Nothing is going to happen in the next 40 years that would be worse than the changes I would have to made today to try and stop it from happening.
And of course, it is worth pointing out that the vast majority of people would have to make those changes, or I'm just hurting myself for no real benefit.
It is the tragity of the commons, we are all going to pay for our inability to use a shared resource well.
We can however lead by example and stop our own bad habits and at least begin to reduce the parts of the problem we can do something about.
The problem with that plan is that it makes us noncompetitive with the world.
We're harming ourselves and doing nearly nothing to solve the problem.
If we double our cost of energy, this just drives more people into poverty, more manufacturing offshore, and doesn't change anything.
Waiting for global consensus is a cop-out and a stalling tactic more worthy of the playground than parliament.
Impaling yourself on a stake doesn't help either.
It is indeed a good and very fair idea to have a rule that applies equally to all people on Earth, but we don't have any sensible way of making this happen quickly enough to make a difference.
No, we don't have a way to do that... It would take a world government to make that happen, giving the UN tax and enforcement powers. But if you try to do that, you'll start WWIII, which is hardly an improvement over today...
I wouldn't exactly call it justice when the organism arguably responsible for the most environmental damage ever seen on the planet died because he screwed up and accidentally strangled himself.
Yea, but the question is, did he know any of that at the time those inventions were made?
Did he have reason to know?
If not, then you can't blame him for them, plenty of things were invented that way and then changed in the future. Lead paint is another example off the top of my head.
People will have their lives turned upside down either way.
Maybe, but more likely their future children will...
I'm in my 40s, I likely won't live long enough for any of it to matter. People already don't save for retirement, don't plan for the future, and you're asking them to worry about the year 2,100.
The vast majority of the people alive today, won't be, when all the "bad stuff" is supposed to happen.
They may not choose the smaller upheaval now to avoid the larger upheaval later, but that does not mean we should stop trying to convince them.
Convince of them of what? That they need to stop driving, move into small houses, and turn off the AC, or something bad will happen in 50-100 years?
You will never get very far with that augment. You might well be correct, but you aren't going to get anyone to listen if that is your sales pitch.
CO2 traps solar energy. Period. That isn't even the least bit controversial.
That is true.
That you're too stupid and infantile, and frankly just plain cowardly, to admit that vomiting hundreds of millions of years worth of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere in the space of three centuries is irrelevant to the effects of such actions.
You're angry, but this is where you lose people and defeat the point of your argument.
You can be 100% correct and it still doesn't matter unless you can get the majority of the world to agree with you.
Example:
"Statement: The world needs to leave the bulk of the remaining oil, coal, and natural gas in the ground."
I imagine you would agree with the above statement. Fair enough. Now how do you go about making that happen? Without starting WWIII?
It isn't about theory and science, it is about the reality of people's daily lives. You simply cannot ask people to turn their lives upside down because of this. They won't do it. You'll have a revolt on your hands.
So the trick is to figure out what you CAN do and what you CAN'T do, when it comes to real people and real lives.
In truth? I think we passed the point of no-return decades ago. This problem had to be addressed back in the 70s, we're probably far too late to stop it now, sad to say.
Note: That doesn't mean we should do nothing. Of course we should. I'm all for moving towards a carbon reduced future with more wind and solar and less oil/coal/natural gas. It will help, it just won't be enough.
So don't let them. Don't let capital leave the country. Establish a border between participating and non-participating countries and assing a heavy tariff for trade moving across it.
That sounds nice, but it really would just lead to war...
That being said, the real point of it is to show that people can get even this far, it is a first step towards working together for the future, not the final lap.
The idea is to start here and work towards better agreements in the future. Without the first one, you have nothing.
The risk of millions dying because of temperature increase* is so great that you are willing to kill tens of millions through energy poverty in pursuit of a goal that is politically and economically unachievable
That is a broad, sweeping statement that ignores all middle ground.
We already have millions of people dying in poverty, and that will get worse if we do nothing.
That being said, the changes being asked for by the more extreme environmentalists would indeed be worse than the cure, which is why no one is taking them seriously.
