Once you check this video out BE SURE to check out Part Two over on Yellow Dot's channel, featuring a conversation between Michael and Yellow Dot's Staci Roberts-Steele. ua-cam.com/video/ot3ERDDh9Q4/v-deo.html
The planet will not die. It will however extinguish most of us in the next cataclysm that happens every 12,000 years. The magnetic pole shift solar disaster in the CIA declassified Adam and Eve story.
I am honestly just waiting for them to start putting *lead* back in the fuel to vastly reduce the cost of making it, and then not tell us and keep the prices the same anyway.
I remember watching a debate about climate change, many years ago. There were an economists and one biologist in the panel. The biologist simply put forward the problems with climate change. Extinction, change in weather patterns, droughts starvation and war etc etc. And then the need to do something about it. The economists then said something utterly incredible... "Yes, yes. But you see.. What is the point of this? There is no incentive to do this. Why should we use money on this problem?" The look of the biologist face when he heard this. And the answer. "What about the survival of the planet and our civilization? The survival of the ecosystem we are dependent on for our life? What about not condemning millions upon millions of innocent people to death?"
I just don't see how do conservatives and traditionalits align themselves with the greedy corporations. The capitalists don't care about culture, societal values and norms, community or human civilizations ffs!
That's ultimately the biggest flaw of capitalism is that it is system where the most greedy immoral people are favored to rise to the top. Greed should be something that's punished.
I am afraid that as long as we have structures that give too much power to specific individuals, sociopaths make sure to be those specific individuals.
THat's why people should be told that capitalism is not natural let them see nature- a forest is not full of predators, an eagle does not overexert the rodents, nor does an ant overexert the plants that they use to build their nests. Capitalism is as natural as a planes of africa being filled with lions only. Make normies care- make them finallly realize that allowances they do extrapolate up untill it hurts them.
As Keynes said... in the long term, we'll all be dead. Normal people hear that and think "oh, so we should do what we can now to make our own lives better". Capitalists think "oh, so it doesn't matter how much worse we make things, we won't face the consequences".
I think the idea is gaining traction. I don't think any degrowth curve, or growth curve of degrowth ideas, is steep enough. But it's still progress and that's worth mentioning.
The problem is even if we would consume less it wont matter. There are around 6.5 billion people that are just trying to get out of poverty. To even give them a comfortable quality of life will require a massive amount of resources. For people in wealthy countries to turn around and pull the rug on everyone else would be extremely selfish.
We should build inland neocities with standards that provide extreme weather resistance. As our tools improve we should transition into underground habitats. This may sound excessive, but given the weather we're looking at we should start digging. Autonomous networks of drones can accelerate terraforming.
25 hr work week would be heavenly, I have so many hobbies that I barely get time to do, with both me and my wife working 40 to 50 hrs 5 days a week (not including commute times), get home eat dinner and maybe have a couple hours before you have to go back to bed, then the weekend is partially spent getting ready for the next work week (getting groceries, laundry, yardwork, etc...), there is hardly any time left to carve out for ourselves and do the things that we actually enjoy, except for the few weeks a year we get to take vacation time, a few years ago I used to have a job that was a 4 day work week (still worked 40+ hrs only Mon-Thurs) and having that extra day off (even though my wife still worked 5) was a great boost to my mental health, I was able to get all the errands completed on Friday then the weekends we got to have enough free time to have fun and relax.
I think more people would volunteer because humans get bored really quickly and emotionally thrive from doing work that they can directly see and experience the benefits of. People do so much work, but barely any of it is stuff that they wanna do. However, at the same time, basically everyone's got a constructive hobby. Think of how much more work people would do that benefits them, their social group, family, and society if they were liberated from the drudgery of the jobs they currently do against their will. Especially if we had more time to socialize, we'd start to communicate and organize to solve real social problems really quickly, especially with the current wave of reaction we're seeing by people who are realizing how alienated and isolated they are from others and go out specifically to make friends and attend social events.
That's a lie. China won't stop polluting. India won't stop polluting. The USA is reducing, but 350 million doing better environmentally isn't enough to offset the 4 billion doing far, far worse.
Literally every single issue you can think of all eventually leads to money being the main problem. Or maybe even how prioritized capital gain is over literally anything else like human life or the planet we live on😂
@@dontmisunderstand6041it's actually the other way around. You're being told what to think. You aren't thinking for yourself and it's all soooo convenient that everything you're being told also includes "capitalism bad" instead of "these people are to blame" nope gotta blame the economic system. Not the political system or the people making/allowing these actions. But hey you're totally a thinker. Let me guess you think communism and socialism can work
@@samnorris6533 I’m sorry but this is just wrong. It’s a simple way of rounding up all the perceived issues and finding a boogie man to explain them all. So so so many of our greatest human inventions would not have been possible without the profit motive. I’m sorry but pretending otherwise is like sticking your head in the sand. I’m not saying that greed isn’t obviously the source of many problems, but this is just silly. China is the biggest source of pollution in the world. As in, if they don’t reduce emissions by a lot, it doesn’t matter what we do. We will not reduce global carbon emissions to the level we need them at, without China giving a shit about polluting. And they’re not capitalist. So to me, while I care greatly about the environment and the future, I think blaming greedy capitalists is not helpful, and it’s not even targeting the biggest contributor. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but this video just shows this massive global issue from such a narrow lens, and I think that’s bad and divisive.
@@JTFIghter6969 you're wrong sorryyyy, I never said we had to abolish the idea of profit. I said putting that shit at the top of the list in every area of society causes the shitshow were seeing today.
@@joegar47was there another option? Could I have powered my car with some other available fuel? When other options became available, did oil executives diversify their holdings or bury the technology? But your pithy comment totally owned, bruh.
@@joegar47And yet everyone who has a choice does not chose oil. Before solar and natrual gas got cheap it was wind and wood that powered everything distant enough to be off the grid. And the only reason we are getting natural gas from fossil sources is because of an accidental discovery of a process to extract natrual gass from shale but those resources are running low themselves, while producing natrual gas from wood has gotten cheaper and cheaper. Instead of being a sheep for an oil CEO's next big bonus; try answering why it was wind and wood, and why it is solar, wood and natural gas today. Oil companies are heading to a cliff of thier own making and succeeding at pulling the wool over your eyes to make you think thats great, but everyone whos had to make the choice had to do the reaserch themselves.. well they saw that cliff even back in the 1950's.
I used to work in the oil and gas industry and hated every second of it. This video is my favourite thing you've ever done. I know personally, the people at the top of this thing are well aware of what's happening to the environment, they just don't give a shit about anything but their quarterly report.
Ah yes. Word play is a fun game. Imagine if there were a group of "gardeners" going around converting oil CEOs into "fertilizer". It's just gardening guys, calm down.
We don't need "new theorists" or "new ideas" to end capitalism, the plan is the same as it has always been. Sieze the means of production. There is no way around it.
Personally i would want to see a system like the one that was in libya before the "rebels" overthrew the government,where the people can vote for different policies but theres still a central leader (or dictator, as the cappies call it), otherwise known as jamahiriyah @mrfigaloopierre9610
Things like this make me think of how all of the people in my immediate circles (despite being pretty aware and not wanting capitalism to rule their lives as much as it does) literally self soothe through consumption.. I do the same thing.. I try to restrict it, but buying a treat after work or a new shirt is like the way we self soothe after a shitty day of being yelled at in work. And I hang out either people who climb, hike, camp, paddle etc. but we don’t have the time or money to always be doing things that actually connect us to the earth and each other. It’s just sad. Human existence has become so sad under capitalism
you're confusing consumerism with capitalism, the problem isn't owning things, it's alienating the producers from the fruit of their labor and the accumulation of capital by the capitalists
I wish more people rrecognized this. A lot of folks have a visceral negative reaction to the concept of degrowth, like "But if I can't buy all the stuff then I just have to sit in a cave eating dirt by candlelight and being sad," and it's like -- no? The whole point here is to reduce production and consumption while still meeting everyone's needs, so you'd have a whole lot more free time to do stuff that actually makes you happy, instead of barely scraping by emotionally by buying stuff that reminds you of feeling things.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Yup. Even if presented with a picture where their lives are better in many, many ways, people just can't fathom something that's so radically different from what they're used to, and reflexively reject it. I mean, I get that "change" is scary for the human brain, but damn - not even entertaining an idea for a little while before dismissing it? Sad, really.
@@TheManinBlack9054you must not live in the United States. We live in a corporate oligarchy under the guise of democracy. Our electorates vote for who lines their pockets best. The popular vote does not determine the rulership of the US at a federal level. I'd rather live elsewhere.
Seeing this really makes me want to do something, be part of something. If climate change and capitalism goes on, it will only end when it inevitably destroys us.
Look for local organizers, either environmental or socialist parties to rally, agitate, and advocate for progressive change! Getting directly involved has REALLY helped my feelings of powerlessness while achieving actual concessions from our local government and courts! Workers of the world unite! ✊🏼
There are organizations and people attempting to do quite a bit. Many of them have been farmers and it's why they're making hugs pushes to shut down farms. There's a lot to be a part of but there doesn't seem to be a consensus about a vision for the future we need. I think that's a marketing battle that hasn't been one and is difficult to fight when oil is funding the opposite. What do you think you could be a part of if the options of business and marketing efforts to build a world where we thrive or marketing and activism, such as building a renewable farm or marketing a lifestyle that's sustainable, were open to you?
@@valoriethechemist IMO, we don't need to start with prescriptions. Start with community outreach and organizing and let the PEOPLE dictate the immediate needs that need addressing. Doing so, ensures a legit grass roots movement!
The ideas presented in this video seem vastly more destructive than capitalism + climate change combined. Just because you have good intentions does't mean you can't cause deaths of millions. I'm sure once the bodies started piling up from consequences of their policies, like famines and other disastrous lacks of crucial goods and services, they'd be horrified. But at that point, it would already be too late to save the first few million souls.
Yes, and the goal of shareholders is to move the end date to juuuuust beyond their lifetime, so they don't have to deal with the apocalyptic consequences of their economic system.
In my 20s and 30s I believed climate change is such an major threat to humanity that we needed to use the tools we have to solve it, ie capitalism. Over time I realized that capitalism itself is the problem, so any solution needs to be anticapitalism (such as nationalizing the renewable energy sector, and you mentioned in the video).
...So instead of having private capitalists control the means of production, we should have government bureaucrats control the means of production instead of, say, the workers. Its just more capitalism, just without a market economy. It should be noted that the German spd saying that socialism was when government started drama with Marx calling them "vulgar socialists" (as in fake), and that Engels himself noted that state ownership of the means of production was the "final stage of capitalism. Well, all that and anarchists exist.
@@umbralupus6488 To say that it would be the same thing is just historically innacurate. The moment you remove the incentive of endless growth present in logic of capital, the problem is solved. But as long as you're anti-capitalist that's good enough.
@@ciro_costa Still by definition capitalism just without the market economy. Nevermind the fact that any form of capitalism is still a class based economic structure, and just like all class based societies beforehand will always see the ruling class perpetuate and consolidate power and inevitably exploit the lower classes, whether it's the private capitalists or upper level state bureaucrats or even the old feudal lords. This isn't a problem that is unique to the current market capitalist paradigm.
Just before Soviet Union esteblished 40 hour week (when 50-60 hour working weeks were still a thing in the rest of the world), Lenin wrote "We should reduce working time to a 8 hour a day, with OBLIGATION of workers to spend 2 hours a day to learn about politics and warfare".
@@chozer1 yeah because the combination of the corrupted bureaucracy and the USA spending them under the table in the cold war. The USSR never really stood a chance once the German Revolution failed, even Lenin said as such.
In an ideal world we should be slowing down not speeding up. Less work and more focus on family, nature and community. We're out here speed running life, achieving more than our ancestors did in a fraction of the time. No wonder we're all burnt out. Living to only 40 proably felt a lot longer during slower times and we should be taking steps to get back to that. We have so many people on this planet, we dont need everyone working so much. We've sped things up to the point where we burn theough trends at an alarminh speed, nothing has time to develop and grow in a meaningful way and art and culture has stagnated. We're not only burning down the planet, but we arent even having fun while doing it anymore.
