7 ms·

Unless you have no kids or grandkids to think of, it really matters. Government or not, even companies are made up of people. People with family. That is what

Unless you have no kids or grandkids to think of, it really matters. Government or not, even companies are made up of people. People with family. That is what baffles me. It's like saying "meh, our kids aren't worth the effort". Sure, the C-suite can probably ensure their kids are adequately housed and educated to make their way in a more hostile and broken world. But what about the rest of them? And will there be enough residual wealth to shelter the grandkids, too?

eej71 2y ago
I know that I am in the minority in these parts. But I'm glad to see these banks pull out of these net-zero related efforts. For me, and again I know I'm in the minority here, net-zero puts a huge cramp on productivity and building out what we need for civilization. These net-zero aren't progressive - they are regressive. What we need is build. To drill. To create. For that, we need all the energy sources we can pull from. Fossil. Nuclear. And yes, solar and wind too. Hydro. Net-zero is what will pull down everyone. But our worldviews are radically different here.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  Why do we need to create and use so much? People aren’t happier now, they are less happy. That’s all that matters. And the world population isn’t growing like we thought. We need to use much less. As a former guy that grew microbes, I remember what happened to flasks where the bacteria just use all the resources they can, the whole flask dies.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Well, Drilling like Hydro has very large ecological impacts at scale. Really should just be building a lot more nuclear plants to drive energy costs to 0 but that's too much government overreach or something ...
  - cheema33 2y ago
    > Really should just be building a lot more nuclear plants to drive energy costs to 0 Nuclear costs more than many other alternatives.
    - NewJazz 2y ago
      Practically, sure. But physically? Debatable. A lot of the cost has to do with the time necessary to build the plant (with permits et al), and the money that gets tied up as a result.
- NewJazz 2y ago
  Why do we need to do all that? Why do we need unlimited energy? Can you really not foresee problems with that, if everyone could drive/fly/boat as long and as fast as they want because fuel is basically free?
  - intended 2y ago
    Thing is, people who foresee problems happen to be the people who have the education to talk about them. The rest of the world is in the dark ages. Imagine being told they will never have a chance to get to a better life? Imagine being told you will lose what you have because people in the west blew it all up. Heck, given how crazy things in general are, I wouldnt be surprised if people start throwing nukes around as "solutions" or as "fuck you"s.
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    We don’t need to do anything, we didn’t need to start farming, we didn’t need to start reading and writing, and so forth. The journey of mankind has been to get closer to doing what we want, whenever we want.
    - NewJazz 2y ago
      I wasn't asking you. The commenter specifically used the term "need".
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- travisporter 2y ago
  Are you describing accelerationism?
- Certhas 2y ago
  We now live in a 1.5 degree warmer world. We can empirically study how much that level of warming is costing us already. It turns out that the measurable effects of warming on GDP absolutely dwarf the costs of mitigation. Ignoring climate change constraints in developing civilization will make us all poorer. Again, the effect of warming on GDP is measured, not postulated.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    > It turns out that the measurable effects of warming on GDP absolutely dwarf the costs of mitigation How are you calculating this?
    - Certhas 2y ago
      This is based on regional economic data, e.g.: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5 and follow up works. The methods are fairly straightforward. Panel regression with temperature effects on top of a per region and per year background. As I understand it, there is some disagreement for how to exactly aggregate the growth effects over time. But to me what was shocking about this is just how clearly you already see the impacts in existing _macroeconomic_ data, once it's sufficiently high spatial resolution. I am in the "who really cares about GDP" camp generally, it's a very crude measure. I was not expecting to see climate impacts to show up in GDP data for quite some time.
      - mike_hearn 2y ago
        Have you actually read that paper? I ask as it doesn't seem to be open access. It seems clearly absurd, though. They claim that 1 degree of temperature variance reduces GDP by 5pp, which is an insanely huge effect. They're saying that variability (not growth) of a size you can't even feel would eliminate the entirety of US economic growth and push the rest of the world into a large recession. This kind of paper where you regress things against each other with no attempt to understand or explain the underlying causalities, nor have any ability to validate the results, is the sort of thing that yields false positive results all the time, it's textbook replication crisis stuff.
- intended 2y ago
