Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let’s ignore that)

I dont think its as simple as “tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars” because thats not realistic.

Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.

I know yall will have fun with this!

  • zlatiah@lemmy.world
    3·
    19 hours ago

    My proposal… this is a “long con”, so this seem more like a political proposal rather than something that can quickly fix up our society to be less polluting:

    1. Start/contribute to a political party that is catered towards young voters, with somewhere between center-left to full left-wing orientation. Note that sadly this party cannot be “far-left” so no eating billionaires or drastic corporate taxes… yet. Climate change will be a core part of the agenda, but at this point the party has to only focus on low-hanging fruit options (improve recycling & waste management, fines on recycling, taxes on cars, company cars, and high-consumption households, etc). Very important that intermediate steps such as nuclear is accepted (in contrast to some Green Parties), we can’t afford to ruin the economy at this point
    2. Try to pre-emptively rule out serious cases of corruption and/or nepotism, and try to base party focuses and decisions on politically unbiased scientific outputs; might need to hire a good scientific panel
    3. Use whatever means possible to try and gain popularity without changing the party’s principles. Ads… yes. Social media… yes. Paid influencers… have to swallow a hard pill here but also yes
    4. Try to win enough seats to form a majority coalition government with left-leaning and/or green parties. This is where point 1’s not being far-left yet comes into place as the party will need to be at least somewhat popular with most voters and most other politicians
    5. Work with the coalition to reduce tax loopholes, try to classify more forms of rich-people “income” into regular taxable income, and shift the main beneficiaries of party politics to focus on the working class. So no more tax loopholes for the rich as much as we can try… and the “no corruption” part from point 2 becomes very important here as otherwise the plan can go to waste
    6. The government should have a healthy tax base at this point. Now start giving tax incentives to perform more serious individualistic environmentally-friendly options (for example, subsidized high-speed rail instead of plane, install solar panels, biking instead of driving), and heavily tax or penalize situations that are polluting with no particular upsides (one-time use plastic, private jets, ,)
    7. Now THINK BIGGER. Invest tax money to public transit and green energy infrastructure; the population might be accepting of more radical interventions such as banning private jets or prison time for some execs now so we can start doing that

    … Frankly, if anyone actually carries out this plan until like step 5 or 6, I think the exact details regarding combat climate change would be trivial, since the government would have very sufficient resources/good will/power to do so at that point