4 ms·

I'm frequently reminded of this cartoon: https://solar-power-now.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/betterworldfornothing.jpg https://solar-power-now.com/wp-conten

by Smoosh 4y ago

I'm frequently reminded of this cartoon: https://solar-power-now.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/betterworldfornothing.jpg https://solar-power-now.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/bette...

hourago 4y ago
It is an underappreciated part of the discussion. Fighting climate change also reduces the emission of contaminants to the air that we breath. Even if climate change were not happening, we would have to reduce pollution anyway. I visited China a few years ago, the touristic potential is limitless, it has so many great cities to visit, natural parks, rivers, and many more. But, the air is so polluted that it is difficult to enjoy any of it. There are a million reasons to reduce pollution, and only a very bad one to not do it.
- brnt 4y ago
  This is why it's important to not let "green" be reduced to renewables. Fortunately it's now over, but for a while wood pellet heaters were subsidized because wood is renewable. Yes, and it's also the number one pollutant in your neighborhood if anyone heats like that. Decarbonization must be a requirement as well.
janlaureys 4y ago
The most important reason that I'm somewhat of a treehugger is because trees are just nice. Walking in a forest is nice, taking my dog for a walk outside in nature is nice, hearing the birds chirp is nice too.
eadmund 4y ago
I really dislike that cartoon, because it fails to grapple with opportunity costs and tradeoffs. 'What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?' doesn't address the fact that a world which is better than it would otherwise be measured on those axes must necessarily be worse than it would otherwise be measured on other axes. Every dollar spent on on one thing is necessarily a dollar not spent on another thing. TANSTAAFL. And of course individual people have different weights they apply to different goods. E.g. one person might prefer energy independence to green jobs, and another vice versa. While there may be a globally optimal solution per each person's preferences, I do not believe that there can be a globally optimal solution for everyone's preferences. And also, things can interact in weird and unpredictable ways. Higher crop yields should yield lower food prices, but perhaps requiring cleaner engines increases the cost of food transportation such that food prices increase instead (n.b.: I am not arguing that is in fact the case). Knowing all this is an information problem, and figuring it all out is a planning problem, and it turns out that solving those two problems is not just practically impossible (cf. every centrally-planned administration ever): it's theoretically impossible (cf. chaos theory in mathematics). So, 'har, har: we can just make everything better for free' is a really naïve view to take.
- imtringued 4y ago
  What if productivity rises faster than growth and we have plenty of people having nothing to do? In conventional capitalism you would just concentrate jobs onto a handful of people and let the rest starve instead of improving the world in exchange for nothing.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  "We can make things better for free" isnt a naive take, its basic economics. The cartoon is aimed directly at the people who are lying (knowingly ot unknowingly) about the 'cost' of addressing externalities. Which, economics tell us, lead to inefficiency i.e. unnecessary waste. Reducing unnecessary waste is the exact equivalent of 'making things better for free'.

by Smoosh 4y ago

I'm frequently reminded of this cartoon: https://solar-power-now.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/betterworldfornothing.jpg https://solar-power-now.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/bette...

hourago 4y ago

It is an underappreciated part of the discussion. Fighting climate change also reduces the emission of contaminants to the air that we breath. Even if climate change were not happening, we would have to reduce pollution anyway. I visited China a few years ago, the touristic potential is limitless, it has so many great cities to visit, natural parks, rivers, and many more. But, the air is so polluted that it is difficult to enjoy any of it. There are a million reasons to reduce pollution, and only a very bad one to not do it.

brnt 4y ago
This is why it's important to not let "green" be reduced to renewables. Fortunately it's now over, but for a while wood pellet heaters were subsidized because wood is renewable. Yes, and it's also the number one pollutant in your neighborhood if anyone heats like that. Decarbonization must be a requirement as well.

janlaureys 4y ago

The most important reason that I'm somewhat of a treehugger is because trees are just nice. Walking in a forest is nice, taking my dog for a walk outside in nature is nice, hearing the birds chirp is nice too.

eadmund 4y ago

I really dislike that cartoon, because it fails to grapple with opportunity costs and tradeoffs. 'What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?' doesn't address the fact that a world which is better than it would otherwise be measured on those axes must necessarily be worse than it would otherwise be measured on other axes. Every dollar spent on on one thing is necessarily a dollar not spent on another thing. TANSTAAFL. And of course individual people have different weights they apply to different goods. E.g. one person might prefer energy independence to green jobs, and another vice versa. While there may be a globally optimal solution per each person's preferences, I do not believe that there can be a globally optimal solution for everyone's preferences. And also, things can interact in weird and unpredictable ways. Higher crop yields should yield lower food prices, but perhaps requiring cleaner engines increases the cost of food transportation such that food prices increase instead (n.b.: I am not arguing that is in fact the case). Knowing all this is an information problem, and figuring it all out is a planning problem, and it turns out that solving those two problems is not just practically impossible (cf. every centrally-planned administration ever): it's theoretically impossible (cf. chaos theory in mathematics). So, 'har, har: we can just make everything better for free' is a really naïve view to take.

imtringued 4y ago
What if productivity rises faster than growth and we have plenty of people having nothing to do? In conventional capitalism you would just concentrate jobs onto a handful of people and let the rest starve instead of improving the world in exchange for nothing.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
"We can make things better for free" isnt a naive take, its basic economics. The cartoon is aimed directly at the people who are lying (knowingly ot unknowingly) about the 'cost' of addressing externalities. Which, economics tell us, lead to inefficiency i.e. unnecessary waste. Reducing unnecessary waste is the exact equivalent of 'making things better for free'.