Official Impeachment Thread

[Kawapasaka]

Have fun with that and let's revisit the subject in ~20 years.

[Dolan]

You guys haven't even read the studies based on which these reports are made and yet you've already become Greta missiles.
Funny how this works. Even funnier how you totally adopted that typical style of "exposing the enemy": "You're a fucking climate denialist!" said in the same tone as "You murder kittens in your backyard!"
Have you even wondered why Little Red Riding Hood Greta doesn't go to China, the biggest carbon emitter on the planet, to publicly shame the Chinese government for "not doing enough"?



Because nobody in China would give a shit. And she might risk being turned into not-so-Swedish meatballs for publicly shaming the Chinese government in their own country. But nope, let's keep whipping Western countries, that have already been cutting emissions during the last two decades, for "not doing enough", because it looks good on screen.

[Goodspeed]

You guys haven't even read the studies based on which these reports are made and yet you've already become Greta missiles.

Greta missiles I can't imagine anything she's saying is new (wouldn't know, haven't watched). We've known and been talking about this issue for more than a decade. Do you actually believe people here are suddenly all riled up and passionate about climate change because this kid stood up and talked about it on the world stage?

Funny how this works. Even funnier how you totally adopted that typical style of "exposing the enemy": "You're a fucking climate denialist!" said in the same tone as "You murder kittens in your backyard!"

Not quite that tone, but yeah, it's hard for me to respect people who have so little regard for the stability of our planet's ecosystems, and the many millions if not billions of people who will be shit out of luck when they collapse. I'm not adopting anything, I'm calling you out on your shit because people like you are why we can't have nice things.

Have you even wondered why Little Red Riding Hood Greta doesn't go to China, the biggest carbon emitter on the planet, to publicly shame the Chinese government for "not doing enough"?

Because good luck? It makes sense to focus on the minds you can potentially change. China is a problem, but the best way to get them to do anything is by pressuring them economically and a 16 year old kid can't do that. What she can do and is doing rather effectively is pressure Western leaders politically.

Because nobody in China would give a shit. And she might risk being turned into not-so-Swedish meatballs for publicly shaming the Chinese government in their own country. But nope, let's keep whipping Western countries, that have already been cutting emissions during the last two decades, for "not doing enough", because it looks good on screen.

Rather because it's all you can do, and it's better than nothing. But sure, be like that.

[Amsel_]

I'm not quite sure how a thread made with the express purpose of staying on topic somehow went off-topic. But since it has, I will once again grace you all by randomly throwing out my invaluable insight for the world to see. -- Could you imagine how popular environmentalism would be if they talked about installing free solar panels in the sun belt, cleaning up rivers, and reforestation instead of killing the economy and living an unnatural, minimalist lifestyle that even flagellant monks would find uncomfortable, because the oligarchs and technocrats who govern your cultureless metropolis need the population to keep growing so that they can sustain social security programs?

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[Amsel_]

I'm not quite sure how a thread made with the express purpose of staying on topic somehow went off-topic. But since it has, I will once again grace you all by randomly throwing out my invaluable insight for the world to see. -- Could you imagine how popular environmentalism would be if they talked about installing free solar panels in the sun belt, cleaning up rivers, and reforestation instead of killing the economy and living an unnatural, minimalist lifestyle that even flagellant monks would find uncomfortable, because the oligarchs and technocrats who govern your cultureless metropolis need the population to keep growing so that they can sustain social security programs?

I ran out of breath reading your post.

That's fine. Take a breather and then you can get back to cheering "Bravo!"

[Dolan]

Do you actually believe people here are suddenly all riled up and passionate about climate change because this kid stood up and talked about it on the world stage?

