We are still screwed: the coming climate disaster

Politics and religion
4796

DINK is Double Income No Children. And, I know you aren’t a DINK.

As for curling up and dying, I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think we have a population problem, and I think that we have an emissions problem.

You, however, seem to think that overpopulation is a problem. At least that was what I thought. We all create too much carbon, so we need to have fewer children. But, that solves a future problem, not the current one.

Even if we all stopped having kids today, we would still be headed to disaster. You can’t solve current problems with future solutions. You need to solve current problems with current solutions.

Now, if the problem is that per person, we in the US create too much CO2,than the solution is either that we reduce the population immediately (like we do when we have to many deer or termites) or we all reduce are current CO2 amounts.

Now, I’m not really in favor of killing the elderly (well, some of them, but not all, I love my parents, and my in laws are okay), but you seem to refuse to consider other solutions that might result in all of us cutting down on pollution. You think none of them had worked.

So, I’m not sure what we are left with.

Maybe this? This might be the most humane.

Lets face it, when we have a local animal population explodes and we need to control it, we don’t give them condemns, we kill them.

4797

Your acronym game is weak, Lego!

4798

I misspoke (typed?) It’s not 25% of carbon emissions, 25% of resource consumption. What I’m trying to say is if we’re a world filled with 7 billion Americans (scary thought in itself) I don’t think the planet would be able to sustain it (or at least in a way that made the planet an enjoyable place to live.) However if we move towards more efficient use of land and resources in the fight against climate change than perhaps you’re right and that worry is misplaced.

4799

Damn it.
I blame the Children. They suck the life force out of me, and are the cause of Global Warming!

4800

I believe that population considerations is a component to a much larger plan, and that’s not a made up approach. It’s a natural course that civilizations, countries, groups shift to over time. The fully developed nations do not have as many kids for a variety of reason so there is no reason to flip the fuck out when someone asks about having that conversation. It’s what we do with other populations when they’re at risk. At no point did I ever say anything about hating children, not wanting families, going into other countries and forcing them not to have children… that’s all shit you came up with and tried to attribute to me.

Year after year after year, we watch the same groups pull their hair out, spit out doom and gloom predictions, tell everyone how they need to change and do it now without fuss, and you know what they won’t do… change themselves. They approach the same problem the same way and get the same results and constantly ask themselves why, and only themselves because they sure as hell won’t listen to anyone else.

4801

Because if change isn’t universal, then there are winners and losers.

Let’s give an example. We all want higher salaries for people. But if an individual company does it, and raise prices to suit, than they lose customers. They can’t afford to raise salaries themselves.

But, if we increased the minimum wage, then everyone is in the same boat, and everyone has to raise the prices the same.

So, yes, individual actions aren’t worth shit without rules and regs for all of us.

Also note that recycling individual doesn’t make sense.

4802

I agree completely. Our political system is not capable of demanding serious sacrifices from the entire population. Either science saves us, or we’re fucked as a civilization.

4803

Anyway, fun talk, I need to make dinner for my kids. Pancakes for dinner. Classic Dutch dinner.

I think I will do Ham and Cheese ones, just to keep it simple.

4804

The political system is not doing the asking. It’s a subset of the Democrats that are demanding sacrifice and will not allow input from any other groups or really allow anyone else at the table. That’s always going to fail. It doesn’t mean it’s hopeless, it means if we don’t have a group that can bring people to the table, you get rid of the group trying to take charge, they’re failing anyway, and get one in place that can and will. We don’t have a dictatorship, not at the country level and certainly not the world.

4805

Depends on the sacrifice. We’re were mostly fine with sacrifices in the face of fascism and communism. But something abstract like climate change or even poisoned water/air is a tougher sell. That’s just a failing of human beings though, not necessarily our political system. No political system handles it well other than a dictatorship and they don’t handle it because it’s not likely to kill them anyway. Addressing it is probably riskier for a despot than pretending it doesn’t matter.

