#if they are positioned correctly they don’t actually take a ton of damage

[classicalliberalleague]

Thoughts on climate change? If I remember correctly maybe one of you thought it was fake in the past

Fake,no, but I think a more fair statement is that we think it’s typically been bad science relying too much on correlation equals causation.

That the climate is changing, I don’t think we’ve ever denied it (I can’t remember every post we’ve made, but if we were inarticulate about something it was unintentional, the climate is changing but the media for it is often done by idiots and we might have gotten impassioned in ranting against their idiocy). We may have pointed out that greater hurricane damage is more because you have more idiots building in areas with poor drainage than because of climate change; we might have pointed out that the predictions are always childishly apocalyptic and certainly that without this little thing called falsifiable testing its hard to call it science (common sense certainly, but not science). But I don’t think we’ve ever outright denied climate change.

Now, I will still argue that the argument that is 100% man-made and 0% part of a natural cycle is imbecilic, but it would be equally preposterous to argue that human beings have nothing to do with this.

But more importantly, I think the arguments that have been made over the last 40 years by the people screaming about global warming have had very little to do with wanting to help the environment.

For decades, we have been able to prove that air pollution lowers in the short term and possibly in the long term the IQ of children. Those results can be tested and repeated (like real science)…but the environmental groups never went with that kind of argument that would have driven middle-class suburban parents to demand immediate change en masse. Why? Because that wouldn’t leave the people in a position to still make money. (https://www.calhealthreport.org/2018/01/31/teen-exposure-air-pollution-reduce-iq-levels-long-term/#:~:text=These%20particles%20are%20about%2030,1%20point%2C%20the%20researchers%20found.) But, no, no, let’s just describe the future like a bad YA dystopian novel, not in deal with actual health problems in the here and now.

Same with nuclear power. It is far and away the safest, cleanest, and most efficient form of electrical power available (fusion will likely take that position in a few years). But the environmental movement is usually opposed to it because it would actually solve things. We should have replaced every last coal plant with nuclear power in the industrialized world decades ago, but we didn’t.

At this point, with rising temperatures, we should at least be attempting methods like releasing sulfur into the upper atmosphere (https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/12/world/solar-dimming-geoengineering-climate-solution-intl/index.html) on a global but controlled basis to see if it has any effect. But aside from some silly startup that won’t ever have the resources to do enough, no one is doing anything about this.

Oh, and I feel we quote Milton Friedman enough around here to remind you that Milton was the one who came up with the carbon tax. Now, certainly, I have many technical problems with the way it has been presented, but I don’t have a problem with it in theory. (If you want to quibble about details, you’ll have to tell me specifically which proposed version you like).

What won’t work is pushing ethanol (which causes tons of pollutants to be released because of fertilizer) or relying on solar or wind (which are still not effective and efficient for long periods of time).

Now, I am not suggesting some evil cabal. I am suggesting merely good old-fashioned short-term greed by individuals. Just as it can be shown, tests for drug efficiency seem to always come in favor of the drug when paid for by the drug maker but less often when paid for by an independent group (even when the testers supposedly are kept in the dark about funding)…I think that people studying climate science know that if there is a solution, then they are out of a job, so they have no incentive to give accurate or reasonable projections or to provide solutions that will work. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0141076820914242 Very few people will argue to eliminate their job.

The earth is getting warmer. This means we should build nuclear power plants, put in a carbon tax that works, move to hybrid and then electric cars, and attempt geoengineering…because telling people to drive less and lower the thermostat is not going to work, nor is giving Mad Max style predictions.