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Casting this as a cost problem is part of the political problem. There is little discussion of sticking to narrow market solutions when it comes to war, yet we

by dv_dt 3y ago

Casting this as a cost problem is part of the political problem. There is little discussion of sticking to narrow market solutions when it comes to war, yet we blithely put out billions dollars for various form of defense and really don’t ask how are we going to pay The cost of not fixing climate change is going to be a much higher financial impact than the cost of governments programs to shift our energy. It’s already fiscally prudent for our economy to take care of late change even if every dollar of that is deficit funded (which there is actually not a need to structure the fix that extremely). It’s only political lobbying of extremely wealthy fossil fuel corporations and billionaires that stands in the way.

rayiner 3y ago
> Casting this as a cost problem is part of the political problem. It's inherently a cost problem. We have to replace a bunch of capital infrastructure with different capital infrastructure. That costs money. If you fund that with deficit spending, you will increase inflation, which is politically unpopular. In aggregate polling, Donald Trump is now tied with Biden among people 18-34: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16D9GSxqF5LFIRTcoVJlvWWefU_h-ZMzlomghgbvYRaM/edit#gid=226205122 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16D9GSxqF5LFIRTcoVJlv.... That is completely nuts, and it's because eggs are somewhat more expensive than they were a few years ago. What do you think is the political feasibility of financing climate change mitigation efforts through deficit spending? > There is little discussion of sticking to narrow market solutions when it comes to war, yet we blithely put out billions dollars for various form of defense and really don’t ask how are we going to pay Defense spending as a share of the economy has been shrinking for decades as the Cold War threat recedes into memory: https://www.federalbudgetinpictures.com/non-defense-consuming-more-gdp https://www.federalbudgetinpictures.com/non-defense-consumin.... If you can persuade Americans to open their pocket books for climate change the way they did for defense during the cold war, then that's great. But that's what it will take. > It’s only political lobbying of extremely wealthy fossil fuel corporations and billionaires that stands in the way. This sort of magical, ignorant thinking on the left is why we have no hope of doing anything to mitigate climate change.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  While the majority of inflation today seems to be driven by companies increasing the profit margin, Climate change is a strong contributor to inflation of fundamental economic costs. Food price inflation is increased by increased heat waves, droughts, and shifting northward of pests that used to be controlled by colder winters. Property insurance inflation drives up the cost of insuring against the effects of the same disasters - directly driving home ownership costs up, as well as rentals up. Supply disruption as inflation driver increases from events like drought and heatwaves disrupting Panama canal operations. Building supply inflation is increased as increased hurricane and tornado intensity causes more resources to be diverted to rebuilding instead of being able to do things like build new housing stock. Defense spending is accepted deficit spending for the public good to avoid the disruption of military actions. It's a lot like other insurance spending. Climate change is a form of insurance spending. If we don't fix Climate change, the inflation will come one way or another, and we should decide if we want to address it in a relatively controlled way of building up our economy with common deficit spending, or if we want uncontrolled events to land and generally inflate our economic costs in poorly controllable ways. Magical thinking is somehow believing we avoid costs by sticking our head in the sand and wishing for conditions long past.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    More magical thinking! Yes, companies just randomly decided they could increase profit margins in 2021, and it’s totally not caused by the trillions of dollars of money we just printed: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL You’re literally doing the same thing as climate change denying conservatives. It’s inconvenient for their political ideology so they won’t believe the data that’s right in front of their face. You’re doing the same thing. The data says that regular voters won’t spend even $10 per month to mitigate climate change, but you want to blame “corporations and billionaires.” Inflation just happened to occur right after we printed $6 trillion in response to COVID, but that must have been billionaires and corporations too!

by dv_dt 3y ago

rayiner 3y ago

> Casting this as a cost problem is part of the political problem. It's inherently a cost problem. We have to replace a bunch of capital infrastructure with different capital infrastructure. That costs money. If you fund that with deficit spending, you will increase inflation, which is politically unpopular. In aggregate polling, Donald Trump is now tied with Biden among people 18-34: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16D9GSxqF5LFIRTcoVJlvWWefU_h-ZMzlomghgbvYRaM/edit#gid=226205122 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16D9GSxqF5LFIRTcoVJlv.... That is completely nuts, and it's because eggs are somewhat more expensive than they were a few years ago. What do you think is the political feasibility of financing climate change mitigation efforts through deficit spending? > There is little discussion of sticking to narrow market solutions when it comes to war, yet we blithely put out billions dollars for various form of defense and really don’t ask how are we going to pay Defense spending as a share of the economy has been shrinking for decades as the Cold War threat recedes into memory: https://www.federalbudgetinpictures.com/non-defense-consuming-more-gdp https://www.federalbudgetinpictures.com/non-defense-consumin.... If you can persuade Americans to open their pocket books for climate change the way they did for defense during the cold war, then that's great. But that's what it will take. > It’s only political lobbying of extremely wealthy fossil fuel corporations and billionaires that stands in the way. This sort of magical, ignorant thinking on the left is why we have no hope of doing anything to mitigate climate change.

dv_dt 3y ago
While the majority of inflation today seems to be driven by companies increasing the profit margin, Climate change is a strong contributor to inflation of fundamental economic costs. Food price inflation is increased by increased heat waves, droughts, and shifting northward of pests that used to be controlled by colder winters. Property insurance inflation drives up the cost of insuring against the effects of the same disasters - directly driving home ownership costs up, as well as rentals up. Supply disruption as inflation driver increases from events like drought and heatwaves disrupting Panama canal operations. Building supply inflation is increased as increased hurricane and tornado intensity causes more resources to be diverted to rebuilding instead of being able to do things like build new housing stock. Defense spending is accepted deficit spending for the public good to avoid the disruption of military actions. It's a lot like other insurance spending. Climate change is a form of insurance spending. If we don't fix Climate change, the inflation will come one way or another, and we should decide if we want to address it in a relatively controlled way of building up our economy with common deficit spending, or if we want uncontrolled events to land and generally inflate our economic costs in poorly controllable ways. Magical thinking is somehow believing we avoid costs by sticking our head in the sand and wishing for conditions long past.
- rayiner 3y ago
  More magical thinking! Yes, companies just randomly decided they could increase profit margins in 2021, and it’s totally not caused by the trillions of dollars of money we just printed: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL You’re literally doing the same thing as climate change denying conservatives. It’s inconvenient for their political ideology so they won’t believe the data that’s right in front of their face. You’re doing the same thing. The data says that regular voters won’t spend even $10 per month to mitigate climate change, but you want to blame “corporations and billionaires.” Inflation just happened to occur right after we printed $6 trillion in response to COVID, but that must have been billionaires and corporations too!