You cannot have sudden cliff-edges in policies (like banning the sale of new ICE vehicles) that would put thousands, if not millions of people out of jobs.
You need to send signals like this to the market well in advance so they can invest and plan ahead.
Some examples:
- Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends.
- Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry.
- Incentivize the installation of wind or other renewable energies. Energies with no CO2 emissions, like nuclear, should be encouraged.
- Stop getting oil from the northern sea. Leave it underground.
> - Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry.
And just like that, you've been voted straight out of office. Better luck next life connecting to the electorate.
You can't do those things. Humanity is a distributed consensus problem. Climate change presents an interesting change in the fitness landscape topology ahead.
Which, by the way, has been signaled to everyone for decades now. Just our political processes have not allowed those signals to reach "the economy" and we seem to be unable to act on anything that isn't felt by the economy. Which, I might add, is not a god-given fact, but rather a political choice.
Anyway, we will have a cliff. And it will have been announced. And people will suffer when our consensus finding process drives us all over this cliff.
That's part of the problem. The general public have been hearing it for decades now, and are probably just sick and tired of hearing about it. As far back as I can remember, it's been nothing but "Nuclear weapons are gonna kill us all" "Acid rain is gonna kill us all!" "Smog is gonna kill us all!" "Drugs and crime are gonna kill us all" "The ozone hole is gonna kill us all!" "Global warming is gonna kill us all!" "Terrorism is gonna kill us all" "Climate change is gonna kill us all!" Yet, here we are, still going on towards these various cliffs. I can at least put myself in the general public's shoes for a bit and empathize with their crisis fatigue. Economic crises are felt immediately--you lose your job. It's no surprise that it's politically easier to favor economics over other crises that are perpetually happening Real Soon Now.
These four (IMHO) do actually pose clear and present dangers to human health & wellbeing at scale:
* Nuclear Weapons
* Smog
* Ozone
* Global Warming / Climate Change
They were identified as risks and (except for Ozone, which was actually tackled and is improving to my knowlege) continue to be shown as risks. Or rather, by now, as actually doing harm.
On the other hand, these two here were never the big catastrophes that they were made out to be, yet were (and are!) continually overblown.
* Drugs & Crime
* Terrorism
Neither of them ever had the existential threat potential that the other group had. Not-so-incidentally, the proposed "solutions" to these problems were always...
* highly profitable for certain industries
* useful for conservative re-elections
* based in little to no fact
* often (predictably) counter-productive.
Bottom line: if we had actually put time and money into existing, working solutions to measurable, actual problems, we would have been perfectly capable to do so. We did it for Ozone, we could have done it again. We didn't.
Instead, we put countless dollars and lives into "solving" problems that were pretty much caused by their "solutions", and mostly because that was in the best interest of very few people.
If people are tired of anything, I hope/suspect that they are tired of a political/economic system that predictably ended up producing this mess.
This right here is the achilles heal of free market theory.
- actually getting rules implemented and enforced (political suicide by regulators - had an example of that in my own country just a couple months ago, made a mess in the government, the new rules didn't pass in parliament, governing party lost 10 pp in polls anyway)
- very irregular period of convergence from old rules to new (societal turmoil guaranteed, political consequences very likely) - see thatcher's closure of British coal mines for a good example
- the market as such will correct itself but is entirely unconcerned with the welfare of human beings in the meantime, and will continue to be unconcerned with it afterwards.
How?
- You provide incentives for attractive alternatives. - You invest in those alternatives and you invest in contextual drivers that make the transition more appealing. For instance, you provide an integrated plans for urban planning that cover different concerns. - You emphasize the benefits of those alternatives on an individual level. - You make a compelling narrative why the status quo is holding the individual back. - You diversify your narrative to to identify / appeal with as many different social groups as you have to.
That's just the content. Then there's also your political position. Whether your part of a power elite, or your not, you still need tactics to garner support, whether you like it or not. Alinsky's 12 rules for radicals, for instance, is a classic example in that regard.
