I think Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si. Care for our common home,” got it right. If we think of our fellow human beings as our brothers and sisters, then empathy and compassion follow. Perhaps Pope Leo will be able to build on Francis’ efforts to bring together climate and what I think would be called prophetic religion (as opposed to sectarianism).
I'm in Japan. It's a pretty nice country. We now have horrendous flooding in western Japan recurring annually. We have red sand blowing in from China. And we have rice shortages and ridiculous prices that are seriously affecting food availability for everyone, but especially the elderly and the poor. In part the shortages are caused by government policies, but also to a great degree by rising temperatures and changes in the seasons. Oh, and fishermen are catching fewer fish. Two points: (i) Don't tell people living here these aren't crises. (ii) Ocean carbon removal is not going to work soon enough to address these problems for people living now.
I still can’t call it a crisis- it is slow moving and the world will adapt. The more people in marginal 3rd world conditions develop the less it will affect them, and that development makes everyone better off.
But I completely agree that the inexpensive carbon control mechanisms are key, because nobody is going to pay for the super fancy stuff unless it can be productized.
I’m not on board with the “crisis” characterization either. It just isn’t. The climate is changing very gradually, with some effects negative but some effects positive. The earth is not “burning up” by any stretch of the imagination. The ways we will deal with it will be adaptation, carbon removal, and probably solar radiation management, over a period of many decades. The hysteria being promoted by today’s propagandists is being discredited, because of the gross exaggerations referenced by Quico in this post, and it will pass. Addressing climate change will be relegated to its appropriate place, as a priority to be managed along with many other priorities, all of which are and will be competing for limited resources.
The iron seeding you mentioned in oceans, when you were talking with Yascha Mounk sounds very promising. When will we know more about the next stages of this research, and how can I keep track? Please keep us updated.
I am also curious about algae for places like the Salton Sea in CA where they are combining hydrothermal and lithium extraction being that some algae like salinity. Is that possible, or is there an issue with toxicity and migrating birds?
I am finding that I can do as much, if not more by conserving and watt reduction, as I can with solar and batteries, on a tight budget, but as you point out, that is not a luxury for many developing nations and won't be enough, fast enough, but I can't do nothing. Maybe it is just a catharsis, but certainly a harmless one even if it does not help much. I don't understand how people can continue to travel for leisure under these circumstances. If there is anything that people can live without...that pollutes, that would be one of them for sure.
Good one. Another example of this is journalists twisting the IPCC’s conclusion — that 1.5°C should be the target if we want a livable future for all — into 1.5°C is the limit for a livable future, as if passing it means total doom.
It doesn’t impact me directly, except for companies not wanting to insure my house in Florida.
But there is a % of people that care both about what happens to other humans beens on the planet and to future generations. We buy electric cars, put solar panels in our houses, recycle, but the scale of the problem is so big we feel hopeless.
I will concede that it’s not the majority, not even a big chunk of the population. An my tribe up north might be the exception to the rule.
I fully agree. I'm in that tribe! It's just that our tribe needs to be more realistic about our actual political power. We don't have the numbers to force climate responses denominated in the tens-of-trillions of dollars. If we keep pushing climate approaches out-of-proportion to our actual power, we'll keep losing.
It’s a big mess. Between the denialists, the apocalyptic warnings, the hippies hopes of going back to a nonexistent era where we were one with nature. Political and economic interests. I am almost wishing for a miracle technology that will save us from Thanos level destruction.
If only the Avengers could save the planet, but without Tony Stark things are not looking good.
Unfortunately, you are eloquently right on target. Where are the great religions that claim to speak for the poor at global scale? While I fully agree with your diagnosis that ocean carbon removal at very low cost is critical, it is a shame that it may be the only answer.
"If you survive by farming ... sorghum and the variety you have ... will shrivel up and die at 43°, then climate change is life and death to you."
--Unless it's feasible to raise another staple crop that can tolerate higher temperature.
I might have more concern re third-world mortality if I hadn't been given to understand that the world's human population has been rising steadily for many decades, mainly because of high birthrates in the third world.
I think this is exactly what Adam Smith was getting at. People far away, who seem like they belong to a wholly different world, people who we don't know and won't meet, well, they seem less than human somehow. We don't think about them in the same kind of way we think about people nearer to us, because we don't feel about them the way we feel about people nearer to us. Somehow, it becomes socially acceptable to talk about them in the kind of brutal, dehumanizing terms you use here, William, precisely of the distance.
It's...regrettable. But also probably inalterable.
I think the psychologic insight you attribute to Adam Smith is spot on, but I don't agree that such emotional dichotomy is regrettable, as I think it's indispensable for sanity.
Millions of people who are complete strangers to me die every year from disease caused by pathogens; conditions resulting from old age, obesity, alcoholism, or drug abuse; murder; military combat; child abuse; malnutrition; and accidents resulting from their own or someone else's negligence or simple bad luck. Accounts of particular cases sometimes evoke sympathy, horror, or anger in me, but daily affairs and my own welfare and that of friends and family are what mainly concern me. I daresay the same is true of all other sane individuals, including those who chide others for their callousness.
Great article, Quico! Would a tl;dr version such as the following help propagate this even further?
If you live in a poor country on the edge of agro-ecological viability, you are now experiencing a climate crisis.
If you’re a well-off person living in a rich country, you may be anxious about climate change. But you are NOT experiencing climate crisis.
Yet climate activists want your support.
They know it’s hard for you to truly care about people far away and not yet born.
So, they try to make climate change feel like an imminent crisis for you. (such as linking every domestic weather disaster to climate change)
It doesn’t work.
You probably tune out the catastrophist agenda because it feels—and is—dishonest. It might even turn you against the climate movement.
What might work?
