[HN Gopher] Farmers' protest party win shock Dutch vote victory
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Farmers' protest party win shock Dutch vote victory
Author : version_five
Score : 69 points
Date : 2023-03-16 13:58 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| ivolimmen wrote:
| I am Dutch. I don't follow the news that as a I currently am very
| depressed. Not by the current affairs but also issues in my
| household. Recently there was a television show called Lubach
| (Dutch rip off of John Oliver) and he addressed all the uproar of
| the Dutch farmers. He investigated the source. The top 10 family
| owned agricultural companies are behind all this. Technically
| most Dutch are duped. We are not talking about issues in farming
| but really specifically about mass production of meat. This is a
| really small group but the specific pr campaign set up by large
| hired pr company emphasized the need to call it the farmers
| protest not the meat industry. The companies that paid the
| farmers so that they could protest while not loosing income, not
| because they where pro farmers but against losing money. These
| companies are going to loose millions (maybe even billions) when
| the co2 reduction rules are actually in affect.
| nradov wrote:
| The rules at issue are primarily about nitrogen pollution from
| livestock, not CO2.
| RandomWorker wrote:
| They did get quite a lot, but you need majority vote in the
| senate to shoot down new laws. In practical terms they can delay
| laws but probably can't shoot down anything. Netherlands is a
| country of polderen (1).
|
| (1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model
| ghiculescu wrote:
| They'll be the largest single party bloc, they should have some
| real sway.
|
| I think some of their opponents will argue "they did well but
| not well enough, so it's fine to keep ignoring them" but I
| don't think that's a wise move.
| arp242 wrote:
| > they should have some real sway.
|
| Only in the senate and some provinces, which aren't _that_
| influential; I 'm willing to bet that they'll do a lot less
| well in the parliamentary elections: people who feel strongly
| have more incentive to vote.
|
| They were never "ignored"; this entire issue has been playing
| since the 80s. Every time any measures are announced there
| are protests and measures get watered down or delayed.
| tijl wrote:
| They will also have a strong position in the provinces. The
| government was setting a framework, but counted on the
| provinces to do the actual implementation. That approach will
| almost certainly fail since it seems likely the BBB will be
| able to block this in many rural provinces
| mistrial9 wrote:
| So fifteen years later, here we are where almost zero people in
| harshly-competitive industries will voluntarily change their core
| inputs; combine that with pure economic self-interest from Oil
| and Gas, and .. woe to you, gentle reader.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > She had to step back from public campaigning last year because
| of death threats. She was told the same fate awaited her as Pim
| Fortuyn, a populist leader assassinated days before the 2002
| Dutch general election.
| ralfn wrote:
| Keep in mind that in this case the threat comes from within the
| groups that agree with her ideology, but believe she is
| controlled opposition. The same pot of crazy she
| (unintentionally?) tried to activate.
| pessimizer wrote:
| How do you unintentionally try? Was she doing talking points,
| palling around or carrying water?
| ralfn wrote:
| She was trying to activate a lot of non crazy, ordinary
| people as well, but she wasn't experienced enough at the
| start to tone the rhetoric down.
|
| That some parts of her movement became too militant was
| likely not her intention.
|
| But it did lead to multiple politicians needing permanent
| security including herself.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Keep in mind that in this case the threat comes from within
| the groups that agree with her ideology, but believe she is
| controlled opposition.
|
| Really? It's not very believable that someone on the right
| would phrase a threat like that (i.e. "go away or you'll end
| up dead, like the last right-wing leader killed by an left-
| wing environmental activist").
|
| I did some digging and all I could find (in English) was some
| comments attributing the threats to the "the anti-farmer or
| anti-BBB lobby" (https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/pro-
| farming-mp-cancels...).
| ralfn wrote:
| It was my understanding that the threats towards Kaag,
| Rutte and her all came from the same source.
| haunter wrote:
| Here is their election programme
| https://boerburgerbeweging.nl/verkiezingsprogramma/
| naasking wrote:
| I think the most important point that I don't see discussed is
| that we shouldn't be compromising our ability to make food until
| we have viable non-Nitrogen based alternative fertilizers of
| comparable cost. Food is already too expensive, and now they want
| to crush poor people even more?
