If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Dak]

On the outset I apologize for the cutting and pasting for simplicity of reply if you feel that it created some false presentation or understanding of your intent.

I don't know what else to say other than that's not really true anymore. Or if it's true, the consensus pretty much outweighs the caveats. At some point it has to.

I'll more fully try to explain my position below, but I want to address this in saying that by caveats I mean the variation in contribution and effects as well as the distance between predictions and outcomes.

The Arrhenius equation and Keeling curve both point to the impact of industrialization and other human factors in continual global warming. Those were before any religion or associated cottage industry. Honestly, denying the influence of the human population bomb is pretty outrageous at this point in history.

That doesn't automatically lead to arguments about blame or fault, but it should direct us toward certain regulatory principles.

I'm not defending journalists though. I am defending appeals to scientific consensus, because if consensus isn't enough to justify widespread assumptions and expectations about climate change, then we're stuck in a stalemate.

This is why the principle of falsification isn't the be-all end-all of cutting edge science. When it comes to complex systems like climate there will always be data and factoids that don't play by linear rules. We've reached a point in the development of climatological studies where such anomalies are too inconsistent to represent any significant challenge to the overwhelming evidence that climate change is experiencing a warming trend and that human industry plays a significant role in that warming.

For what it's worth, if we're taking ideological jabs, I don't think your skepticism of human influence in climate change has anything to do with some triumph of reason or intellect, and everything to do with your political objections to regulatory measures. I don't see how you can largely ignore the wealth of literature on climate change and privilege the something like two or three percent of outliers, many of whom are backed by special interest groups that oppose policies to combat global warming.

I want to be clear that I don't have significant doubt that the earth is in a warming trend, nor that human activity has some contribution. My doubt is somewhat in the clear causality or contingency, and definitely regarding the hysteria surrounding it.

As someone living and operating within the religiosity of academia, and knowing what the file-drawer problem is, I have extreme skepticism across science that can't produce reliable predictions or replication, which is what climate science is unable to do on both counts for different reasons. Before you respond with "well it predicts warming, which is what we have", note that predicting warming vs cooling is winning a coin flip.

You are correct that I have an ideological, likely geneti-cultural aversion to policy "solutions". This is where my point comes in about my ho-humming of warming. Not that it isn't occuring, not that it may not have human contributions, but that it A. Is SUPER BAD and B. CAN BE SOLVED WITH TYRANNY(tyranny used for dramatic effect).

There have been studies suggesting that water magnifies or intensifies the rate of plastic decay due to its exposure to sunlight (similar to why having wet skin makes us more prone to sunburn).

I'm not sure what this has to do with warming, but I have no reason to doubt this.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'll more fully try to explain my position below, but I want to address this in saying that by caveats I mean the variation in contribution and effects as well as the distance between predictions and outcomes.

I want to be clear that I don't have significant doubt that the earth is in a warming trend, nor that human activity has some contribution. My doubt is somewhat in the clear causality or contingency, and definitely regarding the hysteria surrounding it.

As someone living and operating within the religiosity of academia, and knowing what the file-drawer problem is, I have extreme skepticism across science that can't produce reliable predictions or replication, which is what climate science is unable to do on both counts for different reasons. Before you respond with "well it predicts warming, which is what we have", note that predicting warming vs cooling is winning a coin flip.

You are correct that I have an ideological, likely geneti-cultural aversion to policy "solutions". This is where my point comes in about my ho-humming of warming. Not that it isn't occuring, not that it may not have human contributions, but that it A. Is SUPER BAD and B. CAN BE SOLVED WITH TYRANNY(tyranny used for dramatic effect).

But you are in favor of solutions when it comes to individual behavior. Unfortunately there's a problem of scale in that if we want to pursue social solutions, the only recourse we have is through public policy. In this particular field, the science is all we have to rely on.

