Fear Itself

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11 Responses to Fear Itself

  1. Chris Peterson says:

    I can just see FDR, up to his chin in rising water, claiming, “We have nothing to fear, but …glurp, glurp…glurp.”
    Then again, if the sea rises high enough, they can start offshore drilling in downtown Miami.

  2. Steven Frisch says:

    Climate change a ‘blind unreasoning fear?”

    I will chalk that one up to artistic license.

  3. Chris Peterson says:

    Those who owned the whaling ships were the 1% of their day, yet they didn’t have the power to stop the transition to oil. And the ones who raised the best, or most, horses couldn’t stop the automobile from taking over the market. History is chock full of examples where items like candles were beaten back by products like light bulbs and the seats of the wealthy were changed by innovation and invention.

    But never has the whole of humanity been kept so long from that next leap of advancement through the corrupt power of the purse as it has with today’s fossil fuel barons. And never has that unbridled greed threatened the very existence of the human race as it does today.

    I have heard no one claim that the world will end in ten years if we don’t make an immediate change, but it is a scientific fact that if we don’t begin curtailing in earnest our effects on the environment within the next ten years, we will have waited too late to affect any significant change in our current destructive trajectory.

    I’m reminded of when Senator James Inhofe brought a snowball to the Senate floor to dispute climate change; truly humorous if you don’t consider the self-eradication of the 7 billion humans and the majority of plants and animals from the face of the Earth.

    6 in 10 people are now either alarmed or deeply concerned about global warming, but this isn’t some policy dispute over “how” we live, (like an NRA issue, or “the wall”), it’s an argument over “if” we live. Having a grandson, it really pisses me off that some people, who obviously have no vested interest in the future, are allowed to radically change life on Earth for their own temporary gain.

    Sorry for the long diatribe; you hit my major button on this one.

  4. rl crabb says:

    The change is happening despite what the Trumpublickins think or do. Will it happen in ten years? Most likely not. My objection is in the way the Green New Deal was presented. Promising trillions of dollars in new taxes and completely retooling the economy is more likely to scare off voters than win converts. Better to concentrate efforts on practical and affordable progress towards the goal.
    And if that doesn’t work, well, there’s still the threat of a three hour banjo solo.

  5. rl crabb says:

    I suspect my little fear will only get bigger from now until November of 2020… http://reason.com/archives/2019/03/29/democratic-dystopias

  6. Steven Frisch says:

    Boy this really is the perfect example of how seemingly sensible people who know how propaganda works can STILL fall hook line and sinker for the right kind of propaganda if it supports a narrative that they are prone to believe to begin with.

    The IPCC is merely telling ya’all what’s gonna happen.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

    https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/

    The question gentlemen is do you want to pay gradually now, or catastrophically later.

      • Steven Frisch says:

        Yeah, the thing is, through all the hype, there is actually a lot we can do right now with existing technology.

        The first step is planning for the future. This means investments in new land use planning to reduce carbon based fuel dependence by incorporating the space for infrastructure for low carbon energy, transportation, and building patterns. It means shifting tax policy to incentivize the development of new technologies. It means making a commitment that includes the gradual establishment of targets for emissions reduction, specific implementation steps based on lowest cost and biggest bang for the buck first, it means measuring and tracking progress and adjusting planning as targets are met or problems arise reaching targets. This is an commitment to a long term adaptive management approach.

        The second step is pricing carbon so that markets reflect the true cost of emissions and send a price signal to consumers to adopt the lowest emission alternatives. That could be done through cap and trade or a carbon tax or a tax and dividend structure. Price signals are how we incentivize or de-incentivize everything right now–we have the systems in place already to do it. Pricing carbon will likely reduce costs in offsetting areas, like property insurance, per capita cost of energy consumption, operating expenses of vehicle fleets, reduced social costs in public health.

        The third step is smoothing the transition, through creating new industries and employment (renewables already employ more people than carbon based fuels with only 20% of market share), capturing a portion of the multiplier effect of new industries to reduce costs for people at risk or at the bottom of the income levels, and using fuel switching to bridge fuels that reduce emissions at lower costs while new technology (primarily energy storage) is being developed.

        These are all things we have current technology and systems in place to do without all the hubbub over “doing it all right now.”

        Instead where we are now is everyone focusing on all or nothing which is a complete dead end.

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