8 ms·

This comment perfectly epitomises the 'climate crisis' extinction rebellion Greta Thunberg school of response to climate issues. Firstly - any response to clim

This comment perfectly epitomises the 'climate crisis' extinction rebellion Greta Thunberg school of response to climate issues. Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India and other emerging economies too is more or less useless. Why should we deny such countries the benefits of full industrialisation? Secondly - while in some respects you are correct, looking at CO2 numbers some kind of drastic action seems to be required, it also leaves unanswered the question of 'at what cost'. During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP. That naturally always translates into deaths, and the kind of economic impact such drastic action would entail would likely run into millions of deaths, many of them far away in poorer nations receiving less govt aid (as with covid!) I think the whole 'nothing is enough the world will end!!' mentality does nothing but put those who are inclined to care into a state of deep depression and anxiety and those who are inclined to deny climate change into a better position to argue that the other side are being ridiculous. It does NOT help. The correct approach is a practical middle ground where we try to do what we can. In any case this govt response does somewhat epitomise the 'climate hysterics' mentality in that it is hugely impractical, ignores many questions of trade-offs and impact as if there were none to be answered and is unilateral enough to be meaningless in the wider global context. Keep in mind that if one country decides to take drastic action which tanks its economy, do you think other countries are likely to follow suit or rather elect govts that entirely unwind all and any climate action?

