If half the world is uninhabitable I imagine that will take a bite out of the obesity problem. Would you prefer we all be poor and skinny?

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

"2) You're wrong. Provide your source. "

Hey, I already asked. My guess is The National Review.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Some have argued that corn and wheat subsidies (the opposite of capitalism) has been the dominant contributor to obesity.

Cheap corn, cheap corn syrup in everything. Add some wheat filler to that corn syrup and what do we have? Fat ass mother fuckers.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

1.) Yes.
2.) Yes.
3.) People born after 2050 will be "severely affected". That brings up a very, very wide range of visuals, for me at least. If you're thinking of Hollywood depictions of climate change or the future like an Elysium or Interstellar, I'd say those are extremely dubious visions.
4a.) Change the way countries are run? I don't think we can go back to more inefficient systems and expect things to continue to get better.
4b.) Change the way people go about their lives? Think of how much time we must tend to our computers, whereas 75 years ago we didn't have to. Climate intervention 75 years from now might seem like something similar -- a task that must get done, but not something that registers strongly in our quality of life.

Climate intervention 75 years from now might seem like something similar -- a task that must get done, but not something that registers strongly in our quality of life.

That's a possibility. But when you say "climate intervention", do you mean through political means, or technological means? Are you putting your faith in our political institutions, or our scientists and engineers?

I've been saying for thirty years now that there is no hope for political solutions to anthropogenic climate change; the only hope is that technology will advance sufficiently rapidly for us to engineer our way out of the problem.

Thanos

"I've been saying for thirty years now that there is no hope for political solutions to anthropogenic climate change; the only hope is that technology will advance sufficiently rapidly for us to engineer our way out of the problem."

This may be true, but (not implying you do this) its a self fulfilling prophecy that isn't absent of culpability. In other words, "People will never vote in politicians who will make a difference, therefore I'm just going to cast my vote for politicians that won't make a difference," does not absolve someone from being pat of the problem.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Both. I'm imagining that the problem will be attacked, marginally, from all sides -- like all big optimization problems. That will include taxes, regulations, carbon emmission reducing tech, carbon capture tech, and anything else that could be reasonably brought to bear. All these things, to address the OP, can be done with our current system of government without "changing the way countries are run", and without requiring us to give up on "economic growth and consumerism". Those types of statements, unfortunately, sound like those of would-be communists getting ready to plunge the world into a whole new dystopian hell should they get their way.

I trust everyone here understands that "we need communism to truly fight climate change" greatly increases the risk of fighting climate change in a lot of people's minds.

If you're suggesting communism/socialism is the way to go, I suggest you take a look at the environmental record of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc countries. It isn't pretty. Regulated capitalism offers a far better chance than abandoning capitalism all together.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

I worry far more about politicians "doing something" than not doing something. China is an example: their current cloud seeding program increases precipitation in western China by 80 billion tons per year and their plans are to double that by 2025. This is basically unsupervised geoengineering and we know far too little about how our planet works to undertake such a venture. Yes, our large scale CO2 emissions also fall under that category. We're conducting a multi-century unsupervised chemistry experiment and no matter what anyone says at the IPCC (etc.) we really don't know how it will play out. Kenneth Deffeyes (Princeton) makes a rather compelling argument that we might accidentally trigger another ice age.

The flip side is that rudimentary game theory tells us that if utilizing carbon-based energy confers an economic advantage to any country (and it still does) they will cheat. Also, historically, humans have never abandoned a technology unless something better came along to replace it. Fantasies of all of humanity voluntarily (or under authoritarian rule) reverting to low-tech communal societies will remain just that: fantasies. We need innovation and the rapid scaling and deployment of technology. Capitalism is hard to beat in those realms. Government has a role to play from a fiscal policy and regulatory standpoint but both must be pragmatic.

1) All sorts of stuff has been banned, so you don't need to rely on people to voluntarily stop using stuff like leaded gasoline or aerosal hair spray.

2) The Great American Dustbowl was fixed, not by the free market, but by government regulations and projects.

3) The market pushes people to innovate products that are cooler or cheaper, not better for the environment.


Your argument rests in believing that capitalism (wish I could spell that with red, white, and blue letters) is the best solution for everything, and then just hope that it pans out that way.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

no and no capitalism has been the catalyst for increased wealth around the world. While for sure there is a huge wealth gap today even some of the poorest people in the world live with more amenities than ever in human history.

socialism has proven time and time again to fail

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union used government regulations to permanently impoverish several generations of otherwise hardworking and well-educated people.

