2nds on the supply though you can also work on the 'demand'. If people think about it rationally they'd start asking for technology that doesn't run on fossil fuels, as it is most people that don't care what they run off are the ones that aren't thinking about the future. I have read lots and lots and lots of research on economic discounting (I did my dissertation on personality variables, attitudes and behaviour towards climate change) and the models used by staticians making public policy do not match how the average human thinks: humans are taking irrational, multiple options in to consideration at the same time unlike economic equations that are controlled, focussed and rational, and rightly so at that. Economics is a science and needs to be clear at what it's aiming for.pkay wrote:2manynoobs wrote:yeah of course fossil fuels. that's the problem. But you've got to ring the bell somewhere? Letting off these tires is probably the only thing you can do to get people's attention!
That's like arresting a pot smoker and calling it a war on drugs. Great if you want attention, terrible if you want change.
You never demand change from the consumer end as a demand has already been established. You disrupt the supply.
What's needed is clearer communication in science issues, it's telling that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just hired it's own press-reporter as a lot of the time standard media obscure what's said either deliberately or unintentionally. When you tell an average person that policy is based on 'theory' they assume it means scientists aren't sure so there's no point adhering to what it is being outlined even though what it really means is that out of lots and lots of lengthy data analysis, calculations and model testing that this 'theory' is the best possible projection of something that is quite far away but possibly completely devastating if we don't deal with it. It doesn't help that the 'messages' keep changing, first global warming now its generic 'climate change' as some places will cool or get wetter etc.
Also, most of the emissions output that the case for greenhouse gases (GHGs) are made through unnecessary commercial consumption. For all the back-patting and congratulations that Europe and north America have done about lowering their emissions (even though though it was through a recession which saw economic output drop anyway) what has really happened is that it has all been outsourced to other countries with less stringent climate policies like China and India so in the process net emissions including imports for consumption have actually risen by around 9%. The problem is that marketing and advertising is creating 'demand' for totally unnecessary goods and the public hold the government to account on short-term ideals based on consumerism - quite why no USA government will sign up for binding emission-lowering deals as it would piss the electorate off immeasurably if they were told they'd be getting their purchase-power parity cut for some intangible benefit based on a 'theory'. The world's going to have to start realising we've got to act sooner rather than later though because the longer we leave it oof the more expensive it becomes, unfortunately it seems that if climate mitigation is not acted on by choice it will be like the curve showing uptake rates of a good will a limited time availability - at first a few people, then more, then slowly rises until nearer the end people are turning up in exponentially larger numbers to participate before their chance is cut-off by the deadline.
On the other hand, we can inform people about the issues a bit better and give tax incentives to properly sustainable business (in the general capitalist economy) and work our way out of a potential mess before it properly starts. I mentioned capitalist business structures in the last sentence, deliberately too, since, as a comparison, China, the top-down-oriented economic powerhouse that will become the largest economy in the next few decades, has realised that the potential devastation of climate change is too much to risk avoiding and is one of the world single-biggest markets for 'green' technology - it's seriously working for the future which we all need to do. Lots of businesses ahve realised this too, after many international corporations got together as a consortium to oppose the notion of climate change (bad for business) lots have since dropped out and started their own pro-sustainable group! Times they are a changing...
