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I disagree with the author there concerning a planned economy being necessary. Its amazing what a few incentives can do to unleash capital innovation. And in te

I disagree with the author there concerning a planned economy being necessary. Its amazing what a few incentives can do to unleash capital innovation. And in terms of geo-engineeing, all that would take is a dedicated spending program and the right innovations. I'm still optimistic, but know the next decades will be rough, weather-wise.

Pet_Ant 5y ago
> Its amazing what a few incentives can do to unleash capital innovation. Capitalist solutions seem to always fall to Goodhart's Law in my experience. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
- boxed 5y ago
  That's a feature of commubism too. Soviet almost wiped out the whales because of such a thing. They didn't even eat the meat. Just killed the whales because there was a meat production goal.
- qeternity 5y ago
  That holds true when you need proxies for the thing you really care about. You can't just tell VPs, departments, etc to just make more money, which of course is what most KPIs are going to seek to do in one way or another. So we construct measurements that should reasonably result in increased profits for the company. And these then become gamed whereby the measurement goes up, but the profits do not. Carbon is actually interesting because we don't actually need proxies. Put a global cap on emissions and enforce it like the existential threat it is, and then let the market trade around it. Auction off the allowances to fund/subsidize other things.
- elcapitan 5y ago
  What you just described is exactly how communist China killed millions of people in famines. Among other things, they made industrial production of steel a national goal (trying to beat the UK), and because it didn't work out as expected (lack of industry and mining at the time), small owners of tools like farmers were forced to melt their iron, effectively destroying their necessary tools and wasting their labour time.
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  Touche, but as a counter example, rebate[s] for electric cars, solar panels, etc, have made real inroads to changing the mix of energy in the U.S.
- PicassoCTs 5y ago
  Eh, capitalism is to blame for this problem in the first place? Plutocratic democracy unleashed ideologies/movements that attacked technical solutions to the problem (solar/nuclear) and defended the status quo. Why do people turn to the cat to guard the cream?

Pet_Ant 5y ago

> Its amazing what a few incentives can do to unleash capital innovation. Capitalist solutions seem to always fall to Goodhart's Law in my experience. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

boxed 5y ago
That's a feature of commubism too. Soviet almost wiped out the whales because of such a thing. They didn't even eat the meat. Just killed the whales because there was a meat production goal.
qeternity 5y ago
That holds true when you need proxies for the thing you really care about. You can't just tell VPs, departments, etc to just make more money, which of course is what most KPIs are going to seek to do in one way or another. So we construct measurements that should reasonably result in increased profits for the company. And these then become gamed whereby the measurement goes up, but the profits do not. Carbon is actually interesting because we don't actually need proxies. Put a global cap on emissions and enforce it like the existential threat it is, and then let the market trade around it. Auction off the allowances to fund/subsidize other things.
elcapitan 5y ago
What you just described is exactly how communist China killed millions of people in famines. Among other things, they made industrial production of steel a national goal (trying to beat the UK), and because it didn't work out as expected (lack of industry and mining at the time), small owners of tools like farmers were forced to melt their iron, effectively destroying their necessary tools and wasting their labour time.
SubiculumCode 5y ago
Touche, but as a counter example, rebate[s] for electric cars, solar panels, etc, have made real inroads to changing the mix of energy in the U.S.
PicassoCTs 5y ago
Eh, capitalism is to blame for this problem in the first place? Plutocratic democracy unleashed ideologies/movements that attacked technical solutions to the problem (solar/nuclear) and defended the status quo. Why do people turn to the cat to guard the cream?