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Because the extractors of fossil fuels drives significant portions of the economy and we’d have to change how we measure things. Plus the amount of money they t

Because the extractors of fossil fuels drives significant portions of the economy and we’d have to change how we measure things. Plus the amount of money they throw around. Much of the time they’re the only industry in poor or underdeveloped regions, and we have no real way to deal with the economic impact.

ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
Good, this means we have now identified the real problem that we need to solve. In any case, if we really believed that we could succeed in just limiting our emissions without enforcing a scarcity of fossil fuels, that would lead to a drastic reduction in demand anyway, which would have the same economic impact on said poor and underdeveloped regions. These regions are also going to be the ones most affected by climate change, so they will lose big time either way. I am not saying that this is fair, but no approach is really going to be fair to everyone. At least by ripping the band-aid off, we will (1) make actual, concrete progress, and (2) make it explicit who is going to suffer (the poor and underdeveloped regions that depend on fossil fuel production) and that we as a world are responsible for ensuring the affected people a livelihood. Humans are much better at dealing with problems related to scarcity, as this causes us to really think about how to make things more efficient. If good advice about how to reduce your personal consumption for your own good really worked, then we would have a western world populated by fit and healthy Greek gods, but we don't: we have an obesity epidemic because it is not in the human nature to limit your consumption even if you have all the information about how to do it available to you. Now, the real big problem is how to enforce this yearly reduction in fossil fuel production. I don't know, but I can think of one way involving the immediate threat of instant sunshine followed by nuclear winter. At least this is a kind of threat that humans can better relate to.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > I don't know, but I can think of one way involving the immediate threat of instant sunshine followed by nuclear winter. At least this is a kind of threat that humans can better relate to. Would you clarify who should threaten who in your scenario? Just FYI, US is now the biggest oil producer in the world.
  - ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
    I am aware that this is not a realistic course of action. The problem is that scaling down fossil fuel production is going to be a very bad economic decision for any country in the short term, and it seems to be difficult, politically, to take that local economic hit for the long term interests of humanity at a global scale. At least the immediate threat of nuclear repercussions would convert the alternative into a short term local risk, which is politically more palatable. Of course, any nuclear nation threatening other nations like that would become a pariah, so it isn't likely to happen. Also because, as you say, it is against their own short-term economic interests. Edit: It would be pretty ironic if North Korea, which is already a pariah, turned out to save the planet by taking on that role.
- taurath 7y ago
  I think if we had some sort of catalyst to enable more economic opportunities for both rural and fossil fuel oriented areas, then we could easily nudge things in the right direction. IMO - a remote work revolution would work for that. Basic income as well.
  - ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
    A remote work revolution would happen as a necessity in a world where fossil fuel availability would suddenly and drastically get reduced. I think that transformation would be relatively uncontroversial, and would probably lead to an increase in production because people wouldn't be forced to sit in open office spaces anymore. However, we have to realize that this is only viable for the relatively small subset of us who work in offices.
mortdeus 7y ago
I wouldn't say "poor or underdeveloped", rather the economic factors are different in the middle of the country vs the coastal parts of it. Obviously anywhere connected to the ocean benefits from the fact that they are the first place a cargo ship goes when importing goods into America. It's because of this reason alone that the coastal states just so happen to be tech hubs. Silicon Valley exists not because every engineer in the world 70 years ago thought it would be nice to live on a crowded little peninsula that has always had extremely over inflated real estate prices relative to the national avg (trust me, my Grandpa and Aunt were both big in the real estate game in the bay way back then) The reason why they all moved there was because A. The cheapest silicon you can get in America is located where it comes right of the dock. B Because that is true for every imported good, coincidentally the easiest place to find people with an abundance of cash just so happens to be where all the people involved heavily in international trade are doing business. My point is, you say "under developed" without taking into consideration two realities. 1. You don't want to live in a california with 150 million people in it. 2. states like oklahoma and texas can only survive by exporting the few goods they can produce. Namely green house gas problem sectors like livestock and oil production. I live in oklahoma. Literally 5/10 men who actually take care of their families around here are doing so by driving trucks across country or pulling black gold out of the ground. The only way these areas could become "more developed" is if all of you did the actual caring thing (and actually smart thing btw) and started building your billion dollar unicorn startups all over the country. There is no reason why Facebook couldn't be HQ in Texas, Amazon in Utah, Apple in Nashville (hey i think steve jobs would have liked that) twitch in North carolina, twitter in Maine, etc etc etc. Because literally the only thing tech needs is internet connection. If were going to talk about ignorance of reality lets start with our own hypocrisies. Because frankly I lived half of my life in California and I lived the other half in the bible belt. I tend to miss both when i am in the other place.When im in oklahoma I miss California because that's where all my childhood friends are. And when i am in california i miss oklahoma because that is where all the polite people are.
- taurath 7y ago
  > There is no reason why Facebook couldn't be HQ in Texas, Amazon in Utah, Apple in Nashville I have one reason - access to employees, and a pipeline for more. The industry in Austin will always be just as big as the employee base + qualified college grad rate will supply, and not much larger. Why can't they be remote? Every company has huge struggles with communication as they get larger, and start to spread out further and further. Until there ends up being a company that grows and sets an "example" for remote at actual "unicorn" scale. Then I think it could and probably will happen, probably in the next 10 years even. But not right at the current moment. Still, you have to consider where the executives + founders want to live, an oft underappreciated reason for companies doggedly sticking to the bay area.

