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Well jeez. I know it's not a popular thought on HN, but climate change is a problem of such scale that it's going to need government-level funding and oversight

Well jeez. I know it's not a popular thought on HN, but climate change is a problem of such scale that it's going to need government-level funding and oversight to find and validate geoengineering solutions, and global-level funding and coordination to implement them. This third-way aspiration to a non-government solution just seems like a pipe dream.

ksec 7y ago
The world could agree on Carbon Tax, and all the Tax will all be used for battling Climate Change. Funding Project like this one. ( Although. doubt this Project isn't without its downside, my guts reaction tells me there will be other problems in chemical reaction at this scale ) And it should be something like the EURO Cars emission standards, where the whole plan goes in multiple stages, giving time for businesses to adopt. And all of a sudden all the business have an incentive to lower the Total Carbon emission, that includes everything they consume ( which would have Carbon Tax on it ). They could also buy Carbon Credit to offset any Carbon they produce. These Carbon Credit will obviously come from project like this or Renewable Energy. Having the World to agree on Carton Tax is the hardest part.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  And if the tax cripples business, it will slow emissions anyway
  - goatlover 7y ago
    Also innovation.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      The opposite of innovation is business as usual. Taxation always leads to innovation, sometimes they are not exclusively in the field of accounting.
      - marcusverus 7y ago
        Do you have any support for your claim that taxation leads to innovation?
        inflatableDodo 7y ago
        I don't know about 'leads to', I mean, innovation quite clearly precedes taxation, otherwise it would be rather difficult to invent it, but taxation definitely directly funds far more innovation than the private sector does, at least if we are talking about fundamental research.
        usrusr 7y ago
        I was boldly going with a universal quantifier ("always") which might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I wasvery careful of getting the direction right. "All taxation leads to (some form of) innovation" is a very different statement from "all innovation comes from taxation".
        usrusr 7y ago
        The sibling fields of tax evasion and tax avoidance are both full of creativity. If you want more technical examples, taxation systems that tried to get hard at personal transportation while mostly omitting business use led to both the SUV and to modern diesel. We may dislike both outcomes and making a bigger car more comfortable isn't exactly difficult, but the technology in modern diesel engines is absolutely amazing, even if adjusted for cheating. And clearly evidence to taxation influence, as it was exclusively developed in countries that went for fuel type instead of vehicle mass for being soft on commercial transport. PS: and just think of the things some Finns are supposedly willing to do to extract a little bang from a given quantity of alcohol, taxation is the exclusive driver of that.
      - ThomPete 7y ago
        If you by innovation means coming up with loop holes then yes. If you mean it leads to some fundamental innovation that improves the taxed subject then I am pretty sure you would be hard pressed to find anything backing that claim up.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      There won't be much innovation going on in a +4° degree world. People will be busy fighting over food and water.
      - goatlover 7y ago
        But there might be important innovation before then, such as ways to counteract and adapt to a +4° degree world.
        adrianN 7y ago
        Personally I'd rather not risk that "might" and instead hope for the "might" of sufficient investment to prevent that world.
ip26 7y ago
The important part is pretending something will be done (ideally by someone else), not actually tackling it.
- secfirstmd 7y ago
  I'm an advocate that places like YCombinator should be pushing the places they invest in to take this seriously. Every company should have to present an environmental action plan and plan to become Carbon Neutral as part of its investment strategy. Right now, because it's the right thing to do, in future, because environmental exposure is a huge risk for companies YC has led the world in tech investments and growth/value creation by typical measures. It should lead the world by environmental measures also.
  - michannne 7y ago
    Good luck convincing anyone whose goal is to make money cheaply
    - secfirstmd 7y ago
      True that. Unfortunately I'm now at a view that it will take hundreds of millions in wealthy developed countries dieing for people to take climate change seriously.
  - vermarish 7y ago
    Have you seen https://carbon.ycombinator.com https://carbon.ycombinator.com ? It's less of a plan for going carbon neutral, and more of a list of moonshots for carbon reversal.
    - vermarish 7y ago
      It seems the site doesn't work with https on my device. http://carbon.ycombinator.com http://carbon.ycombinator.com
- ForHackernews 7y ago
jordanpg 7y ago
Could it be the case that contemporary governments and economies are just simply not structured to be forward thinking in this way? What if, in analogy to the transition out of feudalism, the next evolution of government and economies is one that allows for spending on future outcomes in a way that is impossible now? I have no idea what those institutions would look like -- I only know that hoping to solve global problems with the caveat that it needs to be profitable for someone has a whiff of obvious nonsense to me. And I also know, that at least in the US, the prospect that the government will implement large-scale change is patent nonsense.
- fao_ 7y ago
  > Could it be the case that contemporary governments and economies are just simply not structured to be forward thinking in this way? I'm confused that this is a quesiton that you're asking, as opposed to something that is blatantly obvious. The United Nations declared as such recently: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-capitalism-economy_n_5b87bf0ce4b0cf7b00326edc https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-capitalism-eco... "Trusting that the free market capitalist dynamics will get us there, that of course is not going to happen," report co-author Paavo Järvensivu, an academic who specializes in economics and culture at Bios, says in a phone call with HuffPost. Economies that rely on the power of markets, notes the report, don’t even recognize the problem as they’re too focused on short-term profits to take account of longer-term issues like climate change and environmental destruction.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Well going on the tone in the rest of their comment I read that as a firmly tongue in cheek rhetorical question. As in: From the department of the blatantly obvious comes the question "Could it be the case... By analogy to feudalism that we need a transformative change to something, an unknown something, that is different but a little better at seeing a big picture rather than endless blinkered dogma.
  - 7y ago
ThomPete 7y ago
Can you point to a scientifically predicted and demonstrated (not just speculated) consequence of climate change we don't know how to deal with?
- matznerd 7y ago
  How do we deal with 10-12 feet of global sea level rise nearly instantaneously? There is a single glacier called in an Antarctica called Thwaites which is also known as the "cork" on an Antarctic sea that, if it melts or comes unstuck, could cause that much sea level rise that quickly. "Thwaites is like a cork in a wine bottle—when it melts, it could trigger the collapse of a large portion of West Antarctica, equal to roughly 11 feet of global sea rise." ... "Winds are now pushing a layer of warm ocean water up underneath part of the glacier that extends out into the sea and melting it, faster and faster. If that part breaks off, the entire glacier would destabilize." https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-breaking-point/ https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-brea... https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/thwaites-glacier-collapse.html https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/thwaites-glac... https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/doomed-glacier-race.html https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/doomed-glacie...
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    "If" is the important word here. If an asteroid hit we won't be just dealing with 10-12 feet. Do you have any scientific proof that this will happen or that it's likely to happen?
    - lenkite 7y ago
      Umm. Thwaites is indeed melting https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/02/1904822116 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/02/1904822116 https://www.businessinsider.in/One-of-Antarcticas-biggest-glaciers-will-soon-reach-a-point-of-irreversible-melting-That-would-cause-sea-levels-to-rise-at-least-1-6-feet-/articleshow/70150908.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/One-of-Antarcticas-biggest-gl...

