Ban on single-use plastic cutlery comes into force in England

When I mean it wouldn’t bother me, I mean that I’ll suck it up and pay or just no longer buy the product.

I don't really see how they are different. Whether it's due to human activity or not, the result is still the same: ultimately at some point or another, the Earth's environment is going to become inhospitable and uninhabitable for humans, and people are going to suffer and die for it. Obviously I hope I don't end up being one of those people. But if someone has to experience that, why should it make a difference to me whether they're the people alive 200 years from now or 2 billion years from now? That's the part I don't understand.

I'm not really following your teeth brushing analogy either. I'd say the same thing applies. I want to have healthy teeth throughout my lifetime, and I'd hope they don't become unhealthy and fall out during the course of it (hence I brush them). But if they're going to fall out once I'm dead and know nothing about it, why do I care how much time after my death it takes for that to happen?

You mean the straws?

I was thinking more of the relocations and rezoning due to temps/water/food availability and being forced out of your normal home or restricted in movement due to costs as priorities change. I think we're definitely already seeing parts of this happen.

I just find that a strangely strong if nihilistic position to take. I can understand a variety of opinion on severity, impact or even denial etc, but just not caring seems genuinely odd to me, we're not taking about dismissing a TV show or a material possession, but the literal air we breathe and food we eat, I think we're affecting these pretty quickly, like within our lifetimes of significance, not perhaps dramatically, but if we're going to start having to move and rezone to cooler/warmer areas as things shift, can you afford it? How will you fare in the haves vs have nots if things are pushed and values change overnight?

How do you not understand the difference? One is preventable while the other isn't (at least at the moment). One is already taking place (and will have even worse affects for our children and grandchildren) while the other will happen in billions of years. Do you simply not care about the people who are born after you?

The anology addresses your nihilistic belief that we shouldn't work to prevent suffering just because suffering may eventually happen anyway. The anology is about the individual but the general philosophy applies more broadly. Just because people in billions of years may die to the heat death of the universe doesn't mean we shouldn't work to prevent suffering today.

But the effects aren't preventable. It's not that the suffering "may" happen anyway, it's that it definitely will happen to either one group of people or another. It's just a question of "should group A suffer or should group B suffer?" Of course I care about people born after me, so my answer is ideally neither. But if we don't have that option and it either has to be A or B, what's the difference?

Humans can stop suffering caused by climate change by slowing down, stopping or even reversing climate change. That will help people in the decades, centuries and millennia to come.

Humans can't stop the suffering caused by the inevitable heat death of the universe in 1,000,000,000s of years from now.

What's not to understand? I am really struggling to see what part of this you don't get. The longer we can prevent extinction-level suffering the better.

Why does it seem like we do all the work?

I've seen videos of supermarkets in places like South Korea, Japan.. everything wrapped in plastic. While we can't even get our food delivered in bags anymore. Well except Ocado I think.

These Asian countries are doing their part.

I don't get the part in bold. It is not at all obvious to me why extinction-level suffering would be less bad just because it takes place further into the future.

It would be less bad because it means that humanity can continue to exist for longer.

Put it this way, suppose you had children, grand children, great grandchildren, etc. Would you rather they are free to live full, healthy lives or that they suffer and die in an extinction-level event caused by preventable climate change?

I really can't make sense of your confusion, unless you simply do not care for the people of the future...?

Of course I would rather all my descendants for the rest of eternity live happy, healthy lives. But that simply isn't possible; the reality is that if my children don't suffer an extinction-level event, my grandchildren will. Or if they don't, then my great-grandchildren will. Or if they don't, then some other generation of my descendants will down the line. The level of suffering experienced isn't going to be minimised just because the extinction event lands on a later generation rather than an earlier one.

Yes, it would mean that humanity can continue to exist for longer, although I don't think Generation B (who were never born because the extinction event happened to Generation A before them) experience any suffering or inconvenience due to that. The only ones who suffer are the ones who actually experience the extinction event.

Of course I would rather all my descendants for the rest of eternity live happy, healthy lives. But that simply isn't possible; the reality is that if my children don't suffer an extinction-level event, my grandchildren will. Or if they don't, then my great-grandchildren will. Or if they don't, then some other generation of my descendants will down the line. The level of suffering experienced isn't going to be minimised just because the extinction event lands on a later generation rather than an earlier one.

Yes, it would mean that humanity can continue to exist for longer, although I don't think Generation B (who were never born because the extinction event happened to Generation A before them) experience any suffering or inconvenience due to that. The only ones who suffer are the ones who actually experience the extinction event.

Right, but the longevity of humanity can be maximised by preventing / mitigating extinction-level threats like climate change. That's the benefit, we allow humanity to continue existing for longer.

Thats why I used the anology of brushing teeth. Most of us will teeth fall out during our lifetime, but we brush our teeth in order to delay it or stop it entirely. The pursuit is worthwhile even our teeth may still fall out eventually.

I get that it increases the longevity of humanity on a macro level, but I'm not really seeing who individually benefits from that. Sure, some people would get to be born who otherwise wouldn't have, but I don't think people who never get to be born actually mind.

I don't think the teeth brushing analogy is valid here, because in that case you're talking about just one individual, not the macro level. On an individual level, nobody wants to have their lifespan cut short, just as nobody wants to have their time with healthy teeth cut short. People want to avoid the suffering associated with both of those things. But I've already addressed that point. The suffering experienced doesn't decrease just because the people experiencing it happen to be from a later generation rather than an earlier one.

The people who benefit are the billions who get to live full, complete lives without suffering. Just because humanity may go extinct eventually (e.g. due to the death of the universe) doesn't make it a worthless endeavour to prevent extinction when we can. Again, I am struggling to grasp what it is you don't understand?

The analogy addresses the idea that we shouldn't prevent suffering just because suffering may inevitably happen anyway. The analogy is about a single person but the idea is still the same.

But it's not the same thing at all. If I lose my teeth today, I'll suffer a lot more than if I lose them 50 years from now, due to the 50 years of extra time I'll have to spend without teeth. That's the reason I want to delay the loss of my teeth. There's no parallel with the extinction of humanity here. If humanity goes extinct today rather than 50 years from now, that's not 50 years worth of extra suffering.

The analogy isn't meant to be perfectly applicable to climate change, it is to establish the general idea. The same idea could be applied to other situations, e.g. curing yourself of a disease that would otherwise kill you.

In any case, the point is that delaying extinction is desireable in and of itself. Not to forget that climate change already affects us.

But I don't agree with the general idea that delaying a bad thing is desirable in itself. It depends on what it is.

When talking about curing a deadly disease, the situation is totally different because we're talking about one individual. Yes, I would seek to be cured of a deadly disease, but not for the reason you're suggesting (that delaying a bad thing is desirable in itself). It's because I as an individual don't want my life cut short; I'd rather die 50 years from now than today, so I personally get an extra 50 years of life to live. That duration of experience is valuable to me.

But there's no similar reason to delay extinction. If it happens today, some people will get their lives cut short, and if it happens a million years from now, some other people will get their lives cut short. The total loss of life is roughly the same either way, but just to a different group of people. (I'm not counting all the people who could have lived in the middle of those two groups, because as I said, I don't think people who never get to exist care about the fact that they don't exist).