I know we've talked about climate change for years,
and of course it's only getting worse. It has been more in my
consciousness recently because I had some class projects on it, and it
seems to be in my News Feed a lot.
From the little I know, unfortunately I think it's too fucking
late. Many of the underlying mechanisms are positive feedback loops, so
it makes it even harder to reverse them - even if we had the social
consensus and investments. Deforestation, reduced food production, and
more and more resources wasted on extreme weather/fire/sea level
responses - it will likely be more crippling on humanity than the aging
Baby Boomers.
People in our situations will likely have decent lives in
spite of climate change. We have the mobility and resources to avoid a
lot of the pains. But billions of others are not so lucky, and many
species will die out or be decimated in our lifetimes too. Species that
never meant humans any harm. They just want to live and we took that
from them.
So even though we may not suffer much directly, we will have to live
with the shame that we presided over the biggest environmental calamity
since the meteor that wiped out the dinos. Clearly, industrialized
humans have been the worse thing for the planet. All because of the
pursuit of wealth (or pursuit of happiness/survival). So future humans
will look back at us the way we look at the Nazis or Crusaders. That is
just pitiful to me.
Of course most of this is on the Boomers instead of the
younger generations, but we weren't strong enough to overthrow those
fucks and course correct. We want to be like them, that is the problem.
Do you have any thoughts on this stuff? Sorry for being so negative, but
it's hard to feel upbeat about anything when you look at the various
data. Sure, I do believe humans will find cost-effective ways to get
renewable energy, protect coastal cities, grow food with a smaller
environmental footprint, and conserve way better. But those things just
make our lives more comfortable - they don't do much for the poor or the
various species/ecosystems under threat.
PS - maybe you saw
this
how Gates is telling China's mega rich to help the poor. What do you
think about wealth inequality in China vs. the west? Can China's social
structure survive more decades of inflation, environmental degradation,
construction bubble, and a growing wealth gap?
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From what I understand, major changes to the global climate are now
more or less inevitable. Maybe I'm behind on the science, but I also
thought that we can still mitigate the damage somewhat?
Of course a lot of the damage due to climate change
is senseless and was avoidable, but to the extent that it wasn't
avoidable, I don't think we can be too hard on ourselves. The best we
can do is mitigate it and teach our children to do better. Maybe I've
gotten too cynical, but I never really expected humanity to do much
about it. If you follow politics closely, it's basically just a series
of leaders kicking the can down the road on hard decisions.
Poverty in the US was once thought to be possible to
eradicate, and in fact we once came pretty close with the Great Society
program. But thanks to Reagan, we do too little to actually fix the
problem, and as a result hundreds of thousands go hungry, homeless, and
lack adequate health care and social services on a daily basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
The estimated cost to fix this is a trivial percent of the cost of what
we spent on Iraq and only a smallish sliver of our annual defense
budget.
I don't bring these up to be overly pessimistic, but
I guess I see these problems as much more directly impactful on society
than climate change and we can't even remove vested interests from them
(or only with a lot of effort, see Obamacare) to make any headway. I
think climate change is one of those things where people in society feel
that they can "make a difference" more than these other problems above
by buying a more fuel-efficient car, recycling, etc. and of course it
gets a lot of messaging on lefty blogs/news sources. And it definitely
should - it is an important issue.
But at the same time I feel like there are these
issues where people are suffering /now/, where society could do
something, but because the people are poor or invisible, we don't do
anything. And that's what really breaks my heart.
As for China, I think the Chinese are getting more
altruistic, and that's a good thing. I think that one of the ironic
things about Communism was that if you wanted to survive, you, by
necessity, had to look out for number one - if you cared about anyone
else's survival, you might starve or really go without. That carried
over after the reform era began but things are changing. A new
generation is growing up that has seen the excesses of development and
want to do something about it. Still, they're a ways from Western level
of altruism and I think there's a lot less trust of NGOs in China than
there are in the US (and rightfully so - even supposedly well run US
NGOs waste a lot of their money).
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Re: China - is there a similar tension between the 1% and 99%
like we see in places like the US and Brazil? Or do the poor kind of
accept that the connected elites in the Party hoard all the money too? I
just don't know if there is much culture of sharing in China, as you
said. Especially with the rapid transition from Great Leap to #2
economy, now it's all about "me" and conspicuous consumption, etc.
Luxury brands now say that China is their key market, right? Also,
Beijing gives way less foreign aid relative to its GDP vs. others in the
G20. I guess you could call their projects in the 3rd world "aid" -
securing resources rights by giving Congo a shitty dam or railway that
is shoddy and won't add much value to the host nation (plus it's all
built by immigrant Chinese, so it doesn't produce much vocational
training, jobs, and economic activity for the locals - hence the
resentment by the locals).
Wow, I didn't know about the Greece suicide data, that is
really sad. I agree that the social problems you mentioned are more
easily and cheaply fixed than climate change, and could save more lives.
I also agree that we really had a chance with LBJ and the Great Society
to wipe out poverty and have a more fair, humane nation. All the
conditions were right, but he got sidetracked with Vietnam and then
stagflation-oil embargo-Iran hit us, and the GOP got to take over and
dismantle some of the progress. IMO, we'll never get such an opportunity
again. It's not just you; we're all more cynical with harder hearts
these days I think.
But re: climate change, I would have hoped for more
traction/progress, because unlike poverty/inequality issues, it's not
about "why should the rich help the needy?" Climate change is both a
threat and opportunity for the rich. Do they want their kids to be
subjected to superstorms and droughts for perpetuity? And those extreme
events wreak havoc on the stability of global markets and their
investments. Lastly, climate change is a huge opportunity too
(industries to either mitigate or adapt to it). It's a trillion dollar
problem with huge profits to be made for the first movers - so why
haven't we seen it (apart from the impressive advances in solar, and
energy efficiency for some products)?
I forget which NYT journalist said it, but his
comment was along the lines of "lightbulbs aren't going to solve climate
change." There is only so much a conscientious consumer can do. Sure we
can get a Prius, improve our home's insulation, and change some of our
behaviors, but even if millions of us had the money/time to make those
changes, it would barely affect the carbon situation. The main drivers
are deforestation, agribusiness, and power generation. Huge, politically
connected, int'l industries where only coalitions of governments have
enough power and reach to move them (if they wanted to). Sure, consumers
en masse could give up beef or boycott Indonesia until their economy
stops burning rainforest - but we know it won't happen because we are
addicted to carbon-intensive products and services.
Bottom line, climate change could eat up 10%
or more of global GDP, and reduce crops/fish yields by 20% or more. That
is freaking scary. With a growing population and more consumption in
Asia, something's gotta give. All the conflicts that could arise due to
climate-related problems could also eat up gov't resources, attention,
and lives. So overall it's a major deadweight loss for humanity, and
likely irreversible at this point.
