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Comment by blacktriangle | Hacker News Reader

"There's this enthusiasm for environmentalism that seems to be blind to outcome."

I am completely stealing this line, because it explains the modern environmental movement perfectly. I've argued with so many people about the Paris Accords and how they are a terrible idea. Why? Because they heap regulation on the West while sending money to China and India who have no obligation to improve their environmental policy. This will result in even more manufacturing leaving the semi-regulated West and moving to totally unregulated China which will increase net pollution, and that's before you factor in transit pollution.

Nobody can explain to me why this is wrong and that Paris Accords are actually terrible for the global environment, but its still awful the US wouldn't sign them because "we have to do something!"

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> Because they heap regulation on the West while sending money to China and India who have no obligation to improve their environmental policy.

Both China and India are signatories of the Paris Accords. They are aiming to meet their targets. The US, at least for the four previous years, wasn't even in the Accords and not trying to do much in that time.

There are no regulations in the Accords, just a goal with regards to carbon emissions. If you want minimal regulations to achieve that, either introduce a cap-and-trade system (like Bush 41 did for acid rain), or introduce price signalling via carbon pricing, as recommended from four former Federal Reserve chairs (including Greenspan):

* https://www.carbonpricingleadership.org/news/2019/1/17/forme...

> Nobody can explain to me why this is wrong and that Paris Accords are actually terrible for the global environment, but its still awful the US wouldn't sign them because "we have to do something!"

Perhaps no one can explain why it's wrong because it is not wrong? The Paris Accords are not about "the global environment", they are specifically about one thing: carbon emission. Specifically reducing them by a certain amount.

Why do you think reducing them is bad?

Reducing them is great. Trusting China to self-regulate their emissions is the height of stupidity. Us paying China to then turn around and lie is even dumber yet.

Want to reduce CO2? You'll need to embargo China and then start ramping up domestic regulation.

I've always liked the term "not on my watch". It probably derives from the maritime world, but is useful in my sysadmin career.

In many (larger) organizations you cannot ensure everything is running smoothly all the time. But you can look after everything in your own (IT) wheel house.

As a Canadian I cannot do much about China's (or India's) action, but I can do stuff about what happens in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where I live.

So I will push for progress where I can, with the things under 'my watch', because it is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing yourself is sometimes the only thing you can do.

The thing about global pollution, it's global. The actors you are pushing to progress don't have to stick around, they can just pick up and move. If you clean up your house, you didn't really clean up the problem, you just moved it somewhere else, making the problem worse.

Think global, act local:

* https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/decarbonization-think-glob...

Reducing emissions by triggering World War Three is a plan, I suppose.

Any time "the leaders of the world" get together for any stated purpose, some of them are trying to bring about exactly this.

Both China and India have lower CO2 emissions per capita than the US....

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