Source: Leonard Chemineau, based on this paper: Discourses of climate delay by Lamb et al.
Yeah, that's the main part I disliked (I like the art style more generally) - the association of hammer and sickle with inaction. Though it's also somewhat a recognition of the fact communism cares about actual social justice I guess.
Well it is bad if it's used specifically as a pretext to prevent climate change mitigation without actually caring about social justice, which is what this depicts. There's no judgment of social justice in general at all in the paper this originated from.
But that’s not a thing that happens at any meaningful scale
Perhaps not at a meaningful scale, but believe me, it happens. I see it regularly on /r/collapse, the discourse being usually (roughly) "but third world nations also have a right to industrialize in the same way, they should be allowed to produce CO2e gases to that effect" instead of the much more sane "western nations should be forced to provide funds and technology to third world countries so they can industrialize and improve without additional emissions".
Can you elaborate ? as a disclaimer, I'm a mod there. I should also mention both the mod team and the userbase leans pretty left (see the related subs for example - the largest overlapping one being the old CTH sub) - which is a common consequence of becoming collapse-aware anyway.
We collectively cannot emit any more CO2 though. It's not an option. In fact we should've stopped decades ago. I'd prefer they attack western nations directly instead (nukes made this mostly impossible though I guess) if the second is not possible.
IS it just my or does #8's drawing feel kind of transphobic?
IDK, it could jsut be cool and good NB/nongenderconformist representation but the context of the only gender nonconformist person being a) nonflatteringly drawn and b) having their their role as "concern trolls that climate change action would hurt vulnerable people" is kind of ringing alarm bells.
Anyways, G O O D post.
On the actual content of #8, I'd actually agree that climate change action wouldn't necessarily burden vulnerable people, at least not any more than y'know, catastrophic climate change. The bigoted capitalist fucks are already "burdening" (read: exploiting) us as much as they think they're able, like, they're not holding back out of the goodness of their fucking hearts or anything. Libs would definitely try to use climate action as a rhetorical bludgeon ala "we're all going through hard times right now", "wow, you want better living conditions, why do you hate the planet", "now's not the time to deal with this, we have to come together with our slavemasters to fight climate change", against anyone pushing for actual radical change though.
I thought the same thing. Like it wasn't enough that the social justice one is a total strawman, they had to make them ugly and androgynous. Libs can't argue a point without punching down.
I've reported my post to the admins / mods, letting them be the judge. Now I feel a bit shitty with the feedback I received and the transphobia I may have missed, and I'm sorry, just liked the art style and wanted to spread some more climate change awareness.
IMO you didn't personally mess up. It's only a portion of the image and it's easy to overlook, but when I saw the hammer and sickle I couldn't help but zoom in and really scrutinise the charicature. I just hate how libs can try to make a good point about some progressive issue but then mock leftists, workers, and oppressed people in the same breath.
IS it just my or does #8’s drawing feel kind of transphobic?
Perhaps ? you made me notice it. I truly don't know either. Hope it's not. Will of course remove the post if others weigh in and feel the same.
On the actual content of #8, I’d actually agree that climate change action wouldn’t necessarily burden vulnerable people, at least not any more than y’know, catastrophic climate change. The bigoted capitalist fucks are already “burdening” (read: exploiting) us as much as they think they’re able
Citizens of countries less affected, initially ? perhaps, and that's an interesting point, thanks. Climate refugees though ? you just know some countries will adopt a "genocide at the border" policy when the number of refugees gets high enough.
I mean, it's impossible to ignore that endeavors like the Green New Deal will require a level of extractivism and industrial activity that will not be offset by the "green tech" that it produces .
Especially since the GND is built with the assumption that ("green") capitalism will be the prevailing economic system on which it relies, while ignoring the environmental damage and loss of human lives in the effort to quickly make up for lost time.
The only way to truly protect vulnerable populations (and avoid Malthusian arguments of "humans need to accept their fate/reduce the population") from the worst effects of climate change, we really need to lower the standard of living of the most wealthy people (including the majority of middle-class and higher people in developed/industrialized countries) and heavily reduce energy consumption instead of relying on new tech to pretend to solve the problems for us.
And of course, this requires a complete decoupling from capitalism and market-based economic systems in order to actually work.
we really need to lower the standard of living of the most wealthy people (including the majority of middle-class and higher people in developed/industrialized countries)
Exactly right. If we are to have a future at all, it's decentralized permaculture with much less commodities - and more local production and consumption. The only likelyhood of a future (and that's a weak chance at that, given how we've fucked the planet) is degrowth, which capitalism cannot provide.