ako 6y ago
Not dealing with global warming will also lead to "the kind of economic impact such drastic action would entail would likely run into millions of deaths, many of them far away in poorer nations"
- barnacled 6y ago
  Did I suggest not addressing it? It's entirely this dismissive attitude that harms the cause. This 'all or nothing' attitude that reminds me of the gun control issue in the US. Since you've ignored most of what I said there, let me reduce the surface area of the discussion and ask 1 thing: Let's assume the UK does everything the climate 'activists' request of them, and this results in an economic depression and unprecedented unemployment and poverty - do you think this increases or decreases the likelihood of other countries following suit?
  - ako 6y ago
    I'm not convinced it's bad for economy. It'll just inspire innovation: new electric cars, alternative transportation modes, new ways of charging electric cars, better isolation for building, etc, etc. The sooner countries start to embrace it, the more they'll be able to economically benefit from the required changes that we're all facing.
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    > Did I suggest not addressing it? Yes, you said: >> The correct approach is a practical middle ground where we try to do what we can Then provided no examples of what we can do, in your opinion. This isn’t a problem that can be solved by right leaning politics, this is the right’s blind spot. You’ll need some creative lefty types to sort this out and then you’ll need some efficient righty types to come in a clean up what they’ve designed. The solution to this is not in the past, it is not doing something we already do in a better way (politics of the right), it is of a new paradigm (politics of the left).
    - barnacled 6y ago
      You are correlating 'a practical middle ground' with 'not addressing it'. I am also really not sure why you are bringing politics into this. I get the analogy but that's such an easy way to turn this into a divisive discussion that I think we should leave that there. You are also glossing over the consequences of an extreme response to climate change - an honest discussion talks about the cost as well as the benefits of any action taken. The "all or nothing" approach is likely to get you nothing because in democratic countries when you take actions that result in severe economic consequences, people will just vote in a govt that reverses it. It also sends a signal to all other countries who were considering such action not to do it. It's not an easy problem this, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but to me doing SOMETHING that is likely to be acceptable to democratic countries is better than doing nothing and souring the whole thing for ordinary people.
      - CraigJPerry 6y ago
        Sure, but what is that something? Surely the “something” has to be impossible to achieve given your assertions (which i agree with) that there will be severe economic consequences. The idea of some magical possibility where we all get to keep doing what we’re doing but climate change does away is impossible. There will be economic losers (and winners)
mavhc 6y ago
How is improving our energy supply so it's cheaper and cleaner going to harm the economy? Pretty sure there's a lot of jobs creating new power sources, and once everyone has cheap power they'll have more money left for the economy. The cost to fix global warming only gets greater each year. China buys more electric cars than all other countries.
- stevenhuang 6y ago
  > drastic action which tanks its economy None of what you proposed can be reasonably considered drastic action, so you're not really in disagreement with OP there.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  If it's going to be cheaper, why does it need government support? Won't industry just do it to be more competitive on its own? Or perhaps there's some kind of first mover/network effect/chicken and egg problem that the free market can't surmount on its own?
  - mavhc 6y ago
    Most things have government support, cars have roads, oil has militaries, and everyone who pollutes gets to do it for almost free with government support of not making it illegal. But mostly it's long term vs short term. I'd just make pollution illegal unless you paid to clean it up
CraigJPerry 6y ago
>> Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries? >> During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP. That naturally always translates into deaths Is there any evidence of deaths attributable to shut downs so far? There’s over a million deaths worldwide due to covid, how many attributable to non-covid causes? E.g. suicide etc.
- barnacled 6y ago
  >Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries? Good point but I think much of it could also be attributed to countries going through their own industrialisation processes and generating wealth (however that end product gets used). Are we to condemn them all to poverty? Much of China is still rather impoverished. Also - are you suggesting we should shut down our economies in order that we don't produce anything in China for example? If not then _how_ they produce the power/do industry is in their hands not ours and it's an issue to address. The big issue in China is the CCP have no reason to care or abide by any global rules on this (or follow the example of any goody 2-shoes western country). They have endless coal plants with very little CO2 mitigation and the corrupt/totalitarian nature of their govt makes it very difficult to have them improve on this. >Is there any evidence of deaths attributable to shut downs so far? There’s over a million deaths worldwide due to covid, how many attributable to non-covid causes? E.g. suicide etc. There's a strong correlation between economic strife and deaths. I'm not going to get into the missed medical appointments etc. as that is not relevant here but that's a covid factor too.
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    >> but I think much of it could also be attributed to countries going through their own industrialisation processes Is that not just a misconception about how countries develop though? See Andrew McAfee - More from Less. E.g. we know that as a country’s manufacturing capability matures, it produces more product with less raw material and energy inputs. It’s somewhat counter intuitive though but the end result is the opposite of what you suggest - maturation of industry reduces emissions and reduces raw material consumption and it can be to such an extent that the amount of product produced increases- example, motor industry of America or Japan, example battery production industry of china. Raw material consumption and energy use went down, manufactured product went up. Andrew McAfee’s book has better examples than mine but these were the ones i looked into to try to disprove his argument. >> The big issue in China is the CCP have no reason to care or abide by any global rules on this Wait, the US emissions of co2 per capita is just over 16tonnes per year. Why is China who’s per capita emissions at just under 7tonnes per year the key to moving forward? The key is america but the political approach is always to use the metric of convenience- currently that is absolute volume since that paints china worse than the US, and yet it would be only fair that we adjust for population. >> There's a strong correlation between economic strife and deaths Sure, but can we quantify it? We need to figure out if we’re over-prioritising covid response. E.g. if there were 1mm excess deaths and only 25% were attributable to covid, that sounds like the cure is worse than the disease. As it stands though, it appears almost 100% of excess deaths are attributable to covid, that suggests we need to keep focussing on preventing covid deaths rather than focussing on death ultimately caused by economic harm, correct?
imtringued 6y ago
You know, the middle ground is to cease all industrial CO2 emissions without investing into carbon capture. The extremes are to do absolutely nothing or to invest into enough carbon capture to undo all emissions since 1950. Reducing emissions by 80% does help some but the problem is that global CO2 levels go down extremely slowly so that any human activity will always dwarf it. Given enough time you will still hit 4°C.
matthewmacleod 6y ago
And of course this comment completely epitomises the hand-wringing, pearl-clutching “won’t somebody please think of the economy!!” liberal centrism that results in absolutely fuck-all happening. A non-binding commitment that tells industry “in ten years you folks will need to be in a position to switch to a technology which is already reasonably viable so better get scaling” is a pretty milquetoast effort, and describing it as “climate hysterics” is obvious nonsense. This general plan of banning new sales by 2030 seems to be emerging as a bit of a consensus in different countries, and it looks like a pretty necessary step. You should be much more worried about this problem than you are, and this worry should translate into pressure on all governments globally to build credible plans for decarbonisation. Those plans should include the use of global trade measures to influence countries who aren’t meeting decarbonisation targets. Continuing to put off essential measures achieves little other than making them vastly more economically damaging when they are implemented later.
- barnacled 6y ago
  Do you really think I advocate for no action to be taken? Taking your first sentence at face value it appears you believe in an all or nothing approach. Also, and again I know this is a sensitive area so I understand why you are coming across this way, but comments like 'you should be much more worried about this problem than you are' are unnecessary and divisive. I am extremely worried about climate change. That is why I am concerned by extreme 'all or nothing' impractical approaches that will simply achieve nothing. I prefer something to nothing. >in ten years you folks will need to be in a position to switch to a technology which is already reasonably viable so better get scaling Do you consider needing to upgrade 400,000 substations and installing charge points along ~200,000km of roads within 10-20 years reasonably viable? My whole issue with this is not that we should take NO action, it's that for any action taken we should either: a. Speak honestly about the actual efforts required to make it happen and then take that action (e.g. start the substation upgrade, start installing the chargers), b. Take more practical action that requires less drastic work. The option being touted is: c. Ban non-electric cars by 2030 and hybrids by 2035, say absolutely nothing about the VAST £100's of billions required investment to make that feasible, feel good and move on. Do you think option c is more or less likely to result in anything changing? I think this requirement is likely to just get rolled back and ignored. "translate into pressure on all governments globally to build credible plans for decarbonisation" I actually agree with this, but I don't think unrealistic plans that ignore actual costs are any kind of solution. I absolutely do NOT advocate putting off addressing climate issues. I personally believe in taking as much of a global approach as possible (if China refuse to stop using dirty coal plants everywhere, economically divest from them for example), correctly counting the CO2 cost of e.g. electric cars/renewable energy from raw material to functional capacity, not just discounting all CO2/other nasty climate gases from production and taking as practical an approach as we can. I am also a realist and realise that if a country was to go all in on what many deem necessary and suffers a colossal economic impact that'll likely discourage any other country from taking that or probably much action at all. It's a hard problem that feels like it needs drastic immediate action but the problem is made harder from the fact that that is simply not possible, I'm sorry. Those who truly are worried about this should be being as practical as possible in order to get as much change into the world as they can.
lopmotr 6y ago
Absolutely. It's too late? For what? Temperature has already risen a little so obviously you can't change the past. Too late for some vague "catastrophe" is the implication. But science already tells us it won't be extinction, and the best estimate they have (that I've seen) is as many deaths per year in 2100 due to warming as we currently have due to car crashes. So it might be no big deal or it might be something nobody knows. Just like the future always is.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
"Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China" China is actuslly on track to exceed their Paris commitments, while US and Australia are not
- barnacled 6y ago
  https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ That concerns me as to the validity of the Paris accord then. They also have 1/2 of the world's coal capacity and absolutely no plans to reduce that. Their emissions are almost double that of the USA, if people are to advocate for extreme action surely it should start with them...

