5 ms·

If you want to wallow in ignorance about how and why "the climate constantly changes" and what that means for our civilization, that is your prerogative. But d

If you want to wallow in ignorance about how and why "the climate constantly changes" and what that means for our civilization, that is your prerogative. But don't expect to be treated with respect. You're making a pitiful excuse to dismiss trends that threaten trillions of dollars of inherited infrastructure investment that is at risk of being made useless, and that threaten the comfort and safety of billions of people.

guscost 11y ago
> trends that ... threaten the comfort and safety of billions of people Again I don't agree that the threat indicated by these trends is as grave as you claim. I agree there is strong evidence of a grave threat to this coral ecosystem, and Australian coastal tourism.
- ageofwant 11y ago
  And what are the consequences of you being wrong ?
  - guscost 11y ago
    The answer you're leading toward is "something akin to apocalypse", and I get it, it's scary. On the other hand have you really taken enough time to consider the consequences if your faction is wrong? Have you acknowledged that there could be bad consequences in that case too? Typically I hear "we would be taking better care of the environment anyway so win-win" but nobody ever adds "by granting loads of new power to governments and big institutions, which may or may not be corrupted just as big and powerful institutions have been corrupted throughout history" and that is a significant detail! Out of curiosity, I'm interested to know which of the following descriptions you consider more accurate: a) The climate/environment situation is exactly as bad as the mainstream warnings indicate. The only hope at this point is if we can start a large long-term centrally planned project to administer the solution as decided by the most prominent or respected thinkers. a) The climate/environment situation is not as dire as mainstream warnings indicate. At least some of the activism is motivated by fear, when people notice this or that smaller problem, get very scared by warnings of much bigger problems to come, and make the not-completely-rational choice to give up freedom for the promise of safety.
    - cromulent 11y ago
      I wouldn't characterize the situation in either of those ways. I think we could all agree that non-renewable energy sources will run out at some point. Hence the name :). Or, to be more precise, the extraction of non-renewables will cost more than their utility. So, at some point we have to transition: first to a mix, and eventually to renewables only. I would venture that we could also agree that those who make their money from non-renewables have an interest in delaying this transition as long as possible. That's what I would do. So, there will need to be some sort of agreement to transition, and incentives to do so. This doesn't necessarily need to be a "large long-term centrally planned project to administer the solution as decided by the most prominent or respected thinkers" - you can use economic incentives to leverage the market to do so. Well, you can in one country at a time fairly easily, but globally - it's tricky. If (as it seems) use of non-renewables is also a cumulative pollutant and could cause large costs to society globally, then the smart thing to do would be to accelerate this process. This doesn't mean giving up "freedom for the promise of safety" - it means, again, using economic incentives, but balanced against the costs. This already happens, all the time. We aren't giving up freedoms. In my opinion, anyway. We don't need to give governments loads of new power. We need to agree this is what we want and instruct our governments to do it. They already tax, rebate, and subsidize many things (e.g corn crops). The difficulty is the tragedy of the commons - and that's what all the arguments are about. Lots of countries, lots of different incentives, different histories, etc.
      - guscost 11y ago
