking at the excess death counts around the world? Population control is here, thanks to COVID.
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Indeed. The decision for the hard way has pretty much been made though.
How does it work (Score:5, Insightful)
I sincerely do not understand how that's possible without conflicting with core democratic principle. How can government be held responsible of not enacting laws the voters didn't voted for?
It tragedy of the commons, so long that the majority of the people does not care enough to put the environment as one of the first priority, I don't see how any legal action would not conflict with basic democracy. With the added backlash of making these voters even more pissed off by environmental concerns.
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The german courts found the the way the property tax was designed to be unconstitutional some decades ago. Since then, germany has no property tax.
I assume there was a number of laws protecting the climate and the court found them unconstitutional because not sufficient. Which means, the government now has the choice to either make laws according to the taste of the courts or have no climate protection law at all. Since germany votes this year and the green party is currently in the lead it is somewhat akin
Re:How does it work (Score:5, Insightful)
Because democracy is not the tyranny of the majority. We can't all vote that lorinc has to pay 100% taxes and make us breakfast, democracy has protections against that kind of abuse.
In this case the argument is simple. The government is passing on huge debts, in the form of environmental damage that will have costs and need to be fixed, to younger people. That's unfair and will probably result in undue hardship for them, so the government should stop doing that.
It doesn't matter if nobody else cares that lorinc has no money and is being forced to make everyone breakfast. What matters are lorinc's rights and the principals of fairness built into civil law.
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Do you really think he won his court case without any evidence?
I'm sure he just pointed to any number of scientific papers, peer reviewed and representing the best understanding humanity has on the subject, to demonstrate that his claim was more likely than not (the threshold being balance of probabilities in civil court).
Fairness is the basis of civil law, otherwise you wouldn't be able to sue anyone for your losses because they would just say "life isn't fair, stop being a spoiled child."
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I'm not following you here. Are you asking which government decision takes precedence over the other? That's for the courts to decide and you'll have to read the judgments or an analysis thereof in each individual case as this varies with the country involved.
It's a hoax (Score:2)
The government is a hoax. Climate change is real.
Of course they are starting to win (Score:2)
Unintended Consequences (Score:2)
Can't wait to see how much this costs us.
Their future reality not ours (Score:2)
One would expect that. After all, it's their future.
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In other words you lost a bunch of arguments and now you want the Marines to fight your battles for you. Heh.
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:2)
You do understand the difference between correlation and causation, right? Because it doesn't seem like you do.
This has nothing to do with Biden, specifically. It's because of supply chain issues due to the pandemic, particularly with shipping and trucking.
One of many sources: https://abc7news.com/us-shorta... [abc7news.com]
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You do understand the difference between correlation and causation, right?
Sure I do! When it happens on Biden's watch, it's correlation. When it happened on Trump's watch, it's causation!
Re: LOL (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't you know? Nobody cares if you do good.
All that matters is that you *look* virtuous.
Hence slacktivism was born.
But at least here in Germany, it's finally starting to change at the voting booth. So it's not quite roulett on the Titanic.
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So the solution is colonialization of the world by a predominantly white technocracy?
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Humanity is at least 5 decades behind in taking decisive action and we're still dragging our heels.
Pretty much, yes. A real, long-term catastrophe that will probably kill a major part of the global population is basically unavoidable now. If we work really hard at it, we may be able to keep part of civilization going and in particular stay industrialized. But this is is no way assured. For that we would have had to act decisively when the science was solid, i.e. 40 years ago or so.
Re:Greta Thunberg is right (Score:5, Insightful)
When Germany is removing another 6 GW of low-carbon power by the end of next year, that's enough to completely obliterate any gains that could be made by installing more wind and PV solar by 2030, even if installation of new PV solar and wind in Germany hadn't ground to a halt already.
And yet Greta et al. are against nuclear power, regardless of the fact that over 40% of all low-carbon in the EU comes from nuclear plants. Regardless of the IPCC making it clear that we need at least existing nuclear to stand a chance of coming even close to the goals of the Paris Agreement.
