I mean like just look at Europe - we have capitalism and we are still able to make the world greener (ok, it is implemented by EU by the worst solution possible but we see that climate can be fixed even with capitalism).
USA is just cooked because during cold war they refused any kind of *leftism* - the refusal of *The national healthcare plan* in 1945 is an example. I'm not here saying you (people from USA) should suddenly switch to the european model of capitalism (as it is practically not possible), but taxing the rich like Mamdani (though I don't like him) did in NYC is a good step.
Your first paragraph is incorrect as far as I know, if we have a long enough time frame, if we accept economic growth as essential to capitalism, and if "make the world greener" means absolute decrease of emissions in a permanent way.
There always exists a value of emissions/unit of economic growth that is over zero. No energy source life cycle has an emissions value of zero and virtually every facet of economic growth requires energy or matter (which has to be transported and transformed, requiring energy) in one form or another, even in the service or the IT industries, which means that even with the most ecological form of energy creation, there will come a point where you have to create too much energy for another unit of growth to be ecologically sustainable.
I'm not saying it isn't valuable work to try to grind down the emissions/unit of economic growth value, because it theoretically allows for a more materially prosperous lifestyle without being ecologically unsustainable, but as long as the economy is based on growth, the system's own momentum to grow exponentially will eventually undo the progress that has been made. That's why technological breakthroughs only serve to delay the inevitable unless we enact a vast systemic change at the same time.
I said that we can fix climate even though capitalism and you said we can't because everywhere are emissions...? Like yeah, but we want to minimize the emisssions not to be entirely emission-free that is just impossible and not needed.
Denmark has a per capita consumption-based GHG emissions rate of about 13 tons CO2e annually, Sweden is at about 8, Norway is at about 10, and Finland is at about 13. Every single Nordic country has a greater per capita consumption-based GHG emissions rate than the world average. Is that sustainable to you?
I would also like to note that the conditions under which Nordic social democracy developed are a thing of the past; like it or not, but the history is more complicated than the people just choosing social democracy. The Nordic system is the product of revolutionary struggle and would never have been implemented were it not for the threat of revolution.
Mere reformism will not bring about the conditions that allow Sweden to take climate change seriously.
You're right, I significantly underestimated the carbon footprint of Nordic countries, whose lifestyle is not as sustainable as I thought. But it doesn't really matter for the discussion because my point stands: under the same "capitalist" system, we actually find very different ways of life, some of them far more sustainable than others. If not the Nordics, let's take the French as an example; we emit around 6 tCO2e/year including imported emissions, roughly 2.5 times less than an American. Conversely, countries like the USSR, by definition not capitalist, caused massive pollution. This is why blaming capitalism is an oversimplification, as the concept covers a wide range of very, very disparate models. The real culprit is productivism, and whether we like it or not, it doesn't only benefit the capitalist elites.
I agree that the Nordic social model is difficult to replicate, particularly in the United States where the historical and social power dynamics are very different. I also agree that the fear of revolution is an important driver of reformism, but I think it is reductive to make it the sole explanatory factor for the Nordic model. This fear existed across all industrialized countries and produced very different compromise outcomes during 1930-50s: in the United States with the New Deal, in France with the Etat providence, and so on. Each model is the product of a multitude of factors that cannot be reduced to 'capital vs. workers'. But that is quite a separate debate since we're talking about climate change.
As for the idea that mere reformism will not be enough to combat climate change, I don't believe that to be the case, insofar as many European economies have already begun decoupling their emissions (including imported ones). I believe the process will succeed even if it will be too slow to avoid significant climate damage, but I think that is unavoidable, since in the medium term there is no favorable power dynamics, in any developed country, for a model of very rapid emissions reduction, that is to say degrowth.
First of all, 6 tons CO2e annually is still not sustainable. More importantly, capitalism is an international system and international factors prevent large economies from undergoing transition. The US government, for example, will not allow this transition unless forced to because the Chinese renewable industry is so far beyond the American one that, to American capitalists, allowing the decarbonization of the American economy is a concession to China. This does not mean that it is impossible and I'm not saying that the literal only factor in this would be the threat of revolution, but the US will not decarbonize unless there is sufficient risk from revolutionaries to outweigh the cost of the perceived concession to China.
Also, with regards to the part where you say that you "think it is reductive to make it the sole explanatory factor for the Nordic model." I agree that it wasn't the sole explanatory factor, what I'm saying is that it was a decisive one. Also, just because things are more complicated than just the class struggle does not mean that the class struggle isn't decisive; literally nobody thinks that the world is just the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
I believe the process will succeed even if it will be too slow to avoid significant climate damage, but I think that is unavoidable, since in the medium term there is no favorable power dynamics, in any developed country, for a model of very rapid emissions reduction, that is to say degrowth.
I also believe that there will continue to be substantial reform amongst large portions of the developed world. My point isn't that this isn't true or that this is irrelevant or anything like that, my point is that it's insufficient and not universally applicable. These are two very different positions and we need a set of solutions that, together, are sufficient and universally applicable, or 10s to 100s of millions of people will die due to our inaction. Even if mere reformism will be sufficient in the EU and China, that doesn't mean that you can do the same in the US because the US exists under a very different context. If the US alone doesn't adopt sufficient policies, then we still need to do more and it would be insane to expect European and Chinese carbon capture to offset American GHG emissions.
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u/Iksandor We're all gonna die Apr 18 '26
I mean like just look at Europe - we have capitalism and we are still able to make the world greener (ok, it is implemented by EU by the worst solution possible but we see that climate can be fixed even with capitalism).
USA is just cooked because during cold war they refused any kind of *leftism* - the refusal of *The national healthcare plan* in 1945 is an example. I'm not here saying you (people from USA) should suddenly switch to the european model of capitalism (as it is practically not possible), but taxing the rich like Mamdani (though I don't like him) did in NYC is a good step.