The Environment

"My only point in all of this is that people making 35,000 have the same attitudes about things that affect their income and ability to put food on the table."

Yes, and the response to this is that there are plainly stronger and more general financial/regulatory disincentives as you go up the wealth ladder when it comes to climate action. These things are meant to scale in that way.

For example, healthcare system maladies affect bottom lines across incomes. GOPcare, in Ezra Klein's concise summary, is scaling back costs in order to fund a tax repeal specifically for wealthier people. Why? Because those are the kinds of tax increases that were levied to fund Obamacare to begin with.

In summary: the incentives are plain as day. They reach people across income levels but we can understand how they're contoured. Fair? So I think these are some reasonable hypotheses:

  • If people perfectly respond to financial incentive only, wealthier brackets will be more uniformly opposed to climate policy than less wealthy brackets, with specific exceptions (disruption doesn't leave workers untouched, particularly in e.g. coal)
  • Factors that prevent reality from looking like this: party affiliation (i.e, wealthy Democrats and less wealthy Republicans going against the financial incentive grain) and literacy on the topic.

I'd also add that indifference to climate action is tantamount to disdain for the planet. Whatever the motivations. Though it's all the more vile when those motivations are not "my whole livelihood is at stake" but rather "I'm wealthy but want to keep my taxes low."

 
If environmental protections are allowed to be weakened, eventually the court system will be the only recourse for those of us (everyone) damaged by toxic pollution.

Of course, that will be decades after the damage has been done, and the connection between certain pollutants and certain cancers is established so well that it can no longer be denied by pseudo-science spewed by koch-brothers-funded "non-profits".

Then we will all win! Yay! Trump was right!

 
BigRedBuster said:
Let's back up here a minute.

This entire discussion started with my response to this:

Fru said:
Yeah, I get why the 1% have utter disdain for the planet and all of it's inhabitants.

It's the GOPer that earns $35k a year that goes along with it is what I don't understand.
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I said this post was BS because 1%ers don't have an "Utter disdain for the planet and all it's inhabitants." any more than someone making 35,000.

Immediately, someone started shooting back claiming all I do is defend billionaires.

Since then, the author of the above post has come out and said it was full of hyperbole and has agreed that other terminology was more appropriate.

In no way shape or form have I said there aren't total a$$ holes who are billionaires that oppose environmental regulations that affect their income. My only point in all of this is that people making 35,000 have the same attitudes about things that affect their income and ability to put food on the table.

All the talk about if the billionaire is going to make more money than them or if they can close the mine down and retire comfortably while the miner is stuck unemployed and can't feed his family.....really has nothing to do with my comments. Of COURSE that's the reality of rich people compared to poor people. That has always been that way and it always will be that way.

That has nothing to do with if one group has more disdain for the planet and it's inhabitants than the other.
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I said "tinged" with hyperbole. Not "full of." One party is actively working to be able to pollute waterways (not to mention stripping healthcare from 24 million.) That's pretty disdainful if you ask me.

You keep going back to "It doesn't matter how much money someone makes, they can still hate environmentalism no matter what." Yeah, we all get that, no one is saying differently.

My question is "Why would someone take that stance if it they have zero to gain and stand to be impacted by it negatively?"

 
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No, rich people don't HATE and LOATHE the planet more than middle class people. They don't hate and loathe the planet at all.

Yes, rich people have much more power to negatively impact the planet with their decision-making and honesty, much more incentive to lie and make decisions that aren't in the best interests of the planet, and much more responsibility.

Hopefully it was just the language of, "rich people CAN'T STAND earth!" that was hanging you up.

 
BigRedBuster said:
The original post I responded to in this thread on the subject was not yours. You can stop with the persecution syndrome at any time.
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You're making conclusions based on things that weren't typed again. I'm saying you do this a lot on this subject, not only to me. I mentioned how many times you've done it in response to my posts because those are the times I'm most familiar with.
FWIW I like discussing lots of subjects with you. Just not this one. It's akin to discussing a police shooting with BRI. I've tried to tell you this (the fact I think you're pretty cool) in a PM before but your inbox was full.

 
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Why????

If someone doesn't like an opinion I have in here and it drives them crazy talking to me about it...they are perfectly free to stop talking to me about it.

 
And I'm not saying there aren't total a-hole rich people that deserve everybit of criticism they get.

I can't stand one hell of a lot of them.

 
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BigRedBuster said:
Why????

If someone doesn't like an opinion I have in here and it drives them crazy talking to me about it...they are perfectly free to stop talking to me about it.
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When you misunderstand or misconstrue people's posts on the topic to mean they hate rich people, I'm not just going to ignore it. Even if I don't really like discussing it. There's always that hope that you won't continue to jump to that conclusion erroneously.

 
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Moiraine said:
BigRedBuster said:
Why????

If someone doesn't like an opinion I have in here and it drives them crazy talking to me about it...they are perfectly free to stop talking to me about it.
Click to expand...
When you misunderstand or misconstrue people's posts on the topic to mean they hate rich people, I'm not just going to ignore it. Even if I don't really like discussing it. There's always that hope that you won't continue to jump to that conclusion erroneously.
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The person who posted the post specifically said later it was full of hyperbole and other terminology would have been more appropriate.

Now, you can sit here and b!^@h about my posts all you want, but, I have my opinion and I haven't said or done anything here to warrant an attack. I'm sorry you can't handle my opinions on this subject. I've told you once that if you can't handle discussing this with me then don't.

 
BigRedBuster said:
Moiraine said:
BigRedBuster said:
Why????

If someone doesn't like an opinion I have in here and it drives them crazy talking to me about it...they are perfectly free to stop talking to me about it.
Click to expand...
When you misunderstand or misconstrue people's posts on the topic to mean they hate rich people, I'm not just going to ignore it. Even if I don't really like discussing it. There's always that hope that you won't continue to jump to that conclusion erroneously.
Click to expand...
The person who posted the post specifically said later it was full of hyperbole and other terminology would have been more appropriate.

Now, you can sit here and b!^@h about my posts all you want, but, I have my opinion and I haven't said or done anything here to warrant an attack. I'm sorry you can't handle my opinions on this subject. I've told you once that if you can't handle discussing this with me then don't.
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For the second time, I said "tinged" as in "slightly." Not "full of."

 
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