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Comment by rayiner

It’s probably not a “do all the things” solution, because (1) we won’t do those things; (2) trying to do those things will lead to undesirably high levels of government regulation of private behavior. The authoritarian infrastructure will be built, but it will fail because it will be diverted to ends other than addressing climate change.

You can already see this happening with the Green New Deal and Global Climate Strikes. The Green New Deal has turned into a jobs program. (Which is deeply ironic, because the Soviet Union was immensely energy inefficient and polluting, as a result of populist measures such as subsidized energy. Increasing middle class prosperity is inherently incompatible with reducing carbon output.) The Green New Deal, together with the climate strikes have become vehicles for socialist ideology. For example, despite experts broadly agreeing that we need things like carbon taxes, the Global Climate Strike platform categorically rejects market mechanisms to address climate change.

Carbon capture and cheap nuclear power can solve climate change, and we can do it without world government. (To many people, that second part is a downside, I think, which is why technological solutions to climate change get less emphasis than political solutions.)

parent rayiner 7 years ago

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