46 Comments
Sep 24, 2021Liked by Noah Smith

"Climate change is beatable. We can even make money while beating it!" .....

..though not likely in a market economy where 'renewables plus storage' remain more expensive than coal. And as you say, even when renewables plus storage ARE cheaper, the profit-driven fossil industry won't just say "oh well time's up, let's just close shop...." ...profits before people, remember.

At Davos last year, the BIS said: "central banks** might have to buy the fossil industry".

Indeed. We can be sure them fossil industries ain't gonna go quietly.....

**authorized to issue debt-free money, or rather create money 'ex nihilo', to fund the transition in all nations, in order to avoid price rises for electricity consumers, and ultimately reduce them to near zero (with maintenance of green infrastructure the only expense).

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Sep 24, 2021Liked by Noah Smith

Thank you for the note of optimism, I needed it ... Perhaps Americans need to relate more clearly the devastations of the climatic disasters that they suffer periodically with their last causes, and understand that they will probably increase in the future

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Another huge reason for Climate optimism is nuclear power! Public opinion on nuclear power is much more favorable than it was a generation ago (although it isn't where it needs to be) and advances in waste storage and small modular reactors make me optimistic about nuclear's role in the global energy transition. I'd love to read your thoughts on nuclear.

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Just a quibble: Hurricanes are not a great poster child for climate change.

IPCC:

On tropical cyclone frequency, the IPCC says it is likely that “the global frequency of TCs over all categories will decrease or remain unchanged”. The bulk of the reduction is “at the weaker end of the intensity spectrum as the climate warms”, the report notes, while “the frequency of category 4-5 TCs will increase in limited regions over the western North Pacific”.

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Message seems fine but don't ask us to have kids. Let's admit that it's just based on some weird desire to continue to outpace china's demographic age gap and bolster american production. And for the record, most people are not having kids because their financial and social future is unstable, not necessarily because of the climate.

You might say we will need more and more people to help solve climate change, because maintaining a steady productive economy is necessary to build and maintain green infrastructure. I disagree, I tend to think we have enough people and that they just need to be shifted around. The inefficiency of this economy has put millions of people into pointless jobs, and it is that inefficiency itself which is one of the causes of climate change, so naturally you solve two problems at once by taking people out of jobs which produce unnecessary emissions, and putting them into green jobs. Making more kids, of which 90% will land up in those stupid jobs, is not a reasonable request.

And no, your kid is not going to be the next Von Neumann who creates a perpetual motion machine.

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Super cool that we'll have ecologically friendly cement when we're paying another half trillion to rebuild Houston for the 5th time in 2060 after super hurricane tau. Or solar cells that'll charge your phone in the permanent smoke cover from the wildfires burning in the rockies year round.

Green overconsumption is still overconsumption. But really I think you haven't thought through the political problems as well as the economic ones. Markets may save us from fossil fuels, but what are we going to do with domestic refugees in the millions from Lake Mead and reservoirs giving up the ghost? Fires threatening LA. Storms surging over the gulf and up the east coast? Food scarcity after crop failures (like india right now). Based on our COVID response there's no reason to be optimistic.

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Well, there's always the word which must not be spoken...

GEOENGINEERING

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I criticized one of your recent articles so I feel like I should say I think this one is great

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"Things like ending capitalism become unnecessary". Except that climate change mitigation activists are left-wing, and anti-capitalism is intrinsic to their (our) worldview. We would still want to end capitalism even without the climate crisis, but the two aspects dovetail; the climate change issue gives anti-capitalism a sense of existential urgency, but wealth inequality does as well. And the pro-fossil fuel right-wing has already been convinced that climate change mitigation is just a stalking horse for the growth of government and anti-capitalism.

That's what the watermelon meme is about.

We're already there, already in that conflict. Be pessimistic about the world going over an increase of 2C, and be pessimistic, as most apolitical Americans tend to be, about there being no ideological conflict about what climate change requires from our society.

Or you could switch to liking political conflict, in which case you would be optimistic. :D

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If some people are experiencing hysteria and existential dread that sounds more like mass psychosis than rational concern to me. I know climate change is bad and all but I'm sure we'll sort it out

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Reading this was a great way to start my morning. I'm inherently an optimist and a technical optimist in particular. Giving me grounds for optimism is a service that I value.

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One could mention that "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" is a line of Antonio Gramsci.

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So, uh, why did you slice up and reformat that WaPo opinion poll? Why did you not just link to the primary source and screenshot the actual presentation of the actual poll conducted and laid out by WaPo?

If you follow your link to a twitter person discussing the pol, then follow HER link to the actual poll you're talking about, you see it's not formatted the way you post it, with the 'support' column entirely excised with only 'oppose' left. Given that your version is a basic matplotlib barplot with all the default formatting options, it's not a presentation issue.

Anyway, it seems like an overwhelming 80% or so of Americans would gladly see a tax on the wealthy - who have something like 50-95% of the, you know, WEALTH, needed to pay for these programs - to make this happen. If I were given a poll and asked 'Would you like a billionaire to pay 10 million for this program or would you rather we raise a million poor people's utility bill, I would certainly be opposed as well.

Pretty catastrophic attempt at making your case, so don't sweat it I guess.

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My "This is a big important issue we should spend a lot of time and energy on" position ends up practically seeming like climate change denial to some activists because it comes with the caveat "this isn't literally the end of the world." None of the worst case 2100 scenarios are anything that would cause the collapse of society, much less human extinction.

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I agree 100% with the spirit of the article but I would argue that (1) there are even stronger grounds for optimism than you make in the article and (2) some of the obstacles to reducing emissions fast and coping with climate change come from an unexpected source - environmentalists. Regarding one, if you read the recent IPCC report what is striking is how the 'most likely' trajectory of emissions and climate change has improved substantially compared with previous reports. This trajectory (average global warming of 2-3 C above current temperatures and sea level increases of ~50 cm) will be unpleasant (very for some) and require adaptation but there is no plausible mechanism by which it will pose an existential threat to humanity or cause mass extinction. Regarding (2) while the reduction in price of renewables and potential advances in storage (hydrogen and iron batteries) have finally made intermittent renewable energy a plausible route for emissions reductions it is likely that emissions will go down faster if we embrace other technology, especially nuclear power and CCS. Our ability to adapt to changes in precipitation and temperature will be hastened by exploitation of modern GM technology. Unfortunately there is very strong opposition to both nuclear power and modern GM technology, especially in Europe. When you combine this with the understandably strong resistance in high population-density countries to the vast installations required for solar, wind and their connecting transmission lines you can see that environmentalist could effectively block the required transition. In many cases they would be happy with this as the more radical ones favour degrowth and population reduction as a strategy.

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I think you overestimate the lobbies. No industry can survive when it's competitors are cheaper, cleaner, and newer.

People might not be willing to pay 10 bucks to avoid climate change, but similarly they are also not willing to pay 10 bucks to keep oil or gas alive.

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