Seen this one? Better art, more reliable factual narrative and a vision of the future that is neither dispiriting doomerism nor hollow elitist boomerism. Below that, I’m sharing the recently released follow-up that incorporates COVID into the story. It reminded me of the first one that was released in the Before Times.
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Oh, yeah, it’s a tough one. I can try that thought on because I’m not making the decision. If I were the decision maker I’m not sure I would agree with myself. 
Yes, that’s a good distinction. I like the idea of providing good sources for silent readers.
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I would like to say that I am absolutely an example of a person whose mind was change with facts. I am a professor, and as such lived in a world in which the climate consensus was never questioned. While on sabbatical I decided to read a diverse set of views and evidence to come to a more nuanced conclusion. It was by carefully reading evidence that I completely changed my view, and now believe that the climate consensus is vastly too pessimistic and that policy proposals such as the GND would make things much worse for most people.
I really suggest that everyone tries reading evidence and opinion across a much broader range. The Western Buddhist world is almost 100% in a progressive echo chamber. This is not healthy, either ideologically or for Buddhism. I have seen budding Buddhists essentially hounded out of the Sangha when their views became known. This forum itself is pretty darn hostile for views outside of the progressive mainstream.
I was glad to hear Sujato mention in a recent post that there is room for nuanced disagreement within this subject. It is true for almost every contested area. I think a recognition among progressives that there are intelligent, thoughtful conservatives and libertarians that simply disagree, would go a long way to making Buddhism a more welcoming environment for a more diverse range of viewpoints.
Yesterday there was a 6 hours TED live stream about the climate change titled - “Countdown Global Launch, a call to action on climate change”.
I don’t know who sponsored this event, how reliable it was, etc., and I haven’t watched it beside just briefly seeing some ~20 minutes in the middle(which was somewhat interesting animation), so I can’t say anything, but maybe someone would find it interesting.
It was viewed already 15 million times.
(or invidious proxy if you want to avoid youtube fingerprinting)
btw. even the Pope was there 
Sir David Attenborough presents his view to this question in his latest series.Also his own concrete observations over decades working in the natural world. Sadly it is on Netflix, if you do get to watch it, please do, highly recommended 
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His interview on PBS Newshour touched on some great points, including the new movement of young people rallying to fight climate change, as well as the role of the electorate in shaping the politics of it.
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How would the GND make things much worse for most people?
You’re claiming that the GND would actually cause suffering. That doesn’t scan for me, so I’m sincerely interested in hearing a serious critique of the GND from someone committed to both Buddhist values and a non-ideological, evidence-based, rational approach to solving problems.
To be very clear, I’m not asking what a superior policy would be or debating the merits of the majority scientific opinion on human-induced global warming, but rather how the GND would cause harm if it were to become official policy.
Climate change began to be noticeable in the mid-90s by my own recollection of climate in the Ohio valley. It was in the mid-90s that winters became much milder and stayed that way. I moved to Minnesota around that time, and the winters there were still harsh, the way Ohio was when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, but by the 2010s, Minnesota had become milder like Ohio in the mid-90s. This is all anecdotal, so let’s look at a comparison of the 80s to the 2010s. Here’s a chart from a link you posted earlier:
https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/images/number_of_acres_burned_in_wildfires_1980-2019.gif
That’s what I was suggesting we compare. Pre-climate change figures and current ones. If you drop 2000-2020 national acreage burned into a spreadsheet, you’ll see the internal noise after climate change is in full swing. It’s a long-term process, so 40 years is really too short a period to compare. It’s too bad the national numbers before the 1980s aren’t comparable to the 1980-2020 period. It makes this exercise questionable at best.
Using these national numbers is also misleading when discussing the wildfires in the western states because climate change isn’t increasing the problem across the entire country. Some regions are becoming wetter rather than dryer. So, national numbers tend to average out the extremes.
I looked for regional acreage burned statistics that go back further, but came up empty. Calfire officials are pretty adamant that the past 20 years has been far worse than historical patterns prior to 2000. I did also find a study that showed that number of fires in California has been declining since peaking in the 1970s, but the size of the fires has been exploding. That makes sense given that climate change has been making the drier, hotter conditions.
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That’s a lot of rules! But I’m delighted to have someone in the Buddhist world express sincere interest in discussing these issues. Here are a few ways that people would be harmed by the GND. I have far more to say on the subject if you’re interested, but I have kids to get to bed!
