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So I’m 100% in favor of urgent and strong action on climate change. Reducing impact of cattle ranching, improving urban planning, and encouraging local food con

So I’m 100% in favor of urgent and strong action on climate change. Reducing impact of cattle ranching, improving urban planning, and encouraging local food consumption are all great medium-to-long time horizon goals. But: 1) It’s not enough. The methane and CO2 from extraneous transportation only accounts for some portion of the GHG problem. 2) Restricting peoples’ access to food (up to and including outright banning major classes of food) is an extreme solution that is sure to be extremely unpopular, correspondingly. And environmental economic theory strong suggests that command and control style policies are less efficient than market-based solutions (e.g. cap and trade, carbon tax and dividend), which also have the effect of catalyzing innovation and long-term change via the price signal. But, I do think coal fired power plants are worth a ban and rapid decommissioning. 3. That said, I also think we’re beyond the market-based solutions that economists and technocrats (like me!) approve of. I’m in favor of wartime-scale and worldwide production of renewable energy infrastructure + decarbonization efforts (including reforestation and other forms of carton capture), worldwide. Ideally, with the US leading the way, given that we are responsible for a plurality of the cumulative emissions since the industrial revolution. This also means supporting sustainable development where appropriate. People of every political stripe hate draconian bans and love building stuff. It would be something amazing to look back on if we really went all-in and mobilized a rapid decarbonization/greening of the planet. Either way, it’s our generation’s grand challenge.

ryanmercer 7y ago
>But: 1) It’s not enough. Obviously, the cattle methane impact is roughly 1/20th as bad as our CO2 emissions depending on cattle diet and then fudging some in for refrigeration and transportation probably double it, although that is part of the known CO2 emissions already. But they're relatively painless massive changes that can be sold to the unbelieving masses. Go talk to some random people at your work, or on your facebook friends list. Most will probably think global warming is fake, is a politics thing, that there's no evidence "of course it's the warmest June in recorded history, we've only been recording with good instruments for a few decades" "it's cyclical" "It's just part of the sun's cycle, it'll cool back down" "it was much warmer for the dinosaurs and they did fine" are actual answers you are likely to hear. We can start doing something or we can keep going "it's not enough, we can't, not enough, not feasible, not enough money, too expensive, won't scale". Anything we do to slow it, buys us a little more time for some revolutionary/miraculous tech breakthrough.

ryanmercer 7y ago

>But: 1) It’s not enough. Obviously, the cattle methane impact is roughly 1/20th as bad as our CO2 emissions depending on cattle diet and then fudging some in for refrigeration and transportation probably double it, although that is part of the known CO2 emissions already. But they're relatively painless massive changes that can be sold to the unbelieving masses. Go talk to some random people at your work, or on your facebook friends list. Most will probably think global warming is fake, is a politics thing, that there's no evidence "of course it's the warmest June in recorded history, we've only been recording with good instruments for a few decades" "it's cyclical" "It's just part of the sun's cycle, it'll cool back down" "it was much warmer for the dinosaurs and they did fine" are actual answers you are likely to hear. We can start doing something or we can keep going "it's not enough, we can't, not enough, not feasible, not enough money, too expensive, won't scale". Anything we do to slow it, buys us a little more time for some revolutionary/miraculous tech breakthrough.