The risk of inaction is much higher than the cost of action. In addition, the cost of actions is not a long-term cost. It's an investment that will have a huge return in the future. Oil goes up and down like a sawtooth and is tied to wars after wars. History will very likely show people sticking to old energy is wrong on every level from the future of our children, to the current state affair of societies in regards to human rights around the world, to the future economies.
no, I do not believe the bolded statement. "The risk of inaction" cannot be calculated, it can only be estimated, and then in response to a specific set of defining parameters. Nor can "the cost of action" be accurately pinned down, although in this case different cost scenarios can be more easily estimated using basic economic forecasting methods. And there's the conceptual problem that risk and cost are in some sense apples and oranges; one would be better off comparing two different, competing risk scenarios (each with its own cost projections) to each other rather than comparing a more vague "risk of inaction," whatever that means, to an equally vague parameter labeled "cost of action."
Alright let's address this. Avoiding draconian measures that tank our economies makes a lot of sense. After all, one of the primary reasons to address climate change is to avoid tanking economies. This is a policy issue though, not a scientific one. The problem is we are debating the science of climate change when it should be settled science. Climate change is going to eventually have catastrophic impact on life on this planet. That doesn't mean the extinction of the human species, but it's going to be really negative and perhaps people get hung up on the word "catastrophic." But even if you disagree on how bad it will get, I don't understand why push that we're not warming any faster than coming out of an ice age? Or why do we (not you specifically) have so many climate deniers who believe climate change is all just propaganda pushed by the "scientific establishment" and liberals who want to control our lives and keep spending money on such scientists? The only real losers here in the short run are oil companies who may end up with a shrinking market. And let's talk about draconian measures. No country on earth is going to tank its economy for draconian measures unless it's an island that's a half foot above sea level. No country has come close to doing that, and none will. Liberal politicians have no stomach to do that to their economy anyway. I certainly don't support it and I don't know many who do. What people want is to start thinking about solutions, which we can't do or invest in when half the country doesn't want to admit the problem exists and is just a bunch of baloney. If the right, instead of pushing climate denialism instead pushed a solution, they would find a lot on the left would join them. Take nuclear power - an issue that splits environmentalism but one that conservatives are likely to be more lock in step with and thus own it and show leadership. If we adopted the french model with one design there wouldn't be a safety issue either. What happened in Chernobyl and Japan happened because leaders didn't listen to the scientific community and IAEA who said you need to shut these reactors down or fix the flaws long before those accidents. With the advent of better and better electric car batteries, telecommuting and remote work, high speed trains, and a push for nuclear power - we could work to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. It won't be draconian and it will in fact benefit countries that are high in tech. But who gets hurt? Oil companies. They are the only losers along with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC nations. But the oil companies are the ones with power and are fighting (understandably) to create this false narrative - part of which is, "the left wants to institute draconian measures that will kill our economies." Sure you can always find some wacko liberal to give you a good soundbite, but that's not where mainstream liberals are on this issue. The fear of drastic change should not blind people to the science which says we should be fearing the direction we are heading in more. The reality is that the change we need to start making happen now isn't draconian, it even isn't drastic, but it is a threat to big oil and that's why so little is happening.
To rj's credit, we endured decades of people truly trying to disprove: the fact that significant changes were afoot, and after that phase, the idea that we could implicate human activity at all. If it's a red herring, it's only recently so and still a normal fish color for a lot of far right media. (shrug)
I don't see why I carry the burden to engage with arguments I'm not even making. If rj has a problem with the media or Republicans or garden variety flat earther climate deniers, he should take it up with them. One of the reasons this forum is so exasperating at times is the constant end runs around statements people actually make and the conversion of folks's actual arguments into straw men. rj was having a conversation with me, not someone else as far as I know
The shiftiness over times: It's cooling Human aren't responsible Models are wrong Uncertainties Earth has always changed There is nothing we can do about it It's too costly What about China?
