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> Maybe corporations are the ones who can be pressured to take the lead. Yes. They absolutely will. But only after they have the right incentives. Those incent

by josho 8y ago

> Maybe corporations are the ones who can be pressured to take the lead. Yes. They absolutely will. But only after they have the right incentives. Those incentives can be created over night by having governments put in place a carbon tax. It gets even worse. If a large group of people reduced their energy consumption to help climate change it has the consequence of reducing demand and therefore energy costs will come down. That will make green energy cost uncompetitive and slow down the transition to green fuels. This change really does need to come from government. So get politically involved.

jlj 8y ago
> If a large group of people reduced their energy consumption to help climate change it has the consequence of reducing demand and therefore energy costs will come down. That will make green energy cost uncompetitive and slow down the transition to green fuels. Another way to look at it is, as more people demand green energy, the supply will increase faster to meet demand. As the supply increases, economies of scale reduce the cost, making it more competitive with fossil fuels while at the same time wind and solar efficiency will increase further reducing the cost per unit. Eventually the supply with the lowest cost will win and the others may become obsolete. Whether or not that can happen fast enough is another question. Taxation of fossil and subsidizing of renewables seems like a logical conclusion. The likelyhood of a massive win-win solution of that nature with no game theory cheats on a global scale seems much less probable than innovating our way out of it. I don't think government on a coordinated global level can do it. It would be like diverting the same level of national resources as a war into a peacetime effort. Would need a way to demonize climate change so it becomes a common global enemy. But on the other side of demonizing is half or more of humanity, so it is really a new level of war over new types of resources being shoreline, water supply, and probablilty of destruction or famine by natural disasters. I hope for no war and don't believe all that will happen. But it could. And I think investing in time, money, and peace seems like a valid approach to get behind vs trying to get government to do it.
kebman 8y ago
Haha, sure! :D Carbon tax. Sounds legit! Here's what's gonna happen: Corporations just jack up prices accross the board according to the tax, and then everybody else gets to pay. And then nothing changes. It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! :D We're well past incentives. The change has to be law, and the law has to be protected with the threat of force. (Force sounds so much better than violence, don't you think, but all this is gonna end in the latter, eventually, if we just let it slide, because when people get hungry, they also get desperate.) And where people don't respect the law, force has to be actually used. However, nobody in their right mind is willing to do that as long as we're boiling frogs... So I guess we'll just die then. We had a pretty good run, though. :)
- pimterry 8y ago
  > It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! I can't speak for Norway, but in the UK the sugar tax has had a huge impact - a _majority_ of soft drink manufacturers have significantly reduced sugar in their products, to avoid them becoming unaffordable, and it's had a very noticeable effect. The UK tax is still pretty new so it's difficult to get hard numbers on that, but sugar taxes in general are fairly well studied and have been very effective worldwide. https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 has a good summary, some highlights: * "Overall 21.6% decrease in the monthly purchased volume of the higher taxed, sugary soft drinks" * "People living in Philadelphia were 40% less likely to report consuming sugary drinks every day after the tax policy" * "Mexico's 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages implemented in January 2014 is said to have led to a 5.5% drop in sugary drinks purchases by the end of that year and a further 9.7% fall in sales in 2015, yielding an average reduction of 7.6% over the study two-year period"
- adrianN 8y ago
  Since consumers have limited amounts of money, increasing the cost of everything will lead to less consumption, which will lead to less carbon being emitted. Furthermore, any company that can produce the same product with less carbon emissions will be at an economic advantage.

by josho 8y ago

jlj 8y ago

> If a large group of people reduced their energy consumption to help climate change it has the consequence of reducing demand and therefore energy costs will come down. That will make green energy cost uncompetitive and slow down the transition to green fuels. Another way to look at it is, as more people demand green energy, the supply will increase faster to meet demand. As the supply increases, economies of scale reduce the cost, making it more competitive with fossil fuels while at the same time wind and solar efficiency will increase further reducing the cost per unit. Eventually the supply with the lowest cost will win and the others may become obsolete. Whether or not that can happen fast enough is another question. Taxation of fossil and subsidizing of renewables seems like a logical conclusion. The likelyhood of a massive win-win solution of that nature with no game theory cheats on a global scale seems much less probable than innovating our way out of it. I don't think government on a coordinated global level can do it. It would be like diverting the same level of national resources as a war into a peacetime effort. Would need a way to demonize climate change so it becomes a common global enemy. But on the other side of demonizing is half or more of humanity, so it is really a new level of war over new types of resources being shoreline, water supply, and probablilty of destruction or famine by natural disasters. I hope for no war and don't believe all that will happen. But it could. And I think investing in time, money, and peace seems like a valid approach to get behind vs trying to get government to do it.

kebman 8y ago

Haha, sure! :D Carbon tax. Sounds legit! Here's what's gonna happen: Corporations just jack up prices accross the board according to the tax, and then everybody else gets to pay. And then nothing changes. It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! :D We're well past incentives. The change has to be law, and the law has to be protected with the threat of force. (Force sounds so much better than violence, don't you think, but all this is gonna end in the latter, eventually, if we just let it slide, because when people get hungry, they also get desperate.) And where people don't respect the law, force has to be actually used. However, nobody in their right mind is willing to do that as long as we're boiling frogs... So I guess we'll just die then. We had a pretty good run, though. :)

pimterry 8y ago
> It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! I can't speak for Norway, but in the UK the sugar tax has had a huge impact - a _majority_ of soft drink manufacturers have significantly reduced sugar in their products, to avoid them becoming unaffordable, and it's had a very noticeable effect. The UK tax is still pretty new so it's difficult to get hard numbers on that, but sugar taxes in general are fairly well studied and have been very effective worldwide. https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 has a good summary, some highlights: * "Overall 21.6% decrease in the monthly purchased volume of the higher taxed, sugary soft drinks" * "People living in Philadelphia were 40% less likely to report consuming sugary drinks every day after the tax policy" * "Mexico's 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages implemented in January 2014 is said to have led to a 5.5% drop in sugary drinks purchases by the end of that year and a further 9.7% fall in sales in 2015, yielding an average reduction of 7.6% over the study two-year period"
adrianN 8y ago
Since consumers have limited amounts of money, increasing the cost of everything will lead to less consumption, which will lead to less carbon being emitted. Furthermore, any company that can produce the same product with less carbon emissions will be at an economic advantage.