The automative industry or the meat industry didn't just happen simply because individual consumers out of their own accord. They also happened because consumers where incentivized to buy in a 'modern' lifestyle with a heavy focus on cheap and convenience during the 20th century as opposed to more traditional, localized ways of living; and because those industries that supported this cultural shift were directly and indirectly subsidized. For instance, cities got covered in highway infrastructure in the 1950's and 1960's paid for through public funding and public policy making.
Public governance is about figuring out feedback loops in social, economical and political dynamics and finding ways to bend them towards your agenda.
Banning cars in city centers is already happening in European cities. The usual argument is to make living in the city more comfortable or make the city more attractive for commerce driven by regional or international tourism (both of which having their own drawbacks and tensions).
As soon as they got richer they could do what they dreamed of.
It's like cars, really. People used to walk. Not because it was nice and healthy but because they had no choice. Then bikes and public transport werean improvement, but really people do prefer the comfort and freedom of driving their own cars and when that became possible and affordable they did not need much convincing to jump at the opportunity.
Beware of value attribution and hindsight bias.
First, historic cuisines and diets evolved throughout history, and differed greatly depending by geographic location. Beware of generalizing particular historic contexts. You can't reliably extrapolate the dietary patterns of European serfs - as explained by their particular socio-economic context - and apply that the Mayan culture during the Classic period (same time frame 200-900 AD).
Second, the "they were too poor" argument only carries meaning in concrete socio-economic contexts. Even then, do note that the modern liberal conceptual framework of poor and rich didn't exist in earlier times. This even holds up today. It's tenuous claim to assume that, for instance, native cultures perceive themselves as "poor". If they do see themselves as "poor" today, that's always in reference to the dominant modern economic model based on western liberal enlightenment values and principles which has impacted their culture as an external factor.
> People used to walk. Not because it was nice and healthy but because they had no choice.
They didn't have a choice, but that doesn't say anything about how people perceived relying on muscle power across history, culture and geographical location.
Just 20 years ago, nobody considered the absence of social media and smartphones as a fundamental lacking in life. That's totally different today. For a short while, it was a choice, today, access to digital technology is a hard requirement in order to be able to participate in modern industrialized society. This is an example of how a feedback loop was created between availability and demand creating an artificial need. The same is true for most modern conveniences.
I'm deeply happy that I don't have to live a relatively short life working land, foraging or hunting game. But at the same time, I'm very much aware that's a hindsight bias and I'm very much aware that most modern conveniences aren't a prerequisite for the survival of humanity. As it stands, many of those modern conveniences have contributed to the existential threat which is Climate Change.
It's not. It's a general observation that holds true in many place, certainly Europe (and thus the West in general) and, say, China. The amount of meat eaten was constrained by the value of animals and most people simply could not afford to eat more meat than they did.
Likewise for cars. It seems to be an ideological take to claim that people do not prefer comfort and ease of transport...
Friendly reminder that Beijing has been implementing exactly that, then later a variant of that, since 2008.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_space_rationing_in_Beijin...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_restriction_in_S%C3%...
What cost have you chosen to bear ? Do you exclusively use public transport ? Have you banned planes from your life ? Home delivery (the last mile is the one that creates the more pollution) ? What share of your revenue do you give to plant trees ?
> You need to send signals like this to the market well in advance so they can invest and plan ahead.
We are talking about billion dollars of investment at stake. You need years to train engineers, develop new technologies, ...
The role of politics is not only to implement policies but also to signal where we are heading so that a decentralized solution can be achieved.
One thing is for real, every one of us could be doing more. It is not enough to just delegate this problem to someone else, politician or otherwise.
I know that it is very hard to change habits, more so when you are not seeing the outcome. But in the end it is just about doing what you believe is fixing the problem, not delegating.
Somehow I see a finger pointed at me, telling me to do more. The finger should be pointed at each and one of us, telling us to do more, and vote better.
Good luck I guess?
What I've seen happening here in the UK is that a lot of people leave their cars in a park & ride or close to a train station then shuttle in, which I guess is a step forward, but a lot are still driving all the way.
Most people have no alternative at the moment so hitting cars can only lead to unrest.
An example is France's attempt to heavily tax diesel, which partly led to the yellow vest protests because people have no choice at the moment.