        OK, first of all I appreciate the thoughtful response. I agree that the necessary transition from scarce hydrocarbons to something else, whenever that happens, is not likely to be totally pain-free. One of the traditional problems with markets is the turbulence that happens around these big paradigm shifts. America is in the middle of one right now as we transition to an information-based economy. I don't agree that the existing players in the hydrocarbon market have the ability to delay the change in the way that you're implying. In other words, resource availability is not a stepwise function that can just go from "available" to "not available" overnight. Rare things gradually get more expensive, investment is gradually shifted into alternatives, and this is basically guaranteed to happen with oil as long as there is not a perfect monopoly or perfect collusion. Also I'm skeptical that the economic policies you're suggesting won't lead to giving up freedoms. In practice freedoms do get taken away very often when institutions obtain the power to do so (e.g. the regulatory blockade on nuclear power, the ratcheting emissions rules for automobiles that will make a legal gasoline-powered car physically impossible in the near future, the outright ban on fracking in NY). I think this has a good chance of happening even if the initial plan is just to influence the market. A possible scenario: Some bad idea is encouraged for whatever reason by policy makers, and the economic policy isn't able to overcome the fact that it is a bad idea, so the decision makers cling to the sunk cost and pile on more regulations, until they start taking away freedoms. For the record I'm not a big fan of the current agricultural policies we have in general, even though I do think imposing a tariff or offering an incentive is infinitely preferable to a ban.
  - ocschwar 11y ago
    "At least some of the activism is motivated by fear, when people notice this or that smaller problem, get very scared by warnings of much bigger problems to come, and make the not-completely-rational choice to give up freedom for the promise of safety. " And just what "freedoms" are we talking about here? Please elaborate so we can mock your argument a little more thoroughly. -----
    - guscost 11y ago
      The freedom to drill an oil well on land you own, for example. And by the way, I'm very used to "not being treated with respect" from the opposition on this topic. Usually they aren't so eager to keep mentioning it, though. What's the deal?
      - mikeash 11y ago
        I see nothing wrong with drilling an oil well on your own land. Where we have a problem is when you start spreading that oil, or stuff derived from it, in my air and water. For reasons I don't understand, the "property rights and personal freedom" crowd usually (though certainly not always) thinks the freedom to pollute outweighs the freedom not to have your property polluted.
        guscost 11y ago
        > I see nothing wrong with drilling an oil well on your own land. Yet drilling an oil well is currently illegal on a lot of private land in the US. > Where we have a problem is when you start spreading that oil, or stuff derived from it, in my air and water. Air and water pollution are regulated separately by another group. I don't have any problem with this kind of regulation unless it gets out of hand (classifying CO2 as pollution for example).
        mikeash 11y ago
        Why is preventing you from putting CO2 into other people's air "out of hand," and not common sense property rights?
- ocschwar 11y ago
  We're talking about the need to relocate entire cities at this point. Those bleached corals don't just close shipping lanes near Queensland. They protect islands comprising entire nation states that now have to relocate. In the Pacific atolls, entire islands have had to give up conventional agriculture because of sea water intrusion. It takes willful blindness to "not agree" at this point.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