  I agree! I think we should be just chucking excess heat off of earth with massive mirros or micro waves. There is surely no way we stop producing, even if the world burns to a crisp. Embrace the nihilism is my current stance. People think they need optimism to think and feel ok. Turns out you can feel perfectly fine and productive when you assume the world is coming to an end as well! Its just a matter of perspective, what matters is having a clear plan for what you think will happen, and executing on it. It doesnt matter if the plan may be grim to others. This is just reality, reality doesnt care about someones feelings.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    That attitude will reap you a bitter crop, friend.
    - eej71 2y ago
      I think those comments are intended to be a satirical evaluation of what I said above. Poe's Law strikes again?
      - MrMcCall 2y ago
        I hope so! I am rather literal-minded, usually speaking plainly, which means I tend to read others as tho they speak in the same way. Thanks for the heads-up, friend.
- weweersdfsd 2y ago
  Build and create what? More cheap plastic junk for consumers? Big SUV cars for middle class that could very well drive a Corolla? Cloud services delivering social media that negatively impacts people's mental health, but makes billionaires a lot of money? Most energy out there already goes to causes that do nothing whatsoever to advance humanity's future or to improve people's lives. Burning fossil fuels to produce that waste of energy is absolute madness. If we are to waste energy, it should at least be produced in a manner that doesn't doom future generations.
graemep 2y ago
> It's like saying "meh, our kids aren't worth the effort". That is only true if you think this is a worthwhile effort. I have no idea what the Net Zero Banking Alliance achieves, but its perfectly possible its not achieving anything worthwhile. if you regard climate change as an emergency, then a target of achieving net zero in 2050 is probably pretty useless.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  > That is only true if you think this is a worthwhile effort. I have no idea what the Net Zero Banking Alliance achieves, but it's perfectly possible it's not achieving anything worthwhile. You would expect then that these banks would announce a new alliance, a new effort they are leading to reduce carbon emissions.
Workaccount2 2y ago
It's a tragedy of the commons situation. Anyone who takes on additional costs will be punished for it, because the hive mind of society always (read: _always_) (let me reiterate: always) favors lowest cost, all else being equal. If your SaaS costs $12/mo because you voluntarily pay for offsetting all emissions that result, you are going to be hard pressed to beat the guy who doesn't give a fuck about emissions and offers an equal product for $10/mo. The only way is to regulate these things to force compliance between all competitors. Emissions have a real cost, but it is far enough in the future to hide it. The government needs to force that cost into the present.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sofixa 2y ago
  > because the hive mind of society always (read: _always_) (let me reiterate: always) favors lowest cost, all else being equal All else is rarely equal. Be it with luxury brands, or with sustainability. See airlines giving consumers the option to pay for Sustainable Aviation Fuel, people literally pay more for the exact same product just because of the wider environmental benefits.
coliveira 2y ago
Rich people don't worry about this. They can always buy whatever they need to survive. And workers in a company have to do whatever they're told to, just to maintain their job. So don't expect them to do anything, specially if rich people need to make less money in the process.
MrMcCall 2y ago
There are many people who simply don't give a da_n about any one, even their own kids. I know that sounds crazy to the vast majority of us (and it is crazy, for sure), but we are not the super-rich, and they are not like us, my friend. In the very rare situations where they are like us, you get Bezos' ex-wife, a true rarity who turns her wealth into others' happiness. It is very difficult for an average person to understand how callous and/or cruel a person can be when they are seeking more pleasure out of this world's resources. A person must begin the positive long tail of spiritual development to grok the negative long tail. The >80% of folks in neither long tail just have no clue, my friend.
NoboruWataya 2y ago
> It's like saying "meh, our kids aren't worth the effort". I don't think it's like saying that. In most cases the point is there is no amount of effort that an individual (or even a small group) can make that would solve the problem. I'm not saying I agree with that reasoning, but it is very different to saying our kids aren't worth the effort. Like if a child was sick, a parent might genuinely believe that they would chop their arm off to save them, but they don't because it won't actually fix anything. I think very few people (1) believe that climate change is a real and existential threat; and (2) believe that their actions can stop climate change; but (3) decide it's not worth taking those actions.
- sofixa 2y ago
  I think big banks are definitely up there with the organisations that can have legitimate worldwide impact on climate change. So it's matter of either not believing in it, or deciding it's not worth it.

