4 ms·

I am sure we can do better and revisit some misguided regulations. But in general environmental regulation is probably one of the biggest success stories of the

I am sure we can do better and revisit some misguided regulations. But in general environmental regulation is probably one of the biggest success stories of the last 60 years. I grew up when rivers were green or blue some days, the rivers were dead with an occasional dead fish floating by, going into the water was a serious health risk. The switch to EV is painful, but once people experience clean air in cities again, there is no way anybody will want to go back. I was in Mumbai a few years ago and after two days when I blew my days a pile of black stuff came down and I was short breathed. People complained about unleaded gas and catalytic filters when they introduced. Auto companies told us the world would go under. Seems ignoring them was correct and things worked out for the better

smm11 2y ago
Not related, but when Bell was broken up in the early-80s I had a grandmother who said the world was ending. Seems that break-up improved things, at least for a while.
briandear 2y ago
The problem is that regulations needn’t be all or nothing. Don’t throw stuff in rivers. Ok. Teathered bottle cap. Dumb. Then there is the whole scam of recycling: https://youtu.be/NLkfpjJoNkA https://youtu.be/NLkfpjJoNkA
- peterlada 2y ago
  Ok. But also: Earth biosphere is collapsing. Your complaint re: bottle cap: I stopped seeing caps in gutters. Your complaint re: recycling scam: a non-scam way of doing is how Netherlands does it and it imports(!) trash because it's profitable. Plastic straws can be made out of compostable plastic. And the fucking plutocracy could stop flying everywhere every day.
  - dingaling 2y ago
    > I stopped seeing caps in gutters. Do you think that people who were inclined to discard bottle caps were correctly binning their bottles? No, they were also throwing down their bottles which were more easily carried away by the rain and wind. Now, both the cap and the bottle are being washed into rivers instead of the caps being left behind. Net improvement: zero. It's a classic example of survivorship bias. It's like the headline that bottle caps were the third most common litter on beaches - because bottles, sandwiches wrappers and crisp packets had been washed out to sea.
    - ivan_gammel 2y ago
      I hope you do realize that without numbers your argument against caps is just a speculation too. Whether it’s some bias or not, we can figure out only via research: the impact is easily measurable.
- rascul 2y ago
  > Teathered bottle cap. Dumb. I wasn't familiar with tethered bottle caps until now. I'm curious what's wrong with them.
jorts 2y ago
I remember growing up in SoCal with smog days as the air was too polluted. Any asinine argument about regulation really pisses me off.
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  Even just going to a classic car show and standing in a field where a few dozen pre-1980s vehicles are idling really drives home what a triumph emissions regulations over the past few decades have been.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Yes but those weren't really a problem as it only applied to new cars. Existing ones were never a problem, owners could keep using them as long as they could keep going. So there was no cost offloaded on them. Like there is with cities banning ICEs.
    - mikepurvis 2y ago
      Fair, though I think there was still plenty of moaning about the regs incurring R&D costs and pushing up new car complexity/price.
synecdoche 2y ago
Western countries are already clean enough. Very far from what it was in the 70s and earlier. There is a point of diminishing returns for everything. After that is seems to be more about returns to the individuals that claim to be for the cause, than to society as a whole. There are orders of magnitude more serious threats to the future of humanity than climate change, such a imminent war. In part due to resource shortages, like energy, which in part was caused by prioritising misguided policies inspired by those same ideas.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  Climate change doesn’t just pause because there are more imminent threats. Human-exacerbated or not, it is changing, and it won’t wait for us to notice.
- ivan_gammel 2y ago
  There’s no threat of imminent war for the West. And any non-nuclear war is a much less danger than climate change. At worst, the WWII-scale war may cost a few hundred percent of GDP. Climate change will destroy trillions worth of property and may affect human population for thousands of years.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Yes but preventing what we can of it at this stage (which isn't much) will cost as much as a world war and will have huge impact on people's lives. So will climate change but not as equally distributed. Many areas will be fine and some will even improve (eg Siberia and Northern Canada might become a lot more habitable. The Soviets even had a plan to screw up the gulf stream by damming up the Bering Strait for this purpose. I just don't see it happen. Most countries are democracies and turkeys don't vote for Christmas. It's not fair and I don't agree with it but it's realistic. Add to that the 20 year delay in CO2 emissions and effect and most of it is already locked in.
    - shkkmo 2y ago
      > Yes but preventing what we can of it at this stage (which isn't much) will cost as much as a world war and will have huge impact on people's lives. You seem to have gathered the wrong impression here. Yes, a certain amount of global warming is pretty much locked in, and that levels is high enough that it's gonna cause some pretty big problems. That doesn't mean that continuing to emmit CO2 at current levels for the next several decades won't make things significantly worse. > Many areas will be fine and some will even improve (eg Siberia and Northern Canada might become a lot more habitable. This also isn't true. While there are areas that will grow more temperate for growing crops, that doesn't mean those areas will be fine (or have good soil to do so). Sure Alaska might be able to grow more giant vegetables, but could lose a significant part or all of their fisheries and will face more problems with wildfires that it does today. Permafrost melting will destroy infrastructure. These northern ecosystems tend to be pretty fragile and warmer temperatures could cause significant ecological collapse. There are areas where the impacts will be greater and lesser. There aren't significant areas that will be better off due to climate change.