Climate change research, by its very nature, produces inconsistent results; and if you talk with climate scientists, they'll tell you that inconsistency regarding heating/cooling is part of the larger process. With a system as complex as climate you're going to have episodes/sequences of surprising cooling. That's because the climate is always fluctuating. It's not going to steadily warm all over the globe, and this makes it very difficult to predict.

Predictions involve averages, but that can be tricky--10 is the average of 9 and 11, but also of 2 and 18. It's difficult to predict what the extremes are going to be.

I'm not sure what this has to do with warming, but I have no reason to doubt this.

Sorry--research also suggests that when plastics decay they emit greenhouse gases.

 

[Dak]

But you are in favor of solutions when it comes to individual behavior. Unfortunately there's a problem of scale in that if we want to pursue social solutions, the only recourse we have is through public policy. In this particular field, the science is all we have to rely on.

The primary difference here is this orientation towards climate change as something in need of a solution on its own merits. Reducing pollutants has many more clearcut benefits than "arresting warming".

 

[Einherjar86]

I'd like to understand this more, because you seem to be clarifying in a way that suggests what you oppose isn't policy approaches to climate change as much as how climate change discussion (at least in the public eye) obscures the way that pollution and other factors have detrimental effects beyond global warming. I personally don't see this obscuring as a serious issue, but I understand if you do. I'd say that framing responses as efforts to illuminate what climate change discourse elides is a better approach than lambasting the discourse altogether.

There are reasons to be worried about climate change and global warming. I feel as though your comment about "its own merits" alludes to the idea that climate change isn't serious for the climate itself--which of course, it isn't. The climate is just the climate. But if we are concerned with making things easier on future generations, then I think some sense of urgency has to come into play, unless our position is that currently living individuals shouldn't be expected to think in terms of thousands or even hundreds of years. And maybe part of the objection is that we're not encouraging individuals to think in such terms enough, and instead allocating responsibility entirely to governmental institutions. But one way or another, I don't think we can afford to abandon urgency altogether.

 

[Dak]

I'd like to understand this more, because you seem to be clarifying in a way that suggests what you oppose isn't policy approaches to climate change as much as how climate change discussion (at least in the public eye) obscures the way that pollution and other factors have detrimental effects beyond global warming. I personally don't see this obscuring as a serious issue, but I understand if you do. I'd say that framing responses as efforts to illuminate what climate change discourse elides is a better approach than lambasting the discourse altogether.

Well not all policies are created equal, and policies pushed to "combat climate change" may not do much to combat climate change, and may have negative effects economically and environmentally. Again, the entire conversation has a moral tone about it, when the process is not well understood, climate change is going to happen in some form no matter what we do, and the conversation is completely focused around things like hot days and melting ice. Warming, hot days, and melting ice aren't even "bad things" in themselves (although I dislike hot weather).

There are clear public health concerns surrounding certain types of emissions - improving air quality has very direct effects on populations local to the sources for example, which is - I would argue - why there's no pseudo-religion surrounding "clean air", even though it has the additional effect of contributing to less warming. You don't need a religion around uncontroversial things to bulldoze debate. The pseudo-religious rhetoric is born in the Gaia bullshit, and has the trappings of a de-anthropomorphized "noble savage" orientation towards human civilizational development.

There are reasons to be worried about climate change and global warming. I feel as though your comment about "its own merits" alludes to the idea that climate change isn't serious for the climate itself--which of course, it isn't. The climate is just the climate. But if we are concerned with making things easier on future generations, then I think some sense of urgency has to come into play, unless our position is that currently living individuals shouldn't be expected to think in terms of thousands or even hundreds of years. And maybe part of the objection is that we're not encouraging individuals to think in such terms enough, and instead allocating responsibility entirely to governmental institutions. But one way or another, I don't think we can afford to abandon urgency altogether.

If the impetus for attempting to achieve climate stasis was concern about future generations, we'd see very different policy prescriptions across other policy domains from persons who believe climate change is bad.

