What are your thoughts on free-time/shorter work-week as a possible solution to climate change? During the lockdowns, NO2 and CO2 emission levels dropped---for obvious reasons: less cars on the road, businesses were shuttered, certain heavy carbon-emitting industries were restricted in production etc.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x

This effect was of course temporary, and the atmospheric rate never dropped. But it did give us some insights, I believe:

1.) Although it was a government decision to enforce shutdowns, it was ultimately up to the businesses to do this. And because the length of the shutdowns were so short, this demonstrates that a prolonged shorter workweek is actually an existential threat to the state as well as to capitalism as a form of production (capital accumulation).

2.) The government can't actually solve climate change, since it refuses to alter the way the mode of production operates for any protracted duration.

3.) It is not enough to just reduce carbon emissions; the entire way in which we produce wealth itself must be redefined, which means, among other things, the very activity in which we produce and reproduce ourselves (through labor), must be redefined.

4.) In order to "redefine" wealth, we must first abolish the conditions on which it is presently founded: surplus labor-time. Surplus labor-time must be necessarily converted into free-time as the new basis of real and material wealth.

5.) None of this requires government intervention, since you and you alone control whether you wish to sell your labor, and under what circumstances. ( This is intriguing to me, because GenZ came out swinging during this last election, and yet they have some of the lowest trust in government in general [https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-trust-issues-government-business-college-other-people-institutions-2022-8].

So I believe this provides a non-governmental solution and is perfectly consonant with a form of direct-action that can't be co-opted by corporations nor any major party institution).

Some sources, if you're interested:

http://digamoo.free.fr/kingbergh2017.pdf

https://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change-workshare-2013-02.pdf

https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2021/09/09/biden-could-have-issued-an-order-to-stop-climate-change-in-the-time-it-took-to-mandate-vax/

https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2021/08/29/2020-reduction-of-labor-hours-led-to-6-fall-in-carbon-emissions/

https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/why-keynes-predicted-a-15-hour-workweek-but-marx-did-not/

http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf