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Global warming mitigation is not diverting resources from tobacco cessation. > I don't think it's sensible to compare theoretical future economic costs to real

Global warming mitigation is not diverting resources from tobacco cessation. > I don't think it's sensible to compare theoretical future economic costs to real costs paid by taxpayers right now. "We should permit environmental destruction for economic gain benefitting today's taxpayers."

toomuchtodo 8y ago
"Today's taxpayers" have been kicking the can down the road for half a century. The attitude should not be a surprise at this point.
zxcvvcxz 8y ago
Keyword: theoretical. We are coming out of an ice age from over 10K years ago, and the rate of temperature increase has been slowing on that scale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record (Hint: don't worry so much about zooming into the 1970s to today, which is less than 0.01% of the time span of a larger trend.) Pollution is a problem, yes. Go to China and talk to them before you lecture me about paying carbon taxes in Any City, USA. But when it comes to this theoretical warming, we are likely to be a spec of noise in the overall trend of the planet doing its thing.
- Jweb_Guru 8y ago
  The temperature has increased more rapidly in the last one hundred years than we can find it has at any period we have good data for (there is some evidence that at times in the distant past it rose fairly rapidly, though we can't tell exactly how fast, but that usually coincided with massive extinction events). This has been largely caused by the release of large amounts of CO2 in accordance with very well-understood warming processes. The idea that some nebulous "natural processes" of the earth just automatically overwhelm anything we can do is totally bizarre; we are a sizable portion of the active energy production on the planet's surface at this point (obviously, we have nowhere near the effect of the sun, but the sun's radiance does not and has not changed rapidly enough to explain the changes in temperature).
  - zxcvvcxz 8y ago
    Alright. Let's say I'd be willing to concede that our CO2 emissions play some part in changing the environment. But I've also done some research, and I've found that the Earth has wonderful negative feedback mechanisms to ensure that each additional molecule of CO2 released has less overall affect then previous ones - so there's a limited and saturating nature to this phenomenon (hence why we haven't exploded or flooded terribly, etc). Nobody is willing to discuss the nuance of saturated effects, and limited changes that we should be willing to endure so that hundreds of millions (billions) of Africans, Indians, and Chinese can get out of poverty. And while we're at it - why are we subsidizing the paper industry, cutting down all those trees? Or the hydroelectric industry ruining aquatic life and other actual environmental concerns. The fact is that nobody is willing to look at the trade-offs of FOSSIL FUELS and just wants to write them off as evil, "unfairly subsidized", etc. But if you took a true holistic look at the costs and benefits, you'd find that few other industries have been as positively impactful to our lives as those born from hydrocarbons. So people should think really hard before ignorantly demonizing them. If people are wondering how I could hold a viewpoint so contrary to the Hacker News/Liberal dogma, I strongly recommend checking out the following, which can explain much more elaborately than myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaNPBZ6BZZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaNPBZ6BZZ8
    - adrianN 8y ago
      The Earth unfortunately also has wonderful positive feedback mechanisms like releasing Methane from permafrost and lowering albedo due to reduced ice cover that can lead to runaway hothouse climates that last tens of thousands of years until geological processes sequester enough carbon to reduce the greenhouse effect sufficiently. So perhaps you should trust the conclusions of the scientists who have studied the topic for their entire careers and have been sounding the alarm since the seventies at least.
    - igor47 8y ago
      you'd probably consider me a dogmatic liberal, but i actually watched this video. even beforehand, i agreed with the moral premise -- yes, totally, our use of fossil fuels has been a boon to society, has lifted many people out of poverty, has reduced hunger, etc... i think there are also undeniable harms as a result of our energy policy. for instance, it has enabled oppressive and murderous regimes like the saudis, and pollution associated with fossil fuels have poisoned people and ecosystems. so, the question, i guess, is -- on balance, are we more likely to benefit or to suffer from the continued use of fossil fuels? i think you and i would probably differ in this assessment. the question is, why? the answer probably comes down to epistemology. my tendency, in areas where i'm largely ignorant, is to defer to the consensus expert opinion. it seems like you follow a different algorithm. i'm curious, why do you believe alex epstein (who, in the linked video, says "i was not trained remotely as an energy expert") vs, say, james hansen (who probably has more relevant credentials as well as a powerful history of successful predictions)?

