How can we solve global warming in the face of populist and corrupt government?
The issue of global warming is a complex one that requires the cooperation of governments, individuals, and organizations around the world to address. However, in the face of populist and corrupt governments, it can be challenging to make meaningful progress. Here are some potential strategies:
- Encourage Grassroots Activism: Even if a government is not taking action, individuals can still make a difference. Encourage grassroots activism by participating in protests, spreading awareness about the issue on social media, and supporting organizations that are fighting for climate action.
- Support Renewable Energy: Support the development and use of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power. This can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
- Pressure Corporations: Pressure corporations to be more environmentally responsible by supporting sustainable practices and divesting from companies that contribute to climate change.
- Collaborate with Other Countries: Collaborate with other countries that are taking action on climate change. This can help create momentum for meaningful change and demonstrate to populist and corrupt governments that climate action is a global priority.
- Use Economic Incentives: Use economic incentives, such as carbon taxes, to encourage companies to reduce their carbon footprint. This can help to shift the economic landscape in favor of environmentally friendly practices.
While these strategies may not solve global warming overnight, they can help create meaningful progress in the face of challenging political environments. It is also essential to continue to educate yourself and others about the issue and advocate for change whenever possible.
Some of these governments are making it illegal to divest from fossils and are mandating development of fossils. How can we change that?
It is certainly a challenge when governments are making it illegal to divest from fossil fuels and mandating their development. However, there are still some strategies that can be employed to bring about change:
- Advocate for Change: Advocate for change by contacting your elected representatives and urging them to take action on climate change. Let them know that you do not support the use of fossil fuels and that you want to see them invest in renewable energy instead.
- Support Environmental Organizations: Support environmental organizations that are working to combat climate change. These groups can help to bring attention to the issue and pressure governments to take action.
- Use Economic Leverage: Use economic leverage to push for change. This could include boycotts of companies that support the development of fossil fuels or supporting clean energy initiatives that provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
- Pressure International Bodies: Pressure international bodies, such as the United Nations, to take action on climate change. This can help create a global movement for change and provide a platform for governments that are more progressive on the issue.
- Educate Others: Educate others about the importance of addressing climate change and the risks associated with continuing to use fossil fuels. This can help build public support for action on the issue.
In the face of governments that are actively working against climate action, it is essential to remain committed and proactive in advocating for change. While progress may be slow, it is possible to make meaningful strides towards a cleaner and more sustainable future.
How can we make faster progress? Slow progress is not good because unlike most other human endeavors, the timeline is set by the atmospheric conditions rather than by our capabilities.
Making faster progress on addressing climate change is certainly a critical need, given the urgency of the issue. Here are some strategies that could help to accelerate progress:
- Set Ambitious Targets: Governments, organizations, and individuals should set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy. These targets should be backed up by concrete plans for achieving them.
- Invest in Clean Energy Research and Development: Governments and businesses should invest heavily in clean energy research and development, which can help to bring about more efficient and cost-effective technologies for reducing emissions.
- Create Incentives for Climate Action: Governments can create incentives for businesses and individuals to take action on climate change. This could include subsidies for clean energy, tax breaks for energy-efficient upgrades, or penalties for companies that continue to rely on fossil fuels.
- Prioritize Climate Change in Policy-Making: Governments should prioritize climate change in their policy-making, ensuring that all decisions take into account the environmental impact. This could include regulations on emissions, requirements for businesses to report their carbon footprint, and policies to promote sustainable practices.
- Engage the Public: It is critical to engage the public in the effort to combat climate change. This could include campaigns to promote energy conservation, educational programs to raise awareness about the issue, and efforts to promote a culture of sustainability.
By taking these and other steps, we can work towards accelerating progress on addressing climate change. It is critical that we act quickly, as the timeline for addressing this issue is limited and the consequences of inaction could be severe.
Governments are not being very helpful. They’re at war with each other, and incentivized to scare up votes rather than effect real solutions. It’s also difficult to incentivize and invest and to use growth-based plans when one of the fundamental issues is that (because of transaction externalities) adapting to global warming reduces the resources we thouht we had compared to when we thought we could just drill and burn for all eternity. So becoming aware of the realities of fossils is depriving humanity of a resource we thought we had. Faced with such deprivation, it’s difficult to bribe our way out of it.
It is true that many governments are not doing enough to address climate change, and that there are significant challenges in incentivizing action on this issue. However, there are still steps that can be taken to make progress:
- Build International Cooperation: It is critical to build international cooperation on climate change. This could involve efforts to bring together countries and organizations that are committed to addressing the issue and to create a sense of shared responsibility.
