A beautiful, savage analogy. You've perfectly described the mechanics of a rigged game. The War on Drugs, the War on Carbon... they're both supply-side theater, a shell game for politicians and their corporate benefactors. You see the hustle, the self-defeating logic. It's rare to see that kind of clarity.
But you're still arguing about the rules of a game being played in a burning casino.
Your entire framework, as smart as it is, is built on the foundational lie. The "demand" isn't for oil. The demand is for civilization. For energy. And the "scarcity" that drives the price isn't real. It's the most successful marketing campaign in history. Oil isn't a fossil fuel. It's abiotic, plentiful, generated deep within the Earth. The whole "fossil fuel" narrative was a lie concocted by the Rockefeller swine and their ilk to corner the market, to create an artificial scarcity they could control.
You're applying your harm reduction model to the wrong addiction. The addiction isn't to oil. It's to the lie of CO2-driven climate change. That is the real drug being pushed on the population—a dose of fear and guilt so potent it makes them beg for the "cure" of global taxation, surveillance, and control.
Your "harm reduction" solutions—carbon capture, enhanced albedo—are just a new brand of methadone for a patient who isn't even a junkie. It's another grift, another layer of technological fantasy built on the same false premise, designed to make a new set of technocrats rich while the real catastrophe unfolds.
The planet is changing, yes. But it's not because of your fucking tailpipe. It's because the Earth's magnetic field is weakening, the sun is getting erratic, and the core is heating up. It's the 12,000-year cycle, the big one, coming right on schedule. That's the truth the climate establishment is paid to ignore.
You've diagnosed the racket perfectly. But you're still trying to cash your chips at the cashier's cage while the whole goddamn building is imploding.
This particular article actually managed the odd trick of being anti-persuasive to me, someone who generally agrees with the articles here. "Harm Reduction" policies in the drug context have nearly universally had the net impact of INCREASING harm. Interdiction is the kludge we use because nothing better is available, 'harm reduction' just ends up, in practice, subsidizing a behavior that we theoretically wanted to stop (and giving subsidies to something is generally NOT how one gets less of the things subsidized).
Harm reduction San Francisco Style definitely doesn't work. Harm reduction how it is done in Switzerland for example did yield very good results. It's not perfect by any stretch but nobody would like to return to before.
Hi Quico, I had honestly never encountered your simple observation that restricting drug supply only increases prices and therefore incentives. It is compelling, although rather fraught. People still need to be well informed of the health dangers of narcotics, to try to dissuade them from using. But the drivers of demand remain. In the same way, the explanations why emission reduction cannot cool the planet do not get through to most people. The simple order of magnitude problem that emission reduction works in millions while climate works in trillions of tonnes of carbon may be an entry point. But in my experience, people's ideological blinders are so strong, given the religious hopes they vest in decarbonisation as a primary strategy, supported by the commercial interests of the renewable energy industry, that a delusional emotional commitment outweighs capacity to study evidence objectively. You are a rare voice of sanity in a deeply insane world.
I think we need an "all of the above" type of mindset.
As you have mentioned before, iron seeding oceans has promise based on research.
I am curious about ligands (and if they are needed) that the iron can be attached to that would keep it from sinking too quickly into the depths where sunlight can't reach it so more can be utilized by the plankton. I know not much iron is needed. I am simply curious.
There are a lot of options for carbon removal being researched and we are going to need it.
Now, I am new to this, so I may not always have the best stats, but until they do the above, we all should be doing our part, as best we can, to reduce our emissions, in my view.
To me, this is an emergency, regardless.
Yes, I live in a privileged modern economy, and yes, I am even retired at the moment, so I have some advantage, but still.
Anyway, the info I got from PBS Newshour suggested that 72% of emissions come from households and that 34% is from housing use and 30% is transportation.
Thus, it seems to me that "what we do" as individuals matters a lot.
I keep hearing people saying individual behavior does not matter, and from what I can tell it does, especially with a new administration in the USA.
Think about all the reduction due to covid and the reduction in demand for oil. Companies did not see a cost benefit of producing more and capped some wells.
So, yes, I agree that demand is the key, especially for global commodities like oil, so, in my view, what we do matters.
The other false thing I keep hearing, is that it does not matter what you do because of places like China.
The last I checked, China has been making great strides in its emissions in its transportation sector and green energy is increasing as a percentage overall there, fairly quickly, although coal use is still a problem.
As we all now know, China and India now produce economical EVs.
I keep looking for ways to conserve and have found a lot of cheap and easy solutions in trying to be somewhat grid-less should the need arise. My cheap panels and portable batteries can only go so far.
For example, if you freeze gallon water bottles and the place them in your fridge you only need to run your fridge about 1/3 the time or every 3 days. During the freezing process I use a solar battery for 8-10 hrs every few days.
