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I'm not sure what your position is. Technology won't progress? Investing money into research and scaling up production doesn't lower the marginal cost? Monetary

I'm not sure what your position is. Technology won't progress? Investing money into research and scaling up production doesn't lower the marginal cost? Monetary incentives aren't better at getting things done? We can't "avert the crisis" without going back to adopting pre-industrial lifestyles/communism/veganism or wear sheep wool clothes? What's the "appropriate" response that you'd feel okay with?

runarberg 4y ago
My position is pretty much “yes” to all of these questions. Technology won’t progress at the rate needed to prevent the worst of the climate disaster, we need to sink way more money into research and production, not only to lower the cost, but to flat out dump infrastructure where it is needed (yes this means Germany should pay for solar plants and high voltage powerlines in Tanzania and not expect anything in return). This is a crisis which was caused by government inaction, and it won’t go away until government takes action. If they had acted in the late 90s or the early 2000s (like they were asked to; and according to popular opinion at the time) then perhaps the steps wouldn’t need to be as drastic, but as it stands, we will probably need to print a bunch of money to build out the infrastructure, subsidize the home improvements, etc. and enforce a hard limit on polluting industries. I’m aware that printing money causes inflation, but because of government inaction we simply are running out of options, the climate disaster is infinitely worse than inflation. I don’t think communism will save us actually (and we don’t have time to wait for a communist revolution anyway), and forcing people to adopt veganism or pre-industrial lifestyles isn’t gonna work either. But we do have to put a limit to carbon entitled behavior. We do have to limit the number of private cars on the roads, and the amount of meat in the western dinner plate. We could have done it gradually but at this point there is no option left but a hefty carbon tax which will prove fatal to many of these industries. What is the appropriate response I feel okay with? Not denying the severity of the situation. Claiming that we’ve solved the climate crisis is a simple lie (this article doesn’t do that by the way; I think it is important to mention that).
- krageon 4y ago
  I don't disagree with you. I invite you to take a step back and stand in the shoes of someone who is exhibiting "carbon entitled behaviour". Do you think what you're saying here and your hardline stance on measures is going to get them to behave closer to your ideal? If not, how else are you going to make this happen? A lot of these people are politicians, so "just impose a higher tax" isn't a measure, it is a result of a measure (that measure being convincing those people to do what you want). You say we don't have time for a communist revolution. We don't have time for any kind of revolution, because revolutions famously don't really work or improve anything. This is extra relevant because your other statements still lean on the premise of a revolution happening, just one with consequences you think are more important than communism.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    While I actually believe capitalism is a huge contributor to the climate crisis I don't think it is solely responsible. I don't rule out that in an alternative communist universe governments would have acted equally recklessly and created a similar mess. I think that the only real idealism which could have prevented this is actual democracy where power isn't unevenly distributed among the wealthy class, and working class people would have an actual say in theyr governments climate policy (which could happen under communism but not guaranteed to). You actually hint at the democratic fault by accurately observing the role of politicians among the carbon elite and the carbon hogs. As for revolutions. I don't think what I'm calling for is anywhere near to a revolution. We only have to reduce our meat consumption and our private car travels. We consumed less meat and drove less just a couple of decades ago—at the start of this mess. And today we have technology and—more imortantly—infrastructure to mitigate some of the pain of this reduction. Ideally we need to go far further but like you correctly said, we don't have time for that.
- Tade0 4y ago
  > Technology won’t progress at the rate needed to prevent the worst of the climate disaster, Thing is, it already did. RCP8.5 is not going to happen, because it overestimated China's current-day coal usage by 500%. Meanwhile events like the COVID pandemic and Russian invasion ultimately prevented the world from breaking the 2019 CO2 emissions record of 40.9Gt. I'm not saying we should sit back and relax, but perhaps it's not all doom and gloom.

runarberg 4y ago

My position is pretty much “yes” to all of these questions. Technology won’t progress at the rate needed to prevent the worst of the climate disaster, we need to sink way more money into research and production, not only to lower the cost, but to flat out dump infrastructure where it is needed (yes this means Germany should pay for solar plants and high voltage powerlines in Tanzania and not expect anything in return). This is a crisis which was caused by government inaction, and it won’t go away until government takes action. If they had acted in the late 90s or the early 2000s (like they were asked to; and according to popular opinion at the time) then perhaps the steps wouldn’t need to be as drastic, but as it stands, we will probably need to print a bunch of money to build out the infrastructure, subsidize the home improvements, etc. and enforce a hard limit on polluting industries. I’m aware that printing money causes inflation, but because of government inaction we simply are running out of options, the climate disaster is infinitely worse than inflation. I don’t think communism will save us actually (and we don’t have time to wait for a communist revolution anyway), and forcing people to adopt veganism or pre-industrial lifestyles isn’t gonna work either. But we do have to put a limit to carbon entitled behavior. We do have to limit the number of private cars on the roads, and the amount of meat in the western dinner plate. We could have done it gradually but at this point there is no option left but a hefty carbon tax which will prove fatal to many of these industries. What is the appropriate response I feel okay with? Not denying the severity of the situation. Claiming that we’ve solved the climate crisis is a simple lie (this article doesn’t do that by the way; I think it is important to mention that).

krageon 4y ago
I don't disagree with you. I invite you to take a step back and stand in the shoes of someone who is exhibiting "carbon entitled behaviour". Do you think what you're saying here and your hardline stance on measures is going to get them to behave closer to your ideal? If not, how else are you going to make this happen? A lot of these people are politicians, so "just impose a higher tax" isn't a measure, it is a result of a measure (that measure being convincing those people to do what you want). You say we don't have time for a communist revolution. We don't have time for any kind of revolution, because revolutions famously don't really work or improve anything. This is extra relevant because your other statements still lean on the premise of a revolution happening, just one with consequences you think are more important than communism.
- runarberg 4y ago
  While I actually believe capitalism is a huge contributor to the climate crisis I don't think it is solely responsible. I don't rule out that in an alternative communist universe governments would have acted equally recklessly and created a similar mess. I think that the only real idealism which could have prevented this is actual democracy where power isn't unevenly distributed among the wealthy class, and working class people would have an actual say in theyr governments climate policy (which could happen under communism but not guaranteed to). You actually hint at the democratic fault by accurately observing the role of politicians among the carbon elite and the carbon hogs. As for revolutions. I don't think what I'm calling for is anywhere near to a revolution. We only have to reduce our meat consumption and our private car travels. We consumed less meat and drove less just a couple of decades ago—at the start of this mess. And today we have technology and—more imortantly—infrastructure to mitigate some of the pain of this reduction. Ideally we need to go far further but like you correctly said, we don't have time for that.
Tade0 4y ago
> Technology won’t progress at the rate needed to prevent the worst of the climate disaster, Thing is, it already did. RCP8.5 is not going to happen, because it overestimated China's current-day coal usage by 500%. Meanwhile events like the COVID pandemic and Russian invasion ultimately prevented the world from breaking the 2019 CO2 emissions record of 40.9Gt. I'm not saying we should sit back and relax, but perhaps it's not all doom and gloom.