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Debate on climate is now much more interesting than whether or not climate change is real or caused by humans. Those things are pretty well established. Now peo

Debate on climate is now much more interesting than whether or not climate change is real or caused by humans. Those things are pretty well established. Now people are debating what the appropriate actions are, and it's much more nuanced. For example, we have the "eco-pragmatists" like Michael Shellenberger publishing "Apocalypse Never" that involves some really interesting interviews and points about how economic development can be more important for people living on the edge of the Amazon rainforest or alongside Virunga National Park in the Congo from the perspective of climate resilience. In other words, having modern electricity and infrastructure seems more likely to help people in these situations than rapid decarbonization, especially given our slow progress in decarbonization and that fact that the world today is still >80% fossil fueled. He also suggested a merit order of fuels that went: biomass < coal < natural gas < nuclear. Moving from left to right is good, but moving from right to left is bad, he argues. He published this with a pretty abrasive blog post featuring undersupported controversial points and basically got blacklisted and deplatformed by the major media outlets. Yes, he seems to have cherry-picked a bit to support his narrative, but that's something all authors do. And we have the Michael Moore produced doco on Youtube (Planet of the Humans) that criticized the mainstream green energy narrative and also got temporarily deplatformed due to outcry. I have found interesting insight in these people even though I've considered climate change one of the major challenges of our time for 20 years now. It's certainly interesting times.

rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
>And we have the Michael Moore produced doco on Youtube (Planet of the Humans) that criticized the mainstream green energy narrative and also got temporarily deplatformed due to outcry. That pseudo-documentary was so dishonest, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Humans#Factual_accuracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Humans#Factual_a... As Dana Nucitelli said: "The film's case is akin to arguing that because fruit contains sugar, eating strawberries is no healthier than eating a cheesecake."
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  That section lists very weak criticism. Some solar farms are lower efficiency than others. So what? That doesn't go against any of the points made in the film. They did not say that all solar farms have lower-than-average capacity factors. The fact that you can get deplatformed for this really surprises me. This level of technical criticism is not even remotely proportional to the massive negative backlash it got. Clearly there's a higher-level battle being fought. A lot of what it had to say about the combustion of renewable biofuels (air pollution, carbon emissions) was pretty right-on though, and is not very well known. The fact that there are indeed actual externalities to renewable energy is a conversation that needs to be had. I think a lot of people are hoping they won't be too bad at scale.
matthewdgreen 6y ago
I would say that a major question now is not "are humans responsible", or even (merely) "what should humans do about it." The real unsettled question now is: how bad is it going to be, and when we don't know for sure, how much should we weight the various bad outcomes? Without some understanding of this, it's really hard to know how to weigh remediation arguments. If we're facing even a small possibility of worse-than-expected outcomes (as several models are currently predicting [1]) or methane feedback loops [2], then arguments like Shellenberger's aren't really that persuasive. Unfortunately we're barely getting to the point where a majority of Americans even accept that humans are causing this, despite the overwhelming evidence. So I'm not expecting a particularly informed debate until it's way too late. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-models-are-running-red-hot-and-scientists-don-t-know-why https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-m... [2] https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-strange-methane-leak-from-antarctica-s-sea-floor-and-it-s-not-good-news https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-strange-methane-leak-...
- imtringued 6y ago
  >The real unsettled question now is: how bad is it going to be, and when we don't know for sure, how much should we weight the various bad outcomes? If you wave a magic wand and reduce CO2 emissions by 90% today we will still reach the same bad outcomes eventually. Politicians are going to tell us we still have 100 years left and will just ignore the topic until it becomes a priority again. Think of it like having a back injury that gets more painful over time. You're going to react based on how intense the pain is, not based on how much time has passed.
  - matthewdgreen 6y ago
    I think of it like having a growing tumor. Maybe it doesn't hurt now, but all the doctors are telling you that you need to take it out or it will metastasize. You won't live forever if you take it out, but you'll potentially live a whole lot longer.

rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago

>And we have the Michael Moore produced doco on Youtube (Planet of the Humans) that criticized the mainstream green energy narrative and also got temporarily deplatformed due to outcry. That pseudo-documentary was so dishonest, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Humans#Factual_accuracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Humans#Factual_a... As Dana Nucitelli said: "The film's case is akin to arguing that because fruit contains sugar, eating strawberries is no healthier than eating a cheesecake."

acidburnNSA 6y ago
That section lists very weak criticism. Some solar farms are lower efficiency than others. So what? That doesn't go against any of the points made in the film. They did not say that all solar farms have lower-than-average capacity factors. The fact that you can get deplatformed for this really surprises me. This level of technical criticism is not even remotely proportional to the massive negative backlash it got. Clearly there's a higher-level battle being fought. A lot of what it had to say about the combustion of renewable biofuels (air pollution, carbon emissions) was pretty right-on though, and is not very well known. The fact that there are indeed actual externalities to renewable energy is a conversation that needs to be had. I think a lot of people are hoping they won't be too bad at scale.

matthewdgreen 6y ago

I would say that a major question now is not "are humans responsible", or even (merely) "what should humans do about it." The real unsettled question now is: how bad is it going to be, and when we don't know for sure, how much should we weight the various bad outcomes? Without some understanding of this, it's really hard to know how to weigh remediation arguments. If we're facing even a small possibility of worse-than-expected outcomes (as several models are currently predicting [1]) or methane feedback loops [2], then arguments like Shellenberger's aren't really that persuasive. Unfortunately we're barely getting to the point where a majority of Americans even accept that humans are causing this, despite the overwhelming evidence. So I'm not expecting a particularly informed debate until it's way too late. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-models-are-running-red-hot-and-scientists-don-t-know-why https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-m... [2] https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-strange-methane-leak-from-antarctica-s-sea-floor-and-it-s-not-good-news https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-strange-methane-leak-...

imtringued 6y ago
>The real unsettled question now is: how bad is it going to be, and when we don't know for sure, how much should we weight the various bad outcomes? If you wave a magic wand and reduce CO2 emissions by 90% today we will still reach the same bad outcomes eventually. Politicians are going to tell us we still have 100 years left and will just ignore the topic until it becomes a priority again. Think of it like having a back injury that gets more painful over time. You're going to react based on how intense the pain is, not based on how much time has passed.
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  I think of it like having a growing tumor. Maybe it doesn't hurt now, but all the doctors are telling you that you need to take it out or it will metastasize. You won't live forever if you take it out, but you'll potentially live a whole lot longer.