4 ms·

Climate change will eventually cause us great problems but only if we survive long enough for that to happen. We are creating a toxic world. Chemicals, plasti

Climate change will eventually cause us great problems but only if we survive long enough for that to happen. We are creating a toxic world. Chemicals, plastic, pollution, etc. will eventually do us great harm. There is no chance of mitigating this because profits are to be made.

WorldMaker 3y ago
Many of these problems don't exist in a vacuum though and some of these things are inter-related and fixing them goes hand in hand: plastics are so insanely cheap because they are sort of "waste products" of other petrochemical activities. If we shutdown some gas refineries and allow the cost of gas to go up, the costs of plastics will rise (and the markets will start buying other materials again). As a culture we collectively don't want gas prices to go up because so many people rely on internal combustion engines for daily transportation. But it should be clear that many of the funds we are using to subsidize cheap oil and gas are the same funds still subsidizing cheap plastics. (The same extends also to some of the other "toxic" chemicals polluting our environment: there are a bunch of chemicals in our economies that exist primarily to feed gas/oil refining, or as by-products of it such as working with plastics, that we'd collectively love to see a reduction in because of known harm to waterways or to soil.) A lot of people claim that they want market solutions: one of the easiest market solutions to climate change is to start by forcing gas prices to rise. Remove subsidies. Set limits on new refinery construction. Set refining limits on existing plants. We could do it slowly and in a controlled fashion and give the market time to adjust, rather than waiting for the subsidized low prices to collapse on their own (as they did fifty years back in the 1970s oil crisis) and let the market panic all at once. (We also don't have to do it in supply-side regulations if you think that's too heavy handed in manipulating the market. The old ideas of trying to bring externalities into the market more directly such as "carbon taxes" or "price ratcheting" [where once prices go above certain increments they are never allowed to drop again below those points] are still options. The point is: raise gas prices slowly somehow now [better yet, yesterday], don't wait for a bubble to burst or a crisis point to snowball.) The tools to do it today are there if we just had the willpower to try it. Many people are addicted to cheap oil and gas and will kick and scream if we tried it, though.

WorldMaker 3y ago

Many of these problems don't exist in a vacuum though and some of these things are inter-related and fixing them goes hand in hand: plastics are so insanely cheap because they are sort of "waste products" of other petrochemical activities. If we shutdown some gas refineries and allow the cost of gas to go up, the costs of plastics will rise (and the markets will start buying other materials again). As a culture we collectively don't want gas prices to go up because so many people rely on internal combustion engines for daily transportation. But it should be clear that many of the funds we are using to subsidize cheap oil and gas are the same funds still subsidizing cheap plastics. (The same extends also to some of the other "toxic" chemicals polluting our environment: there are a bunch of chemicals in our economies that exist primarily to feed gas/oil refining, or as by-products of it such as working with plastics, that we'd collectively love to see a reduction in because of known harm to waterways or to soil.) A lot of people claim that they want market solutions: one of the easiest market solutions to climate change is to start by forcing gas prices to rise. Remove subsidies. Set limits on new refinery construction. Set refining limits on existing plants. We could do it slowly and in a controlled fashion and give the market time to adjust, rather than waiting for the subsidized low prices to collapse on their own (as they did fifty years back in the 1970s oil crisis) and let the market panic all at once. (We also don't have to do it in supply-side regulations if you think that's too heavy handed in manipulating the market. The old ideas of trying to bring externalities into the market more directly such as "carbon taxes" or "price ratcheting" [where once prices go above certain increments they are never allowed to drop again below those points] are still options. The point is: raise gas prices slowly somehow now [better yet, yesterday], don't wait for a bubble to burst or a crisis point to snowball.) The tools to do it today are there if we just had the willpower to try it. Many people are addicted to cheap oil and gas and will kick and scream if we tried it, though.