lots here, not sure I can address it all. But "settled science" is an oxymoron. I know what you mean, I know how people intend that term to be understood, but as a practical matter "settled science" is a rhetorical conversation stopper. If the science were truly "settled," then there would be absolutely no reason whatsoever to continue funding climate-related research in virtually every academic field on every campus in every country today. Science is almost never "settled," in large part that's what makes science, science, and distinguishes science from pseudoscience. Again, I understand (I think) what you mean by this: climate change should not be controversial, any more than the fact of gravity should be controversial. But even though the fact of gravity is known, even settled, does not mean that the entire gamut of gravitational studies is exhausted from motors to celestial mechanics. perhaps for some life, yes, but just as climate change in the past has paved the way for all subsequent biological evolution, so too will this period of climate change result in the evolution of future life. "Nature" capital "N" does not care what evolves or which species are "favored": Nature is indifferent to the fate of species and individuals for that matter. And there really isn't "catastrophe" in nature, only change. the answer to these questions is far more complex, but in short I assume ANY alternative future ("good" fossil free future vs "bad" fossil fuel intensive future) will result in 100% completely different sets of future individual human beings at some relatively distant time (longer than one human life, so let's say 200+ years and beyond). The implications of this apparent truth is that any distant future population in say 2222 AD will owe its existence to us/our generation. Whether we leave them a good world (good world future people say "Yay!!") or a bad world (bad world future people say "Yay!!!"), whichever group of future people results will have us to thank for their existence. And as long as their lives are at least modestly well-off and they as a group do not consider their lives not worth living, we will have done well by them either way. this is the famous "non-identity problem" associated with Derek Parfit. You can look it up; I will not explain more about that here I will add however that this is NOT an argument for indifference to the needs of today's actual living human beings in the short term. But then we're back to the future discounting question of weighing existing peoples' needs, interests, and desires somewhat more heavily than those future people who do not yet exist. here is where you diverge from arguments I am making and change the subject to arguments other people are making. That's fine, but take up their arguments with them I have said nothing about "Big Oil" so while I appreciate hearing your thoughts on the subject I don't really have anything to say in response, other than to simply acknowledge the fact that "Big Oil" provides a commodity that virtually EVERY human being--all 8 billion of us--finds enormously valuable in our lives on a daily basis.
Um, you don't? Just adding some context, and maybe very familiar context to you, but I guess I'm just saying we can label the argument you cited as a red herring a very localized red herring to the current time and (mostly) the current thread. No additional burden for you unless you're looking for one. Cheers.
Seems like the popularity of these arguments are rooted in sunk cost fallacy, where the inertia to overcome fossil fuels and its trillion dollar infrastructures in reserves/transport/delivery/access/usage is so deeply ingrained that the public can be swayed to choose the convenience over it without the need to invest or sacrifice in anticipation for highly probable outcomes.
Settled Science is an oxymoron but it's also an idiom to mean it's at 5 sigma level, which is where it's at now. The research currently isn't to determine whether global warming is happening or not, it's to try and forecast how rapidly and to what degree it will happen in a certain period of time, and the exact relationship between co2 and global warming. It's also to understand how global warming will impact the climate. But our climate is going to change in a significant way, and that's five sigma and that's what I mean. But I can also see how for some, that might come across the wrong way. The historical climate change earth has seen has been very gradual - and even then there was extinctions that as you speak opened the doors for other species. But when you look at dramatic climate change, those events are associated with events such as the strike that killed the dinosaurs, where the atmosphere cooked, and then became extremely cold, and then got even warmer than before all within a very short period of time. And guess what, 95% of all species on earth went extinct. You are right that there is not much we can do to stop nature from taking its course. But this isn't nature. Its man made (to 5 sigma degree certainty) and so we can control it. Why push for this self-inflicted wound that isn't necessary? That's what I don't get. Then why care about anything? Why do we care about the images of genocide in Ukraine? Or children suffering anywhere. If the future world's economies collapse, is that our problem if we aren't alive? Let our grandkid worry about it right? I mean, you can certainly make an argument for that, but it feels too nihilistic for me. Will do after I get my work done for today. I just don't see this as some grand sacrifice that it's made out to be, other than for the oil companies. Electric cars are getting better and better, and adoption is starting to happen. They perform better and have lower cost of ownership. Ultimately that's going to win out in the marketplace as the technology improves. It's smart to continue to subsidize and invest in green technologies like this that can reduce fossil fuel consumption. Why is this bad? Will the day come that we may need to put in a carbon tax to pay for its removal from that atmosphere? Sure...there should be a cost for the cleanup of what one leaves behind. But I don't think that is going to break anyone's back. It certainly should not be regressive or something that causes hardship. It's germane to the conversation given that you are speaking of this great hardship and burden that would in theory be placed on people today. That's their narrative as well. Yes we all depend on them greatly - that's the problem! They are like our drug dealer. I don't get why people are so adamant about not becoming independent of them.