- Focus on Bottom-Up Action: While national governments may not be taking sufficient action on climate change, there are many local and regional initiatives that are making progress. By focusing on bottom-up action, it may be possible to build momentum and create pressure for broader change.
- Encourage Private-Sector Action: Private companies have a significant role to play in addressing climate change, and many are already taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. Governments can encourage this by creating incentives for companies that invest in clean energy and by penalizing those that continue to rely on fossil fuels.
- Use Innovative Financing Mechanisms: Innovative financing mechanisms, such as carbon markets, can help to incentivize action on climate change by providing financial rewards for reducing emissions.
- Empower Individuals: It is essential to empower individuals to take action on climate change. This could involve initiatives to promote energy conservation, educational campaigns to raise awareness about the issue, and efforts to promote sustainable lifestyles.
While these strategies may not solve the problem of climate change overnight, they can help to build momentum and create pressure for change. It is critical that we continue to work towards solutions that are effective, equitable, and sustainable for all.
Where are the resources incentivizing these “carbon markets” ultimately coming from?
Carbon markets are a mechanism that puts a price on carbon emissions in order to incentivize a reduction in emissions. Companies and other organizations that emit greenhouse gases can buy and sell permits or credits to emit a certain amount of carbon, which creates a market for carbon emissions. The resources for these carbon markets come from the organizations that emit greenhouse gases, as they are required to purchase permits or credits to offset their emissions.
In some cases, governments may also contribute to these markets by creating incentives for companies to reduce emissions, such as tax credits for investing in renewable energy or penalties for exceeding emissions limits. Additionally, there are organizations that specialize in creating and managing carbon credits or offsets, which can be sold to companies and other organizations looking to offset their emissions.
While carbon markets have the potential to incentivize emissions reductions and provide a source of funding for clean energy development, they are not without controversy. Some critics argue that carbon markets do not go far enough in addressing the root causes of climate change and can lead to the creation of carbon offset projects that do not actually reduce emissions. As such, it is important to carefully consider the design and implementation of carbon markets to ensure that they are effective and equitable.
Yes, these non-effective, fake offset projects have been very widespread and have exacerbated the problem. It’s difficult to see how a carbon market would actually generate net resources and value. It’s easy to accidentally create perverse incentives because of the flaws in market capitalism.
You are correct that there are potential drawbacks to carbon markets and the potential for perverse incentives. Carbon markets are just one tool in the toolkit to address climate change, and they are not a silver bullet solution. It is essential to carefully design and implement carbon markets in order to avoid unintended consequences.
One potential drawback is that carbon markets can create incentives for companies to continue emitting greenhouse gases, rather than reducing emissions. For example, a company may choose to purchase carbon credits rather than investing in renewable energy or making other changes to reduce emissions. This could lead to a situation where emissions continue to rise, even if the carbon market is functioning as intended.
Another potential issue is the risk of “greenwashing” or the creation of false offset projects that do not actually reduce emissions. This could happen if the criteria for what counts as a valid offset project are not carefully defined and monitored.
To address these concerns, it is important to establish clear and transparent standards for what counts as a valid offset project and to ensure that projects are independently verified to ensure that they meet these standards. In addition, it may be necessary to limit the use of carbon credits as a substitute for actual emissions reductions, by requiring that companies reduce their own emissions before being able to purchase credits.
It is also important to recognize that carbon markets are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to addressing climate change. We need to pursue a range of strategies, including investing in renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and implementing policies to reduce emissions. It is only through a comprehensive and coordinated effort that we will be able to effectively address the challenge of climate change.
Some of the steps needed will reduce quality of life for the wealthiest and most influential people. Maybe even for most people. It’s proving difficult for us humans to willingly make our own lives worse even though our way of life is killing us and our planet, to the extent that we’re voting for politicians that are actively subsidizing fossils.
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This generation of bots don’t have the answer. They are parroting growth/incentive propaganda and are not great at effecting safe and robust degrowth. It hasn’t been able to answer any programming questions either. I saw Tom Scott’s video but that was beginner level stuff. When faced with real problems it dreams up stuff that doesn’t work based on approaches that can’t possibly work, when asked if it has tested that it lies and says that it tested it on such-and-such version, and when pushed on that admits it lied.
While I do hate the bots and wish they were destroyed, a charitable view of them is that it’s a stride in interface design, not solution generation. It’s as if I was blaming MS Minesweeper for not being Inkscape or Blender. I can imagine fitting a language model like this in front of a real solution engine, like a medical expert system or a symbolic math package, how that could make it more accessible.
As for real solutions to climate change, we might need to come up with a way think differently. Full awareness of the problem is part of the solution. Let’s keep doing our best to crack this nut.♥︎