I just look at the illogical way we design our cities. We force the poorest workers to have the longest commutes. We spread our cities out with single family homes as far as the eye can see, then complain that there isn't enough density to justify public transit.
It can be both. People vote for those who deny climate change. People complain when when anything more efficient than car dependent suburban sprawl is built. They buy enormous wasteful trucks and travel via jet everytime they can.
@@jonatand2045In America people have two legitimate options: A candidate who doesn't believe in climate change and a candidate who won't take action against climate change. Choose wisely lol.
@@g.lucchio5660 over 100 years ago, and guess what? Still hasn't happened. That to me is more evidence against this idea than for it. Something predicted 100 years ago that never happened doesn't instill in me a sense of urgency in its truth.
@@g.lucchio5660 look outside, does it really look any different? Look at historic temperatures everywhere. They haven't changed. They really haven't. I did check. There's no noticeable difference in 40 years.
@michah321 This is just a lie. Global temperature has fluctuated to a general increase sonce 1850, to a point of challenging wildlife and even our social structures. Today, we have millions of people affected by the climate crisis and forced to flee for a diverse range of drastic effects of climate change. You probably have not checked the data you said you do, but regardless, they go against your position.
The funniest thing is that every single communist country in the world, and there are only a few, have introduced capitalism in limited form, because otherwise they'd be gone. Except for ONE.. North korea. Your utopia for the taking.
🤡 🤡 what next you idiot?even far left thinkers like Zizek said capitalism should be thrown in trash but there is no successful alternative it was tried in 20 century but failed miserably
Capitalism is just free market, of course it's a desirable form of economic organization. Regardless of that, your statement is untrue: many works of literature and cinema have imagined alternative systems to capitalism within the realm of fiction.
That last quote by Saito is exactly what the Powell memo was pened to prevent. America figure out back in the '70s that people with free time get politicaly engaged and said, 'nope'.
Didnt the video itself say a major part of CO2 emissions are caused by the fossil fuel industry? Even if there are other trouble makers i think this one causes a large share of the issue
If they could stop raising my property taxes every year, and my insurance...oh and it people would stop getting drunk and breaking windows and doors....and if cleaning supplies and building materials would be free. Ah and if the bank would start using the barter system for the mortgage,I could pay them with fruit from my orchard or with carpentry electrical work 😂
Sadly at least if you are saying that money will be chosen over the safety of earth because they would rather make money then save the planet and have renewable energy but if you are referring to earth being chosen instead of money then yay. P.s I feel like maybe we should just start a #boycottbigoilforever
@@dwarvenjesus4266 I have heard of that I just thought that it was no longer an issue in the modern day what with less people in New York riding horses everywhere.👍🏻😅😑
@@dwarvenjesus4266 well because of cars but just because that is the case doesn’t mean I am going to give up saving the environment and blindly submit to big oil and let them kill the planet for money if anything I still want pure electricic cars, wind power and solar power to be the energy sources to fuel everything within the USA and abroad.
@WisecrackEDU I don't have time for streams, but the idea of the other commenter could be fun. I can be taking a bath, shit, or cooking diner and have it in the background, and it has some structure (more than in a livestream, at least)
Those pro oil ads that say hospitals NEED oil, and a guy going on a date NEEDS oil, distinctly reminds me of that chapter in Moby Dick where the narrator sings the praises of the whaling industry and goes on and on about how vital whale oil is.
Sure, we need oil or an equivalently versatile chemical to make many of the world's modern products. I even have a plastic pump inside my brain that pumps fluid down my spinal column so that my head doesn't swell up. But we have ways of making oil renewably that will not have the nasty side effect of fucking up the planet.
You should reincarnate in the Pleaides. Earth will not die. It will however extinguish most of us in the next cataclysm that happens every 12,000 years. The magnetic pole shift solar disaster in the CIA declassified Adam and Eve story.
Oh no, not Saito Kohei!! As a leftist in Japan I'm frustrated with the guy's opportunism. Degrowth is a wonderful idea but it's just not compatible with liberal democracy. He knows that. We NEED radical change. While his analysis of the problem is not bad, his "solution" only works within (and for) the very Capitalist system he is criticizing. I think he is being purposely vague and idealist so that his books sell well without being censored. It stops the movement in its tracks and distracts from making real change. Is wisecrack none the wiser??
This. There's NO WAY to NOT take radical action. As much as some communicators don't want to recognize it and use the word 'revolution' because it might scare some people off, it still is the only solution to the problem we are in. No amount of protest or "reforms" can make capitalism transition gradually to whatever he thinks that society will be, and believing in that is absurdly idealistic. Engels was already criticizing these kind of ideas 200 years ago with his book "The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science"
This is all true. I still find it hopeful that people are coming around. It sucks that he needs to distance himself from the socialist countries which are already doing this shit (China, Vietnam, Cuba, DPRK: all these countries have a co-op sector of the economy and state control of the energy sector). That said, bit by bit reality is radicalizing the libs. Once you understand this stuff is necessary it's a pretty small step to understanding you can't get to it through a political system which the corporations have bought long ago. Hell, China has their army planting a forest the size of Ireland while the US military creates more emissions than 100 countries combined. As depressing as it is that we are not doing more in the West, China's high speed rail network which connects every major city and their relentless government funding of green energy shows that the solutions exist: it's just a matter of wresting power from corporate hands and having a state that can overrule them.
@@DinoCism I dont think China is a grear example here for ecology, as it is just doing it for the mark while polluting the world by producing almost every product that there is on this planet(you know, the cheap toys and stuff like that). China is quite capitalist despite popular belief, thats how it got its economy running
So, I don't wanna undermine Saito - I love his book, and I'd love to see his vision made reality. But one one point, at least, I think he's being overly optimistic. Because I actually DO HAVE a 25-hour work-week - heck, most weeks, it's closer to 20, spread over three days. I've got more spare time than most people can DREAM of. Do I use it to spend more time with my family? Nope, I'm happily single and visit my parents maybe once a month. Do I exercise, engage in sports, garden, volunteer, or get involved in local politics? Also no! But you should see my collection of Platinum Trophies and Steam-Achievements... Nothing like a good videogame to help you forget, for a time, the seemingly-inexorable descent towards the complete collapse of our biosphere. Take it from me.
Gee, the people who want to make the most amount of money and most amount of bonuses no matter how much they had before are blaming us because we're not stopping them enough from trying to make the most amount of money? Shocking.
The problem with degrowth isn't that it's not a solution, it's that the capitalist ruling class simply won't allow it to happen. None of the suggestions in this video or the yellow dot one are implementable without a potentially violent overthrow of the current system, which negates the entire reform part of the argument. It's not that capitalism can't be "reformed" into something better, but that reform can only happen after a revolution is already achieved. Only once a party for the working class has taken state power, a proletarian dictatorship, can we actually expect environment-protecting politics that reverse global climate change
I suggest Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel “Ministry for the Future” as an example of how transition away from carbon fuels could result using direct action, in terms of violence, legal policy, and economic changes. The moneyed interests of the world are more fragile than we think.
@@ciro_costayeah but we need to update that to technological realities of our modern world, marx wasnt fighting against companies making missles that could litterally hit postage stamp from 100s of miles away, he wasnt fighting against a 100 trilllion dollar global energy industry thats been taking advantage of the invention secrecy act of 1951 passed by Lyndon B Johnson to suppress any innovation that would greatly reduce the need for oil and gas. Theres a reason when someone invents something that gets over 100 miles to the gallon that patent is usually shevled by the us goverment and or exxon mobile at minimum and most time the inventors get a sudden case of death.
I did one of these things I’ve got elected to local office then I had my policy completely destroyed by a group of liberals working on behalf of Conservatives.
Liberals are per definition conservative btw. If your country is founded on the ideas of enlightenment (king bad, capitalism good), its founding principles are liberal. And since thats like 300-200 years ago that makes conservatism and liberalism the same.
Through a series of unfortunate events, I am no longer driving despite living in a car-centric city, so I've been walking a lot more, riding the bus a lot more, and riding my bike more. Since I've been doing this, I've already found myself feeling much closer to the other folks who live in my city. It's actually been really refreshing, and as strange as it sounds, its very freeing to not have a car. I have to plan things better, sure, and getting around takes longer, but I think it is completely worth the trade offs. I'm healthier, I have more positive interactions with strangers than I used to, am more confident, and I know my city better. There's something very zen about waiting for the bus - a concession to the universe that not all of my time needs to feel productive. I look at all of the accidents I see every day (they're constant in Phoenix) and I feel silly for having never seriously considered what I would do if that happened to me, until it did. Think about how much we're all putting our eggs into one basket with our cars. We're putting our lives on the line, polluting our environment, paying $100+ a month on insurance, then there's the gas, and upkeep, and some people even have car payments! - that's hundreds of dollars a month, and for what? Just to save a bit of time while commuting to a place miles away in a different neighborhood or even a different city (very common in the Phoenix area) that you'd never have taken a job in if you didn't have a car to begin with? Then what, if you can't drive anymore? I mean it's such a terrible idea and yet it's the status quo for most people, and we've designed our entire society around it.
When I lived in town an electric bike changed my world drastically. I was working 17 miles from home when my truck blew a head gasket. I bought the second cheapest one on Amazon and rode it about 2500 miles, mostly to and from work. My butt was iron! Got the truck fixed and lost all those gains in a year 🥴
@@NWPaul72 yeah, back when I had a car I was working 16 miles away from my apartment, and there was a time where my car needed an expensive repair that I couldn't fix right away, and I cycled from and back to my apartment for that job five days a week for like 3 months. It wasn't sustainable, it was so exhausting, and when summer starts creeping in here in Phoenix it can make a mile feel like an eternity even to someone that's fit, because that direct sun just makes everything so much worse. It's why now with my carless life, the first change I made was getting a job that isn't so gd far away to begin with. Working 16 miles away from your home is a decision only a car driver would make, because it's completely impractical with any other mode of transportation. I am sure most people will come around to a simplified, community-centered, carless life, simply because cars, and the infrastructure facilitating them, isn't sustainable in any way. I don't think it's going to be a choice in the long term, and I think it's time more people started looking for alternatives before the universe forces those alternatives on you.
@@zenleeparadise People have been stressing all those positives from ditching the car that you described for a long time, but this is just one of those things that unless you experience it yourself (usually: are forced to for some reason), you tend to not believe it or want to try it for yourself. Now I'm someone who doesn't even have a driver's license (too expensive back then, but also never lived anywhere I'd have needed a car), so I can't speak much to the "change" part of the equation. But you, knowing both sides to this: what would it have taken back then to convince you to give up the car (at least sometimes), when it was still a choice you had? As in, how do you think we should approach people wo DO have a choice today, to get them to at least consider it?
