Boiling Frogs

[pscot]

Krugman begins with economics, then turns to the climate crisis:

"Put it this way: if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models — not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome — is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.

But it isn’t, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an attention-grabbing crisis. The full dimensions of the catastrophe won’t be apparent for decades, perhaps generations. In fact, it will probably be many years before the upward trend in temperatures is so obvious to casual observers that it silences the skeptics. Unfortunately, if we wait to act until the climate crisis is that obvious, catastrophe will already have become inevitable.

And while a major environmental bill has passed the House, which was an amazing and inspiring political achievement, the bill fell well short of what the planet really needs — and despite this faces steep odds in the Senate.

What makes the apparent paralysis of policy especially alarming is that so little is happening when the political situation seems, on the surface, to be so favorable to action.

After all, supply-siders and climate-change-deniers no longer control the White House and key Congressional committees. Democrats have a popular president to lead them, a large majority in the House of Representatives and 60 votes in the Senate. And this isn’t the old Democratic majority, which was an awkward coalition between Northern liberals and Southern conservatives; this is, by historical standards, a relatively solid progressive bloc.

And let’s be clear: both the president and the party’s Congressional leadership understand the economic and environmental issues perfectly well. So if we can’t get action to head off disaster now, what would it take?"


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/opinion/13krugman.html?_r=1&em

[Deja Q]

1. Well, rib-bloody-bit.

Look at the recent meetings and who balked out... if we're a global economy and global this and global that, then what are those countries doing to be a REAL part of it? Must be good reasons for their walking out, since everyone else in the world is so dumb by comparison...

[Fotoware58]

2. Parallels?

I think there is an interesting parallel between the global warming deniers and the forest management deniers. Both groups of deniers don't see any problem with our environment, despite the very visible evidence. Both sides use "faith-based" arguments to further their denial. Both sides refuse to believe respected scientists.

Personally, I choose science over dogma, in both situations.

[ezgoingrl]

3. Oh. Wait.

I thought you said, "Crunchy frog." Sorry. Carry on.

[ramapo]

4. We're way past the tipping point

To me, the tipping point came in 1980 with the election of Reagan and the dismissal and reversal of Carter's energy policies. That coupled with the fanciful "Morning in America" and "Yes there is a free lunch" (dinner, snacks, and much more too) put the planet (or at least many of the species that call it home) on the road to disaster.

I think it might've been possible to execute somewhat of a u-turn in the early '90s had Clinton actually been an environmental and energy activist leader. Unfortunately he took us further down the road towards disaster. Coal power, SUVs, CAFE standard relaxation, all took firmer root during the '90s.

Now we're faced with China, India, and a host of other countries all following our bad example.

In retrospect, the true disaster of Three Mile Island was the complete halt in the construction of new nuclear plants. While that long seemed to me to have been a very good thing, I now believe that we are much worse off due to the proliferation of coal plants. Coal power is responsible for a host of global environmental disasters. As horrific as Chernobyl was, for the most part nature is dealing quite nicely with the aftermath.

The chance that our society will make the radical changes in lifestyle, technology, behavior, and the general respect for the Earth that are required to halt, much less reverse, the environmental disaster of the past 50 years is slim-to-none.

At some point, nature will put us in our place. I have no illusion that hybrid cars, windmills, recycling, or solar panels will make any real difference in our situation. There are way too many of us. I'm not that old but I am old enough to remember when there were "only" three billion or so residents of Earth. I don't know if that was a sustainable population but the six-seven billion around today, probably heading to nine in my lifetime, pretty much seals our fate.

[pscot]

5. That sounds about right

It's a shame that so few seem to grasp the essentials. The idea is fairly simple, at bottom. We've fucked ourselves, and we're taking the planet down with us.