I don't see low urgency though, but a complete lack of urgency across the world. Despite being assured for the last 15+ years that much of the world's population centers (now mostly coastal) are going to be underwater within decades, the coastal migration and urban expansion continues apace, which means that neither private industry nor government officials are taking these concerns seriously. That's trillions and trillions of dollars betting against this prediction, at least the more severe varieties. Meanwhile, lower levels of betting can also be seen on ice continuing to melt in the arctic, unlocking access to vast untapped natural resources. These sorts of "wisdom of the crowds" with significant skin in the game is a greater indication of the necessary urgency on a poorly understood issue than an alarmist.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well not all policies are created equal, and policies pushed to "combat climate change" may not do much to combat climate change, and may have negative effects economically and environmentally. Again, the entire conversation has a moral tone about it, when the process is not well understood, climate change is going to happen in some form no matter what we do, and the conversation is completely focused around things like hot days and melting ice. Warming, hot days, and melting ice aren't even "bad things" in themselves (although I dislike hot weather).

I don't really understand this position. Saying something isn't bad in itself isn't sufficient reason to justify inaction, since nothing is bad in itself. You seem to be taking a nihilistic/materialist approach that wants to flatten everything to its most base physical function, in which nothing has meaning in itself because physical processes like heat and melting don't think. I agree that they're not bad in themselves, but they signify serious concerns that are potentially very, very bad for us.

There are clear public health concerns surrounding certain types of emissions - improving air quality has very direct effects on populations local to the sources for example, which is - I would argue - why there's no pseudo-religion surrounding "clean air", even though it has the additional effect of contributing to less warming. You don't need a religion around uncontroversial things to bulldoze debate. The pseudo-religious rhetoric is born in the Gaia bullshit, and has the trappings of a de-anthropomorphized "noble savage" orientation towards human civilizational development.

Okay, so your critique (as I understand it) is that the religiosity of climate change corresponds to the lack of some empirically observable signs of social disruption. In other words, climate change concern needs a quasi-spiritual faith ("Gaia") to make up for the lack of results.

My major objection is that I don't think there's a lack of observable results--I just think many of those results are so globally disseminated that no one (except scientists, for the most part) perceive them to be components of the same systemic process. There are people suffering because of climate change, and scientists will tell you these are empirically observable effects. Farms and fisheries are already experiencing issues, and the heat itself has already caused deaths: https://www.wunderground.com/blog/J...e-russian-heat-wave-and-pakistani-floods.html

Your problem with this kind of evidence, I take it, is that it's impossible to extract from things like heat waves and flooding any verifiable certainty that climate change, particular human-caused climate change, is directly responsible for such phenomena. But that's the nature of this field and of the data. Those kinds of connections don't exist because the relationship between these emergent occurrences and their conditions isn't linear. Causality, in a strict linear sense, can't be identified in this scenario. All that can be identified is an increasing pile of episodes and incidents, all that bear significant relation to the fluctuating processes of global warming. Suggesting that the onus is on science to produce definitive causal connections only feeds complacency.

I don't perceive as much controversy or inconsistency in the results as you do, and I'm not sure what your sources are for this uncertainty. I also don't get the comment about "trappings of a de-anthropomorphized "noble savage" orientation towards human civilizational development." Are you saying that concern for humanity is an anthropomorphic illusion or some such? Because if so, now you sound like the caricature of postmodern theory that you so dislike. Wanting to work to preserve the planet for ourselves and other species (and that's key) shouldn't be objectionable because it's "anthropomorphic."

If the impetus for attempting to achieve climate stasis was concern about future generations, we'd see very different policy prescriptions across other policy domains from persons who believe climate change is bad.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. Are you saying that certain policies will hurt future generations in other ways (economically, politically, etc.)?

I don't see low urgency though, but a complete lack of urgency across the world. Despite being assured for the last 15+ years that much of the world's population centers (now mostly coastal) are going to be underwater within decades, the coastal migration and urban expansion continues apace, which means that neither private industry nor government officials are taking these concerns seriously. That's trillions and trillions of dollars betting against this prediction, at least the more severe varieties. Meanwhile, lower levels of betting can also be seen on ice continuing to melt in the arctic, unlocking access to vast untapped natural resources. These sorts of "wisdom of the crowds" with significant skin in the game is a greater indication of the necessary urgency on a poorly understood issue than an alarmist.