|
| I think the farmer's have a good point here. I don't think the
| people dismissing this as farmers being anti-climate change
| realize the implications.
| mcv wrote:
| What I haven't heard much about in the whole hubbub about this
| is that there's a lot that farmers can already do to reduce
| various nitrogen emissions. Different (less protein-rich) food
| and letting cattle graze outside have significant impact.
|
| The discussion seems to have been dominated by people who just
| want to cut back on farming, and fans of highly industrialised
| farming. There are alternatives, and they're not getting enough
| attention.
|
| Not all farmers support this new "farmer's" party. And big
| agri-adjacent industry have been big players in the protests
| and unrest.
|
| I'm not denying that the government handled this
| extraordinarily poorly, I'm just saying the discussion is
| dominated by extremely polarised opinions.
| peterashford wrote:
| Its important to note that most of these farm products are
| exported. This is an argument about market protection, not
| food supply protection.
| rahkiin wrote:
| There is all kind of ways, but farmers will tell you it also
| lowers yield and thus costs them money.
| mc32 wrote:
| I am also glad to see them win. I don't like to see governments
| railroad people without any compromise. It was "our way, or the
| highway". That's not constructive. 'Bout time the "small guy"
| (compared to the gov) won.
| pipodeclown wrote:
| The 'small guy' are a couple of extremely rich cattle feed
| producers (in fact in the top 10 richest families in the
| country) which financed a succesfull propaganda campaign to
| derail this extremely necessarry piece of legislation. It is
| a damn shame that american type populist and big money
| financed misinformation campaigns are coming to the
| Netherlands as well...
| mcv wrote:
| Compared to the government, perhaps, but there are some very
| big companies behind the protests, and independent farmers
| don't necessarily agree.
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| They had literally 50 years to compromise. The first time
| this problem came up was in the 1970s.
| alecco wrote:
| The government should've pushed innovations in precision
| farming like they push solar (e.g. 50% subsidy). But they chose
| to do a full ban. Some startups in the sector were affected
| even though they reduce the amount of fertilizer and pesticides
| by an order of magnitude. Was the government so blind and
| stupid, or were they malicious?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| So what's the alternative? Do nothing? Spend trillions to
| enable the poor countries to go first? How would that even
| work? Would it do anything other than enable the oligarchs to
| steal the money?
| naasking wrote:
| You don't ban something important without viable
| alternatives, that's just obvious. If we need alternatives,
| then you fund research or scaling of the alternatives first.
| That's what we've done with wind and solar and now they're
| super cheap.
| pipodeclown wrote:
| What are you even talking about?! Nobody is talking about
| banning livestock production. The netherlands could
| literally reduce the amount of livestock in the country by
| 50% and still produce more meat and milk than is consumed
| by Dutch society, in fact we would have plenty over for
| export. The only reason people want to hold this
| legislation up is for their own monetary gains.
| naasking wrote:
| We're talking about nitrogen here, not livestock
| specifically.
| peterashford wrote:
| Livestock are what emit most of the Nitrogen -
| specifically cow pee
| Avalaxy wrote:
| 90% of the food produced here is exported. This tiny country is
| the second biggest food exporter on the planet... The result is
| that our nature is destroyed, and that we can't build any more
| houses to solve our massive housing crisis.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| That seems like creative accounting. A lot of food is refined
| in Holland for export, but the raw material isn't necessarily
| grown there.
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| Yes beef is technically homegrown but the stuff that cows
| eat is imported from Brasil. Dutch farming is not self
| sustaining.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| Source?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Chocolate for example.
| nradov wrote:
| That's not accurate. Netherlands is only the sixth biggest
| food exporter. They are second in the EU.
|
| https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-american-food-
| giant-...
| foepys wrote:
| For a country of slightly less than 18 million people this
| is still mighty impressive.
| mcv wrote:
| I think Netherland is the second largest _agricultural_
| exporter by value, but I suspect that includes flowers, and
| isn 't just limited to food.
| nradov wrote:
| Yes, that's correct. But the comment I replied to
| specifically mentioned _food_. The nitrogen emissions
| policy at issue here primarily impacts livestock and not
| flowers.
| holoduke wrote:
| Our nature is not destroyed. That's what the left city people
| say who never leave their cities. There is also plenty of
| room to build. But those same people want their children to
| grow up next to their cities. Thats not gonna happen. Enough
| room in other provinces. Another problem is mass immigration.
| Millions entered our country in the last 30 years.
| peterashford wrote:
| Can you let us know how you do industrial scale dairy
| without pollution then, because it sure causes pollution
| everywhere else in the world
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| Source?
