Plus, animal consumption is among the top three causes of ecological destruction on this planet. Do people think burgers only exist under capitalism? That palm oil and pig meat are an obsession of the super rich? It’s not a matter of efficiency (farming is already absurdly efficient). It’s just math. Like everyone will give up chicken nuggets to save the planet or something? Good luck with that. People are obdurate and gross.

Getting rid of capitalism is a step in the right direction, sure, but unless folks are willing to give up meat, cars, airplanes, and who knows what other amenities, we are still just as fucked.

We've been here 200,000 years, we've been farming for the last 12,000 of those. Environmental destruction is, reletively, a very very new phenomenon.

Given that the environmental depredation of this planet is driven by

1. the farming of animal products,
2. the production and consumption of energy, and
3. the extraction and transformation of material resources,

can people explain why they believe that without capitalism everyone would be a vegan who doesn’t take vacations, use air conditioning, fly on airplanes, or drive a car? I also assume they’re wearing hemp and have no interest in fashion.

Keep in mind there are 8 billion people on this planet, so presumably they wouldn’t be having children either.

EDIT: the reply below completely ignores my question. Very few people seem to actually give a shit about the environment. It’s all just ideological posturing. And that is why we are fucked.

Yeah, I just can't stop pooping out capitalism. It's literally a natural thing that I do. /S

So China must be a paragon of eco-friendly, right?

If every country was doing as well as China right now, the world would be a much better place. But the Chinese advantage is largely in its cutting edge industrial capacity. A bit unfair to hold Vietnam or Cuba to the standards of a tech giant.

It must also mean that there aren’t capitalist nations the means and innovation for protection of the environment, right? Right?

Economic central planning that forecasts the consequences of ecological degradation on a 5, 10, and 50 year time horizon will lead administrators to policies that individual businesses fixated on quarterly profits and annual executive compensation packages don't want to embrace.

Past that, a big part of what the Chinese environmentalist project has been about is experimentation. They've done manual reforesting along the Gobi Desert. They've done nuclear energy R&D. They've done carbon capture projects. They've invested enormous sums in their space program.

Most of the western R&D and infrastructure development has been limited by what the O&G industry is willing to directly invest in (carbon capture, converting from coal to nat gas with supplementary wind/solar, carbon credits and other forms of green financialization) all of which are designed to immediately enrich their bottom lines. That's not even considering the deliberate efforts to maximize fossil fuel usage (the Texas ERCOT grid refusing to buy cheap renewable/nuclear power from outside the state, various states threatening to prohibit/tax electric vehicles and renewable energy power systems).

To conclude capitalist rent seeking isn't guiding any of these policies is deeply irrational.

China is capitalist now