Hacker News Reader

Comment by lowkey_ | Hacker News Reader

> justice, equity and redistribution are essential to climate policy

> death cult of conservative economics

> we must abandon economic growth, which is the basis of capitalism

I've worked in environmental sciences, and am in the political sphere, and I'm really shocked at seeing an IPCC report attached to what looks like clear leftist propaganda, identifiable by its vocabulary, being upvoted on HN.

Clean energy and less waste is the future. Economic growth is also the future. These can coexist. Attaching this all to communist talk-points around "redistribution" is so 2021 far-left, it's really jarring, and would be humorous if not frightening.

Climate change is a serious issue, almost certainly the greatest issue of this century, and politicizing it into some communist arc is the absolute worst thing one could do to help enact change. It only sets us back.

Edit: Here comes the downvotes, appears someone really wants this to be received positively.

View on HN

These are the demands of Scientist Rebellion, from their "About Us" page on that site:

• To achieve decarbonisation on the required scale demands economic degrowth, at least in the short term. This does not necessarily require a reduction in living standards.

• For a just transition, the cost of degrowth must be paid for by the wealthiest, who have benefited enormously from the current destructive world order, while others have faced the consequences.

• A just transition to a sustainable system requires the wealth from the 1% to be used for the common benefit.

Sure, it's a leftist position. But these ideas are increasingly popular and probably worth debating on HN as well.

The linked page includes leaked sentences from the report, including:

> Transition pathways entail distributional consequences such as changes in employment and economic structure

> Equity and justice are important enabling conditions for effective climate mitigation. Institutions and governance that address equity and supporting narratives that promote just transitions can build broader support for climate policymaking

> Collective action through formal social movements and informal lifestyle movements expands the potential for climate policy and supports system change

> But these ideas are increasingly popular

I would be interested in any source you have to back this up because I was seeing rather the opposite ...

Recent polls suggest majority support for tax-based measures addressing wealth inequality. E.g. this one from March:

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/542914-pol...

"Fifty-six percent of registered voters in the March 5-8 survey said wealth inequality is a significant problem facing the country and billionaires paying a wealth tax is a part of the solution."

I don't have historical poll data at hand, so I don't know how this has changed over time. My impression that it's become a more popular proposition recently (since the start of the pandemic) might be wrong.

Thanks for your reply, it doesn't really cover all the arguments you mentioned, particularly about economic degrowth which I don't believe is so popular outside turbo leftists.

France recently removed wealth tax, because it's too easy to fraud and just made it harder for wealthy people to spend their money in France. I suppose the experience will be the same in the US.

It's very far-left and unpopular, and I think their positions can easily be dismissed on HN as ludicrous if not dangerous. It's always good to have discussions on climate change and learn more about the current state of it, and I think the IPCC report accomplishes that, but this website itself is awful.

Their website provides "action guides" [1] on how to smash windows or throw paint, as if that's going to help the environment or rally people to their cause. It's basically a younger, communist, and even more ineffective Greenpeace.

[1] https://scientistrebellion.com/resources/

Popularity isn’t a reliable measure of reason.

Which of their positions do you think can be easily dismissed?

Maybe people just strongly disagree with you.

To me SRs points seem fully compatible with (strongly) progressive taxation to finance meaningful Anti-CO2 measures; calling that "communist" looks like an inaccurate, americanist slur to me.

Whether unceasing economic growth is compatible with hitting emission goals is a numbers game in the end and has little to do with ideology: At some point, no amount of "greenification" will allow positive growth, because the efforts of de-carbonizing alone might already be too costly emission-wise, and reducing consumption would be inevitable then without sacrificing the goals.

All I know is that we basically knew all of the facts for the last 40 years without much to show for, so continuing "conservative economics" does not seem too promising to me.

Equity is what Climate means. It's people being harmed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com