Put a good, viable alternative in place then you can make the move against ICE/cars in general.
Then rich people just buy two cars. This increases carbon emissions.
Also, people are pissed off, so the government loses the next election.
> Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry
The way to go would be to tax carbon emissions, and lay down a timetable where they taxes will get larger over time; then everyone has big incentives to change behaviour.
I am happy to admit this is a complex issue, one that needs a global solution, an expensive one, maybe an unsolvable one.
But we also have to admit that so far no action has been taken. And this isn't action either.
That's what I'm asking for here: let's all be honest for this thread and admit this is worthless and we're running out of time and we either need to make hard choices OR admit we're not going to fix it...
We need to tax pollution the amount it costs to clean up that pollution, that's all. You can fly as much as you want if you pay the costs.
I suggest a £1 tax on non EV cars, that doubles each month
If new personal cars are EV only by 2030 then by 2025 most manufacturers will have changed most of their product line, by 2029 virtually all will have changed virtually all.
Not to cast any doubt on the horrible terrible disasters that the global warming will surely bring, but the UK is not Florida, so maybe they did some location-centric math and found that specifically for them it's not life or death?
It's also worth pointing out that the 'ban' doesn't ban the sale of all ICE cars - hybrids are still going to be available for sale until at least 2035.
from that article: "Britain should follow the example of Lombardy, a heavily-industrialised region in northern Italy, which is to ban the sale of fossil-fuel powered cars from 1 January 2005"
Q: Did Lombardy really enact that ban in 2005? What happened as a result?
Brexit has entered the chat
But yea I can get a blue passport now. What a great thing to waste years on.
As to “nothing did need to change” that quite clearly wasn’t the case or a winning vote for leaving wouldn’t be remotely possible. In any well supported political view there is some truth to be found in its suggestions and/or grievances, whether it’s ultimately misguided or not.
It’s easy to say nothing will change if it doesn’t affect you. I don’t understand why a trade agreement with a few extra bits of international legislation was put to a general public referendum. It’s got nothing to do with the average joe on the street, the general public has no understanding of this.
The WTO's goal is to reduce trade friction, hence it puts ceilings on duties. The UK (now) sets its own taxes, duties and restrictions, being part of the WTO does not affect that. As a service dominated economy it's in the UK's interests to lower protective barriers - setting tariffs to zero would be of a net benefit to the UK. You'll note that the UK is a founding member of the WTO, its trade either side of the deadline will not violate any WTO protocol. Standards (ironically) will also be entirely in alignment with the EU. Processes will not change either as there already exist processes for handling non-EU trade.
The places where import taxes, duties and restrictions will change is exports into the EU, hence the desire for a trade agreement.
> It’s impossible to plan for because it can all change at the last minute.
No physical processes will change. Numbers on a spreadsheet may do.
> It’s easy to say nothing will change if it doesn’t affect you.
Yet you argue that people shouldn't have been allowed a say, and it will force you to argue that it doesn't affect most people while trying to maintain that an unimaginable doom will be brought on <checks notes> the entire UK population.
Pick one or the other but to maintain both is absurd.
> I don’t understand why a trade agreement with a few extra bits of international legislation
Those "few extra bits of international legislation" include massive changes to the UK constitution. The same lament could be said about entering into the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum (or, even better, a single issue general election), among many other changes that led to a vote where people got to show their frustration about not being consulted or even listened to previously.
> was put to a general public referendum
It was put to a referendum because those in power thought it would kill the thing dead, and the alternative was seeing a political party (UKIP) get seats in Westminster, if not usurp one of the major parties. It was only a combination of electoral fraud (in Farage's case) and the first past the post system (in the party's case) that kept them out of Westminster, that wouldn't have occured again, as the referendum result shows.
> It’s got nothing to do with the average joe on the street
Again, please, be serious.
> the general public has no understanding of this.
The choice is simple, give up sovereignty for access to a large trade bloc. That's not hard for anyone with an IQ above 85 to understand. The minutiae and ramifications are much harder but the UK is a representative democracy, not an Athenian democracy of the kind that might allow the kind of condescending sneer at the plebs you are partaking in.
