It's not ironic at all that the "green new deal" would be a jobs program, given that the "new deal" was a jobs program.

But your argument is a bit of a straw man -- "do all things" refers to doing all things possible to deal with climate change, i.e. use new technologies that pollute less, engage in direct mitigation (like planting trees), and reducing emissions by changing consumption.

It doesn't necessarily mean implementing the green new deal as proposed, as one could possibly accomplish similar effects with a different set of measures.

But of course, your argument that carbon sequestration and nuclear energy will in effect magically solve this problem without the need for any changes in consumption or pricing effectively is arguing that we should, as a species, continue on our destructive path, because somebody else will come along and just fix the problem for us.

Do you have a source for Global Climate Strike rejecting a carbon price? The movement here in Germany seems to be generally in favor, since the experts are generally in favor and FFF for example explicitly asks politicians to finally listen to the experts.

Wrt cheap nuclear solving climate change: Nuclear is currently one of the most expensive forms of energy. How do you propose we make it cheap enough so that we can essentially waste the energy for unburning coal we could have left in the ground by a more aggressive buildout of renewables paired with improving energy efficiency?

> Nuclear is currently one of the most expensive forms of energy.

You'd better get yourself familiar with facts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_inve...

If talking about costs, wouldn't LCOE be a better indicator? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

From the link that you have provided: > The US Energy Information Administration has recommended that levelized costs of non-dispatchable sources such as wind or solar may be better compared to the avoided energy cost rather than to the LCOE of dispatchable sources such as fossil fuels or geothermal.

Since nuclear reactors are dispatchable by nature (through the use of control rods), the LCOE cannot be an accurate indicator.

Nuclear reactors are dispatchable in theory, but it's not economical in practice. One nice thing about nuclear reactors is that they can run more or less wide open for long periods of time. But the flip side of that is that the operational cost isn't driven by fuel consumption. It costs about the same to operate a reactor whether you run it at 100% capacity or 10% capacity.

So the financial models for reactors are built around selling electricity at a certain price and a certain capacity for several decades, maybe as long as 50 years. Most of the cost is up-front, which makes it very capital-sensitive. And capital is risk-sensitive, so unpredictability in energy prices and the risk of less expensive alternatives appearing (which is exactly what has happened over the past decade, with three different sources coming it at half the price of nuclear) raises the risk, which makes the capital much more expensive, which makes the reactor that much more expensive, which raises the price targets they need to hit, and thus... at a certain point, it makes zero economic sense to build reactors. It doesn't even make sense to keep running reactors we already have, which is why many are shutting down years ahead of their official end-of-life plans (and causing hundreds of millions, maybe billions, in sunk cost, which has an impact on risk...)

Dispatchability means NOTHING. There's a reactor in Iowa that's getting closed because it lost key industrial customers to cheaper wind. It can't be operated profitably at 50% power.

But government already has a hand in influencing private behavior by regulating industries. Think of what would change if American farmers were no longer incentivized to produce corn, soy, and dairy. Or if gas prices reflected the full monetary and ecological cost of oil.

What have proposals about a "green new deal" got to do with the Soviet Union?

Because "socialism" and how ingrained the effects of the red scare still are

Your statements are at odds with observable reality. https://globalclimatestrike.net/#

Can you share your sources of information?

I agree with the "we won't do all the things" thesis, and that it's probably wise to acknowledge that and plan accordingly around that self-knowledge.

Almost everything else in the comment after that seems a bit off-kilter to me:

> The Green New Deal has turned into a jobs program

"turned into"? Are you familiar with the "New Deal" of historical note that it's deriving the very name from? It's always been a jobs program. That's part of the point.

> Soviet Union

As sibling commenters have already pointed out, I don't see how this comparison was particularly well-connected or topical.

> Increasing middle class prosperity is inherently incompatible with reducing carbon output.

No?

> The Green New Deal, together with the climate strikes have become vehicles for socialist ideology.

I don't disagree with that; what's your point, though? Are you trying to run with the association that "socialism=bad"?

I'm writing you from fairly-darn-Socialist (and fairly-darn-functional) Norway, so I'm not picking up.

> despite experts broadly agreeing that we need things like carbon taxes, the Global Climate Strike platform categorically rejects market mechanisms to address climate change.

Almost every single person I've talked to who has participated in or associated with the climate strikes has been an advocate for carbon taxes.

So, no. Those people and platforms do not categorically reject market mechanisms. In fact those that I've talked to seem to be essentially _on your side_.

> we can do it without world government

I'm sure that's true, but also, I'm not sure where there's been a suggestion of "world government" that you seem to be responding negatively to. Everything you've mentioned in your own comment is single-government internal proposals, or, groups of people advocating for general directions within their own local governments.

So in total: while I think you and I would agree in many many details about how to plan reactions to climate change, can I council you to polish your message to _focus on that_ and skip the world-socialist-government-conspiracy tinge? It's just not necessary. It seems to be making you believe you disagree with a bunch of people who... by and large agree with you, and are in fact interested in (and pursuing) market-oriented solution paths.

> I don't disagree with that; what's your point, though? Are you trying to run with the association that "socialism=bad"?

> I'm writing you from fairly-darn-Socialist (and fairly-darn-functional) Norway, so I'm not picking up.