I don't know. You'd have to do a survey to get an idea whether all this PR campaign amplified how people feel about the subject of climate change. To me, it seems that the whole campaign was conceived to create a critical threshold in public opinion, to make sure this time public pressure on politicians and decision-makers will push the whole initiative over the line. They're trying to create a similar level of public pressure as they did with the #metoo campaign.
But what's surprising is that their focus is still the West. Why? The West is the only part of the world that has actually been doing something to tackle climate change. And yet, the main focus of their guilt-inducing tactics and emotional blackmailing are still Western leaders and stakeholders. It's obvious that the end goal of this campaign is not to solve the issue of making sure the biggest polluters will take measures to tackle climate change. Normally you don't criticise those who are actually doing something to solve a problem, right? While ignoring others who aren't doing much at all, but actually increasing their carbon emissions. It just makes no sense. Why don't you take your campaign to China and India, Little Red Riding Hood? You're preaching to the choir here, babe.

But, you know, we already know the answer. The answer is, no, the purpose of this campaign is not to solve the issue of taking enough action on climate. Their purpose is to extract more concessions from Western countries, to give those green corporate interests more access to contracts. It's all about money, it's not about climate here. And "Gretel" is just a very convenient pawn used by this PR machinery to get the message across, to create that decisional pressure.

Not quite that tone, but yeah, it's hard for me to respect people who have so little regard for the stability of our planet's ecosystems, and the many millions if not billions of people who will be shit out of luck when they collapse. I'm not adopting anything, I'm calling you out on your shit because people like you are why we can't have nice things.

But who said that? When did I say that I have little regard for the planet's ecosystems? I just expressed my doubt that our actions will actually stop climate change or affect it in a substantial way. Climate will continue to change in drastic and disruptive ways, as it has done so for hundreds of thousands of years until now, before we even existed as a species.
In fact, I am in favour of cutting carbon emissions, whether or not that will actually have any effect on climate change. Like, even if this issue did not exist, like there was zero climate change, I would have still been in favour of reducing pollution of any kind. What bothers me is the use of this kind of campaigns that are built on emotional blackmail. It's just another kind of dirty tactics. It's nothing different from Trumps' "grab'em by the pussy" tactics. It's the same thing with a different emphasis: if Trump uses aggressive and impetuous tactics, these tearjerking campaigns are using this kind of perverse blackmail: if you disagree with them, you can only end up looking as the ultimate embodiment of evil. You need to be vilified, you need to be "de-platformed", "cancelled". It's the same tactics used in all these PC campaigns, with diversity issues, trannies, different minorities and rights. Let's make them look bad and evil and just spread all this shit virally across the world. Let's put pressure on companies that host their sites to shut them down, in the name of "human decency". As if anyone actually owns or has a monopoly on the definition of decency or humanity. And if you disagree with theirs, you're going down, buddy. We're gonna make sure you look bad in the press, on blogs, everywhere. We got our own legion of Twitter trannies to take care of that. They don't have anything else to do but wage social media wars, anyways. It's this level of perversity that such campaigns typically reach.

Because good luck? It makes sense to focus on the minds you can potentially change. China is a problem, but the best way to get them to do anything is by pressuring them economically and a 16 year old kid can't do that. What she can do and is doing rather effectively is pressure Western leaders politically.

And that won't change shit. Even if the whole West stopped emitting one molecule of carbon, climate would still get warmer. Because the West is only responsible for about 23% of the world's emissions and their share keeps going lower and lower, every decade. While China's and India's emissions keep going higher and higher. So overall, if they kept following your suggestion to focus their efforts "on the minds they can change", in a few decades the whole planet might still have the same level of slightly higher levels of carbon emissions, while the West will have virtually none. What will this campaign have achieved then? Filled their hearts with a warm and fuzzy feeling of having ticked that objective for the West?

Because nobody in China would give a shit. And she might risk being turned into not-so-Swedish meatballs for publicly shaming the Chinese government in their own country. But nope, let's keep whipping Western countries, that have already been cutting emissions during the last two decades, for "not doing enough", because it looks good on screen.

Rather because it's all you can do, and it's better than nothing. But sure, be like that.

