Are all Climate crisis deniers conspiracy theorists?

[Jeeves]

The tree planting in itself is not the issue it is the psychological effect that having a global population focused on accepting climate change (crisis) requires a solution... that is... IMO it would give people a common cause and hope and a sense that they can do something about it all...

Well, it seems to be all down to the kids and a few geriatric cinema performers.
It should be no problem getting young volunteers for tree-planting projects (our newly elected federal government has one in its platform), and the government - as well as corporations that could use some public good-will - might do well to hire labourers made redundant by automation. There's a ton of urgent remediation and retrofitting to do on ocean-front and northern communities; dam-building on flood-plains, moving vulnerable installations, etc: plenty of work to replace the oil-fields and coal-mines.
To me, the most important mitigating strategies should be
1. demand-reduction. It starts with eliminating the unconscionable amount of waste, maximizing the efficiency of resource use, transportation, food production and housing .
and 2. distribution of energy generation. "The grid" has always been a bad idea: sloppy, dangerous, expensive, wasteful, vulnerable, costly to maintain and unsightly; in the prevailing climate, it's flat-out insane - and that's what they're hooking the wind farms and nukes into.
But politicians are afraid to tell people they can't have the good old days back again.

 

[Seattle]

...and inadvertently demonstrating denial by doing so....
How do you think the global economy will fair as the climate situation deteriorates?
In possibly less than 5 years there may not be an "Economy" as we know it....

This is why I asked what the words Catastrophic Threat means to you?

I don't think it makes any sense to say that in 5 years there won't be an economy. In 5 years Iceaura wants it be be like pre-1980 again.

 

[Quantum Quack]

I don't think it makes any sense to say that in 5 years there won't be an economy. In 5 years Iceaura wants it be be like pre-1980 again.

Keeping an eye on the economic situation in California over the next couple of years may prove enlightnening...as an example...
And Japan, given their massive annual disaster bill...

 

[Quantum Quack]

Well, it seems to be all down to the kids and a few geriatric cinema performers.
It should be no problem getting young volunteers for tree-planting projects (our newly elected federal government has one in its platform), and the government - as well as corporations that could use some public good-will - might do well to hire labourers made redundant by automation. There's a ton of urgent remediation and retrofitting to do on ocean-front and northern communities; dam-building on flood-plains, moving vulnerable installations, etc: plenty of work to replace the oil-fields and coal-mines.
To me, the most important mitigating strategies should be
1. demand-reduction. It starts with eliminating the unconscionable amount of waste, maximizing the efficiency of resource use, transportation, food production and housing .
and 2. distribution of energy generation. "The grid" has always been a bad idea: sloppy, dangerous, expensive, wasteful, vulnerable, costly to maintain and unsightly; in the prevailing climate, it's flat-out insane - and that's what they're hooking the wind farms and nukes into.
But politicians are afraid to tell people they can't have the good old days back again.

A lot of it is generational inertia....but as the young people get onboard we might see something ...

 

[Quantum Quack]

I was just reading that a social media group (6000+ members) called the doomers (game over) were mainly aged 50, 60, 70s

 

[Jeeves]

I was just reading that a social media group (6000+ members) called the doomers (game over) were mainly aged 50, 60, 70s

New slogan: "Do it to impress your grandkids and piss off your kids."

 

[iceaura]

Ah, we've reached the point where you are out of reality based arguments

That was a reality based argument, in response to your dismissal of an accurate and reality based claim by what it "sounds like" to you.
You drew a false equivalence based on a Schmelzer-like comparison of the "sound" of things, with no reality check; noting that fact is a reality based observation.
Nukes are slow to come on line, and very expensive, and generate waste we cannot handle yet at reasonable cost. So with the limited funding and time we have, quicker and more efficient investments should get priority.

You just have to restructure (for example) the money system so money isn't constantly created through debt. For example, a simple solution is a gold standard.

A gold standard won't do that, in the digital age. People will just denominate their debt differently, or some such workaround - like way Saudi Arabia circumvents the Islamic prohibition on interest.
And it would make one's economy vulnerable to sudden influxes of gold, new techniques or discoveries - the way New World silver killed the Spanish economy. IIRC at least one astronomer thinks they have spotted a solid gold asteroid, for example - and the deep ocean certainly harbors an El Dorado or ten.

The US was on the gold standard up until 1930 or so. That is similar but not identical; since currency was tied to gold, currency could only expand as the supply of gold expanded. It worked.

The system the US had between the New Deal and Reaganomics worked better than any other the US has had - and the fact that it paid off WWII and helped rebuild both Europe and Japan points to a possible solution to the growth problem.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm not doubting the climate threat. It's the economy system scares that I'm talking about.

Like I said...

 

[billvon]

Nukes are slow to come on line, and very expensive, and generate waste we cannot handle yet at reasonable cost.

We have no problem handling the waste. They are expensive and slow to build - which is why we should start now, both with construction of existing designs (AP1000's) and with new designs (SMR's). We are planning for the next 100 years, not the next six months.

So with the limited funding and time we have, quicker and more efficient investments should get priority.

If you are going to prioritize things like tax cuts for the wealthy over climate change mitigation, then we have already failed. Your argument is why every other climate change mitigation strategy has failed.

A gold standard won't do that, in the digital age. People will just denominate their debt differently, or some such workaround

This is the "people will still break the law" argument. Yes, they will. But in general, laws work.

