161–170 of 207 posts
Which makes sense. Because if you let up for a moment, your competition surely won't.
So to tell the princes, "hey, put that furious game aside for a sec. We have something more important to attend to" isn't gonna do it.
I think that the princes, these people who control the world, are psychologically incapable of quitting the prince-game.
Travel is the most inefficient, wasteful, and anti-climate activity I can think of because for many cases it is simply unnecessary or discretionary. Beyond having some 100,000 flights per day pumping greenhouse gases directly into the atmosphere think of the infrastructure and workforce involved in running airports, hotels, car rentals, shuttles, parking lots, restaurants, uber/taxis, etc.
I think air travel should be rare and expensive especially for business and vacations. Perhaps a heavy tax on business and pleasure travel would be good place to start.
While we are at it work should be done remotely whenever possible and empty office buildings should be renovated into affordable housing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like we are stuck in a confined space and slowly gassing ourselves with CO2 and we are arguing over turning the engine off. Oh, wait, no, it is literally that.
I feel like the analogy has to be fleshed out with the caveat that "turning the engine off" kills some > 50% of the people in the confined space right away.
We have to wind the engine down while shifting the work over to a parallel electric motor that we’re in the process of building.
Until your green is everyone’s green, the planet is not getting saved. Safe nuclear and other helpful tech is where surplus money should be going.
Respectfully suggest this is nonsense. No serious climate scientist thinks we are going to fall off a cliff. There will be huge costs, yes. Civilization won't end, no. What people fail to grasp is that costs can be absolutely enormous but look like a blip compared to the effect of GDP growth in the long run. World War II is an example. The millions of deaths barely show up on a graph of world population. The huge los…
Another option is to pump the brakes . > “ As the lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus in India continues, pollution levels across much of the country have dropped sharply. Now some residents in northern India say they can see the snow-capped Himalayas 200 kilometres away for the first time in 30 years. ” [1] If we had a global deflationary economic system, the incentive to invest in capital and engage in consu…
This works really well if you have $480,000 in savings, but it doesn't really work if you have 0 savings, or debt. Deflation, with its disincentives to investment or economic growth, would reduce employment and real wages. Most Americans would lose their jobs or see their wages cut as the economy ground to a halt. Anyone with debt would likely be trapped working for the rest of their life at subsistence wages, never…
If the only way to cure the climate crisis is to prevent people from flying having tchotchkes, how naive is Corey to think that the rich will somehow stop those things before the middle class and poor do?
But it's dangerous and flawed to mix climate targets with social justice targets for this very reason. Hinging the swerve on a social/economic revolution means it will never happen.
Is it naive to think we could prevent the impending ecological collapse and international conflict with mass fusion power? Unlimited energy to remove carbon from the atmosphere, oceans, etc. You also don't need to sell the rich on a life of austerity, as that kind of electricity would allow us to continue and even increase our current Western way of life.
"Let's carry on as-is until fusion works" is "don't worry, we'll put wings on the bus" in Doctorow's terms. By all means, let's continue fusion research. But we should also urgently work on some other angles just in case.
Another option is to pump the brakes . > “ As the lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus in India continues, pollution levels across much of the country have dropped sharply. Now some residents in northern India say they can see the snow-capped Himalayas 200 kilometres away for the first time in 30 years. ” [1] If we had a global deflationary economic system, the incentive to invest in capital and engage in consu…
This works really well if you have $480,000 in savings, but it doesn't really work if you have 0 savings, or debt. Deflation, with its disincentives to investment or economic growth, would reduce employment and real wages. Most Americans would lose their jobs or see their wages cut as the economy ground to a halt. Anyone with debt would likely be trapped working for the rest of their life at subsistence wages, never…
Once in the deflationary environment, the cost of borrowing would be higher, and there would be less reason to work, consume and invest. Hence, there would be less incentive to take on debt.
Many things are preferable to having 0 savings and a planet on fire.