Paraphrased from my source for this thread: more than a million people are killed and multi millions injured in traffic accidents every year that goes by. We could reduce that carnage to near zero if we just reduced traffic speeds to 3 miles an hour. Anybody willing to agree to that to save all those lives? I think 99.9% of people world wide would think that an unreasonable remedy for the problem.
So let's look at unreasonable 'remedies' for the climate change problem.
I have long argued that whether human activity is the driving force behind climate change or not, human kind is here to stay for now. The world's population has expanded from one billion people at the beginning of the industrial revolution to more than eight billion people now. And there is no realistic way to convince eight billion people that, for our foreseeable future, living in a fossil fuel free world is either desirable or even possible unless they are clueless re the facts and the cost.
Instead of confiscating so much of the world's financial resources to 'combat climate change' that obviously isn't combating climate change, a much better approach would be to find ways for humans to constructively adapt to inevitable climate change.
Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus, presents the reality of how governments deal with climate change and, while he does not deny that climate change is occurring and will continue to occur, he has a much more realistic and honest approach to how the world should 'follow the science.'
Emphasis in the quoted material is mine:
". . .A new peer-reviewed study of all the scientific estimates of climate-change effects shows the most likely cost of global warming averaged across the century will be about 1% of global gross domestic product, reaching 2% by the end of the century. This is a very long way from global extinction.
Draconian net-zero climate policies, on the other hand, will be prohibitively costly. The latest peer-reviewed climate-economic research shows the total cost will average $27 trillion each year across the century, reaching $60 trillion a year in 2100. Net zero is more than seven times as costly as the climate problem it tries to address.
Our goal in forming climate policy should be the same we bring to traffic laws and any other political question: achieve more benefits than costs to society. A richer world is much more resilient against weather extremes. In the short term, therefore, policymakers should focus on lifting the billions of people still in poverty out of it, both because it will make them more resilient against extreme weather and because it will do so much good in a myriad of other ways. For the longer term, governments and companies should invest in green-energy research and development to drive down the costs and increase the reliability of fossil-fuel alternatives.
Careful science can inform us about the problem of climate change, but it can’t tell us how to solve it. Sensible public debate requires all the facts, including about the costs of our choices. Some of the most popular climate policies will have costs far greater than climate change itself. When politicians try to shut down discussion with claims that they’re “following the science,” don’t let them.
”
So let's look at unreasonable 'remedies' for the climate change problem.
I have long argued that whether human activity is the driving force behind climate change or not, human kind is here to stay for now. The world's population has expanded from one billion people at the beginning of the industrial revolution to more than eight billion people now. And there is no realistic way to convince eight billion people that, for our foreseeable future, living in a fossil fuel free world is either desirable or even possible unless they are clueless re the facts and the cost.
Instead of confiscating so much of the world's financial resources to 'combat climate change' that obviously isn't combating climate change, a much better approach would be to find ways for humans to constructively adapt to inevitable climate change.
Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus, presents the reality of how governments deal with climate change and, while he does not deny that climate change is occurring and will continue to occur, he has a much more realistic and honest approach to how the world should 'follow the science.'
Emphasis in the quoted material is mine:
". . .A new peer-reviewed study of all the scientific estimates of climate-change effects shows the most likely cost of global warming averaged across the century will be about 1% of global gross domestic product, reaching 2% by the end of the century. This is a very long way from global extinction.
Draconian net-zero climate policies, on the other hand, will be prohibitively costly. The latest peer-reviewed climate-economic research shows the total cost will average $27 trillion each year across the century, reaching $60 trillion a year in 2100. Net zero is more than seven times as costly as the climate problem it tries to address.
Our goal in forming climate policy should be the same we bring to traffic laws and any other political question: achieve more benefits than costs to society. A richer world is much more resilient against weather extremes. In the short term, therefore, policymakers should focus on lifting the billions of people still in poverty out of it, both because it will make them more resilient against extreme weather and because it will do so much good in a myriad of other ways. For the longer term, governments and companies should invest in green-energy research and development to drive down the costs and increase the reliability of fossil-fuel alternatives.
Careful science can inform us about the problem of climate change, but it can’t tell us how to solve it. Sensible public debate requires all the facts, including about the costs of our choices. Some of the most popular climate policies will have costs far greater than climate change itself. When politicians try to shut down discussion with claims that they’re “following the science,” don’t let them.
”