This is also confusing to me. I agree that there's a lack of urgency in most places except the scientific community. This undercuts any quasi-religious sentiment surrounding climate change, since such a sentiment would drive people to act on sheer faith, presumably. I understand that you're attributing this religiosity to the media, mainly; but I can't bring myself to accept it if it's not filtering throughout society at large. Does the media talk about climate change? Sometimes, but it's nowhere near the quasi-religious levels that you seem to think it is.

The problem is, many of these urban and cultural centers were well established before we had all this information and knowledge about climate change's effects. Kathryn Schulz wrote an excellent piece for the New Yorker a few years ago on the Cascadia subduction zone which highlights this point:

Native Americans had lived in the Northwest for millennia, but they had no written language, and the many things to which the arriving Europeans subjected them did not include seismological inquiries. The newcomers took the land they encountered at face value, and at face value it was a find: vast, cheap, temperate, fertile, and, to all appearances, remarkably benign.

A century and a half elapsed before anyone had any inkling that the Pacific Northwest was not a quiet place but a place in a long period of quiet. It took another fifty years to uncover and interpret the region’s seismic history.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

I assume you'd advocate completely dismantling coastal urban centers if people truly were worried about climate change, but this is simply not an immediately viable or feasible solution. You're demanding transformations without accounting for how fundamentally disruptive they would be. We can't let our only option be "move," especially since that's only a band-aid on a potentially more devastating problem. As we move, we will continue to drag our influence with us. We need to address behavioral and social policy issues if we want to have any long-term impact.

 

[Dak]

I don't really understand this position. Saying something isn't bad in itself isn't sufficient reason to justify inaction, since nothing is bad in itself. You seem to be taking a nihilistic/materialist approach that wants to flatten everything to its most base physical function, in which nothing has meaning in itself because physical processes like heat and melting don't think. I agree that they're not bad in themselves, but they signify serious concerns that are potentially very, very bad for us.

Okay, so your critique (as I understand it) is that the religiosity of climate change corresponds to the lack of some empirically observable signs of social disruption. In other words, climate change concern needs a quasi-spiritual faith ("Gaia") to make up for the lack of results.

My major objection is that I don't think there's a lack of observable results--I just think many of those results are so globally disseminated that no one (except scientists, for the most part) perceive them to be components of the same systemic process. There are people suffering because of climate change, and scientists will tell you these are empirically observable effects. Farms and fisheries are already experiencing issues, and the heat itself has already caused deaths: https://www.wunderground.com/blog/J...e-russian-heat-wave-and-pakistani-floods.html

Your problem with this kind of evidence, I take it, is that it's impossible to extract from things like heat waves and flooding any verifiable certainty that climate change, particular human-caused climate change, is directly responsible for such phenomena. But that's the nature of this field and of the data. Those kinds of connections don't exist because the relationship between these emergent occurrences and their conditions isn't linear. Causality, in a strict linear sense, can't be identified in this scenario. All that can be identified is an increasing pile of episodes and incidents, all that bear significant relation to the fluctuating processes of global warming. Suggesting that the onus is on science to produce definitive causal connections only feeds complacency.

I didn't mean bad in itself in a metaphysical sense (I could have been more clear). I mean that warming is bad in some ways or in some places, and good in some ways and in some places. Warming is not bad in the gross, and determining if it's a net bad requires all sorts of privileged value judgments.

I understand that it's complicated, but when things aren't clear, it renders policy suggestions fraught with problems. There's also usually no deep analysis at the popular level of the actual impact of various policies. Perfect examples are things like ethanol additives in gasoline, electric cars, solar panels, and the paper to plastic bag transition. Substantial policies looking at the consequential end are generally avoided, and the favored policy grab bag consists primarily of increasing central control and "feel-good" bans of things. "Do it for the Earth" is akin to "Do it for the Kids" afaiac, in its use for nefarious purposes, regardless of whether or not kids or the earth need things done for them.