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Is there no land to build on left as everything is
| agriculture?
| consp wrote:
| Every cm2 has been allocated and changing it will take
| something away to be replaced by something else, either
| water as land, agriculture as houses or any other flow you
| can imagine (and they all have been done).
| RandomLensman wrote:
| If people have nowhere to live some non-farm land could
| be reallocated - but, yes, sure it'd be a fight.
| yourusername wrote:
| No it's a legal problem. The Netherlands decided it would
| be a great idea to have 150+ nature preserves in one of the
| most densely populated countries in the world. European law
| requires the Netherlands to protect these areas from
| nitrogen deposition (NOx, NH3). A Dutch judge declared the
| Netherlands has to comply with this European law so now no
| activity that causes any nitrogen deposition can get a
| permit even if building houses is less than 1% of NO2/NH3
| emissions. It's a mess created by a government 20 years
| ago.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| That would sound like a fixable policy problem by
| changing laws etc.
| consp wrote:
| Unfortunately those laws are European and we do not have
| much to say about it anymore since the government wanted
| to milk the Natura2000 subsidies (sidenote they also went
| to farmers).
| mistrial9 wrote:
| if your situation is anything like the USA - those
| payments went to corporate farms, not family farms.
| mcv wrote:
| If you put it like that, less agriculture in such a
| densely populated country doesn't sound like such a bad
| idea.
|
| But you're absolutely right; it's a mess that has been
| left to fester for far too long. A previous law, that was
| struck down, allowed farms to expand on the assumption
| that those expansions would at some later time result in
| less nitrogen. That of course didn't happen, but massive
| farm expansions have been driven through that loophole.
| Farmers have also been misled by banks wanted to fund
| those irresponsible expansions.
| ralfn wrote:
| Even with all the agricultural lands Netherlands is one of
| the most densely populated countries.
|
| The issue is that our the lack of cheap land actually made
| our agricultural sector very competitive. They need high
| yields to be viable, so they made the investments
| (equipment, r&d) to have extremely high yields.
|
| More than 80 ends up being exported.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| That would mean they are making other countries food cheaper
| as well.
| peterashford wrote:
| If these were staple foods, that would be a concern - like
| the effect of Ukraine's wheat exports to Africa. Other
| countries not getting as much Dutch cheese is not the same
| kind of issue at all.
| woile wrote:
| They have crippled many countries ability to produce food,
| see documentary: "Tomatoes and greed - the exodus of
| Ghana's farmers"
|
| Probably cheaper for some in the short term, but it means
| less food security, and potential growth
| mcv wrote:
| The real problem is how agriculture is being subsidised.
| I'm not sure how it currently is, but for a long time, it
| was simply production that was subsidised, leading to
| excessive overproduction, which was then dumped below
| market prices on the African market, driving farmers
| there out of business.
|
| Instead, these subsidies should be tied to sustainable
| agriculture. Support farmers by rewarding them for a
| cleaner, more sustainable business. Instead, many of
| these subsidies have gone to massive industrialised
| polluting megafarms.
| pipodeclown wrote:
| Nitrogen fixation is mainly a problem related to livestock, 75%
| of livestock/meat production is exported in the Netherlands.
| This has nothing to do with food security...
| evandijk70 wrote:
| Nitrogen emissions are mostly caused by cattle, in particular
| cows. Beef, milk and cheese might be more expensive due to
| these measures, but cheaper, more sustainable food (vegetarian
| food/chicken/egss) would not be affected by the proposed
| measures.
