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Yes, it would be terrible if we did all that work to improve the atmosphere for nothing. http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg

deepvibrations 11y ago
Amazing- I've been looking for this image for years, sums it up perfectly!
unethical_ban 11y ago
"for nothing" At huge cost to the economy and freedom from government regulations and bureaucracy. Plus, a lot of "green" solutions aren't utopic or practical. It's not all or nothing, and I support being ecologically conscious. But I don't think it's wise to dismiss all criticism of the climate change cult.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I'm sure there are reasonable criticisms to be had, but until people actually start making them, it's hard not to dismiss all criticism when it's all so terrible. For example, people who refer to it as a "cult."
  - unethical_ban 11y ago
    Well, CAFE standards are a twisted joke, and we're still promoting wind and solar above nuclear. Existing federal regulations for inspection of safety and environmental conditions at oil wells is nonexistent. The DoE can't get their crap together regarding the care of superfund sites. So color me jaded about Dems shouting about tax credits for GM Volts or implementing cap and trade.
  - planfaster 11y ago
    Here's some criticism for you: if this is not a cult, why did they lie about the "97% of scientists" consensus? http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023034803045795784... "Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research." If it's Science, why the lies? And why the push for government intervention? I thought Science was about reality, not policy.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      How am I supposed to take seriously an article which believes a survey of meteorologists is in any way relevant to a claim about the opinions of climate scientists? If climate "skeptics" aren't completely full of it, why do they constantly mix up climate and weather and otherwise constantly demonstrate fundamental misunderstandings of the topic?
    - dang 11y ago
      Please stop taking HN threads on generic ideological tangents. You've been doing this a ton, and it's not what this site is for. In fact, there's little that's worse for HN. Such tangents are predictable, which makes them tedious, and tendentious, which makes them prolific. Tedious plus prolific equals sludge. Moreover, such discussions only get worse as they proceed, never better.
claar 11y ago
This is a weak argument. No one is saying that smog in cities is desirable. But rather that there is insufficient evidence to show certain interventions are necessary/economical/effective.
karl_gluck 11y ago
Come on, that's incredibly disingenuous. Of course it's not terrible to improve the atmosphere. But you're making it sound like all methods are equivalent; when there are limited resources to address the problem, they need to be allocated accordingly. It's a similar situation to water in California -- yes, everyone should cut down on consumption. But the single-family mega-mansions using as much as 90 normal residences [1] cutting 10% of their water usage has a much bigger impact than an average residence cutting 10%. Edited: If a billion dollars spent in the US reduces US emissions by 5%, and US emissions and emissions from these fires are equivalent, and it costs less to incentivize Indonesian / Malaysian palm oil producers to stop burning peat forest and reduce emissions by 5%, we should be doing that instead. [1] https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air-who-is-californias-biggest-water-guzzler/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air... Original before edit: If the US could spend a billion dollars to reduce our carbon emissions by 5%, or could spend a billion dollars paying Indonesia & Malaysia to stop setting palm oil on fire and reduce THEIR emissions, the results are not equivalent. The latter is 200x more effective. [the 200x was from a misreading of the article]
- mikeash 11y ago
  How is it 200x more effective to reduce the emissions of Indonesia and Malaysia by 5%? These fires exceeded the emissions of the US for 26 days and otherwise the US far outweighs these countries when it comes to emissions. If the choice is 5% of ours or 5% of theirs, surely 5% of ours produces a far greater effect.
  - karl_gluck 11y ago
    You're right, I must have misread the original article while composing my response. This is what I was remembering: "Taken together, the impact of peat fires on global warming can be more than 200 times greater than fires on other lands."
    - mikeash 11y ago
      It sounds like the original article may have greatly overstated the emissions from these fires. I came in after it got fixed so I don't know.
oberstein 11y ago
Crocodile humor.
planfaster 11y ago
Cartoons use a myriad of figures of speech in order to build a setup-punchline structure that is actually funny. One of the tricks of the trade is to use logical fallacies, as they are mechanisms for hiding premises or faulty logic, which is ideal to build assumptions in the viewer's mind that are then shattered by the punchline. The figure of speech employed here is a fallacy called Begging the Question. When the character says "what if we create a better world for nothing" he is implicitly accepting the premise that the changes proposed by the presenter would create a better world even though he might not agree with the presenter's conclusions. So the "funny" comes from pretending that we all agree that the list of things the presenter is talking about actually describe "a better world". As for real life, I would say the cartoon, while funny, does not "sum up perfectly" the issue in real life, because in real life what is under dispute is whether governments taking more control for themselves, in order to carry out those things in the presenter's slide, is actually a better world than all of the alternatives, including taking care of the planet without giving more power to government institutions which have proven themselves incapable of seeing to completion endeavors several orders of magnitude simpler than "saving the world".
- mikeash 11y ago
  We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. The result is massive pollution, widespread health problems, and global climate change. And in fact we already saw what happens when government does take control. The result is vastly improved pollution, and without wrecking the economy.
  - planfaster 11y ago
    > We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. Where? What's that place where the industry (short for "all private companies") can do what they will (your words), meaning, government cannot curb their will? I've never heard of such place in all my readings of History and Economics. I'm ready for you to blow my mind!
    - 11y ago

deepvibrations 11y ago

Amazing- I've been looking for this image for years, sums it up perfectly!