@@FinalMeep well, first off when trying to convince people of things like this, it's important to understand that most people are not "stressing" those positives of not driving to others. Most people in places like my city never hear a single argument against cars, and would find the notion that anyone is against them entirely bizarre. Just because you and maybe your social circle who likely all live in the same city as you and don't need cars either have all heard these arguments, doesn't mean people in the places where this is a problem actually ever hear these things stressed. Places where most people feel they "need" a car (Phoenix, LA, Albuquerque, etc. the list is honestly endless in the USA) most people could go their entire lives without ever meeting someone that's actually openly against cars. Discussions like these are not a normal part of most people's lives. Most people don't know anyone that doesn't drive as a choice - and while my decision wasn't necessarily a choice, I've always had someone very close to me who opted out of driving from the jump, and him being an example to me definitely went a long way in me not panicking about not being able to drive right now. There is an old version of myself that would have been determined to get this pos car of mine fixed (I do still own a car it just doesn't work) as if my life depends on it, so to some extent, me embracing this lifestyle IS a choice. Most people in Phoenix wouldn't even see fixing this car or replacing it as an option, it's just a given to them, to the point where most people in my city, in my position, would've gone out and gotten a car payment they can't afford before resigning themselves to walking and using public transportation. It's not remotely normalized to the degree which the beginning of your comment suggests. So, a big answer to your question is basically that people of like mind to us need to be the change they want to see in the world, and need to be vocal about it. There are, of course, other issues contributing to this, though. I really do think that the demonization of public transportation in places like this plays a huge part in why most people would never consider giving up their cars, and I think it's important for people to know that even in a place with some of the "worst" public transportation infrastructure, the bus is pretty consistent, and as long as you plan for potential delays (which you should be doing when you're driving, too, frankly - the amount of times I'd be early to work after cycling 16 miles to get there and my boss would be late despite driving there and having like a 10 minute commute was eye-opening to me), there really is no downside to the bus. I think it's important to emphasize to people that cars are money pits, and they are keeping you poor. I hear a LOT of whining from people my age and younger about how "third places are too expensive", "having a social life is too expensive", and I really do think that it's important to show people that there are potentially hundreds of dollars a month that they've been convinced to fork over for their car as if it is a necessity when it is, in fact, NOT. I told a coworker of mine that the shoes I wear to work/during my carless commute to work cost me $140, and she found it unbelievable that I'd ever spend that much money on a pair of shoes (I'm sure past me would've also found it unthinkable) - the most important piece of clothing one can possibly invest in for their own health and comfort, especially if you're on your feet all day. I told her "well, that's about what I was forking over every month in car insurance when I was driving" and I could see the gears in her head turning. If you combine those shoes (which I'm sure will last me years, but let's pretend they only last a year) with a month long bus pass every month of the year, that's a whopping ~$72 a month I spend on my commute. When comparing this against a car, it's genuinely astounding to me how much of my money has been freed up. And on top of that, having to think more strategically about running errands makes you save money in and of itself, too, because you're not going to be buying crap you don't need if you have to lug it across town on foot. The number of ways in which not driving saves you money is astounding. The way everyone's been completely bamboozled into chaining themselves to these cars as if it's a necessity that one's life depends on is something we have to aggressively push back against. People need to realize that it's not that we are poor, it's that we're being talked into wasting all of the money we earn on things we don't need, cars being at the tippy top of that list of things we not only don't need, but should be actively resisting against. And when you're doing all of that walking in a town like Phoenix, you start to really think "man... If we didn't need all this space for all these cars, the place I'm going probably wouldn't be so far away in the first place". And THAT is something people have to realize on their own. The de-centering of cars in our cities will just logically follow from people opting to de-center cars in their personal lives.
@@zenleeparadiseI’m so happy to see other Arizona residents figuring this out. I live 1.5 hours outside Phoenix and I live in what you could call the most walkable part of my town and if you look on a map there’s a lot more roads and parking lot space between the homes and businesses than there is space taken up by the actual homes and businesses. This is a state that consumes so much space for vehicles which enforces that everyone requires a vehicle and there’s so many realistic public options that would work for us since there’s still plenty of land to develop and of course roads that can be undeveloped to accommodate the transition pretty easily.
The "problem" with Santo's idea, is that consumerism relieves our day-to-day existential dread. I've recently fallen into a consumerist trap where I buy stuff I don't really need, because getting new products momentarily provides excitement and happiness. Relieving existential dread through any other means (like pursuing a hobby) takes a lot more effort. So all I'm saying is that shifting away from a consumerist society is going to be very difficult, not just because the companies want consumers, but because many consumers want to stay consumers.
At twelve, back in 2010, I wrote an essay talking about how is pointless to shift the responsibility to everyday person about recycling and daving water when they didn't putted in the effort to make more biodegradable packaging and doesn't matter that keeping my faucet from liking saves 5l of water per week when they don't actually tell us if 5 litterz is a lot or not and don't tell us how many millions of litters they waste on farming and industry
Mostly agree, but water on a farm isn't wasted, it's invested. I've made a lot of my wages making watering systems more efficient and effective. Agricultural runoff isn't wasted water, it's contaminated water that needs treatment. But God no, no American farmer wastes anything!
@@NWPaul72 I am not talking about familiar agriculture, but industrial farming, and in my country they usually mess up a lot and are heavily scrutinized for misusing water during draughts for both plants and cattle
@@danielnemesio3388 my bad, I was being defensive. I didn't take industrial ag into consideration and you're right, they are huge polluters and abusers of the public trust. In my area there are lots of family farms, I got blinded by the familiar. Enjoy the rest of your week!
In the long term, we'll all be dead. So sayeth Keynes. Well, he meant it as a call to action in the now to not wait for the long term to fix this, but I guess they interpreted it to mean that they shouldn't worry about the consequences because they'll be too dead to care.
@@ciro_costa To participate in that system is what is immoral. To act without regard to the consequences is ultimately still the responsibility of the actor.
@@Tahoza what solution does your view yield? Pray upon a star that one day all billionaires will be kind gentle people that will forfeit their profits in order to help people? Your view is useless because it doesn't result in a solution. When you see the system as the problem, you can understand how it works and work to dismantle it.
@@ciro_costa So are you arguing that holding people accountable is useless and that those who abuse the system are simply products of their surroundings? You're oddly antagonistic for someone who, if I had to guess, seems to think things should change. Pray tell, then, how one should go about changing the system without changing the motivations and behaviors of individuals? And I guess to answer what was probably a rhetorical question, my comment did not offer a solution. My views, as useless as you may claim them to be, might provide an impetus from which to effect change, though. Unless you happen to be one of those people I was suggesting be held accountable for their actions that is. If that's the case, I can see how you would like to absolve yourself of any responsibility and might have been insulted by my remark.
Let's not forget, programs like The Simpsons spent decades bashing things like Nuclear power to the point people not only see it as dangerous and expensive but as a joke when it's one of the greenest energies we have access to and more reliable than either fossil fuels or the other alternatives.
It's hard not to feel it's hopeless. We're living in an idiocracy and the majority of voters are too stupid to know to vote in their best interests. The turkeys are voting for christmas and we're trapped along for the ride. There's literally nothing we can do but watch the world burn while corporations just get away with it and people continue to vote for politicians who don't care.
If you think that vote was what made progress in this world them you do have a wrong view of our history. We got 8 hours by force, with VIOLENCE and spitting blood, that is the truth. The day used internationally as "workers day" is not a reminder of a peaceful day, it was the day USA cops SHOT workers in protest in the peak of USA industrialization process. Kids didnt stop going to the industry because people voted either, it was again done with popular organization and force. We do not live in a true democracy, we live in liberal democracies and those systems will NEVER let any different result, not directly controlling each vote by hand, but just defining the rules of the game. Take USA for example, how the hell a normal citizen will be able to win a presidential election when, first, there are just two parties(which are the same for us outside USA since they both invade the world) and second nomines usually have MILLIONS of dollars, really poweful friends and much more screen time than ANY worker?? The game is not made for us to win, and that is why we never won and never will. Liberal democracies will never have a trully reformist in power because it is the same as wishing to have a king putting a liberal as it's heir, it is a sign of revolution/end of a "time", not a function of the system.
I had a medical discharge, 100% and all that since I was 28. I picked up art, I work out more, I apply at jobs I wanna do, and the biggest thing was….. Put a 100% of my work focus into therapy and getting through group meetings weekly. So mentally, I feel so much better. So you’re right, slow down a little. Just cause The world sucks, don’t mean it has to.
- Only working class can save this planet. - Only working class is interested in making our home sustainable. - Only working class is willing to do anything for progress and humanity, not for profits
I hear it all the time that if people took colder showers and used more bikes instead of cars, they would magically solve the problem. The fact is, there are those who believe it and really try it. It's a drop of water in the ocean, really, we need more drastic changes. I work in the chemical industry, and I'm feeling the weight of capital over my shoulders all the time. Things gotta change.
“...The problem isn't the chain of command, the problem is the chain of obedience.” -StormCloudsGathering We've all heard of the chain of command. Usually people think of the term in the context of the military, corporate and government power structures, but in reality, all of modern society is implicated. The chain of command sounds powerful, and it imbues the officers, bureaucrats, and petty dictators of the world with a sense importance and rank.
But the term is deceptive, and hiding behind it is an open secret, hiding in plain sight.
Power does not flow from the person who administers orders. A command is inconsequential if it is ignored or laughed at. Obedience is the real foundation of misplaced power. It is in fact the chain of obedience... not the chain of command… the cumulative force of a cowardly and compliant citizenry which allows evil men to take control.
Can you imagine how Napoleon Bonaparte would be treated today if he arrived in Times Square New York and attempted to order a man put to death? Chances are he would end up heavily medicated in a padded room by the end of the day, but for a few minutes people would probably have a good laugh, and rightly so.
Separated from those who have been trained to obey them, even the most bloody heads of state are hardly more dangerous than pick pocket or mugger.
It may be true that we have a demented pack of inbred maniacs running the world right now, but they aren't the ones that I fear. I fear the conditioned masses which will put me to death at the drop of a hat if the right order is given. I fear the herd of well meaning idiots which believe that written law and authority is to be followed at all cost... even at the expense of self-evident morality. The death squads and concentration camps of history were never staffed by rebels and dissidents. They were were run by those who followed the rules. The problem isn't the chain of command, the problem is the chain of obedience. -StormCloudsGathering Abstract concepts: [0] “ The maxim of the old policies was: Divide and Conquer. It has been partly replaced by the new rule: Lend them money to keep your foot on their necks. … “ - Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, “Livres Jaunes” in Le Figaro, 2 May 1898. [1 ] Mega corp.s and similar entities are organic. A plant that senses its demise, will trigger mechanisms to accelerate the fulfilment of its purpose. [2] A "standard issue high school" bully will take away one's lunch for as long as one does not stand up to them. [3a] > = Eco- (ecos = domicile/HOME) + Nomy (nemo/nemomai = the RIGHT TO and/or MANAGE) Definition: the managing of available resources Perception: Important People > = Eco- (ecos = domicile/HOME) + Logy (logia = the STUDY OF) Definition: the study of the relationship between living things and their environment Public perception: Annoying Hippies [3b] > = Astro- (Astron = Star) + Nomy (nemo/nemomai = the RIGHT TO and/or MANAGE) Definition: the scientific study of the universe and of objects that exist naturally in space, such as the moon, the sun, planets, and stars Perception: Irrelevant Geeks > = Astro- (Astron = Star) + Logy (logia = the STUDY OF) Definition: the study of the movements and positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars in the belief that they affect the character and lives of people Perception: Confused Loonies [4] Time Definition: the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole. [5] Earth Definition: the planet third in order of distance from the sun, between Venus and Mars; the world on which we live
Don't get me wrong, what I'm trying to say is if we don't stop capitalism by doing something about our governments (who chose for the corporations and against us) we aren't just going to destroy the environment but also fight needless wars that'll probably escalate into a world war.
@@a.randomjack6661 I'm not talking about the war in Ukraine and Palestine, I'm talking about the wars for the last resources we're going to fight against upcoming economies like China, and about the wars we're going to fight against the third world to keep the climate refugees from leaving the tropics and entering our countries. We're at least as shady as the countries we're going to fight to maintain our wealth and prosperity.
@@JerehmiaBoaz Humans have always migrated as do many animals. If it wasn't for "illegal migrants' if you want to call them that, we'd have much less food in our groceries. There's only one planet Earth. If everyone would live as the average Northern American, we would need 4 Earths. We already use more than one, see Earth overshoot day. All wars are for ressources/enrichment. Short conclusion, both will die. I mean go extinct.
Land use policy and practice is a sneaky big obstacle to degrowth. Most land is either zoned for or already purchased for maximum economic output to the owner. A certain effect of this is that there is good farmland within reasonable food-mile distance to cities that’s completely unaffordable by farmers looking to build climate-forward farms due to long-term real estate speculators buying it up for insane prices in hopes the path of suburban growth will reach out that far. Farms are therefore forced even further away from population centers and thus even more tied to highly intensive methods than they would already be naturally predisposed. Unfortunately, real estate speculators hold lots of sway over policy, and creative, thoughtful people that want to build cool farms have very little. So we’re kinda stuck with a capitalist’s wet dream of an agricultural system as long as that’s the case.