| juujian wrote:
| Good point. And the price of these goods--beef in particular
| --is completely decoupled from the disproportionate damage it
| causes. If it was air pollution, we would call it a market
| failure.
| pipodeclown wrote:
| And to add to this: The Netherlands is currently a huge meat
| producers while being a relatively small country with very
| high population density. In fact, 75% of dutch meat
| production is exported. This has therefore nothing to do with
| compromising Dutch food security and everything to do with
| Large cattle feed producers in the Netherlands fighting (with
| a lot of money and donations I might add) to not loose a very
| lucrative market.
|
| Unfortunately from a public perception perspective they have
| a very easy and convincing story to tell: the story of the
| hardworking dutch farmer working day and night to put food on
| the table of Dutch society!
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Have you ever tried to milk a chicken though? Let me tell
| you, it's frustrating and painful work, for both parties.
| peterashford wrote:
| Milking oats is super easy, OTOH
| jessekv wrote:
| It's _worse_ with pigs...
| danieldevries wrote:
| Most comments seem to miss the point that The Netherlands is the
| second largest exporter of food in the world. That the
| agricultural sector needs to be downsized particularly in NL
| seems rather obvious. Sadly this goes against populist interests
| and a handful of very rich private interests in the country.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| It's not obvious to me. If they are so successful at exporting
| food, I'd have thought they should do more, not less.
| danieldevries wrote:
| According to EU law it's obvious. But then again let's just
| put our heads in the sand and ignore climate change. Yes more
| emissions is what is needed. _Face palm_
| ghiculescu wrote:
| How will decreasing NL's food exports result in a decrease
| in emissions? Honest question.
| danieldevries wrote:
| Every country will have a duty to decrease their
| emissions. Starting with this incredibly large sector in
| Holland is a step in the right direction imo.
| peterashford wrote:
| Less food miles. Less cheap availability of dairy will
| encourage movement to less polluting alternatives. Less
| intensive farming leaches less nitrogen.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| So you'd make milk more expensive for poor people? Got
| it. I wonder why they voted against that.
| peterashford wrote:
| False dilemma. People don't need dairy milk (a lot of the
| world is dairy intolerant anyway) and there are
| alternatives that don't pollute anywhere as much, don't
| need as much land nor water and which are inexpensive and
| getting cheaper all the time.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "That the agricultural sector needs to be downsized"
|
| What about the people abroad that depend on Dutch-produced
| food? Export of food isn't a frivolous activity, but a need; we
| have 8 billion humans on this planet already and many live in
| arid or otherwise agriculture-unfriendly regions.
| danieldevries wrote:
| And you think Holland is an agricultural friendly region? You
| have clearly never seen the amount of glass houses from a
| satellite photo of Holland. They cover a vast area!
|
| Polluting farms will get downsized in Holland over time.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Compared to many other places of the world, yes, it is,
| absolutely. You have both good soil and water. Yes, Ukraine
| is probably somewhat better in this regard, but it is also
| poor and at war.
|
| Plus Dutch know-how in agriculture is outstanding. From
| what I know from Czech farmers, Dutch piglets etc. are
| really the best in the world.
| danieldevries wrote:
| I don't deny we know how to raise delicious veal or
| piglets. But it's stipulated in EU law that we have to
| downsize this sector eventually. It's not a popular move
| at all, and it seems pointless with regards to China or
| India. Still it needs to happen in the long run.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| AFAIK it is not just about taste, but about the fact that
| Dutch animals gain the most weight per fodder consumed -
| which is actually pretty nature-friendly.
| peterashford wrote:
| Dairy is a luxury food, not a staple. No-one is going to
| starve if they can't get Dutch cheese
| Gud wrote:
| Dutch cheese is delicious. What do you propose to replace
| it with?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| You make it sound as if the real intent behind the law was
| to push veganism on an unwilling population, bypassing
| normal democratic mechanism.
|
| Cheese is an excellent source of proteins and fat, eating
| less of it and more of processed and conserved rice/wheat
| won't probably make you healthier.
| peterashford wrote:
| Uh, no. I love cheese. That's a weird take
| mantas wrote:
| In many cases Dutch-produced food out-prices locally produced
| food. Even with transport costs.