The real question is, do you want to stop at 3 or 4 C, or go to 7 or 8 C? Can we find a balance where we push towards better environmental options without upsetting the apple cart in the process? I think so, the trick is to be a voice of reason and middle ground and not demand either extreme.
We are still a decade or two away from the desired result, but I believe this is continuing to shift the default position from "Climate Change is BS", to "it exists, but nothing we can do", to " We can solve this".
You would have to define "solve this"...
Can we hold the temp increase to under 2 C? No, that ship has sailed. Even if we stopped all CO2 tomorrow that likely wouldn't happen, the effect takes a long time from the cause, and the cause has already happened.
Can we stop it from 3 C? Maybe, if EVERY nation does what they are supposed to under this agreement, which I doubt will happen. I think 3 C will be passed by 2100, the question is, will we hit 4 C?
Even if it's too late for 2 C, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try reducing CO2. 5 C is better than 8 C.
I agree... I used to be a climate change skeptic, but after review of the information, the risk is just too great that we are moving things along too quickly.
But the OP is right, 2 C has been lost, they just don't want to say it yet. However, you're right, we should do something, and frankly after looking past the headlines, the Paris deal isn't actually that bad.
Just get everyone to agree on the precise boundary of what "free trade" is. Can you buy animals? Can you buy water rights? Can you own ideas? Writing? People? What about land? What if I just have enough guns?
Your notions of property rights might seem obvious to you, but not everyone agrees with you. We, as a community, must come to a consensus. One man's free trade is another man's anarchy, and another's totalitarianism.
They could make a killing selling support for a Linux distribution . Lots of IT people are locked into Microsoft as a vendor and this would give them a good option.
That is an interesting point of view...
Would I pay $100 for a "Microsoft-supported" copy of Linux that they provided certified updates for and driver support for?
I can make contracts whith whom ever I want and Exchange what ever I want for what ever I want unless the "goods" are explicitely illegal like drugs, weapons etc.
Actually, that statement isn't true...
Try buying and selling 100 cars at once without a licence and see how well that works out. Most states have laws that say if you do more than X number of cars, you must have a dealer's license.
I make the point only to say that you can't actually make any contracts you want, with whomever you want, for anything you want (yes, I know you excluded drugs, weapons, etc.).
Ofc. such a law could be made for BitCoins... legal enforceable for US citicens in the US. But elsewhere?
No, of course not. US Law applies in the US (mostly). But we have a lot of friends and a lot of clout in the world.
If the US passed a law that said that any central bank that wants to do business with the US Federal Reserve Bank must ban the use of Bitcoins, what do you think would happen?
Does France want to allow Bitcoin so badly that they would decide to break ties with the US Federal Reserve?
I doubt it.
And frankly, that issue aside, I doubt many of the EU nations want Bitcoin to take off either, it isn't in a government's interest to lose control over the currency its citizens use.
So those are the two major things backing the dollar - the fact that people will need dollars to pay taxes, and government's need to protect their ability to continue borrowing.
You're overlooking something...
The US economy, that is really what backs the US dollar. Well, that, and the US military, our allies, and various agreements we have around the world...
We have printed over 4 trillion dollars since 2008, but the world seems to have absorbed it, which I'm actually surprised about, but given issues in other economies, it may have simply balanced out.
The Fed's books are likely very ugly, but as long as the US economy continues to function, it probably doesn't matter. At the end of the day, the US has huge natural resources, we still actually make a ton of stuff, and we have the most powerful military in the world.
China is rising, and we're wise not to speak to them the same way we speak to the Russians, who are last century's news (even if Putin doesn't want to hear it).
In the 21st Century, it is going to be China and the US, and then everyone else.
The concept of centralised control over the generation, storage and transmission of tokens of value is unravelling faster than the centralised control and distribution of information and knowledge has.
While that sounds nice, it also would not be hard for the government to regulate, or outlaw the use of Bitcoins.
Oh sure, criminals could still use them, but if you can't use them at any legal reputable merchant, then they aren't going anywhere.
It is much more likely we'll see digital cash issued by governments before Bitcoin or any other digital currency gets used by anything other than the extreme fringe of society. And there are reasonable reasons for this to happen.
However it is inevitable that in near future we will have a globaly accepted and supported digital currency.
