Oh we can and should absolutely do both. Travel and tourism has other downsides which make it worth reducing it, like the fast spread of diseases for example.
replyThe difference between removing plastic straws and reducing air travel is that reducing air travel would have an impact.
replySure, but as I said in my second example, forcing oil and natural gas companies to prevent methane leaks would have much more of an impact than reducing air travel, and requires no sacrifice for the average person. When considering which policies to advance, we should look at both the potential impact AND the democratic support for it.
replyClimate change deniers and polluters want to paint the environmental movement as a bunch of neo-Puritans that deride anything that isn’t the bare minimum of subsistence as immoral. And I worry they’ve done this for so long that some supporters of the environment are starting to believe the lie.
The neo Calvinism runs deep. People think fixing problems involves austerity and take aways for the unelect.
replyIt's a real problem because it has really bad political optics. And results in obsessing about 'fixing' inconsequential things or solutions that make things worse.
If people like Steve are advocating for such insanely unpopular policies as ending all travel (or is it just that you need to prove to the government that you have a valid reason for a travel permit?) I don’t think they’re concerned with the ideas’ democratic prospects at all.
replySeems like he’s looking forward to a dictatorship that will just tell us all what we’re allowed to do, without the burdensome need for our dumb pleb voices to be heard. Maybe they could call the folks who enforce the policy the “Klimate Governing Board.”