American Cities and Climate Change: When is Enough, Enough?

[SIGSEGV]

It's an entirely relevant question to ask when we're discussing spending many Trillions of dollars to stop global warming. Most rational people would weigh out the pros and cons of even a modest purchase and you're expecting us not to do the same for decisions which would cost Trillions? This sort of thinking is exactly the reason environmentalists are so damn stupid. They get offended at any sort of rational cost/benefit analysis. Their logic is entirely black and white. They deem something bad and they think no amount of money is too much to fix it. That's not how the world works.

This is because 0.1% of people wondering about the positives of climate change are interested in rational debate on the topic and the other 99.9% are disingenuous denialists.

Yes climate change will make some currently uninhabitable places more habitable at the cost of making many currently intensely inhabited places uninhabitable. Woohoo? I guess everyone from Jakarta can move to Whitehorse and we'll rebuild Manhattan in Yakutsk.

Sure it's possible to do an economic analysis of the issue. We can start with the costs of inaction: https://eiuperspectives.economist.co...inaction_0.pdf

[mousquet]

^ Your link goes to a classical 404 - page not found error to me...

I'm wondering whether anyone on here is aware of the tremendous complexity of the problem. It is scary as hell.

I hope some more advanced minds rise from the terrible problem.
Usually, when there's a real bad problem, people suddenly grow smarter.
Ha ha ha.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by mousquet

I'm wondering whether anyone on here is aware of the tremendous complexity of the problem. It is scary as hell.

I hope some more advanced minds rise from the terrible problem.
Usually, when there's a real bad problem, people suddenly grow smarter.
Ha ha ha.

I'm sure the kids whose best idea is to boycott school to attract attention to the problem will rise to the scientific challenge in due time.

(Sarcasm, just so it's clear.)

[RavioliAficionado]

Originally Posted by lio45

I'm sure the kids whose best idea is to boycott school to attract attention to the problem will rise to the scientific challenge in due time.

Ah yes, the new political competition of who can be the most proud of their ignorance. Children trying to talk about science while simultaneously skipping actual science classes is pretty high up there indeed.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by lio45

I'm sure the kids whose best idea is to boycott school to attract attention to the problem will rise to the scientific challenge in due time.

(Sarcasm, just so it's clear.)

Is that what you did? Boycotting school? Lol, c'est pas bon, hein ?
Sorry...

If you'd been to school, you'd know the poor autistic kid you're thinking of would be bullied in there, at school, so she would feel very uncomfortable and depressed anyway.
I would've bullied her as a kid and teen, myself.
It's not like I'm proud of it.

That's life.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by mousquet

^ Your link goes to a classical 404 - page not found error to me...

I'm wondering whether anyone on here is aware of the tremendous complexity of the problem. It is scary as hell.

I hope some more advanced minds rise from the terrible problem.
Usually, when there's a real bad problem, people suddenly grow smarter.
Ha ha ha.

I fixed it (I think). People who put spaces in URLs should be taken out back and shot .

The "classic" economic study of course is the Stern Review, although it is quite old at this point (and many of its assumptions about the rate of climate change turned out to be overly optimistic).

The common result of all serious cost-benefit-analyses has been that action is necessary and of course they differ on how much reduction of carbon is optimal. Unfortunately we are far short of achieving even the bare minimum reduction required by any analysis, which leads to increased costs down the road.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

This is because 0.1% of people wondering about the positives of climate change are interested in rational debate on the topic and the other 99.9% are disingenuous denialists.

Yes climate change will make some currently uninhabitable places more habitable at the cost of making many currently intensely inhabited places uninhabitable. Woohoo? I guess everyone from Jakarta can move to Whitehorse and we'll rebuild Manhattan in Yakutsk.

Sure it's possible to do an economic analysis of the issue. We can start with the costs of inaction: https://eiuperspectives.economist.co...inaction_0.pdf

Since you are talking about my question, I'll explain why I asked:

First, the professor had a full day of us just asking him questions about climate change. People ran out of question as most students don't give a damn, they just want to pass.

Second, the professor pretty much said there is very little we can do as one nation so a lot of what we can do is retrofitting and changing the way we currently live here in the US(we consume too much etc. etc.). So it got me thinking...it will hurt places like the US, but what positives could it bring to other places.

My question was entirely academic. In an academic environment, no question or thought should be off the table. For the record, my professor is a good friend of mine. We are working on a paper together. I'm not some "denialist" or whatever else people here brand anyone who doesn't just follow in step 1000% everything that is said to them.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

My question was entirely academic. In an academic environment, no question or thought should be off the table.

There is only so much brain bandwidth available. You may have asked your question in good faith (I have no reason to doubt you), but from the perspective of the professor, your question, which was was essentially "what are the advantages of climate change?" may have set of his/her bad faith argument alarm (i.e. it may have sounded like a young-earth creationist asking a question about the eyes of the coelacanth in a lecture on evolution). If you meant to ask "what groups stand to benefit from climate change" that would be a less loaded way to ask the question since it doesn't have the implied value judgement .

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

There is only so much brain bandwidth available. You may have asked your question in good faith (I have no reason to doubt you), but from the perspective of the professor, your question, which was was essentially "what are the advantages of climate change?" may have set of his/her bad faith argument alarm (i.e. it may have sounded like a young-earth creationist asking a question about the eyes of the coelacanth in a lecture on evolution). If you meant to ask "what groups stand to benefit from climate change" that would be a less loaded way to ask the question since it doesn't have the implied value judgement .

I get that. We had a good rapport though like I said(before the class). That's actually why after only about 10 minutes of questions(the class is 1.5 hours long) in a class that was dedicated 100% to us asking questions I felt bad for him and wanted to get the conversation going.