I’ve thought about this a lot, and I believe you’re dead on. Land use and land access are massive obstacles to climate progress under capitalism. A populous that can’t feed itself is forced to participate in the destruction.
Americans are perfect for this Job. They told me as a child that we arose from colonies and never once cared to point out that colonization is genocidal or wrong.
Yeah, Karl Marx will save us as he did: Cambodia, Chile, China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Soviet Union, Venezuela, and Vietnam. I would love to live like them. And Karl Marx was definitely consistent in his personal life -- and not at all living at odds to what he argued. Marx's philosophical arguments were sound and his depiction of history, completely accurate.
Karl Marx rose from the dead and famously supported this handful of intertwined regimes that ended up with state capitalism after revolutions were hijacked by authoritarians due to internal and external opposition that three them to paranoia and militarism, ultimately contradicting most if not all of Marx's vision.
Economic growth doesn’t have to mean “material growth”, that is, you can grow an economy without making more things. Additionally, the argument that climate change is capitalism’s fault ignores the fact that the Soviet Union was one of the worst offenders when it came to carbon emissions, pollution, and environmental degradation. Remember how they, you know, dried up an entire inland sea through irresponsible irrigation practices?
Greenpeace and Eco-Terrorism should not look so attractive as a solution, we should be able to maneuver this debacle diplomatically, but the truth is Corporations and Capitalists just don't fight fair. The common good and my desire to see the people's will done gets crapped all over by corporations basically forcing their ideas in everyone's face. I want to fight back, but I wish the bad solutions didn't look so attractive.
I prefer Proudhon. Mutualist use of consumer worker cooperatives is a much better systems as it respects the locality of the individual stakeholders, but also prevents the exploitation of said stakeholders.
The main problem with this approach is how do you achieve it? The only reason violent revolution is seen as a necessity is because the easier and more soft revolution is always opposed by overwhelming force from the state that protects the power of the ruling class. How do we get around that?
Helped sell out the water in California to the billionaire Resnick family whose massive agricultural productions equal upwards of 4 San Francisco’s…….. progressive maybe in the 80s… all she stands for now is the forever stagnating and disconnected Democratic Party. The Ratchet Effect is very real.
It makes zero sense that infrastructure like water, energy and nessecary needs like food and housing are in private hands. The promised market mechanisms can not work with these things, its impossible. So these should not be on a market.
I agree with degrowth basically, but the big question is why. Why would the owners do this? Will we seize the means of production? Penalize them if they disagree? Why wouldn't they take the whole kit and kaboodle and plop it down in another country less inclined to hassle them? After all, capital is mobile but labor much less so.
No, we'll go down in history as the only species that went extinct because the people who wants to save our species, wants to tie their efforts to a dead ideology. Communism has already failed. Lets do something else with our time.
Because it was politically convenient, a fucking Lenin style revolution in Germany would have been a complete disaster. They got their wish with the DDR anyway, and just look how oppressive and backwards that country was! They imprisoned the Greens!
Getting rid of capitalism is the right idea. But gradual reform is not going to get us there. Reforms should be pursued when convenient, but it shouldn't be the sole avenue for change. As long as the ruling class is still at the clutches of power, reforms can always be taken away. History has taught us that only surefire way to ensure that change remains permanent is revolution. And we need one fast because at the rate the climate crisis is going, gradual reform is not going to save us in time.
Actually, electric cars are of relatively little use because you would have to use them for a few hundred years for them to become neutral. I think when it comes to transportation, you have to abolish all individual transport except for emergency services etc. and rely on public transport for everything
That's ridiculous cars will always be needed for a certain percentage of the population. I think you could replace about 80% of cars with public transport and bycycles tho
@@xx4rch4xx Cars in general are also simply inefficient because for the space they take up they transport too few people - buses, for example, are much more efficient
One way or another, we will be forced to decrease Degrowth: The planned and democratic reduction of Production and consumption in rich countries, to reduce environmental pressures or the ecological footprint, democratically planned and inequalities, therefore in the interest of social justice, all by improving everyone's quality of life
However, by redistributing wealth to the masses, and by democratizing corporations, we could continue to grow production and expand quality of life without having to reduce our ecological impact.
@@mrfigaloopierre9610 1 The production of goods/services is directly dependent on energy and therefore resources. 2 One of the only possible energy transitions is sobriety regardless of energy sources, we must insist on sobriety.
@@mrfigaloopierre9610 Nuclear power is like a ventral parachute, it is a major element of the energy transition (if we think it is realistic). The transition to 100% nuclear or renewable is only procrastination and is a deception. Vietnamese are well aware that their coal production has been multiplied by 12 since 1980. The energies add up and are in symbiosis. We will not decarbonize the economy before 2050. There are many sectors where emitting carbon is vital eg. is cement made of buildings and roads or supply networks in poor countries ?
it was also (not so) well known for being a 3rd world country, and as we all know all capitalist 3rd world countries are able to take care of their environment
I’m a leftist (and not in the American sense) but come on this has to be sarcastic. The USSR would have massive factory cities that quite literally made the environment around them so polluted it was practically toxic. One of the most polluted places in the world is in Russia and was inherited from the USSR.
Once you check this video out BE SURE to check out Part Two over on Yellow Dot's channel, featuring a conversation between Michael and Yellow Dot's Staci Roberts-Steele.
ua-cam.com/video/ot3ERDDh9Q4/v-deo.html
Pure communist propaganda
@@UnquenchableHatred nah.
Best vid ever disarming the capitalist propaganda - thank you
What happened to wisecrack? This was open propaganda. I miss Thug Notes and Aliens Guide.
The planet will not die. It will however extinguish most of us in the next cataclysm that happens every 12,000 years. The magnetic pole shift solar disaster in the CIA declassified Adam and Eve story.
The Earth’s continued existence is an obstacle in the way of achieving 4% GDP growth every year. It has to go
human life is simply inefficient to proper market operations
Holyyyyy Its that a David Harvey referencee
😂
The bottom line! America baby! Sacrifice family, other countries, friendships, health, and the environment ALL FOR THAT SWEET $$$$$ YASSS!!!
Earth's gonna be fine, it's people who are gonna be screwed.
Can you blame an oil company for gaslighting? Gas is literally their thing! :P
It only hurts when i laugh :(
Trollololol . . . 🖤🖤🖤
I am honestly just waiting for them to start putting *lead* back in the fuel to vastly reduce the cost of making it, and then not tell us and keep the prices the same anyway.
@@KnallisSillanthey'd probably market it as "new and improved" or "un-woke fuel" and charge more
@@paolacordova5335 lol. No
And always remember,
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." ― Edward Abbey
😂😂
I remember watching a debate about climate change, many years ago. There were an economists and one biologist in the panel. The biologist simply put forward the problems with climate change. Extinction, change in weather patterns, droughts starvation and war etc etc. And then the need to do something about it.
The economists then said something utterly incredible...
"Yes, yes. But you see.. What is the point of this? There is no incentive to do this. Why should we use money on this problem?"
The look of the biologist face when he heard this. And the answer.
"What about the survival of the planet and our civilization? The survival of the ecosystem we are dependent on for our life? What about not condemning millions upon millions of innocent people to death?"
I just don't see how do conservatives and traditionalits align themselves with the greedy corporations. The capitalists don't care about culture, societal values and norms, community or human civilizations ffs!
Economists just can't think of the long-term gain. If we save the planet, we can get more money eventually. Smh.
@@sketch-eee4165exactly. Cant really capitalize on anything if we are dead
@@sketch-eee4165the planet will be fine. Also even if all co2 output was cut to 0 it will still happen the north pole will still melt ect
Almost all economists are bourgeois in standpoint, is it really a surprise?
it would be nice if we lived in a world that wasnt run by sociopaths
That's ultimately the biggest flaw of capitalism is that it is system where the most greedy immoral people are favored to rise to the top. Greed should be something that's punished.
I am afraid that as long as we have structures that give too much power to specific individuals, sociopaths make sure to be those specific individuals.
somebody needs to tweak evolution just a little
@@vulcanfeline natural selection is working over time and yet still not keeping up
problem is that being a sociopath seems helpful in getting to positions to run things
As a fellow comrade once said, "Environmental activism without class struggle is just gardening with extra steps."
A bazilian acctivist killed by plantation owners by the way
That fellow comrade is Chico Mendes
Brazil mentioned!!
@@AlanSilva-bu1kp The one and only
Awesome quote
Short term gains trumps long term loss in the eyes of capitalists. Every. Single. Time.
THat's why people should be told that capitalism is not natural
let them see nature- a forest is not full of predators, an eagle does not overexert the rodents, nor does an ant overexert the plants that they use to build their nests.
Capitalism is as natural as a planes of africa being filled with lions only.
Make normies care- make them finallly realize that allowances they do extrapolate up untill it hurts them.
As Keynes said... in the long term, we'll all be dead. Normal people hear that and think "oh, so we should do what we can now to make our own lives better". Capitalists think "oh, so it doesn't matter how much worse we make things, we won't face the consequences".
I'm particularly flatulent today
Endless growth, for the sake of growth (greed=capitalism) is a cancerous idea.
As long as the losses are socialized while the gains are private.
Yeah, I don't think we have time left to slowly, gradually reduce consumption.
Now we must do this just for the damage reduction, to suffer a little less. A sudden change is never going to happen.
I think the idea is gaining traction. I don't think any degrowth curve, or growth curve of degrowth ideas, is steep enough. But it's still progress and that's worth mentioning.
@@navdragoni Historically speaking, sudden change is the primary method of change.
The problem is even if we would consume less it wont matter. There are around 6.5 billion people that are just trying to get out of poverty. To even give them a comfortable quality of life will require a massive amount of resources. For people in wealthy countries to turn around and pull the rug on everyone else would be extremely selfish.
We should build inland neocities with standards that provide extreme weather resistance. As our tools improve we should transition into underground habitats.
This may sound excessive, but given the weather we're looking at we should start digging. Autonomous networks of drones can accelerate terraforming.
25 hour work week...means making art, cooking, much more time to clean, can actually have time to volunteer or even travel
25 hr work week would be heavenly, I have so many hobbies that I barely get time to do, with both me and my wife working 40 to 50 hrs 5 days a week (not including commute times), get home eat dinner and maybe have a couple hours before you have to go back to bed, then the weekend is partially spent getting ready for the next work week (getting groceries, laundry, yardwork, etc...), there is hardly any time left to carve out for ourselves and do the things that we actually enjoy, except for the few weeks a year we get to take vacation time, a few years ago I used to have a job that was a 4 day work week (still worked 40+ hrs only Mon-Thurs) and having that extra day off (even though my wife still worked 5) was a great boost to my mental health, I was able to get all the errands completed on Friday then the weekends we got to have enough free time to have fun and relax.
I think more people would volunteer because humans get bored really quickly and emotionally thrive from doing work that they can directly see and experience the benefits of. People do so much work, but barely any of it is stuff that they wanna do. However, at the same time, basically everyone's got a constructive hobby. Think of how much more work people would do that benefits them, their social group, family, and society if they were liberated from the drudgery of the jobs they currently do against their will.
Especially if we had more time to socialize, we'd start to communicate and organize to solve real social problems really quickly, especially with the current wave of reaction we're seeing by people who are realizing how alienated and isolated they are from others and go out specifically to make friends and attend social events.
Or actually working the job YOU LOVE AND CARE FOR. And where your work MATTERS.
@@eges72
Or simply enjoy your life doing things not to the sake of pay you rent.
"The opposite of climate action is the USA." That seems accurate. 🤔
That's a lie. China won't stop polluting. India won't stop polluting. The USA is reducing, but 350 million doing better environmentally isn't enough to offset the 4 billion doing far, far worse.
Meanwhile they point and blame China for climate change. The truth is China has invested the most in renewable energy. Make it make sense.
Most propagandized people on Earth.
If only every country were to bring their levels to equal China or India, the world would be a better place.
