3 ms·

Opportunity costs. For example, we're currently devoting a lot of money and attention to climate change that could instead be devoted to things like malaria and

by philh 10y ago

Opportunity costs. For example, we're currently devoting a lot of money and attention to climate change that could instead be devoted to things like malaria and malnutrition. (It should be obvious, but this is not an argument that climate change isn't real. Just that if it weren't real, we'd want to know, and act upon that.)

tremon 10y ago
could instead be devoted to things like malaria and malnutrition. You know what is the biggest cause of global malnutrition? Climate change, because it is causing more erratic weather patterns that destroy harvests worldwide. You know what the biggest cause is for the spreading of the malaria mosquitoes beyond the tropics? Climate change again, because it makes some (highly-populated) regions a more favourable habitat. Climate change isn't some hypothetical problem anymore, like it was in 1850. It is here now, and is already causing problems like you mentioned, that we are spending so much money on countering. But we're treating symptoms, not the cause. I fully expect our spend on treating the symptoms of climate change will rise to unmanageable levels in mere decades.
- philh 10y ago
  I want to be clear that this is not a reply to what I said. I argued that if climate change weren't real, we'd want to know about it, and I made it perfectly clear that I was not saying climate change is not real. You replied that climate change is real and causing problems today. But I'll respond anyway. From http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/: > climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood undernutrition Meanwhile, today malaria is killing around 600 000 people a year (ten times that number), and malnutrition around 3 million (thirty times). So, while I'm open to convincing, color me skeptical that today, climate change is the "biggest cause" of those things, for any reasonable definition of "biggest cause". (Granted, you said "spreading of the malaria mosquitos beyond the tropics". To the extent that this problem is different from the problem of malaria in general, it's moving the goalposts.) (I also note that even if climate change were the biggest cause of those problems, the best solution to those specific problems might not be to fight climate change. Perhaps instead we should work on growing more resistant wheat, or eradicating mosquitos.) I'm not arguing that climate change isn't real or that we shouldn't try to solve it. But I categorically reject the idea that if it weren't real, we should nevertheless act as though it were.
  - Thnboi666 10y ago
    in which case how do we prove this to be real beyond doubt? what do we do when people treat their opposition as faith, i.e. belief despite lack of evidence. for some people it will never be real. what do we do about that? is that a legitimate thing to take into account? does that faith mean we cannot act as though climate change is largely human-driven?
    - philh 10y ago
      Again, this is not a reply to me. You don't wait until you've proven it beyond doubt. But you say "this is our best model, we're pretty confident it's right in the essentials, and we're going to act on it but remain open to being wrong; here are our policy proposals". You don't say "this is our best model, and here are our policy proposals based on it, but even if our model is wrong we would make the same proposals anyway". I have no particular insights into the other questions.
      - Thnboi666 10y ago
        ""this is our best model, we're pretty confident it's right in the essentials" 'what do you mean you don't know, you're not sure? you could be wrong?!' that's how people see that. that's why climate science needs to give concrete beyond doubt proof. anything less and people ignore it.
        philh 10y ago
        Another thing people say is: "the science is fraudulent, any competing evidence gets buried for disagreeing with the establishment". You are not helping with that.
  - tremon 10y ago
    I want to be clear that this is not a reply to what I said. I understood what you said, but in my view you were painting a false dichotomy: it's not a matter of "either climate change or all-these-other-useful-things", it's a matter of "all-these-other-useful-things because of our inability to address climate change directly".
Thnboi666 10y ago
Even if humans cannot affect change in the climate, we are still going to need to prepare for that change. investing in renewables etc affects much more than climate. Good investments for the future tend to overlap with solutions to human-driven climate change.
- philh 10y ago
  When preparing for a change, it's good to know whether or not you're leaning on a button that makes the change happen faster. If you are, you can try to lean less hard on that button, and buy more time to prepare. If you're not, then attempting to lean less hard is wasted effort. (It might accidentally have some benefits, but you could have gotten those benefits anyway, if you thought they were worth it.) It would be really surprising if our best-value course of action, relating to climate change, was exactly the same regardless of whether climate change were human-influenced or not.
  - Thnboi666 10y ago
    I don't see anything anywhere to show that the way carbon emissions increase global temperature to be false. greenhouse effect is a commonly observed phenomenon, and it's a plain fact that we emit carbon at extreme rates compared to pre-industry civilizations. we know that pushing this button has coincided with a change in climate trends over the last 200 years. what we have to prove is then that a. this is not a natural change, and b. this change can be slowed down or reversed. would you say that if science proved we are past the tipping point that nothing should be done to reverse the effect we've already had?
    - philh 10y ago
      You seem to be arguing that climate change is real and human-caused. I do not understand why you're arguing this, when I have repeatedly said that I am not arguing against it. I'm merely arguing that we want to know, contra the user who suggested it didn't matter if it was true or not because we should act the same in either case.
antisthenes 10y ago
Ironically, solving malnutrition and malaria will lead to an increase in population, which makes solving the problem of Global Warming even harder (and if you don't think overpopulation is one of the key issues when it comes to climate change, then I'm not sure you're able to have a rational discourse on the matter) In interconnected systems, there's an opportunity cost to opportunity cost.
- philh 10y ago
  You're not wrong, but I hope we can all agree that "let millions of people die to slightly reduce global warming" is very far down on our list of things to try.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Depends on the timeframe you're looking at. Within a single generation you're correct. Once you step into more generations though, fertility rates drop as child survivability rises, as it becomes much more viable to rely on a few children as insurance for old age. Source: Hans Rosling, Gapminder

