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> global warming The fun realization for me has been that we're in a no-win scenario now. Even if climate change (which has been re-defined) is overly-stated,

> global warming The fun realization for me has been that we're in a no-win scenario now. Even if climate change (which has been re-defined) is overly-stated, the policies that are being and will continue to be enacted as a response to it, guarantee immense suffering for billions and a general decline in quality of life. The good news is that you can mitigate for much of the consequences by simply not being in the West, ideally in a commodity rich country.

PeterisP 3y ago
> The good news is that you can mitigate for much of the consequences by simply not being in the West, ideally in a commodity rich country. That's interesting, my impression has been entirely the opposite, that Global South is going to suffer the worst of the consequences; as most parts of the West can afford to mitigate the effects with large investments in infrastructure and for western countries these consequences are outweighed by secondary-order effects i.e. migration and conflicts due to the more affected places.
tonyedgecombe 3y ago
If we do nothing about climate change the everybody's quality of life is going to fall off a cliff. We can fix this problem without going back to the dark ages.
abenga 3y ago
Exactly what has been enacted to reduce anyone's quality of life? Electrifying appliances and transport? Most of the alternatives are literally strictly better than the fossil powered equivalents.
- pbh101 3y ago
  But to anyone who cares about this, the clarion call is that we haven’t yet done nearly enough. From my understanding, doing enough is impossible (with current tech: fusion would change this and nuclear best option now) without massive energy consumption reductions: sure, some via Teslas and EnergyStar appliances (which if you look in certain corners are definitely registered as QoL reductions. More annoying but more efficient CVT car transmissions and engine-stop-at-stoplight features apply here too) and but much more via less A/C and heating or more of your income being spent on such, displacing other spending which presumably would bring about more quality of life as well. People the world over have also shown preference for eating meat and that is energy intensive as well, so pile that and other oil-intensive agriculture (effectively all of it: this is how we feed the whole planet) up in how we can project QoL to be reduced down this path.
  - abenga 3y ago
    Those are all suggestions, pretty much none of them are the Law; and many of them have a zero effect on you, especially when building new. You can use less AC and heating by building a much better insulated house + geothermal heat pumps, for example. There is no inherent improvement in a gas furnace v some electric solution to the same problem.
    - pbh101 3y ago
      Pretty sure many appliance and auto requirements are indeed law and not suggestions. Much like ‘smoking in bars,’ these are things that the providers won’t do unilaterally because some large segment of consumers strongly don’t prefer it (and I greatly appreciate no smoke in bars!) But nobody actively wants an A/C or toilet or fridge that works worse, modulo the negative externalities that some care about but even they would want the better appliances if possible. And I promise you many people including most serious chefs would say there is a giant quality of life improvement from using gas stoves.

PeterisP 3y ago

> The good news is that you can mitigate for much of the consequences by simply not being in the West, ideally in a commodity rich country. That's interesting, my impression has been entirely the opposite, that Global South is going to suffer the worst of the consequences; as most parts of the West can afford to mitigate the effects with large investments in infrastructure and for western countries these consequences are outweighed by secondary-order effects i.e. migration and conflicts due to the more affected places.

tonyedgecombe 3y ago

If we do nothing about climate change the everybody's quality of life is going to fall off a cliff. We can fix this problem without going back to the dark ages.

abenga 3y ago

Exactly what has been enacted to reduce anyone's quality of life? Electrifying appliances and transport? Most of the alternatives are literally strictly better than the fossil powered equivalents.

pbh101 3y ago
But to anyone who cares about this, the clarion call is that we haven’t yet done nearly enough. From my understanding, doing enough is impossible (with current tech: fusion would change this and nuclear best option now) without massive energy consumption reductions: sure, some via Teslas and EnergyStar appliances (which if you look in certain corners are definitely registered as QoL reductions. More annoying but more efficient CVT car transmissions and engine-stop-at-stoplight features apply here too) and but much more via less A/C and heating or more of your income being spent on such, displacing other spending which presumably would bring about more quality of life as well. People the world over have also shown preference for eating meat and that is energy intensive as well, so pile that and other oil-intensive agriculture (effectively all of it: this is how we feed the whole planet) up in how we can project QoL to be reduced down this path.
- abenga 3y ago
  Those are all suggestions, pretty much none of them are the Law; and many of them have a zero effect on you, especially when building new. You can use less AC and heating by building a much better insulated house + geothermal heat pumps, for example. There is no inherent improvement in a gas furnace v some electric solution to the same problem.
  - pbh101 3y ago
    Pretty sure many appliance and auto requirements are indeed law and not suggestions. Much like ‘smoking in bars,’ these are things that the providers won’t do unilaterally because some large segment of consumers strongly don’t prefer it (and I greatly appreciate no smoke in bars!) But nobody actively wants an A/C or toilet or fridge that works worse, modulo the negative externalities that some care about but even they would want the better appliances if possible. And I promise you many people including most serious chefs would say there is a giant quality of life improvement from using gas stoves.