Reading this back, it reads like it was Farage that was the one engaging in fraud, but it was the Conservative party[0]. Barely a whisper in the media about it because it suited them, and nothing was done about it, which may be a timely lesson…
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Mackinlay#Electoral_spen...
The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.
It happened and the world didn’t fall apart.
Negotiations are taking place in the way they always do, and a deal with the EU will be reached at the last minute as everyone expected it to.
Perhaps, but at what ridiculous cost?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Crisis_(2011%E2%80%93pr...
But in general wars are about access to resources, food and water fundamentally
Announcing radical change in a different government's term is standard political theatrics. All that matters is the actions they take now.
I stood there for ages shouting at it,
Then I tried to reason with it,
Then I explained to it about in intricacies of human politics (you cannot have sudden cliff-edges in policies!)
Then I told it I had to send signals to the market
And the darn thing just sat there and continued to cause problems.
Inverse situation for covid. Suddenly there is a lot of money we can borrow from our children, because 'a problem right not' VS 'à problem in 10 years'
Not sure how we can fix this 'bug' in our governance model..
As of June this year, the UK was generating more power from renewables than from fossil fuels. A decade ago hardly any power was being generated from renewables. The UK has gone months without burning coal this year, and plans to decommission the last three coal power plants in the next five years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52973089
These aren’t empty promises, this is solid progress.
Right now it's windy and the UK gets about 10GW of electricity from wind turbines (maybe a bit more) the past few days. But at 4x that would be 40GW of electricity, which would actually be enough to just power the whole country on a typical weekday evening (as the sun goes down, day time place of work usage isn't all stopped yet but home usage is picking up).
Now, obviously it isn't always windy, but on the other hand it also isn't always a weekday evening. At 3am on a Sunday in June the country is ticking over at 20GW, and the weather doesn't care so your wind turbines might be kicking out 40GW anyway. We need to store or export that. That's a key challenge for the next decade.
I mean, the climate change situation is hopeless. Some measures may be taken in the name of it, and they are important, but they are mainly a side action: for example, they do a lot to suppress oil-funded dictatorships like Russia or Saudi Arabia - people won't support the measures if they were directed at that openly, but if it's about climate, they are a lot easier to sell. But, we have to just admit that the global warming will proceed and probably faster than even the worst estimates predict, and just plan accordingly out of this assumption. It is too profitable to mine and use fossil fuels, any large nation trying to stop doing so will be competed out of existence by those who don't (and they will have way lower energy efficiency so will displace your uncompetitive products with theirs, in the end INCREASING overall emissions), and largest polluters are nuclear powers so you can't even force them to stop by military action.
Just see where the climate will stand when 3x of the current extractable reserves of fossil fuels are burned (because technology will develop and a lot of new reserves will become available which are now not). And plan for that level of global temperatures, precipitation and sea levels. It will happen, and the nations that win are those who plan in advance.
Sun and wind power is already much cheaper to install than coal powered plants, and once sun and wind power is up the energy is almost free. Fossil fuel companies are currently struggling, just from this simple economy.
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-motor-vehicle...
But, given still higher costs and range anxiety, it will be very difficult to convince most consumers to buy electric cars. It will be most probably only generational shift: people born before ~1990 will still buy petrol cars till they die out, and younger generations will progressively shift, having different habits. It will take whole century to fully switch to electric vehicles in developed countries - and lack of reliable electric grid will make it in places like Africa even slower.
An even harder, and even larger part of the story is industrial heat (needs to be very reliable and cheap), and residential heating (needs to be very, very cheap and available in large volumes). No good non-fossil solutions here exist.
For industrial heat they will use hydrogen produced from renewable electricity. See for example [0] where it will be used for large scale steel production.
All the technical and economical components for the shift are already in place. The only thing lacking is political will (and apparently knowledge).
[0] https://www.ssab.com/products/brands/docol/automotive-insigh...
For decades Russia has used distruct heating using waste heat from nuclear powerplants, its the chealest heatsource known to man.
More modern approach is probably hydrogen and heat pumps, but either works.
