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One simple thing we can all do is never vote for a candidate if they are not for aggressive and immediate measures to combat global warming. If the roughly 60-

One simple thing we can all do is never vote for a candidate if they are not for aggressive and immediate measures to combat global warming. If the roughly 60-75% of Americans who believe human activity is causing climate change were to stop voting for individuals who don't believe this, we'd have meaningful change coming from the federal government within 2 years.

new2628 7y ago
What people _believe_ is largely irrelevant in almost all situations, whether you mean the voters or the elected officials. Only actions matter. This is not just semantics, some who believe in global warming fly every month or week, some who don't believe in global warming have not flown their entire life (to pick just one example). The latter do more to mitigate it than the former.
- rapind 7y ago
  This is the issue. What people believe can be influenced, especially as it becomes increasingly inconvenient. Consider how many people are aware of social network micro manipulation / nudging but couldn't be bothered to just stop using Facebook. It's an easy action, easier than voting even, but it's not worth the inconvenience for the vast majority (yet). Climate change has some really terrible consequences, but until it gets real for people they'll only suffer so much inconvenience. My own pet peeve is when recycling bins get thrown in with the garbage... Shitty solutions will regress us, but shitty solutions are necessary for iteration, so /shrug.
- badfrog 7y ago
  > The latter do more to mitigate it than the former. Electing leaders who ignore the problem does way more harm than the lifestyles of average people.
- jonbronson 7y ago
  Except individual actions pale in comparison to the impact of industry. The single most impactful action individuals can take to combat climate change is not fly less, or use less water. It's voting for politicians that actually enact meaningful policy. Without that, the number of flights we all take is irrelevant.
deleted 7y ago
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anm89 7y ago
"if we all just..." is the ultimate fallacy. Not everyone's priorities are yours and even if they were its difficult to coordinate action.
rayiner 7y ago
It depends entirely on (1) whether you think those "aggressive and immediate measures to combat global warming" will work; and (2) the economic cost of those measures relative to climate change costs. One estimate of a 3.7C warming scenario is a total cost of $550 trillion: https://www.axios.com/climate-change-costs-wealth-carbon-tax-303d7cff-3085-49d9-accb-ec77689b9911.html https://www.axios.com/climate-change-costs-wealth-carbon-tax.... That's about in the 2100 timeframe. That sounds like a lot, except OECD projects that by 2060 world GDP will be $267 trillion annually: https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gdp-long-term-forecast.htm https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gdp-long-term-forecast.htm. Estimates of world GDP in 2100 are in the $250-$500 trillion range annually. That means that adopting policies that cause us to hit the lower end of that range instead of the upper end of that range could cost us more than the total cost of a 3.7C increase in just a few years. And if those government policies don't work then you will have paid that cost, and you'll have to deal with the cost of climate change on top of it. Now, of course lots of things could happen. Climate change could be an extinction-level problem. (According to the IPCC, there is "virtually no chance" of anthropogenic causes resulting in a Venus-like runaway greenhouse effect.) Or we could figure out workable CCS in 2050 and average climate change entirely. (That's also not super likely.) Ultimately, the rational course depends on what you think of government action in this area. If you think it'll cost a lot but end up ineffective (like say the "War on Poverty") then it's completely rational to vote against it. If you think it'll work without hurting economic growth significantly, then it's rational to vote for it.
- dahart 7y ago
  > If you think it’ll cost a lot but end up ineffective [...] then it’s completely rational to vote against it. That is true, and I easily agree with everything you said, but FWIW there have been studies on whether cost-benefit analysis actually works by examining the outcomes after the fact. For example this set of case studies demonstrating that cost-benefit decision making would have historically made the wrong choice, and that sometimes our estimates for costs in the future are wrong by orders of magnitude. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1326&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... Point being that the completely rational vote isn’t always the right vote. Focusing on costs rather than goals sometimes leads us to miss the big picture.
tbabb 7y ago
It's nearly impossible in the US to vote for a candidate based on policy instead of party, due to the twin dangers of split majorities and Keynesian beauty contests (a.k.a., the need to choose for "electability"). The only remedy to the above problems is abolishing first-past-the-post elections in favor of instant runoff.