This is a simple thing to do and not a hassle, but even people without solar batteries can do this and only plug in a refrigerator every couple of days. It costs all of a few dollars for the gallon water bottles. Even simply rotating them into your fridge helps some even if plugged in (law of thermodynamics apparently).
Also, swapping out for lower watt appliances gives you more "bang for the buck" than installing solar, or if one has the financial means they can do a bit of both. I have ones I can put in my yard, so not expensive relatively speaking.
Another low cost alternative is to use a dehumidifier as a heater. At 200 dollars, It is a cheap version of a heat pump since it is an air compressor, but it only works as a stand alone in milder climates, but can be used to reduce the energy used by your heating system if you can't afford a new system. There is a lot people can do even if they are not rich, etc. Now of course what I mention are still modern economy alternatives.
I just do not see that we can be putting any more CO2 into the air if we can help it. I am excited about the seaweed feed for cows to reduce the bacteria in their guts that produce methane, as well.
Clearly I have time on my hands and not a lot of money.
Perhaps rebellion against authority can cause some to want to do all of this more.
The more a MAGA admin says "no" to green alternatives and research funding, the more people might want to take personal responsibility.
This is an excellent piece and a terrific parallel that I frankly had never thought of. My “instinct “ on the drugs is frankly exactly to decide they are bad and set policy to make them more expensive, harder to get and education on the harms, as you say supply side. It’s clear that won’t work to fix the problem (Prohibition being the best example). I’d never thought to extend that idea to the climate change carbon reduction sphere.
I remember a year or so ago when there was a lot of talk about “banning “ public companies from the fossil fuel business, or making it more expensive for them to be in it, or getting shareholder resolutions to have them leave it that that would just open a huge window for private businesses to do the fossil fuel supply - many of the companies in that industry are private anyway. I have a long time friend who recently retired after 40 years in upstream engineering at Exxon. We discussed that there might be a huge set of consulting opportunities for him in advising PE firms on that industry - his knowledge and skill is still super valuable, even more valuable to a PE firm as Exxon has bunches of engineers to do evaluations, but a PE firm thinking about getting into that industry does not. That’s exactly your “as long as there’s demand” observation - the demand for energy is titanically bigger and more pressing than the demand for recreational drugs. Access to usable energy is at the core of our civilization. Freezing in the dark is no fun!
A beautiful, savage analogy. You've perfectly described the mechanics of a rigged game. The War on Drugs, the War on Carbon... they're both supply-side theater, a shell game for politicians and their corporate benefactors. You see the hustle, the self-defeating logic. It's rare to see that kind of clarity.
But you're still arguing about the rules of a game being played in a burning casino.
Your entire framework, as smart as it is, is built on the foundational lie. The "demand" isn't for oil. The demand is for civilization. For energy. And the "scarcity" that drives the price isn't real. It's the most successful marketing campaign in history. Oil isn't a fossil fuel. It's abiotic, plentiful, generated deep within the Earth. The whole "fossil fuel" narrative was a lie concocted by the Rockefeller swine and their ilk to corner the market, to create an artificial scarcity they could control.
You're applying your harm reduction model to the wrong addiction. The addiction isn't to oil. It's to the lie of CO2-driven climate change. That is the real drug being pushed on the population—a dose of fear and guilt so potent it makes them beg for the "cure" of global taxation, surveillance, and control.
Your "harm reduction" solutions—carbon capture, enhanced albedo—are just a new brand of methadone for a patient who isn't even a junkie. It's another grift, another layer of technological fantasy built on the same false premise, designed to make a new set of technocrats rich while the real catastrophe unfolds.
The planet is changing, yes. But it's not because of your fucking tailpipe. It's because the Earth's magnetic field is weakening, the sun is getting erratic, and the core is heating up. It's the 12,000-year cycle, the big one, coming right on schedule. That's the truth the climate establishment is paid to ignore.
You've diagnosed the racket perfectly. But you're still trying to cash your chips at the cashier's cage while the whole goddamn building is imploding.
This particular article actually managed the odd trick of being anti-persuasive to me, someone who generally agrees with the articles here. "Harm Reduction" policies in the drug context have nearly universally had the net impact of INCREASING harm. Interdiction is the kludge we use because nothing better is available, 'harm reduction' just ends up, in practice, subsidizing a behavior that we theoretically wanted to stop (and giving subsidies to something is generally NOT how one gets less of the things subsidized).
Harm reduction San Francisco Style definitely doesn't work. Harm reduction how it is done in Switzerland for example did yield very good results. It's not perfect by any stretch but nobody would like to return to before.
