Unfortunately, it seems like global warming causes damages that increase rather than decrease on the margin. That is, the aggregate economic damage of going from 1°C warming to 1.5°C warming is smaller than the damage of going from 1.5° to 2°.
This defies our normal intuition, whereby material objects can only become so broken. The 11th scratch on my car door is less important than the 10th because I already need to repaint the entire door.
Damages that increase on the margin also imply that it is more important, rather than less important, for countries to control their emissions if others are not doing so. The first tones of carbon dioxide removed from (or not added to) the atmosphere are the most important.
Every day the costs of prevention go up, and the costs of mitigation get even higher.
With politics in the equation, it's better to kick the can down the road and let someone else deal with it than to shoulder the cost now and save the future literal trillions.
See also: American infrastructure.
If there was a generally accepted method for reporting future liabilities and politicians could be graded on how much they addressed those, rather than the immediate keep taxes low pressure they seem to respond to, we might be better off. Then again, there are voters that would rather save a hundred bucks in taxes today even if ten years later they'll have to fork out thousands.
Yes indeed, humanity has little influence on climate, but it is a profitable industry, therefore people willfully turn a blind eye, or are even misinformed and therefore ignorant. It is naive to assume politically sensitive topics like climate change can be openly discussed here, as a downvote will result.
Some moaners believe the "climate crisis" is another scheme by the elite to get "us" to pay more, e.g. in the form of CO2 compensation, fuel tax while EVs get subsidies, "forcing" "us" to buy EVs that are another platform to control and spy on "us".
From my perspective, all the politicians are doing is blowing hot air, which for humans is CO2.
Sadly, at this point, I think the only thing that will stop Global Warming is Nuclear Winter. Could very well happen when mass migrations start and fights over what little productive land is left.
Unrelated to the article but I opened the link outside my home network and it is almost unreadable. Ads upon ads upon ads, normally this is all blocked by my Pi-hole. Is this really what the internet has become?
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 44.7 ms ] threadThis defies our normal intuition, whereby material objects can only become so broken. The 11th scratch on my car door is less important than the 10th because I already need to repaint the entire door.
Damages that increase on the margin also imply that it is more important, rather than less important, for countries to control their emissions if others are not doing so. The first tones of carbon dioxide removed from (or not added to) the atmosphere are the most important.
With politics in the equation, it's better to kick the can down the road and let someone else deal with it than to shoulder the cost now and save the future literal trillions.
See also: American infrastructure.
If there was a generally accepted method for reporting future liabilities and politicians could be graded on how much they addressed those, rather than the immediate keep taxes low pressure they seem to respond to, we might be better off. Then again, there are voters that would rather save a hundred bucks in taxes today even if ten years later they'll have to fork out thousands.
They are insufferable, to be honest.
We are not going to find a way to get carbon out of the air fast enough.
And we are not going to be able to cut emissions (we are still at all time high fossil fuel use).
We are going to be forced into a quick fix to tide us over.
Sadly, at this point, I think the only thing that will stop Global Warming is Nuclear Winter. Could very well happen when mass migrations start and fights over what little productive land is left.