this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Let me fix that analogy. Imagine everyone in the room is pumping varying amounts of gas into the room and if they suddenly decide to stop, a significant number of people in the room are going to die.
Now sure, people are going to die anyway, but humans tend to be a lot more comfortable with the negative consequences of inaction than the negative consequences of action.
But pumping the gas is the action, and stopping is inaction.
What would it require for people to restructure modern society in a way that would allow humans to stop producing greenhouse gases? A lot of actions. We can't simply "stop" without the widespread availability of alternative technologies for energy production and transportation.
We are already allowed to stop. Turning on a machine is an action. We don't need more technology to stop using existing technology.
It sounds like your concern is more systemic than the literal action of polluting. In which case, the action we're currently taking is legal protection of polluters from people who would defend themselves.
Sorry if this is putting words in your mouth, but we aren't entitled to all the same stuff we have today, at the cost of destroying the climate. We're essentially stealing from future people.