Hi Quico, I had honestly never encountered your simple observation that restricting drug supply only increases prices and therefore incentives. It is compelling, although rather fraught. People still need to be well informed of the health dangers of narcotics, to try to dissuade them from using. But the drivers of demand remain. In the same way, the explanations why emission reduction cannot cool the planet do not get through to most people. The simple order of magnitude problem that emission reduction works in millions while climate works in trillions of tonnes of carbon may be an entry point. But in my experience, people's ideological blinders are so strong, given the religious hopes they vest in decarbonisation as a primary strategy, supported by the commercial interests of the renewable energy industry, that a delusional emotional commitment outweighs capacity to study evidence objectively. You are a rare voice of sanity in a deeply insane world.
I think we need an "all of the above" type of mindset.
As you have mentioned before, iron seeding oceans has promise based on research.
I am curious about ligands (and if they are needed) that the iron can be attached to that would keep it from sinking too quickly into the depths where sunlight can't reach it so more can be utilized by the plankton. I know not much iron is needed. I am simply curious.
There are a lot of options for carbon removal being researched and we are going to need it.
Now, I am new to this, so I may not always have the best stats, but until they do the above, we all should be doing our part, as best we can, to reduce our emissions, in my view.
To me, this is an emergency, regardless.
Yes, I live in a privileged modern economy, and yes, I am even retired at the moment, so I have some advantage, but still.
Anyway, the info I got from PBS Newshour suggested that 72% of emissions come from households and that 34% is from housing use and 30% is transportation.
Thus, it seems to me that "what we do" as individuals matters a lot.
I keep hearing people saying individual behavior does not matter, and from what I can tell it does, especially with a new administration in the USA.
Think about all the reduction due to covid and the reduction in demand for oil. Companies did not see a cost benefit of producing more and capped some wells.
So, yes, I agree that demand is the key, especially for global commodities like oil, so, in my view, what we do matters.
The other false thing I keep hearing, is that it does not matter what you do because of places like China.
The last I checked, China has been making great strides in its emissions in its transportation sector and green energy is increasing as a percentage overall there, fairly quickly, although coal use is still a problem.
As we all now know, China and India now produce economical EVs.
I keep looking for ways to conserve and have found a lot of cheap and easy solutions in trying to be somewhat grid-less should the need arise. My cheap panels and portable batteries can only go so far.
For example, if you freeze gallon water bottles and the place them in your fridge you only need to run your fridge about 1/3 the time or every 3 days. During the freezing process I use a solar battery for 8-10 hrs every few days.
This is a simple thing to do and not a hassle, but even people without solar batteries can do this and only plug in a refrigerator every couple of days. It costs all of a few dollars for the gallon water bottles. Even simply rotating them into your fridge helps some even if plugged in (law of thermodynamics apparently).
Also, swapping out for lower watt appliances gives you more "bang for the buck" than installing solar, or if one has the financial means they can do a bit of both. I have ones I can put in my yard, so not expensive relatively speaking.
Another low cost alternative is to use a dehumidifier as a heater. At 200 dollars, It is a cheap version of a heat pump since it is an air compressor, but it only works as a stand alone in milder climates, but can be used to reduce the energy used by your heating system if you can't afford a new system. There is a lot people can do even if they are not rich, etc. Now of course what I mention are still modern economy alternatives.
I just do not see that we can be putting any more CO2 into the air if we can help it. I am excited about the seaweed feed for cows to reduce the bacteria in their guts that produce methane, as well.
Clearly I have time on my hands and not a lot of money.
Perhaps rebellion against authority can cause some to want to do all of this more.
The more a MAGA admin says "no" to green alternatives and research funding, the more people might want to take personal responsibility.
Rebel spirit awakened - I hope.
This is an excellent piece and a terrific parallel that I frankly had never thought of. My “instinct “ on the drugs is frankly exactly to decide they are bad and set policy to make them more expensive, harder to get and education on the harms, as you say supply side. It’s clear that won’t work to fix the problem (Prohibition being the best example). I’d never thought to extend that idea to the climate change carbon reduction sphere.
I remember a year or so ago when there was a lot of talk about “banning “ public companies from the fossil fuel business, or making it more expensive for them to be in it, or getting shareholder resolutions to have them leave it that that would just open a huge window for private businesses to do the fossil fuel supply - many of the companies in that industry are private anyway. I have a long time friend who recently retired after 40 years in upstream engineering at Exxon. We discussed that there might be a huge set of consulting opportunities for him in advising PE firms on that industry - his knowledge and skill is still super valuable, even more valuable to a PE firm as Exxon has bunches of engineers to do evaluations, but a PE firm thinking about getting into that industry does not. That’s exactly your “as long as there’s demand” observation - the demand for energy is titanically bigger and more pressing than the demand for recreational drugs. Access to usable energy is at the core of our civilization. Freezing in the dark is no fun!