new2628 7y ago

What people _believe_ is largely irrelevant in almost all situations, whether you mean the voters or the elected officials. Only actions matter. This is not just semantics, some who believe in global warming fly every month or week, some who don't believe in global warming have not flown their entire life (to pick just one example). The latter do more to mitigate it than the former.

rapind 7y ago
This is the issue. What people believe can be influenced, especially as it becomes increasingly inconvenient. Consider how many people are aware of social network micro manipulation / nudging but couldn't be bothered to just stop using Facebook. It's an easy action, easier than voting even, but it's not worth the inconvenience for the vast majority (yet). Climate change has some really terrible consequences, but until it gets real for people they'll only suffer so much inconvenience. My own pet peeve is when recycling bins get thrown in with the garbage... Shitty solutions will regress us, but shitty solutions are necessary for iteration, so /shrug.
badfrog 7y ago
> The latter do more to mitigate it than the former. Electing leaders who ignore the problem does way more harm than the lifestyles of average people.
jonbronson 7y ago
Except individual actions pale in comparison to the impact of industry. The single most impactful action individuals can take to combat climate change is not fly less, or use less water. It's voting for politicians that actually enact meaningful policy. Without that, the number of flights we all take is irrelevant.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

anm89 7y ago

"if we all just..." is the ultimate fallacy. Not everyone's priorities are yours and even if they were its difficult to coordinate action.

rayiner 7y ago

It depends entirely on (1) whether you think those "aggressive and immediate measures to combat global warming" will work; and (2) the economic cost of those measures relative to climate change costs. One estimate of a 3.7C warming scenario is a total cost of $550 trillion: https://www.axios.com/climate-change-costs-wealth-carbon-tax-303d7cff-3085-49d9-accb-ec77689b9911.html https://www.axios.com/climate-change-costs-wealth-carbon-tax.... That's about in the 2100 timeframe. That sounds like a lot, except OECD projects that by 2060 world GDP will be $267 trillion annually: https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gdp-long-term-forecast.htm https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gdp-long-term-forecast.htm. Estimates of world GDP in 2100 are in the $250-$500 trillion range annually. That means that adopting policies that cause us to hit the lower end of that range instead of the upper end of that range could cost us more than the total cost of a 3.7C increase in just a few years. And if those government policies don't work then you will have paid that cost, and you'll have to deal with the cost of climate change on top of it. Now, of course lots of things could happen. Climate change could be an extinction-level problem. (According to the IPCC, there is "virtually no chance" of anthropogenic causes resulting in a Venus-like runaway greenhouse effect.) Or we could figure out workable CCS in 2050 and average climate change entirely. (That's also not super likely.) Ultimately, the rational course depends on what you think of government action in this area. If you think it'll cost a lot but end up ineffective (like say the "War on Poverty") then it's completely rational to vote against it. If you think it'll work without hurting economic growth significantly, then it's rational to vote for it.

dahart 7y ago
> If you think it’ll cost a lot but end up ineffective [...] then it’s completely rational to vote against it. That is true, and I easily agree with everything you said, but FWIW there have been studies on whether cost-benefit analysis actually works by examining the outcomes after the fact. For example this set of case studies demonstrating that cost-benefit decision making would have historically made the wrong choice, and that sometimes our estimates for costs in the future are wrong by orders of magnitude. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1326&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... Point being that the completely rational vote isn’t always the right vote. Focusing on costs rather than goals sometimes leads us to miss the big picture.

tbabb 7y ago

It's nearly impossible in the US to vote for a candidate based on policy instead of party, due to the twin dangers of split majorities and Keynesian beauty contests (a.k.a., the need to choose for "electability"). The only remedy to the above problems is abolishing first-past-the-post elections in favor of instant runoff.