again, a lot there, and I'll respond to some more perhaps later. but a quick comment on the drug dealer analogy--I believe the analogy fails entirely. Drugs are an elective amenity, not a necessity. Fuel (in whatever form) is an absolute necessity for survival on earth. That's true if you're Homo erectus a million years ago or Homo sapiens futuris in the far off future. Right now fossil fuels (and possibly nuclear, at least potentially) are the ONLY game in town. To say that we could simply and quite suddenly become "independent" of fossil fuels is naive, dangerously so.
It's not meant to be a literal analogy, but ok, fair enough. And I never said it would happen suddenly, but it's the right goal to start working towards. And no it's no dangerous - you can do it without creating hardship or hurting economic growth. We never eliminate all combustion, such as for natural gas and jet fuel, but a lot of the other uses of fossil fuels can be slowly weaned off in a period of 20 years - 30 years.
Well maybe you should just tell us your views concisely instead of demurring them with jabs about nuclear power and unknowable certainty and other statements that make it seem like are being disingenuous. Houston's flooding is a perfect example of how manmade issues are exacerbating things. Over development through poor land use regulations is a major issue; the remedies are expensive and do impose an extra cost to homeowners, renters, and businesses but the status quo has also cost the city, state, and federal government tens of billions of dollars.
Glad I spent a little time in the thread and saw Derek Parfit's name. Cool beans. Seriously. I like this video about the aforementioned philosophical problem.
Anymore.... but the discourse under the Obama administration and before was downright hostile towards climate change. Big oil funded climate change denialism, along with many other big polluters. It's been a tough uphill climb with many folks still trying to muddy the waters over a complicated issue. Even removing climate change from the issue, we've still had many extreme weather events from the droughts on the West Coast that have caused forest fires, to flooding in the midwest, to hurricanes and flooding on the coast. We are still dragging our feet on building new seawalls, barrier islands, reservoir, flood control, new forestry policies, etc.
I'm just skimming through this but to your credit I don't think you are a denier and acknowledged as such I think we disagree though on the scope and extent of the problem. To respond to a few other things. Yes we don't know exactly what the costs of inaction versus action are but as you acknowledged yourself there are costs that should be sustained for longer term benefit, I think you termed it "no regrets". In the case of addressing Climate Change certainly improvements in energy efficiency, energy that doesn't pollute the air and water, and energy that can be generated distributed almost anywhere would be no regret costs. Also better stormwater management in coastal regions along with water conservation in drier regions would be beneficial even if Climate Change models were completely wrong. As we've discussed before too the nature of science isn't certainty so yes there is no such thing as "settled science". That's why the Theory of Relativity supercedes the Laws of Motion even though we know the Theory of Relativity itself isn't settled. Even though Newton's Laws are shown to be not exactly how the universe works you would be a fool if you're trying to plot the trajectory of a rocket to not heed Newton's Laws.
"No regrets" policy-making has been a standard term for over 30 years and yet you almost never see it in popular discussions (e.g., mainstream/legacy media), largely due to the mainstream narrative of catastrophism I suspect. an early use: A "No Regrets" Environmental Policy https://www.jstor.org/stable/1148717
A "No Regrets" environmental approach seems like Big Business/libertarian approach. It makes some good points but also seems pretty naïve towards the issue in many aspects. “No Regrets” Climate Policy: First, Do No Harm
