this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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The memes of the climate
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The climate of the memes of the climate!
Planet is on fire!
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It's so mad that this has become an issue split on party lines. Margaret Thatcher's 1989 speech to the UN General assembly, setting out the serious threat of climate change and how international cooperation is vital to avoid disaster is worth listening to. (I detest almost all of Thatcher's economic and social policies).
I’m old school liberal but I guess people would call me conservative today because I support free speech. My stance on this is that climate change is real but its actual impact is not catastrophic. We’re not facing impending doom. Best predictions are global average temperatures increasing 2-4 degrees centigrade by 2100.%20by%202100.) Weather events will become a little more severe. Some arable areas will become smaller.
On the other hand, millions of people die each year of starvation alone. Millions more from preventable diseases and illnesses. On balance, given the world has finite resources, I believe we should immediately take every cent spent on combating climate change and spend it on saving lives now. By comparison, climate change is estimated to lead to up to 250,000 additional deaths per year by 2050. The business case here is crystal clear. Our priorities are completely misaligned with saving human life.
This discussion inevitably devolves into “just do EVERYTHING all at once.” While a fine idea, there is only so much money to go around. We can argue that we should tax the rich more, and I would agree, but Western countries are democracies. People vote for what they think is reasonable. So we really are working with finite resources. We should spend that money where it will save the greatest number of human lives.
"I’m old school liberal but I guess people would call me conservative today because I support free speech." is pathetic virtue signaling. Get over yourself and stop crying because your friend got in trouble for shouting the n-word or whatever other victimhood narrative you've got going.
Here we have an authoritarian in the wild. This little beauty likes to pretend to be against fascism, while supporting fascism in everything but name. Look how angry it gets when its values are challenged.
Blah blah blah more whiny virtue signaling. Stop crying and projecting your impotent rage just because you were called out.
Sir, it isn't like we don't have the resources to fight climate change and hunger. We spent 10 trillion dollars to dunk 100,000,000 dollar rockets on opium farmers and goat herders.
We have the money and resources. We also burn 40% of our food as food waste. Meaning only 60% gets eaten, the rest is thrown out.
We can multitask. This isn't a trolly ethics question where we have to kill starving people or save the planet. There are 8 billion of us on this planet. We can do both at the same time.
You must have completely ignored my last paragraph. Please re-read it.
The reason I did not point it out is because it is a logical red herring, not to mention, false.
There is plenty to go around, the problem is allocation of resources. The biggest lie you've ever been told is that we can't afford 200 billion to fix problems, but we have 200 billion for tax fraud.
What is the correlation between democracies and finite resources? I didn't realize that America is the only exporter of food or fixes to problems.
Am I supposed to give up because there is opposition? Because people disagree with me? No, I can only present the facts. We have the resources, we just aren't using them properly.
Agreed, though just because you wrapped your shit cake with nice icing doesn't mean it isn't a shit cake. And is the logical equivalent of a 2 year old saying "We should love everyone."
Of course. We should do that.
But everything you have written is boiled down to excuses on why we can't. Why global warming has to take a back seat for feeding people. Of course feeding people is right, but you cannot argue that it is one or the other. When everything else doesn't work that way.
A. People can divide their attention on different projects.
B. We have the resources to accomplish this.
C. Saying America is a democracy and thus the sole provider of help and solutions across the world is the only country that can eliminate global warming and poverty is logically bullshit.
I don't think you know what "red herring" means.
I fully agree there is enough to go around. I clearly articulate that it is a political problem. As explained, we live in a democracy, and voters decide how much money to tax wealthy individuals, and how much money to invest in the IRS to audit people. Voters don't want to invest more into the IRS to potentially return some of that suspected tax fraud to which you allude.
In a democracy, voters decide how much money is taxed, not you, an individual. You might feel like we should spend more money on both climate change and saving starving people in Africa. Unfortunately you only have one vote, so you alone don't get to decide to do that.
I expect you to advocate for what you think is right. That is your democratic right. My premise is not that you should be silent. It is that we have finite resources with which to help people. This is true no matter how loudly you yell at the sky.
Efficient resource allocation saves lives. Why on earth would you argue against that?
Everything works that way. Everything. There are finite resources with which to help people. You don't have a magical money box. You're not emperor. Why is this very basic concept so difficult for you?
Nobody argued this.
This is a good point. There are many potential risks. Changing water tables will likely result in less arable land in currently arable regions. It should be noted, however, that climate change will also unlock a lot of arable land. So there will be some migration. Further, technology is enabling more efficient food production than ever before. Grain production alone has undergone incredible innovations. Vertical farming will be the next great leap in food production and sustainability.