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melling

You don’t need to convince 8 billion people.

You simply need to convince the handful of people in charge.

Unfortunately, this climate change thing really throws some of those people:

https://youtu.be/3E0a_60PMR8

“Here’s a snowball, it’s very cold out…”

We send some pretty low IQ people to DC.

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Republicans don't all not support climate change just because they don't believe it. Sure some don't believe it. But there's also those that believe it's not going to work out well to adopt aggressive climate saving measures if industrial and military rival nations don't also adopt the same measures.

Yes, the “what about China excuse comes up a lot”. Another worthless excuse for doing absolutely nothing. Ranks up there with “we don’t want to destroy the economy”

“adopt aggressive climate saving measures”

They could have adopted “non-aggressive” measures and not feed the climate deniers. By doing nothing sooner, requires more pain later. We have been discussing the problem for almost 5 decades.

How would you address nations such as China then? A lot of finger pointing here without addressing the point

There are probably more than a billion up and coming people in China, India, and other developing countries that would love to take advantage of lower flight and hotel prices in tropical destinations.

I'm not really sure China needed to be addressed. Simply putting significant money into green tech would have had a variety of effects - build out the sector earlier and faster; threaten control of the sector without competitive investment in other countries; demonstrate that the largest economy in the world is willing to put its money where its mouth is.

China invests a significant chunk more into renewable energies than the US. More than double actually.

In fact, a higher percentage of their total energy is met by renewables than for the US. They have 3x the capacity of the US while their per person energy usage and emissions are still significantly lower than US.

Let's not pretend China does nothing.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/ranked-10-countries-e...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-renewables

there are several ways to deal with countries that aren’t good citizens. I’d rather skip the conversation for the 100th time. Maybe you could come up with some common sense solutions? The funny thing about dealing with climate change, deniers, etc. is that once all the questions have been answered, they start all over again at the beginning.

The sort answer is: It’s really not an excuse for us not doing anything.

Realistically, through something like strong(er) accords and negotiation. But the first step is understanding the problem, recognizing it, and declaring an intent to address it with international cooperation. Saying "but my neighbor won't help" doesn't seem effective to get anything done. The mixed signals regarding thew science also don't help.

One of the principles of negotiation is showing goodwill, so let's all just start by doing our part, and then the international community can have a strong negotiating position with defectors. Being a defector ourselves doesn't help! (I prefer to suffer while striving for a good, than suffer slightly less knowing I'm part of the problem)

We know how to address China, and other nations. By international agreements and trade.

We have already done it multiple times. Does really no one remember the refrigerator gases, the CFCs?

The same economic doomsday arguments were made at the time, without them food production would suffer globally, and it won't matter anyway since it is a global problem and what about all the countries that will keep using them?

The onus on making a similar argument with greenhouse gases today would be on the ones saying it's impossible this time. The greenhouse situation may be so much more complex but the economic arguments are the same. We know how to solve them, by trade agreements and international tariffs.

One strong option is tying large tariffs to failure to hit emission reduction targets or failure to implement other globally determined necessary policies.

Like with everything, the problem isn't a lack of practical solutions, it is a lack of willpower to pay the short term polical / economic costs needed to avoid massive long term harm.

USA, China, India and pretty much everyone else in the "global south" will be more affected by climate change than, say, northern Europe.

This is old, but he was on science committee. If this is what they put on a 'science' committee. Then what else are they capable of.

U.S. House Rep. Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican, doesn't believe in evolution, the Big Bang theory, or the teachings of embryology. In fact, in a Sept. 27 talk at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Ga., the member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, who is also a medical doctor, called those areas of science "lies straight from the pit of hell."

Believe it or not, the small handful of people in charge got to their position by serving people to a certain extent. Any substantial reduction in emissions is going to cause substantial economic deadweight losses, which would be politically disastrous. This is why even the New Green Deal only proposes to throw money into projects rather than actively reduce emissions.

We also send smart people with smart teams that know how to appeal to the below-average voters back home, and they’re very successful at that. Are there dumb politicians? Absolutely. But I strongly believe that many play it up so their bases identify with them more strongly as a way to secure power then go on to do whatever benefits them and their wealthy donors / friends.

You don’t even need to convince the handful of people in charge. Independent geoengineering will become a thing faster than you expect.

I personally think idiots get elected because people want them in charge. If they suddenly got smarter, they'd be replaced. That was my conclusion from Brexit and Trump voters: they're choosing to be arseholes, but want to pretend they're just ignorant. This is a variation on the "trump gives his followers something no one else can: permission to be their worst selves".

The same applies to Global warming but on both sides.

That's just my opinion though.

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