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Seems weird to be talking about this in terms of Trillions of dollars of impact to the economy. I get it that it can be helpful to show people how bad it could

Seems weird to be talking about this in terms of Trillions of dollars of impact to the economy. I get it that it can be helpful to show people how bad it could be but I'm not sure it does a great job at that even. It would be like saying: Lack of breathable air could cost $76 Trillion Globally

macawfish 10y ago
Some people only care about money.
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  How do you fix that? We need some sort of karma for good deeds. I can up vote comments on hn without spending "votes", I don't run out of them. Using them as a sort of currency would be interesting. Would this solve problems that aren't profit making? Like fixing the climate.
  - zo1 10y ago
    And where would these magical "votes" come from? Would we be born with a finite amount of them, and get to use them periodically? Say, like an election and voting? In addition, let's say I get lots of these "votes". What good are they to me? What value to they possess/represent? Do we treat them as magical brownie points that are monetarily value-less, in which case, only those that care for the prestige of having many of them would chase them. The rest would ignore it. Do we punish individuals for having too little? How about punishing those individuals that misuse them? Sell them? Anywho, playing a bit of devil's advocate there. But sounds like what you're suggesting is money. It's available right now, and yet people don't go around donating ridiculous-enough amounts of it to make an appreciable difference in "karma" regarding the environment. That's why we're having this discussion, even.
    - monk_e_boy 10y ago
      I am poor. I would like to fix the environment. How do I affect change? How do I go from helpless to helpful? I have no money, I have little spare time, limited range of travel. We see these unfixable problems with climate and no real way of tackling them. I spent an hour picking up plastic from the beach, could I turn that time and effort into something? Like money or karma or something else. I can't do it for free as I need money for food. No one wants to pay me to do it. How do we solve this?
novia 10y ago
Radiolab had a pretty good podcast explaining where these economic estimates come from and why they are important to have around. It's part 3 at the following link: http://www.radiolab.org/story/worth/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/worth/ Basically, if you do not make a monetary estimate of the worth of some feature of nature, it's assumed worth is $0 when governments are making decisions about policy and land use.

macawfish 10y ago

Some people only care about money.

monk_e_boy 10y ago
How do you fix that? We need some sort of karma for good deeds. I can up vote comments on hn without spending "votes", I don't run out of them. Using them as a sort of currency would be interesting. Would this solve problems that aren't profit making? Like fixing the climate.
- zo1 10y ago
  And where would these magical "votes" come from? Would we be born with a finite amount of them, and get to use them periodically? Say, like an election and voting? In addition, let's say I get lots of these "votes". What good are they to me? What value to they possess/represent? Do we treat them as magical brownie points that are monetarily value-less, in which case, only those that care for the prestige of having many of them would chase them. The rest would ignore it. Do we punish individuals for having too little? How about punishing those individuals that misuse them? Sell them? Anywho, playing a bit of devil's advocate there. But sounds like what you're suggesting is money. It's available right now, and yet people don't go around donating ridiculous-enough amounts of it to make an appreciable difference in "karma" regarding the environment. That's why we're having this discussion, even.
  - monk_e_boy 10y ago
    I am poor. I would like to fix the environment. How do I affect change? How do I go from helpless to helpful? I have no money, I have little spare time, limited range of travel. We see these unfixable problems with climate and no real way of tackling them. I spent an hour picking up plastic from the beach, could I turn that time and effort into something? Like money or karma or something else. I can't do it for free as I need money for food. No one wants to pay me to do it. How do we solve this?

novia 10y ago

Radiolab had a pretty good podcast explaining where these economic estimates come from and why they are important to have around. It's part 3 at the following link: http://www.radiolab.org/story/worth/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/worth/ Basically, if you do not make a monetary estimate of the worth of some feature of nature, it's assumed worth is $0 when governments are making decisions about policy and land use.