(11-18-2018 01:51 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(11-18-2018 01:19 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(11-18-2018 12:36 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  It seems that the central policy question is not the causes of climate change, but the whether a policy response is possible and desirable. If there is no policy that will have any appreciable effect going forward, then it doesn't matter what the past causes were. Alternatively, if the only policy that will have appreciable effect on the climate is worldwide dictatorship, then we can reasonably conclude that doing nothing is the better option. It is also possible that there are policies that would actually do some good, while also doing no greater harm. (I suspect here are fewer of those than most people think, but there may be some.) But for some reason, most of the discussion seems to be less about prospective costs and benefits and more about retrospective blame.

One is tempted to observe that such misdirected discussion is rooted in the general leftist preference on most issues for criticizing the usual set of deplorables rather than solving problems, and the natural response among the rest of the word of resenting that criticism. But I will refrain from making that observation. :)

Looking at how we combated the use CFCs worldwide and stopped the growing hole in the ozone layer, I think that the bolded sentence is not really a concern. We've proven that we can, collectively, address a significant environmental issue worldwide. I see no reason we can't do that again.

Yes that was a great achievement. My concerns with climate are that, on the technical level, it is a vastly more sweeping topic and much less exact science; and (partly bacause of those technical reasons) on the political level, there are a lot more nutcases who would like to use climate policy as a vehicle to impose stupid and destructive ideology. I mean, look how the world’s policy makers reacted to the economic challenges of the 1930s — not exactly inspiring. Keeping such folks at bay will be an important part of any good policy development.

I also have some sense that, again on a technical level, and unlike ozone, the forces at work (regardless of cause) may be more than human policy can influence, any more than King Canute can hold back the tide. I don’t really know, but that’s a nagging (hopefully incorrect) suspicion. In any case, it is frustrating that there seems to be so much less discussion of the all-important question of efficacy than about the largely irrelevant question of blame. Is that just my perception?

I think you’ve touched on a number of the challenges here. As Tanq more bluntly put it, the science behind the CFC-ozone reaction is much more straight forward and cut and dry than climate change.

But I think it still serves as a good model that shows that, once consensus is reached globally, global action can take place.