Did you use government funding to build that straw man?

"Meanwhile, the Soviet Union used government regulations to permanently impoverish several generations of otherwise hardworking and well-educated people. "


You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear.



....and just so that the point doesn't get lost, just because two groups share something in common doesn't mean that the two groups have anything at all to do with each other. Banning leaded gasoline hasn't lead us to poverty. It just made us less sick.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

That's the last sentence from my original reply to you. I agree re CFCs, leaded gasoline, etc. Not sure what your beef is with capitalism but, hey, if you think socialism can save us I'll just sit on my ass and wait for everyone else to do the work.

Yeah - what I wrote above is an expression of my personal pessimism. I don't think I'd vote for a politician who was that openly pessimistic.

Good response, thanks. And I agree that any mention of communism as a tool to fight climate change is bound to be a non-starter for many (myself included). For a subset of these folks, quasi-governmental institutions like the UN are also anathema.

There is some cause for hope for smaller-scale solutions if you believe in the work of e.g. Elinor Ostrom, that smaller organizations working cooperatively can prevent the tragedy of the commons. But Ostrom's theories rely on a few assumptions that may not be valid in the case of climate change. For example, most everybody needs to agree on the need for action, and obviously we aren't quite there yet.

"That's the last sentence from my original reply to you. I agree re CFCs, leaded gasoline, etc. Not sure what your beef is with capitalism but, hey, if you think socialism can save us I'll just sit on my ass and wait for everyone else to do the work."

I don't have a "beef" with capitalism. I just recognize that it is good at doing what it does, nothing more or less. Capitalism won't solve problems that lead to lower profits. Its great for making running shoes and IPhones, yet horrible for fixing the Ozone layer or getting the lead out of the air I breathe.

And just so we are clear, it's a false dichotomy to suggest that the only two options are 100% capitalist or 100% socialist economies/governments.



........btw you are sending this message over the internet, are you not?

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Let me see if I can offer an explanation that will satisfy Greenplease without landing in soundbite writing that doesn't help anyone understand anything. Not sure if I'll succeed.

I would describe neoliberalism or capitalism loosely as using markets and institutions as an optimization algorithm for allocating scarce resources. To the extent neoliberalism has been legitimately tried -- and it's certainly being tried today even in what are obstensibly communist countries -- it has delivered unparalled human prosperity. Communism, despite the erudition and emotional appeal of its writers, has universally failed as an alternative.

Now, as everyone whose ever used them knows, optimization algorithms require parameters to set the bondaries of the optimization. These are the rules of the game. The limits for certain aspects. We've always had them for optimizations, and we always will. However, as any good optimization programmer will tell you, you don't want to overload the algorithm with useless or ill defined limits. They end up unnecessarily limiting the algorithm, and thereby severly reduce human flourishing. Good programmers that understand their algorithms often have to defend them against stupid parameters ignorantly, but innocently, proposed by bosses with less understanding. This happens in simpler computerized optimization algorithms in the business world all the time.

Enter the communists. They hate the neoliberal/capitalist algorithm. They hate the institutions like corporations and banks. They believe the algorithm is evil and they have the conciet that they -- or perhaps some small group of experts -- can do better. Their goal is to use parameters or regulations as a simple way around ever truly employing the algorithm. Imagine a boss arriving to a simple delivery algorithm and telling the programmer: "First set a parameter for bus #1 to delivery package #2 to destination B at 9:00am. Then set a parameter for bus #2 to deliver package #1 to destination C at.... ". You get the picture. Those parameters are designed to destroy the ability of the algorithm to allocate anything. That's what the communists and socialists do. They use regulations as an end around the algorithm.

Now, admittedly, there is a continuum of decisions as we go from "absolutely necessary boundardy condition" to "absolute end around the entire optimization process", so different people might draw their line of "reasonableness" at different parts of the continuum. However, my life experience has taught me to be very, very suspicious of people steeped in communist/socialist propaganda as they get their hands on gov't power and prepare to "optimize" our allocation of resources.

So, I don't think a polyannish "hey, we use regulations all the time you dummies! Ha ha ha." really speaks to those concerns.