"Inevitable" and "near future" are not likely to be compatible.
Keep in mind that such currencies are acceptable only at the whim of the government, if you honestly think that Bitcoin will challenge US Dollars without laws getting passed to affect it, I've got a bridge to sell you.
That mistake has been made by many people over the years...
Syria has used advanced weapons to try and crush the rebels and hasn't done so for 4 years.
Russia couldn't do it in the 80s in Afghanistan, we couldn't do it in the 70s in Vietnam.
Never understimate citizen soldiers willing to do whatever it takes to defend their homes.
After all, the British Army was the most powerful in the world in 1776, and few people in the world gave those silly upstart Americans any odds of winning, yet win they did.
The US Army wouldn't stay in one piece either if turned against the people, parts would break off. Even if it was intact, the US Army has 8,000 tanks. You could put all 8,000 of them in LA and drive around for an hour and not see one.
You could send the entire US Army into LA and it might get lost among the 18 million people.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing is going to happen in the next 40 years that would be worse than the changes I would have to made today to try and stop it from happening.
And of course, it is worth pointing out that the vast majority of people would have to make those changes, or I'm just hurting myself for no real benefit.
It is the tragity of the commons, we are all going to pay for our inability to use a shared resource well.
Not mitigating climate change is likely to have a major impact on future generations lives, not mine.
Nothing is going to happen in the next 40 years that would be worse than my turning off the AC today and giving up my vehicle.
The arguments that are being made are largely theoretical and depend on a logical and rational society, we have neither of those.
The experts are not wrong, but their models do not take into account human behavior.
The changes that would have to be made to effectively mitigate climate change are not changes that humans will make or accept.
So adaptation becomes the order of the day.
Fair enough, I didn't know that since I rarely RTFA...
Then he got what he deserved...
I'm not selfish. I believe that mitigating climate change will have minimal impact on my 1st world life
What if you're wrong about that?
I believe that mitigating climate change will have a major impact on my 1st world life.
Thus the problem.
We can however lead by example and stop our own bad habits and at least begin to reduce the parts of the problem we can do something about.
The problem with that plan is that it makes us noncompetitive with the world.
We're harming ourselves and doing nearly nothing to solve the problem.
If we double our cost of energy, this just drives more people into poverty, more manufacturing offshore, and doesn't change anything.
Waiting for global consensus is a cop-out and a stalling tactic more worthy of the playground than parliament.
Impaling yourself on a stake doesn't help either.
It is indeed a good and very fair idea to have a rule that applies equally to all people on Earth, but we don't have any sensible way of making this happen quickly enough to make a difference.
No, we don't have a way to do that... It would take a world government to make that happen, giving the UN tax and enforcement powers. But if you try to do that, you'll start WWIII, which is hardly an improvement over today...
I wouldn't exactly call it justice when the organism arguably responsible for the most environmental damage ever seen on the planet died because he screwed up and accidentally strangled himself.
Yea, but the question is, did he know any of that at the time those inventions were made?
Did he have reason to know?
If not, then you can't blame him for them, plenty of things were invented that way and then changed in the future. Lead paint is another example off the top of my head.
People will have their lives turned upside down either way.
Maybe, but more likely their future children will...
I'm in my 40s, I likely won't live long enough for any of it to matter. People already don't save for retirement, don't plan for the future, and you're asking them to worry about the year 2,100.
The vast majority of the people alive today, won't be, when all the "bad stuff" is supposed to happen.
They may not choose the smaller upheaval now to avoid the larger upheaval later, but that does not mean we should stop trying to convince them.
Convince of them of what? That they need to stop driving, move into small houses, and turn off the AC, or something bad will happen in 50-100 years?
You will never get very far with that augment. You might well be correct, but you aren't going to get anyone to listen if that is your sales pitch.
The debate isn't over whether the climate will change, it is if the mitigation is worse than the problem.
Sadly I think very few people are even having that debate yet...
And when they do, will they consider all the middle grounds in between doing nothing and everything?
Mitigation isn't an all-or-nothing thing.
CO2 traps solar energy. Period. That isn't even the least bit controversial.
That is true.
