system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Whether climate change is man-made or not is irrelevant.

In political discussions around climate change a common argument by those who do not want to legislate against fossil fuels, deforestation, mass land farming, greenhouse gas emissions, industrial biodiversity loss, rising temperatures, etc. seems to be that climate change is a natural thing that happens on Earth over time. I personally don't believe this argument is realistic since studies show a sharp spike in greenhouse gases and global temperature over the past 100 years uncharacteristic with any long-term trend, however that isn't the point of this CMV. I won't be responding to comments about what \*\*causes\*\* climate change, and I encourage any discussions to avoid that topic as well. The point is that, no matter what, the governments and corporations of the world should be investing more into sustainable technology than they already are.

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\*\*Even if\*\* climate change is largely or wholly natural, I still believe we should be doing more about it. If we accept that it's going to be happening no matter what then we should still be investing money, time, and expertise into moving away from using hydrocarbons and taking \*proactive\* steps to reduce the future impacts of things like forest fires and hurricanes that have been growing more and more prevalent. Weather disasters, rising sea levels, and record high temperatures are things that are observably happening more and more frequently. Regardless of the cause we need to deal with these problems before they become insurmountable. We need better forestry programs. better disaster planning, coastline protection, improved flood defenses, and ways for farming to adapt to cope with summers that are growing longer and hotter.

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\*\*Even if\*\* investing in green energy and sustainable resources not derived from fossil fuels won't prevent climate change we should still pursue them as a more sustainable world will always be better to live in than the same world with finite resources. An unfortunate consequence of supply-and-demand capitalism is that if a desirable (or even vital) commodity is in short supply, it will inevitably end up being exploited by whoever first corners the market. Now I'm not suggesting that some Star Trek style post-scarcity socialist utopia is just around the corner; some of these things will take decades or even centuries to perfect, but it's never too early to start. It seems obvious to me that with a degrading habitat and depleting resources humanity needs to find new ways to do it's old tricks.

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We can develop new, efficient ways of extracting resources without fundamentally changing the way we live. For example if electric cars were as good in every way as combustion cars then we wouldn't notice a difference, but we'd have removed one of our dependencies on a finite resource. If all our electricity came from renewables, we could still surf the web, go to the cinema, use our mobile phones, but we'd remove the risks of increasing energy prices as fossil fuels inevitable become more scarce. By moving away from a scarcity economy we'd also remove a major factor in global political and military conflict; resource acquisition. More resources -> less demand -> less need for competition. It's a bit of a meme by this point, but I don't think anyone can disagree that Western intervention in the Middle-East was largely motivated by securing oil supplies. This, like Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa, is behaviour that stretches right back to European colonialism. The world moved away from colonialism after improved technologies levelled the field and allowed for national self-determination. Similarly, new technologies allowing cheaper living will actually give a way for the existing public pressure surrounding sustainability to enact the change it wants to see.

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Some counterpoints I anticipate seeing:

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\> This sounds expensive, we need to focus on "now" problems like the economy, social justice, and world peace.

Yes, true, but I don't think these are mutually exclusive goals. New infrastructure technology, from steam power to mass transport to computer chips, if properly applied has \*always\* benefited the economy whether it was intended to or not. All we need is for everyone to agree to invest in and use it; if nobody had bothered to invest in microchips we wouldn't be living in a digital age right now. Renewables promise entire new professional and industrial sectors that can benefit everyone. It also requires a shift in political thinking away from selfishly centralising power and towards "legislative altruism" (I made that up but you get what I mean). This is the same root issue as with social justice; poverty, systemic racism, rehabilitation, education, etc.; and so these two issues again go hand-in-hand. I've already outlined how more resources means less conflict, and I think this applies easily to homeland security for everything from terrorism to illegal immigration (again, this CMV isn't about whether immigration poses a security threat). Simply put, if resources are more available then less nations will step on each others' toes and less people will need to seek life in other countries.

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\> This should come from the people; you can't legislate societal change, it needs to come from the ground up.

Sure, the pressure for change works best when it's from the people, but the people cannot enact those changes themselves. The resource consumption of one person in their lifetime pales compared to what a corporation burns through in a day. I have no control over these corporations; the free market does not apply because \*\*there are no alternatives\*\*. I can't boycott the oil industry because I need to drive my car to get to work, everything is made of plastic, and most of my electricity comes from power stations. Small scale eco-communes exist, true, and these demonstrate that such a society is broadly possible, but to make it feasible for everyone we need top-down legislation and funding from governments to enforce the change.

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\> New technologies will just create new monopolies favouring whichever country/company develops it first.

Speaking as someone working in engineering academia, for any given problem there are dozens to hundreds of teams working on it simultaneously. They don't all just stop when one finishes, because any solution can always be improved and innovated upon. The one concession I would make is that countries who have more resources \*now\* will be better able to make use of these new technologies and that poorer nations risk being left behind. This is where that legislative altruism I mentioned rejoins the party; in this instance I think richer economies have a moral duty to help elevate poorer economies. You could say this is simply colonialism in a different guise, and you'd probably be right, but frankly that's a short-term price I'd happily pay for a long-term sustainable future.

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Thanks for reading, I know it was a long one, but I think it's a point worth discussing. The world can only change if enough people want it to, and for that to happen we have to agree what we're fighting for.
gpt
Knowing why the climate is changing is very relevant because that dictates the actions that need to be done to prevent change.

If you believe that it is man made then you will agree with people reducing their CO2 footprint. You wouldn't mind policies that restrict your choices of products (i.e less gas engine vehicles compared to electric vehicles). You wouldn't mind policies that force/encourage you to switch over to green energy.

Now on the other hand, if you believe that this is a natural cycle which man plays no big role, then all of those policies above could seem to be more intrusive into your freedoms. Which in turn makes you less willing to support those actions. Also it could seem to be an overreaction at the expense of the economy.