guscost 11y ago

> trends that ... threaten the comfort and safety of billions of people Again I don't agree that the threat indicated by these trends is as grave as you claim. I agree there is strong evidence of a grave threat to this coral ecosystem, and Australian coastal tourism.

ageofwant 11y ago
And what are the consequences of you being wrong ?
- guscost 11y ago
  The answer you're leading toward is "something akin to apocalypse", and I get it, it's scary. On the other hand have you really taken enough time to consider the consequences if your faction is wrong? Have you acknowledged that there could be bad consequences in that case too? Typically I hear "we would be taking better care of the environment anyway so win-win" but nobody ever adds "by granting loads of new power to governments and big institutions, which may or may not be corrupted just as big and powerful institutions have been corrupted throughout history" and that is a significant detail! Out of curiosity, I'm interested to know which of the following descriptions you consider more accurate: a) The climate/environment situation is exactly as bad as the mainstream warnings indicate. The only hope at this point is if we can start a large long-term centrally planned project to administer the solution as decided by the most prominent or respected thinkers. a) The climate/environment situation is not as dire as mainstream warnings indicate. At least some of the activism is motivated by fear, when people notice this or that smaller problem, get very scared by warnings of much bigger problems to come, and make the not-completely-rational choice to give up freedom for the promise of safety.
  - cromulent 11y ago
    I wouldn't characterize the situation in either of those ways. I think we could all agree that non-renewable energy sources will run out at some point. Hence the name :). Or, to be more precise, the extraction of non-renewables will cost more than their utility. So, at some point we have to transition: first to a mix, and eventually to renewables only. I would venture that we could also agree that those who make their money from non-renewables have an interest in delaying this transition as long as possible. That's what I would do. So, there will need to be some sort of agreement to transition, and incentives to do so. This doesn't necessarily need to be a "large long-term centrally planned project to administer the solution as decided by the most prominent or respected thinkers" - you can use economic incentives to leverage the market to do so. Well, you can in one country at a time fairly easily, but globally - it's tricky. If (as it seems) use of non-renewables is also a cumulative pollutant and could cause large costs to society globally, then the smart thing to do would be to accelerate this process. This doesn't mean giving up "freedom for the promise of safety" - it means, again, using economic incentives, but balanced against the costs. This already happens, all the time. We aren't giving up freedoms. In my opinion, anyway. We don't need to give governments loads of new power. We need to agree this is what we want and instruct our governments to do it. They already tax, rebate, and subsidize many things (e.g corn crops). The difficulty is the tragedy of the commons - and that's what all the arguments are about. Lots of countries, lots of different incentives, different histories, etc.
    - guscost 11y ago
      OK, first of all I appreciate the thoughtful response. I agree that the necessary transition from scarce hydrocarbons to something else, whenever that happens, is not likely to be totally pain-free. One of the traditional problems with markets is the turbulence that happens around these big paradigm shifts. America is in the middle of one right now as we transition to an information-based economy. I don't agree that the existing players in the hydrocarbon market have the ability to delay the change in the way that you're implying. In other words, resource availability is not a stepwise function that can just go from "available" to "not available" overnight. Rare things gradually get more expensive, investment is gradually shifted into alternatives, and this is basically guaranteed to happen with oil as long as there is not a perfect monopoly or perfect collusion. Also I'm skeptical that the economic policies you're suggesting won't lead to giving up freedoms. In practice freedoms do get taken away very often when institutions obtain the power to do so (e.g. the regulatory blockade on nuclear power, the ratcheting emissions rules for automobiles that will make a legal gasoline-powered car physically impossible in the near future, the outright ban on fracking in NY). I think this has a good chance of happening even if the initial plan is just to influence the market. A possible scenario: Some bad idea is encouraged for whatever reason by policy makers, and the economic policy isn't able to overcome the fact that it is a bad idea, so the decision makers cling to the sunk cost and pile on more regulations, until they start taking away freedoms. For the record I'm not a big fan of the current agricultural policies we have in general, even though I do think imposing a tariff or offering an incentive is infinitely preferable to a ban.
- ocschwar 11y ago
  "At least some of the activism is motivated by fear, when people notice this or that smaller problem, get very scared by warnings of much bigger problems to come, and make the not-completely-rational choice to give up freedom for the promise of safety. " And just what "freedoms" are we talking about here? Please elaborate so we can mock your argument a little more thoroughly. -----
  - guscost 11y ago
    The freedom to drill an oil well on land you own, for example. And by the way, I'm very used to "not being treated with respect" from the opposition on this topic. Usually they aren't so eager to keep mentioning it, though. What's the deal?
    - mikeash 11y ago
      I see nothing wrong with drilling an oil well on your own land. Where we have a problem is when you start spreading that oil, or stuff derived from it, in my air and water. For reasons I don't understand, the "property rights and personal freedom" crowd usually (though certainly not always) thinks the freedom to pollute outweighs the freedom not to have your property polluted.
      - guscost 11y ago
        > I see nothing wrong with drilling an oil well on your own land. Yet drilling an oil well is currently illegal on a lot of private land in the US. > Where we have a problem is when you start spreading that oil, or stuff derived from it, in my air and water. Air and water pollution are regulated separately by another group. I don't have any problem with this kind of regulation unless it gets out of hand (classifying CO2 as pollution for example).
        mikeash 11y ago
        Why is preventing you from putting CO2 into other people's air "out of hand," and not common sense property rights?
ocschwar 11y ago
We're talking about the need to relocate entire cities at this point. Those bleached corals don't just close shipping lanes near Queensland. They protect islands comprising entire nation states that now have to relocate. In the Pacific atolls, entire islands have had to give up conventional agriculture because of sea water intrusion. It takes willful blindness to "not agree" at this point.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]