ako 6y ago

Not dealing with global warming will also lead to "the kind of economic impact such drastic action would entail would likely run into millions of deaths, many of them far away in poorer nations"

barnacled 6y ago
Did I suggest not addressing it? It's entirely this dismissive attitude that harms the cause. This 'all or nothing' attitude that reminds me of the gun control issue in the US. Since you've ignored most of what I said there, let me reduce the surface area of the discussion and ask 1 thing: Let's assume the UK does everything the climate 'activists' request of them, and this results in an economic depression and unprecedented unemployment and poverty - do you think this increases or decreases the likelihood of other countries following suit?
- ako 6y ago
  I'm not convinced it's bad for economy. It'll just inspire innovation: new electric cars, alternative transportation modes, new ways of charging electric cars, better isolation for building, etc, etc. The sooner countries start to embrace it, the more they'll be able to economically benefit from the required changes that we're all facing.
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  > Did I suggest not addressing it? Yes, you said: >> The correct approach is a practical middle ground where we try to do what we can Then provided no examples of what we can do, in your opinion. This isn’t a problem that can be solved by right leaning politics, this is the right’s blind spot. You’ll need some creative lefty types to sort this out and then you’ll need some efficient righty types to come in a clean up what they’ve designed. The solution to this is not in the past, it is not doing something we already do in a better way (politics of the right), it is of a new paradigm (politics of the left).
  - barnacled 6y ago
    You are correlating 'a practical middle ground' with 'not addressing it'. I am also really not sure why you are bringing politics into this. I get the analogy but that's such an easy way to turn this into a divisive discussion that I think we should leave that there. You are also glossing over the consequences of an extreme response to climate change - an honest discussion talks about the cost as well as the benefits of any action taken. The "all or nothing" approach is likely to get you nothing because in democratic countries when you take actions that result in severe economic consequences, people will just vote in a govt that reverses it. It also sends a signal to all other countries who were considering such action not to do it. It's not an easy problem this, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but to me doing SOMETHING that is likely to be acceptable to democratic countries is better than doing nothing and souring the whole thing for ordinary people.
    - CraigJPerry 6y ago
      Sure, but what is that something? Surely the “something” has to be impossible to achieve given your assertions (which i agree with) that there will be severe economic consequences. The idea of some magical possibility where we all get to keep doing what we’re doing but climate change does away is impossible. There will be economic losers (and winners)