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Almost everything would be much more expensive, including food, heating, and transportation.
Wind and solar cost 2-3x more than gas without subsidies (Nuclear costs a bit less than gas, but the GND requires phasing out nuclear). The GND goes further by saying that every combustion-engine vehicle must be replaced within ten years. And you should note that making the basics of life more expensive disproportionately impacts the poor. Making the poor poorer is a pretty direct form of harm. -
It would hurt the economy in multiple ways, including by massively increasing taxes.
The cost of the GND is hard to estimate. Figures range from $2T to $93T. Either number is staggering. The lower number (which is highly unrealistic) would still be $16,000 per family. The higher number is $735,000 per family. Understand that this is money that will directly reduce the prosperity of normal people. Now remember, the “cost” here is just the cost to government. The actual cost would be vastly larger since it doesn’t include cost to businesses or individuals.
Yes, the GND would be expensive, no doubt. It would be a recoupable investment though, not government pork. It would be like taking out a home loan to fix the foundation, repair the roof and build a home office, and not like putting in a swimming pool and some shrubbery.
It’s a far-reaching transformation of the economy and government apparatus, much like the original New Deal, the Great Society and the Marshall Plan. And of course, it’s a rational response to a collective threat as recognized as real by the vast majority citizens and even vaster majority of qualified experts; it’s a concrete plan to solve a particular immanent problem, not an ideological utopian moonshot to solve all problems forever. I get that if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix, but if it is broke, then you do. So it would make things much better for most people.
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Let me also add in that yes it is possible to create farms that are more productive and reach the goal of feeding 9+ billion people, but it is not easy getting farmers to buy into sustainable and regenerative approaches. Farms that continue to use conventional farming methods are destroying soils faster and faster each year that passes. It is important to note that only if farming as a general industry begins to accept more regenerative approaches that care for soil microbiology, and drastically reduce chemical inputs, will this goal come to fruition. In the US, that is no easy feat considering the power of the chemical agriculture companies.
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If that was actually true, investors would be lining up to put down their money. The reason government action is required is that there will be a huge negative return on investment, a cost that will mostly be borne by the poor. I think people have lost their sense of just how much a trillion dollars is. The entire New Deal in 2019 dollars cost about $1T over 10 years. We’re talking about a policy that would cost twice that in the most absurdly optimistic evaluation and achieve almost nothing in terms of reduction of warming.
Well, as it turns out, they are.
The GND may prove unworkable for any number of reasons. If you’re right that it will only hurt people and not solve the problem it is intended to solve, then it should not be supported. I’m personally not qualified to debate the pros and cons of specific policy proposals, but for those interested, there is plenty of information and opinion out there. Go nuts. Draw your own conclusions, but underlying all of the talk is the overwhelming scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is real and must be addressed via government action.
Wholly apart from questions around its merits as policy, one of the intentions of the GND, in which it has been an unqualified success, is to raise awareness of the need for legislation like it and spark conversation among the constituency.
I believe there is a moral obligation for governments to do all they can to assure that their citizens have all base necessities for safety and contentment in life, like food, shelter, clothing, education, medicine and protection from threats. The GND – even if naive, unworkable or simply mistaken – is a good faith attempt to address all these obligations, and I would celebrate it for that reason alone.
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I very much appreciate the discussion! Thanks for engaging with the subject with respect. I have a couple of responses:
If you think, as I do, that most of the senators that support the GND know that it is unworkable and mistaken, then that is the polar opposite of a “good faith attempt.” What’s the evidence? When the McConnell allowed the GND to come up for a vote, it’s supporters were outraged. They didn’t actually every want to have to vote for it. They know very well that it has no chance of passing and would at best make a tiny decrease in the future temperature increases.
As for the link, of course Wall Street would finance it! Bankers love to finance projects that are backed by government, because they know they will get their money back. What bankers fear is risk, which is why they would never finance these projects without the assurance of a government bailout.
You are correct that anthropogenic global warming exists, but you are absolutely incorrect to say that scientists have proven that government action is required. No scientist would be qualified to make such a claim in any case, but
It has, again and again, been government action that has increased emissions beyond what the market would do. Every time government blocks a nuclear reactor from being built, they increase warming. It is government subsidies instead saddle us wind and solar (which are truly terrible). This is the model of the GND. We can and must do way better.