ulrikrasmussen 7y ago

Good, this means we have now identified the real problem that we need to solve. In any case, if we really believed that we could succeed in just limiting our emissions without enforcing a scarcity of fossil fuels, that would lead to a drastic reduction in demand anyway, which would have the same economic impact on said poor and underdeveloped regions. These regions are also going to be the ones most affected by climate change, so they will lose big time either way. I am not saying that this is fair, but no approach is really going to be fair to everyone. At least by ripping the band-aid off, we will (1) make actual, concrete progress, and (2) make it explicit who is going to suffer (the poor and underdeveloped regions that depend on fossil fuel production) and that we as a world are responsible for ensuring the affected people a livelihood. Humans are much better at dealing with problems related to scarcity, as this causes us to really think about how to make things more efficient. If good advice about how to reduce your personal consumption for your own good really worked, then we would have a western world populated by fit and healthy Greek gods, but we don't: we have an obesity epidemic because it is not in the human nature to limit your consumption even if you have all the information about how to do it available to you. Now, the real big problem is how to enforce this yearly reduction in fossil fuel production. I don't know, but I can think of one way involving the immediate threat of instant sunshine followed by nuclear winter. At least this is a kind of threat that humans can better relate to.

perfunctory 7y ago
> I don't know, but I can think of one way involving the immediate threat of instant sunshine followed by nuclear winter. At least this is a kind of threat that humans can better relate to. Would you clarify who should threaten who in your scenario? Just FYI, US is now the biggest oil producer in the world.
- ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
  I am aware that this is not a realistic course of action. The problem is that scaling down fossil fuel production is going to be a very bad economic decision for any country in the short term, and it seems to be difficult, politically, to take that local economic hit for the long term interests of humanity at a global scale. At least the immediate threat of nuclear repercussions would convert the alternative into a short term local risk, which is politically more palatable. Of course, any nuclear nation threatening other nations like that would become a pariah, so it isn't likely to happen. Also because, as you say, it is against their own short-term economic interests. Edit: It would be pretty ironic if North Korea, which is already a pariah, turned out to save the planet by taking on that role.
taurath 7y ago
I think if we had some sort of catalyst to enable more economic opportunities for both rural and fossil fuel oriented areas, then we could easily nudge things in the right direction. IMO - a remote work revolution would work for that. Basic income as well.
- ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
  A remote work revolution would happen as a necessity in a world where fossil fuel availability would suddenly and drastically get reduced. I think that transformation would be relatively uncontroversial, and would probably lead to an increase in production because people wouldn't be forced to sit in open office spaces anymore. However, we have to realize that this is only viable for the relatively small subset of us who work in offices.

mortdeus 7y ago

I wouldn't say "poor or underdeveloped", rather the economic factors are different in the middle of the country vs the coastal parts of it. Obviously anywhere connected to the ocean benefits from the fact that they are the first place a cargo ship goes when importing goods into America. It's because of this reason alone that the coastal states just so happen to be tech hubs. Silicon Valley exists not because every engineer in the world 70 years ago thought it would be nice to live on a crowded little peninsula that has always had extremely over inflated real estate prices relative to the national avg (trust me, my Grandpa and Aunt were both big in the real estate game in the bay way back then) The reason why they all moved there was because A. The cheapest silicon you can get in America is located where it comes right of the dock. B Because that is true for every imported good, coincidentally the easiest place to find people with an abundance of cash just so happens to be where all the people involved heavily in international trade are doing business. My point is, you say "under developed" without taking into consideration two realities. 1. You don't want to live in a california with 150 million people in it. 2. states like oklahoma and texas can only survive by exporting the few goods they can produce. Namely green house gas problem sectors like livestock and oil production. I live in oklahoma. Literally 5/10 men who actually take care of their families around here are doing so by driving trucks across country or pulling black gold out of the ground. The only way these areas could become "more developed" is if all of you did the actual caring thing (and actually smart thing btw) and started building your billion dollar unicorn startups all over the country. There is no reason why Facebook couldn't be HQ in Texas, Amazon in Utah, Apple in Nashville (hey i think steve jobs would have liked that) twitch in North carolina, twitter in Maine, etc etc etc. Because literally the only thing tech needs is internet connection. If were going to talk about ignorance of reality lets start with our own hypocrisies. Because frankly I lived half of my life in California and I lived the other half in the bible belt. I tend to miss both when i am in the other place.When im in oklahoma I miss California because that's where all my childhood friends are. And when i am in california i miss oklahoma because that is where all the polite people are.

taurath 7y ago
> There is no reason why Facebook couldn't be HQ in Texas, Amazon in Utah, Apple in Nashville I have one reason - access to employees, and a pipeline for more. The industry in Austin will always be just as big as the employee base + qualified college grad rate will supply, and not much larger. Why can't they be remote? Every company has huge struggles with communication as they get larger, and start to spread out further and further. Until there ends up being a company that grows and sets an "example" for remote at actual "unicorn" scale. Then I think it could and probably will happen, probably in the next 10 years even. But not right at the current moment. Still, you have to consider where the executives + founders want to live, an oft underappreciated reason for companies doggedly sticking to the bay area.