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A 4°C increase in temperature will lower people's quality of life a whole lot more than any minor inconvenience you'll have to endure in the short term. If the

A 4°C increase in temperature will lower people's quality of life a whole lot more than any minor inconvenience you'll have to endure in the short term. If the government had any backbone at all they'd rally people around the idea of committing to it and getting it done. In World War II people lowered their "quality of life" to support the cause. It can be done.

bmsleight_ 8y ago
The government of the people, by the people, for the people. We get what we vote for, for need to vote for backbones.
rootusrootus 8y ago
That's not exactly how it works, of course. The people did not lower their quality of life to support the cause, per se, they did it to vanquish Those People. An actual enemy to focus on. And a pretty short timeline. Now you'd ask people to declare war on their own quality of life to fight a consequence which is necessarily vague over a timeline that likely exceeds the remaining lifespan of half of everyone alive today. Good luck. In the meantime I sure would like to try some mitigation techniques.
graeme 8y ago
This is true, but I fear the time horizons are too long for mass human psychology. WWII was a short term emergency. That seems to be what springs people to action. Incentives are another way. I still think a global carbon tax agreement would be a good idea: companies work together to implement carbon taxes and cut income taxes or a local equivalent. That helps eliminat the problem of production offshoring to cheaper carbon areas, and gived incentives to alternatives. Actually making carbon economically unviable with our psychology works, obviously. I really, really hope we can figure out something else cheaper. Finally, if we had a carbon sequestering method with no major side effects and clear costs, it would be psychologically easier to charge fossil burning industries and activities the cost of the CO2 emitted. Eg a fee of $30 per ton if that's the cost of sequestering. Of course, you'd need a way to measure the carbon impact of the sequestering, to make sure that process wasn't indirectly emitting carbon. Reducing would also be highly useful, and I hope we will, but enpirically we don't seem to be built for it without some mechanism like what I described above. It's terrifying and dispiriting and I hope we figure out a way to work around our broken mass psychology.
- graeme 8y ago
  Can't edit, but should have been "countries work together to implement carbon taxes", not companies.

bmsleight_ 8y ago

The government of the people, by the people, for the people. We get what we vote for, for need to vote for backbones.

rootusrootus 8y ago

That's not exactly how it works, of course. The people did not lower their quality of life to support the cause, per se, they did it to vanquish Those People. An actual enemy to focus on. And a pretty short timeline. Now you'd ask people to declare war on their own quality of life to fight a consequence which is necessarily vague over a timeline that likely exceeds the remaining lifespan of half of everyone alive today. Good luck. In the meantime I sure would like to try some mitigation techniques.

graeme 8y ago

This is true, but I fear the time horizons are too long for mass human psychology. WWII was a short term emergency. That seems to be what springs people to action. Incentives are another way. I still think a global carbon tax agreement would be a good idea: companies work together to implement carbon taxes and cut income taxes or a local equivalent. That helps eliminat the problem of production offshoring to cheaper carbon areas, and gived incentives to alternatives. Actually making carbon economically unviable with our psychology works, obviously. I really, really hope we can figure out something else cheaper. Finally, if we had a carbon sequestering method with no major side effects and clear costs, it would be psychologically easier to charge fossil burning industries and activities the cost of the CO2 emitted. Eg a fee of $30 per ton if that's the cost of sequestering. Of course, you'd need a way to measure the carbon impact of the sequestering, to make sure that process wasn't indirectly emitting carbon. Reducing would also be highly useful, and I hope we will, but enpirically we don't seem to be built for it without some mechanism like what I described above. It's terrifying and dispiriting and I hope we figure out a way to work around our broken mass psychology.

graeme 8y ago
Can't edit, but should have been "countries work together to implement carbon taxes", not companies.