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101 sats \ 14 replies \ @grayruby 25 Jan \ on: The Climate Fad and How Academic Disciplines Go Wrong conspiracy
I am in your camp. I think a lot of the “climate science” we see is perversely incentivized groupthink. Because the science is flawed does that mean anthropogenic climate change doesn’t exist, no, but it should mean we should be skeptical about the chicken littles telling us the world is ending or the politicians who want to use “climate change” as a means to accrete more power.
I believe if they all believed things were as dire as they say we would have had a global coordinated effort to extract carbon from the atmosphere yesterday. Instead we have people who argue if we tax people for carbon and give governments unchecked power the rain won’t rain so hard and the fires won’t burn so fiery and the wind won’t be so windy.
This doesn’t mean I don’t think we should be exploring greener and more sustainable alternatives. I just think we should do it because the market demands it and it makes economic sense, not because of coercion.
I don't think the right is entirely innocent in this debate either. I have friends on the right who are totally unreceptive to the idea that we might be affecting the climate, they outright disparage electric vehicles despite never trying them, and believe every conspiracy theory about WEF trying to depopulate or whatever.
I think in the end it's still just tribalism on both sides.
Please hear me clearly though: the "science" dudes are equally tribal and immune to reasonable debate. They don't have the high ground
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That is a different flavor of stupidity too, also drives me nuts.
(Maybe next week I do a parallel/opposite, jeeez right-wingers don't get basic science post!)
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of course it's tribalism
The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt: the political world is divided into friend or enemy. Neutrality is self delusion.
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I hate the word "sustainable" in this context.
Incompetence is not sustainable.
Dysfunction is not sustainable.
Wind and solar are sustained by nuclear and natural gas plants.
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The world isn't ending but skiing in the ancestral homeland of my family was an important childhood memory for me but isn't something my children will experience. Because it doesn't fucking snow amymore.
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The Alps in Austria and Switzerland?
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It doesn't snow at all, in a place that you used to be able to ski? Where is this place you are referring to?
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i don't think i have to relinquish anything
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Interesting. Seems unlikely. The basis of most of your standard of living comes from the trade off of emitting carbon but you think no longer emitting carbon which will have to be done by force because no one will choose to lower their standard of living, will not effect you?
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In the short term the market will favour cheaper energy to more expensive energy.
Free markets have no mechanism to consider the long term consequences of actions which deliver the highest short term gain but also deliver long term costs.
This is why we have governments to regulate use of resources where the users impose damage to the wider environment without experiencing those costs themselves.
This is where logically government regulation has a role to create a fairer more equitable solution rather than asking market forces to solve a long term problem that market forces logically cannot and will not address.
This is why Libertarians hate climate change and defy logic and reason in seeking to address it- because it is a case where government - collective action is the most if not only logical response...and where market forces are inherently impotent.
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In short, no, because your question is heavily loaded and based on false assumptions and assertions.
Firstly governments can only more or less wield the degree of power citizens will collectively accede. Even in a seemingly autocratic China, if the CCP goes too far it would risk being removed, and knows it.
The CCP operates under something comparable to The Heavens Mandate of the past.
It is largely because the CCP has delivered exceptional improvements to most Chinese peoples economic conditions and expectations, that they remain in power.
Another example is the Covid mandates which governments were eventually forced to give up on when too many citizens objected/refused to comply.
Very few democratic governments that imposed Covid mandates remained in power at the next election.
So consider this when you talk hypothetically about governments being given absolute power- we are all ultimately the government and governments can only wield, more or less, the power we accede to them.
Given the above reality about the nature of government power (rather than your hypothetical but unobtainable absolute) it is in fact very difficult for governments to deal with climate change.
The 'best effort' so far, collectively, the Paris Agreement has been agreed to by all governments except
Iran
Libya
Yemen
And now the USA
Notwithstanding that the Paris Agreement doesn't appear very effective- I am no expert on it but the impression is it is so mired in compromise that its not going to have much effect...because to have effect sacrifices need to be made and politicians have struggled to pledge sacrifices on behalf of their citizens to whom they have to answer.
The need to act decisively and collectively in the global best interest is challenging when such significant sacrifices would need to be made to succeed.
So theoretically, solving climate crisis, imo, relies upon enough citizens globally acknowledging there is a problem and supporting government action to resolve it. It is not a problem that will be solved as long as there is significant citizen level resistance to the science behind it and the need for it- this is why bullshit such as is being propagated here on SN by the OP and others deserves to be challenged.
The combination of small but vocal deniers and the very wealthy vested interests who inherently do not want to reduce emissions, is enough to endanger everyone.
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