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It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources. I don’t see any kind of reform happening i

It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources. I don’t see any kind of reform happening in the US until negative consequences are felt by a significant chunk of the population.

craftyguy 8y ago
Yup. There's just no way us humans are going to 'act now'. Any response at a global (and, in the US, national and state) level will be 100% reactive, and 0% proactive. Since there are still people arguing over the cause, I'm starting to think it might be more productive to move the conversation from trying to be proactive (which requires everyone to agree on the cause) to reactive (which does not). In other words, start preparing for the outcome of this. We, as a species, cannot seem to be able to stop what we are doing.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  The main outcomes would be localized famines, general food shortage, freshwater shortage, increased heat, mass migrations, some flooding. What do you think we can do about those antecedents we're not doing right now? (not argumentative, maybe I'm missing something) We will have to deal with the source of the problem sooner or later; given enough trapped heat most of the planet will turn into deserts.
devoply 8y ago
What to me is troubling is that we're just getting started as a species. This whole industrialization thing is maybe 400 years old, the species around 30,000 years old. Things have existed on the planet for hundreds of millions of years. The future does not look bright for our species.
latch 8y ago
It's disappointing that such a political system is necessary for individuals to act responsibly, ethically and morally.
- arthurcolle 8y ago
  Welcome to [REDACTED], land of the free and home to the brave.
  - zygotic12 8y ago
    Dang (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dang https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dang) arthurcolle I too have been damned.
- anon7429 8y ago
  Democracy, eg the populist mob, killed Socrates and will likely kill the species too.
  - dang 8y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
ekianjo 8y ago
> don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources Politicians are completely incapable to make a balanced yearly budget, so what do we expect there exactly?
- camgunz 8y ago
  If a major economy ever balances its budget it's making a huge mistake. GDP is driven by investment, the more you can invest the better, and if you aren't you can bet your rivals are. The balanced budget trope is abused by right wing politicians who want to (literally?) starve the welfare state while subsidizing business and defense. These are the same politicians who deny climate change in order to protect business, and the same politicians whose denial of climate change will destroy poorer, browner countries, and the same politicians who will deny aid and asylum to refugees from those destroyed countries. Don't fall for any of their horseshit, they're basically just corrupt, and incidentally monstrously evil.
malloryerik 8y ago
You mean until it's too late? With the current wave of nationalist populism, chance of action is shrinking. One horrifying potential feedback loop: lack of serious global action allows continued climate change, creating more refugees, intensifying nationalist populism, creating illiberal democracy, allowing further climate change, and so on.
tfehring 8y ago
In fact, various US government programs use taxpayer money to shield parts of the population from negative consequences of climate change already. For example, FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program subsidize property owners in high-flood-risk areas and pass along the immediate economic cost of rising sea levels to everyone else. Fannie and Freddie do the same thing by maintaining lax flood insurance requirements and taking losses (at the margin) when uninsured homeowners end up underwater (figuratively and literally) and walk away. I do think a revenue-neutral carbon tax as described in [0] could be politically viable in the not-so-distant future. But maybe I'm being too optimistic on that - coal miners seem to be awfully overrepresented in the current political environment. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/28/196355493/economists-have-a-one-page-solution-to-climate-change https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/28/196355493/econ...

craftyguy 8y ago

Yup. There's just no way us humans are going to 'act now'. Any response at a global (and, in the US, national and state) level will be 100% reactive, and 0% proactive. Since there are still people arguing over the cause, I'm starting to think it might be more productive to move the conversation from trying to be proactive (which requires everyone to agree on the cause) to reactive (which does not). In other words, start preparing for the outcome of this. We, as a species, cannot seem to be able to stop what we are doing.

AstralStorm 8y ago
The main outcomes would be localized famines, general food shortage, freshwater shortage, increased heat, mass migrations, some flooding. What do you think we can do about those antecedents we're not doing right now? (not argumentative, maybe I'm missing something) We will have to deal with the source of the problem sooner or later; given enough trapped heat most of the planet will turn into deserts.

devoply 8y ago

What to me is troubling is that we're just getting started as a species. This whole industrialization thing is maybe 400 years old, the species around 30,000 years old. Things have existed on the planet for hundreds of millions of years. The future does not look bright for our species.

latch 8y ago

It's disappointing that such a political system is necessary for individuals to act responsibly, ethically and morally.

arthurcolle 8y ago
Welcome to [REDACTED], land of the free and home to the brave.
- zygotic12 8y ago
  Dang (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dang https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dang) arthurcolle I too have been damned.
anon7429 8y ago
Democracy, eg the populist mob, killed Socrates and will likely kill the species too.
- dang 8y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

ekianjo 8y ago

> don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources Politicians are completely incapable to make a balanced yearly budget, so what do we expect there exactly?

camgunz 8y ago
If a major economy ever balances its budget it's making a huge mistake. GDP is driven by investment, the more you can invest the better, and if you aren't you can bet your rivals are. The balanced budget trope is abused by right wing politicians who want to (literally?) starve the welfare state while subsidizing business and defense. These are the same politicians who deny climate change in order to protect business, and the same politicians whose denial of climate change will destroy poorer, browner countries, and the same politicians who will deny aid and asylum to refugees from those destroyed countries. Don't fall for any of their horseshit, they're basically just corrupt, and incidentally monstrously evil.

malloryerik 8y ago

You mean until it's too late? With the current wave of nationalist populism, chance of action is shrinking. One horrifying potential feedback loop: lack of serious global action allows continued climate change, creating more refugees, intensifying nationalist populism, creating illiberal democracy, allowing further climate change, and so on.

tfehring 8y ago

In fact, various US government programs use taxpayer money to shield parts of the population from negative consequences of climate change already. For example, FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program subsidize property owners in high-flood-risk areas and pass along the immediate economic cost of rising sea levels to everyone else. Fannie and Freddie do the same thing by maintaining lax flood insurance requirements and taking losses (at the margin) when uninsured homeowners end up underwater (figuratively and literally) and walk away. I do think a revenue-neutral carbon tax as described in [0] could be politically viable in the not-so-distant future. But maybe I'm being too optimistic on that - coal miners seem to be awfully overrepresented in the current political environment. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/28/196355493/economists-have-a-one-page-solution-to-climate-change https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/28/196355493/econ...