Range anxiety is a brain bug for folks that have never driven electric.
I'm almost fifty and looking for buying an electric car. My parents just bought a plug in hybrid, but would have bought a fully electric if any suitable was available to a reasonable price.
Range anxiety is only an issue for long journeys.
Same can't be said about electric cars. So far, it's almost at the contrary.
Except that supply is unreliable...
Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
I disagree. i think the timescale for the switchover to electric vehicles (and self-driving vehicles) will be shorter than that.
Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India and other emerging economies too is more or less useless. Why should we deny such countries the benefits of full industrialisation?
Secondly - while in some respects you are correct, looking at CO2 numbers some kind of drastic action seems to be required, it also leaves unanswered the question of 'at what cost'. During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP. That naturally always translates into deaths, and the kind of economic impact such drastic action would entail would likely run into millions of deaths, many of them far away in poorer nations receiving less govt aid (as with covid!)
I think the whole 'nothing is enough the world will end!!' mentality does nothing but put those who are inclined to care into a state of deep depression and anxiety and those who are inclined to deny climate change into a better position to argue that the other side are being ridiculous. It does NOT help.
The correct approach is a practical middle ground where we try to do what we can.
In any case this govt response does somewhat epitomise the 'climate hysterics' mentality in that it is hugely impractical, ignores many questions of trade-offs and impact as if there were none to be answered and is unilateral enough to be meaningless in the wider global context.
Keep in mind that if one country decides to take drastic action which tanks its economy, do you think other countries are likely to follow suit or rather elect govts that entirely unwind all and any climate action?
A non-binding commitment that tells industry “in ten years you folks will need to be in a position to switch to a technology which is already reasonably viable so better get scaling” is a pretty milquetoast effort, and describing it as “climate hysterics” is obvious nonsense. This general plan of banning new sales by 2030 seems to be emerging as a bit of a consensus in different countries, and it looks like a pretty necessary step.
You should be much more worried about this problem than you are, and this worry should translate into pressure on all governments globally to build credible plans for decarbonisation. Those plans should include the use of global trade measures to influence countries who aren’t meeting decarbonisation targets. Continuing to put off essential measures achieves little other than making them vastly more economically damaging when they are implemented later.
Also, and again I know this is a sensitive area so I understand why you are coming across this way, but comments like 'you should be much more worried about this problem than you are' are unnecessary and divisive.
I am extremely worried about climate change. That is why I am concerned by extreme 'all or nothing' impractical approaches that will simply achieve nothing. I prefer something to nothing.
>in ten years you folks will need to be in a position to switch to a technology which is already reasonably viable so better get scaling
Do you consider needing to upgrade 400,000 substations and installing charge points along ~200,000km of roads within 10-20 years reasonably viable?
My whole issue with this is not that we should take NO action, it's that for any action taken we should either:
a. Speak honestly about the actual efforts required to make it happen and then take that action (e.g. start the substation upgrade, start installing the chargers), b. Take more practical action that requires less drastic work.
The option being touted is:
c. Ban non-electric cars by 2030 and hybrids by 2035, say absolutely nothing about the VAST £100's of billions required investment to make that feasible, feel good and move on.
Do you think option c is more or less likely to result in anything changing? I think this requirement is likely to just get rolled back and ignored.
"translate into pressure on all governments globally to build credible plans for decarbonisation"
I actually agree with this, but I don't think unrealistic plans that ignore actual costs are any kind of solution.
I absolutely do NOT advocate putting off addressing climate issues. I personally believe in taking as much of a global approach as possible (if China refuse to stop using dirty coal plants everywhere, economically divest from them for example), correctly counting the CO2 cost of e.g. electric cars/renewable energy from raw material to functional capacity, not just discounting all CO2/other nasty climate gases from production and taking as practical an approach as we can.
I am also a realist and realise that if a country was to go all in on what many deem necessary and suffers a colossal economic impact that'll likely discourage any other country from taking that or probably much action at all.
It's a hard problem that feels like it needs drastic immediate action but the problem is made harder from the fact that that is simply not possible, I'm sorry.