Ya India and China are doing way better on climate action
i truly adore how openly and loudly anti-capitalist wisecrack has gotten these days
It's hard to think critically about things and not be anti-capitalist.
Literally every single issue you can think of all eventually leads to money being the main problem. Or maybe even how prioritized capital gain is over literally anything else like human life or the planet we live on😂
@@dontmisunderstand6041it's actually the other way around. You're being told what to think. You aren't thinking for yourself and it's all soooo convenient that everything you're being told also includes "capitalism bad" instead of "these people are to blame" nope gotta blame the economic system. Not the political system or the people making/allowing these actions. But hey you're totally a thinker. Let me guess you think communism and socialism can work
@@samnorris6533 I’m sorry but this is just wrong. It’s a simple way of rounding up all the perceived issues and finding a boogie man to explain them all.
So so so many of our greatest human inventions would not have been possible without the profit motive. I’m sorry but pretending otherwise is like sticking your head in the sand. I’m not saying that greed isn’t obviously the source of many problems, but this is just silly. China is the biggest source of pollution in the world. As in, if they don’t reduce emissions by a lot, it doesn’t matter what we do. We will not reduce global carbon emissions to the level we need them at, without China giving a shit about polluting. And they’re not capitalist. So to me, while I care greatly about the environment and the future, I think blaming greedy capitalists is not helpful, and it’s not even targeting the biggest contributor. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but this video just shows this massive global issue from such a narrow lens, and I think that’s bad and divisive.
@@JTFIghter6969 you're wrong sorryyyy, I never said we had to abolish the idea of profit. I said putting that shit at the top of the list in every area of society causes the shitshow were seeing today.
“Inconsistent with the wellbeing of the company”.
Where’s my world’s smallest violin…
I gotchu 🎶🤏
Not a strong argument for the continued existence of your company, I gotta say.
Continued human existence is incompatible with capitalism, you say?
Oil Executives... what is it like knowing the world would be vastly better if you were not in it?
they plugged their ears with money so can't hear the question
Yet you and everyone you know use their product. Be different, not a bot.
@@joegar47was there another option? Could I have powered my car with some other available fuel? When other options became available, did oil executives diversify their holdings or bury the technology?
But your pithy comment totally owned, bruh.
@@joegar47And yet everyone who has a choice does not chose oil. Before solar and natrual gas got cheap it was wind and wood that powered everything distant enough to be off the grid.
And the only reason we are getting natural gas from fossil sources is because of an accidental discovery of a process to extract natrual gass from shale but those resources are running low themselves, while producing natrual gas from wood has gotten cheaper and cheaper.
Instead of being a sheep for an oil CEO's next big bonus; try answering why it was wind and wood, and why it is solar, wood and natural gas today. Oil companies are heading to a cliff of thier own making and succeeding at pulling the wool over your eyes to make you think thats great, but everyone whos had to make the choice had to do the reaserch themselves.. well they saw that cliff even back in the 1950's.
@NWPaul72 just saying. If you don't like it don't use it. Don't use luxuries. Be different. You're spoiled like the rest of us
Whenever a billionaire opens their mouth, it's safe to say they're lying
That's not true and that's a stupid statement.
@@matthewkornder5586 how so?
@@g0ld3ney3 They often talk about how they want to increase their profit margins. They're not lying there.
@@matthewkornder5586 get the boot out of your mouth bro, you're losing oxygen to your brain
@@matthewkornder5586 Its true, and the only stupid thing happening here is you defending people who would gladly enslave you.
I used to work in the oil and gas industry and hated every second of it. This video is my favourite thing you've ever done. I know personally, the people at the top of this thing are well aware of what's happening to the environment, they just don't give a shit about anything but their quarterly report.
Thanks so much.
Looking at politicians today, I find out that, if anything, Captain Planet villains were too subtle.
Captain Planet. He’s a hero,
Ah yes. Word play is a fun game. Imagine if there were a group of "gardeners" going around converting oil CEOs into "fertilizer". It's just gardening guys, calm down.
regenerative farming!
I've always wanted to be a gardener, so let's do it!
ngl that sounds kinda tasty
@@xenoization so, a international coalition of Gardner's?
Lol. @@JChaos1120
We don't need "new theorists" or "new ideas" to end capitalism, the plan is the same as it has always been. Sieze the means of production. There is no way around it.
I agree with that, but we still need a plan for governance after the corporate elite fall.
@@mrfigaloopierre9610 don't worry, we do
Personally i would want to see a system like the one that was in libya before the "rebels" overthrew the government,where the people can vote for different policies but theres still a central leader (or dictator, as the cappies call it), otherwise known as jamahiriyah @mrfigaloopierre9610
@@abas656thegodemperor9 socialism entails using a system called "democratic centralism", look it up, its similar to what you described in concept
@@abas656thegodemperor9 democratic centralism
Things like this make me think of how all of the people in my immediate circles (despite being pretty aware and not wanting capitalism to rule their lives as much as it does) literally self soothe through consumption.. I do the same thing.. I try to restrict it, but buying a treat after work or a new shirt is like the way we self soothe after a shitty day of being yelled at in work. And I hang out either people who climb, hike, camp, paddle etc. but we don’t have the time or money to always be doing things that actually connect us to the earth and each other. It’s just sad. Human existence has become so sad under capitalism
you're confusing consumerism with capitalism, the problem isn't owning things, it's alienating the producers from the fruit of their labor and the accumulation of capital by the capitalists
I wish more people rrecognized this. A lot of folks have a visceral negative reaction to the concept of degrowth, like "But if I can't buy all the stuff then I just have to sit in a cave eating dirt by candlelight and being sad," and it's like -- no? The whole point here is to reduce production and consumption while still meeting everyone's needs, so you'd have a whole lot more free time to do stuff that actually makes you happy, instead of barely scraping by emotionally by buying stuff that reminds you of feeling things.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Yup. Even if presented with a picture where their lives are better in many, many ways, people just can't fathom something that's so radically different from what they're used to, and reflexively reject it. I mean, I get that "change" is scary for the human brain, but damn - not even entertaining an idea for a little while before dismissing it? Sad, really.
So communism or socialism is the solution ?
@@chanhuynguyenle301yes
WE wont get to pick anything
true
Why not? If you live in a democracy then you do.
@TheManinBlack9054 we don't have the capital these companies do
@@TheManinBlack9054you must not live in the United States. We live in a corporate oligarchy under the guise of democracy. Our electorates vote for who lines their pockets best. The popular vote does not determine the rulership of the US at a federal level. I'd rather live elsewhere.
@@caylaflower_iii Then move.
Like someone put it, climate activism without class struggle is just gardening.
"Ecology without class struggle is [just] gardening"
was said by Chico Mendes and he deserves respect and credit
It was said by Chico Mendes
Brazil mentioned!!
Seeing this really makes me want to do something, be part of something. If climate change and capitalism goes on, it will only end when it inevitably destroys us.
Look for local organizers, either environmental or socialist parties to rally, agitate, and advocate for progressive change! Getting directly involved has REALLY helped my feelings of powerlessness while achieving actual concessions from our local government and courts! Workers of the world unite! ✊🏼
There are organizations and people attempting to do quite a bit. Many of them have been farmers and it's why they're making hugs pushes to shut down farms. There's a lot to be a part of but there doesn't seem to be a consensus about a vision for the future we need. I think that's a marketing battle that hasn't been one and is difficult to fight when oil is funding the opposite.
What do you think you could be a part of if the options of business and marketing efforts to build a world where we thrive or marketing and activism, such as building a renewable farm or marketing a lifestyle that's sustainable, were open to you?
@@valoriethechemist IMO, we don't need to start with prescriptions. Start with community outreach and organizing and let the PEOPLE dictate the immediate needs that need addressing. Doing so, ensures a legit grass roots movement!
The ideas presented in this video seem vastly more destructive than capitalism + climate change combined.
Just because you have good intentions does't mean you can't cause deaths of millions. I'm sure once the bodies started piling up from consequences of their policies, like famines and other disastrous lacks of crucial goods and services, they'd be horrified. But at that point, it would already be too late to save the first few million souls.
Yes, and the goal of shareholders is to move the end date to juuuuust beyond their lifetime, so they don't have to deal with the apocalyptic consequences of their economic system.
In my 20s and 30s I believed climate change is such an major threat to humanity that we needed to use the tools we have to solve it, ie capitalism. Over time I realized that capitalism itself is the problem, so any solution needs to be anticapitalism (such as nationalizing the renewable energy sector, and you mentioned in the video).
Anti capitalism is communism. You're trying to control things you don't own.
...So instead of having private capitalists control the means of production, we should have government bureaucrats control the means of production instead of, say, the workers. Its just more capitalism, just without a market economy.
It should be noted that the German spd saying that socialism was when government started drama with Marx calling them "vulgar socialists" (as in fake), and that Engels himself noted that state ownership of the means of production was the "final stage of capitalism. Well, all that and anarchists exist.
Obviously a country that nationalizes an entire sector is a socialist nation and revolutionary. Every nation that wasnt, privatised everything.
@@umbralupus6488 To say that it would be the same thing is just historically innacurate. The moment you remove the incentive of endless growth present in logic of capital, the problem is solved. But as long as you're anti-capitalist that's good enough.
@@ciro_costa Still by definition capitalism just without the market economy. Nevermind the fact that any form of capitalism is still a class based economic structure, and just like all class based societies beforehand will always see the ruling class perpetuate and consolidate power and inevitably exploit the lower classes, whether it's the private capitalists or upper level state bureaucrats or even the old feudal lords. This isn't a problem that is unique to the current market capitalist paradigm.
Just before Soviet Union esteblished 40 hour week (when 50-60 hour working weeks were still a thing in the rest of the world), Lenin wrote "We should reduce working time to a 8 hour a day, with OBLIGATION of workers to spend 2 hours a day to learn about politics and warfare".
Yeah but he murdered the Mensheviks, fuck Lenin man🤣🤣
Because of the war communism and internationalisation of the proletarian revolution. It was his plan to do so
Such a shame that Stalin handed the USSR over to the bureaucrats, crippling the workers' power in what was supposed to be the workers' vanguard.
Yeah and it ended with working 14 hours without the chance to get a better life if you work harder. Its easy to write something but hard to make it so
@@chozer1 yeah because the combination of the corrupted bureaucracy and the USA spending them under the table in the cold war. The USSR never really stood a chance once the German Revolution failed, even Lenin said as such.
In an ideal world we should be slowing down not speeding up. Less work and more focus on family, nature and community. We're out here speed running life, achieving more than our ancestors did in a fraction of the time. No wonder we're all burnt out. Living to only 40 proably felt a lot longer during slower times and we should be taking steps to get back to that. We have so many people on this planet, we dont need everyone working so much.
We've sped things up to the point where we burn theough trends at an alarminh speed, nothing has time to develop and grow in a meaningful way and art and culture has stagnated. We're not only burning down the planet, but we arent even having fun while doing it anymore.
I just look at the illogical way we design our cities.
We force the poorest workers to have the longest commutes.
We spread our cities out with single family homes as far as the eye can see, then complain that there isn't enough density to justify public transit.
Family nature and community is unfulfilling for some people.
@@RalphdontGAFwon’t have a chance to care about anything if we dont get this under control
Won’t someone please think of the corporations! They’re just pointing out the honest truth, that WE’RE the real problem…
Right, large corporations are people, which makes them the most minor of all minorities. There are only a few thousand in the whole world!
It can be both. People vote for those who deny climate change. People complain when when anything more efficient than car dependent suburban sprawl is built. They buy enormous wasteful trucks and travel via jet everytime they can.
@@jonatand2045 you just ignored that people vote for whom the capital decides they're allowed to vote
@trollconfiavel
Nope. Leftists could have voted for Bernie, but i guessed it was easier to be activists in social media.
@@jonatand2045In America people have two legitimate options:
A candidate who doesn't believe in climate change and a candidate who won't take action against climate change.
Choose wisely lol.
Someone warned us in 1916: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism."