unethical_ban 11y ago

"for nothing" At huge cost to the economy and freedom from government regulations and bureaucracy. Plus, a lot of "green" solutions aren't utopic or practical. It's not all or nothing, and I support being ecologically conscious. But I don't think it's wise to dismiss all criticism of the climate change cult.

mikeash 11y ago
I'm sure there are reasonable criticisms to be had, but until people actually start making them, it's hard not to dismiss all criticism when it's all so terrible. For example, people who refer to it as a "cult."
- unethical_ban 11y ago
  Well, CAFE standards are a twisted joke, and we're still promoting wind and solar above nuclear. Existing federal regulations for inspection of safety and environmental conditions at oil wells is nonexistent. The DoE can't get their crap together regarding the care of superfund sites. So color me jaded about Dems shouting about tax credits for GM Volts or implementing cap and trade.
- planfaster 11y ago
  Here's some criticism for you: if this is not a cult, why did they lie about the "97% of scientists" consensus? http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023034803045795784... "Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research." If it's Science, why the lies? And why the push for government intervention? I thought Science was about reality, not policy.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    How am I supposed to take seriously an article which believes a survey of meteorologists is in any way relevant to a claim about the opinions of climate scientists? If climate "skeptics" aren't completely full of it, why do they constantly mix up climate and weather and otherwise constantly demonstrate fundamental misunderstandings of the topic?
  - dang 11y ago
    Please stop taking HN threads on generic ideological tangents. You've been doing this a ton, and it's not what this site is for. In fact, there's little that's worse for HN. Such tangents are predictable, which makes them tedious, and tendentious, which makes them prolific. Tedious plus prolific equals sludge. Moreover, such discussions only get worse as they proceed, never better.

claar 11y ago

This is a weak argument. No one is saying that smog in cities is desirable. But rather that there is insufficient evidence to show certain interventions are necessary/economical/effective.

karl_gluck 11y ago

Come on, that's incredibly disingenuous. Of course it's not terrible to improve the atmosphere. But you're making it sound like all methods are equivalent; when there are limited resources to address the problem, they need to be allocated accordingly. It's a similar situation to water in California -- yes, everyone should cut down on consumption. But the single-family mega-mansions using as much as 90 normal residences [1] cutting 10% of their water usage has a much bigger impact than an average residence cutting 10%. Edited: If a billion dollars spent in the US reduces US emissions by 5%, and US emissions and emissions from these fires are equivalent, and it costs less to incentivize Indonesian / Malaysian palm oil producers to stop burning peat forest and reduce emissions by 5%, we should be doing that instead. [1] https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air-who-is-californias-biggest-water-guzzler/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air... Original before edit: If the US could spend a billion dollars to reduce our carbon emissions by 5%, or could spend a billion dollars paying Indonesia & Malaysia to stop setting palm oil on fire and reduce THEIR emissions, the results are not equivalent. The latter is 200x more effective. [the 200x was from a misreading of the article]

mikeash 11y ago
How is it 200x more effective to reduce the emissions of Indonesia and Malaysia by 5%? These fires exceeded the emissions of the US for 26 days and otherwise the US far outweighs these countries when it comes to emissions. If the choice is 5% of ours or 5% of theirs, surely 5% of ours produces a far greater effect.
- karl_gluck 11y ago
  You're right, I must have misread the original article while composing my response. This is what I was remembering: "Taken together, the impact of peat fires on global warming can be more than 200 times greater than fires on other lands."
  - mikeash 11y ago
    It sounds like the original article may have greatly overstated the emissions from these fires. I came in after it got fixed so I don't know.

oberstein 11y ago

Crocodile humor.

planfaster 11y ago

Cartoons use a myriad of figures of speech in order to build a setup-punchline structure that is actually funny. One of the tricks of the trade is to use logical fallacies, as they are mechanisms for hiding premises or faulty logic, which is ideal to build assumptions in the viewer's mind that are then shattered by the punchline. The figure of speech employed here is a fallacy called Begging the Question. When the character says "what if we create a better world for nothing" he is implicitly accepting the premise that the changes proposed by the presenter would create a better world even though he might not agree with the presenter's conclusions. So the "funny" comes from pretending that we all agree that the list of things the presenter is talking about actually describe "a better world". As for real life, I would say the cartoon, while funny, does not "sum up perfectly" the issue in real life, because in real life what is under dispute is whether governments taking more control for themselves, in order to carry out those things in the presenter's slide, is actually a better world than all of the alternatives, including taking care of the planet without giving more power to government institutions which have proven themselves incapable of seeing to completion endeavors several orders of magnitude simpler than "saving the world".

mikeash 11y ago
We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. The result is massive pollution, widespread health problems, and global climate change. And in fact we already saw what happens when government does take control. The result is vastly improved pollution, and without wrecking the economy.
- planfaster 11y ago
  > We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. Where? What's that place where the industry (short for "all private companies") can do what they will (your words), meaning, government cannot curb their will? I've never heard of such place in all my readings of History and Economics. I'm ready for you to blow my mind!
  - 11y ago