When youths like Greta are both complaining about adults not doing enough, while simultaneously supporting the climate vandalism of shutting down nuclear plants decades before they'd need replacing. One has to wonder what's truly the goal here, and how much of what they are saying is truly driven by science.
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Where Greta and many like her are completely letting ideology overrule science and reason is however with exactly how climate change is supposed to be counteracted.
When Germany is removing another 6 GW of low-carbon power by the end of next year, that's enough to completely obliterate any gains that could be made by installing more wind and PV solar by 2030, even if installation of new PV solar and wind in Germany hadn't ground to a halt already.
And yet Greta et al. are against nuclear power, regardless of the fact that over 40% of all low-carbon in the EU comes from nuclear plants. Regardless of the IPCC making it clear that we need at least existing nuclear to stand a chance of coming even close to the goals of the Paris Agreement.
When youths like Greta are both complaining about adults not doing enough, while simultaneously supporting the climate vandalism of shutting down nuclear plants decades before they'd need replacing. One has to wonder what's truly the goal here, and how much of what they are saying is truly driven by science.
Gretas position on nuclear is afaik: https://m.facebook.com/gretath... [facebook.com]
"Personally I am against nuclear power, but according to the IPCC [the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change], it can be a small part of a very big new carbon free energy solution, especially in countries and areas that lack the possibility of a full scale renewable energy supply - even though it's extremely dangerous, expensive and time consuming. But let’s leave that debate until we start looking at the full picture."
Is there another statement she's made that supports your assertion?
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"even though [nuclear] it's extremely dangerous, expensive and time consuming."
It's expensive and time-consuming because of burdensome over-regulation by the government, which also raises the cost.
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"even though [nuclear] it's extremely dangerous, expensive and time consuming."
It's expensive and time-consuming because of burdensome over-regulation by the government, which also raises the cost.
Are you saying she's currently correct but that it's something I should trust you to fix? I wish you good luck with that!
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It's expensive and time-consuming because of burdensome over-regulation by the government, which also raises the cost.
And if those burdens and costs were not there it would be recklessly dangerous.
Or why exactly do you think there are those regulations? (* facepalm *)
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You are assuming that Germany will continue to need the same or more energy indefinitely. Part of the plan is to reduce energy consumption as well as making generation cleaner. And sorry, but nuclear emits too much CO2 and creates too much environmental damage to be part of the solution, even if people were willing to pay for it.
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How do they plan on reducing consumption? There's only so much you can do with CFLs and EnergyStar, and much of that is already done. Also, replacing combustion engines with electric seems like it will take a large amount of electricity. Hellagigafuckawatts. These aren't laptop batteries we're talking about.
Many parts of the world are consuming fossil water, much of which is due to be depleted within a few decades. Particularly the Ogallala Aquifer that waters the US "bread basket". These places will have t
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Improving homes is already making a big difference. Less heating, less cooling.
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Lol, CFLs? Get with the times old man. Those are already outdated. I replaced all my CFLs 3-4 years ago.
And you apparently don't think gasoline takes any energy to find, drill, pump, transport, refine, transport, and dispense. Add all that up and THEN compare with an electric car.
I love that you throw a strawman about midwest US water into a discussion about Germany, then pivot to world electricity consumption.
Hey, if you think change isn't possible, it probable isn't. You obviously know what you're talking
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These places will have to switch to desalination, and/or massive pumps pulling water across the continent.
Or you could do it the right way, and invest into infrastructure and build, e.g. channels.
And all the pumping can be done by wind driven pumps anyway, how many centuries long are we doing that now?
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When Germany is removing another 6 GW of low-carbon power by the end of next year, that's enough to completely obliterate any gains that could be made by installing more wind and PV solar by 2030,
If Germany increases actual renewable power production from 2020 until 2025 by the same amount as it did from 2015 to 2020, i.e. it increases it by 62 TWh, it will basically have substituted its remaining nuclear power generation (64 TWh in 2020) by then. So claiming that this is impossible by 2030 seems wrong.
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I keep hearing the argument that "Nuclear is expensive, complex and unforgiving" as an excuse for abandoning it in favor of technologies that don't produce nearly as much energy with such a small footprint.