@@g.lucchio5660 over 100 years ago, and guess what? Still hasn't happened. That to me is more evidence against this idea than for it. Something predicted 100 years ago that never happened doesn't instill in me a sense of urgency in its truth.
@@michah321 yh, because it is not like we are living on a climate catastrophe, right?
Rosa was right: we are living on barbarism.
@@g.lucchio5660 look outside, does it really look any different? Look at historic temperatures everywhere. They haven't changed. They really haven't. I did check. There's no noticeable difference in 40 years.
@michah321 This is just a lie. Global temperature has fluctuated to a general increase sonce 1850, to a point of challenging wildlife and even our social structures. Today, we have millions of people affected by the climate crisis and forced to flee for a diverse range of drastic effects of climate change. You probably have not checked the data you said you do, but regardless, they go against your position.
@@michah321 "nuh uh"
Capitalism needs to be overthrown. It can't be done away with by reform
The funniest thing is that every single communist country in the world, and there are only a few, have introduced capitalism in limited form, because otherwise they'd be gone. Except for ONE.. North korea.
Your utopia for the taking.
🤡 🤡 what next you idiot?even far left thinkers like Zizek said capitalism should be thrown in trash but there is no successful alternative it was tried in 20 century but failed miserably
What would you rather have in its place?
@@Pyrok007 a planned economy
@@Pyrok007Revolution. Planned Economy. Democratic centralism.
The CEO is also old like bro doesn't care about the generations he's hurting cause it won't be his problem he'll die peacefully before shit gets crazy
It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism.
Capitalism is just free market, of course it's a desirable form of economic organization. Regardless of that, your statement is untrue: many works of literature and cinema have imagined alternative systems to capitalism within the realm of fiction.
@@proveritate1205 The market isn't free if it is unmined by capitalists themselves to control markets for their own benefit.
That last quote by Saito is exactly what the Powell memo was pened to prevent. America figure out back in the '70s that people with free time get politicaly engaged and said, 'nope'.
"The Earth, obviously!" - Capitalists
Because all other systems care so much for the environment?
@@Miller54K at least some other systems are physically able to care about environment lol
Didnt the video itself say a major part of CO2 emissions are caused by the fossil fuel industry? Even if there are other trouble makers i think this one causes a large share of the issue
"environmentalism without class struggle is just gardening"
Brazil mentioned!
If my rent also goes down so I can work 25hr a week...
all good options
"This Chinese man discovered this one HACK! Landlords HATE it!"
@@QuietlyHere666This fucking sent me lmao
If they could stop raising my property taxes every year, and my insurance...oh and it people would stop getting drunk and breaking windows and doors....and if cleaning supplies and building materials would be free. Ah and if the bank would start using the barter system for the mortgage,I could pay them with fruit from my orchard or with carpentry electrical work 😂
That's the point... Your 25 hrs of work should be enough to support your well-being.
“We will never get to Mars if we work less”
-Elon Musk, probably
I would LOVE to see Elon go to Mars. Truly. He doesn't even need to come back.
Total Recall is what would happen if Elon took over mars
"we won't NEED to go to Mars if you guys would knock it off" -- me
and he has all the free time and money to tweet that as often as he likes
Ááááaaaáaaáaaaa😊áaáaá😊😊@@Bojoschannel
I'd say capitalism is the problem and it doesn't depend on who runs it. It is deemed to be this way all the time
We all know which one is going to get chosen.
Sadly at least if you are saying that money will be chosen over the safety of earth because they would rather make money then save the planet and have renewable energy but if you are referring to earth being chosen instead of money then yay. P.s I feel like maybe we should just start a #boycottbigoilforever
@@Touhou20246 You've never heard of the NYC horse poo problem, have you?
@@dwarvenjesus4266 I have heard of that I just thought that it was no longer an issue in the modern day what with less people in New York riding horses everywhere.👍🏻😅😑
@@Touhou20246 Why are fewer people riding horses nowadays?
@@dwarvenjesus4266 well because of cars but just because that is the case doesn’t mean I am going to give up saving the environment and blindly submit to big oil and let them kill the planet for money if anything I still want pure electricic cars, wind power and solar power to be the energy sources to fuel everything within the USA and abroad.
I want a second wisecrack channel where Micheal picks a random internet article or trend and just rants about it unscripted for 10-15 minutes.
I would . . . love this?
Many of our streams already basically include this but it's buried in a longer video.
@WisecrackEDU I don't have time for streams, but the idea of the other commenter could be fun.
I can be taking a bath, shit, or cooking diner and have it in the background, and it has some structure (more than in a livestream, at least)
@@WisecrackEDUWe would love this too.
@@WisecrackEDUplease do it!
@@WisecrackEDU second channel just for the clips of Michael ranting during streams
Those pro oil ads that say hospitals NEED oil, and a guy going on a date NEEDS oil, distinctly reminds me of that chapter in Moby Dick where the narrator sings the praises of the whaling industry and goes on and on about how vital whale oil is.
Sure, we need oil or an equivalently versatile chemical to make many of the world's modern products. I even have a plastic pump inside my brain that pumps fluid down my spinal column so that my head doesn't swell up. But we have ways of making oil renewably that will not have the nasty side effect of fucking up the planet.
Goodbye Earth, I’m moving to Venus’ upper atmosphere
lets go be balloon boiz!
~Nef Anyo, probably
You should reincarnate in the Pleaides. Earth will not die. It will however extinguish most of us in the next cataclysm that happens every 12,000 years. The magnetic pole shift solar disaster in the CIA declassified Adam and Eve story.
Seems fair. At this point Earth's gonna be hotter and more toxic.
Can I come too?
Oh no, not Saito Kohei!! As a leftist in Japan I'm frustrated with the guy's opportunism. Degrowth is a wonderful idea but it's just not compatible with liberal democracy. He knows that. We NEED radical change. While his analysis of the problem is not bad, his "solution" only works within (and for) the very Capitalist system he is criticizing. I think he is being purposely vague and idealist so that his books sell well without being censored. It stops the movement in its tracks and distracts from making real change. Is wisecrack none the wiser??
In fact, he complains about greenwashing doing more harm than good, but his ideas de-radicalize people in the same way...
Idk either. Didn't think wisecrack would go in this direction. Very weird. Channel should be more bipartisan.
This. There's NO WAY to NOT take radical action. As much as some communicators don't want to recognize it and use the word 'revolution' because it might scare some people off, it still is the only solution to the problem we are in. No amount of protest or "reforms" can make capitalism transition gradually to whatever he thinks that society will be, and believing in that is absurdly idealistic. Engels was already criticizing these kind of ideas 200 years ago with his book "The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science"
This is all true. I still find it hopeful that people are coming around. It sucks that he needs to distance himself from the socialist countries which are already doing this shit (China, Vietnam, Cuba, DPRK: all these countries have a co-op sector of the economy and state control of the energy sector). That said, bit by bit reality is radicalizing the libs. Once you understand this stuff is necessary it's a pretty small step to understanding you can't get to it through a political system which the corporations have bought long ago. Hell, China has their army planting a forest the size of Ireland while the US military creates more emissions than 100 countries combined. As depressing as it is that we are not doing more in the West, China's high speed rail network which connects every major city and their relentless government funding of green energy shows that the solutions exist: it's just a matter of wresting power from corporate hands and having a state that can overrule them.
@@DinoCism I dont think China is a grear example here for ecology, as it is just doing it for the mark while polluting the world by producing almost every product that there is on this planet(you know, the cheap toys and stuff like that).
China is quite capitalist despite popular belief, thats how it got its economy running
So, I don't wanna undermine Saito - I love his book, and I'd love to see his vision made reality. But one one point, at least, I think he's being overly optimistic. Because I actually DO HAVE a 25-hour work-week - heck, most weeks, it's closer to 20, spread over three days. I've got more spare time than most people can DREAM of. Do I use it to spend more time with my family? Nope, I'm happily single and visit my parents maybe once a month. Do I exercise, engage in sports, garden, volunteer, or get involved in local politics? Also no! But you should see my collection of Platinum Trophies and Steam-Achievements...
Nothing like a good videogame to help you forget, for a time, the seemingly-inexorable descent towards the complete collapse of our biosphere. Take it from me.
Sounds like you’re still spending most time doing something that’s relatively low on CO2 emissions. :)
Well, we need everyone to have a 25 hour work week to make society functional, not just some exceptions.
A fellow gamer. Nice to meet you.
You think that is the optism in his view? Amazing...
Gee, the people who want to make the most amount of money and most amount of bonuses no matter how much they had before are blaming us because we're not stopping them enough from trying to make the most amount of money? Shocking.
When Automation and AI become advanced enough, we will need to shed capitalism unless we want to live in cyberpunk without any of the cool bits.
AI is extremely bad for the environment.
No meed to worry abput it. We are kinda going to skip the cyberpunk part to go into the ai gods era.
Aren't we already living in Cyberpunk without the cool bits?
The problem with degrowth isn't that it's not a solution, it's that the capitalist ruling class simply won't allow it to happen. None of the suggestions in this video or the yellow dot one are implementable without a potentially violent overthrow of the current system, which negates the entire reform part of the argument. It's not that capitalism can't be "reformed" into something better, but that reform can only happen after a revolution is already achieved. Only once a party for the working class has taken state power, a proletarian dictatorship, can we actually expect environment-protecting politics that reverse global climate change
And the new wave of fascist regimes are well aware of that.
"and if you're still here for some reason"...
Well... You told me to stay until the end... :(
WE APPRECIATE YOU.
I suggest Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel “Ministry for the Future” as an example of how transition away from carbon fuels could result using direct action, in terms of violence, legal policy, and economic changes. The moneyed interests of the world are more fragile than we think.
I like his stuff, I'll have to read that. The Mars books and Antarctica really stuck with me.
@@NWPaul72It's a good book.
you know this was done more than 100 years ago for the first time, right?
We have a prooved rulebook in how to end capitalism.
@@ciro_costayeah but we need to update that to technological realities of our modern world, marx wasnt fighting against companies making missles that could litterally hit postage stamp from 100s of miles away, he wasnt fighting against a 100 trilllion dollar global energy industry thats been taking advantage of the invention secrecy act of 1951 passed by Lyndon B Johnson to suppress any innovation that would greatly reduce the need for oil and gas. Theres a reason when someone invents something that gets over 100 miles to the gallon that patent is usually shevled by the us goverment and or exxon mobile at minimum and most time the inventors get a sudden case of death.
Doesn’t any change require direct action
I did one of these things I’ve got elected to local office then I had my policy completely destroyed by a group of liberals working on behalf of Conservatives.
Liberals are per definition conservative btw. If your country is founded on the ideas of enlightenment (king bad, capitalism good), its founding principles are liberal. And since thats like 300-200 years ago that makes conservatism and liberalism the same.
I really love this channel. I always get so happy to hear the worst news from you guys
Or at least the worst takes.
Through a series of unfortunate events, I am no longer driving despite living in a car-centric city, so I've been walking a lot more, riding the bus a lot more, and riding my bike more. Since I've been doing this, I've already found myself feeling much closer to the other folks who live in my city. It's actually been really refreshing, and as strange as it sounds, its very freeing to not have a car. I have to plan things better, sure, and getting around takes longer, but I think it is completely worth the trade offs. I'm healthier, I have more positive interactions with strangers than I used to, am more confident, and I know my city better. There's something very zen about waiting for the bus - a concession to the universe that not all of my time needs to feel productive. I look at all of the accidents I see every day (they're constant in Phoenix) and I feel silly for having never seriously considered what I would do if that happened to me, until it did. Think about how much we're all putting our eggs into one basket with our cars. We're putting our lives on the line, polluting our environment, paying $100+ a month on insurance, then there's the gas, and upkeep, and some people even have car payments! - that's hundreds of dollars a month, and for what? Just to save a bit of time while commuting to a place miles away in a different neighborhood or even a different city (very common in the Phoenix area) that you'd never have taken a job in if you didn't have a car to begin with? Then what, if you can't drive anymore? I mean it's such a terrible idea and yet it's the status quo for most people, and we've designed our entire society around it.
