Science & Technology News

[SailOar]

William Nordhaus is a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on climate change. This is from an interview with him about his latest book, The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World

Nobel winner’s evolution from ‘dark realist’ to just plain realist on climate change

• Economists have developed elegant and powerful theories about how the private sector works. But this does not apply to public goods
• In a well-managed society we must recognize the need for collective actions as well as actions of the private sector
• The COVID pandemic is a recent example. The patent system along with the pre-purchase agreements made vaccine development profitable for pharmaceutical companies
• Both carbon pricing and support for low-carbon technologies are necessary if we’re going to reach our goals
• Suing oil companies is an example of efforts that are extremely costly and extremely divisive
• If you had a proper price on carbon there would be no need have companies waste their time disclosing their emissions
• Almost every country has a carbon price except the United States and Russia
• It would require extremely high carbon prices to get to zero carbon emissions by mid-century

[CatNewBee]

The good thing is, governments can be removed from power if they over-stretch the ambitions and legislations. So if there is no consensus in the majority of the population and no desire for masochistic draconian measures, this policies will be short living.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

The good thing is, governments can be removed from power if they over-stretch the ambitions and legislations. So if there is no consensus in the majority of the population and no desire for masochistic draconian measures, this policies will be short living.

Quite true. One of the major problems with solving the Climate Change problem is that we humans are wired to strongly react to immediate threats, and to strongly discount distant threats. If we can't collectively use our intelligence to counter our natural inclinations to ignore the not-so-distant warning signs of Climate Change we will find ourselves dealing with a much larger problem than we already face.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

The good thing is, governments can be removed from power if they over-stretch the ambitions and legislations. So if there is no consensus in the majority of the population and no desire for masochistic draconian measures, this policies will be short living.

Actually not so fast. The financial impact will last for a longer period.
I just wish America could have stayed out of the Paris Agreement debacle
Heck just another 2 years without our billions injected and it would have all fallen apart.
We did more to curb our emissions when not a part of that stupidity.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Quite true. One of the major problems with solving the Climate Change problem is that we humans are wired to strongly react to immediate threats, and to strongly discount distant threats. If we can't collectively use our intelligence to counter our natural inclinations to ignore the not-so-distant warning signs of Climate Change we will find ourselves dealing with a much larger problem than we already face.

They have been screaming the same 20 years crud for 50 years when will it actually happen .???

Answer is it won't.

Prove me wrong

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Actually not so fast. The financial impact will last for a longer period...

Indeed; government actions to rapidly boost clean energy, and reduce fossil fuel use, can create millions of jobs, lift economic growth, and fuel prosperity, in both, the short, and long term.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Indeed; government actions to rapidly boost clean energy, and reduce fossil fuel use, can create millions of jobs, lift economic growth, and fuel prosperity, in both, the short, and long term.

Where are they ? Will never materialize.
But the US has already lost over 2 million jobs due to bidens shortsightedness

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Indeed; government actions to rapidly boost clean energy, and reduce fossil fuel use, can create millions of jobs, lift economic growth, and fuel prosperity, in both, the short, and long term.

Just like the dropping electric energy prices in Germany with the renewable energy laws, that have almost doubled or trippled since introduction...

[dfelsent]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Where are they ? Will never materialize.
But the US has already lost over 2 million jobs due to bidens shortsightedness

Ummm. Nope. Please reality check your numbers.

[Adelie]

This thread is skating in the edge of closure.
Dial back the politics please.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Speaking of points, that was my point. The atmospheric CO2 levels have been higher than present for 99.5% of the time in the past 400 mya.

And your point has no point. We became homo sapiens in pretty much this climate, and this is the climate that currently supports us (and all of the other current species). Humans haven't been around for like 99.75% of last 400 million years...Who or what are you advocating for, basically? It doesn't seem to be us.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Sheriffdep

...Point is HOW are we as a world going to stop warming and keep it under the now proposed 1.5C temp change??????

NO ONE is addressing that except one to say impossible to do it. That is where the real argument is.

Perfect is the enemy of good, of course. The truth? Because of foot-dragging and denial... we probably can't hold the warming to no more than 1.5C. And, yes, this will likely cause irreversible damage as the IPCC and others have predicted. Oops.

So, maybe we can hold it to under 2.0C? And... there's 999 other reasons besides climate change for using less fossil fuel. A late fix is better than no fix.

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

And your point has no point. We became homo sapiens in pretty much this climate, and this is the climate that currently supports us (and all of the other current species). Humans haven't been around for like 99.75% of last 400 million years...Who or what are you advocating for, basically? It doesn't seem to be us.

Umm, no. We became homo sapiens in an ice age world and this current climate compared to then would be a climate alarmist's wet dream. Yet here we are, doing better than ever.

p.s You forgot to add "Heretic!" to your post, too.

[bcboomer]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Umm, no. We became homo sapiens in an ice age world and this current climate compared to then would be a climate alarmist's wet dream. Yet here we are, doing better than ever.

p.s You forgot to add "Heretic!" to your post, too.

The last ice age was 20,000 years ago. Homo sapiens were pretty static in their (our) evolution until 12,000 years ago. That's when we started to control crops and animals.
Modern man can probably survive an environmental collapse but not modern society.

[newhaul]

https://www.thegwpf.com/europe-goes-...f-natural-gas/

Interesting read .