Well then it's a pretty pathetic campaign if they don't have the courage to go to China and publicly wreck their shit for being responsible for almost a third of the whole planet's human-induced carbon emissions.

[Googol]

@Dolan Good points.

[fightinfrenchman]

I hope esoc dies

[Goodspeed]

But what's surprising is that their focus is still the West.

It's hard for me to understand how that would surprise anyone

Why?

Because the West actually cares, and pressuring Western world leaders politically is the only way to get anywhere with China. That is, indirectly. If the West collectively gets its shit together on this issue and decides China needs to get in line, it has the power to at least strongly pressure China in the form of economic sanctions.

Do you genuinely think it's a good idea to campaign for this in China? You very obviously wouldn't get anywhere. What would your target even be? The Chinese population? First of all how are you going to reach them? Second, China is not even a democracy so even if your campaign works and you get the population riled up about this issue, they can't vote leaders out of office who refuse to act on it. And they certainly won't risk jail time by protesting. So good luck?

And yet, the main focus of their guilt-inducing tactics and emotional blackmailing are still Western leaders and stakeholders. It's obvious that the end goal of this campaign is not to solve the issue of making sure the biggest polluters will take measures to tackle climate change. Normally you don't criticise those who are actually doing something to solve a problem, right? While ignoring others who aren't doing much at all, but actually increasing their carbon emissions. It just makes no sense. Why don't you take your campaign to China and India, Little Red Riding Hood? You're preaching to the choir here, babe.

She actually isn't, though. The USA voted someone into office who was never going to do anything about climate change in a million years. Then there's people like you who think there's nothing humans can do to affect it. Obviously, there's still a lot of people to convince.
Anyway, if your entire argument rests on the supposed "no sense" it makes not to campaign for this in China, I don't know what to tell you. To me and I wanna say anyone else with half a brain it makes a lot of sense. I guess you don't want to see it because it doesn't fit your narrative.

But who said that? When did I say that I have little regard for the planet's ecosystems? I just expressed my doubt that our actions will actually stop climate change or affect it in a substantial way. Climate will continue to change in drastic and disruptive ways, as it has done so for hundreds of thousands of years until now, before we even existed as a species.

That's how far you got on this? The "this would've happened without us" phase? You should read up on things. Warming, resulting loss of habitat, and loss off habitat for other reasons have all accelerated way beyond natural pace. There's a mass extinction going on, go figure. And there's significant consensus in the scientific community that this is largely man made. But of course, the incredibly rich and powerful green lobby paid all of those scientists

Well then it's a pretty pathetic campaign if they don't have the courage to go to China and publicly wreck their shit for being responsible for almost a third of the whole planet's human-induced carbon emissions.

I just have to ask again because this is so perplexing to me: Do you genuinely believe the best thing you could do as a climate activist is go to China and publicly "wreck their shit" for being a big polluter? You're just being contrarian at this point right?

[Dolan]

But what's surprising is that their focus is still the West.

It's hard for me to understand how that would surprise anyone

Why?

Because the West actually cares, and pressuring Western world leaders politically is the only way to get anywhere with China. That is, indirectly. If the West collectively gets its shit together on this issue and decides China needs to get in line, it has the power to at least strongly pressure China in the form of economic sanctions.

Lol. You're kidding, right? Just think of these numbers:
China's reliance on trade stands at about 19% of their GDP.
For Germany, the strongest economy in Europe, 42.7% of their GDP relies on trade.
Who would sanction whom?
Well anyway, even if we calculate a region's reliance on trade as a proxy measure of how much leverage you could get from sanctions, 17% of the EU's GDP relies on trade, while only 13.4% of the USA's GDP relies on trade. So frankly, if they have to choose between handicapping their economy for some fairytale alarmist stories, I think they'd be OK with some trade sanctions. They already are in a trade war with the USA and it's not like China is currently collapsing because of it. You know what they're doing? They're gradually moving towards an economic model based on internal consumption, so that in the future China will depend even less on trade. So then, I ask you the same question again: Who will sanction whom, in a few decades from now on? For what gain? Imagine Europe enforcing sanctions on China, when China is currently investing part of its trade surplus in some parts in Europe (as part of their debt-trap diplomacy). Yeah, I can't wait to see this happening. I'm really hoping it will happen, but not for the reasons you listed.