by philh 10y ago

tremon 10y ago

could instead be devoted to things like malaria and malnutrition. You know what is the biggest cause of global malnutrition? Climate change, because it is causing more erratic weather patterns that destroy harvests worldwide. You know what the biggest cause is for the spreading of the malaria mosquitoes beyond the tropics? Climate change again, because it makes some (highly-populated) regions a more favourable habitat. Climate change isn't some hypothetical problem anymore, like it was in 1850. It is here now, and is already causing problems like you mentioned, that we are spending so much money on countering. But we're treating symptoms, not the cause. I fully expect our spend on treating the symptoms of climate change will rise to unmanageable levels in mere decades.

philh 10y ago
I want to be clear that this is not a reply to what I said. I argued that if climate change weren't real, we'd want to know about it, and I made it perfectly clear that I was not saying climate change is not real. You replied that climate change is real and causing problems today. But I'll respond anyway. From http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/: > climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood undernutrition Meanwhile, today malaria is killing around 600 000 people a year (ten times that number), and malnutrition around 3 million (thirty times). So, while I'm open to convincing, color me skeptical that today, climate change is the "biggest cause" of those things, for any reasonable definition of "biggest cause". (Granted, you said "spreading of the malaria mosquitos beyond the tropics". To the extent that this problem is different from the problem of malaria in general, it's moving the goalposts.) (I also note that even if climate change were the biggest cause of those problems, the best solution to those specific problems might not be to fight climate change. Perhaps instead we should work on growing more resistant wheat, or eradicating mosquitos.) I'm not arguing that climate change isn't real or that we shouldn't try to solve it. But I categorically reject the idea that if it weren't real, we should nevertheless act as though it were.
- Thnboi666 10y ago
  in which case how do we prove this to be real beyond doubt? what do we do when people treat their opposition as faith, i.e. belief despite lack of evidence. for some people it will never be real. what do we do about that? is that a legitimate thing to take into account? does that faith mean we cannot act as though climate change is largely human-driven?
  - philh 10y ago
    Again, this is not a reply to me. You don't wait until you've proven it beyond doubt. But you say "this is our best model, we're pretty confident it's right in the essentials, and we're going to act on it but remain open to being wrong; here are our policy proposals". You don't say "this is our best model, and here are our policy proposals based on it, but even if our model is wrong we would make the same proposals anyway". I have no particular insights into the other questions.
    - Thnboi666 10y ago
      ""this is our best model, we're pretty confident it's right in the essentials" 'what do you mean you don't know, you're not sure? you could be wrong?!' that's how people see that. that's why climate science needs to give concrete beyond doubt proof. anything less and people ignore it.
      - philh 10y ago
        Another thing people say is: "the science is fraudulent, any competing evidence gets buried for disagreeing with the establishment". You are not helping with that.
- tremon 10y ago
  I want to be clear that this is not a reply to what I said. I understood what you said, but in my view you were painting a false dichotomy: it's not a matter of "either climate change or all-these-other-useful-things", it's a matter of "all-these-other-useful-things because of our inability to address climate change directly".

Thnboi666 10y ago

Even if humans cannot affect change in the climate, we are still going to need to prepare for that change. investing in renewables etc affects much more than climate. Good investments for the future tend to overlap with solutions to human-driven climate change.

philh 10y ago
When preparing for a change, it's good to know whether or not you're leaning on a button that makes the change happen faster. If you are, you can try to lean less hard on that button, and buy more time to prepare. If you're not, then attempting to lean less hard is wasted effort. (It might accidentally have some benefits, but you could have gotten those benefits anyway, if you thought they were worth it.) It would be really surprising if our best-value course of action, relating to climate change, was exactly the same regardless of whether climate change were human-influenced or not.
- Thnboi666 10y ago
  I don't see anything anywhere to show that the way carbon emissions increase global temperature to be false. greenhouse effect is a commonly observed phenomenon, and it's a plain fact that we emit carbon at extreme rates compared to pre-industry civilizations. we know that pushing this button has coincided with a change in climate trends over the last 200 years. what we have to prove is then that a. this is not a natural change, and b. this change can be slowed down or reversed. would you say that if science proved we are past the tipping point that nothing should be done to reverse the effect we've already had?
  - philh 10y ago
    You seem to be arguing that climate change is real and human-caused. I do not understand why you're arguing this, when I have repeatedly said that I am not arguing against it. I'm merely arguing that we want to know, contra the user who suggested it didn't matter if it was true or not because we should act the same in either case.

antisthenes 10y ago

Ironically, solving malnutrition and malaria will lead to an increase in population, which makes solving the problem of Global Warming even harder (and if you don't think overpopulation is one of the key issues when it comes to climate change, then I'm not sure you're able to have a rational discourse on the matter) In interconnected systems, there's an opportunity cost to opportunity cost.

philh 10y ago
You're not wrong, but I hope we can all agree that "let millions of people die to slightly reduce global warming" is very far down on our list of things to try.
Mithaldu 10y ago
Depends on the timeframe you're looking at. Within a single generation you're correct. Once you step into more generations though, fertility rates drop as child survivability rises, as it becomes much more viable to rely on a few children as insurance for old age. Source: Hans Rosling, Gapminder