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You're basically saying we should impose a massive global economic punch in the face, which is just never going to happen. That's the issue with climate change

You're basically saying we should impose a massive global economic punch in the face, which is just never going to happen. That's the issue with climate change - making any kind of real impact requires a large, sustained, and global effort from governments on a scale that I don't think has ever happened in human history. In my opinion, it's far too late for prevention and the real tragedy is that we aren't spending more time and resources on looking at ways to counteract climate change. By the time things get really bad and people are starving from mass crop failures, we won't have the technology and/or knowledge of downstream impacts to be able to possibly fix things.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
A punch in the face compared to the bloody good and relentless kicking climate change will deliver economically, dragging back progress for decades or centuries. I know which I think is likely to be cheaper, and better for the economy. At least a carbon tax can be used to mitigate the effects on the most vulnerable and poorest, and used to create solutions and alternatives to emissions. Extreme events, or food shortages wont give that luxury.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  Ask 10 of your friends if they wouldn’t mind losing their job, while you kept yours, while simultaneously fixing the climate problem for the foreseeable future. Your friends won’t know when they will get a job in the foreseeable future. Now do you understand why no one wants to get punched in the face?
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    That's the untreated climate change disaster scenario you describe. A carbon tax might at worst case take some jobs, but aside from in oil industries needn't take any. Yet will generate nearly as many jobs elsewhere as the proceeds are spent on projects to avoid climate impacts. So no, I don't understand why someone would reject the far easier route.
empath75 7y ago
I realize it’s not going to happen. Any solution that can actually accomplish anything is going to cause tremendous economic hardship.
oska 7y ago
It's entirely possible (and also desirable) to make pollution taxes such as a carbon tax revenue neutral i.e. other taxes are lowered to balance the new pollution tax. And because pollution is a marker of inefficiency, pollution taxes serve to increase productivity where other taxes can inhibit it.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  > pollution is a marker of inefficiency This is not always true. If your measure of efficiency is "total goods output value per year divided by capital invested", there are plenty of Maxima which also produce lots of pollution.
mynameishere 7y ago
I should have heard this already, but why exactly would there be "crop failures" rather than "massive increases in agricultural production" which would seem to be the actual effect of warmth and more C02?
- empath75 7y ago
  There will be crop failures in some places and increases in others.
- paragraft 7y ago
  Water availability and weather events damaging crops I think are the big dangers. Greater variation in weather events isn't good for agriculture in either direction. Flooding at one end (like the midwest US got hit with badly this year), or drought at the other. In between there's the increased occurrence of sudden events like hailstorms, wildfires. Areas with good aquifers presently find themselves with a decent buffer against drought, but there's a worldwide phenomenon of aquifer consumers overdrawing and proving unable to properly regulate sustainable access to those, let alone factoring in the changing supply rate to said aquifers. E.g, if your aquifers are snow-fed, but the winter snowfall is gradually waning up in the mountains, then what used to be sustainable could "suddenly" run dry. The Yemen water crisis is a good example of this (aided by overconsumption for growing khat), but we've seen the same coordinated action problems even in wealthy democracies like California. There's also other risks from heat stress (some crops affected by this more than others), and also secondary risks, e.g a lot of these same stresses (plus all the other stresses of modernity) on pollinators like bees.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- steanne 7y ago
  more plant mass isn't necessarily better if it's not as nutritious. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/climate/rice-global-warming.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/climate/rice-global-warmi...
londons_explore 7y ago
Actively kill 12 million people and you're villified for centuries to come. Kill 3 billion people by inaction, and 'meh'.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

A punch in the face compared to the bloody good and relentless kicking climate change will deliver economically, dragging back progress for decades or centuries. I know which I think is likely to be cheaper, and better for the economy. At least a carbon tax can be used to mitigate the effects on the most vulnerable and poorest, and used to create solutions and alternatives to emissions. Extreme events, or food shortages wont give that luxury.

o-__-o 7y ago
Ask 10 of your friends if they wouldn’t mind losing their job, while you kept yours, while simultaneously fixing the climate problem for the foreseeable future. Your friends won’t know when they will get a job in the foreseeable future. Now do you understand why no one wants to get punched in the face?
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That's the untreated climate change disaster scenario you describe. A carbon tax might at worst case take some jobs, but aside from in oil industries needn't take any. Yet will generate nearly as many jobs elsewhere as the proceeds are spent on projects to avoid climate impacts. So no, I don't understand why someone would reject the far easier route.

empath75 7y ago

I realize it’s not going to happen. Any solution that can actually accomplish anything is going to cause tremendous economic hardship.

oska 7y ago

It's entirely possible (and also desirable) to make pollution taxes such as a carbon tax revenue neutral i.e. other taxes are lowered to balance the new pollution tax. And because pollution is a marker of inefficiency, pollution taxes serve to increase productivity where other taxes can inhibit it.

londons_explore 7y ago
> pollution is a marker of inefficiency This is not always true. If your measure of efficiency is "total goods output value per year divided by capital invested", there are plenty of Maxima which also produce lots of pollution.

mynameishere 7y ago

I should have heard this already, but why exactly would there be "crop failures" rather than "massive increases in agricultural production" which would seem to be the actual effect of warmth and more C02?

empath75 7y ago
There will be crop failures in some places and increases in others.
paragraft 7y ago
Water availability and weather events damaging crops I think are the big dangers. Greater variation in weather events isn't good for agriculture in either direction. Flooding at one end (like the midwest US got hit with badly this year), or drought at the other. In between there's the increased occurrence of sudden events like hailstorms, wildfires. Areas with good aquifers presently find themselves with a decent buffer against drought, but there's a worldwide phenomenon of aquifer consumers overdrawing and proving unable to properly regulate sustainable access to those, let alone factoring in the changing supply rate to said aquifers. E.g, if your aquifers are snow-fed, but the winter snowfall is gradually waning up in the mountains, then what used to be sustainable could "suddenly" run dry. The Yemen water crisis is a good example of this (aided by overconsumption for growing khat), but we've seen the same coordinated action problems even in wealthy democracies like California. There's also other risks from heat stress (some crops affected by this more than others), and also secondary risks, e.g a lot of these same stresses (plus all the other stresses of modernity) on pollinators like bees.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
steanne 7y ago
more plant mass isn't necessarily better if it's not as nutritious. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/climate/rice-global-warming.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/climate/rice-global-warmi...

londons_explore 7y ago

Actively kill 12 million people and you're villified for centuries to come. Kill 3 billion people by inaction, and 'meh'.