Hacker News Reader

Comment by ainiriand | Hacker News Reader

There are many things that can be done, in this very same moment. The problem is the high cost in political resources that no one is willing to pay.

Some examples:

- Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends.

- Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry.

- Incentivize the installation of wind or other renewable energies. Energies with no CO2 emissions, like nuclear, should be encouraged.

- Stop getting oil from the northern sea. Leave it underground.

View on HN

> - Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends.

> - Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry.

And just like that, you've been voted straight out of office. Better luck next life connecting to the electorate.

You can't do those things. Humanity is a distributed consensus problem. Climate change presents an interesting change in the fitness landscape topology ahead.

What are leaders for if they can't lead ? Should their job not be to convince people of what needs to be done ? They do a very good job by the way when it comes to pushing for liberalism.

When did Trump and Johnson push for liberalism?

Then humanity is clearly headed off a cliff in that landscape.

Which, by the way, has been signaled to everyone for decades now. Just our political processes have not allowed those signals to reach "the economy" and we seem to be unable to act on anything that isn't felt by the economy. Which, I might add, is not a god-given fact, but rather a political choice.

Anyway, we will have a cliff. And it will have been announced. And people will suffer when our consensus finding process drives us all over this cliff.

> political processes have not allowed those signals to reach "the economy"

This right here is the achilles heal of free market theory.

the market can and will correct itself. there are two problems however:

- actually getting rules implemented and enforced (political suicide by regulators - had an example of that in my own country just a couple months ago, made a mess in the government, the new rules didn't pass in parliament, governing party lost 10 pp in polls anyway)

- very irregular period of convergence from old rules to new (societal turmoil guaranteed, political consequences very likely) - see thatcher's closure of British coal mines for a good example

you forgot problem number three:

- the market as such will correct itself but is entirely unconcerned with the welfare of human beings in the meantime, and will continue to be unconcerned with it afterwards.

actually that was my point in problem 2...

Sounds like no true Scotsman

> Which, by the way, has been signaled to everyone for decades now.

That's part of the problem. The general public have been hearing it for decades now, and are probably just sick and tired of hearing about it. As far back as I can remember, it's been nothing but "Nuclear weapons are gonna kill us all" "Acid rain is gonna kill us all!" "Smog is gonna kill us all!" "Drugs and crime are gonna kill us all" "The ozone hole is gonna kill us all!" "Global warming is gonna kill us all!" "Terrorism is gonna kill us all" "Climate change is gonna kill us all!" Yet, here we are, still going on towards these various cliffs. I can at least put myself in the general public's shoes for a bit and empathize with their crisis fatigue. Economic crises are felt immediately--you lose your job. It's no surprise that it's politically easier to favor economics over other crises that are perpetually happening Real Soon Now.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the diagnosis of "crisis fatigue" but for the examples you give, here's a breakdown by my own very biased view. I'm leaving out Acid Rain because I never really was part of that discourse (too young) and didn't read about it after the fact either.

These four (IMHO) do actually pose clear and present dangers to human health & wellbeing at scale:

* Nuclear Weapons

* Smog

* Ozone

* Global Warming / Climate Change

They were identified as risks and (except for Ozone, which was actually tackled and is improving to my knowlege) continue to be shown as risks. Or rather, by now, as actually doing harm.

On the other hand, these two here were never the big catastrophes that they were made out to be, yet were (and are!) continually overblown.

* Drugs & Crime

* Terrorism

Neither of them ever had the existential threat potential that the other group had. Not-so-incidentally, the proposed "solutions" to these problems were always...

* highly profitable for certain industries

* useful for conservative re-elections

* based in little to no fact

* often (predictably) counter-productive.

Bottom line: if we had actually put time and money into existing, working solutions to measurable, actual problems, we would have been perfectly capable to do so. We did it for Ozone, we could have done it again. We didn't.

Instead, we put countless dollars and lives into "solving" problems that were pretty much caused by their "solutions", and mostly because that was in the best interest of very few people.

If people are tired of anything, I hope/suspect that they are tired of a political/economic system that predictably ended up producing this mess.

Absolutely correct. And this is probably the "great filter". Unless we do something now we are headed down a very bad road. Our only option is going to be geo-engineering which is a risky business

> odd/even rule for license plates

Friendly reminder that Beijing has been implementing exactly that, then later a variant of that, since 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_space_rationing_in_Beijin...

Exactly, the prototypical example has implemented it is one without democratic elections and so has no risk of being voted out of office.

Friendly reminder that measures like this unevenly affect people in different social classes, because those who are well-off can just buy two cars and be completely unaffected.

I'm not sure it's so easy to buy second car in Beijing. Anything is possible if you are very rich, but that doesn't matter if there's a 1% more cars instead of 50%.

This is done in Sao Paulo since 1996 and yes, people have two cars, usually middle class and up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_restriction_in_S%C3%...

To that end Beijing also implements a car registration quota per year where applicants are randomly picked

Of course you can't do them storming straight out of the gates. It just doesn't work like that. But sure, you can do them perfectly.

How?

- You provide incentives for attractive alternatives. - You invest in those alternatives and you invest in contextual drivers that make the transition more appealing. For instance, you provide an integrated plans for urban planning that cover different concerns. - You emphasize the benefits of those alternatives on an individual level. - You make a compelling narrative why the status quo is holding the individual back. - You diversify your narrative to to identify / appeal with as many different social groups as you have to.

That's just the content. Then there's also your political position. Whether your part of a power elite, or your not, you still need tactics to garner support, whether you like it or not. Alinsky's 12 rules for radicals, for instance, is a classic example in that regard.

