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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   23799 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024

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No, the third (3rd) way is degrowth. Affordable and reliable energy is not a human right, it is a construct of white supremacism and colonialism which doesn't take into consideration climate justice and accountability to the stakeholders.

That's not an option.

It's something that a handful of radicals talk about on the internet, mostly alongside extreme ignorance of the effects of any of the policies they symbolically recommend, but it has no purchase with the actual electorate.

As Ashlael notes, Australians care about energy prices. Energy prices win (or lose) elections, and if the Australian public feels the pinch of energy costs, or worse, starts feeling a measurable decrease in standard of living, they will turf out any government that seems responsible for it.

Climate change activists have been complaining about this for a long time, actually - the moment it hits the hip pocket, the public always pick side "lower prices, worry about climate change later". We're willing to vote for lower emissions and growth, but we absolutely will not vote for lower emissions at the cost of growth.

Degrowth is dead in the starting gates. It's not happening.

Ironically, I think the combination of left-wing policies actually makes it less likely, not more - the white-supremacism-and-colonialism argument only has appeal to liberal middle-class white people who feel a sense of collective guilt. However, as Australia becomes more ethnically and culturally diverse, that means that guilty white people will only come to make up less and less of the overall population, and have less power as a voting bloc. Chinese or Indian migrants largely do not respond to arguments about white supremacism or colonialism or historical injustices, for hopefully obvious reasons.

This is of course retarded and will lead to populists who end emissions regulations getting elected.

Like seriously, concern about climate change will not survive the first wave of blackouts.

This is of course retarded and will lead to populists who end emissions regulations getting elected.

Not if they ensure all such populists are excluded from the ballot.

This has, in fact, already happened.

When the blackouts start, they'll blame wreckers who refuse to conserve.

Longer term yes. But true believers can cause enormous damage now while we await the populists.

Especially not if the true believers harden the country's institutions against democracy. As some people are doing in preparation for the return of Trump.

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