 

[Jeeves]

If you are going to prioritize things like tax cuts for the wealthy over climate change mitigation, then we have already failed.

Yes.

 

[iceaura]

We have no problem handling the waste.

No one knows how to do it safely and cheaply - that's a problem.

We are planning for the next 100 years, not the next six months.

So are others. That doesn't mean your plans are the better ones.

This is the "people will still break the law" argument.

No, it isn't. The Saudi workarounds of the interest ban are perfectly legal, for example. So was the discovery and mining of the mountain of silver that killed the Spanish economy.
Gold is a commodity, not a magic charm. Bad government will destroy a gold standard currency as it will any other.

There is no substitute for sound governance.

 

[billvon]

No one knows how to do it safely and cheaply - that's a problem.

France does. 58 years, 58 reactors, and today they generate more than 2/3 of their energy with zero carbon nuclear reactors.

So are others. That doesn't mean your plans are the better ones.

They're not my plans.

Gold is a commodity, not a magic charm. Bad government will destroy a gold standard currency as it will any other.

Of course. My statement was that a gold standard works; the proof there is that gold standards have worked. Other things, of course, can be bad - like governments.

 

[Schmelzer]

Has that ever been tried in the real world? If so, where and for how long?

There is no reason for this, credits are a useful tool. If one owns land, but has no seeds, another one has seeds, but no land, it makes sense for the landowner to borrow seeds, giving back more from the crop than simply returning the borrowed seed. This makes sense for both: The landowner can grow something on his land, and gets a large part of the crop. The owner of the seeds gives them away for some time, and receives more than he has given.

Capitalism requires profit (which is surplus return on labour and material invested); it still has to grow to survive.

No. The scheme described above can work forever, without economic growth. The seed owner makes profit, lives from it, the land owner also has enough to live, but the whole economy can be stable. Of course, the economy has to grow crops. So, something has to grow. Else, the humans could not survive. Not because of capitalism, but simply because of nothing to eat.

Natural resources must be used by labour to produce goods for sale, and those goods must be consumed - converted to waste - so that more goods can be sold. And since there is a finite amount of matter and energy to convert into product, once all the trees, oil and animals have been transformed into landfill and smog, no further "wealth creation" is possible.

The connection is quite a bit different. People have to consume something, at least food, else they do not survive. To produce something to consume, it has to be produced. There is no reason to suspect that all the production capabilities will be transformed into waste. The wealth consists, instead, in part of things which allow to produce something out of the things which are available.

 

[Schmelzer]

How do you think the global economy will fair as the climate situation deteriorates?
In possibly less than 5 years there may not be an "Economy" as we know it....

There is no base at all for such fears, certainly not because of the climate change. The only way to reach such a state would be to start a global nuclear war.

 

[Jeeves]

So, all those school children in the springtime filling all those huge garbage bags along the highway should just be... eating it?

 

[Schmelzer]

So, all those school children in the springtime filling all those huge garbage bags along the highway should just be... eating it?

??????????????

 

[Jeeves]

The connection is quite a bit different. People have to consume something, at least food, else they do not survive. To produce something to consume, it has to be produced. There is no reason to suspect that all the production capabilities will be transformed into waste.

Your economic model does not in any of its particulars resemble the world as we experience it.

 

[Schmelzer]

Your economic model does not in any of its particulars resemble the world as we experience it.

Explain. Of course, there are some differences - what we experience is some quite strange form of corporatism, not a free market or "capitalism".

My thesis is that the "Capitalism requires profit ... has to grow to survive" is nonsense. Free markets work fine even if there is no growth.

 

[Jeeves]

Explain.

The kind of Kindergarten introduction to economics you laid out has no resemblence whatever to a real world.
Certainly, farmers in an agricultural community might lend one another seed, but they would never dream of charging interest, any more than a homeowner who lends his ladder to neighbours would demand it back with two extra rungs, so that his ladder can keep getting longer and longer until nobody else in the subdivision has any ladders at all. That would be capitalism.
The capitalist version of the farm story is: one person or company lends seed to all the farmers and gets part of all their crops, year after year, without having to stick one in the ground himself. Moreover, the interest is compounded so that they have to pay back, not just 2-30% extra, but interest keeps getting added on to the original sum so they have to pay interest on the interest on the interest, ad infinitum. In bad years, when the farmers can't grow enough for their own need, he takes his share anyway - and then he takes their land. In this way, he owns more and more and more and more, while they owe more and more and more and own nothing, so that they have to work for him and pay him rent and buy from him.

My thesis is that the "Capitalism requires profit ... has to grow to survive" is nonsense.

By profit is meant: intake greater than outflow, or money left over when all maintenance, energy, material and labour has been paid.
IOW: more
More has to come from somewhere outside the system: expansion, growth
What typically happens to a company that does not make a profit three years in a row?
What typically happens to capitalist nation when its GDP has 0 growth rate?
Negative growth rates occurring in two consecutive quarters often mean that the economy is in a recession.

Free markets work fine even if there is no growth.

Has anyone ever seen a free market in the wild?
Yup: it was a co-op; a communal communist community
*shudder*

 

[billvon]

More has to come from somewhere outside the system: expansion, growth

Agreed. However, I would amend that to "capitalism, as currently implemented, requires growth to survive." You could create a form of capitalism that works at an average zero growth - but you'd need to get rid of concepts like debt based monetary policy.