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The sad thing is that scientists have understood the risks of global warming for decades, and yet our civilization (maybe I'm just speaking for the US here) see
by mr_overalls 9y ago
The sad thing is that scientists have understood the risks of global warming for decades, and yet our civilization (maybe I'm just speaking for the US here) seems impotent to effectively coordinate a response to this slow-motion threat.
It could be our own Great Filter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
- hanniabu 9y agoand yet our governments
- dredmorbius 9y agoThis isn't solely the purview of governments, there are other institutions involved, including many corporations, and the specific individuals behind them. Arguably the financial world, various inter-national rivalries, media, public opinion, religions, and more. On the one hand, if it succeeds in offing some element of, take your pick: modernity, liberal democracy, advanced civilisation, humanity, life on earth, terrifying as all get out. On the other, a maddeningly fascinating systems dysfunction at work. Though on the whole, I'd prefer the tuition bill for this course were lower.
- GuB-42 9y agoIn all countries that matter, governments are elected. And they do what they need to do to be elected for the next term. Assuming they really swept global warming under the rug, they did it because accounting for it was unpopular. We prefer to vote for a candidate that won't reduce our comfort rather than one who decides to tackle a problem most people don't really understand. We are the ones to blame, governments just gave us what we wanted.
- craftyguy 9y ago> In all countries that matter, governments are elected. Well, except China, and Russia, two very large industrial nations that certainly matter in terms of global impact. You're kidding yourself if you believe those governments are elected. > We are the ones to blame, governments just gave us what we wanted. No, governments are giving their sponsors what they want. The electorate is led to believe they want it too.
- sbov 9y agoThe one with the most money usually wins. Until that is fixed the popularity of views seems meaningless.
- cryptoz 9y ago> decades More than a century, in some cases. Capitalism needs additional constraints or it will end all civilization. Simply, the cost of creating greenhouse gasses has never been priced in to the market since Exxon and the likes have lobbied hard for decades to not let the truth gain any traction. They should all be in jail and there should be no profits in destroying ecosystems. Otherwise there seems no hope.
- nerdponx 9y agoIn a socialized system you'd have the same thing, except perpetuated by bureaucrats instead of businessmen. If anything, capitalism has an advantage in that it's at least theoretically possible to mitigate the effect of greed on politics. Throwing all your eggs into the government basket gives you no such recourse.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bad-joke 9y agoThe Volkswagen emissions scandal demonstrated that mitigating effects will be circumvented given the presence of a profit motive. Rather than construct an elaborate and exploitable maze of incentives, perhaps it would be simpler to remove the profit motive.
- nerdponx 9y agoThat's my point. Capitalism or socialism, greed is greed. There is always a profit motive.
- michaelmrose 9y agoThe general population controls so little of the economic might that this just isn't true. We could pool our votes to change the course of politics. If we pooled our dollars nobody would care.
- 9y ago
- jjoonathan 9y agoAre there credible models that suggest Earth will turn into Venus or something? It would take a hell of a lot more to end humanity than it would take to "merely" hurt/kill the most vulnerable segments of our population (which is what I thought the stakes were).
- cryptoz 9y ago> Are there credible models that suggest Earth will turn into Venus or something? Yes, the model is called Venus. > (which is what I thought the stakes were). You were misinformed. The stakes are significantly higher than that.
- jjoonathan 9y agoVenus is a shit model for Earth. Try again.
- matte_black 9y agoI’m sorry, but it has long been shown Earth cannot simply turn into Venus given the current climate models.
- skrowl 9y agoThere is definitely no shortage of doomsday climate models. CREDIBLE models is a different story. Look back at ones from 20+ years ago to see what they predicted would be happening by now. It's pretty funny actually.
- jjoonathan 9y agoThe models from 20 years ago overshot by several confidence intervals because they underestimated mixing the deep ocean. "The barrel is bigger than we expected" doesn't make the rising water in the barrel any less concerning, but it's not the triumph of foresight that you seem to imply.
- Banthum 9y ago
- trs80 9y agoScience isn't perfectly absolved after all many of us including computer "scientists" work closely with industry that affects global warming.
- pacala 9y agoUS emissions have plateaued two decades ago [0]. Emissions are growing unchecked elsewhere, a combination of population explosion and rapid industrialization. [0] http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/31/chinese-co2-emissions-really-peaked/ http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/31/chinese-co2-emis...
- evanlivingston 9y agoI'm curious if the various ways American's and America spends it's money and consumes its good is factored into U.S. emissions. Does the carbon it takes to produce an iphone and then ship it here count? What about all the fuel/power used by military bases abroad? Does our purchasing of Foreign cars count?
- lozenge 9y agoUnder most measures it isn't counted. What you are looking for is called consumption-based emissions accounting and unsurprisingly it shows US emissions are still going up. Moving to consumption based accounting aligns closely with the generally accepted best economic solution for reducing emissions - a global carbon tax, which would be pushed onto developing countries as a requirement when they want to export to developed countries. Incidentally, the US military has been exempt from all climate agreements since Kyoto, and so are international flights.
- vkou 9y agoEmission growth has stopped, but what we need to do is hit net zero. We are no closer to that today then we were 20 years ago. There isn't even a vague plan for the United States to get there.
- lozenge 9y agoI don't know why you're downvoted. The RCPs that show us respecting the goal of the 2C limit all show emissions need to shrink globally and reach zero around 2050 or even earlier. The fact emissions have stopped growing is not really much progress. It is like we are cruising to disaster rather than accelerating towards it.
- ioioio8908 9y agoLet's not kid ourselves either; Ycombinator and the startup fetish culture, and gadget fetishism, help fuel our approach to the edge. The more neoliberalism continues to induce dopamine addiction, under some ridiculous premise everyone wants to be a celebrity, startup wunderkind, or hoodie wearing, macbook carrying hipster, the sooner the env is gonna fly right off the edge. The global economy cannot keep fueling itself on disposable consumerism
- sologoub 9y agoUS and EU are doing a lot about reducing their output of CO2, but unfortunately that’s completely dwarfed by new output elsewhere: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_... Without global actors taking full responsibility, we are basically screwed.
- mgbmtl 9y agoI agree, but the US (and Canada, Australia, etc), still pollute twice more per capita than China. There's still a lot we can do. The EU, however, has lower per capita emissions than China. And that's ignoring that most manufactured goods we consume are made in China.
- graeme 9y agoIt's like whack a mole. The economy is a global system, and so is the atmosphere. Shifting production of carbon between the parts isn't per se useful. We can no more blame other countries for increasing CO2 output than we can blame a grocery store down the block from opening when another closes (or, refuses to cater to new demand, to make a better analogy). We'll only stop if we come up with an unambiguously better alternative, or something forces us. A acute problem is that if we stopped using carbon, people would die. (And the economy would contract, of course, but death is a stronger motivator). We're above our carrying capacity without carbon use. But if we keep using it, we die, later. I think the most no brainer approach is to push for a global carbon tax to prod development of renewables. Income taxes could be cut to offset, so at a low level this wouldn't hurt a country. This seems not very popular however, and no one has pushed for an international agreement on this point, instead pushing for whack a mole emissions reductions in single countries. My most optimistic scenario is we do figure out an unambiguously better alternative, switch to it, and then also figure out some way to use the energy to suck carbon from the atmosphere (which has its own challenges).
- mirimir 9y agoIt's all about discount rate for stuff in the future. If you spend money to mitigate future damage, that's money that you can't invest productively. So basically, in economic terms, the distant future is worthless.