14 Comments
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Vittorio Bonzi's avatar

Honestly I'm relatively glad: when a theme leaves the mainstream debate, that's the time adults can enter the room at last and do the work. It's just the physiological cycle

Matthew Huggett's avatar

The only plausible response to climate change is massive technological intervention to adjust the planet’s climate and increase the amount of resources available to us. Anything else is wearing a raincoat in the face of a tsunami.

Ali Azad's avatar

Do we need the activists to admit their missteps to regain credibility? Eg, Europe's push for decarbonization that led to dependence on Russia? Biden spending trillions on infrastructure when nothing actually gets built?

Pandora’s Box's avatar

This entire argument is suspect given the number of nations that already have nuclear weapons including North Korea. Which by no means a stable or rational nation.

And the idea or belief that ‘technology’ is going to be able to soften or control what comes next in terms of our heating planet is ridiculous.

William Bell's avatar

Perhaps Trump hasn't explained it as well as he should have, but the main objective of the current war is obvious and compelling: to prevent the fanatic Islamist rulers of Iran from acquiring, any time soon, an arsenal of nuclear weapons with which to wreak destruction on the "Great Satan" and/or the "Little" one. Which, I submit, should be a higher priority than alleviating global warming.

Brian Charlebois's avatar

After seeing you in that AI debate, I believe you when you say you’re not flustered. You seem pretty resistant to that kind of thing. But I don’t know if it’s warranted, either on Climate or AI.

I love AI, but I also think it’s high risk for big problems. And just like climate change, I don’t see humanity having a level of control that it needs to deal with this stuff. That’s the worrying part.

The war is not just a distraction, it’s actively compounding the climate issue.

And you are correct to say that we do not want to pay a big price to fix the climate, but, at the same time, the whole world is paying a massive price for the Trump presidency.

The burden that Trump has placed upon our world is that a level I’ve never seen in my entire life, and I’m an old man. Maybe it’s not as bad as the second world war, but given enough time it might be.

The cost were willing to pay for the Trump presidency that gains us nothing, is like a huge slap in the face to the fact that nobody wants to pay a price to try and fix the climate problem.

Irony is the biggest constant in our universe.

William Bell's avatar

Your assertion about the war implies that using and/or threatening to use military force to prevent Iran's fanatic Islamist rulers from acquiring a nuclear arsenal within the near future is not worth attempting. Why not?

Brian Charlebois's avatar

Have you ever seen the video clip of Netanyahu announcing that Iran would have a bomb within a week?

That clip goes back more than a decade.

Iran was using nuclear material as a bargaining tool, if they wanted a bomb, they would’ve had one long ago.

The world has changed now, and I’ll almost guarantee. They want the bomb now more than ever.

In fact, there’s a whole bunch of countries that are going to try and get a bomb very soon now because of how Trump has changed our world.

If Iran already had the bomb do you think Trump would’ve bombed them?

We are back in the nuclear arms race everywhere in the world because of Trump.

Tell me, do you think Trump is going to win this conflict? How do you define winning?

To me, he has already lost.

Brian Charlebois's avatar

Have you ever seen the video clip of Netanyahu announcing that Iran would have a bomb within a week?

That clip goes back more than a decade.

Iran was using nuclear material as a bargaining tool, if they wanted a bomb, they would’ve had one long ago.

The world has changed now, and I’ll almost guarantee. They want the bomb now more than ever.

In fact, there’s a whole bunch of countries that are going to try and get a bomb very soon now because of how Trump has changed our world.

If Iran already had the bomb do you think Trump would’ve bombed them?

We are back in the nuclear arms race everywhere in the world because of Trump.

Tell me, do you think Trump is going to win this conflict? How do you define winning?

To me, he has already lost

Brian Charlebois's avatar

Have you ever seen the video clip of Netanyahu announcing that Iran would have a bomb within a week?

That clip goes back more than a decade.

Iran was using nuclear material as a bargaining tool, if they wanted a bomb, they would’ve had one long ago.

The world has changed now, and I’ll almost guarantee. They want the bomb now more than ever.

In fact, there’s a whole bunch of countries that are going to try and get a bomb very soon now because of how Trump has changed our world.

If Iran already had the bomb do you think Trump would’ve bombed them?

We are back in the nuclear arms race everywhere in the world because of Trump.

Tell me, do you think Trump is going to win this conflict? How do you define winning?

To me, he has already lost

Brian Charlebois's avatar

I’m having a hard time working in this comment section on my iPhone. Sorry about that.

Duane McMullen's avatar

"The empirically inscrutable climate-economy relationship"

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/g8khf_v2

This study looked very hard for any kind of connection between climate change and economic outcomes, working closely with the data from many existing well regarded studies. It didn't find any reliable connections. While the authors are careful to try to stay onside climate change advocates by saying their results don't rule out the possibility of negative impacts, the results don't rule out positive impacts either.

"

We recommend a cautious and uncertainty-emphasizing approach to applying climate econometrics to public and private decision making. Importantly, however, our analysis does not dismiss the existence of a negative carbon externality nor economically beneficial efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"

If this is the best evidence, what case is there to make disruptive change solely on the basis of climate risk?

Chuck Flounder's avatar

Isn't it wild that I agree 100% with your headline, but almost none of what comes after that?

Of course, that's probly because I voted for Trump, and mostly [not entirely] glad that I did.

Then again, I also voted for Obama, so does that make me a good person or a bad person? So hard to know these days. I really get a tummy ache when I'm on the wrong side of history...