Those who truly are worried about this should be being as practical as possible in order to get as much change into the world as they can.
I think you take a commonly-seen approach that tends to argue that any even moderate efforts to deal with the problem are too extreme. I do not think the phrase you have repeatedly used - “all or nothing” – has any value, since it tends to define even relatively modest steps as “all”.
Do you consider needing to upgrade 400,000 substations and installing charge points along ~200,000km of roads within 10-20 years reasonably viable?
Yes.
My whole issue with this is not that we should take NO action, it's that for any action taken we should either:
In other words, you are probably advocating for a more extreme approach - that is, perhaps make these commitments legally binding and provide the infrastructure and planning to follow through on them. I completely agree with this, and that’s the point - this decision itself is pretty weak, and cannot credibly be called a “climate hysteria” response.
RE: Viability, I mean perhaps I worded that poorly - I think it's _possible_ to do it, I just think it will be exceptionally difficult (there are many roads that are not so simple to just dig up, huge HUGE disruption caused, etc. etc.) and require probably £100's of billions.
My issue is more that the govt have absolutely not addressed or even mentioned that, and many engaged in this debate won't accept that this is a requirement.
>I think you take a commonly-seen approach that tends to argue that any even moderate efforts to deal with the problem are too extreme. Not at all. I simply do not consider a multi-£100bn investment requiring basically every single residential street in Britain to be dug up and every single substation upgraded (not to mention other parts of the grid that will need upgrading) to be moderate and dislike when people talk about this govt action as if that isn't required.
Actually I would 100% advocate for only hybrids by 2030 (which the govt actually does advocate), but not a banning of hybrids by 2035 as it also advocates. Also more govt pressure to make hybrids considerably more efficient (they are already pretty impressive). Perhaps look at banning hybrids also by 2050? Or some reasonably practical timeframe.
I'd also want to start the program of increasing charging points and substation infrastructure but on a more reasonable timeframe, but be honest about it and get the ball rolling NOW, not in 2030. Something like 'every X streets must have at least Y charging points' could be a start. Practicality.
What I'd also want to look at is - more nuclear, more renewables, investigate means of reducing usage of flights, investment into public transport (outside of London it sucks big time, and more generally e.g. trains are the most expensive in Europe + also the least reliable), more advocacy for work from home, greater subsidies in decarbonisation, but more than anything using economic pressure in league with other countries to pressure (and also not only pressure but help via aid) highly polluting developing countries to reduce carbon output.
There is plenty that can be done, I just don't think hand waving + denial of costs will actually achieve anything. In fact I think it HARMS the climate change cause more than anything.
Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries?
>> During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP. That naturally always translates into deaths
Is there any evidence of deaths attributable to shut downs so far? There’s over a million deaths worldwide due to covid, how many attributable to non-covid causes? E.g. suicide etc.
I believe we've also seen the impact of not locking down due to fretting over the economy, which is a longer lockdown further down the line because the health services got overwhelmed. Basically not locking down saved 4 months of economy at the expense of the next 2 years.
Good point but I think much of it could also be attributed to countries going through their own industrialisation processes and generating wealth (however that end product gets used). Are we to condemn them all to poverty? Much of China is still rather impoverished.
Also - are you suggesting we should shut down our economies in order that we don't produce anything in China for example? If not then _how_ they produce the power/do industry is in their hands not ours and it's an issue to address.
The big issue in China is the CCP have no reason to care or abide by any global rules on this (or follow the example of any goody 2-shoes western country). They have endless coal plants with very little CO2 mitigation and the corrupt/totalitarian nature of their govt makes it very difficult to have them improve on this.
>Is there any evidence of deaths attributable to shut downs so far? There’s over a million deaths worldwide due to covid, how many attributable to non-covid causes? E.g. suicide etc. There's a strong correlation between economic strife and deaths. I'm not going to get into the missed medical appointments etc. as that is not relevant here but that's a covid factor too.
Is that not just a misconception about how countries develop though?
See Andrew McAfee - More from Less.
