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The problem, in my view, is mostly regulatory capture and this incessant drive to let markets do their thing. As it stands, fossil fuels should be taxed so hig
by orthecreedence 6y ago
The problem, in my view, is mostly regulatory capture and this incessant drive to let markets do their thing.
As it stands, fossil fuels should be taxed so high that building, maintaining, and running nuclear power plants is cheap in comparison. Yet we have continued investment into fossil fuels even though we're now fully aware of the damage they're doing. And people say "oh, well we don't have nuclear, because it's so expensive." You know what else is expensive? Entire cities being under 6ft of ocean and having to relocate hundreds of millions of people.
In other words, the known externalities are not imbued in the price, because yay capitalism. I think a little market tampering is warranted when planetary survival is at stake. And obviously, the ramp-up should be gradual, ie, we should have been starting this 20 years ago, when it was also painfully obvious that digging up huge amounts of carbon and burning it is a bad idea. Oops.
- NortySpock 6y agoRecently I've been seeing people comment that raising a building 6 feet using jackstands OR filling the first story in with cement isn't "actually" that difficult or uncommon 100 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regrading_in_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regrading_in_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground https://www.asce.org/project/galveston-seawall-and-grade-raising-project/ https://www.asce.org/project/galveston-seawall-and-grade-rai... Feeding them all, that's what I worry about.
- orthecreedence 6y agoI'm having trouble determining the connection between my comment and yours. Can you help me out?
- NortySpock 6y agoI was responding to your off-hand comment "You know what else is expensive? Entire cities being under 6ft of ocean and having to relocate hundreds of millions of people." 6ft of water seems somewhat manageable, relatively speaking, so long as you're willing to move up a story or go full neo-Venice.
- orthecreedence 6y agoOh, interesting. I didn't connect those two. I think my hesitation would not be that 6ft of water is not manageable in the single case, ie, one building. But several thousand of them at the same time? A whole city? Good luck coordinating that in any reasonable amount of time, especially when roads are all flooded. Abandonment is a much more viable option at some point along that particular path.