Comment by irishloop

There was a profit motive in all of those except Santa. For instance until the main players in CFCs (which were the main cause of ozone depletion) were able to invent, patent, and market an alternative to CFCs they successfully lobbied against any change. Then they got a new patent, turned 180 degrees, claiming CFCs were the worst thing to ever exist - and made a ton of money after they were banned. Same thing with stuff like asthma inhalers.

When people want to do something, we're unstoppable. But unfortunately that means the good and the bad, and right now polluting actions are incredibly beneficial, and the alternatives are mediocre and not only unprofitable, but generally incur a substantial cost. There's a reason places like the US/Canada/Australia talk a mean game about climate change, yet remain some of the biggest polluters per capita, by far.

Improvement of the ozone hole wasn't from millions of consumers making different choices, it was from government regulation and choices of the few leading corporations in particular industries.

Efficient lighting is a mix of regulation against worse lighting and individual consumer economic self-interest, lowering their electrical bill (and sometimes longer-lasting bulbs).

Neither of these are examples of large numbers of people choosing to sacrifice something for a common goal.

Smoking, drinking - both on the decline for the last decades.

Always driven by money. McD's is cheaper and easier to mass produce. Wild catch changes when it is no longer economical to fish one kind of fish. There's never an "enlightenment" of people.

Meatless Mondays are a thing.

Vegetarian here. People who eat meat tend to reduce their consumption if you 1. charge them appropriately for it and 2. give them good alternatives. Telling them to not do something usually makes them angry unfortunately.

I think this might be the first idea I've ever heard that I truly feel will backfire far worse than alcohol prohibition. I almost want to see it happen.

People, especially men, get irrationally angry by even the slightest thought of their precious meat being touched (including here on HN; there are more than a few crackpots over here who promote a meat only or even red meat only diet). If there would be a reason to violently overthrow the gov, this would probably be it; not for the things that actually matter to better or save humanity, but to save their daily meat platter.

There's less extreme government action possible: tax meat & dairy higher.

There are already precedents for that, for example here in Germany cigarettes are taxed to about 70% and hard-liquor (altho it's more complicated to calculate as it depends on exact alcohol content) to about 40%.

Meat is only taxed at 7% via VAT (similar to sales tax in the US).

Not by rationing, if you meant the US government: US per-capita consumption of meat is 328 lbs/year [UN FAO]. You'd try to reduce the subsidies and incentives for meat/ corn/ soybean production which are baked into the USDA budget ($200bn in 2024), since the 1930s (Great Depression), and more since the 1950s (and related stuff like the marketing tool of the "Food Pyramid"). These will be as politically hard to cancel as defense production or military bases or prisons.

Here's even a 2023 editorial from the Kansas City Star pointing the blame at Big Ag "Corn drives US food policy. But big business, not Midwestern farmers, reaps the reward" [0]:

> No, corn is not an evil crop, nor are farmers in the Corn Belt shady criminals. However, the devastating effect of corn owes to the industrialization of the plant by a small group of global agribusiness and food conglomerates, which acts as a kind of de facto corn cabal. These massive corporations — seed companies, crop and meat processors, commodity traders and household food and beverage brands — all survive on cheap commodity corn, which currently costs about 10 cents a pound. Corn’s versatility makes it the perfect crop to “scale” (commoditize, industrialize and financialize).

A libertarian take is the Cato Institute "Farm Bill Sows Dysfunction for American Agriculture" [1]:

> The Sprawling Farm Bill:... has its roots in the century-old New Deal and is revised by Congress every five years... "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), was added to the Farm Bill in 1973 to ensure support from rural and urban lawmakers, accounts for about three-quarters of the omnibus package. Some lawmakers and pundits have proposed splitting SNAP from the Farm Bill to stop the logrolling and facilitate a clearer debate on farm subsidy programs, which make up the rest of the bill." ...aslo criticizes crop insurance subsidies (which mainly go on the four big crops), Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) ("Welfare for Wealthier Farmers"), Crop insurance subsidies (" originally envisioned as a more stable and cost-efficient alternative to ad hoc disaster payments, but they have acted more as a supplement than a replacement—and may have actually increased risks along the way.")

[0]: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-com...

[1]: https://www.cato.org/policy-investigation/farm-bill-sows-dys...

> Implement meat rations.

I don't think we can ever be friends.

Yikes. Is this type of schizoposting allowed on HN?

Most ecologists are also anti-natalist, so your premise is wrong.

And if you look at CO2 per capita numbers, the average person in a developed country pollutes tons more, regardless of skin colour: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita . And there are big outliers too, like Americans, and fossil fuel exporting countries.

And what do you know, most polluters have very low birth rates. Where there are high birth rates, the CO2 emissions are derisory (you need 7 Egyptians or 20 Nigerians to match one American).

Most of the world isn’t white so even if you’re not being upset about white people being oppressed or whatever this just makes sense from an equity perspective.