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From the article: > Let’s face it, businesses won’t make sacrifices and pay more for clean energy based on altruism alone. Instead, we need solutions that appe
by dubfan 12y ago
From the article:
> Let’s face it, businesses won’t make sacrifices and pay more for clean energy based on altruism alone. Instead, we need solutions that appeal to their profit motives.
This is what I keep trying to explain to my environmentalist friends, but there's a strong motivation in that circle to pretend the economic factor doesn't exist and it's as simple as saying "screw you" to oil companies. It doesn't get a good reaction.
- gaius 12y agoI hope they all have organic laptops woven from hemp and twigs, or they'd be massive hypocrites...
- mnw21cam 12y agoEnvironmental scientists do have a habit of flying all round the world to attend conferences on how to stop people flying around the world. Yes, they do tend to see the irony in it all.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago> Environmental scientists do have a habit of flying all round the world Maybe because worldwide scientific activities would grind to a halt if we suddenly went back to three masted schooners and bullock carts.
- protomyth 12y agoIndia, China, and all the emerging economies in South America and Africa are going to take the same economic route (coal & gas) unless we give them a cheaper alternative. Your right, environmentalists don't seem to understand economics or human nature. People will not sacrifice so we really need to tech our way out of this.
- mnw21cam 12y agoIndia and China are chucking research and money at new nuclear technology. It's not unreasonable to predict that in 20 years, the west will probably be buying molten salt reactors from China. I think, regarding the economics, there are quite a few environmental scientists who are very cognisant of economics and how that interacts, such as Tim Jackson at the University of Surrey, UK. However, where they do know anything about it, they tend to recognise that economics is not helping the environment at all, so perhaps they should work in areas where they are likely to make a difference instead. There is a fundamental mis-match between the environment and economics. In economics, eternal exponential growth is mandatory. In the environment, eternal exponential growth is impossible.
- danielweber 12y agoChina is throwing research and money at everything. They are still opening new coal plants, I think the rate is one per week.
- protomyth 12y agoI hope both succeed and if we do we should buy the fruits of their efforts since we seem to not be going that direction. I have seen nothing but environmentalists who understand economics being vilified. I hope this attitude changes. Economics does not require "eternal exponential growth is mandatory", although some popular schools of economics do. Economics is just a very good way to actually judge cost.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoThere are two different aspects of economics here; on one hand, it's blindingly obvious that growth-based economy is unsustainable. On the other hand, it's what is driving the world right now, so effective ways to fix the system will likely need to use it for their advantage, and not ignore it.
- emp_zealoth 12y agoI would think only in some economics "belief systems" exponential growth is mandatory I call them belief systems, because when you look at it, it can hardly be called science: examples of mutualy exclusive theories are coexisting and sides quite often forge the data using advanced obsfucation: tweak some parameters here, adjust them there, carefully pick base data and voila - you've just proven whatever the hell you believe is "the only true way"
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoOne easy way round that is to just nationalize the oil companies.
- danielweber 12y agoNo, even after buying them up, they now become part of the sovereign wealth, and the sovereign still cares about its bottom line. Or look at the middle east, where a lot of oil companies are already nationalized, and see how much they are worrying about CO2 emissions.
- Florin_Andrei 12y agoAn interesting corollary of that logic is that if suddenly this sovereign interest was spanning the whole Earth (instead of being fragmented into over a hundred countries), then there would be bigger incentives to strong-arm a solution to this problem more quickly.
- andreasvc 12y agoIf there is an impending catastrophe, the profit motive is irrelevant. The issue is one of short term (profit) vs. long term (environment) thinking. Saving the planet while still appealing to the profit motive would be great, but if that's not feasible, do we just let the planet go to hell...?
- ianlevesque 12y agoDepressingly, the answer appears to be yes.