E.g. we know that as a country’s manufacturing capability matures, it produces more product with less raw material and energy inputs. It’s somewhat counter intuitive though but the end result is the opposite of what you suggest - maturation of industry reduces emissions and reduces raw material consumption and it can be to such an extent that the amount of product produced increases- example, motor industry of America or Japan, example battery production industry of china. Raw material consumption and energy use went down, manufactured product went up. Andrew McAfee’s book has better examples than mine but these were the ones i looked into to try to disprove his argument.
>> The big issue in China is the CCP have no reason to care or abide by any global rules on this
Wait, the US emissions of co2 per capita is just over 16tonnes per year. Why is China who’s per capita emissions at just under 7tonnes per year the key to moving forward? The key is america but the political approach is always to use the metric of convenience- currently that is absolute volume since that paints china worse than the US, and yet it would be only fair that we adjust for population.
>> There's a strong correlation between economic strife and deaths
Sure, but can we quantify it? We need to figure out if we’re over-prioritising covid response. E.g. if there were 1mm excess deaths and only 25% were attributable to covid, that sounds like the cure is worse than the disease.
As it stands though, it appears almost 100% of excess deaths are attributable to covid, that suggests we need to keep focussing on preventing covid deaths rather than focussing on death ultimately caused by economic harm, correct?
RE: economic impact People have in fact quantified it but it's a big topic as you can imagine. I don't think it's hugely controversial to suggest that poverty results in poor health and the data is clear that poor countries tend to have significantly lower life expectancy and higher poor health outcomes.
I'm not going to digress into covid as that's a whole other conversation :)
Last time I checked exports were around 14% of Chinese emissions. Significant but domestic emissions are the majority. Repeating the proxy emission meme is quite disrespectful if you consider this context. i.e. you are saying that although the other 86% are domestic, their primary purpose is to support the export industry and therefore should be counted as export emissions as well. It's almost the same as saying Chinese citizens only exist for the sake of first world countries.
That is the opposite of what i’ve read so far but happy to be corrected. Is there any data you can point me to that supports your position?
Since you've ignored most of what I said there, let me reduce the surface area of the discussion and ask 1 thing:
Let's assume the UK does everything the climate 'activists' request of them, and this results in an economic depression and unprecedented unemployment and poverty - do you think this increases or decreases the likelihood of other countries following suit?
The sooner countries start to embrace it, the more they'll be able to economically benefit from the required changes that we're all facing.
If the UK (unilaterally) sets an example and does everything the climate activists request of them, but this results in economic depression and unprecedented unemployment and poverty, then no.
Not only will no single country in the rest of the world use their example, plenty will seek to take advantage of an environment in which the UK is rendered deeply uncompetitive, as countries tend to.
And if the constant allegations of climate movements’ funding and influence being manipulated by foreign powers beforehand were strong, they will evolve straight into legitimacy following an event like this.
Yes, you said:
>> The correct approach is a practical middle ground where we try to do what we can
Then provided no examples of what we can do, in your opinion.
This isn’t a problem that can be solved by right leaning politics, this is the right’s blind spot. You’ll need some creative lefty types to sort this out and then you’ll need some efficient righty types to come in a clean up what they’ve designed.
The solution to this is not in the past, it is not doing something we already do in a better way (politics of the right), it is of a new paradigm (politics of the left).
You are also glossing over the consequences of an extreme response to climate change - an honest discussion talks about the cost as well as the benefits of any action taken.
The "all or nothing" approach is likely to get you nothing because in democratic countries when you take actions that result in severe economic consequences, people will just vote in a govt that reverses it. It also sends a signal to all other countries who were considering such action not to do it.
It's not an easy problem this, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but to me doing SOMETHING that is likely to be acceptable to democratic countries is better than doing nothing and souring the whole thing for ordinary people.
If you're the type of person who believes they're saving humanity, you naturally don't fret over details like what do people want, or some rational cost/benefit analysis. You know better. The axioms are set and indisputable.
Barnacled, you're quite articulate and reasoned in this thread, but I doubt you're changing anybody's mind.
And FYI, the same type of personality also likes to compile "lists of ideological opponents". It's an old book played a hundred times before, so it's good to be aware of that.
