> If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality.
If climate change plays out the way the pandemic has, I think we will have collective action, but it'll be uneven and fall short. We'll avoid the most dire outcomes, but blow right past acceptable outcomes. Many, many will die who could have been saved, the cost will be enormous, but we'll successfully avoid the absolute worst cases. I don't know if we call that a successful failure or a failed success.
It'll play out like the recycling/renewables industry. Some people will do things that are easy and catchy, there will be some net gains, but much of it will eventually turn to barely break-even or worse, like the unsustainable single-stream recycling or trendy-but-usually-fails-before-breaking-even things like reusable straws.
The world is just going to change and we'll either figure out how to live with it (probably) or we won't (if there's a mass biome collapse that leaves us foodless, unless we can generate 9B people's worth of food from bacteria or something).
If the pandemic is anything to go by, the collective action will harm the common people (especially the poor) while the elites get to play by entirely separate rules! While there's no doubt that sacrifices in quality of life are going to have to be made I think it's very important that the elites are seen to suffer as much as the common man otherwise the inevitable result will be increasingly ungovernable countries.
Absolutely -- inequality has brought us to this pass, continues to be an obstacle, and will make the consequences far worse. Should we, as individuals, eat less meat, drive more fuel efficient vehicles, fly less, and other such activities to reduce our carbon output? Yes, but as many have pointed out in this and other discussions, that doesn't come anywhere close to being enough. It's the dynamic of the rich scolding people for a Starbucks latte habit, writ large.
Should the elite aggressively pivot their companies to carbon neutral strategies, divest their substantial investments from greenhouse gas producing holdings, put their political muscle toward laws that will get us off our current disastrous path, and fund this change via taxes on their wealth? Yes, and this would do far, far more to change things for the better.
If you can figure out how to make this happen, well you'll be some kind of sociological and political genius.
If climate change plays out the way the pandemic has, I think we will have collective action, but it'll be uneven and fall short. We'll avoid the most dire outcomes, but blow right past acceptable outcomes. Many, many will die who could have been saved, the cost will be enormous, but we'll successfully avoid the absolute worst cases. I don't know if we call that a successful failure or a failed success.