[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
No, that’s not a good analogy to the argument.
The point would be more like this: You are worried that a cylinder is filling with water, provided by disparate parties, and if it fills with water X problem will occur, costing Y dollars.
Should party A incur costs of Z dollars to stop only A’s filling the cylinder if parties B & C will simply make up the missing volume of water that A was adding?
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Come on, stop picking such retarded analogies.
You tell me the flaws in your retarded little example or I’m giving up on your biased little 'tude completely.
I do understand that it is not “fair” to ask certain parties to take action while other parties are not. However, you have to get a little bit beyond the black and white, realize it is not a static situation that won’t and can’t change, and then measure the real costs and benefits.
The types of examples you are giving are politically motivated examples that justify ignoring the problem because of the current policies of India and China.
While the world is not a kumba-ya kind of place, sometimes you have to trust that if most players are working in concert towards a goal, that it will get easier over time to convince other players to join in.
Playing “all or nothing” stakes as is done so often nowadays is incredibly risky and incredibly difficult to coordinate.
This isn’t an “all or nothing” situation and it isn’t a static situation, and it isn’t a trivial thing to “fill up the cylinder” or to determine that there won’t be a large benefit by having several parties reducing their own contributions.
Analyze the question seriously and fairly or you are just trying to support certain policies… which would be par for the course around these parts.
Oh, and you’ll notice in the above that I did not draw conclusions or state any real certainties.
However, finally, it is very important to realize that “costs” are not simply empty non-contributory costs which reduce GDP. If we have to use energy to scrub emissions, create industries and technologies to deal with it, then we aren’t throwing money away, we are moving the spending and the earnings into new economic sectors.
If you want to play the game of economics, then you need to get serious about that too.
I’m sure that they currently see “the West” doing very little. Even if all of Europe and most of America was on board, until the US joins the effort, they can use the same arguments you’re
using to justify inaction.[/quote]
Perhaps so, but this assumes they care even remotely about GW. I don’t think they do, so what the US does is likely irrelevant.
It is a prisoner’s dilemma in a lot of ways, but with one big caveat - the ‘prisoners’ don’t agree with whether or not they are going to ‘prison’. The prisoners’ dilemma assumes all the prisoners want the same thing - in this case, what muddies the waters is the fact that the prisoners all have different goals and beliefs in whether the ‘prison’ really exists.
As in, I don’t think China is all that worried about the consequences of GW in light of its other ambitions, if the Politburo believes in GW at all.
To be honest, I don’t share such an optimistic outlook. I am not going to automatically assume that a feasible technology that can offset even greater emissions from China is right around the corner. I think technology can improve the situation - but am I convinced it can pick up the slack of China should China decide to belch out twice the emissions it did before? A bit naive, in my view.
Could such a technology be created? Maybe. Do you base hard policy on such aspirational ideas? Maybe not.
And I completely agree - I say we start developing cleaner, more efficient, more diversified energy systems right now - I just consider myself a realist about the hopes of a ‘global’ solution of GW in light of geopolitics.
I am not arguing that we shouldn’t develop the technology - I argue the opposite in fact - but I am skeptical about how much can be accomplished in the short term as well as how much can be accomplished when a China makes us take a step back for every step forward.
No disagreement here at all - my position has always been the same. The sooner we move on to other, more sustainable energies, the better. I support that endeavor absolutely.
My argument is not the West should do nothing in terms of developing cleaner energy - my point is that we should abandon this foolish ‘global solution’ nonsense such as Kyoto arrangements and stop kidding ourselves.
If - if - what we were able to do could overcome China and India. I don’t care if they get a free-ride of a better environment - and again, I am not suggesting we do nothing. What I am suggesting is that I am not so optimistic that we have this omnipotence to create the successes where a China could free-ride. I think that we can do a lot, and much of what we do is likely to be negated by China.
Negative - but we should do what we can but based on other, more interested priorities. Again, it goes back to my point - curbing emissions, especially enough to pick up China’s slack, costs a lot of money and resources.
Those costs make us weaker and poorer, all the while doing what we can to bear the cross of China’s refusal to curb emissions. What have those costs purchased us? A weaker, poorer West, and likely not much of an improved environment.
So my consideration is not that we do nothing, but rather how much do we do and how do we do it? Doing lots and lots seems naive and dumb, especially considering it likely won’t do much in the way of overcoming China’s polluting.
As such, we can pursue cleaner energy on our own terms without some international concoction to reduce emissions by a certain target by a certain date. That is a fool’s errand - and while there is ostensibly nothing wrong with a free ride if the greater good is improved, I don’t see a greater good in weakening the West in the face of a rising China.
I don’t disagree with that at all. In fact, coming from a limited government conservative, I actually could support government subsidies into such endeavors (the shame!). To repeat, I don’t suggest we don’t develop the technology - I just won’t view this problem in a geopolitical vacuum that assumes everyone agrees and wants to reduce GW outside of other interests.
