7 ms·
People's financial incentives are not aligned with the climate's necessary modifications. The two won't be aligned until climate passes over its tipping point a
by supercall 7y ago
People's financial incentives are not aligned with the climate's necessary modifications. The two won't be aligned until climate passes over its tipping point and enters an irreversible feedback loop.
- loopz 7y agoCurrency can be printed electronically these days. Beings can't eat currency or shelter in currency. xkcd climate timeline: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ I know there's a huge difference in data resolution, but worth pondering about nonetheless.
- pjc50 7y ago"When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money." -- popular quote of unclear but probably native American origin in the 70s: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/20/last-tree-cut/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/20/last-tree-cut/
- bureaucrat 7y agoDuh. Science will figure it out and 'the last tree' will never be cut down. Science along with capital is un-poisoning rivers, making fishing sustainable, and greenifing forests while eco-attention freaks do nothing but protest.
- acqq 7y agoAnd, if anybody doubts, it's sure that we are losing forests as we speak: "World losing area of forest the size of the UK each year, report finds Chance of ending deforestation by 2030 seems lower than when pledge was made five years ago" Guardian, Sep 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/12/deforestation-world-losing-area-forest-size-of-uk-each-year-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/12/deforest...
- kzrdude 7y agoWhen will incentives ever be aligned with one's own long term interests? There is reason for despair, that competition to survive the day to day - everyone needs to get through their week, month and year - will always detract from the larger concerns about long term sustainability of our civilization and prosperity.
- igorkraw 7y ago> When will incentives ever be aligned with one's own long term interests? Once we've installed a good global governance system (imo some form of confederation of confederation ala Switzerland) that democratically aggregates preferences and can align the incentives. People like to act like competition is inevitable, forgetting that the main hegemon of the last 50 years has competition as a large part of it's ideology (and all the runner ups are not democratically legitimised in the sense people in Europe or the US would consider enough). It's not a law of physics, it's part of a system that can be changed. So I'd disagree. The time for despair is when you are dead, or can no longer try to improve things. Now there's work to do
- Fjolsvith 7y ago> Once we've installed a good global governance system (imo some form of confederation of confederation ala Switzerland) that democratically aggregates preferences and can align the incentives. This is wishful thinking with more than half the world not involved in democratic governance. But be of good cheer. There's profit to be made where there's crisis.
- CalRobert 7y agoI worry that we have removed people's moral agency by normalizing huge debts for life's necessities. We have the technology to make housing and education cheap and plentiful, but instead create scarcities and credit to have leverage over the workforce and keep them working in ways they'd prefer not to. I mean, every day I think "but guys seriously shouldn't we use all these computers to work on the metaphorical asteroid heading for Earth??? guys??" But we don't, myself included, because bills.
- yokaze 7y agoOr laws/taxes are passed, which incorporate the externalities, and subventions for detrimental efforts are cut. That is "just" a matter of political will.
- Consultant32452 7y agoHow much war are you willing to wage to force other countries to do the same? I think that's really the only question that matters when it comes to the "everybody pass laws" plan.
- blackflame 7y agoYou can never know when the tipping point is because either you haven't yet hit it, or you already have but don't know at which point in the past the death spiral could have been prevented, if at all.
- windexh8er 7y agoThis is an ineffective approach. No country can assume any other will fall in line to "do the same". This creates a do nothing approach because it turns doing the right thing, by taking the first steps, into a game of finger pointing. War is definitely not the answer and is 100% counterproductive to the end goal. If all countries, that are supposedly interested in being the best climate change affectors, all competed to truly be the best - we'd be in a far better spot. The war you allude to is not international in nature. It's national. If the US, for example, actually removed campaign contributions and lobbying allowances from organizations responsible for a majority of annual pollution we'd already be down the road. But instead it is national politics, and those legislators, that are the real roadblock to starting the snowball move towards clean technology.
- Consultant32452 7y agoThe problem with this approach, which I was trying to highlight, is that as long as "doing better by climate change" implies "economic disadvantage" there will be major polluters who do not get on board. What will you do with them? If you really believe this is an existential crisis for humanity, you must be willing to destroy these countries. Choose your poison: bomb them to oblivion or sanction/starve them to death. That is why this is a failed approach.
- pluc 7y agoGood. Something smarter than humans might come along next.
- dang 7y agoMaybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
- surfsvammel 7y agoWe have in fact already passed a couple of those tipping points, unfortunately. But we can still make a big difference by getting our act together. But, some of those are already locked in, we might not see the effect for 1000 or even 10000 years, but still.
- CalRobert 7y agoOr until we discover how many fewer billions Earth can support at +4C
- PeterStuer 7y agoThing is the world's climate will not fail us gradually. Past the 'tipping point' the 'Geo-engineers' will be let out of the asylum and get to deploy their crackpot hail-Mary schemes playing fast and loose with a runaway high dimensional complex feedback system they (or we) barely are beginning to understand. There is no 'backup' on this planet. There is no 'safety net'. There is no 'oh shit, abort!' button. An optimist would say we are just going to make sure to speed up the inevitable.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- amiga_500 7y agoBecause laissez-faire economics doesn't converge automagically on the best path. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/12/how-the-world-works/305854/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/12/how-the...
- ixtli 7y agoCorrect. I'd add that I don't think anyone worth listening to has ever really thought this to be true: rather, it is convenient for those with the majority of private capital for everyone to believe it is true so that they don't have to account for how they spend their money.