When I lived in town an electric bike changed my world drastically. I was working 17 miles from home when my truck blew a head gasket. I bought the second cheapest one on Amazon and rode it about 2500 miles, mostly to and from work. My butt was iron! Got the truck fixed and lost all those gains in a year 🥴
@@NWPaul72 yeah, back when I had a car I was working 16 miles away from my apartment, and there was a time where my car needed an expensive repair that I couldn't fix right away, and I cycled from and back to my apartment for that job five days a week for like 3 months. It wasn't sustainable, it was so exhausting, and when summer starts creeping in here in Phoenix it can make a mile feel like an eternity even to someone that's fit, because that direct sun just makes everything so much worse. It's why now with my carless life, the first change I made was getting a job that isn't so gd far away to begin with. Working 16 miles away from your home is a decision only a car driver would make, because it's completely impractical with any other mode of transportation. I am sure most people will come around to a simplified, community-centered, carless life, simply because cars, and the infrastructure facilitating them, isn't sustainable in any way. I don't think it's going to be a choice in the long term, and I think it's time more people started looking for alternatives before the universe forces those alternatives on you.
@@zenleeparadise People have been stressing all those positives from ditching the car that you described for a long time, but this is just one of those things that unless you experience it yourself (usually: are forced to for some reason), you tend to not believe it or want to try it for yourself. Now I'm someone who doesn't even have a driver's license (too expensive back then, but also never lived anywhere I'd have needed a car), so I can't speak much to the "change" part of the equation. But you, knowing both sides to this: what would it have taken back then to convince you to give up the car (at least sometimes), when it was still a choice you had? As in, how do you think we should approach people wo DO have a choice today, to get them to at least consider it?
@@FinalMeep well, first off when trying to convince people of things like this, it's important to understand that most people are not "stressing" those positives of not driving to others. Most people in places like my city never hear a single argument against cars, and would find the notion that anyone is against them entirely bizarre. Just because you and maybe your social circle who likely all live in the same city as you and don't need cars either have all heard these arguments, doesn't mean people in the places where this is a problem actually ever hear these things stressed. Places where most people feel they "need" a car (Phoenix, LA, Albuquerque, etc. the list is honestly endless in the USA) most people could go their entire lives without ever meeting someone that's actually openly against cars. Discussions like these are not a normal part of most people's lives. Most people don't know anyone that doesn't drive as a choice - and while my decision wasn't necessarily a choice, I've always had someone very close to me who opted out of driving from the jump, and him being an example to me definitely went a long way in me not panicking about not being able to drive right now. There is an old version of myself that would have been determined to get this pos car of mine fixed (I do still own a car it just doesn't work) as if my life depends on it, so to some extent, me embracing this lifestyle IS a choice. Most people in Phoenix wouldn't even see fixing this car or replacing it as an option, it's just a given to them, to the point where most people in my city, in my position, would've gone out and gotten a car payment they can't afford before resigning themselves to walking and using public transportation. It's not remotely normalized to the degree which the beginning of your comment suggests. So, a big answer to your question is basically that people of like mind to us need to be the change they want to see in the world, and need to be vocal about it. There are, of course, other issues contributing to this, though. I really do think that the demonization of public transportation in places like this plays a huge part in why most people would never consider giving up their cars, and I think it's important for people to know that even in a place with some of the "worst" public transportation infrastructure, the bus is pretty consistent, and as long as you plan for potential delays (which you should be doing when you're driving, too, frankly - the amount of times I'd be early to work after cycling 16 miles to get there and my boss would be late despite driving there and having like a 10 minute commute was eye-opening to me), there really is no downside to the bus. I think it's important to emphasize to people that cars are money pits, and they are keeping you poor. I hear a LOT of whining from people my age and younger about how "third places are too expensive", "having a social life is too expensive", and I really do think that it's important to show people that there are potentially hundreds of dollars a month that they've been convinced to fork over for their car as if it is a necessity when it is, in fact, NOT. I told a coworker of mine that the shoes I wear to work/during my carless commute to work cost me $140, and she found it unbelievable that I'd ever spend that much money on a pair of shoes (I'm sure past me would've also found it unthinkable) - the most important piece of clothing one can possibly invest in for their own health and comfort, especially if you're on your feet all day. I told her "well, that's about what I was forking over every month in car insurance when I was driving" and I could see the gears in her head turning.
If you combine those shoes (which I'm sure will last me years, but let's pretend they only last a year) with a month long bus pass every month of the year, that's a whopping ~$72 a month I spend on my commute. When comparing this against a car, it's genuinely astounding to me how much of my money has been freed up. And on top of that, having to think more strategically about running errands makes you save money in and of itself, too, because you're not going to be buying crap you don't need if you have to lug it across town on foot. The number of ways in which not driving saves you money is astounding. The way everyone's been completely bamboozled into chaining themselves to these cars as if it's a necessity that one's life depends on is something we have to aggressively push back against. People need to realize that it's not that we are poor, it's that we're being talked into wasting all of the money we earn on things we don't need, cars being at the tippy top of that list of things we not only don't need, but should be actively resisting against. And when you're doing all of that walking in a town like Phoenix, you start to really think "man... If we didn't need all this space for all these cars, the place I'm going probably wouldn't be so far away in the first place". And THAT is something people have to realize on their own. The de-centering of cars in our cities will just logically follow from people opting to de-center cars in their personal lives.
@@zenleeparadiseI’m so happy to see other Arizona residents figuring this out. I live 1.5 hours outside Phoenix and I live in what you could call the most walkable part of my town and if you look on a map there’s a lot more roads and parking lot space between the homes and businesses than there is space taken up by the actual homes and businesses. This is a state that consumes so much space for vehicles which enforces that everyone requires a vehicle and there’s so many realistic public options that would work for us since there’s still plenty of land to develop and of course roads that can be undeveloped to accommodate the transition pretty easily.
The "problem" with Santo's idea, is that consumerism relieves our day-to-day existential dread. I've recently fallen into a consumerist trap where I buy stuff I don't really need, because getting new products momentarily provides excitement and happiness. Relieving existential dread through any other means (like pursuing a hobby) takes a lot more effort. So all I'm saying is that shifting away from a consumerist society is going to be very difficult, not just because the companies want consumers, but because many consumers want to stay consumers.
I'd suggest reading his books. He goes beyond saying consumers should stay away from consumerism. He, instead, proposes systemic changes.
Degrowth sounds like something we can choose, or have forced upon us. My money is on having it forced upon us. We're going to party until the end.
@triangleunderstander7801 I meant "we", as in the seemingly unfazed majority
@triangleunderstander7801 you obviously aren't seeing the typical American with credit catds
@triangleunderstander7801 no doubt. And your typical American will ignore the problem and spend until the end
At twelve, back in 2010, I wrote an essay talking about how is pointless to shift the responsibility to everyday person about recycling and daving water when they didn't putted in the effort to make more biodegradable packaging and doesn't matter that keeping my faucet from liking saves 5l of water per week when they don't actually tell us if 5 litterz is a lot or not and don't tell us how many millions of litters they waste on farming and industry
Mostly agree, but water on a farm isn't wasted, it's invested. I've made a lot of my wages making watering systems more efficient and effective. Agricultural runoff isn't wasted water, it's contaminated water that needs treatment. But God no, no American farmer wastes anything!
@@NWPaul72 I am not talking about familiar agriculture, but industrial farming, and in my country they usually mess up a lot and are heavily scrutinized for misusing water during draughts for both plants and cattle
@@danielnemesio3388 my bad, I was being defensive. I didn't take industrial ag into consideration and you're right, they are huge polluters and abusers of the public trust. In my area there are lots of family farms, I got blinded by the familiar. Enjoy the rest of your week!
Socrates ‘Wealth is addictive, the rich will eventually destroy society'.
Look up pathocracy if you think you can understand very different mindsets.
which will *WE* choose? who’s “we”, billionaires?
We the workers.
Capitalists are very short-sighted. They’re too focused on profit at any costs.
In the long term, we'll all be dead. So sayeth Keynes. Well, he meant it as a call to action in the now to not wait for the long term to fix this, but I guess they interpreted it to mean that they shouldn't worry about the consequences because they'll be too dead to care.
It's not an individual moral failing of the capitalists of being short sighted.
The very logic of the system demands eternal growth.
@@ciro_costa To participate in that system is what is immoral. To act without regard to the consequences is ultimately still the responsibility of the actor.
@@Tahoza what solution does your view yield? Pray upon a star that one day all billionaires will be kind gentle people that will forfeit their profits in order to help people?
Your view is useless because it doesn't result in a solution.
When you see the system as the problem, you can understand how it works and work to dismantle it.
@@ciro_costa So are you arguing that holding people accountable is useless and that those who abuse the system are simply products of their surroundings?
You're oddly antagonistic for someone who, if I had to guess, seems to think things should change.
Pray tell, then, how one should go about changing the system without changing the motivations and behaviors of individuals?
And I guess to answer what was probably a rhetorical question, my comment did not offer a solution. My views, as useless as you may claim them to be, might provide an impetus from which to effect change, though.
Unless you happen to be one of those people I was suggesting be held accountable for their actions that is. If that's the case, I can see how you would like to absolve yourself of any responsibility and might have been insulted by my remark.
Let's not forget, programs like The Simpsons spent decades bashing things like Nuclear power to the point people not only see it as dangerous and expensive but as a joke when it's one of the greenest energies we have access to and more reliable than either fossil fuels or the other alternatives.
But But But I MADE my reuseable shopping bags. Isn't that better than buying?
i'm still re-using "single use" grocery bags. lots left still :)
It's hard not to feel it's hopeless. We're living in an idiocracy and the majority of voters are too stupid to know to vote in their best interests. The turkeys are voting for christmas and we're trapped along for the ride. There's literally nothing we can do but watch the world burn while corporations just get away with it and people continue to vote for politicians who don't care.
we have a saying in my country - the lambs chose their butcher themselves
@@Tamajyn69 god fuck you're so real for this. It's miserable
If you think that vote was what made progress in this world them you do have a wrong view of our history.
We got 8 hours by force, with VIOLENCE and spitting blood, that is the truth. The day used internationally as "workers day" is not a reminder of a peaceful day, it was the day USA cops SHOT workers in protest in the peak of USA industrialization process.
Kids didnt stop going to the industry because people voted either, it was again done with popular organization and force.
We do not live in a true democracy, we live in liberal democracies and those systems will NEVER let any different result, not directly controlling each vote by hand, but just defining the rules of the game.
Take USA for example, how the hell a normal citizen will be able to win a presidential election when, first, there are just two parties(which are the same for us outside USA since they both invade the world) and second nomines usually have MILLIONS of dollars, really poweful friends and much more screen time than ANY worker??
The game is not made for us to win, and that is why we never won and never will.
Liberal democracies will never have a trully reformist in power because it is the same as wishing to have a king putting a liberal as it's heir, it is a sign of revolution/end of a "time", not a function of the system.
17:34 quoting Rosa Luxemburg on why reforms are the way is WILD
I had a medical discharge, 100% and all that since I was 28.
I picked up art, I work out more, I apply at jobs I wanna do, and the biggest thing was…..
Put a 100% of my work focus into therapy and getting through group meetings weekly. So mentally, I feel so much better.
So you’re right, slow down a little. Just cause The world sucks, don’t mean it has to.
Jeff Rosenstock's album, "HELLMODE" lives in my mind rent-free when thinking about this stuff
Haven't heard it! Going to listen asap.
Such a great album
For me it's Rap News episode 17: Canada vs Australia - The War on Terra
- Only working class can save this planet.
- Only working class is interested in making our home sustainable.
- Only working class is willing to do anything for progress and humanity, not for profits
I hear it all the time that if people took colder showers and used more bikes instead of cars, they would magically solve the problem. The fact is, there are those who believe it and really try it. It's a drop of water in the ocean, really, we need more drastic changes. I work in the chemical industry, and I'm feeling the weight of capital over my shoulders all the time. Things gotta change.