eej71 2y ago

I know that I am in the minority in these parts. But I'm glad to see these banks pull out of these net-zero related efforts. For me, and again I know I'm in the minority here, net-zero puts a huge cramp on productivity and building out what we need for civilization. These net-zero aren't progressive - they are regressive. What we need is build. To drill. To create. For that, we need all the energy sources we can pull from. Fossil. Nuclear. And yes, solar and wind too. Hydro. Net-zero is what will pull down everyone. But our worldviews are radically different here.

Mistletoe 2y ago
Why do we need to create and use so much? People aren’t happier now, they are less happy. That’s all that matters. And the world population isn’t growing like we thought. We need to use much less. As a former guy that grew microbes, I remember what happened to flasks where the bacteria just use all the resources they can, the whole flask dies.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
lesuorac 2y ago
Well, Drilling like Hydro has very large ecological impacts at scale. Really should just be building a lot more nuclear plants to drive energy costs to 0 but that's too much government overreach or something ...
- cheema33 2y ago
  > Really should just be building a lot more nuclear plants to drive energy costs to 0 Nuclear costs more than many other alternatives.
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    Practically, sure. But physically? Debatable. A lot of the cost has to do with the time necessary to build the plant (with permits et al), and the money that gets tied up as a result.
NewJazz 2y ago
Why do we need to do all that? Why do we need unlimited energy? Can you really not foresee problems with that, if everyone could drive/fly/boat as long and as fast as they want because fuel is basically free?
- intended 2y ago
  Thing is, people who foresee problems happen to be the people who have the education to talk about them. The rest of the world is in the dark ages. Imagine being told they will never have a chance to get to a better life? Imagine being told you will lose what you have because people in the west blew it all up. Heck, given how crazy things in general are, I wouldnt be surprised if people start throwing nukes around as "solutions" or as "fuck you"s.
- rangestransform 2y ago
  We don’t need to do anything, we didn’t need to start farming, we didn’t need to start reading and writing, and so forth. The journey of mankind has been to get closer to doing what we want, whenever we want.
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    I wasn't asking you. The commenter specifically used the term "need".
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
travisporter 2y ago
Are you describing accelerationism?
Certhas 2y ago
We now live in a 1.5 degree warmer world. We can empirically study how much that level of warming is costing us already. It turns out that the measurable effects of warming on GDP absolutely dwarf the costs of mitigation. Ignoring climate change constraints in developing civilization will make us all poorer. Again, the effect of warming on GDP is measured, not postulated.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  > It turns out that the measurable effects of warming on GDP absolutely dwarf the costs of mitigation How are you calculating this?
  - Certhas 2y ago
    This is based on regional economic data, e.g.: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5 and follow up works. The methods are fairly straightforward. Panel regression with temperature effects on top of a per region and per year background. As I understand it, there is some disagreement for how to exactly aggregate the growth effects over time. But to me what was shocking about this is just how clearly you already see the impacts in existing _macroeconomic_ data, once it's sufficiently high spatial resolution. I am in the "who really cares about GDP" camp generally, it's a very crude measure. I was not expecting to see climate impacts to show up in GDP data for quite some time.
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
      Have you actually read that paper? I ask as it doesn't seem to be open access. It seems clearly absurd, though. They claim that 1 degree of temperature variance reduces GDP by 5pp, which is an insanely huge effect. They're saying that variability (not growth) of a size you can't even feel would eliminate the entirety of US economic growth and push the rest of the world into a large recession. This kind of paper where you regress things against each other with no attempt to understand or explain the underlying causalities, nor have any ability to validate the results, is the sort of thing that yields false positive results all the time, it's textbook replication crisis stuff.
intended 2y ago
I agree! I think we should be just chucking excess heat off of earth with massive mirros or micro waves. There is surely no way we stop producing, even if the world burns to a crisp. Embrace the nihilism is my current stance. People think they need optimism to think and feel ok. Turns out you can feel perfectly fine and productive when you assume the world is coming to an end as well! Its just a matter of perspective, what matters is having a clear plan for what you think will happen, and executing on it. It doesnt matter if the plan may be grim to others. This is just reality, reality doesnt care about someones feelings.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  That attitude will reap you a bitter crop, friend.
  - eej71 2y ago
    I think those comments are intended to be a satirical evaluation of what I said above. Poe's Law strikes again?
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      I hope so! I am rather literal-minded, usually speaking plainly, which means I tend to read others as tho they speak in the same way. Thanks for the heads-up, friend.
weweersdfsd 2y ago
Build and create what? More cheap plastic junk for consumers? Big SUV cars for middle class that could very well drive a Corolla? Cloud services delivering social media that negatively impacts people's mental health, but makes billionaires a lot of money? Most energy out there already goes to causes that do nothing whatsoever to advance humanity's future or to improve people's lives. Burning fossil fuels to produce that waste of energy is absolute madness. If we are to waste energy, it should at least be produced in a manner that doesn't doom future generations.