Do you genuinely think it's a good idea to campaign for this in China? You very obviously wouldn't get anywhere. What would your target even be? The Chinese population? First of all how are you going to reach them? Second, China is not even a democracy so even if your campaign works and you get the population riled up about this issue, they can't vote leaders out of office who refuse to act on it. And they certainly won't risk jail time by protesting. So good luck?

Yeah, so, again, I ask you the very question you did not address in your reply: What is the purpose of this campaign, if the West cuts its emissions to zero in a few decades, while China and India keep increasing their emissions? Also taking into account that the West's leverage on these countries is rather low, economic sanctions would not really do that much damage to completely strong-arm them into taking emission reduction measures. China and Russia have been working together since 2008 to gradually decrease their reliance on the dollar-based global financial system too, by agreeing on mutual recognition of their own currencies as legal tender in international trade.

And yet, the main focus of their guilt-inducing tactics and emotional blackmailing are still Western leaders and stakeholders. It's obvious that the end goal of this campaign is not to solve the issue of making sure the biggest polluters will take measures to tackle climate change. Normally you don't criticise those who are actually doing something to solve a problem, right? While ignoring others who aren't doing much at all, but actually increasing their carbon emissions. It just makes no sense. Why don't you take your campaign to China and India, Little Red Riding Hood? You're preaching to the choir here, babe.

She actually isn't, though. The USA voted someone into office who was never going to do anything about climate change in a million years. Then there's people like you who think there's nothing humans can do to affect it. Obviously, there's still a lot of people to convince.
Anyway, if your entire argument rests on the supposed "no sense" it makes not to campaign for this in China, I don't know what to tell you. To me and I wanna say anyone else with half a brain it makes a lot of sense. I guess you don't want to see it because it doesn't fit your narrative.

It's not like cutting carbon emissions depends only on federal policy in the USA. Firms in the USA are already cutting emissions voluntarily, they don't need to have specific legislation to do just that. Individual states can also pass their own local legislation to reward cutting emissions.

But who said that? When did I say that I have little regard for the planet's ecosystems? I just expressed my doubt that our actions will actually stop climate change or affect it in a substantial way. Climate will continue to change in drastic and disruptive ways, as it has done so for hundreds of thousands of years until now, before we even existed as a species.

That's how far you got on this? The "this would've happened without us" phase? You should read up on things. Warming, resulting loss of habitat, and loss off habitat for other reasons have all accelerated way beyond natural pace. There's a mass extinction going on, go figure. And there's significant consensus in the scientific community that this is largely man made. But of course, the incredibly rich and powerful green lobby paid all of those scientists

There have been at least 5 major mass extinction events until now. During the last extinction event, the Cretacious-Tertiary extinction, 75% of species were wiped out off the face of the planet. And that's what eventually made it possible for mammals and humans to develop, because the previous ecosystems were dominated by large reptiles and marine organisms. Without that extinction event, mammals would have probably never had a chance to assert themselves across ecosystems. This time nature's gamble worked out in our favour. Not all natural catastrophes or extinction events are necessarily the worst thing that could happen on this planet. You could also see them as nature hitting that big reset button and restarting evolution under different conditions. Climate change with its slight variations in temperature is pretty far from having any effects that come even close to any of the 5 major extinction events, though. I mean, life on earth is basically a water-based phenomenon and climate changes don't make water disappear and so completely wipe out life on earth, they just put that water into different states of matter (like there's going to be less water in a solid state and more in a gaseous or liquid state).
So the earth is going to be eventually fine, some might say it's going to be even finer without humans. You know, the ultimate vegan creed is to hope that humans will go extinct so that mother nature can spread her milky boobs around in a better way than she can do it now.