ksec 7y ago

The world could agree on Carbon Tax, and all the Tax will all be used for battling Climate Change. Funding Project like this one. ( Although. doubt this Project isn't without its downside, my guts reaction tells me there will be other problems in chemical reaction at this scale ) And it should be something like the EURO Cars emission standards, where the whole plan goes in multiple stages, giving time for businesses to adopt. And all of a sudden all the business have an incentive to lower the Total Carbon emission, that includes everything they consume ( which would have Carbon Tax on it ). They could also buy Carbon Credit to offset any Carbon they produce. These Carbon Credit will obviously come from project like this or Renewable Energy. Having the World to agree on Carton Tax is the hardest part.

lonelappde 7y ago
And if the tax cripples business, it will slow emissions anyway
- goatlover 7y ago
  Also innovation.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    The opposite of innovation is business as usual. Taxation always leads to innovation, sometimes they are not exclusively in the field of accounting.
    - marcusverus 7y ago
      Do you have any support for your claim that taxation leads to innovation?
      - inflatableDodo 7y ago
        I don't know about 'leads to', I mean, innovation quite clearly precedes taxation, otherwise it would be rather difficult to invent it, but taxation definitely directly funds far more innovation than the private sector does, at least if we are talking about fundamental research.
        usrusr 7y ago
        I was boldly going with a universal quantifier ("always") which might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I wasvery careful of getting the direction right. "All taxation leads to (some form of) innovation" is a very different statement from "all innovation comes from taxation".
      - usrusr 7y ago
        The sibling fields of tax evasion and tax avoidance are both full of creativity. If you want more technical examples, taxation systems that tried to get hard at personal transportation while mostly omitting business use led to both the SUV and to modern diesel. We may dislike both outcomes and making a bigger car more comfortable isn't exactly difficult, but the technology in modern diesel engines is absolutely amazing, even if adjusted for cheating. And clearly evidence to taxation influence, as it was exclusively developed in countries that went for fuel type instead of vehicle mass for being soft on commercial transport. PS: and just think of the things some Finns are supposedly willing to do to extract a little bang from a given quantity of alcohol, taxation is the exclusive driver of that.
    - ThomPete 7y ago
      If you by innovation means coming up with loop holes then yes. If you mean it leads to some fundamental innovation that improves the taxed subject then I am pretty sure you would be hard pressed to find anything backing that claim up.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    There won't be much innovation going on in a +4° degree world. People will be busy fighting over food and water.
    - goatlover 7y ago
      But there might be important innovation before then, such as ways to counteract and adapt to a +4° degree world.
      - adrianN 7y ago
        Personally I'd rather not risk that "might" and instead hope for the "might" of sufficient investment to prevent that world.