I don't perceive as much controversy or inconsistency in the results as you do, and I'm not sure what your sources are for this uncertainty. I also don't get the comment about "trappings of a de-anthropomorphized "noble savage" orientation towards human civilizational development." Are you saying that concern for humanity is an anthropomorphic illusion or some such? Because if so, now you sound like the caricature of postmodern theory that you so dislike. Wanting to work to preserve the planet for ourselves and other species (and that's key) shouldn't be objectionable because it's "anthropomorphic."

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. Are you saying that certain policies will hurt future generations in other ways (economically, politically, etc.)?

There's a de-civilizational impulse among many of the more vocal "hippies". Obviously this doesn't cover maybe even the majority of those who claim the mantle of environmentally conscious, but that's the root of the movement as it were. Somehow there's a weird consistent consumer culture surrounding much of this less strictly hippy culture. For example, one must preferably have a shiny new electric vehicle (rather than, for instance, re-using a 3 cylinder Geo Metro which uses almost little gas and had less environmental impact in its construction than the tech heavy electrical cars,plus reduces waste and eliminates the new production impact), but driving a Subaru is also acceptable. Because the next most important thing to saving the environment is AWD no matter how often there's any ice on the road.

As far as the other point goes, I've never met a liberal of any stripe particularly concerned about either the annual budget deficit or the national debt, nor the impacts of their expenditures on the budget (nevermind the direct effects of those policies in their domains). Environmental can kicking bad, debt can-kicking good.

This is also confusing to me. I agree that there's a lack of urgency in most places except the scientific community. This undercuts any quasi-religious sentiment surrounding climate change, since such a sentiment would drive people to act on sheer faith, presumably. I understand that you're attributing this religiosity to the media, mainly; but I can't bring myself to accept it if it's not filtering throughout society at large. Does the media talk about climate change? Sometimes, but it's nowhere near the quasi-religious levels that you seem to think it is.

The problem is, many of these urban and cultural centers were well established before we had all this information and knowledge about climate change's effects. Kathryn Schulz wrote an excellent piece for the New Yorker a few years ago on the Cascadia subduction zone which highlights this point:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

I assume you'd advocate completely dismantling coastal urban centers if people truly were worried about climate change, but this is simply not an immediately viable or feasible solution. You're demanding transformations without accounting for how fundamentally disruptive they would be. We can't let our only option be "move," especially since that's only a band-aid on a potentially more devastating problem. As we move, we will continue to drag our influence with us. We need to address behavioral and social policy issues if we want to have any long-term impact.

You are right about this being incredibly disruptive, which is precisely the type of clear policy proposal which cannot be expected to be carried out on the individual level until the water starts rushing into the streets - partially because many people lack the resources to do so (and businesses aren't going to arbitrarily relocate where people aren't). Hell, your person most likely to believe in climate change and the worst predictions is most certainly not moving the Iowa any time soon.

 

[Einherjar86]

I didn't mean bad in itself in a metaphysical sense (I could have been more clear). I mean that warming is bad in some ways or in some places, and good in some ways and in some places. Warming is not bad in the gross, and determining if it's a net bad requires all sorts of privileged value judgments.

You're not talking about climate change or global warming though; you're talking about local weather patterns. A warm spell in a particular region might be good for locals in some way, shape, or form, but such localized experiences as "good" or "bad" don't translate into an assessment of whether global warming is "good" or "bad." They're two completely different scales.

I understand that it's complicated, but when things aren't clear, it renders policy suggestions fraught with problems. There's also usually no deep analysis at the popular level of the actual impact of various policies. Perfect examples are things like ethanol additives in gasoline, electric cars, solar panels, and the paper to plastic bag transition. Substantial policies looking at the consequential end are generally avoided, and the favored policy grab bag consists primarily of increasing central control and "feel-good" bans of things. "Do it for the Earth" is akin to "Do it for the Kids" afaiac, in its use for nefarious purposes, regardless of whether or not kids or the earth need things done for them.