The automative industry or the meat industry didn't just happen simply because individual consumers out of their own accord. They also happened because consumers where incentivized to buy in a 'modern' lifestyle with a heavy focus on cheap and convenience during the 20th century as opposed to more traditional, localized ways of living; and because those industries that supported this cultural shift were directly and indirectly subsidized. For instance, cities got covered in highway infrastructure in the 1950's and 1960's paid for through public funding and public policy making.

Public governance is about figuring out feedback loops in social, economical and political dynamics and finding ways to bend them towards your agenda.

Banning cars in city centers is already happening in European cities. The usual argument is to make living in the city more comfortable or make the city more attractive for commerce driven by regional or international tourism (both of which having their own drawbacks and tensions).

People used to eat little meat, not because of a "traditional" or "localized" way of living but because they were too poor to afford it.

As soon as they got richer they could do what they dreamed of.

It's like cars, really. People used to walk. Not because it was nice and healthy but because they had no choice. Then bikes and public transport werean improvement, but really people do prefer the comfort and freedom of driving their own cars and when that became possible and affordable they did not need much convincing to jump at the opportunity.

exactly. our western standard of living is simply too cheap. too many costs are externalized and, even worse, people like to pretend these costs don't even exist.

> they were too poor

Beware of value attribution and hindsight bias.

First, historic cuisines and diets evolved throughout history, and differed greatly depending by geographic location. Beware of generalizing particular historic contexts. You can't reliably extrapolate the dietary patterns of European serfs - as explained by their particular socio-economic context - and apply that the Mayan culture during the Classic period (same time frame 200-900 AD).

Second, the "they were too poor" argument only carries meaning in concrete socio-economic contexts. Even then, do note that the modern liberal conceptual framework of poor and rich didn't exist in earlier times. This even holds up today. It's tenuous claim to assume that, for instance, native cultures perceive themselves as "poor". If they do see themselves as "poor" today, that's always in reference to the dominant modern economic model based on western liberal enlightenment values and principles which has impacted their culture as an external factor.

> People used to walk. Not because it was nice and healthy but because they had no choice.

They didn't have a choice, but that doesn't say anything about how people perceived relying on muscle power across history, culture and geographical location.

Just 20 years ago, nobody considered the absence of social media and smartphones as a fundamental lacking in life. That's totally different today. For a short while, it was a choice, today, access to digital technology is a hard requirement in order to be able to participate in modern industrialized society. This is an example of how a feedback loop was created between availability and demand creating an artificial need. The same is true for most modern conveniences.

I'm deeply happy that I don't have to live a relatively short life working land, foraging or hunting game. But at the same time, I'm very much aware that's a hindsight bias and I'm very much aware that most modern conveniences aren't a prerequisite for the survival of humanity. As it stands, many of those modern conveniences have contributed to the existential threat which is Climate Change.

> Beware of value attribution and hindsight bias.

It's not. It's a general observation that holds true in many place, certainly Europe (and thus the West in general) and, say, China. The amount of meat eaten was constrained by the value of animals and most people simply could not afford to eat more meat than they did.

Likewise for cars. It seems to be an ideological take to claim that people do not prefer comfort and ease of transport...

This is your own agenda and I am pretty sure implementing these solutions does not cost you much personally.

What cost have you chosen to bear ? Do you exclusively use public transport ? Have you banned planes from your life ? Home delivery (the last mile is the one that creates the more pollution) ? What share of your revenue do you give to plant trees ?

> You need to send signals like this to the market well in advance so they can invest and plan ahead.

We are talking about billion dollars of investment at stake. You need years to train engineers, develop new technologies, ...

The role of politics is not only to implement policies but also to signal where we are heading so that a decentralized solution can be achieved.

I gave some examples of things that come to mind to me, some of them cost very little. I am sure that the big impact does not come just from actions like the ones I mentioned but from small changes that accumulate.

One thing is for real, every one of us could be doing more. It is not enough to just delegate this problem to someone else, politician or otherwise.

I know that it is very hard to change habits, more so when you are not seeing the outcome. But in the end it is just about doing what you believe is fixing the problem, not delegating.

Somehow I see a finger pointed at me, telling me to do more. The finger should be pointed at each and one of us, telling us to do more, and vote better.

Most people get a measly 2 days of leisure time per week and you want to ban them from being able to use cars/leave the city on their 2 free days?

Good luck I guess?

Why should leisure time require a car?

Because most people don't live in city centres where the "fun" actually is, so they have to get there somehow, sometimes from 10-20 miles away. They could all use public transit (in places where it's available), but that would increase the burden on that kind of transit. Especially for big cities, that was already quite busy - well, until the pandemic.

What I've seen happening here in the UK is that a lot of people leave their cars in a park & ride or close to a train station then shuttle in, which I guess is a step forward, but a lot are still driving all the way.

Because leisure time often coincides with outdoor activities and traveling to other places. The experience is much nicer when you're outside of your city. And even in Europe there're many places to visit which don't have train stations.

Before hitting cars you need to provide a viable alternatives.

Most people have no alternative at the moment so hitting cars can only lead to unrest.

An example is France's attempt to heavily tax diesel, which partly led to the yellow vest protests because people have no choice at the moment.

Put a good, viable alternative in place then you can make the move against ICE/cars in general.

> Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities

Then rich people just buy two cars. This increases carbon emissions.

Also, people are pissed off, so the government loses the next election.

> Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry

The way to go would be to tax carbon emissions, and lay down a timetable where they taxes will get larger over time; then everyone has big incentives to change behaviour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com