ip26 7y ago

The important part is pretending something will be done (ideally by someone else), not actually tackling it.

secfirstmd 7y ago
I'm an advocate that places like YCombinator should be pushing the places they invest in to take this seriously. Every company should have to present an environmental action plan and plan to become Carbon Neutral as part of its investment strategy. Right now, because it's the right thing to do, in future, because environmental exposure is a huge risk for companies YC has led the world in tech investments and growth/value creation by typical measures. It should lead the world by environmental measures also.
- michannne 7y ago
  Good luck convincing anyone whose goal is to make money cheaply
  - secfirstmd 7y ago
    True that. Unfortunately I'm now at a view that it will take hundreds of millions in wealthy developed countries dieing for people to take climate change seriously.
- vermarish 7y ago
  Have you seen https://carbon.ycombinator.com https://carbon.ycombinator.com ? It's less of a plan for going carbon neutral, and more of a list of moonshots for carbon reversal.
  - vermarish 7y ago
    It seems the site doesn't work with https on my device. http://carbon.ycombinator.com http://carbon.ycombinator.com
ForHackernews 7y ago

jordanpg 7y ago

Could it be the case that contemporary governments and economies are just simply not structured to be forward thinking in this way? What if, in analogy to the transition out of feudalism, the next evolution of government and economies is one that allows for spending on future outcomes in a way that is impossible now? I have no idea what those institutions would look like -- I only know that hoping to solve global problems with the caveat that it needs to be profitable for someone has a whiff of obvious nonsense to me. And I also know, that at least in the US, the prospect that the government will implement large-scale change is patent nonsense.

fao_ 7y ago
> Could it be the case that contemporary governments and economies are just simply not structured to be forward thinking in this way? I'm confused that this is a quesiton that you're asking, as opposed to something that is blatantly obvious. The United Nations declared as such recently: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-capitalism-economy_n_5b87bf0ce4b0cf7b00326edc https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-capitalism-eco... "Trusting that the free market capitalist dynamics will get us there, that of course is not going to happen," report co-author Paavo Järvensivu, an academic who specializes in economics and culture at Bios, says in a phone call with HuffPost. Economies that rely on the power of markets, notes the report, don’t even recognize the problem as they’re too focused on short-term profits to take account of longer-term issues like climate change and environmental destruction.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Well going on the tone in the rest of their comment I read that as a firmly tongue in cheek rhetorical question. As in: From the department of the blatantly obvious comes the question "Could it be the case... By analogy to feudalism that we need a transformative change to something, an unknown something, that is different but a little better at seeing a big picture rather than endless blinkered dogma.
- 7y ago

ThomPete 7y ago

Can you point to a scientifically predicted and demonstrated (not just speculated) consequence of climate change we don't know how to deal with?

matznerd 7y ago
How do we deal with 10-12 feet of global sea level rise nearly instantaneously? There is a single glacier called in an Antarctica called Thwaites which is also known as the "cork" on an Antarctic sea that, if it melts or comes unstuck, could cause that much sea level rise that quickly. "Thwaites is like a cork in a wine bottle—when it melts, it could trigger the collapse of a large portion of West Antarctica, equal to roughly 11 feet of global sea rise." ... "Winds are now pushing a layer of warm ocean water up underneath part of the glacier that extends out into the sea and melting it, faster and faster. If that part breaks off, the entire glacier would destabilize." https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-breaking-point/ https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-brea... https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/thwaites-glacier-collapse.html https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/thwaites-glac... https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/doomed-glacier-race.html https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/doomed-glacie...
- ThomPete 7y ago
  "If" is the important word here. If an asteroid hit we won't be just dealing with 10-12 feet. Do you have any scientific proof that this will happen or that it's likely to happen?
  - lenkite 7y ago
    Umm. Thwaites is indeed melting https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/02/1904822116 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/02/1904822116 https://www.businessinsider.in/One-of-Antarcticas-biggest-glaciers-will-soon-reach-a-point-of-irreversible-melting-That-would-cause-sea-levels-to-rise-at-least-1-6-feet-/articleshow/70150908.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/One-of-Antarcticas-biggest-gl...