Socialism is bad, but Norway is not socialist. Norway is a market economy with a large welfare state. https://www.heritage.org/index/country/norway. The two things are completely different.

Nearly all the countries that call themselves "democratic socialist" are in fact capitalist, with strong welfare states. Some, like Denmark and Sweden, and to a lesser extent Norway, are among the freest markets in the world. The lynchpin of the "Nordic model" is not socialism, but free markets that generate a large surplus, which is then taxed to provide a strong welfare system. Countries like Sweden have high taxes on individuals, even as they aggressively pursue deregulation and cut corporate taxes.

The Nordic model is a strong contrast from the "New Deal" which was strongly anti-market. It was built on government regulation of the economy, price controls, nationalization of industries, etc. It was an economy where the government decided how much it should cost for a flight from New York to LA. The ends might have been similar to Nordic social democracy (higher social welfare), but the means were wholly different.

Climate justice folks are advocating a return to the New Deal, not a turn to Nordic market-oriented welfare states.

The "Green New Deal" is by its terms about a government takeover of the economy: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aocs-top-aide-admits-green-...

> It goes on to say that “a new national social, industrial and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal”

See also: https://demandclimatejustice.org

> In mitigation and adaptation (“maladaptation”) such as offsets and carbon trading, marketbased approaches to forests (REDD) and agriculture (“Climate Smart”), soil and water, large-scale geo-engineering, and techno-fixes, nuclear energy, mega hydro dams, agro-fuels, “clean” coal, GMOs, the waste to energy incineration industry, large-scale “re-modeling”;

Also: https://www.peoplesdemands.org (referenced from the Global Climate Strike website)

> 5. Facilitate and support non-market approaches to climate action.

> we must take immediate action, including policies for stopping all new fossil fuel projects, drastically scaling up finance and technology transfer from rich countries to the global South, and eliminating dangerous distractions like carbon market schemes.

> to reject false solutions like carbon markets, bioenergy and techno-fixes

> Nearly all the countries that call themselves "democratic socialist" are in fact capitalist, with strong welfare states.

Well, then, there you go: that's the meaning of the word, then. Or at least it certainly is to a lot of people.

I think we again don't much disagree, other than in a very surface level about the words. I go out for a beer with some Norwegians, and they self-describe to me as having ideals they call "socialist", because they're ideals around being social and building a society together, and that's what the word means to them. I accept this definition. Maybe you've got a different one in mind; words are tricky like that.

I similarly don't know what to tell you about the utility of taking the precise wording of websites as the ultimate truth of anything. Did every person in every klimastreik around the world read those two websites and sign off total agreement on every detail they proclaimed? Probably not.

I offered anecdata that many people on the ground, even around those causes, are very positive to carbon taxes or other forms of market-aware schemes to make a difference. It is, of course, anecdata. You can take it as a note of hope, perhaps? Or, not. Up to you.

Regardless of what you call Norway’s system, the animating principles behind the Green New Deal and the “climate justice” movement are not that. If you want to call Norway “socialist” so be it, but then you need a new name for something like the Green New Deal’s “wartime mobilization” and “fundamental change” of the economy. (Calling it “Marxism” seems over the top. Which is why I think it’s better to call that what it is—socialism, and more accurately describe the Nordic model as welfare-capitalism.)

And while not everyone who participated in climate strikes subscribes to the full range of ideas within the umbrella of “climate justice” it’s hard to deny the influence of the radical left on the movement as a whole: https://peoplesclimate.org/platform (look at the big list of members, including mainstream organizations like Sierra Club). It’s kind of like being a Republican in the current US political climate because you believe in a balanced budget. It may well be true that many republicans believe in fiscal responsibility. But the party has its own dynamic overall, and it’s not rooted in fiscal conservatism.

Climate justice leaders are not speaking the language of market-oriented Democratic “socialism.” They’re invoking the language of Marxists. They’re taking the failed ideas of big-S socialism, which countries like Norway rejected in the 1980s and 1990s, and are trying to rebrand them with climate change as the motivating principle. And the end result will be devastating. Those ideas were consistently a disaster throughout the 20th century, and they wasn’t work any better the next time around.

So let's pick this apart:

- "The authoritarian infrastructure will be built"

I'd argue it already has been built, by Google, NSA et al. Also, I fail to see why these "high levels of government regulation" would be bad, since we've tried the alternative and it obviously doesn't work..

- "The Green New Deal has turned into a jobs program."

I'm no american, but has this been put into law already?

- "the Soviet Union was immensely energy inefficient and polluting"

I do hear that from time to time but no one can provide any sources for this claim. Can you? Not planning on protecting the ol' USSR, but still seems insincere to just throw this around without attribution.

- "Increasing middle class prosperity is inherently incompatible with reducing carbon output."

That's a pretty flat statement. Why would this be so?

- "the Global Climate Strike platform categorically rejects market mechanisms to address climate change."

We tried this, it hasn't worked (so far). Why should we continue with this measure instead of other approaches?

- "Carbon capture and cheap nuclear power"

both of which do not exist. See my comment about LCOE and the link below for cheap nuclear power. With regards to carbon capture, we have some pilot plants but this technology (or rather mix of technologies) is nowhere near ready for the massive scale of deployment we'd need already. That's why the focus is on political solutions imo.