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The problem is that the economic incentive to exploit the environment will always outweight the economic incentive to protect it. The article cited a ton of re

by nabnob 7y ago

The problem is that the economic incentive to exploit the environment will always outweight the economic incentive to protect it. The article cited a ton of research that showed that carbon credits don't have a meaningful impact on carbon usage. It seems like what usually happens is that the carbon credits get shuffled around, but overall the carbon output stays the same. Solutions like green technology or carbon credits seem to rest on this assumption that we can prevent environmental collapse without significantly changing our consumerist economy, standard of living, and energy consumption. This seems like magical, faith-based thinking. There are theoretical limits on how efficient any energy conversion will be, no matter how advanced our technology is. The more our economy grows, the more we consume and produce...the more energy we use and the more waste we create. We have to start thinking about ways to move away from an always-growing, consumerist economy.

gdubs 7y ago
Except that there a numerous examples in the past century where we’ve put the environment ahead of economic concerns: The Clean Water Act, a significant reduction in urban smog, the reversal of the Ozone hole through cap-and-trade. As far as our overall economic system, the immediate problem is figuring out how to de-carbonize growth, first-and-foremost. And simultaneously reduce the carbon floating around in the atmosphere. I’m all for exploring alternatives and agree we don’t need so much “stuff”. But I don’t necessarily agree that that means we have to turn off economic growth either. We need to de-carbonize it. An analogy I like to use is this: If you have a popular website and it’s becoming overwhelmed with customers, you have a couple of options. Turn everyone away and start kicking people off — or identify the bottlenecks and solve them. We’re running society on an inefficient algorithm, and that needs to change. We’ve built an amazing server that has drastically reduced conflict, poverty, and starvation, worldwide. Do we close the door to that, or do we find a more efficient algorithm?
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> The problem is that the economic incentive to exploit the environment will always outweight the economic incentive to protect it. That's quite literally why government exists. To solve coordination problems like these. > Solutions like green technology or carbon credits seem to rest on this assumption that we can prevent environmental collapse without significantly changing our consumerist economy, standard of living, and energy consumption. This seems like magical, faith-based thinking. On the contrary, thinking the opposite - e.g. that everyone could "just" reduce our consumption - is magical thinking, because it goes directly against the gradient of human nature. Humans want to improve lives for themselves and their children, which creates incentives for consumption, and utterly suck at coordinating at scale to achieve a long-term goal, which is why we had to invent governments and markets to provide necessary incentive structures. Any solution for the climate crisis has to work with these constraints, not against them. > There are theoretical limits on how efficient any energy conversion will be, no matter how advanced our technology is. We're nowhere near the limits of efficiency in technology. > The more our economy grows, the more we consume and produce...the more energy we use and the more waste we create. More energy is good. We need energy to fix the damage we've done to the climate. And waste is a waste management problem, only partially related to the issues that are critical now. Trying to shut down the economy won't help save us from upcoming climate issues, it'll only make a lot more people suffer. The problem of weaning off the growth-based economy is something we can handle later. (It's also worth pondering, what exactly is it that we want to save here. The planet? No, the planet will be fine; we can't really do anything to hurt it. The animals? To the extent of our knowledge, animals don't care. They don't think. Human race? Humans as a species will be fine too, no expected climate damage scenario would wipe us all out. What we're trying to save here is ourselves, our children, our way of life. Which essentially boils down to technological civilization. Civilization that's dependent on the shape of the economy we have now. Trying to drastically alter it is as risky as climate change itself.)

by nabnob 7y ago

gdubs 7y ago

Except that there a numerous examples in the past century where we’ve put the environment ahead of economic concerns: The Clean Water Act, a significant reduction in urban smog, the reversal of the Ozone hole through cap-and-trade. As far as our overall economic system, the immediate problem is figuring out how to de-carbonize growth, first-and-foremost. And simultaneously reduce the carbon floating around in the atmosphere. I’m all for exploring alternatives and agree we don’t need so much “stuff”. But I don’t necessarily agree that that means we have to turn off economic growth either. We need to de-carbonize it. An analogy I like to use is this: If you have a popular website and it’s becoming overwhelmed with customers, you have a couple of options. Turn everyone away and start kicking people off — or identify the bottlenecks and solve them. We’re running society on an inefficient algorithm, and that needs to change. We’ve built an amazing server that has drastically reduced conflict, poverty, and starvation, worldwide. Do we close the door to that, or do we find a more efficient algorithm?

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> The problem is that the economic incentive to exploit the environment will always outweight the economic incentive to protect it. That's quite literally why government exists. To solve coordination problems like these. > Solutions like green technology or carbon credits seem to rest on this assumption that we can prevent environmental collapse without significantly changing our consumerist economy, standard of living, and energy consumption. This seems like magical, faith-based thinking. On the contrary, thinking the opposite - e.g. that everyone could "just" reduce our consumption - is magical thinking, because it goes directly against the gradient of human nature. Humans want to improve lives for themselves and their children, which creates incentives for consumption, and utterly suck at coordinating at scale to achieve a long-term goal, which is why we had to invent governments and markets to provide necessary incentive structures. Any solution for the climate crisis has to work with these constraints, not against them. > There are theoretical limits on how efficient any energy conversion will be, no matter how advanced our technology is. We're nowhere near the limits of efficiency in technology. > The more our economy grows, the more we consume and produce...the more energy we use and the more waste we create. More energy is good. We need energy to fix the damage we've done to the climate. And waste is a waste management problem, only partially related to the issues that are critical now. Trying to shut down the economy won't help save us from upcoming climate issues, it'll only make a lot more people suffer. The problem of weaning off the growth-based economy is something we can handle later. (It's also worth pondering, what exactly is it that we want to save here. The planet? No, the planet will be fine; we can't really do anything to hurt it. The animals? To the extent of our knowledge, animals don't care. They don't think. Human race? Humans as a species will be fine too, no expected climate damage scenario would wipe us all out. What we're trying to save here is ourselves, our children, our way of life. Which essentially boils down to technological civilization. Civilization that's dependent on the shape of the economy we have now. Trying to drastically alter it is as risky as climate change itself.)