Comment by Arainach

Comment by Arainach 13 hours ago

7 replies

We could start by banning things that explicitly waste resources such as proof of work cryptocurrency and adjust tax incentives to punish huge energy consumers for things like AI. Make the energy cost factor in the long-term externalities and maybe companies will hesitate before burning the world for things that aren't necessary.

Things don't have to be perfect - you start with the biggest polluters/consumers and use trade incentives to convince other nations to join. We've seen this work under Democratic administrations (China's outputs are dropping) before Trump etc. threw it all away.

ethanpailes 12 hours ago

China turning the corner on emissions has far more to do with their desire to get out from under the possibility of an oil blockade locking up their economy than green pressure from the west. They also organically have an environmental movement, though not one that they are willing to kowtow to at the cost of growth.

  • keyringlight 12 hours ago

    Another factor for China was their cities choking on smog. One of the anecdotes I remember from Covid was that mask wearing in Asian cities was just another thing you did depending on that aspect of the weather, except in 2020 it had another reason behind it.

keyringlight 12 hours ago

I think a cap on what consumption you're allowed until you can prove utility to society would be beneficial. That said, with crypto it was distributed so it'd be extremely hard to enforce, and using the example of how AI has played out there's companies willing and able to dump money speculating on it just so they don't lose out if it does bear fruit. I expect for anything in future that shows potential they can organize themselves around regulations faster than new rules and enforcement could adapt.

exoverito 12 hours ago

Disturbingly authoritarian impulses for a dubious prescription.

The climate goes through natural cycles, we are actually coming out of a global temperature low after the ice age. Cold eras are actually far more dangerous throughout human history, for example the Little Ice Age during the Dark Ages which caused widespread crop failures and famine in Europe. Warm eras are correlated with the golden ages of civilizations, such as the Roman Warm Period. Zooming out over geological time, the Earth is currently near an all time low in terms of surface temperatures.

Cryptocurrency functions as a decentralized means of exchange outside of the control of centralized powers. Governments have been feverishly debasing their fiat currencies, which has fueled inflation, pricing many young people out of owning a home. It would seem you would rather trap people in an inflationary monetary paradigm, justifying it with secular eschatology. Millenarian Marxists have similarly latched onto climate change as their justification for abolishing private property, policies of degrowth, and other anti-human initiatives.

Energy per capita is tightly correlated with living standards. We saw broad wealth increases up until about 1970, after which energy per capita flat lined, and income inequality started worsening. Europe has implemented many of the polices you want, and has achieved nothing besides deindustrialization and irrelevancy.

China's CO2 emissions are increasing dramatically, and they continue to build more coal and natural gas plants. The USA and Europe reduced their emissions mostly by offshoring manufacturing to China.

It seems you're deeply confused about how the world works.

  • anon84873628 12 hours ago

    >Warm eras are correlated with the golden ages of civilizations

    Yeah, and hot eras kill civilizations. There's a famous one called the 4.2 kiloyear event. Does modern mesopotamia seem like a great place for the birthplace of agriculture?

    I don't necessarily agree with the parent's politics, but you seem to be completely ignoring the categorical difference of CO2 emissions and associated risks of climate tipping points to our civilization.

    • oceanplexian 11 hours ago

      > Does modern mesopotamia seem like a great place for the birthplace of agriculture?

      Actually yes, if not for the massive cultural and political dysfunction.

      Modern Day Mesopotamia would be one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world if managed. Like the California Central Valley and Central Arizona which share similar climate classifications and are the most productive regions (per Acre) on the planet.

  • roelschroeven 12 hours ago

    If you think the rise in global temperature that's going on now is going to lead to the golden ages of civilization, you're deeply confused about how the world works.

    Go to the Wikipedia page on the Little Ice Age, have a look at the graph Global Average Temperature Change, and explain to us how current climate change is at all comparable to the Little Ice Age, or the Medieval Warm Period for that matter.

    Or have a look at https://xkcd.com/1732/ (scroll all the way down) to get an idea of the rate and scale of temperature changes throughout human history.