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If you're scared, then give up your car, eat less meat, etc. You can be part of the problem or part of the solution. Your choice. Vote. Individual behavioral c

If you're scared, then give up your car, eat less meat, etc. You can be part of the problem or part of the solution. Your choice. Vote. Individual behavioral changes are fine and good, but structural change is the only way to meaningfully address the magnitude of the crisis modern civilization faces.

pdonis 7y ago
"Structural change" actually means "letting so-called experts who have made every prediction wrong so far, control public policy based on their new predictions". No, thanks. Or, to put it another way: you think the crisis modern civilization faces is that we don't have enough central coordination to enforce what needs to be done. I think the crisis modern civilization faces is that we have too much central coordination, so people who don't actually have the knowledge and predictive power they claim to have can mess up everyone's life instead of just their own.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  Decentralisation is beautiful but it has one fatal weak spot: tragedy of the commons. That isn't some politicophilosophising; it is a mathematical fact (see game theory, which is consistently vindicated in this model). The only way to combat this is centralising governance of the resource being overused. Fishing is an example, and CO2 (a "negative" resource use which follows the same patterns). I won't argue that the people in power are doing great, but I can guarantee you that throwing our hands in the air and giving up on centralisation entirely is not the answer. For the above reason. It's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > The only way to combat this is centralising governance of the resource being overused. "Centralizing governance" can mean one of two things: political control by a government, or private ownership. The latter does indeed work as a solution. The former always ends up making things worse instead of better, because special interests can capture the government's regulatory power.
- Joeri 7y ago
  When have the predictions of experts been wrong? The consensus about global warming in the scientific community has been hitting it on the nose for decades. If anything, they’ve underestimated how rapid change would be. Their advice has also been largely ignored by governments. If we had actually let experts dictate policy back in the 90’s when the consensus was established, global warming would be solved by now.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > The consensus about global warming in the scientific community has been hitting it on the nose for decades. Surely you jest. The actual data on global average temperature has been below the low end of the 95% confidence interval of the model predictions for some time now. The model predictions were always high, but now they're so high that by the usual standards of science, they are falsified.
    - breakyerself 7y ago
      The planet is about 1C above baseline temps. Which is pretty much where the models predicted. Some a bit above and some a bit below, but not way off as you say. When I've seen people trot out this argument it's usually based on a dishonest reading of the models. Using model runs based on much higher emissions scenarios than what actually occurred.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        > The planet is about 1C above baseline temps. Which is pretty much where the models predicted. Sorry, but the fact is, as I said, that the actual temperature has been below the 95% confidence interval of the models for some time now. It is not "pretty much where the models predicted". Whether it's "about 1C above baseline temps" depends on where you pick the baseline, and there are at least as many choices of baseline as there are climate scientists. > Using model runs based on much higher emissions scenarios than what actually occurred. Sorry, but there are no model runs based on much higher emissions than what actually occurred. In fact it's the opposite: the actual emissions scenario that has happened is about the same as the worst case (highest) of the three classes of models (the "business as usual" models that assumed that no effort would be made to curb emissions). The only reason the actual emissions are a bit lower than that worst case model class, instead of as high or higher, is that the US shift to natural gas over the past 10 or 15 years cut US emissions almost in half. But actual emissions are significantly higher than the middle of the three model classes (the one that assumed some emissions cuts would be made), and much higher than the lowest of the three model classes (the one that assumed drastic emissions cuts would be made). So two out of the three classes of model runs were based on emissions significantly lower than what actually occurred. And yet temperatures, as I said, are lower than the low end of the 95% confidence interval. And in fact, the disparity between the models and the data is even worse than what I just said, because the 95% confidence interval that always gets quoted is based on all three of the model sets. Which makes no sense at all, because two of those model sets were based on emissions scenarios different from what actually occurred, so they're irrelevant when comparing model predictions to actual data. In fact, the only one of the three model sets that should be used to compute the 95% confidence interval is the worst case one (the highest of the three), and when you use that confidence interval the gap between the low end of the interval and the actual data is even wider (and the actual data went outside the low end of the interval even earlier).
greglindahl 7y ago
People don’t agree about what’s meaningful. But thanks for being discouraging.