|
| On one hand, you could say cheaper food is nice. On the other
| hand, employing local people to keep money in local economy
| to produce slightly more expensive food is better in the long
| term...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Will the difference in costs _stay_ slight? Possibly not,
| if the locals are protected by sufficiently high import
| duties that they aren 't forced to innovate.
|
| We might yet see a similar problem in the space industry.
| European space industry is likely to fall far behind SpaceX
| when it comes to rocket costs and especially capabilities,
| but France won't surrender its independent access to space
| and will likely subsidize the already-obsolete Ariane
| models far into the future.
| huijzer wrote:
| My family are Dutch farmers who are in the middle of this
| discussion for a few years now.
|
| As far as I understand, what happened is that Dutch politicians
| have been too optimistic in their sales for the reduction in
| nitrogen emissions. In response, the Dutch government has been
| aggressively making plans to reduce the number of dairy farms in
| the Netherlands. However, this conflicts with the ambitions of
| the farmers for two main reasons. Firstly, farmers are very aware
| of how farming occurs in other countries. The Dutch have a long
| history of optimizing the farming process with a long history of
| ever increasing regulations. It makes no sense then to stop
| farming in the Netherlands to "save" the environment by sending
| the work to other countries, who then will increase pollution per
| kg milk produced. For example, farmers in Poland have generally
| higher maize fields not because they are better farmers, but
| because they are allowed to put much more manure on the fields.
| Secondly, farmers are all hard working people who are proud of
| their family business and who would like to continue their
| business. Having the government take the business away for
| controversial reasons doesn't sit right.
|
| Furthermore, from what I hear around me, people are done with the
| current prime minister Rutte. There have been some scandals
| including the "Rutte-doctrine" in which Rutte thinks that
| internal government documents do not have to be shared with
| journalists and the Tweede kamer (lower house of the Dutch
| parliament) and him being found out for lying time and time
| again. The whole scandal around the farmers is just a
| manifestation of the general civil dissatisfaction, as the BBC
| points out too.
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries
| on this planet. Poland is empty.
|
| I'm an atheist without kids so if my fellow Dutchman want to
| continue to rape this country's natural environment it won't
| affect me much.
| bboygravity wrote:
| There was also this little thing about the Rutte government
| bankrupting lower class parents (through government error) and
| then having child support kidnap the children of those parents
| with the argument "you're apparently financially too
| irresponsible to care of your own children".
|
| And then never giving back the children or the money that
| shouldn't have been taken away until this day.
|
| That's just one of the many ludicrous examples.
| novusramu wrote:
| > The Dutch have a long history of optimizing the farming
| process with a long history of ever increasing regulations.
|
| Genuinely curious, was this meant to be a sarcastic comment?
| Because it does sound like one. Fundamentally, regulations tend
| to have a limiting/taxing effect. Only in some cases do they
| inadvertently create a game-able system which encourages
| optimization to circumvent those limitations/taxes, i.e.
| automation.
| [deleted]
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| [flagged]
| mistrial9 wrote:
| what do you think this forum gains with this kind of comment?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| What you can't provide, apparently. It's a humorous (!!!)
| way of stating "if you eat you must farm, what an absurd
| policy position." I apologize if such pithiness offends
| your decorum, certainly feel free to report me to ensure
| everything stays within your guard rails of propriety.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not post in the flamewar style here? It's
| not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Starvation is a primal fear.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Indeed, that's why the absurdity is so stark. There has
| to be a better answer to the problem than bs regulations
| like this.
| TT-392 wrote:
| Nitrogen pollution causes local problems though, so, spreading
| this out thinner than in this tiny country of the Netherlands
| will make an impact.
|
| (I don't think it is a perfect solution, and in the end it is
| because of mismanagement by the government, and not the fault
| of the farmers, but I do think that reducing the amount of
| these farms in the Netherlands would make a positive
| environmental impact)
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| newaccount2023 wrote:
| [flagged]
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| [dead]
| glass3 wrote:
| Does somebody know why the manure is not concentrated and shipped
| to places that need fertilizers, like guano?