I really regret the emergence of figures like Greta Thunberg, while heralded as a great advocate for action against climate change I feel she has actually been more harmful than good - she advocates an extreme alarmist position, often referencing highly debated timelines ('follow the science' doesn't take into account scientific dissent) which of course if/when they don't happen get ignored much like a doomsday cult.
It has resulted in this "if you're not perpetually panicking you're an anti-scientific climate denialist" mentality which I find really stymies actual practical discussion on the subject.
It's not helped by actual climate denialists pointing this out and thus tarring those like myself who absolutely believe in man-made climate change but who are pragmatists who realise the world is not quite so simplistic as good/evil and governments are not all-powerful gods who can magically change everything all at once.
I also think unfortunately there is a fair bit of anti-capitalism (the system that has lifted billions from poverty) that has snuck in, in the UK 'extinction rebellion' a very much Greta-esque protest group have openly advertised their views on this. Of course no comparison is made to other economic systems and their ecological track records...
It shouldn't be about ideals - 'we must cut carbon emissions to 0 no matter what', but rather 'what option is best in comparison to the consequences of another'.
Surely the “something” has to be impossible to achieve given your assertions (which i agree with) that there will be severe economic consequences.
The idea of some magical possibility where we all get to keep doing what we’re doing but climate change does away is impossible. There will be economic losers (and winners)
The cost to fix global warming only gets greater each year.
China buys more electric cars than all other countries.
But mostly it's long term vs short term.
I'd just make pollution illegal unless you paid to clean it up
None of what you proposed can be reasonably considered drastic action, so you're not really in disagreement with OP there.
Reducing emissions by 80% does help some but the problem is that global CO2 levels go down extremely slowly so that any human activity will always dwarf it. Given enough time you will still hit 4°C.
China is actuslly on track to exceed their Paris commitments, while US and Australia are not
That concerns me as to the validity of the Paris accord then. They also have 1/2 of the world's coal capacity and absolutely no plans to reduce that.
Their emissions are almost double that of the USA, if people are to advocate for extreme action surely it should start with them...
Bring the ban to 2025? 2022? One can't simply expect mass production to switch that fast.
UK has already tightened emissions rules on vehicles and VED taxes more polluting cars more heavily. They could, and probably will, ratchet things more.
The right response on this policy is to say: great thanks Boris, you can clearly see the potential in green tech, now could you do X, Y, and Z too?
Yes, the government expects people to lap this up. Which is a reason why they do it. If they see electric cars both piss off the Daily Mail camp and yet are still criticised as worthless by environmentalists then we're not giving them the right incentives to take further measures.
Getting petrol cars off the road is just not going to happen on the time scale it's needed. If the 10 years until the ban would be spent building enough solar, carbon capture and fuel generation, we'd be in a much better state. We'd literally have a knob that controls the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
BTW, I'm not saying that the government should increase the tax, I'm just saying that a concrete action in the present would go a long way towards building credibility.
There's s a small group of rogue countries like US trying to do their best to burn the planet while undermining climate agreements and not doing anything about climate change at 16+ tons of annual CO2 per capita, while some others are doing a whole lot, for example UK has pretty about halved their emissions from already a lot lower starting point, from 10.3 to 5.6 tons in the last 40 years.
Even among people who don't deny climate change this complacent attitude prevails.
It's why I believe this video presents everything nicely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsA3PK8bQd8
Great analogy. But to be honest politicians don't make drastic changes as they fear they will loose the next election.
But I do believe they under estimate people's interest in dealing with climate change.
Then again Brexit happened and people vote for Boris and Trump so what do I really know what the electorate wants.
* it's a non binding commitment to do something but not for at least a decade
* it's not enough even if it does happen
* it will be too late by then (it probably already is for anything but drastic action)
* it's totally at the whim of future governments who will be no more willing to spend the money/time/popularity than the current unwilling government
* people will eat it up with a spoon and act like this is a real thing and a sign of progress and a victory
This is the same as my committing to start my diet, by giving up one specific thing, but not for a decade, after my doctor told me I gave 6m to lose weight or die. And to celebrate I'll eat two pizzas and 4 litres of soda, for breakfast.