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Comment by Intermernet | Hacker News Reader

"At this point many extreme climate change activists want to send the world back to the 1700's level of technology"

Really, who? I can't see the people in the 18th century using PV (or much electricity at all for that matter).

I think the real problem is that people somehow believe "the economy" is more important than the environment. Destroying "the economy" would have little to no effect at all on about two thirds of the world's population.

Fixing (and preserving) the environment will have an enormous benefit to the entire world population, with the exception of the very small number of people who currently profit from treating the environment as an infinite resource, or a static back-drop to our own civilization.

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Destroying "the economy" would have little to no effect at all on about two thirds of the world's population.

I don't think you have a good grasp of how interdependent almost all modern national economies are today, regardless of their current size or per capita GDP. There is an almost inconceivably huge difference in aggregate quality of life (especially for the poorest!) between a 2100 that saw a century with 3.5% global annual real "gross world product" growth and one where growth averaged 2.5%.

Some back of the envelope calculation tells me it's a choice between a global economy worth ~$620T and one that's worth ~$1460T. You can pay for a lot of amelioration when your economy is that big, and still have a bunch left over to make people's lives so much better than they'd have in an economy less than half as productive.

Obviously there is a potentially serious downside to emissions growth that goes along with that economic growth. But the consequences of even moderately throttling the world economy to deal with it have huge costs that can't be waved away.

You're conflating the amount of money involved with the number of people involved. This rarely works for global situations.

The land-owners of the Alberta Oil Sands (last I heard the Koch brothers were #1 in this regard) have little or no incentive to put the money they make back into the Alberta community. They almost certainly have some token gesture scheme in place that will provide <1% of the profit to local funding, but that's just PR spin.

You can look at the money, or the people. As of October 2013 (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population) 10 countries had 58% of the world's population. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy it can be calculated that 64.67% of the money (by GDP) is controlled by 4 countries.

The population growth is decreasing due to (mainly) education. The disparity in the distribution of wealth is only growing greater. Those in the USA and Europe should realize that this isn't happening in their favour. In 2000, the USA was 22.61% of the world's GDP with China at 4.62%. The estimate for the next 6 years puts China at 26.79% and the USA at 15.45%.

Try telling the billions of people in the world living hand to mouth that the actions of some for-profit corporation will mean that they see an improvement in their quality of life.

EDIT: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IMF_Developing_Countries_M... for an illustration of what the IMF refers to as "developing countries". This should give you an idea of the amount of the planet that isn't a "player" in the world economy.

Try telling the billions of people in the world living hand to mouth that the actions of some for-profit corporation will mean that they see an improvement in their quality of life.

Hundreds of millions of people in China who would have been living hand to mouth a few decades ago are now living much fuller, longer, happier lives because their nation provided cheap labor and manufacturing for "some for-profit corporation[s]". A global economy half today's size couldn't have supported them in that way, and a global economy of 2100 cut in half by lower growth rates will have many more relatively poor people. I'm not sure what the Koch brothers have to do with that. Your argument does not appear to coherently respond to what I wrote.

It sounds like you're actually defending the labour practices of China over the last few decades. If so, I can't argue with you.

EDIT: In addition, the improvement of China's living standards should never be used as an example of capitalist success. China was at a cultural and economic low due to the effects of the Chinese "Cultural Revolution". Anything would have seen an improvement in living standards across a lot of China.

The point about the Koch brothers is that a project with staggering environmental implications is being controlled by a very small number of parties, when the actual people living in that same environment are going to receive little or no compensation for the destruction of said environment.

> The land-owners of the Alberta Oil Sands (last I heard the Koch brothers were #1 in this regard)

A claim made with so little support that the Washington Post was quickly forced to retract it. In fact, the reporters (as distinct from the newspaper) retracted the claim the day after the story ran.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014...

Work on your rhetoric.

From your linked article "Where the first story proclaimed the Kochs are the largest lease holder in the Canadian oil sands, Mufson and Eilperin now say they are “one of the region’s largest.” That’s quite a difference. Indeed, if the Kochs own leases for 1.1 million acres, as claimed in the original story, they are not “the biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands.” At least two other companies (Shell and Cenovus) hold more."

How does this change my point that a very small number of people control the profits to made from a hugely damaging project?

It doesn't matter that the Koch brothers aren't, as the WP originally stated, the leading lease holders. They share the majority of the total lease hold with other parties that are only interested in extracting the oil.

Implying that my point is invalid due to the Koch brother's only owning a substantial percentage, and not the majority, of the lease hold is disingenuous.

Should I forgive the actions of the Koch brothers now that I know that they only “one of the region’s largest" lease holders?

> Implying that my point is invalid due to the Koch brother's only owning a substantial percentage, and not the majority, of the lease hold is disingenuous.

First, I can't resist pointing out that it was never claimed they held the majority of the land; it was claimed they were the largest single holder. If you own 10% of something and nobody else owns more than 7%, you still don't own the majority of it.