graemep 2y ago

> It's like saying "meh, our kids aren't worth the effort". That is only true if you think this is a worthwhile effort. I have no idea what the Net Zero Banking Alliance achieves, but its perfectly possible its not achieving anything worthwhile. if you regard climate change as an emergency, then a target of achieving net zero in 2050 is probably pretty useless.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
> That is only true if you think this is a worthwhile effort. I have no idea what the Net Zero Banking Alliance achieves, but it's perfectly possible it's not achieving anything worthwhile. You would expect then that these banks would announce a new alliance, a new effort they are leading to reduce carbon emissions.

Workaccount2 2y ago

It's a tragedy of the commons situation. Anyone who takes on additional costs will be punished for it, because the hive mind of society always (read: _always_) (let me reiterate: always) favors lowest cost, all else being equal. If your SaaS costs $12/mo because you voluntarily pay for offsetting all emissions that result, you are going to be hard pressed to beat the guy who doesn't give a fuck about emissions and offers an equal product for $10/mo. The only way is to regulate these things to force compliance between all competitors. Emissions have a real cost, but it is far enough in the future to hide it. The government needs to force that cost into the present.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sofixa 2y ago
> because the hive mind of society always (read: _always_) (let me reiterate: always) favors lowest cost, all else being equal All else is rarely equal. Be it with luxury brands, or with sustainability. See airlines giving consumers the option to pay for Sustainable Aviation Fuel, people literally pay more for the exact same product just because of the wider environmental benefits.

coliveira 2y ago

Rich people don't worry about this. They can always buy whatever they need to survive. And workers in a company have to do whatever they're told to, just to maintain their job. So don't expect them to do anything, specially if rich people need to make less money in the process.

MrMcCall 2y ago

There are many people who simply don't give a da_n about any one, even their own kids. I know that sounds crazy to the vast majority of us (and it is crazy, for sure), but we are not the super-rich, and they are not like us, my friend. In the very rare situations where they are like us, you get Bezos' ex-wife, a true rarity who turns her wealth into others' happiness. It is very difficult for an average person to understand how callous and/or cruel a person can be when they are seeking more pleasure out of this world's resources. A person must begin the positive long tail of spiritual development to grok the negative long tail. The >80% of folks in neither long tail just have no clue, my friend.

NoboruWataya 2y ago

> It's like saying "meh, our kids aren't worth the effort". I don't think it's like saying that. In most cases the point is there is no amount of effort that an individual (or even a small group) can make that would solve the problem. I'm not saying I agree with that reasoning, but it is very different to saying our kids aren't worth the effort. Like if a child was sick, a parent might genuinely believe that they would chop their arm off to save them, but they don't because it won't actually fix anything. I think very few people (1) believe that climate change is a real and existential threat; and (2) believe that their actions can stop climate change; but (3) decide it's not worth taking those actions.

sofixa 2y ago
I think big banks are definitely up there with the organisations that can have legitimate worldwide impact on climate change. So it's matter of either not believing in it, or deciding it's not worth it.