smm11 2y ago

Not related, but when Bell was broken up in the early-80s I had a grandmother who said the world was ending. Seems that break-up improved things, at least for a while.

briandear 2y ago

The problem is that regulations needn’t be all or nothing. Don’t throw stuff in rivers. Ok. Teathered bottle cap. Dumb. Then there is the whole scam of recycling: https://youtu.be/NLkfpjJoNkA https://youtu.be/NLkfpjJoNkA

peterlada 2y ago
Ok. But also: Earth biosphere is collapsing. Your complaint re: bottle cap: I stopped seeing caps in gutters. Your complaint re: recycling scam: a non-scam way of doing is how Netherlands does it and it imports(!) trash because it's profitable. Plastic straws can be made out of compostable plastic. And the fucking plutocracy could stop flying everywhere every day.
- dingaling 2y ago
  > I stopped seeing caps in gutters. Do you think that people who were inclined to discard bottle caps were correctly binning their bottles? No, they were also throwing down their bottles which were more easily carried away by the rain and wind. Now, both the cap and the bottle are being washed into rivers instead of the caps being left behind. Net improvement: zero. It's a classic example of survivorship bias. It's like the headline that bottle caps were the third most common litter on beaches - because bottles, sandwiches wrappers and crisp packets had been washed out to sea.
  - ivan_gammel 2y ago
    I hope you do realize that without numbers your argument against caps is just a speculation too. Whether it’s some bias or not, we can figure out only via research: the impact is easily measurable.
rascul 2y ago
> Teathered bottle cap. Dumb. I wasn't familiar with tethered bottle caps until now. I'm curious what's wrong with them.

jorts 2y ago

I remember growing up in SoCal with smog days as the air was too polluted. Any asinine argument about regulation really pisses me off.

mikepurvis 2y ago
Even just going to a classic car show and standing in a field where a few dozen pre-1980s vehicles are idling really drives home what a triumph emissions regulations over the past few decades have been.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Yes but those weren't really a problem as it only applied to new cars. Existing ones were never a problem, owners could keep using them as long as they could keep going. So there was no cost offloaded on them. Like there is with cities banning ICEs.
  - mikepurvis 2y ago
    Fair, though I think there was still plenty of moaning about the regs incurring R&D costs and pushing up new car complexity/price.

synecdoche 2y ago

Western countries are already clean enough. Very far from what it was in the 70s and earlier. There is a point of diminishing returns for everything. After that is seems to be more about returns to the individuals that claim to be for the cause, than to society as a whole. There are orders of magnitude more serious threats to the future of humanity than climate change, such a imminent war. In part due to resource shortages, like energy, which in part was caused by prioritising misguided policies inspired by those same ideas.

nkrisc 2y ago
Climate change doesn’t just pause because there are more imminent threats. Human-exacerbated or not, it is changing, and it won’t wait for us to notice.
ivan_gammel 2y ago
There’s no threat of imminent war for the West. And any non-nuclear war is a much less danger than climate change. At worst, the WWII-scale war may cost a few hundred percent of GDP. Climate change will destroy trillions worth of property and may affect human population for thousands of years.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Yes but preventing what we can of it at this stage (which isn't much) will cost as much as a world war and will have huge impact on people's lives. So will climate change but not as equally distributed. Many areas will be fine and some will even improve (eg Siberia and Northern Canada might become a lot more habitable. The Soviets even had a plan to screw up the gulf stream by damming up the Bering Strait for this purpose. I just don't see it happen. Most countries are democracies and turkeys don't vote for Christmas. It's not fair and I don't agree with it but it's realistic. Add to that the 20 year delay in CO2 emissions and effect and most of it is already locked in.
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    > Yes but preventing what we can of it at this stage (which isn't much) will cost as much as a world war and will have huge impact on people's lives. You seem to have gathered the wrong impression here. Yes, a certain amount of global warming is pretty much locked in, and that levels is high enough that it's gonna cause some pretty big problems. That doesn't mean that continuing to emmit CO2 at current levels for the next several decades won't make things significantly worse. > Many areas will be fine and some will even improve (eg Siberia and Northern Canada might become a lot more habitable. This also isn't true. While there are areas that will grow more temperate for growing crops, that doesn't mean those areas will be fine (or have good soil to do so). Sure Alaska might be able to grow more giant vegetables, but could lose a significant part or all of their fisheries and will face more problems with wildfires that it does today. Permafrost melting will destroy infrastructure. These northern ecosystems tend to be pretty fragile and warmer temperatures could cause significant ecological collapse. There are areas where the impacts will be greater and lesser. There aren't significant areas that will be better off due to climate change.