It really sounds like you're upset that people are giving so much attention to climate change and less attention to other matters. That's a reason to emphasize other matters, but not a reason to detract from climate concerns.

There's a de-civilizational impulse among many of the more vocal "hippies". Obviously this doesn't cover maybe even the majority of those who claim the mantle of environmentally conscious, but that's the root of the movement as it were.

Can you give an example of this de-civilizational impulse?

Somehow there's a weird consistent consumer culture surrounding much of this less strictly hippy culture. For example, one must preferably have a shiny new electric vehicle (rather than, for instance, re-using a 3 cylinder Geo Metro which uses almost little gas and had less environmental impact in its construction than the tech heavy electrical cars,plus reduces waste and eliminates the new production impact), but driving a Subaru is also acceptable. Because the next most important thing to saving the environment is AWD no matter how often there's any ice on the road.

This isn't news. It was basically the concluding theme of Mad Men.

But I'd think you'd support sustainable alternatives that involve the development of new or emerging markets.

As far as the other point goes, I've never met a liberal of any stripe particularly concerned about either the annual budget deficit or the national debt, nor the impacts of their expenditures on the budget (nevermind the direct effects of those policies in their domains).

Then they must not exist.

You are right about this being incredibly disruptive, which is precisely the type of clear policy proposal which cannot be expected to be carried out on the individual level until the water starts rushing into the streets - partially because many people lack the resources to do so (and businesses aren't going to arbitrarily relocate where people aren't). Hell, your person most likely to believe in climate change and the worst predictions is most certainly not moving the Iowa any time soon.

So again, the question is: do we focus on getting people to consider the future moment when, as you put it, "the water starts rushing though the streets"--or do we let governmental policies take the initiative, even if the citizens affected aren't happy about it (e.g. increased taxes for reinforced infrastructure, safety precautions during storm seasons, targeted regulations on the food industry, etc.)?

 

[CiG]

My new hero. He's sacrificed so much for what he believes in. He bootstrapped his way from benchwarmer to the new face of Nike.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

tbh I never understood why anyone gave a fuck about him kneeling. All the good white Christian conservatives applauded that religious guy for kneeling in prayer during a game, but this guy kneels in a silent protest about something he believes in and everyone loses their shit. If it's not proof of a deeply-ingrained, closeted racism within the mainline Republican party, then it's at least proof that sports are an absolute cancer that serve no purpose outside of scratching the collective biological urge towards tribalism and love for authority. I'm glad he's making $$$$$$ over doing basically nothing, hope he rides it to the bank.

 

[rms]

Haha yeah. You see a lot of "go back to Africa" real quick on this discussion.

But then he turned out to be a prejudiced and selectively caring quasi Bernie Berkely bro and that was it for me. Hate when people act like he's a genius, he's said some genuinely stupid things but that'll never get touched because of the flag

My favorite is when people say it's not about the flag and his quote is "I won't stand for a country that oppresses black people" lol

 

[CiG]

I don't give a shit about the kneeling, though the irony that people think he has the right to do it while at the same time arguing that you have no first amendment rights to protect your speech from a corporation is there and hard to ignore.

It's funny to me that a bunch of rich as fuck black people are using this protest to make mega-dollars. The spirit of Sharpton is alive and well.

And again, what the fuck has he even sacrificed?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

...while at the same time arguing that you have no first amendment rights to protect your speech from a corporation...

What is this referring to?

afaik Kaepernick never engaged in rhetoric anywhere near the level of Sharpton. But I don't follow the guy so maybe I'm wrong. I agree that he's not really a hero or whatever, though there were still social pressures involved that most people wouldn't have defied without somewhat else doing it first. The fact that half the country shit themselves over it is a testament to that.