Summary of the American candidates summed up: “I heard the one guy yelling and the other guy mumbling”😂😂😂
Even though Biden resigned it still hits
“Violence solves everything” - said the time traveler in Gladiator
“...The problem isn't the chain of command, the problem is the chain of obedience.”
-StormCloudsGathering
We've all heard of the chain of command. Usually people think of the term in the context of the military, corporate and government power structures, but in reality, all of modern society is implicated. The chain of command sounds powerful, and it imbues the officers, bureaucrats, and petty dictators of the world with a sense importance and rank.
But the term is deceptive, and hiding behind it is an open secret, hiding in plain sight.
Power does not flow from the person who administers orders. A command is inconsequential if it is ignored or laughed at.
Obedience is the real foundation of misplaced power.
It is in fact the chain of obedience... not the chain of command… the cumulative force of a cowardly and compliant citizenry which allows evil men to take control.
Can you imagine how Napoleon Bonaparte would be treated today if he arrived in Times Square New York and attempted to order a man put to death? Chances are he would end up heavily medicated in a padded room by the end of the day, but for a few minutes people would probably have a good laugh, and rightly so.
Separated from those who have been trained to obey them, even the most bloody heads of state are hardly more dangerous than pick pocket or mugger.
It may be true that we have a demented pack of inbred maniacs running the world right now, but they aren't the ones that I fear. I fear the conditioned masses which will put me to death at the drop of a hat if the right order is given. I fear the herd of well meaning idiots which believe that written law and authority is to be followed at all cost... even at the expense of self-evident morality.
The death squads and concentration camps of history were never staffed by rebels and dissidents. They were were run by those who followed the rules.
The problem isn't the chain of command, the problem is the chain of obedience.
-StormCloudsGathering
Abstract concepts:
[0] “ The maxim of the old policies was: Divide and Conquer. It has been partly replaced by the new rule: Lend them money to keep your foot on their necks. … “
- Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, “Livres Jaunes” in Le Figaro, 2 May 1898.
[1 ] Mega corp.s and similar entities are organic. A plant that senses its demise, will trigger mechanisms to accelerate the fulfilment of its purpose.
[2] A "standard issue high school" bully will take away one's lunch for as long as one does not stand up to them.
[3a] > = Eco- (ecos = domicile/HOME) + Nomy (nemo/nemomai = the RIGHT TO and/or MANAGE)
Definition: the managing of available resources
Perception: Important People
> = Eco- (ecos = domicile/HOME) + Logy (logia = the STUDY OF)
Definition: the study of the relationship between living things and their environment
Public perception: Annoying Hippies
[3b] > = Astro- (Astron = Star) + Nomy (nemo/nemomai = the RIGHT TO and/or MANAGE)
Definition: the scientific study of the universe and of objects that exist naturally in space, such as the moon, the sun, planets, and stars
Perception: Irrelevant Geeks
> = Astro- (Astron = Star) + Logy (logia = the STUDY OF)
Definition: the study of the movements and positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars in the belief that they affect the character and lives of people
Perception: Confused Loonies
[4] Time
Definition: the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.
[5] Earth
Definition: the planet third in order of distance from the sun, between Venus and Mars; the world on which we live
The choice is already made, society just hasn't accepted it.
Don't get me wrong, what I'm trying to say is if we don't stop capitalism by doing something about our governments (who chose for the corporations and against us) we aren't just going to destroy the environment but also fight needless wars that'll probably escalate into a world war.
@@JerehmiaBoaz They ARE escalating.
@@JerehmiaBoaz 1942 Quote from #Orwell: "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist, this is elementary common sense"
@@a.randomjack6661 I'm not talking about the war in Ukraine and Palestine, I'm talking about the wars for the last resources we're going to fight against upcoming economies like China, and about the wars we're going to fight against the third world to keep the climate refugees from leaving the tropics and entering our countries. We're at least as shady as the countries we're going to fight to maintain our wealth and prosperity.
@@JerehmiaBoaz Humans have always migrated as do many animals.
If it wasn't for "illegal migrants' if you want to call them that, we'd have much less food in our groceries.
There's only one planet Earth. If everyone would live as the average Northern American, we would need 4 Earths.
We already use more than one, see Earth overshoot day.
All wars are for ressources/enrichment.
Short conclusion, both will die. I mean go extinct.
Only when the last fish is caught; the last metal is drawn from the earth and the last tree is cut down, money cannot be eaten.
The CEOs have addresses
Watching this after inauguration day is....devastating
Land use policy and practice is a sneaky big obstacle to degrowth. Most land is either zoned for or already purchased for maximum economic output to the owner. A certain effect of this is that there is good farmland within reasonable food-mile distance to cities that’s completely unaffordable by farmers looking to build climate-forward farms due to long-term real estate speculators buying it up for insane prices in hopes the path of suburban growth will reach out that far. Farms are therefore forced even further away from population centers and thus even more tied to highly intensive methods than they would already be naturally predisposed.
Unfortunately, real estate speculators hold lots of sway over policy, and creative, thoughtful people that want to build cool farms have very little. So we’re kinda stuck with a capitalist’s wet dream of an agricultural system as long as that’s the case.
I’ve thought about this a lot, and I believe you’re dead on. Land use and land access are massive obstacles to climate progress under capitalism. A populous that can’t feed itself is forced to participate in the destruction.
You guys are spoiling us! Live and video?! Thanks 🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
Americans are perfect for this Job. They told me as a child that we arose from colonies and never once cared to point out that colonization is genocidal or wrong.
Yeah, Karl Marx will save us as he did: Cambodia, Chile, China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Soviet Union, Venezuela, and Vietnam. I would love to live like them.
And Karl Marx was definitely consistent in his personal life -- and not at all living at odds to what he argued. Marx's philosophical arguments were sound and his depiction of history, completely accurate.
Karl Marx rose from the dead and famously supported this handful of intertwined regimes that ended up with state capitalism after revolutions were hijacked by authoritarians due to internal and external opposition that three them to paranoia and militarism, ultimately contradicting most if not all of Marx's vision.
"Ecology without class struggle is gardening" -Chico Mendez
Economic growth doesn’t have to mean “material growth”, that is, you can grow an economy without making more things.
Additionally, the argument that climate change is capitalism’s fault ignores the fact that the Soviet Union was one of the worst offenders when it came to carbon emissions, pollution, and environmental degradation. Remember how they, you know, dried up an entire inland sea through irresponsible irrigation practices?
Greenpeace and Eco-Terrorism should not look so attractive as a solution, we should be able to maneuver this debacle diplomatically, but the truth is Corporations and Capitalists just don't fight fair. The common good and my desire to see the people's will done gets crapped all over by corporations basically forcing their ideas in everyone's face. I want to fight back, but I wish the bad solutions didn't look so attractive.
I prefer Proudhon. Mutualist use of consumer worker cooperatives is a much better systems as it respects the locality of the individual stakeholders, but also prevents the exploitation of said stakeholders.
SAVE US DADDY MARX
Thats probably what his children said while he lazed around spending his friends money on luxuries and didnt bathe.
@@czeckwarrior2230 he was so dedicated to the movement he had no time to take a shower
Weird how fragile billionaire necks are.
The main problem with this approach is how do you achieve it? The only reason violent revolution is seen as a necessity is because the easier and more soft revolution is always opposed by overwhelming force from the state that protects the power of the ruling class. How do we get around that?
The Earth.
Describing Feinstein as a progressive liberal is kinda hilarious
Helped sell out the water in California to the billionaire Resnick family whose massive agricultural productions equal upwards of 4 San Francisco’s…….. progressive maybe in the 80s… all she stands for now is the forever stagnating and disconnected Democratic Party. The Ratchet Effect is very real.
Don’t worry, the free market will regulate itself and the wealth will trickle down.
What could go wrong
This title has monster truck rally commercial energy. Love it.
Honestly what we were going for
It makes zero sense that infrastructure like water, energy and nessecary needs like food and housing are in private hands. The promised market mechanisms can not work with these things, its impossible. So these should not be on a market.
We could be living in automated cyber communism but instead we gotta have a small cabal of VERY rich people that owns the world.
Lets be specific, who are those 50 companies and its ceos?
MBS - Saudi aramco Darren Woods - Exxon
I agree with degrowth basically, but the big question is why. Why would the owners do this? Will we seize the means of production? Penalize them if they disagree? Why wouldn't they take the whole kit and kaboodle and plop it down in another country less inclined to hassle them? After all, capital is mobile but labor much less so.
We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost-effective." -Vonnegut
No, we'll go down in history as the only species that went extinct because the people who wants to save our species, wants to tie their efforts to a dead ideology.
Communism has already failed. Lets do something else with our time.
@@aaroncabatingan5238 how has communism failed?
Capitalists Speedrun Ecological Annihilation - Difficulty: Likely.
good video. i agree mostly but remind me why rosa luxemburg was killed.
Because it was politically convenient, a fucking Lenin style revolution in Germany would have been a complete disaster. They got their wish with the DDR anyway, and just look how oppressive and backwards that country was! They imprisoned the Greens!
@@aturchomicz821 the GDR was stalinist... and thats a form of faschism. heck if you want proof: the party from the book 1984 is based on stalinism.
@@Irobert1115HDOf fucking course. "lIteRallY 1984"
@@abas656thegodemperor9 it is confimred that ingsoc is in fact based on stalinism.
@@Irobert1115HD Okay great. I didnt fucking ask.
There is a third option, expanding into space. Daniel Suarez’ two book series ‘Delta V’ explains it wonderfully
Getting rid of capitalism is the right idea. But gradual reform is not going to get us there. Reforms should be pursued when convenient, but it shouldn't be the sole avenue for change.
As long as the ruling class is still at the clutches of power, reforms can always be taken away. History has taught us that only surefire way to ensure that change remains permanent is revolution. And we need one fast because at the rate the climate crisis is going, gradual reform is not going to save us in time.
Remember Thug Notes?
Those were good times
Actually, electric cars are of relatively little use because you would have to use them for a few hundred years for them to become neutral. I think when it comes to transportation, you have to abolish all individual transport except for emergency services etc. and rely on public transport for everything
That's ridiculous cars will always be needed for a certain percentage of the population.
I think you could replace about 80% of cars with public transport and bycycles tho
Engineering Explained, a channel ran by a mechanical engineer, has an excellent video on this subject. Your talking point is debunked in the video.
@@xx4rch4xx Cars in general are also simply inefficient because for the space they take up they transport too few people - buses, for example, are much more efficient
One way or another, we will be forced to decrease
Degrowth: The planned and democratic reduction of
Production and consumption in
rich countries, to reduce environmental pressures or the ecological footprint, democratically planned and inequalities, therefore in the interest of social justice, all by improving everyone's quality of life
"The opposite of poverty isn't wealth, it's justice."
-A Wiser Soul Than Me.
However, by redistributing wealth to the masses, and by democratizing corporations, we could continue to grow production and expand quality of life without having to reduce our ecological impact.
@@mrfigaloopierre9610
1 The production of goods/services is directly dependent on energy and therefore resources.
2 One of the only possible energy transitions is sobriety regardless of energy sources, we must insist on sobriety.
@@noteddy Nuclear power offers an extremely long term, safe, and reliable solution to energy problems.
@@mrfigaloopierre9610 Nuclear power is like a ventral parachute, it is a major element of the energy transition (if we think it is realistic).
The transition to 100% nuclear or renewable is only procrastination and is a deception. Vietnamese are well aware that their coal production has been multiplied by 12 since 1980. The energies add up and are in symbiosis. We will not decarbonize the economy before 2050. There are many sectors where emitting carbon is vital eg. is cement made of buildings and roads or supply networks in poor countries ?
The Soviet Union was well known for taking care of the environment.
it was also (not so) well known for being a 3rd world country, and as we all know all capitalist 3rd world countries are able to take care of their environment
I’m a leftist (and not in the American sense) but come on this has to be sarcastic. The USSR would have massive factory cities that quite literally made the environment around them so polluted it was practically toxic. One of the most polluted places in the world is in Russia and was inherited from the USSR.