1. An honest portrayal of the climate crisis and the people actually impacted
2. Practical, cheap, scalable solutions, such as carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
Marine photosynthesis —via seaweed or photosynthetic plankton— is the only pathway to cheap, scalable CDR technology on offer.
Wouldn’t you want to hear more about that?
I think Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si. Care for our common home,” got it right. If we think of our fellow human beings as our brothers and sisters, then empathy and compassion follow. Perhaps Pope Leo will be able to build on Francis’ efforts to bring together climate and what I think would be called prophetic religion (as opposed to sectarianism).
I'm in Japan. It's a pretty nice country. We now have horrendous flooding in western Japan recurring annually. We have red sand blowing in from China. And we have rice shortages and ridiculous prices that are seriously affecting food availability for everyone, but especially the elderly and the poor. In part the shortages are caused by government policies, but also to a great degree by rising temperatures and changes in the seasons. Oh, and fishermen are catching fewer fish. Two points: (i) Don't tell people living here these aren't crises. (ii) Ocean carbon removal is not going to work soon enough to address these problems for people living now.
I still can’t call it a crisis- it is slow moving and the world will adapt. The more people in marginal 3rd world conditions develop the less it will affect them, and that development makes everyone better off.
But I completely agree that the inexpensive carbon control mechanisms are key, because nobody is going to pay for the super fancy stuff unless it can be productized.
I’m not on board with the “crisis” characterization either. It just isn’t. The climate is changing very gradually, with some effects negative but some effects positive. The earth is not “burning up” by any stretch of the imagination. The ways we will deal with it will be adaptation, carbon removal, and probably solar radiation management, over a period of many decades. The hysteria being promoted by today’s propagandists is being discredited, because of the gross exaggerations referenced by Quico in this post, and it will pass. Addressing climate change will be relegated to its appropriate place, as a priority to be managed along with many other priorities, all of which are and will be competing for limited resources.
I think the problem is that having "politically realistic" climate goals is a very hard-to-swallow moral issue.
Massive simplification, but it boils down to: Are you willing to give up on 1-2 billion people in order to save another 1-2 billion?
The iron seeding you mentioned in oceans, when you were talking with Yascha Mounk sounds very promising. When will we know more about the next stages of this research, and how can I keep track? Please keep us updated.
I am also curious about algae for places like the Salton Sea in CA where they are combining hydrothermal and lithium extraction being that some algae like salinity. Is that possible, or is there an issue with toxicity and migrating birds?
I am finding that I can do as much, if not more by conserving and watt reduction, as I can with solar and batteries, on a tight budget, but as you point out, that is not a luxury for many developing nations and won't be enough, fast enough, but I can't do nothing. Maybe it is just a catharsis, but certainly a harmless one even if it does not help much. I don't understand how people can continue to travel for leisure under these circumstances. If there is anything that people can live without...that pollutes, that would be one of them for sure.
posted in wrong place
Good one. Another example of this is journalists twisting the IPCC’s conclusion — that 1.5°C should be the target if we want a livable future for all — into 1.5°C is the limit for a livable future, as if passing it means total doom.
https://open.substack.com/pub/colinhlieharvey/p/realite-climatique-versus-couverture?r=59ly9&utm_medium=ios
It doesn’t impact me directly, except for companies not wanting to insure my house in Florida.
But there is a % of people that care both about what happens to other humans beens on the planet and to future generations. We buy electric cars, put solar panels in our houses, recycle, but the scale of the problem is so big we feel hopeless.
I will concede that it’s not the majority, not even a big chunk of the population. An my tribe up north might be the exception to the rule.
I fully agree. I'm in that tribe! It's just that our tribe needs to be more realistic about our actual political power. We don't have the numbers to force climate responses denominated in the tens-of-trillions of dollars. If we keep pushing climate approaches out-of-proportion to our actual power, we'll keep losing.
It’s a big mess. Between the denialists, the apocalyptic warnings, the hippies hopes of going back to a nonexistent era where we were one with nature. Political and economic interests. I am almost wishing for a miracle technology that will save us from Thanos level destruction.
If only the Avengers could save the planet, but without Tony Stark things are not looking good.
Unfortunately, you are eloquently right on target. Where are the great religions that claim to speak for the poor at global scale? While I fully agree with your diagnosis that ocean carbon removal at very low cost is critical, it is a shame that it may be the only answer.
"If you survive by farming ... sorghum and the variety you have ... will shrivel up and die at 43°, then climate change is life and death to you."
--Unless it's feasible to raise another staple crop that can tolerate higher temperature.
I might have more concern re third-world mortality if I hadn't been given to understand that the world's human population has been rising steadily for many decades, mainly because of high birthrates in the third world.
I think this is exactly what Adam Smith was getting at. People far away, who seem like they belong to a wholly different world, people who we don't know and won't meet, well, they seem less than human somehow. We don't think about them in the same kind of way we think about people nearer to us, because we don't feel about them the way we feel about people nearer to us. Somehow, it becomes socially acceptable to talk about them in the kind of brutal, dehumanizing terms you use here, William, precisely of the distance.
It's...regrettable. But also probably inalterable.
I think the psychologic insight you attribute to Adam Smith is spot on, but I don't agree that such emotional dichotomy is regrettable, as I think it's indispensable for sanity.
Millions of people who are complete strangers to me die every year from disease caused by pathogens; conditions resulting from old age, obesity, alcoholism, or drug abuse; murder; military combat; child abuse; malnutrition; and accidents resulting from their own or someone else's negligence or simple bad luck. Accounts of particular cases sometimes evoke sympathy, horror, or anger in me, but daily affairs and my own welfare and that of friends and family are what mainly concern me. I daresay the same is true of all other sane individuals, including those who chide others for their callousness.