Right, and that is exactly the point. Cooperation theories always get screwed up by the reality on the ground. If we are entering a neo-Cold War with China, competition is the order of the day, and who is going to offer “ok, let’s both modify our industrial bases to produce less emissions to reduce GW, and then we can build up our industrial war machines - with clean energy! - right before we try and blow the smithereens out of one another”…?
Tough situation. Cooperation works great when people want the same things or at least get mutual benefits from working together.
Wishful thinking? Yes. Sound policy? Maybe not. I suppose you could try a boycott, but I don’t think it would accomplish much.
With China, I would say yes.
But does the Politburo think so? They launched a study recently, but I ask again, even if the information suggests that China will need to cut its emissions, will China make those sacrifices in building its economic/military juggernaut?
If GW by mankind be true, I don’t doubt this statement at all. But it is a truism - the real problem is how do we get emissions cut in a global way given the obstacles that we face from China?
Well, that didn’t deter the Soviet Union from its nuclear ambitions.
On this point I actually depart from pessimism and say that there is a possible solution, just not the usual version.
First, develop cleaner energy for our own sake - national security, improved local environmental concerns, diversify you energy asset base - not for some abstract ‘global conscience’ approach. GW is still too abstract to command a sense of urgency, and without the sense of urgency, nations are unwilling to sacrifice.
GW may not even pan out as far as being man-made, so let’s quit the academic discussion of it at the policymaking level and get technology moving based on more pressing, direct problems - and then enjoy the side effects of reduced emissions.
Second, begin isolating China. China must be weakened first, then it can join the fight - if there be one - in lowering industrial emissions. I don’t believe in cutting my nose off to spite my face - so I don’t think the West should bend over backwards to try and pick up China’s slack all in the name of being everyone’s favorite global citizen, not with China’s posture over the next decade or two.
I won’t endorse a plan where we do all the development and sacrificing while China arms and grows richer. Some sacrifice? Yes. Big sacrifices? No. Not until China is sufficiently defanged where they cannot take geopolitical - read military - advantage of our sacrifice for the greater good.
Of course, a large part of the deal is demonstrating beyond skepticism that the apprehended danger is real. If they think that dealing with desertification, coastal flooding and mass exodus of populations is good for their economy, then yes, we might have a problem.
Still, even then, doing something unilaterally might be better than doing nothing. At worst, it might push back the inevitable problems that are anticipated.
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No, at worst it might hinder our economic growth so much that we are helpless to deal with those problems if and when they arise.
If we can only make a small dent in global warming we might as well leave it be and grow our economies, because in 50 or 100 years or so we will need all our economic strenght.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
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As in, I don’t think China is all that worried about the consequences of GW in light of its other ambitions, if the Politburo believes in GW at all.
The Chinese central government realizes at this point that environmental problems are one of the biggest threats to the country’s continued growth and stability. In fact, environmental catastrophes on a local and regional scale may be the single biggest source of unrest. The problem in this area along with nearly every other in China is that the central government has in practice only limited control over the vast and highly corrupt local and regional governmental structures.
They have near absolute power in theory and a better understanding of the issues that face the country and state than you realize but in practice they’re herding cats. If they can’t prevent their industries from having frequent chemical spills which cause riots and cost the central government billions, then they probably can’t enforce carbon emissions regulations at this stage.
A more effective method would be for the US and Europe to directly target products and their manufacturers through financial incentives and disincentives. We can see already how Chinese (and other developing countries’) manufacturers often respond to European environmental regulations for products sold in the EU by reformulating their products for all territories to meet the more stringent regulations rather than producing several different products or ceasing marketing to Europe.
Similarly, if the US and EU were to institute a tariff system based on the carbon intensity of a product, with discounts given for products produced more cleanly and with chains of custody prove their origin, then quite simply manufacturers will respond. A huge proportion of the pollution coming out of China and other developing countries is coming from products made for export.
If we targeted these products and companies we could make a huge difference even if we we were to-probably erroneously- assume that none of this would have any carryover to their own domestic production as a result of manufacturers not wanting to dual produce.
The logistics of this aren’t quite as out there as it might seem as pieces of this sort of system are in place in many smaller industries. The bigger obstacle would be restructuring international trade law which probably won’t happen.
One thing to remember about global warming is that the worst affected will be poor people. The rich can always afford to move and buy food even if it’s more expensive. The poor in affected regions will face floods and droughts resulting in displacement, famines, pestilence and war. Malthusian catastrophes will probably be yet more commonplace as the areas in which they’re already most likely to occur face the prospects of worse droughts or flooding disasters.
The main problem for us out of all this is that these problems lead to failed states, terrorism, and massive flows of refugees. There’s no “end of the world” outcome in the cards though. We’ll have to find another way to reach that lofty goal.