What’s the evidence that they don’t? McConnell doesn’t do anything without considering what’s best for his party. His intention in forcing senators to take a position for or against the GND is to help the electoral prospects of Republicans. His procedural tactic had absolutely nothing to do with the concrete merits of the policy proposal, and everything to do with maintaining the power he and his party currently enjoy.
Bankers don’t fear risk, they assess it and they manage it. There is no powerful banker who avidly denies the risk of global warming to everything. On the off chance I missed one, I’d suggest we talk to him and loop in his kids and grandkids.
The “revolving door” between Wall Street and the US executive branch has as at least one upside: it cements the reality that the respective flourishing of Wall Street and the government are intertwined.
Pretty weaselly. I did not say that scientists “have proven” that. As a professor, you surely know that such a thing is impossible to prove. So do I, and so do most people. Nonethless, scientists are simultaneously citizens as well as experts and that is their majority opinion and recommendation on how to solve the problem of anthropogenic global warming.
I’m with you here. I’m all about nuclear, as I suggested in earlier posts. Happy to explore this further.
We agree that McConnell is more about power than what is right. It doesn’t speak to the merits of my argument, though.
As the son of a banker, I can assure you that bankers love making loans that are backed by the government. That isn’t risk management, it’s moving the risk to the public. I would think it would give people pause to consider that billionaires and CEOs support these programs to the hilt. Big bankers and big business LOVE the GND and other such government programs that transfer risk to the public. It’s possible that nobody has made more money on wind energy than T. Boone Pickens, the oil tycoon. He claims that his wind investments make 25%, completely risk free.
You are correct, I should not have used the word “proven.” Instead, I should say that no scientist is able to do more than assert that government action is needed, since it is patently the opposite.
I’m glad we agree about nuclear. It’s amazing to have a huge problem with an obvious solution only to have the loudest advocates be against the solution! I think most environmentalists don’t understand that the carbon “benefits” of wind and solar are generally not stated as net benefits. If you figure in the gas generation that is on standby for when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, most of the carbon savings disappear. That’s why countries that are adding solar and wind and generally adding gas as well (see Germany).
It doesn’t speak to all of the merits of your arguments, but it speaks to a some of them.
As it happens, I too speak as the son of a banker.
This is literally a form of risk management.
I would think it would give people confidence. We are all in this together. If people who disagree with you are foolish and you are savvy, then I certainly hope your vision attains.
This conflicts with your earlier claim that if the GND was wise policy, investors would be lining up. Explain the contradiction.
It’s not amazing at all. It’s completely comprehensible if you consider the causes and conditions of anti-nuke sentiment. Also, who is loud? Name names.
Since it seems unlikely that the Green New Deal will “stop climate change”, I’m not sure why it’s so important to argue over the minutiae of American politics. If the Green New Deal is implemented and if it achieves its most ambitious goals and if everyone else on the planet does likewise (a conjunction of the stars that is surely vanishingly improbable), we’re still heading to 2 degrees warming by 2100. And while those alive in 80 years time are going to be a lot happier about 2 degrees than 4 degrees, only in the most depraved sense of the word does any of this stuff count as a ‘solution’.
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quibbling over definitions of the word “solution”
A ‘solution’ solves a problem, it doesn’t slow its progress. A solution to cancer stops you getting cancer in the first place or if you have it, it eliminates it from your body. It doesn’t give you 12 months to live instead of 6. In the case of climate change, a solution would be returning average temperatures to their pre-industrial level but even the most ardent supporters of the Green New Deal are not claiming that that is going to happen and hence, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to point out that in the context of a thread titled ‘Is it too late to stop climate change’, this is all of somewhat secondary importance. Of course, promoting the Green New Deal under the slogan, ‘Making a shit future somewhat less shit’ would, while commendably honest, probably not be hugely successful so perhaps this is understandable.
the internal decision-making processes of the elected body that has the power to prolong or end the lives of literally billions of people.
So do the ‘internal decision-making processes’ of the EU, India, China, etc. but almost without fail, internet discussions of global problems (or at least English-language discussions) reduce to discussions of America’s involvement in global problems, as if the two were straightforwardly equivalent. Well, I’m not American and - beyond the necessity to pay attention to these things for purely self-interested reasons - I honestly couldn’t care less about American politics. But despite being fabulously tedious to most non-Americans, the latest round of he-said-she-said is utterly inescapable even for those of us who do our best to avoid it all, so it would be nice if it didn’t also feature quite so heavily in discussions like this.
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Topic closed for review.