| Neil44 wrote:
| I understand this is about new laws to do with nitrogen use in
| farming coming into effect in the EU. Holland is one of the first
| countries to actually move towards compliance the the farmers are
| not impressed.
|
| Personaly I am with the farmers, why are we burning our farmers
| and industry on the fire of environmentalism when the future of
| the environment will be decided by developing countries, not us.
| There is a balance to be made here.
| mkesper wrote:
| This is totally wrong as we in the developed countries are
| emitting so much CO2 and are eating too much meat so soy is
| planted everywhere, just to feed animals.
| [deleted]
| evandijk70 wrote:
| This argument might be made for CO2 emissions, but nitrogen
| emissions are mostly a local problem.
| [deleted]
| enaaem wrote:
| It's easy to blame on the EU, but nitrogen pollution is not an
| abstract global issue but a real local issue. It would have to
| be managed by local governments regardless of the EU.
| hbn wrote:
| Most environmental action being taken out seems to be
| exclusively acts of religious-like penance. I think people's
| metric for whether or not we're doing something about the
| environment is "does this make day-to-day life harder than it
| was before?" Nothing to do with the actual effectiveness, no
| solutions for the ginormous populations in poor countries that
| are burning all their trash or throwing it into the ocean, or
| pumping ludicrous amounts of smog into the atmosphere until the
| sky is orange. Only useless solutions that let college-educated
| Westerners pat themselves on the back like paper straws,
| plastic bag bans, complaining about gas stoves, etc.
| comte7092 wrote:
| >Most environmental action being taken out seems to be
| exclusively acts of religious-like penance. I think people's
| metric for whether or not we're doing something about the
| environment is "does this make day-to-day life harder than it
| was before?"
|
| It stands to reason that if it made people's day to day life
| easier, people would likely already be doing it.
|
| >Only useless solutions that let college-educated Westerners
| pat themselves on the back like paper straws, plastic bag
| bans, complaining about gas stoves, etc.
|
| 1. The average westerner pollutes significantly more than the
| average person in a developing country.
|
| 2. All of those "useless" solutions are really just low
| hanging fruit that doesn't really cause all that much
| disruption to day to day life.
|
| If not having plastic bags, straws, and gas stoves really
| causes that much distress, then you're really living a life
| with very few problems.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "If not having plastic bags, straws, and gas stoves really
| causes that much distress, then you're really living a life
| with very few problems."
|
| That sounds incredibly arrogant. So the default is that the
| banhammer should be swung around at will unless it causes
| outright critical problems? OK, give up half of the things
| _you_ enjoy for marginal gains.
|
| And the gas stove campaign is pure hysteria. If gas stoves
| caused serious disease, we would have seen a massive
| population-wide correlation of gas stove use and disease
| much like we do in case of tobacco, lead, asbestos or
| alcohol consumption. Given that the gas stove is more than
| 120 years old and no pandemics of early deaths can be
| attributed to it, the whole thing may be just clickbait.
| comte7092 wrote:
| >That sounds incredibly arrogant. So the default is that
| the banhammer should be swung around at will unless it
| causes outright critical problems?
|
| Where did I say that.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| There's a much simpler explanation: people are worried about
| the environment and global warming, so they are willing to
| try out a lot of different things that they think might help,
| but lo and behold, it turns out that some of those things
| actually help and others turn out not to, and because some of
| the things that don't help maybe still get a lot of attention
| or the associated behaviors linger on, well-intentioned
| people look like idiots. But, realistically, how could any
| large scale movement to change the way we live be any
| different? What do you think you are contributing by being
| smug and cynical?
|
| (By the way, those college-educated Westerners are also
| choosing to live smaller, use more public transport, drive
| fewer miles, invest in durable goods, insulate their homes,
| buy heat pumps and vote for parties that want to do something
| about industrial pollution. It's not all canvas shopping bag
| virtue signaling.)
| RandomLensman wrote:
| The climate change agenda often doesn't really have a great
| sales pitch: have high costs now, still experience climate
| change and then in the far future things might be better.
| This has to change to truly get everyone on board - there
| have to be benefits in the now.