mavhc 6y ago

How is improving our energy supply so it's cheaper and cleaner going to harm the economy? Pretty sure there's a lot of jobs creating new power sources, and once everyone has cheap power they'll have more money left for the economy. The cost to fix global warming only gets greater each year. China buys more electric cars than all other countries.

stevenhuang 6y ago
> drastic action which tanks its economy None of what you proposed can be reasonably considered drastic action, so you're not really in disagreement with OP there.
lopmotr 6y ago
If it's going to be cheaper, why does it need government support? Won't industry just do it to be more competitive on its own? Or perhaps there's some kind of first mover/network effect/chicken and egg problem that the free market can't surmount on its own?
- mavhc 6y ago
  Most things have government support, cars have roads, oil has militaries, and everyone who pollutes gets to do it for almost free with government support of not making it illegal. But mostly it's long term vs short term. I'd just make pollution illegal unless you paid to clean it up

CraigJPerry 6y ago

>> Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries? >> During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP. That naturally always translates into deaths Is there any evidence of deaths attributable to shut downs so far? There’s over a million deaths worldwide due to covid, how many attributable to non-covid causes? E.g. suicide etc.

barnacled 6y ago
>Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries? Good point but I think much of it could also be attributed to countries going through their own industrialisation processes and generating wealth (however that end product gets used). Are we to condemn them all to poverty? Much of China is still rather impoverished. Also - are you suggesting we should shut down our economies in order that we don't produce anything in China for example? If not then _how_ they produce the power/do industry is in their hands not ours and it's an issue to address. The big issue in China is the CCP have no reason to care or abide by any global rules on this (or follow the example of any goody 2-shoes western country). They have endless coal plants with very little CO2 mitigation and the corrupt/totalitarian nature of their govt makes it very difficult to have them improve on this. >Is there any evidence of deaths attributable to shut downs so far? There’s over a million deaths worldwide due to covid, how many attributable to non-covid causes? E.g. suicide etc. There's a strong correlation between economic strife and deaths. I'm not going to get into the missed medical appointments etc. as that is not relevant here but that's a covid factor too.
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  >> but I think much of it could also be attributed to countries going through their own industrialisation processes Is that not just a misconception about how countries develop though? See Andrew McAfee - More from Less. E.g. we know that as a country’s manufacturing capability matures, it produces more product with less raw material and energy inputs. It’s somewhat counter intuitive though but the end result is the opposite of what you suggest - maturation of industry reduces emissions and reduces raw material consumption and it can be to such an extent that the amount of product produced increases- example, motor industry of America or Japan, example battery production industry of china. Raw material consumption and energy use went down, manufactured product went up. Andrew McAfee’s book has better examples than mine but these were the ones i looked into to try to disprove his argument. >> The big issue in China is the CCP have no reason to care or abide by any global rules on this Wait, the US emissions of co2 per capita is just over 16tonnes per year. Why is China who’s per capita emissions at just under 7tonnes per year the key to moving forward? The key is america but the political approach is always to use the metric of convenience- currently that is absolute volume since that paints china worse than the US, and yet it would be only fair that we adjust for population. >> There's a strong correlation between economic strife and deaths Sure, but can we quantify it? We need to figure out if we’re over-prioritising covid response. E.g. if there were 1mm excess deaths and only 25% were attributable to covid, that sounds like the cure is worse than the disease. As it stands though, it appears almost 100% of excess deaths are attributable to covid, that suggests we need to keep focussing on preventing covid deaths rather than focussing on death ultimately caused by economic harm, correct?

