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No. The ideal is far from what is practical. We can't ban fossil fuel engines overnight for instance. Clean energy needs the market pressure of competition to h

by throwaway2018a 9y ago

No. The ideal is far from what is practical. We can't ban fossil fuel engines overnight for instance. Clean energy needs the market pressure of competition to help keep it honest. Also, I believe that taking every car off the road would actually exceed what scientist think need to be done. There is no need to be excessive. At the same time though, to put it in HN terms, it's like if you have a huge six month software project and according to the burn-down chart you've only completed 10% of your story points by month five. At some point catch up becomes impossible. I am really afraid that all the deniers are taking what could be an easy(ish) problem to solve incrementally and through politics (not science, not even economics) causing us to delay implementing solutions so long that by the time we need to act (because it is so obvious things are broken[1]) it will be very expensive and very painful. I'm all for weight the cost benefit but if there is a broken water pipe in your basement flooding your house and you priced out all the plumbers you don't debate for 20 years if the water really needs to be fixed or whether a cheaper plumber will be available in the future. And you definitely don't debate if the water exists. You pay what you need to to fix the leak. Furthermore in this analogy, the deniers are the insurance company on the phone asking the home owner who is waste deep in water, "Are you sure that the water really exists?" [1] For example: in parts of the Earth it is already obvious. In the northeast united states Lyme disease (a serious tick borne illness) has been spreading further and further south because the changes in climate are allowing ticks to be active more of the year and therefor migrate further. There are thousands of "tiny" side effects that people don't realize.

insickness 9y ago
"There is no need to be excessive." Now you're the one who gets to decide what is an obvious solution and what is an excessive one? You see where I'm going with this. In your analogy about the broken water pipe, you actually don't pay 'what you need' to fix the leak. You don't take out a loan greater than the house is worth to fix the leak. You don't open the phone book and randomly choose a sketchy person to fix the leak. You don't dive into the water with scotch tape and try to fix the leak. In other words, you still make an intelligent decision regardless of the severity. By making it impossible for reasonable people to present rational discussion, you make yourself sound irrational rather than have the intended affect of bringing in many people who would otherwise work alongside you to combat the problem.
- throwaway2018a 9y ago
  We have a very clear picture of what the minimum we need to do is. There is a minimum we need to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. My issue is we can't even decide to meet the minimum. It is a minimum for a reason. At some point we need to stop talking and do something. After 20+ years of trying to convince skeptics we are running out of time to be diplomatic. You don't sound like a denier. Or if you are you are reasonable enough to not state absolutes. I was OK being politically correct when the "debate" was just stalling progress. Now that the debate is not just stalling progress but actually reversing it, it is downright frightening. Your counter analogy doesn't hold. We only have one earth. And I think your argument is a straw man. No one is calling people who want to debate the solution deniers. I have only seen people called deniers who say that we don't even need a solution at all. Or worse, that warming is good.

insickness 9y ago

"There is no need to be excessive." Now you're the one who gets to decide what is an obvious solution and what is an excessive one? You see where I'm going with this. In your analogy about the broken water pipe, you actually don't pay 'what you need' to fix the leak. You don't take out a loan greater than the house is worth to fix the leak. You don't open the phone book and randomly choose a sketchy person to fix the leak. You don't dive into the water with scotch tape and try to fix the leak. In other words, you still make an intelligent decision regardless of the severity. By making it impossible for reasonable people to present rational discussion, you make yourself sound irrational rather than have the intended affect of bringing in many people who would otherwise work alongside you to combat the problem.

throwaway2018a 9y ago
We have a very clear picture of what the minimum we need to do is. There is a minimum we need to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. My issue is we can't even decide to meet the minimum. It is a minimum for a reason. At some point we need to stop talking and do something. After 20+ years of trying to convince skeptics we are running out of time to be diplomatic. You don't sound like a denier. Or if you are you are reasonable enough to not state absolutes. I was OK being politically correct when the "debate" was just stalling progress. Now that the debate is not just stalling progress but actually reversing it, it is downright frightening. Your counter analogy doesn't hold. We only have one earth. And I think your argument is a straw man. No one is calling people who want to debate the solution deniers. I have only seen people called deniers who say that we don't even need a solution at all. Or worse, that warming is good.