> If you want to make it illegal to run a coal plant because you feel like it’s your duty to force some pain on the citizenry for what you perceive as a higher calling: pass a law.
Nobody wants what you described. Global warming is literally killing people by the thousands every year now. Wars are coming, mass migrations and climate refugees. This is a crisis, it’s just not a localized one. And it doesn’t have to be painful. Building + running windmills, solar, even nuclear, those are all good jobs.
You might just as well frame it “if 19 states want to make the world suffer so a few corporations can profit and people don’t have to re-train”.
>>If you want to make it illegal to run a coal plant because you feel like it’s your duty to force some pain on the citizenry for what you perceive as a higher calling
>Nobody wants what you described
Do you think everyone hear has the memory of a goldfish or are you just lying to us without a care in the world?
We can literally go into any HN thread on the subject of coal and see tons of comments to the tune of "this will cause people a bunch of pain but outlawing X, Y and Z or taxing them to create the same effect is necessary in order to get off of fossil fuels therefore it is necessary for the greater good". I don't disagree with the premise that it's gonna hurt but just turning around and saying "nobody's saying that" when it suits you is beyond bad faith behavior.
People like you are just as bad for progress as the coal lobby is because you undermine the people telling it like it is.
Op’s message was that people think it’s their duty to force pain on people for some higher calling.
As I said, nobody wants that. Emphasis on “wants”, emphasis on “that”. The same people calling for climate action are the ones calling for a just transitions - UBI, green new deals, etc. so if they were to get their way it wouldn’t actually be painful. That’s the “wants” part.
But even if we don’t get those things, it actually has to happen - it’s not some random desire. It’s an existential threat to human life. So, it has to be done at whatever cost. Not because they “believe in some higher calling” - because the facts are that this is going to hurt everyone if we don’t deal with it at great scale asap. And that’s the “that” part.
Nobody wants what you described. Global warming is literally killing people by the thousands every year now. Wars are coming, mass migrations and climate refugees. This is a crisis, it’s just not a localized one. And it doesn’t have to be painful. Building + running windmills, solar, even nuclear, those are all good jobs.
You might just as well frame it “if 19 states want to make the world suffer so a few corporations can profit and people don’t have to re-train”.