toomuchtodo 8y ago

"Today's taxpayers" have been kicking the can down the road for half a century. The attitude should not be a surprise at this point.

zxcvvcxz 8y ago

Keyword: theoretical. We are coming out of an ice age from over 10K years ago, and the rate of temperature increase has been slowing on that scale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record (Hint: don't worry so much about zooming into the 1970s to today, which is less than 0.01% of the time span of a larger trend.) Pollution is a problem, yes. Go to China and talk to them before you lecture me about paying carbon taxes in Any City, USA. But when it comes to this theoretical warming, we are likely to be a spec of noise in the overall trend of the planet doing its thing.

Jweb_Guru 8y ago
The temperature has increased more rapidly in the last one hundred years than we can find it has at any period we have good data for (there is some evidence that at times in the distant past it rose fairly rapidly, though we can't tell exactly how fast, but that usually coincided with massive extinction events). This has been largely caused by the release of large amounts of CO2 in accordance with very well-understood warming processes. The idea that some nebulous "natural processes" of the earth just automatically overwhelm anything we can do is totally bizarre; we are a sizable portion of the active energy production on the planet's surface at this point (obviously, we have nowhere near the effect of the sun, but the sun's radiance does not and has not changed rapidly enough to explain the changes in temperature).
- zxcvvcxz 8y ago
  Alright. Let's say I'd be willing to concede that our CO2 emissions play some part in changing the environment. But I've also done some research, and I've found that the Earth has wonderful negative feedback mechanisms to ensure that each additional molecule of CO2 released has less overall affect then previous ones - so there's a limited and saturating nature to this phenomenon (hence why we haven't exploded or flooded terribly, etc). Nobody is willing to discuss the nuance of saturated effects, and limited changes that we should be willing to endure so that hundreds of millions (billions) of Africans, Indians, and Chinese can get out of poverty. And while we're at it - why are we subsidizing the paper industry, cutting down all those trees? Or the hydroelectric industry ruining aquatic life and other actual environmental concerns. The fact is that nobody is willing to look at the trade-offs of FOSSIL FUELS and just wants to write them off as evil, "unfairly subsidized", etc. But if you took a true holistic look at the costs and benefits, you'd find that few other industries have been as positively impactful to our lives as those born from hydrocarbons. So people should think really hard before ignorantly demonizing them. If people are wondering how I could hold a viewpoint so contrary to the Hacker News/Liberal dogma, I strongly recommend checking out the following, which can explain much more elaborately than myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaNPBZ6BZZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaNPBZ6BZZ8
  - adrianN 8y ago
    The Earth unfortunately also has wonderful positive feedback mechanisms like releasing Methane from permafrost and lowering albedo due to reduced ice cover that can lead to runaway hothouse climates that last tens of thousands of years until geological processes sequester enough carbon to reduce the greenhouse effect sufficiently. So perhaps you should trust the conclusions of the scientists who have studied the topic for their entire careers and have been sounding the alarm since the seventies at least.
  - igor47 8y ago
    you'd probably consider me a dogmatic liberal, but i actually watched this video. even beforehand, i agreed with the moral premise -- yes, totally, our use of fossil fuels has been a boon to society, has lifted many people out of poverty, has reduced hunger, etc... i think there are also undeniable harms as a result of our energy policy. for instance, it has enabled oppressive and murderous regimes like the saudis, and pollution associated with fossil fuels have poisoned people and ecosystems. so, the question, i guess, is -- on balance, are we more likely to benefit or to suffer from the continued use of fossil fuels? i think you and i would probably differ in this assessment. the question is, why? the answer probably comes down to epistemology. my tendency, in areas where i'm largely ignorant, is to defer to the consensus expert opinion. it seems like you follow a different algorithm. i'm curious, why do you believe alex epstein (who, in the linked video, says "i was not trained remotely as an energy expert") vs, say, james hansen (who probably has more relevant credentials as well as a powerful history of successful predictions)?