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There's a third reason that I've thought about for a while. I call it "it's better to reign in hell." Extreme poverty is worse than most natural disasters. I w

by api 10y ago

There's a third reason that I've thought about for a while. I call it "it's better to reign in hell." Extreme poverty is worse than most natural disasters. I wouldn't be surprised if infant mortality is substantially lower in a developed nation during a category five hurricane than it is in a poor nation during calm weather. It's better to reign in hell. The benefits of development may actually outweigh the cost of, say, losing one's coastal cities.

Diederich 10y ago
I wonder how strongly correlated poverty is with the quality of life impact associated with natural disasters.
mrfusion 10y ago
You're going against the narrative there ... no amount of progress is worth sea level rise.
- seiferteric 10y ago
  If only sea level rise was the only problem.
- api 10y ago
  I wasn't saying it's a good thing, just that it's a fact. Wealth brings the luxury of caring about the environment. Poverty is absolute desperation. If you are dirt poor the only thing that matters is not being dirt poor. This is also why what I call "abstinence based" solutions to environmental problems are doomed. This refers to the use of shame and ideology to convince people to accept a lower standard of living. Telling people to forego the benefits of energy consumption is going to work about as well as telling them not to have sex. The only solution to climate change is large scale renewable and/or nuclear energy sufficient to economically replace fossil fuels. All else is futile.
  - nikdaheratik 10y ago
    I kind of agree, in that it's not an individual action problem but a collective action problem. You want to reduce emissions in the aggregate, you need something like a carbon tax which encourages people and companies at the margin into making the choice that emits less carbon.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
Except that the vast majority of greenhouse gases are generated by the developed countries. Especially if you look over the entire history since the industrial revolution. We can't fix this problem by bringing India, Africa and China up to western levels of emissions and then converting them. We've got to ramp down the levels in the west while rolling out renewables in the developing countries from the start.

by api 10y ago

Diederich 10y ago

I wonder how strongly correlated poverty is with the quality of life impact associated with natural disasters.

mrfusion 10y ago

You're going against the narrative there ... no amount of progress is worth sea level rise.

seiferteric 10y ago
If only sea level rise was the only problem.
api 10y ago
I wasn't saying it's a good thing, just that it's a fact. Wealth brings the luxury of caring about the environment. Poverty is absolute desperation. If you are dirt poor the only thing that matters is not being dirt poor. This is also why what I call "abstinence based" solutions to environmental problems are doomed. This refers to the use of shame and ideology to convince people to accept a lower standard of living. Telling people to forego the benefits of energy consumption is going to work about as well as telling them not to have sex. The only solution to climate change is large scale renewable and/or nuclear energy sufficient to economically replace fossil fuels. All else is futile.
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  I kind of agree, in that it's not an individual action problem but a collective action problem. You want to reduce emissions in the aggregate, you need something like a carbon tax which encourages people and companies at the margin into making the choice that emits less carbon.

nikdaheratik 10y ago

Except that the vast majority of greenhouse gases are generated by the developed countries. Especially if you look over the entire history since the industrial revolution. We can't fix this problem by bringing India, Africa and China up to western levels of emissions and then converting them. We've got to ramp down the levels in the west while rolling out renewables in the developing countries from the start.