This is a beautiful essay, and so sane compared with everything else I've been reading. Still...the chain of contingencies that gets us to zero-emissions technologies is so long and complex, it boggles the mind. Call me pessimistic, but I'm betting on Nature's backup plan: depopulation.
I feel like the vast majority of people will do what's easy and affordable. So if we make electric cars and non-plastic plant-based cling wrap and vat-grown beef that seems like formerly living cow meat, most people will be like, cool. We're always going to have the Trumans who are willing to die in lava while clinging to their plastic bags and CAFO bacon rather than concede the point, but most of us are too lazy for that kind of conviction.
Also we need to get the Indonesians and Turkmens some AC, stat. I'm not too proud to admit that when temperatures rise above 90 I become a different person. Have we tried that as a foreign policy strategy?
Well. We did make the trade in the 70’s and 80’s and said “you know, I know nuclear power doesn’t give off green house gasses but a few thousand people might die in the short term every few decades and we can’t have that. So let’s all strap in for planet fireball!”
Seriously though. I feel like the anti nuclear hippies have done more damage than they get held accountable for.
Also. While you I’m realistic about it like you are. I also think we are pretty resourceful (I mean we keep building cities and rebuilding them in massive natural disaster areas). I actually think we’ll adapt to climate change pretty fast. Maybe faster than it’s happening.
Third. The messaging of climate activists has been so exhaustingly hyperbolic that it’s made liars of them.
Much like DARE they drastically overstate things for effect to get your attention. Except when their most dire predictions fail to come true time after time then skeptics believe that EVERYTHING they say must be hyperbolic pearl clutching.
This is such a good post. Depressing topic, but almost every sentence is a great line.
P.S. Congrats on being deBoer’s substack of the week!
This is a beautiful essay, and so sane compared with everything else I've been reading. Still...the chain of contingencies that gets us to zero-emissions technologies is so long and complex, it boggles the mind. Call me pessimistic, but I'm betting on Nature's backup plan: depopulation.
I feel like the vast majority of people will do what's easy and affordable. So if we make electric cars and non-plastic plant-based cling wrap and vat-grown beef that seems like formerly living cow meat, most people will be like, cool. We're always going to have the Trumans who are willing to die in lava while clinging to their plastic bags and CAFO bacon rather than concede the point, but most of us are too lazy for that kind of conviction.
Also we need to get the Indonesians and Turkmens some AC, stat. I'm not too proud to admit that when temperatures rise above 90 I become a different person. Have we tried that as a foreign policy strategy?
Anyone interested in a long-form (and less funny, sorry) exposition of this should check out the People's Policy Project's policy paper on a Global Green New Deal at https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/project/global-green-new-deal-for-the-developing-world/.
To steal someone else's line (https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1338969705764282376), the remaining carbon budget is a development budget!
FWIW Bernie Sanders stated that the vote on Amendment 3055 actually had nothing to do with the green new deal.
Well. We did make the trade in the 70’s and 80’s and said “you know, I know nuclear power doesn’t give off green house gasses but a few thousand people might die in the short term every few decades and we can’t have that. So let’s all strap in for planet fireball!”
Seriously though. I feel like the anti nuclear hippies have done more damage than they get held accountable for.
Also. While you I’m realistic about it like you are. I also think we are pretty resourceful (I mean we keep building cities and rebuilding them in massive natural disaster areas). I actually think we’ll adapt to climate change pretty fast. Maybe faster than it’s happening.
Third. The messaging of climate activists has been so exhaustingly hyperbolic that it’s made liars of them.
Much like DARE they drastically overstate things for effect to get your attention. Except when their most dire predictions fail to come true time after time then skeptics believe that EVERYTHING they say must be hyperbolic pearl clutching.