The same applies to commercial aviation - yet we gladly keep flying, because nothing else even comes close to replacing it for the number of people who travel, for the time that they have spare for travel, and for the open-market prices people are willing to pay. Furthermore each of us knows that flying i
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And yet Greta et al. are against nuclear power, regardless of the fact that over 40% of all low-carbon in the EU comes from nuclear plants.
And yet Greta has *no criticism* against Japan's plan to dump nuclear waste-contaminated water to the Pacific Ocean, when there are other technically viable options, simply because dumping is the cheapest option.
One has to wonder what's truly the goal here
So true.
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Children and teenagers should be seen and not heard.
FTFY
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SOME, but not all, children and teenagers dont know how courts work and cannot comprehend the complicated science behind climate change.
Fixed that for you.
Just because most teenagers will obstinately go 180 degrees out from what us boring stupid Adults tell them doesn't mean SOME of them see the value of standing on our shoulders so they can see farther than we could.
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Children and teenagers dont know how courts work and cannot comprehend the complicated science behind climate change.
It's the adults who are providing the evidence that's being presented in those court cases.
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Children and teenagers dont know how courts work and cannot comprehend the complicated science behind climate change.
I feel the same way about most of the clime change deniers on slashdot.
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Children and teenagers dont know how courts work and cannot comprehend the complicated science behind climate change.
I feel the same way about most of the clime change deniers on slashdot.
I haven't seen too many deniers here on /. in quite some time. There are folks that argue about degree but not about the fact that the greenhouse effect is real and caused by human CO2 emissions. I do agree that deniers are generally right-wing and anti-science. What folks here do argue about is what to do and how to fix this. I'm just going to go ahead and guess that you are far left. And on the point of how to fix CO2 emissions, it is the lefties that are anti-science. Or to put it another way, "I w
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Children and teenagers dont know how courts work and cannot comprehend the complicated science behind climate change.
I feel the same way about most of the clime change deniers on slashdot.
I haven't seen too many deniers here on /. in quite some time.
Calling people who disagree with you "deniers" is just framing. In this instance the opposite framing is "alarmist".
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Calling people who disagree with you "deniers" is just framing. In this instance the opposite framing is "alarmist".
And it is "framing" that is the problem. Fixing climate change is a huge optimization problem. It involves quality of life issues, macro-economics, engineering, science and politics. There is a world of gray inside that problem space. Add to that the exact effects of global warming (climate change is a political term) are difficult to exactly predict and you have a really complex problem that you can't solve well if you go into it with ideology as your guide.
Coming up with reductionist framings might
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Calling people who disagree with you "deniers" is just framing. In this instance the opposite framing is "alarmist".
And it is "framing" that is the problem. Fixing climate change is a huge optimization problem. It involves quality of life issues, macro-economics, engineering, science and politics. There is a world of gray inside that problem space. Add to that the exact effects of global warming (climate change is a political term) are difficult to exactly predict and you have a really complex problem that you can't solve well if you go into it with ideology as your guide.
Coming up with reductionist framings might help you "win" arguments on the internet but they are very unhelpful to making good energy and environmental policy. Very few posters on /. these days say global warming isn't real. They do argue about the degree but they don't argue that it isn't real. Do you find this ideological brand of denial-ism elsewhere on the net, sure. But here the issues are about what form public policy should take. E-fuel or hydrogen, what to do about road taxes and EVs, etc. It is the tribal reduction-ism that is the problem. Not science or debate on complex issues. Or to put it another way, you are not helping.
This is a complex problem for sure. I'm in the Bjorn Lomborg tribe I guess.
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Re:Erm (Score:5, Insightful)
Older people are robbing younger people of their future, and younger people are starting to fight back in the courts.
There's a saying that you should leave the campsite cleaner than you found it. The next generation is asking for the same courtesy, that's all.
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This ^
Re: Erm (Score:3, Insightful)
Then maybe those younger people can start by giving back the conveniences and luxuries that are the result of this activity?
Let's start with...cell phones?
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Yeah, those backwards countries like the US, France, Portugal, Germany and Denmark who are getting sued will never have a chance to be wealthy and prosperous. They will be trapped in third-world status forever.
Or did you only read the headline and jump to stupid conclusions?