If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Einherjar86]

It probably is partially influenced, but the world has been hotter and has been much, much colder. We still attach too much significance to ourselves.

It's not a competition with ancient epochs. So what if it's been hotter in the past? That's not the point. The point is that it's been warming since humans have started industrializing, and maybe we can do something to combat the consequences.

Saying it's been hotter in the far distant past has no practical bearing on the argument at hand.

I'd rather call them effects than consequences, at least as far as warming goes. This isn't ozone-killing emissions or plastic in the oceans, which have pretty clear connections with significant consequences.

I'm confused, because these things are connected to global warming...

Well so is the constant trotting out of consensus as a justification by every hack in media.

No, it's really not.

 

[Dak]

It's not a competition with ancient epochs. So what if it's been hotter in the past? That's not the point. The point is that it's been warming since humans have started industrializing, and maybe we can do something to combat the consequences.

Saying it's been hotter in the far distant past has no practical bearing on the argument at hand.

There is no coherent, explicit argument at hand other than one bound together between naked primarily coastal self interest and a climate stasis cult.

I'm confused, because these things are connected to global warming...

Plastic in the water makes the earth warmer? CFCs did contribute but have been widely curbed. The hole in the ozone has, by all accounts, very clear culprits and consequences. Carbon emissions much less so.

No, it's really not.

Why do you protect shit journalism so? I certainly don't do so for shit psychology (which is probably most psychological "science"), and I theoretically have a tribal interest in doing so.

 

[CiG]

http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/louis-ck-comedy-cellar-women-describe-rape-whistle-joke.html

“It felt like he was being thrust upon the audience without telling them,” one woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told Vulture.

Basically comedy-rape.

 

[Dak]

Sad, sad little man.

Get back in the PoundMeToo basement.

 

[Einherjar86]

There is no coherent, explicit argument at hand other than one bound together between naked primarily coastal self interest and a climate stasis cult.

Argument for what? That the planet is warming? Because if so, then yes there is.

Plastic in the water makes the earth warmer?

Very likely, yes.

CFCs did contribute but have been widely curbed. The hole in the ozone has, by all accounts, very clear culprits and consequences. Carbon emissions much less so.

I don't understand. Are you saying it's unclear whether increased carbon emissions are the result of industry? Because if so, I highly disagree. It's quite clear that human industry has contributed to increased emissions.

Why do you protect shit journalism so? I certainly don't do so for shit psychology (which is probably most psychological "science"), and I theoretically have a tribal interest in doing so.

Is that what I'm doing?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

https://twitter.com/Siobhan_ODwyer/status/1035490124589674496

 

[CiG]

[swoops in]

https://twitter.com/whereisdaz/status/1036446125820002305

 

[HamburgerBoy]

My gen chem professor nearly had to give a trigger warning before describing degenerate orbitals. Academia is so full of pussies. If there's ever a class revolt between a communist working proletariat and a liberal academic bourgeois, I'm joining the commies.

 

[CiG]

They disgust me more than words can really describe.

 

[The Ozzman]

https://twitter.com/Siobhan_ODwyer/status/1035490124589674496

Thot patrolled lmao

Academia is so full of pussies

This board is representative of that

 

[Dak]

Argument for what? That the planet is warming? Because if so, then yes there is.

"The earth is warming" is not the end of it though. There's a religion and associated cottage industry surrounding the meaning of the possible warming and all that is associated with the possibility that the earth is warming.

Very likely, yes.

I don't understand. Are you saying it's unclear whether increased carbon emissions are the result of industry? Because if so, I highly disagree. It's quite clear that human industry has contributed to increased emissions.

I haven't seen anyone suggest that microplastics in the ocean contribute to warming.

What I mean is that CFCs were a specific, artificial carbon form which had a specific effect on the ozone. Trying to determine the effect of human contributions to carbon on climate effects though involves a significant amount of caveats and confounds.

Is that what I'm doing?

Here and often, yes. I'm not sure if it's in reaction to Trump's bashing of journalists or what.

 

[Einherjar86]

"The earth is warming" is not the end of it though. There's a religion and associated cottage industry surrounding the meaning of the possible warming and all that is associated with the possibility that the earth is warming.

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 haven't seen anyone suggest that microplastics in the ocean contribute to warming.

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).

What I mean is that CFCs were a specific, artificial carbon form which had a specific effect on the ozone. Trying to determine the effect of human contributions to carbon on climate effects though involves a significant amount of caveats and confounds.

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.

Here and often, yes. I'm not sure if it's in reaction to Trump's bashing of journalists or what.

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.

 

[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.)?