pdonis 7y ago

"Structural change" actually means "letting so-called experts who have made every prediction wrong so far, control public policy based on their new predictions". No, thanks. Or, to put it another way: you think the crisis modern civilization faces is that we don't have enough central coordination to enforce what needs to be done. I think the crisis modern civilization faces is that we have too much central coordination, so people who don't actually have the knowledge and predictive power they claim to have can mess up everyone's life instead of just their own.

nothrabannosir 7y ago
Decentralisation is beautiful but it has one fatal weak spot: tragedy of the commons. That isn't some politicophilosophising; it is a mathematical fact (see game theory, which is consistently vindicated in this model). The only way to combat this is centralising governance of the resource being overused. Fishing is an example, and CO2 (a "negative" resource use which follows the same patterns). I won't argue that the people in power are doing great, but I can guarantee you that throwing our hands in the air and giving up on centralisation entirely is not the answer. For the above reason. It's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > The only way to combat this is centralising governance of the resource being overused. "Centralizing governance" can mean one of two things: political control by a government, or private ownership. The latter does indeed work as a solution. The former always ends up making things worse instead of better, because special interests can capture the government's regulatory power.
Joeri 7y ago
When have the predictions of experts been wrong? The consensus about global warming in the scientific community has been hitting it on the nose for decades. If anything, they’ve underestimated how rapid change would be. Their advice has also been largely ignored by governments. If we had actually let experts dictate policy back in the 90’s when the consensus was established, global warming would be solved by now.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > The consensus about global warming in the scientific community has been hitting it on the nose for decades. Surely you jest. The actual data on global average temperature has been below the low end of the 95% confidence interval of the model predictions for some time now. The model predictions were always high, but now they're so high that by the usual standards of science, they are falsified.
  - breakyerself 7y ago
    The planet is about 1C above baseline temps. Which is pretty much where the models predicted. Some a bit above and some a bit below, but not way off as you say. When I've seen people trot out this argument it's usually based on a dishonest reading of the models. Using model runs based on much higher emissions scenarios than what actually occurred.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > The planet is about 1C above baseline temps. Which is pretty much where the models predicted. Sorry, but the fact is, as I said, that the actual temperature has been below the 95% confidence interval of the models for some time now. It is not "pretty much where the models predicted". Whether it's "about 1C above baseline temps" depends on where you pick the baseline, and there are at least as many choices of baseline as there are climate scientists. > Using model runs based on much higher emissions scenarios than what actually occurred. Sorry, but there are no model runs based on much higher emissions than what actually occurred. In fact it's the opposite: the actual emissions scenario that has happened is about the same as the worst case (highest) of the three classes of models (the "business as usual" models that assumed that no effort would be made to curb emissions). The only reason the actual emissions are a bit lower than that worst case model class, instead of as high or higher, is that the US shift to natural gas over the past 10 or 15 years cut US emissions almost in half. But actual emissions are significantly higher than the middle of the three model classes (the one that assumed some emissions cuts would be made), and much higher than the lowest of the three model classes (the one that assumed drastic emissions cuts would be made). So two out of the three classes of model runs were based on emissions significantly lower than what actually occurred. And yet temperatures, as I said, are lower than the low end of the 95% confidence interval. And in fact, the disparity between the models and the data is even worse than what I just said, because the 95% confidence interval that always gets quoted is based on all three of the model sets. Which makes no sense at all, because two of those model sets were based on emissions scenarios different from what actually occurred, so they're irrelevant when comparing model predictions to actual data. In fact, the only one of the three model sets that should be used to compute the 95% confidence interval is the worst case one (the highest of the three), and when you use that confidence interval the gap between the low end of the interval and the actual data is even wider (and the actual data went outside the low end of the interval even earlier).

greglindahl 7y ago

People don’t agree about what’s meaningful. But thanks for being discouraging.