Quote (Black XistenZ @ 20 Apr 2020 23:45)

I do not, and never did, advocate for the bolded. Meaningful change without huge sacrifice is possible, and should be pushed for. My main gripe with the current debate about climate change is threefold:

- I disagree with the notion that climate change is unadaptable and that we therefore have to sacrifice unlimited amounts of wealth and convenience for mitigation.
- I disagree with the notion of transforming away from key technologies in the energy and mobility sector while the eco-friendly alternatives which are supposed to replace them are not even developed yet, or not ready for use on the necessary scale.
- I disagree with the notion that the climate change issue can be solved to a satisfying degree if everyone just tries hard enough and the whole world submits itself to what the climate activists are saying. I'm a pessimist when it comes to climate change, I believe that the task of reaching the goals from the Paris Climate Agreement is even more difficult than most activists or scientist suggest. I believe that the amount of change and sacrifice that would be necessary to reach the 2° goal, let alone the 1.5° target, would be neither desirable nor actually enforceable within democracies. In my humble opinion, gigantic distributional conflicts are therefore inevitable.


Simply put, I'm taking a middle of the road positon. Neither am I denying the existence of anthropogenic climate change or claiming that the status quo is the best we can do - nor am I a follower of Greta or the typical policies of Green parties. I am in favor of adopting eco-friendly alternatives where this is possible without causing significant collateral damage, and for ending subsidies for the fossil industries.



You are the one burying your head in the sand when you talk about "a shift towards renewable energy". A couple of wind turbines here, a couple of solar panels there, replace gasoline-driven cars with electric ones, eat less meat, and then everything will be fine - THAT is the real bullshit. Neither climate scientists nor most serious activists (read: not Greta and her gullible schoolkid parade) are calling for a shift towards renewables - they are calling for nothing less than a revolution, for a complete and total end to fossil energy and production, a complete and total transition of our entire economies and way of life - to happen ASAP, preferrably tomorrow. And that, that is just not gonna happen.


I'll admit that my comparison with Vietnam was a bit hyperbolic, but note that I was talking about the world reaching an "ecologically sustainable level" - and if one is to believe the climate scientists, then some feel-good half-measures like the Greens are proposing wont come anywhere close to being enough - they only serve to soothe the bad conscience of privileged lefties.

Quote (fender @ 20 Apr 2020 19:40)

well, that's what i thought, you're confusing living standard with co2 emission. guess what, the leader in the former category (denmark) has only about 36% of the co2 emissions per capita as the US (who are somewhere around 15th, depending on which index you prefer, in terms of quality of life). funny how that works right?

Quote (Black XistenZ @ 21 Apr 2020 00:32)

One little addendum:



According to this article:
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/basf-von-ludwigshafen-in-die-welt-1.2413560

one single production site of one single German corporation (the BASF plant in Ludwigshafen) is consuming as much power per year as the entire country of Denmark. Simply put, tiny countries (like Denmark) without energy-intense industries are not a suitable measuring stick for the rest of the world.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Apr 20 2020 10:55pm)

Those numbers are highly misleading since the older generations had virtually no migrants. Among the younger age cohorts, say those aged 0-39, the migrant share is already above 33% in both countries, and far above 50% in many bigger cities.




The problems of the early industrialization were social, and could be solved by organizing society in a different way. The problems associated with climate change and an exhaustion of natural resources are of a very different nature. In fact, a lot of the social problems that emerged between 1800 and 2000 were not structurally solved, they instead were rendered obsolete over time by increasing wealth - and this increasing wealth was generated on the back of an increasing exploitation of natural resources and higher fossil emissions.

Quote (dro94 @ 21 Apr 2020 00:52)

So you're not denying this is about immigrants changing the demography of the native population, good to know.

@bolded, not in the UK as far as I'm aware. Source?

Quote

"Among those aged 0-5 years, there are 2.2 million Germans without a migration background, and 1.5 million with a migration background (41%)"

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Apr 21 2020 12:20am)

It's mostly about specific immigrants not integrating and instead changing the culture of the country in a way that I, personally, consider negative.

Regarding the migrant share among younger cohorts:

For Germany, take this artcile:
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article198942039/Selbst-bei-Nullzuwanderung-wuerde-der-Migrationsanteil-steigen.html



Note: the Federal Bureau of Statistics is defining a "migration background" as someone who was either born abroad himself, or who has at least one parent who wasnt born in Germany. Hence, this concept only extents to two generations max. There is, for example, a sizeable number of third- and fourth-generation Turks and Arabs who are considered "Germans without migration background" by this statistic even though they still dont speak fluent German and identify more with e.g. Turkey than Germany.

To get a picture of the broader age distribution, look at the following age pyramid which breaks it down (Blue = foreigner, Black = German national with a migration background, Grey = German without migration background):
https://i.imgur.com/XqMspB0.jpg

Compare the breakdown at age 45 with that at age 55...

-------------


Regarding the UK:
9.3 million or around 14% of your population are foreign-born ( https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-an-overview/ ), so if you applied a similar definition of "migration background" as above (i.e. including their UK-born children as well as second-generation offspring from the earlier migration waves of the 60s through 80s), then you should easily end up with at least twice that number.

Quote (dro94 @ 21 Apr 2020 14:13)

Talk about moving the goalposts :lol:

Having one parent that isn't native to the country doesn't mean you're an immigrant and is clearly not the context of what we were discussing.

Yeah, 14%, so a good 20% less than what you said. Not to mention you are counting white christian EU countries as foreign born to illustrate the dangers of immigration to national culture when you are clearly referring to non-white and non-christian folks.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ 21 Apr 2020 18:26)

I'm not moving the goalposts, I'm using the official definition/terminology that the German Federal Bureau of Statistics is using.

And note that I never claimed that all of those people who are immigrants or have an immigration background were problematic/a burden/a danger. Most of them arent. And yes, the "problematic" cases are clustered among those of non-European descent and/or those who are orthodox muslims.

Still: when 41% of the upcoming generation (those currently aged 0-5) officially have a migration background, plus the ones who are third+ generation (and thus not covered by this particular statistic) yet still not integrated, plus those will migrate into these cohorts in the future, you easily end up with around 50% of this generation being influenced and shaped by a foreign culture. This doesnt need to be the end of the world like the right-wing radicals are claiming, dont get me wrong. In particular since a lot of them will still pick up a ton of German influences. But on the other hand, it would be absolutely naive to think that such a distribution of cultural backgrounds has no influence at all and leaves the country unchanged.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Apr 21 2020 05:26pm)

I'm not moving the goalposts, I'm using the official definition/terminology that the German Federal Bureau of Statistics is using.

And note that I never claimed that all of those people who are immigrants or have an immigration background were problematic/a burden/a danger. Most of them arent. And yes, the "problematic" cases are clustered among those of non-European descent and/or those who are orthodox muslims.

Still: when 41% of the upcoming generation (those currently aged 0-5) officially have a migration background, plus the ones who are third+ generation (and thus not covered by this particular statistic) yet still not integrated, plus those who will migrate into these cohorts in the future, you easily end up with around 50% of this generation being influenced and shaped by a foreign culture. This doesnt need to be the end of the world like the right-wing radicals are claiming, dont get me wrong. In particular since a lot of them will still pick up a ton of German influences. But on the other hand, it would be absolutely naive to think that such a distribution of cultural backgrounds has no influence at all and leaves the country unchanged.