That you're too stupid and infantile, and frankly just plain cowardly, to admit that vomiting hundreds of millions of years worth of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere in the space of three centuries is irrelevant to the effects of such actions.
You're angry, but this is where you lose people and defeat the point of your argument.
You can be 100% correct and it still doesn't matter unless you can get the majority of the world to agree with you.
Example:
"Statement: The world needs to leave the bulk of the remaining oil, coal, and natural gas in the ground."
I imagine you would agree with the above statement. Fair enough. Now how do you go about making that happen? Without starting WWIII?
It isn't about theory and science, it is about the reality of people's daily lives. You simply cannot ask people to turn their lives upside down because of this. They won't do it. You'll have a revolt on your hands.
So the trick is to figure out what you CAN do and what you CAN'T do, when it comes to real people and real lives.
In truth? I think we passed the point of no-return decades ago. This problem had to be addressed back in the 70s, we're probably far too late to stop it now, sad to say.
Note: That doesn't mean we should do nothing. Of course we should. I'm all for moving towards a carbon reduced future with more wind and solar and less oil/coal/natural gas. It will help, it just won't be enough.
So don't let them. Don't let capital leave the country. Establish a border between participating and non-participating countries and assing a heavy tariff for trade moving across it.
That sounds nice, but it really would just lead to war...
Why do you think Japan bombed Pearl Harbor?
Hrmmm... isn't that kinda like saying, "why should I stop shitting on the pavement, other people do it?". Someone has to make a start!
Yes, but that start has to be enforcement, not random actions.
If 500 people take a dump in the swimming pool, and you don't, the pool is still full of crap.
If even HALF the people stop doing it, the pool is STILL full of crap.
You have to be able to have a rule that says NO ONE can take a dump in the pool, or none of it matters.
This isn't a treaty, it is an expensive photo-op.
That being said, the real point of it is to show that people can get even this far, it is a first step towards working together for the future, not the final lap.
The idea is to start here and work towards better agreements in the future. Without the first one, you have nothing.
Delaying it by 800 years would require a lot more than the fringe of society to "go green". It would require more than half of it to do so.
The risk of millions dying because of temperature increase* is so great that you are willing to kill tens of millions through energy poverty in pursuit of a goal that is politically and economically unachievable
That is a broad, sweeping statement that ignores all middle ground.
We already have millions of people dying in poverty, and that will get worse if we do nothing.
That being said, the changes being asked for by the more extreme environmentalists would indeed be worse than the cure, which is why no one is taking them seriously.
The real question is, do you want to stop at 3 or 4 C, or go to 7 or 8 C? Can we find a balance where we push towards better environmental options without upsetting the apple cart in the process? I think so, the trick is to be a voice of reason and middle ground and not demand either extreme.
We are still a decade or two away from the desired result, but I believe this is continuing to shift the default position from "Climate Change is BS", to "it exists, but nothing we can do", to " We can solve this".
You would have to define "solve this"...
Can we hold the temp increase to under 2 C? No, that ship has sailed. Even if we stopped all CO2 tomorrow that likely wouldn't happen, the effect takes a long time from the cause, and the cause has already happened.
Can we stop it from 3 C? Maybe, if EVERY nation does what they are supposed to under this agreement, which I doubt will happen. I think 3 C will be passed by 2100, the question is, will we hit 4 C?
Even if it's too late for 2 C, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try reducing CO2. 5 C is better than 8 C.
I agree... I used to be a climate change skeptic, but after review of the information, the risk is just too great that we are moving things along too quickly.
But the OP is right, 2 C has been lost, they just don't want to say it yet. However, you're right, we should do something, and frankly after looking past the headlines, the Paris deal isn't actually that bad.
Just get everyone to agree on the precise boundary of what "free trade" is. Can you buy animals? Can you buy water rights? Can you own ideas? Writing? People? What about land? What if I just have enough guns?
Your notions of property rights might seem obvious to you, but not everyone agrees with you. We, as a community, must come to a consensus. One man's free trade is another man's anarchy, and another's totalitarianism.
^ Why did you post AC? That is spot on the money.
They could make a killing selling support for a Linux distribution . Lots of IT people are locked into Microsoft as a vendor and this would give them a good option.
