Billions for Climate Change

[Williamsmith]

Catherine.....prison for guilty pleasures. That's the future if the planet is to be saved.

No coffee or tea unless you live where it can be grown.
No international trade. No need for economic growth.
Government buyback for your cars.....mandatory.
And your electric appliances.
Only one child per family. Abortion mandatory, not a choice and sterilization after one child.

Bae....the wood you heat with....not acceptable anymore. We need the trees, they are rapidly disappearing.

[bae]

Bae....the wood you heat with....not acceptable anymore. We need the trees, they are rapidly disappearing.

The trees I use are not rapidly disappearing, they grow here faster than I can burn through them. The First Nations folks used to burn the whole island to the ground every few years to try to make headway. YMMV, but here they are like weeds/grass.

Related, the first bit of this wonderful book makes the case for woodburning being quite sustainable and ecological in this sort of ecosystem:

[Williamsmith]

Understood but what is the carrying capacity of your island? How many people like you can move there and burn the trees? And more worrisome...the UN has determined wood fires are a major source of soot or black carbon and contributes greatly to climate change. No more wood fires Bae.

[bae]

Understood but what is the carrying capacity of your island? How many people like you can move there and burn the trees?

About 3x, but they'll have trouble on the food/water side of things first.

And more worrisome...the UN has determined wood fires are a major source of soot or black carbon and contributes greatly to climate change. No more wood fires Bae.

Thus my pointer to Mytting's book, which conveys the Scandinavian take on that.

[Williamsmith]

I get a little skeptical when I hear and read that the simplicity movement is a bottom up consciousness movement driven by grassroots person to person influence that seeks to provide the solution to catastrophic climate change and then observe the leaders of nations taking back agendas from conventions that demonstrate top down political solutions which bypass due process. There isn't room for both and only one will work.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I get a little skeptical when I hear and read that the simplicity movement is a bottom up consciousness movement driven by grassroots person to person influence that seeks to provide the solution to catastrophic climate change and then observe the leaders of nations taking back agendas from conventions that demonstrate top down political solutions which bypass due process. There isn't room for both and only one will work.

Well if a problem like global climate change could be dealt with purely through bottom up solutions that would be one thing. I doubt it can, but that's not for philosophical reasons, I just doubt it practically can (anarchism might work better if capitalism as it is presently hadn't destroyed the world - but it has - and left not just a trail of ecological destruction but path dependence). But if our leaders are not going to act sufficiently, then the impetus is on us, to try to push them to act yes, and to act in their place.

Call it plan B and a long shot. Well yes we need public policy, what part of that is hard to understand. But we may live in a system so completely controlled by money etc. that we may not get it yesterday, which is when we need it - or even today - and even getting money out of politics is a longer term goal.

[Rogar]

I get a little skeptical when I hear and read that the simplicity movement is a bottom up consciousness movement driven by grassroots person to person influence that seeks to provide the solution to catastrophic climate change and then observe the leaders of nations taking back agendas from conventions that demonstrate top down political solutions which bypass due process. There isn't room for both and only one will work.

I think more basically about the simplicity movement. Initially it encourages people to adopt a lifestyle that is less cluttered with meaningless or trivial material goods that bind one to a lifestyle of work that inhibit one's growth or desires for a well lived life. At least in my non-literary nutshell. Climate change is an off-shoot or additional benefit.

Climate change itself is a shared, but separate issue. The Clean Energy Act and mandatory vehicle emissions are the types of regulations I agree with. I see some similarities to limiting second hand smoke exposure, where the excesses of some impose health and lifestyle risk to the innocent. Unfortunately, less than two thirds of Americans think climate change is people related and even fewer think we should be doing more about it. I don't necessarily agree with draconian regulations like those in your list that goe against majority opinion, but believe there are some challenges in verifying facts, educating the public and separating the issue from selfish partisan interests.

[JaneV2.0]

How are we going to handle second hand wood smoke? It wasn't health-supporting back in the day, and it isn't now. (But Bae's right--the vegetation here is inexorable. I'm confident it will outlive us all.)

I'm not looking forward to living in a Kunstler's paradise, and--given actuarial statistics--I'm not going to worry about it much.

[Ultralight]

No government is going to exact any force on their own citizens to mitigate the effects of runaway climate change. Now, some governments will invade and raid other nations to acquire resources. That will (will? -- lol -- is) happening.

I think the climate change problem will solve itself the old fashioned way:
-Violence
-Famine
-Disease

[Alan]

No government is going to exact any force on their own citizens to mitigate the effects of runaway climate change.

Sure they will. Force is what governments do.