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The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

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Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

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post #203

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Why do people keep saying this? We're around only for a couple million years if you count australopithecus. And during that time there were possibly several periods with less than 100k individuals. Going from 7B to 100k would be pretty close to extinction. 0.00143% The question is can we keep industrial scale food production going? Can we get people enough clean water?

People say that because of technology. Name another species that can create its own energy, create new materials and cure diseases.

We create our own energy? How? Ever heard of Thermodynamics?

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#232
post #223
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep saying this? We're around only for a couple million years if you count australopithecus. And during that time there were possibly several periods with less than 100k individuals. Going from 7B to 100k would be pretty close to extinction. 0.00143% The question is can we keep industrial scale food production going? Can we get people enough clean water?

People say that because of technology. Name another species that can create its own energy, create new materials and cure diseases.

People only really have the kind of technology I think you're referring to if they're lucky enough to be born into a more economically developed country. Unfortunately, it's the less economically developed countries that are going to bear the brunt of climate change, being already under stress and relying heavily on climate-sensitive sectors (e.g. agriculture).

The ones who have contributed the least to climate change will almost certainly suffer the most -- this isn't a matter of whether or not our species will survive, it's a matter of injustice.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time of Galileo, were there extremely powerful corporations whose profits would be boosted by pro-heliocentric and pro-heretical views? The comparison seems a stretch to me but I'm no expert on the life and times of Galileo so I would be happy to be proven wrong.

> At the time of Galileo, were there extremely powerful corporations whose profits would be boosted by pro-heliocentric and pro-heretical views? Definitely. The State and Church were dominant and depended on a heliocentric view (ie, rule by divine right).

I thought the church supported the geocentric view at that time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Inquisition#Galileo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But first they have to stop denying warming is happening I believe that they can see that reducing carbon emissions is entirely incompatible with their usual line of thoughts and policies. They need either to renounce to their ideology, or deny/minimize climate change.

I don't think it's incompatible with their policies and principles, but it is incompatible with their current funding sources (coal, oil, Russia, Saudi) and voting base (old people who will die relatively soon soon). Competition from China and EU showing it's possible and profitable and voters dying out might flip them surprisingly quickly.

China, which has recently added an entire United States worth of new coal emissions?

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#235
post #98

> And yet, for some reason, the idea persists in some peoples' minds that climate change is up for debate, or that climate change is no big deal. Hold it right there. Anthropogenic climate change (not just that the earth is warming, but that we are responsible) is a scientific hypothesis . Like all hypotheses, it cannot be proven true, only disproven by contradictory evidence. Doubt is a critical element in testing a…

> Every scientific hypothesis is "up for debate," and the day that isn't true is the day science dies

Yes, in science. Not in policy.

The minute some scientist goes on TV or some podcast targeting a general audience, they try to shape public opinion instead of furthering academic knowledge. At that point they have to be aware of societal consequences, even if they "just present data".

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's incompatible with their policies and principles, but it is incompatible with their current funding sources (coal, oil, Russia, Saudi) and voting base (old people who will die relatively soon soon). Competition from China and EU showing it's possible and profitable and voters dying out might flip them surprisingly quickly.

China, which has recently added an entire United States worth of new coal emissions?

Yes. China is big and growing fast. It also spent 3 times what the US did on renewables. It's coal plants are all more efficient than their US equivalensts too.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They resent people who use climate change as a proxy for another agenda In my experience, it's more a question that whenever action is proposed, they simply claim as an axiom that it those proposing action actually have another agenda. "You want to introduce tax on carbon emissions? You clearly want big government to control our lives and destroy American industry". This kind of paranoid thinking is problematic in…

There is probably more middle ground. Many people read problematic, and just hear counter-revolutionary. If we agree on reducing carbon emissions, and using policy tools to do it, there are a lot of solutions that don't require trusting that a carbon tax will be used for anything but general revenue. Without limits on what the money is used for, it's the same as a progressive VAT/consumption tax, which isn't a necess…

> there are a lot of solutions that don't require trusting that a carbon tax will be used for anything but general revenue.

There are indeed. Carbon fee and dividend is perhaps the most popular proposal in the world. Under this system the revenue is immediately returned to the general populace, equally on a per-person basis.

Why are you assuming any other kind?

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#238
post #100

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Meanwhile, the scientists start joining Extinction Rebellion. That should tell you something.

That they’re actually fanatics?

About as fanatic as someone who sees a small fire in their apartment building and tries to get the firefighters and/or the other residents to remove the danger I suppose.

Bad comparisons aside, it should tell you they (we) trust our data and conclusions enough to panic. Someone in it for just the money wouldn't do that, someone inflating the importance of the issue for grant money wouldn't either.

(And the argument about doing that to keep a job is ridiculous, as if no other jobs existed that would either pay far more money or would be similarly interesting and important.)

And of course you have more moderates that only go to the Fridays for Future protests and give talks etc.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is probably more middle ground. Many people read problematic, and just hear counter-revolutionary. If we agree on reducing carbon emissions, and using policy tools to do it, there are a lot of solutions that don't require trusting that a carbon tax will be used for anything but general revenue. Without limits on what the money is used for, it's the same as a progressive VAT/consumption tax, which isn't a necess…

> there are a lot of solutions that don't require trusting that a carbon tax will be used for anything but general revenue. There are indeed. Carbon fee and dividend is perhaps the most popular proposal in the world. Under this system the revenue is immediately returned to the general populace, equally on a per-person basis. Why are you assuming any other kind?

We would be getting into the weeds of it, but it's just redistributive, with all the moral hazard associated with that, and without applying it to direct investment in a carbon sink technology that mitigates the problem.

There are values that just don't scale well without trade offs against things like human dignity (loaded, but important), and applying the sentiments behind equity to vastly heterogeneous global interests is one of them.

While I (and my more reactionary and working class friends) understand that carbon taxes presumably compensate The People for the consequences of what was formerly an environmental externality - the use of climate as just a pretext for redistribution signals what gets perceived as an underlying dishonesty and illegitimate elitism that makes it difficult to legitimize the rationale, or outcomes.

For example, basic income funded by indirect taxation is an interesting solution to a specific set of problems around technology and globalization, but it requires a level of trust that has been damaged by freighting climate with these other agendas. Still doable, but to honestly discuss the options requires frank talk about limits and boundaries to its application.

I've got opinions like anyone and I'm not always entirely above point scoring either, so it's going to take real work for people to do it.

Having read things like Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, and watching Scott Alexander's influence, the question of what the fundamental irreconcilable difference of interest may be is the most pressing question. How do we reconcile interests and coexist with people whose most basic beliefs we experience as alien? Some would just say, "win," even independent of political persuasion, but I'd argue there is immensely valuable work to be done to find ways to do better.

So short version, returning carbon tax money to the general populace means general revenue, for general spending, which is not something conservatives tend to trust.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in part because that’s not what the IPCC is projecting. It’s telling that nobody ever references the work of the IPCC on expected economic impacts of climate change. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap... > For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers (medium evidence, high agreement). Changes in population, age, incom…

That is bullshit from our dear Nordhaus, Nobel Price in now fully discredited Economics. More debunking here: https://youtu.be/vwwvZ8g5eHE

Thank you for posting that. Something sure seemed off between what I’ve heard as reasonable models of climate changes nonlinear reality versus the theories expanded here.
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