| peterashford wrote:
| Then we all go to hell together.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Why? You think we cannot come up with better incentive
| structures? I doubt that very much.
| peterashford wrote:
| Because we require major systemic changes. That's not
| going to happen if we require everyone to choosing to do
| the right thing right now.
|
| Also, IMO, the changes need to happen at a governmental
| and corporate level. Individual people - which is where I
| was imagining you were thinking about when referring to
| incentives* - make a much smaller difference to AGW.
|
| *was I wrong about that?
|
| What incentive structures do you see working in this
| context?
| RandomLensman wrote:
| You will not get major systemic change if the median
| voter thinks they will be poorer afterwards. That isn't
| necessarily because voters don't believe in the science
| but rather they know that in next 50-100 years a lot can
| happen (bad or good) to somehow make their efforts rather
| worthless.
|
| In the end, the cost will wind up with individual people
| anyway. Industry will get subsidies and business funneled
| their way for the transition. On top, climate is a huge
| business - some sectors are salivating at the revenues to
| be made in the next decade or so - and those revenues
| will have to come from somewhere.
|
| So, I don't think you can enact any policies on top with
| noticeable costs to individuals. There is also the
| question of how subsidies will be paid back - maybe a lot
| more countries need to create some sort of wealth fund
| for the investments needed and then distribute back some
| revenues? Maybe some higher minimum wage for work in
| climate? Not saying I have the solutions.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Most environmental action being taken out seems to be
| exclusively acts of religious-like penance.
|
| > There's a much simpler explanation: people are worried
| about the environment and global warming, so they are
| willing to try out a lot of different things that they
| think might help, but lo and behold, it turns out that some
| of those things actually help and others turn out not to...
|
| It's not one or the other, it's both.
|
| There's also the factor that people are more comfortable
| with changes that inconvenience others, but don't
| inconvenience them much; so there's often a major lack of
| consideration and empathy with the proposals. Couple that
| with religion-like moral urgency, and you get a lot of
| unnecessary conflict.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > when the future of the environment will be decided by
| developing countries, not us. There is a balance to be made
| here.
|
| This is not just misleading but straight up wrong.
|
| Sure, western nations don't dominate global population numbers
| (and are mostly shrinking too), but the United states alone
| emit TWICE the amount of CO2 compared to India, with 1/4 the
| population.
|
| Just saying "the future of the environment is on you, India,
| China, Africa, since there is not much we Americans can do,
| there are just not enough of us" is sickeningly hypocritical.
|
| Also, how are you going to convince ANY developing nation that
| struggles to lift their population out of poverty that paying
| for environmental protection is necessary, while you (as a rich
| westerner) sit on your ass?!
|
| Sorry for the confrontational tone, but I feel I HAVE to
| correct this because it is an extremely popular sentiment
| ("we're already doing more than our part for the environment in
| the west, now it's on the Chinese/Indians/etc."), and this is
| completely unsupported by facts.
| Neil44 wrote:
| You assume I'm American, I'm not. Also the article is about
| Dutch people.
|
| CO2 is only one metric of pollution. And as India is 4x the
| population of the US what difference will the amount of
| Nitrogen Dutch farmers use make once the Indians achieve a US
| style standard of living? Bugger all that's how much. So
| they're correctly asking why on earth they're being put out
| of jobs over this at this time.
| peterashford wrote:
| This is what New Zealand farmers say, also. And we're one
| of the largest diary exporters in the world. If the largest
| dairy exporters are all saying "well, we're a small
| country, we can't make any difference" where does that lead
| us? Its obviously the wrong way to look at it. If 1 person
| was responsible for 10% of the world's emissions, you
| wouldn't say "well, he's only one person so it doesn't
| matter"
| myrmidon wrote:
| Your argument does not make sense.
|
| Of course fewer people have less influence on the outcome,
| but that is not an excuse to do less (per person) in the
| smaller group. India could just split into 2000 states and
| turn your argument straight around...
|
| This is just not how collective obligation works, in the
| very same way that you absolutely CANT argue with your tax
| officials that "it doesn't really make a difference whether
| I pay" (or your village/city if they're small).
