If I believed climate change was an emergency …

… I would put aside money to …

  • cope with disasters (at least some of which will be unexpected).
  • move large numbers of people out of threatened areas.
  • take care of refugees.

But those would be short-term solutions. I would also work on the legal, social and financial framework for getting these people into a new life where they can thrive, and not simply be cared for in refugee camps.

One of the last things I would be doing is fretting over converting the U.S. to solar energy. That is too much like polishing the brass on a sinking ship.

If I really believed CO2 was an “existential threat,” I would be doing everything possible to convert the global energy market to nuclear power.

Which all reminds me of Glen Reynolds’ saying about global warming: I’ll start believing in it when the people who say they believe in it start acting like it.

9 thoughts on “If I believed climate change was an emergency …”

  1. I’ve been saying for years that I’m not competent to judge the science behind all this, but it doesn’t take a scientific background to observe that if the international powers that be both believed in this and had relieving or preventing human suffering as their highest priority, the question relocating people and finding ways to cope with predicted agricultural shifts would be at least part of the conversation. If it is, it’s very quiet, but relocating hundreds of millions of people and restructuring agriculture across the continents isn’t something that can happen under the radar. So it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that either “they” don’t believe the more extreme predictions or “they” aren’t actually concerned about humanity.

  2. People often fail to act on their beliefs. The alcoholic may very well believe that her behavior will lead to an untimely death, and yet she keeps on drinking. Moreover, the believers in climate change realize that they have skeptics who will limit what we can do in advance in response to the alleged changes.

    1. So every policy advocate on climate change is in the mental state of an alcoholic who has no will to change anything? And because they expect to encounter resistance, they don’t even bother to mention things like relocating people and agricultural changes, even though they promote all kinds of other measures that also garner resistance?

      1. The example of an alcoholic should not be taken too far. People don’t act on their beliefs for innumerable reasons, certainly the prospect of resistance being one of them. Consider the pro-lifers. If they really and truly believed that the federal government allows for murder and even prevents the states from prohibiting murder, and if they really and truly believed that murder is wrong as wrong can be, they would engage in insurrection. Or would they? Some have taken that path and have thereby set back their cause quite considerably. Politics is the art of the possible. Radical environmentalists have to get used to it just as the pro-lifers have.

  3. LOL, that’s rich. Laughable.

    Take care of refugees ??? LOL. Yeah, right. We could convince Mitch McConnell or Voldemorange to support that ? I think “let them die” is more like the response. We’re certainly not opening our borders to those escape the terrors in Central America that we had so much to do with.

    People live right next to the San Andreas fault. I live in Tornado Alley. People live along the coast where hurricanes hit. They’re going to move before the very last minute? Yeah, right.

    People still remember Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukishima. You want to live next to one? Can we build a plant a mile down the road from your property? Is that ok? You not worried about your property values? Or is that just for the poor people?

    1. Since when does the left’s wish list depend on what McConnell is willing to do?

      Stop pretending this is about the poor. That’s such a tired leftist lie, you should know better.

      The fact is that we have to have various infrastructure, including power generation. One nuclear plant would replace a whole heck of a lot of wind farms and solar panels, so if we’re talking about property values, nukes are the better choice — they would interfere with a lot less property.

      There is a nuclear plant not all that far from me, and relatively close to where my brother lives. It doesn’t cause any trouble. However, the water treatment plant just a mile from me stinks. Fortunately, the stink blows the other direction.

      And from what I’ve heard, more people have died falling off the roof installing solar panels than have died from Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukishima combined.

      1. The difference between people falling to their death in the act of installing solar panels and people dying from mishaps in nuclear power plants is that the former engage in the fatal activity voluntarily and the latter do not. You can choose not to install solar panels and nobody can stop you from doing that. If a nuclear power plant is built nearby, you might be able to move, but that is often more easily said than done. You might just be screwed.

        1. It’s even harder to move away from atmospheric pollution due to fossil fuel use. I’m too lazy to look up the relevant factoid, but ISTR more people die _annually_ from diseases for which pollution is a contributing factor than have ever died from nuclear power.

          To be fair the data is noisy. I seem to remember one of the pollutants we were measuring when we were writing a report for [random Canadian health NGO] a few years back actually had a pretty consistent _positive_ effect on disease rates.

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