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Parked Out
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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 12:58 pm 
RandyHiker wrote:
IMHO: MtnGoat keeps reposting the same denialist stuff because he doesn't care what happens to human society past 2050.
In economic terms, policy is how we choose to allocate scarce resources. So hypothetically, if the world has a trillion dollars to spend over the next year to promote human welfare, how much of that trillion should be spent on climate change mitigation vs the other problems we face? Is there really a defensible argument that climate change supercedes all other threats such that it deserves the attention it gets? If you had to choose to spend the whole trillion either on climate change mitigation, or on reliable grid electricity or safe drinking water for 100 million people in the developing world, which one would do the most good for human society?

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Tom
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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 1:23 pm 
That's a bit of a strawman that climate change supercedes all other threats or that it's a binary choice.

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 1:40 pm 
Tom wrote:
That's a bit of a strawman that climate change supercedes all other threats or that it's a binary choice.
It's just a thought experiment. But in the context of doing good for human society (Randy's point) it's a completely fair question however you want to frame it. If we want to spend 50 cents of our help-your-fellow-man dollar on climate, or 10 cents, or all of it, which amount is rational if we're trying to do the most good? It forces you to consider all the other problems that need attention and resources.

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 1:50 pm 
Parked Out wrote:
In economic terms, policy is how we choose to allocate scarce resources. So hypothetically, if the world has a trillion dollars to spend over the next year to promote human welfare, how much of that trillion should be spent on climate change mitigation vs the other problems we face?
So you agree this debate is past "it's not happening" denial and into a "it's not so bad" debate. Since we are now debating "how bad is it" -- where are you getting the 1 trillion dollar figure ? That figure seems quite optimistic -- Hurricane Katrina resulted in 125 Billion in economic losses Just the cost of inundation of major parts of the Netherlands , all of Venice, major parts of London, Miami, and many other cities is going to blow past the 1 trillon dollar figure pretty quick -- so show your work on the 1 trillion dollar figure.

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 2:20 pm 
Where's that face-palm emoji when you need it...

John
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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 2:30 pm 
Parked Out wrote:
Where's that face-palm emoji when you need it...
Apparently you pulled the 1 trillion dollar figure out of your ass.

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Doppelganger





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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 2:30 pm 

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 2:44 pm 
Doppelganger wrote:
RandyHiker wrote:
the 1 trillion dollar figure
I think this amount is arbitrary, it can be any amount or denomination. 100 seashells. I think PO is primarily interested in seeing how one would approach the problem of budgeting. It can quickly get complicated - are we sending slices of this budget pie to healthcare, education, un/employment, military, etc - the typical recipients? How do you squeeze climate change mitigation into a bloated budget? Worse, how do you subcategorize and allocate those climate change mitigation funds? How much should be set aside for recovery, how much goes towards proactive industry changes, how much goes to research? The process is mired in bureaucracy, which doesn't help when trying to get any budget put together, but climate change mitigation in particular. Perhaps an existing model could be piggybacked upon or modified, a Disaster Prelief Fund of sorts.
Given the degree of budgetary resistance to rebuilding Puerto Rico and New Orleans, which are on US soil -- I'm skeptical that there will be any funding for climate change remediation in the amount of 1 trillion dollars per year or anything vaguely approaching that figure. But Parked Out should speak for themselves.

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 2:49 pm 
Doppelganger wrote:
RandyHiker wrote:
the 1 trillion dollar figure
I think this amount is arbitrary, it can be any amount or denomination. 100 seashells. I think PO is primarily interested in seeing how one would approach the problem of budgeting. It can quickly get complicated - are we sending slices of this budget pie to healthcare, education, un/employment, military, etc - the typical recipients? How do you squeeze climate change mitigation into a bloated budget? Worse, how do you subcategorize and allocate those climate change mitigation funds? How much should be set aside for recovery, how much goes towards proactive industry changes, how much goes to research? The process is mired in bureaucracy, which doesn't help when trying to get any budget put together, but climate change mitigation in particular. Perhaps an existing model could be piggybacked upon or modified, a Disaster Prelief Fund of sorts.
Yes, thank you. Conceptually, how do you allocate whatever resources you have to deal with disease, education, infrastructure, energy, water, nutrition... all the things that may be lacking for a given population that would improve people's lives/well-being and require public expenditure? Where should expenditures on climate rank on the list?

John
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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 2:56 pm 

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 3:20 pm 
Doppelganger wrote:
Parked Out wrote:
Yes, thank you. Conceptually, how do you allocate whatever resources you have to deal with disease, education, infrastructure, energy, water, nutrition... all the things that may be lacking for a given population that would improve people's lives/well-being and require public expenditure? Where should expenditures on climate rank on the list?
Another layer of complication arises when we start asking each other where those expenditures should be prioritized biggrin.gif The discussion would probably look a lot like this GW thread - how do we reconcile everyone's potentially conflicting priorities? Who gets shafted? If someone is shafted in favor of climate change mitigation, how do you approach them and discuss the issues addressed by and actions taken during mitigation? No envy here for the challenges some politicians face, having a discussion in a Stewardship forum on a site where we are all supposed to love nature has proven challenging enough.
True. It's worth thinking about though, apart from the real-world difficulties of implementation. Impossible to accurately predict or measure of course, but let the guiding metric be: how do we spend a dollar within this category of issues so that we do the most good? I would just be curious to see what people think. Do we discount future problems relative to immediate problems? - that would be one of the first things to consider.

John
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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 3:41 pm 
The idea of spending money on various other development issues rather than making changes to reduce climate change is analogous to in response to the 1854 Cholera outbreak in London to opening additional health clinics instead of closing down the Broad Street pump and later building a sewage system and drinking water supply that prevented sewage from being dumping into the drinking water supply.

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 3:48 pm 
RandyHiker wrote:
The idea of spending money on various other development issues rather than making changes to reduce climate change is analogous to in response to the 1854 Cholera outbreak in London to opening additional health clinics instead of closing down the Broad Street pump and later building a sewage system and drinking water supply that prevented sewage from being dumping into the drinking water supply.
Not really. Not unless the other issues are a direct result of climate change and would be resolved by mitigating climate change. We're talking about clean water, better nutrition, food security, reliable energy and so on. Pretty hard to effectively improve on those by taking measures to reduce CO2. It would be an extremely indirect approach anyway.

John
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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 4:25 pm 
If there are issues we aren't addressing of equal or higher importance then you would prioritize based on some criteria, assuming we have to choose just one. This really just comes down to an argument that we can't afford it. It reminds me of a business problem. CFO wants to know the cheapest way for us to dispense with a problem. Answer, sell it to someone who doesn't believe (or understand) there is a problem. CFO storms out of the room, "that's not a real answer!"

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PostTue Jul 16, 2019 4:33 pm 
Tom wrote:
If there are issues we aren't addressing of equal or higher importance then you would prioritize based on some criteria, assuming we have to choose just one. This really just comes down to an argument that we can't afford it.
No, you're totally missing the point. It's just a recognition that hundreds of millions of people are faced with a laundry list of challenges to their well being, and in the absence of infinite resources, priorities have to be assigned. It's not about addressing one issue at the expense of 25 others, at least not from my point of view.

John
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