Do you genuinely believe the best thing you could do as a climate activist is go to China and publicly "wreck their shit" for being a big polluter? You're just being contrarian at this point right?

No, I think that by focusing your persuasion efforts on the West, you're missing out on the big picture, which is that the biggest polluters are outside the West and their emissions keep growing. And you don't really have that much leverage with them, via sanctions, as you think. Because most often they are poorer countries that can't afford to cut down jobs for the sake of some scientific narrative cooked up in the West and preached by a Swedish teen, who was turned into a postergirl for the climate cause by green energy corporate interests.

[Amsel_]

Here's your moderate democrat, bro.

[Goodspeed]

China's reliance on trade stands at about 19% of their GDP.
For Germany, the strongest economy in Europe, 42.7% of their GDP relies on trade.
Who would sanction whom?

I'm not saying there's a lot of leverage. Frankly, there isn't much we can do about China's pollution problem right now. But you're the one who brought that up, kept saying we should focus on China. My only point was that economic pressure from our let's say collective Western government is the best tool we have against China right now, not activists like this girl. And yeah, that tool isn't much to write home about either. It's especially useless, though, if climate change isn't even a priority to our own leaders. And that's what activists like these are trying to change.

Yeah, so, again, I ask you the very question you did not address in your reply: What is the purpose of this campaign, if the West cuts its emissions to zero in a few decades, while China and India keep increasing their emissions?

Reducing emissions is the purpose. We can only do what we can, and right now we aren't. The rest of the world will come around sooner or later. If it doesn't, we're shit out of luck, but we did what we could. Someone has to be the first to set an example, no? If everyone keeps polluting because everyone else is, there's a fairly obvious problem. You keep bringing up that Western society is the only one doing anything about the issue. Well, with your reasoning they wouldn't be and we would be even farther from a solution.

And yet, the main focus of their guilt-inducing tactics and emotional blackmailing are still Western leaders and stakeholders. It's obvious that the end goal of this campaign is not to solve the issue of making sure the biggest polluters will take measures to tackle climate change. Normally you don't criticise those who are actually doing something to solve a problem, right? While ignoring others who aren't doing much at all, but actually increasing their carbon emissions. It just makes no sense. Why don't you take your campaign to China and India, Little Red Riding Hood? You're preaching to the choir here, babe.

She actually isn't, though. The USA voted someone into office who was never going to do anything about climate change in a million years. Then there's people like you who think there's nothing humans can do to affect it. Obviously, there's still a lot of people to convince.
Anyway, if your entire argument rests on the supposed "no sense" it makes not to campaign for this in China, I don't know what to tell you. To me and I wanna say anyone else with half a brain it makes a lot of sense. I guess you don't want to see it because it doesn't fit your narrative.

It's not like cutting carbon emissions depends only on federal policy in the USA. Firms in the USA are already cutting emissions voluntarily, they don't need to have specific legislation to do just that. Individual states can also pass their own local legislation to reward cutting emissions.

?
I was replying to your statement about her "preaching to the choir". I don't believe she is, because there are clearly a lot of people who are either in denial about this issue or don't give a shit.

There have been at least 5 major mass extinction events until now. During the last extinction event, the Cretacious-Tertiary extinction, 75% of species were wiped out off the face of the planet. And that's what eventually made it possible for mammals and humans to develop, because the previous ecosystems were dominated by large reptiles and marine organisms. Without that extinction event, mammals would have probably never had a chance to assert themselves across ecosystems. This time nature's gamble worked out in our favour. Not all natural catastrophes or extinction events are necessarily the worst thing that could happen on this planet. You could also see them as nature hitting that big reset button and restarting evolution under different conditions. Climate change with its slight variations in temperature is pretty far from having any effects that come even close to any of the 5 major extinction events, though.