|
| I just picked America as example because they're arguably
| the worst of the bunch in Co2/capita (except some rich tiny
| states like Luxembourg), so good on you for doing better
| than them (probably).
|
| Also feel free to make an argument using different metrics
| for pollution, but I have strong doubts that you could
| change the conclusions-- also consider that climate change
| is precisely that big a problem because it is not quickly
| reversible at all.
|
| Co2 is also a metric where you can get easily comparable
| numbers and those are already unfavorable even WITHOUT
| taking into account how much pollution is _outsourced_ by
| wealthy nations (which is hard to quantify).
| peterashford wrote:
| "why are we burning our farmers and industry on the fire of
| environmentalism when the future of the environment will be
| decided by developing countries, not us"
|
| I'm flabbergasted. This is so wrong it hurts. Developed
| countries have BY FAR done the most to create and currently
| contribute to AGW. We have the moral responsibility to do the
| bulk of the work to fix it.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| They seem to have mostly stolen votes from another far right
| party without the convenient cover of being farmers.
|
| It's not clear how much (if at all) the balance has shifted
| towards or away from their signature policy.
| tijl wrote:
| That's not really what voter research shows. Yes, 18% of BBB
| voters come from the PVV, but also 17% come from the Prime
| minister's party (VVD), 14% comes from his Christian-democratic
| coalition partner (CDA). 9% Comes from the left-wing SP, 7%
| from D66. The amounts coming from other parties are even
| smaller https://app.nos.nl/nieuws/ps2023/
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The seats lost/gained are:
|
| BBB +139
|
| FvD -71
|
| VVD -16
|
| CDA -30
|
| So, the voting system has lots of parties and ranked voting
| but it seems clear that the main story is FvD lost out to
| BBB.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Dutch_provincial_election.
| ..
| jmclnx wrote:
| Seems people do not like to cut emissions to help with Climate
| Change, no surprise there. That to me means no one whats to
| change their lifestyle. Does not bode well for Climate Change.
| madsbuch wrote:
| There are several ways to achieve climate change. Two big sides
| currently are energy conservatism or energy progressionism;
| Either you save energy, drive less, etc. or you embrace energy
| sources like nuclear.
|
| The hypocrisy comes in when you don't want to nuclear power,
| don't want to drive less and also want climate change.
| comte7092 wrote:
| That's a bit of a false dichotomy, realistically you need
| both.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Well, if I "realistically need both" it is not a false
| dichotomy. Then it is just impractical. I also don't
| present a DI-chotomy, I present two sides of potentially a
| lot of sides. I also don't present the sides as being
| mutually exclusive, why it is neither a di-CHOTOMY.
|
| Anyways, I don't think I understand why I practically need
| both? Currently we seem to take the practical approach of
| choosing none.
| comte7092 wrote:
| >Either you save energy, drive less, etc. or you embrace
| energy sources like nuclear.
|
| I took this to be an either or statement, apologies if
| that was not your intention.
|
| >Anyways, I don't think I understand why I practically
| need both?
|
| Overhauling the entire energy system is a huge effort,
| even more so when the demands grow year after year.
| Hitting that target in the requisite timeframe is much
| easier if the energy demands are lessened through
| conservation.
| madsbuch wrote:
| ah, I understand. the latter part of my comment was the
| simpler "edgy" statement.
|
| and yes, I completely agree with your assessment around
| the overhauling effort.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Don't forget the hypocrisy of wanting other people to do
| their bit to combat climate change while you fly in your
| private jet and use the excuse that one person's contribution
| is insignificant...
| madsbuch wrote:
| That is in an energy conservatist framework.
|
| If you fly to a conference to advocate nuclear power and
| synthetic fuels, it would be congruent.
| tijl wrote:
| These are separate issues. It's about the impact of nitrogen on
| biodiversity in protected habitats. Unlike carbon dioxide, the
| effects of nitrogen emissions are very local. Which is why this
| is mainly a problem in small, densely populated countries like
| the Netherlands and neighbouring Belgium, where areas with a
| lot of agriculture, also often contain a lot of small but
| protected nature reserves in between the farms.
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