 

[CiG]

He was a nothing, background noise quarterback. When was the last time he even played? He's dogshit, and now he's the new face of Nike lmao. It's just funny to me that a player who was literally slipping into obscurity is now in the headlines, getting tons of publicity, money, sponsorships.

Essentially by doing this Nike made a political statement and political statements generate political statements in response. So as much as others are shitting themselves over this, it's just as ridiculous that people defending him think there should be no reaction.

What is this referring to?

And that's just referring to people on the left who fight back against the right when they complain about Roseanne being fired for Tweets or James Damore getting fired for his memo. Everybody seems to want the right to free speech at a job (like Colin and his kneeling that the NFL tried to put a stop to) unless it's related to someone they dislike, then they become constitutionalist lawyers.

 

[Dak]

 

[Dak]

You're not talking about climate change or global warming though; you're talking about local weather patterns. A warm spell in a particular region might be good for locals in some way, shape, or form, but such localized experiences as "good" or "bad" don't translate into an assessment of whether global warming is "good" or "bad." They're two completely different scales.

It really sounds like you're upset that people are giving so much attention to climate change and less attention to other matters. That's a reason to emphasize other matters, but not a reason to detract from climate concerns.

A warm spell is good in some places, bad in others. I am irritated people are myopic. It's a problem of democracy+IQ as well as pre-selected elites and dogma. Climate is one among many issues but people are simply slightly smarter monkeys, as some monkeys are intent on telling us.

Can you give an example of this de-civilizational impulse?

This isn't news. It was basically the concluding theme of Mad Men.

But I'd think you'd support sustainable alternatives that involve the development of new or emerging markets.

Then they must not exist.

NIMBYism, anti-nuclear, etc. Nuclear is our catapult. Energy "sustainability" is a pipedream at our current point.

So again, the question is: do we focus on getting people to consider the future moment when, as you put it, "the water starts rushing though the streets"--or do we let governmental policies take the initiative, even if the citizens affected aren't happy about it (e.g. increased taxes for reinforced infrastructure, safety precautions during storm seasons, targeted regulations on the food industry, etc.)?

I offered a clear-cut policy and action connection to promised climate change problems. Your response was nothing of the sort (taxes and bans).

 

[The Ozzman]

View attachment 15799

My new hero. He's sacrificed so much for what he believes in. He bootstrapped his way from benchwarmer to the new face of Nike.

They could at least use someone who actually sacrificed everything like these dudes

Killdozer!

 

[rms]

Tillman got.shot by his own dudes lol

 

[CiG]

Hail the killdozer, it sacrificed so much for us all.

 

[Einherjar86]

A warm spell is good in some places, bad in others. I am irritated people are myopic. It's a problem of democracy+IQ as well as pre-selected elites and dogma. Climate is one among many issues but people are simply slightly smarter monkeys, as some monkeys are intent on telling us.

Again, I'm not saying that warm and cold spells aren't locally good or bad. I'm saying that's not the same thing as "global warming." You seem to be mistakenly equating value judgments on local weather with value judgments on global warming in totum. These are two entirely different things. A farmer can't extrapolate that global warming is a good thing just because she experiences a good season due to weather. That experience doesn't translate into how we assess the dangers of global warming.

This isn't being myopic, unless I'm woefully misunderstanding you.

NIMBYism, anti-nuclear, etc. Nuclear is our catapult. Energy "sustainability" is a pipedream at our current point.

It's difficult to follow the logic of your responses. I take it that NIMBYism (?) and anti-nuclear (anti-nuclear what?) are de-civilizational? And nuclear is our catapult to what?

Total energy sustainability might be a pipedream, but that's not an argument against pursuing specific sustainability efforts, especially if they're market-oriented.

I offered a clear-cut policy and action connection to promised climate change problems. Your response was nothing of the sort (taxes and bans).

You did? I apologize, I missed that.

My comments about bans and taxes were very rough caricatures of what happens (or is likely to happen) if we leave things entirely to governmental institutions. It would be better if a strong grassroots movement complemented the political measures, since this would provide more support at the community level.