By Connor O’Keeffe
Only a couple years ago, climate change was a major political issue. Now it’s strangely absent from public discourse. Why did this happen? Because, at least for now, it stopped being the most useful way for elites to justify their power grabs.
My less sinister take: it's a coordination problem of epic proportions, perhaps the hardest one in the history of the world, and the people who get the most fucked from it have the least power. So learned helplessness sets in, same as everywhere.
Whatever the elites are doing -- whoever you consider "the elites" to be -- is downstream of that.
Is that what you think is the most likely true case or is it just a more charitable plausible scenario?
Since I've done some work in this area, I've seen enough to side with the more cynical take.
That's what I think is most likely true. I have strong priors that we're in a "cigarettes don't cause cancer" and "all of these crushing body collisions don't cause adverse health effects" type of situation.
Ok, I think I read stuff into your statement that wasn't necessarily there.
I haven't seen anything that suggests to me that the climate is getting worse, but that's a linear assessment of a non-linear system. I'm very open to precautionary principle type concerns.
The truth of the matter and the motives of the people involved have no necessary connection.
As best I can tell the issue is complex enough that a person can pick and choose data and argumentation to make whatever case they want to make (theory under-determined by data, as per Quine), and even aside from that metaphysical limit, only a true expert has the sophistication to detect bullshit arguments made by non-idiots, yet in contemporary culture nobody who's not an expert cares what experts think.
This same dynamic is an annoyance in my area of science, which is two orders of magnitude less complicated and three orders less contentious than climate science. So basically there is no hope. (See above wrt learned helplessness.)
That's for fucking sure.
This isn't quite right. There are patterns that an intelligent lay person can learn to recognize in the climate literature. A lot of bad arguments are placed in articles by non-idiots for the purpose of pandering to either grant reviewers or journal editors.
However, as we've discussed before, someone making a bad argument for something isn't evidence that the thing isn't true anyways.
I believe that. Maybe a better way of saying what I intended:
The amount of effort required to identify wrong arguments probably goes up an order of magnitude with each class. I'd put what you discussed in class #2.
There’s definitely a lot of class #3.
There’s a lot that I’ve come across and probably much more that I haven’t.
On top of that the nations that seem to care most about it are the most wealthy ones. Not the poorest. The poorest have much more pressing and solvable problems like diseases that can be healed, hunger, and general societal development.
The reality is that even if the whole world followed the guidance of the UN's study on climate change it would not be enough. These are their own estimations. They also estimate it will depress the development of these poor nations.
I'm sure there are many sincere people concerned about climate change but they sure don't seem to be in positions of power. It seems those people are more concerned with power.
I think that's true, but I don't take it as evidence for anything about the topic -- the poorest have the least ability to worry about a future that's not threatening them in the moment.
That's probably another vector of the learned helplessness. At this point either some tech hail mary saves the day, or future people will just deal with the cataclysm because there's no other choice. Doesn't seem like there's anything to gain doing anything about it now, unless you're working on the tech hail mary part.
That is a defeatist attitude.
Correct.
Do you think climate change is civilization ending?
We'd have to agree on terms, which would be hard. But "ending" is a high bar, so probably not.
We all came our senses?
lol, no. Just like other malinvestments, it was a low-interest rate phenomenon. Rates came up, political interest shifted.
(This kind of makes sense from an economic point or view too: the supposed cost of climate change lies way into future, meaning a higher discount rate makes it less relevant today)
That's a great point!
as always, not original.
Think I stole/paraphrased that one from Matt Levine (though about ESG investing)
Disseminating great points is almost as valuable as inseminating them (I looked it up, that's a reasonable usage).
sounds DIRTY!
People without scientific expertise who dismiss climate change as a hoax are mentally and morally unhinged. They have no credibility in any sphere. They are followers of sociopaths and despots.
USA abandoned the Paris Accord and led the world into a cycle of cynical short sighted denial of the science. China now leads actual constructive measures to develop sustainable energy production, distribution and use.
China leads in nuclear power generation, Hydro, Solar, Wind, LEDs and electrification of transport.
Having efficient energy infrastructure can deliver significant economic advantage. The USA is stuck in a 1950s mindset and is headed for environmental and economic disaster. Chinese manufacturers and consumers pay less than half for electricity than in any other industrialised nation.
The world will not forget the US abandoning the Paris Accord and abandoning the effort to reach an equitable and progressive solution to the problem of climate change.
USA cannot generate enough electricity to power the projected demand AI data centres. Rolling power cuts and or rationing are on the cards. China on the other hand has a projected surplus into the future.
Chinas strong and efficient industrial base enables the building of new nuclear generation at 1/6th the cost incurred in the grossly inefficient and dysfunctional US.
Ahora la energía es renovable y van detrás del litio y las tierras del más allá 🤣