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Shutting down discussion is the opposite of the scientific method, but global warming alarmists know their arguments can't stand up to scrutiny so it's their de

• digitaltrees 7y ago
  The asymmetric harm that is possible makes skeptics irrational. The downside if we over correct for climate change is wound down or restructured oil companies, restricted products and production, but in exchange there is a cleaner more technologically advanced global society that has the ability to coordinate to address global scale problems and is on a good path to having the social cooperation necessary to colonize space. Worst case if skepticism is wrong; civilization collapses as mass extinction creates scarcity and thus violence.
  • rayiner 7y ago
    Part of the problem is that many people who are on the right side of climate change support efforts to combat climate change because they’re also in favor of a “global society” and “social cooperation.” If world government isn’t your cup of tea, then the harm isn’t asymmetric. If we’re wrong about climate change, we will have constructed these global, top-down structures that will stamp out what little autonomy and freedom people have left.
    • Daishiman 7y ago
      > If we’re wrong about climate change, we will have constructed these global, top-down structures that will stamp out what little autonomy and freedom people have left. We are right about climate change. Full stop. People who consider that not to be the case are lacking in information, because there are literally dozens of independent lines of evidence that back the conclusion and that have been used to model the current state of the climate. There is no skepticism in denying the current state of climate science. The top-down structures are in place anyway because there's a ton of other political forces at play. Climate change policies introduce the same degree of cooperation as most international agreements on a myriad of things do already. It is an intellectually dishonest point, focusing on this extremely narrow aspect of policy while disregarding the last 30 years of global cooperation frameworks.
      • mfatica 7y ago
        > We are right about climate change. Full stop. People who consider that not to be the case are lacking in information, because there are literally dozens of independent lines of evidence that back the conclusion and that have been used to model the current state of the climate. I think the largest divide is man-made climate change vs not. I agree the climate is changing. I'm not yet convinced we're causing it or we can do anything about it.
        • harryh 7y ago
          Which of these two items are you not convinced of? 1) It's getting warmer because of higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses (primarily CO2) in the atmosphere. 2) Humans are releasing large amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial processes. It's a pretty straightforward line of reasoning.
        • Zelizz 7y ago
          You might enjoy this video on climate change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqXkYrdmjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqXkYrdmjY
          • mfatica 7y ago
            Turned it off after the first 15 seconds. Why does a video about climate start with a man putting peanut butter on a statue of a dog? How am I meant to take that seriously
            • happytoexplain 7y ago
              How is it that such a stupid non-political visual gag elicited such a strong emotional reaction that you couldn't even watch the video? Were you actually intending to watch it to begin with?
              • mfatica 7y ago
    • digitaltrees 7y ago
      False. Global solutions can come from decentralized market forces if you don’t have corruption hijacking the effort. All countries, except the US are on board and would arguably be moving faster and more aggressively if the US were leading rather than sabotaging efforts. Governments rightful role, whether its local, regional, national, or global is to set the rules of markets so that their natural forces move for an efficient and utility creating end. The market may demand child labor but government on any scale rightly intercedes to short circuit the market drive because it destroys utility (happiness or wellbeing) of the children and, in the long term, society as a whole as the population is less educated, healthy, and equal. Further, I’d actually argue that most individual autonomy is stripped at the local level. You’re homeowners association can do more to rob you of individual liberty as the UN. In fact, I’d argue the global institutions, in some meaningful ways, have been the biggest drivers of restoring individual liberty. You might not feel it if you live in a market driven democracy; but the facts of development over the last 80 years, the increase liberty globally speak for themselves.
      • rayiner 7y ago
        > False. Global solutions can come from decentralized market forces if you don’t have corruption hijacking the effort. Wrong for two reasons. 1) Market forces will not address things like climate change without government intervention to force externalities to be internalized. For many reasons that have nothing to do with "corruption," governments are disincentivized to force perfect internalization of externalities. In places like China, the government is massively subsidizing infrastructure development (and creating a large resulting carbon impact). In places like the U.S., keeping energy artificially cheap is a key way to keep voters happy. 2) Even if policies were imposed to force externalities to be internalized, there is no reason to believe that market forces will reach an equilibrium on the very short time scales (one or two decades) that we're talking about. > You might not feel it if you live in a market driven democracy; To the contrary, I do. But folks talking about a "Green New Deal" that make me nervous about whether I'll continue to live in a market driven democracy.
        • digitaltrees 7y ago