It's closer than you might think, but either way what's your point here? That we should just let it happen and make room for the next dominant species? Yeah, mass extinctions make room for new species, but they typically don't go well for existing species. We're one of the existing species, FYI. It's not just biodiversity that will suffer, it's humanity as well. Extreme weather conditions, food scarcity, water scarcity, you name it.

So the earth is going to be eventually fine, some might say it's going to be even finer without humans. You know, the ultimate vegan creed is to hope that humans will go extinct so that mother nature can spread her milky boobs around in a better way than she can do it now.

Oh sure. Earth and its inhabitants other than humans are certainly better off without us. But think of the children.

Do you genuinely believe the best thing you could do as a climate activist is go to China and publicly "wreck their shit" for being a big polluter? You're just being contrarian at this point right?

No,

So what would you have activists do?

[occamslightsaber]

I don't believe she is, because there are clearly a lot of people who are either in denial about this issue or don't give a shit.

Guilty for the latter.

To Greta's credit, she was speaking at the UN Climate Action Summit where 60 countries, including developing polluters like India, were involved. So I wouldn't say her activism is directed only toward the West and ignores other polluters.

As for China, the Chinese Communist Party most likely won't allow her to enter the country in the first place. Like most authoritarian governments, the CCP isn't exactly tolerant of criticisms toward its regime, especially one coming from a foreigner. However, that doesn't mean China is entirely deaf to environmental activism. The CCP is acutely aware of how much human activity is damaging the environment since its cities have become some of the most polluted places on the planet in the last 40 years. Needless to say, its citizens aren't happy to breathe through masks all the time and they certainly don't like that their cities are often portrayed as smog-filled hellscape in the Western media.

I'd say economic sanctions or the threat of them are a long shot. It's true that trade currently constitutes only a small part of the Chinese economy and the CCP won't take economic threats from foreign powers kindly. However, China's industrial policy to sustain high economic growth and avoid the middle income trap in the future does depend on increasing export (which is why China has a plan called "Made In China 2025"). Specifically, those exports are high-end goods whose demand is mostly in rich countries, i.e. the West. So the West has more leverage on China to cooperate with its climate action plan than the trade figures may reflect, but it would have to proceed carefully to not alienate the CCP with overbearing demands.

If there's one thing that would cause the CCP to forgo some economic growth and take action on climate change, it'd be international prestige. China wants to take a more influential role in the world stage that is commensurate with its capabilities, but its options are somewhat limited. It is facing heavy competition in trade and technology and it definitely can't be a leader in political freedom and human rights. On the other hand, China may be better suited to take action on climate change than the West precisely because it is a one-party dictatorship. The CCP doesn't have (or allow) much domestic opposition to its policies, so it can really force through an ambitious climate plan without the bickering from the private sector (for instance, look at how quickly it improved the air quality in Beijing). China doesn't really give a shit whether it's hailed as a leader on climate action by Western environmentalists, but it does make for a nice bit of propaganda to its people that China under the CCP is well-respected by the world community for its contribution to "saving the planet".

[n0el]

I thought this was an impeachment thread. For climate change go somewhere else

[Dolan]

People realised the whole impeachment thing is much ado about nothing.

[Goodspeed]

Yeah I guess POTUS breaking the law left and right is "nothing" at this point

[Goodspeed]

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detai ... first-term

[n0el]

He's going to be impeached. That's a 100% certainty at this point. There's already a majority of the house in favor, before the inquiry begins.

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[Goodspeed]

It will die in the senate yeah

[Amsel_]

He's going to be impeached. That's a 100% certainty at this point. There's already a majority of the house in favor, before the inquiry begins.

Is there really a majority in favor of impeachment already? All I've seen is that a majority support an impeachment inquiry.

[n0el]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... t-n1058596

[Goodspeed]

Support for impeachment only has one way to go from here anyway. It's a slam dunk, legally

[gibson]

An impeachment inquiry will probably happen, its highly unlikely that there will be enough for actual impeachment. Supporting impeachment is political suicide for any republican.