I mean, degrowth will definitely happen, either by choice or as a result of just a lack of resources leading to population die-off (from disease, hunger, political instability).
The problem is that if it doesn't happen through an anti-capitalist revolution (of whichever flavor you prefer 😉), degrowth and scarcity will happen in a bottom up direction, killing the poor etc, until only the wealthy are left clutching their few remaining non-irradiated water tanks and iPhone XXs. (I guess this is why so many tech capitalists are gunning for automation, but even that takes unrenewable energy sources to manufacture/maintain)
even solar panels and wind turbines have an operational lifespan of maybe 10ish yearsStates are going to contract as a natural consequence of this, maybe artificial borders will exist, but actual state control/functions will continue to focus mainly in the few remaining habitable urban centers, with rural areas becoming increasingly inarable.
I don't have much to add except I mostly agree but also: how did you make pink text ? that's cool as fuck.
Oh sure thing!
The pink text is the
inline codemarkdown formatting (enclose your text in back ticks `), (you can see the full list of formatting options by clicking on the (?) button after the spoiler tag on the format options below a comment/post box)I like it since it lets me do another form of alt-text, since I talk in parentheticals a lot
Thanks a bunch :-) thinking of using that instead of bold when I quote stuff.
I should also add that 8 is obviously true, which is why a switch to communism is required in order to redistribute wealth to avoid deep injustice to the poorest.
Number 11 is also likely true, in that the collapse of modern civilization is likely a certainty now; though that doesn't mean action is useless, since at the very least it may give us a chance - however small - to avoid much worse: human extinction (and that of much of the biosphere).
Modern capitalist civilization must collapse, this has been the case for the last 150 years or more. It's wasteful, imperialistic, unjust, etc. Whether we get socialism or the common ruin of the contending classes depends on what we do over this decade.
On that we agree, but the current trajectory leans towards the collapse of all forms of civilization, be they capitalist or not (and in large part thanks to capitalism itself). Communism is still worth fighting for, mainly for the small interim period where things get really bad, but we are going back to a dark age (except not really, more like a weird possibly feudal agrarian-cyberpunk mix I think - but that's the very best option I still hold up hope for, and it's unlikely) for sure. The real worry is that by all metrics, previous similar CO2e events lead to wide-scale extinction (and we're emitting CO2 like there's no tomorrow - at least 10x as fast as the worst mass extinction on the historical record).
I'm assuming the illustrator was thinking of the Yellow Vest movement - predominantly working-class/lumpen in character, and ignited by a hike on gas taxes - when they chose their depiction of Fig. 8. Green capitalists absolutely will shove the burden of GHG emissions reduction onto the poor and the working class (especially those outside of the imperial core!), and their occasional refusals to cooperate will fuck up the execution any climate policy that relies primarily on increasing their exploitation/immiseration.
ignited by a hike on gas taxes
Ignited maybe, though the movement quickly became a working-class movement with objectives far beyond that (and fully agreed with the rest of your comment). Though as a French dude I'm sad to report that profiteering con-mans and conspiracy theorists may have killed much of the movement's impetus by now. Not to worry though, we're French and an economic crisis is rearing its head, so you better believe a ton of cars are going to be burned and a ton of cops are going to be hurt (though sadly less than protesters) in the upcoming months.
When the Brexit/MAGA chuds tried to claim the movement in the Anglosphere with no apparent pushback from the Anglo left, on top of the complete MSM blackout (except maybe foreign-owned networks like Al-Jazeera and RT that hardly anyone watches) on the subject after maybe the first month or so, I knew there was no fucking way it was going to actually penetrate the existing left here.
Here's hoping the Yellow Vests rise again with a clearer anti-capitalist message. Best case scenario, we see some sort of convergence with BLM and the Yellow Vests.
I'm reading it as those are supposedly arguments communists/socialists/the left use against trying to do anything about climate change. "We don't want to do anything because it will hurt the poor", basically.
Which is utterly ridiculous, but this was almost certainly made by a lib, so you know... Par for the course.
Yeah, it's pretty much the inverse of reality. Communists push for climate action harder than anyone because they know that inaction and climate catastrophe will devastate the Global South the hardest.
It's like the author started backwards from the assumption that leftists are part of the problem.
The assumption seems to be "literally no one wants to do anything".
That's also mostly how I interpreted that part of the image, but see this comment, maybe I'm wrong.
why make a comic with lots of text and have it hard to read lmao terrible design
The text is not the most readable, you're not wrong. This format, based on the same paper, may be slightly more readable.
2, 8 and 11 are right but portrayed in the same bullshit way everyone wants to imagine. The top 10% of emitters produce 50% of the emissions. And yeah, it's too late.