Anyway, I don't think it affects your point at all; that's why my conclusion was "work on your rhetoric". Your passing mention of the Kochs can't undermine your point if it's invalid for the same reasons it doesn't support your point if it's correct (which, naturally, it isn't). It's just there to shock and dismay your audience. I'm not here to point out that you're basing an argument on faulty premises; you don't seem to be using much in the way of premises at all. I'm here to point out (right now) that scaring your audience isn't a good substitute for discussing an issue, and (now and before) that while you seem to feel strongly about this, you don't seem to be very well informed, or even to follow developments that you bring up as interesting for one day after they make the news.

Thankyou, I apologise for my misunderstanding of your original conclusion.

I originally used the Koch involvement with the Alberta tar sands as an example I thought would be appreciated by the predominantly US based audience. I, however, am based in Australia, and am usually concerned with the issues of my local area. I apologise for using my out-of-date information as my sole data point, and it's remiss of me not to have, at least, confirmed that the information I'd read hadn't been falsified since I'd read it.

I should have at least only stated their large involvement with the project, and not paraphrased an incorrect article to support my point.

Not arguing your main point, but going on a tangent: One wouldn't need to "seriously throttle down the world economy" to achieve significant amelioration of pollution. There is plenty of low-hanging fruit to lower industrial emissions and pollutants. Everywhere you look at in industrial sites there are stupid environmentally damaging practices, such as incinerating garbage and spilling chemicals into water sources without as much as a sorting process, which let extremely nocive pollutants into the enviroment. In the face of such irresponsible behavior, which shows zero concern for its consequences and possibilities of improvement, I don't buy that improving emissions is this insurmountable problem that would cause our economy to implode. Fact is, "standard" industrial practices are idiotic, misguided and unnecessarily destructive to a completely inexcusable degree.

On the other hand, pollution also significantly throttles down the global economy. You're saying losing 1% would be extremely bad in the long run. Well, in China's case it's estimated that as much as five to TEN percent of GDP is lost anually due to the effects of pollution. That figure has grown from a rounding error at the beginning of their country's industrialization to an aching burden today, and which shows no sign of slowing down unless something is done about it.

This is not that.

CO2 is not a simple pollutant that in trace quantities causes harm, which we can almost completely delete with semi-trivial changes in tech. That is the story of a lot of other air pollutants.

Burning fossil fuels for energy necessarily involves generating CO2. All combustion does - that is the end product of essentially all of the 'carbon' in 'hydrocarbon'. Reducing CO2 requires reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned for energy. Speaking as someone that has spent a lot of time on this area: There are no effective substitutes, at all, for reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned for energy. Carbon capture & storage is a red herring with no long-term effective mechanism, a very limited temporary reservoir system, and energy companies that don't even want to use those without the government writing them a huge check. Affirmative carbon credits for things like forest-growing are very limited by nature (forests only take in so much), and more effective as a way of preserving ecosystems than reducing anthropogenic carbon - so far they're mostly guilt-exemption tickets which change nothing about the degree of resource utilization happening. Ocean seeding seems to sequester a lot less than we first expected, because other nutrients become bottlenecks.

Don't get me wrong, I remain in favor of phasing out fossil fuels for most purposes, but they are really useful things, and we're going to have to attempt to leapfrog the entire 20th century of mechanized technology in developing countries to do it, after we complete the process in our own economies. This is not a small thing to ask.

if tomorrow a law was passed the said only PV could be used to produce electricity, rates would sky rocket 3 to 5 times what they are today, the net effect of that would be that the vast majority of the population would not longer be able to afford electricity for their homes. Not to mention the price of goods would sky rocket leaving the vast majority of the population unable to buy anything beyond basic food stuffs if they could afford that. Entire Industries would collapse, which I am sure your fine with because less pollution.

So most people would be using Candles for light, and walking to their jobs (if they had jobs) etc

You seems to thing we can just switch to wind/solar/... with no effects on industry, prices, or quality of life. Everything would just be peachy and we will all sing kumbaya in the streets

The vast majority of the population are already unable to afford electricity for their homes, and the price of goods (for them) is so dynamic due to local supply and demand that there is no guarantee that they can afford basic food stuffs.

Yes, entire industries will collapse. This has happened before (Indian slavery by the East India Company?), most would say we're better off for it.

Thank you for proving my point....

> walking to their jobs

See nothing wrong with that. Unless we're talking much more than 5 kilometers and/or the job is physically strenuous.

I live 20 miles (32km) one way from my job on a busy highway. That is about average for people in America.. 16 miles 1 way, 32 miles each day.

How on earth can you make such absurd statements without the smallest shred of evidence? I'm not interested in arguing with you, but unsubstantiated claims are worse than useless.

Which claim would you like me to substantiate? I'm not sure which of my statements you regard as "absurd".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5Lda06iK0

You'd do well not to listen to an actor about climate change.

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/09/my-advice-to-topher-field...

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