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If I'm not mistaken than the vast majority globally is convinced of man made climate change being an issue. The holdouts primarily seem to be a subset of US Ame

If I'm not mistaken than the vast majority globally is convinced of man made climate change being an issue. The holdouts primarily seem to be a subset of US Americans. There is disagreement on what a fair solution would look like but the vast majority agrees on the problem.

daxorid 10y ago
Let us be honest: no they are not convinced. If they were legitimately terrified of existential disaster >400ppm, they would be IMMEDIATELY limiting industrial production and investing MASSIVELY into carbon sequestration and renewables. The fact that ALL NATIONS take half-hearted and half-assed measures to confront what the pro-AGW crowd paints as an extinction risk demonstrably contradicts your claim that "the vast majority globally is convinced".
- mikeash 10y ago
  Collective action problems are not that easy to solve, no matter how dire the consequences of failure.
  - the8472 10y ago
    Did collective action not work for solving the hitler problem?
    - ajmurmann 10y ago
      Taking down Hitler just needed one force to take down Hitler. We didn't need to convince the majority that Hitler needs to be taken down and agree on how to do it. There also was no competitive advantage to be won by preventing this from happening. If I keep my pollution deregulated on there other hand I have a big competitive advantage over everyone who does. Very different problem.
    - rohamg 10y ago
      Not until it was almost too late.
- intended 10y ago
  No that's not true, and it's another tiresome argument based on first order armchair logic sans application of actual subject related experience/knowledge. Environmental diplomacy is hard, and made much harder by the fact that most tools to stop pollution require such massive cuts to industrialization (and western pollution first) that most countries can't afford to enact what is needed. So we have had the weak predecessor of Kyoto, and then the even weaker Kyoto protocol. Which has been followed by nothing. This just means that people are willing to play the game of lying to their populations and voters, who can't care or understand the issues because they have other existential problems to deal with. Distributed responsibility is another name for "not my problem".
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  The fact that ALL NATIONS take half-hearted and half-assed measures to confront what the pro-AGW crowd paints as an extinction risk That's part of the problem. There is no "extinction risk," at least with regard to human life, and anyone who says differently is either misinformed or lying. In the latter case, it's easy to argue that they have an economic agenda that has nothing to do with climate. Either way, such absurd exaggerations make it hard to sell the real truth, which is that AGW appears to be a legitimate problem that demands action.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  >The fact that ALL NATIONS take half-hearted and half-assed measures to confront what the pro-AGW crowd paints as an extinction risk demonstrably contradicts your claim that "the vast majority globally is convinced". Its actually not; even if it is an extinction risk, if a meaningful difference in risk can't be made absent collective action, you have a massive tragedy of the common problem in which individual states are incentivized to do as little as possible, except what is necessary to signal that they would be open to serious action if there was an agreement on collective action.
mhneu 10y ago
But close the loop - the reason US Americans don't believe in climate change is because energy companies have paid politicians and fringe scientists to deny climate change. Why do energy companies care? Because climate change mitigation would cost them a lot of money.
- mikeash 10y ago
  It's not just that. There's a religious component to it (only God can alter the Earth so dramatically, or Jesus is returning soon so it doesn't matter, or similar) as well as an ideological component (mitigating climate change can't be done with laissez-faire approaches). At this point, it's self-reinforcing. One of our two major political parties has climate change denial as a fundamental part of its identity. Lots of people vote for that party because they share that belief. Those who benefit from that party's success are then motivated to spread that belief even further just to recruit more voters to the cause. And as that belief solidifies among their voters, the party becomes unable to change its position no matter how convincing the facts become.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    That does seem to be the case. So I wonder what will happen when facts render their position entirely untenable. It reminds me of the fight to regulate tobacco companies. That took decades of solid evidence.
- Esau 10y ago
  This here is indeed the real problem - corporations who are so unethical that they would damage the entire world in order to make some cash. These are the people who Trump wants to set free of all regulation.

daxorid 10y ago

Let us be honest: no they are not convinced. If they were legitimately terrified of existential disaster >400ppm, they would be IMMEDIATELY limiting industrial production and investing MASSIVELY into carbon sequestration and renewables. The fact that ALL NATIONS take half-hearted and half-assed measures to confront what the pro-AGW crowd paints as an extinction risk demonstrably contradicts your claim that "the vast majority globally is convinced".

mikeash 10y ago
Collective action problems are not that easy to solve, no matter how dire the consequences of failure.
- the8472 10y ago
  Did collective action not work for solving the hitler problem?
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    Taking down Hitler just needed one force to take down Hitler. We didn't need to convince the majority that Hitler needs to be taken down and agree on how to do it. There also was no competitive advantage to be won by preventing this from happening. If I keep my pollution deregulated on there other hand I have a big competitive advantage over everyone who does. Very different problem.
  - rohamg 10y ago
    Not until it was almost too late.
intended 10y ago
No that's not true, and it's another tiresome argument based on first order armchair logic sans application of actual subject related experience/knowledge. Environmental diplomacy is hard, and made much harder by the fact that most tools to stop pollution require such massive cuts to industrialization (and western pollution first) that most countries can't afford to enact what is needed. So we have had the weak predecessor of Kyoto, and then the even weaker Kyoto protocol. Which has been followed by nothing. This just means that people are willing to play the game of lying to their populations and voters, who can't care or understand the issues because they have other existential problems to deal with. Distributed responsibility is another name for "not my problem".
CamperBob2 10y ago
The fact that ALL NATIONS take half-hearted and half-assed measures to confront what the pro-AGW crowd paints as an extinction risk That's part of the problem. There is no "extinction risk," at least with regard to human life, and anyone who says differently is either misinformed or lying. In the latter case, it's easy to argue that they have an economic agenda that has nothing to do with climate. Either way, such absurd exaggerations make it hard to sell the real truth, which is that AGW appears to be a legitimate problem that demands action.
dragonwriter 10y ago
>The fact that ALL NATIONS take half-hearted and half-assed measures to confront what the pro-AGW crowd paints as an extinction risk demonstrably contradicts your claim that "the vast majority globally is convinced". Its actually not; even if it is an extinction risk, if a meaningful difference in risk can't be made absent collective action, you have a massive tragedy of the common problem in which individual states are incentivized to do as little as possible, except what is necessary to signal that they would be open to serious action if there was an agreement on collective action.

mhneu 10y ago

But close the loop - the reason US Americans don't believe in climate change is because energy companies have paid politicians and fringe scientists to deny climate change. Why do energy companies care? Because climate change mitigation would cost them a lot of money.

mikeash 10y ago
It's not just that. There's a religious component to it (only God can alter the Earth so dramatically, or Jesus is returning soon so it doesn't matter, or similar) as well as an ideological component (mitigating climate change can't be done with laissez-faire approaches). At this point, it's self-reinforcing. One of our two major political parties has climate change denial as a fundamental part of its identity. Lots of people vote for that party because they share that belief. Those who benefit from that party's success are then motivated to spread that belief even further just to recruit more voters to the cause. And as that belief solidifies among their voters, the party becomes unable to change its position no matter how convincing the facts become.
- mirimir 10y ago
  That does seem to be the case. So I wonder what will happen when facts render their position entirely untenable. It reminds me of the fight to regulate tobacco companies. That took decades of solid evidence.
Esau 10y ago
This here is indeed the real problem - corporations who are so unethical that they would damage the entire world in order to make some cash. These are the people who Trump wants to set free of all regulation.