That is an interesting point of view...
Would I pay $100 for a "Microsoft-supported" copy of Linux that they provided certified updates for and driver support for?
Yes, I probably would.
I can make contracts whith whom ever I want and Exchange what ever I want for what ever I want unless the "goods" are explicitely illegal like drugs, weapons etc.
Actually, that statement isn't true...
Try buying and selling 100 cars at once without a licence and see how well that works out. Most states have laws that say if you do more than X number of cars, you must have a dealer's license.
I make the point only to say that you can't actually make any contracts you want, with whomever you want, for anything you want (yes, I know you excluded drugs, weapons, etc.).
Ofc. such a law could be made for BitCoins ... legal enforceable for US citicens in the US. But elsewhere?
No, of course not. US Law applies in the US (mostly). But we have a lot of friends and a lot of clout in the world.
If the US passed a law that said that any central bank that wants to do business with the US Federal Reserve Bank must ban the use of Bitcoins, what do you think would happen?
Does France want to allow Bitcoin so badly that they would decide to break ties with the US Federal Reserve?
I doubt it.
And frankly, that issue aside, I doubt many of the EU nations want Bitcoin to take off either, it isn't in a government's interest to lose control over the currency its citizens use.
While that is a fair point, this is not a government mandated system installed in secret in all cars.
This is a consumer selected option in a car that they knew about.
Further, when you drive on public roads, you have to accept that you are not the only person in the world.
As to your point, when it comes to your home, I would tend to lean far more in your direction. A person should be, more or less, secure in their home.
But there are exceptions there too, such as child abuse. CPS may not be perfect, but they exist for a reason.
So those are the two major things backing the dollar - the fact that people will need dollars to pay taxes, and government's need to protect their ability to continue borrowing.
You're overlooking something...
The US economy, that is really what backs the US dollar. Well, that, and the US military, our allies, and various agreements we have around the world...
We have printed over 4 trillion dollars since 2008, but the world seems to have absorbed it, which I'm actually surprised about, but given issues in other economies, it may have simply balanced out.
The Fed's books are likely very ugly, but as long as the US economy continues to function, it probably doesn't matter. At the end of the day, the US has huge natural resources, we still actually make a ton of stuff, and we have the most powerful military in the world.
China is rising, and we're wise not to speak to them the same way we speak to the Russians, who are last century's news (even if Putin doesn't want to hear it).
In the 21st Century, it is going to be China and the US, and then everyone else.
The concept of centralised control over the generation, storage and transmission of tokens of value is unravelling faster than the centralised control and distribution of information and knowledge has.
While that sounds nice, it also would not be hard for the government to regulate, or outlaw the use of Bitcoins.
Oh sure, criminals could still use them, but if you can't use them at any legal reputable merchant, then they aren't going anywhere.
It is much more likely we'll see digital cash issued by governments before Bitcoin or any other digital currency gets used by anything other than the extreme fringe of society. And there are reasonable reasons for this to happen.
However it is inevitable that in near future we will have a globaly accepted and supported digital currency.
"Inevitable" and "near future" are not likely to be compatible.
Keep in mind that such currencies are acceptable only at the whim of the government, if you honestly think that Bitcoin will challenge US Dollars without laws getting passed to affect it, I've got a bridge to sell you.
While that is true, it really doesn't apply in any respect...
The frequency of such an event happening has nothing to do with wanting to catch the person responsible for doing it...
That mistake has been made by many people over the years...
Syria has used advanced weapons to try and crush the rebels and hasn't done so for 4 years.
Russia couldn't do it in the 80s in Afghanistan, we couldn't do it in the 70s in Vietnam.
Never understimate citizen soldiers willing to do whatever it takes to defend their homes.
After all, the British Army was the most powerful in the world in 1776, and few people in the world gave those silly upstart Americans any odds of winning, yet win they did.
The US Army wouldn't stay in one piece either if turned against the people, parts would break off. Even if it was intact, the US Army has 8,000 tanks. You could put all 8,000 of them in LA and drive around for an hour and not see one.
You could send the entire US Army into LA and it might get lost among the 18 million people.