4806

I dare to hope that, if warming can be kept to below world-killing levels (below the 4-8c range, maybe?), then not only our species but our civilization will survive.

After all, Western civilization survived the Bubonic plague.* In some ways society even improved as a result of it.

I don’t want us to go through a Bubonic plague, especially one that will turn out to have been optional.

Imagine a lean and mean 1-billion-person world population circa A.D. 2150 ready to forge into the future, well adapted to the new climate regime. Doesn’t sound so bad, but between there and here would be suffering of a scale to make World War II look like a Sunday picnic.

*granted, the analogy is imperfect, because the Bubonic plague came and went, whereas global warming, to whatever level it is allowed to reach, will likely remain indefinitely.

4807

I think it’s counterproductive to approach climate change with one-size-fits-all solutions. Particularly because the proposed solutions invariably reflect the biases of whoever is advocating them.

In other words, you get vegans who say, “We cannot stop climate change unless everyone stops eating meat”. Urban advocates chime in, “The real problem is sprawl, we cannot solve climate change unless we move everyone into urban high rises”. Tesla enthusiasts think we need to ban gasoline powered autos. People who don’t have kids see all parents as the problem. And Southerners like me propose that winters are the real culprit and every needs to move south (Spoiler: I actually do live in the North).

But the nice thing about multifactorial problems is that they have multifactorial solutions. Do you really like living in the suburbs? Fine, maybe stay where you are but consider getting solar panels or an EV. Do you want to have lots of kids? They doesn’t mean you are a bad person, but maybe consider telecommuting or taking public transportation to work. Love to drive your V6? OK, you can help out by avoiding air travel or eating less meat.

And government doesn’t need to prescribe a One True Path to climate salvation. There can be incentives for all of the above, and people can decide which way they prefer to cut their CO2 emissions. If you choose some, but not others, then you can still be part of the solution.

But if people start devising litmus tests, with the righteous on one side and sinners on the other, then I think it becomes much harder to make progress.

4808

To me, the most important thing is that the One True Goal (carbon reduction to keep temp rise under, say, 3c) be fixed as a polestar. The whys and wherefores can be debated, the methods adjusted, but I think it is a genuine insanity of our age that limiting warming is not at this time the single most important policy goal of every major government on earth. I mean, we can tick off all the institutional, inertial, and cognitive-behavioral reasons why it is so, but the fundamental godawful wrongness of the situation still bangs one over the head with the force of a cast iron skillet.

4809

It will always be easier and cheaper to let other people and countries address climate change. It’s the biggest free rider problem imaginable.

4810

Therein lies the problem really.

If it was a one-off thing, it wouldn’t be as big a deal.

4811

In poor countries, kids are labor. They’re a resource. It isn’t surprising that birth rates / population growth tend to decline as a society gets richer and more industrialized, obviating the need to grow your own personal labor pool. If you want to cut the birth rate / population growth in poor countries, what you have to do is end their poverty. Make them rich, and the problem tends to solve itself.

4812

This sounds like projection. I mean, what’s your solution, and how does that solution personally impact you?

4813

I think I answered this in a follow up post. That quote refers to the fact that sometimes people who reduce their CO2 by some choice will use their personal experience to argue that everyone should make exact the same choice. It’s no longer about carbon reduction, it’s about self-validation.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. There are many different ways to reduce your CO2 emissions, and you should choose the methods that are most practical and work best for you without expecting that others in different circumstances will choose the same ones.

4814

Sorry, but I’m struggling to understand this. Do you think the problem is amenable to ‘solutions’ based on individual choice? That is, do you think that if we leave it to each person to reduce their own footprint in the way that suits them best, that will be effective? And, what will you do for your part?

4815

I mean I made what changes I could. I drive a hybrid, bike to work frequently, am mindful of minimizing waste, and largely eat vegitarian.

It’s not enough, it’s never enough. Because you have jackasses on the opposite end ‘rolling coal’ and such.