imtringued 6y ago

You know, the middle ground is to cease all industrial CO2 emissions without investing into carbon capture. The extremes are to do absolutely nothing or to invest into enough carbon capture to undo all emissions since 1950. Reducing emissions by 80% does help some but the problem is that global CO2 levels go down extremely slowly so that any human activity will always dwarf it. Given enough time you will still hit 4°C.

matthewmacleod 6y ago

And of course this comment completely epitomises the hand-wringing, pearl-clutching “won’t somebody please think of the economy!!” liberal centrism that results in absolutely fuck-all happening. A non-binding commitment that tells industry “in ten years you folks will need to be in a position to switch to a technology which is already reasonably viable so better get scaling” is a pretty milquetoast effort, and describing it as “climate hysterics” is obvious nonsense. This general plan of banning new sales by 2030 seems to be emerging as a bit of a consensus in different countries, and it looks like a pretty necessary step. You should be much more worried about this problem than you are, and this worry should translate into pressure on all governments globally to build credible plans for decarbonisation. Those plans should include the use of global trade measures to influence countries who aren’t meeting decarbonisation targets. Continuing to put off essential measures achieves little other than making them vastly more economically damaging when they are implemented later.

barnacled 6y ago
Do you really think I advocate for no action to be taken? Taking your first sentence at face value it appears you believe in an all or nothing approach. Also, and again I know this is a sensitive area so I understand why you are coming across this way, but comments like 'you should be much more worried about this problem than you are' are unnecessary and divisive. I am extremely worried about climate change. That is why I am concerned by extreme 'all or nothing' impractical approaches that will simply achieve nothing. I prefer something to nothing. >in ten years you folks will need to be in a position to switch to a technology which is already reasonably viable so better get scaling Do you consider needing to upgrade 400,000 substations and installing charge points along ~200,000km of roads within 10-20 years reasonably viable? My whole issue with this is not that we should take NO action, it's that for any action taken we should either: a. Speak honestly about the actual efforts required to make it happen and then take that action (e.g. start the substation upgrade, start installing the chargers), b. Take more practical action that requires less drastic work. The option being touted is: c. Ban non-electric cars by 2030 and hybrids by 2035, say absolutely nothing about the VAST £100's of billions required investment to make that feasible, feel good and move on. Do you think option c is more or less likely to result in anything changing? I think this requirement is likely to just get rolled back and ignored. "translate into pressure on all governments globally to build credible plans for decarbonisation" I actually agree with this, but I don't think unrealistic plans that ignore actual costs are any kind of solution. I absolutely do NOT advocate putting off addressing climate issues. I personally believe in taking as much of a global approach as possible (if China refuse to stop using dirty coal plants everywhere, economically divest from them for example), correctly counting the CO2 cost of e.g. electric cars/renewable energy from raw material to functional capacity, not just discounting all CO2/other nasty climate gases from production and taking as practical an approach as we can. I am also a realist and realise that if a country was to go all in on what many deem necessary and suffers a colossal economic impact that'll likely discourage any other country from taking that or probably much action at all. It's a hard problem that feels like it needs drastic immediate action but the problem is made harder from the fact that that is simply not possible, I'm sorry. Those who truly are worried about this should be being as practical as possible in order to get as much change into the world as they can.

lopmotr 6y ago

Absolutely. It's too late? For what? Temperature has already risen a little so obviously you can't change the past. Too late for some vague "catastrophe" is the implication. But science already tells us it won't be extinction, and the best estimate they have (that I've seen) is as many deaths per year in 2100 due to warming as we currently have due to car crashes. So it might be no big deal or it might be something nobody knows. Just like the future always is.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

"Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China" China is actuslly on track to exceed their Paris commitments, while US and Australia are not

barnacled 6y ago
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ That concerns me as to the validity of the Paris accord then. They also have 1/2 of the world's coal capacity and absolutely no plans to reduce that. Their emissions are almost double that of the USA, if people are to advocate for extreme action surely it should start with them...