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Europe's green efforts have nothing to do with saving money in the short term,

Obviously. How long until we start seeing this savings? 50 years hasn't been enough apparently. 200 years, 1000 years?

they're smart enough to play the long game and it will not only cut costs in the long term but also save the environment.

If Europe's environmental regulations are going to save the planet, what does our carbon footprint matter?

Hawkeye wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:31 pm

Europe's green efforts have nothing to do with saving money in the short term,

Obviously. How long until we start seeing this savings? 50 years hasn't been enough apparently. 200 years, 1000 years?

Maybe ‘cheapness’ is a false economy, in some short-term situations.

Do you do all of your shopping at Walmart? Drive a beater car? Opt out of health insurance for your child?

Do you buy or choose to work with the cheapest possible tools at your work?

Hawkeye wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:31 pm

Europe's green efforts have nothing to do with saving money in the short term,

Obviously. How long until we start seeing this savings? 50 years hasn't been enough apparently. 200 years, 1000 years?

they're smart enough to play the long game and it will not only cut costs in the long term but also save the environment.

If Europe's environmental regulations are going to save the planet, what does our carbon footprint matter?

You still haven't bothered to look at the RMI site I previously linked you to, have you?

Another approach to climate mitigation that ought to be considered along with transitioning away from fossil fuels.

How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory


See also: What if We Terraformed the Sahara Desert

Hawkeye wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:31 pm

If Europe's environmental regulations are going to save the planet, what does our carbon footprint matter?

You know that what you are saying here is ridiculous don't you? Europe's environmental regulations, if carried through as they should be, cannot possibly "save the planet" on their own, and nobody is saying that they can or will. They will however amount to a contribution to doing that appropriate to the geographical and economic size of the European Union. Also, as an added benefit, they will in the long-term be beneficial to the European economy, by supplying European consumers with cheap renewable energy.

The only way to "save the planet" is for each region of the world to do as much as it can do towards that end, in a way proportioned to the size of its economy and the living standards of its citizens, together with the consequent contribution to the world carbon footprint.

If for some reason the United States decides that it's going to stick with fossil fuels all the way, thank you very much, then in political terms there's nothing very much that anybody else can do about it, and given the size of the United States carbon footprint we are pretty well assured of a global climate disaster with temperature rises that will make major parts of the globe uninhabitable and destroy agriculture in many other regions, including the great plains of the US. The blow that will strike to the US economy will be so huge and irreversibly devastating that a few more years of cheap gasoline seen in retrospect are unlikely to be thought to be any compensation for what follows.

The "irreversible" bit is important: economists know a lot about economic disasters such as the dot-com crash and the great banking crisis that followed on the collapse of a few critical Wall Street firms. However, the problem with the way economists tend to view climate disaster, and the costs of avoiding it, is that economists know that all economic crises have turned out to be eventually capable of being recovered from. It is however almost certain that beyond a certain level of global heating runaway processes will be triggered (such as the release of carbon currently locked up in the frozen soil of Siberia) that will accelerate the heating process, in turn triggering other irreversible processes. And so on. From that there is no recovery. All the normal methods that economists use to estimate how much it is worth paying to avoid a certain kind of damage oh no longer applicable. What is worth paying is simply what it takes to avoid humanity going over the cliff.

Chap wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 30, 2022 2:41 pm

The only way to "save the planet" is for each region of the world to do as much as it can do towards that end, in a way proportioned to the size of its economy and the living standards of its citizens, together with the consequent contribution to the world carbon footprint.

If for some reason the United States decides that it's going to stick with fossil fuels all the way, thank you very much, then in political terms there's nothing very much that anybody else can do about it, and given the size of the United States carbon footprint we are pretty well assured of a global climate disaster with temperature rises that will make major parts of the globe uninhabitable and destroy agriculture in many other regions, including the great plains of the US. The blow that will strike to the US economy will be so huge and irreversibly devastating that a few more years of cheap gasoline seen in retrospect are unlikely to be thought to be any compensation for what follows.

Of course! The USA is the largest economy on earth. Without this country getting fully on board with the program and doing its share, the rest of the world, along with the USA, is pretty much doomed. This is so obvious it should hardly need saying!

Gunnar wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 30, 2022 1:47 pm

Hawkeye wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:31 pm

Obviously. How long until we start seeing this savings? 50 years hasn't been enough apparently. 200 years, 1000 years?




If Europe's environmental regulations are going to save the planet, what does our carbon footprint matter?

You still haven't bothered to look at the RMI site I previously linked you to, have you?

If it doesn't begin with a B and rhyme or smell like "fart" then ajax doesn't read it.

Vēritās wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 30, 2022 3:08 pm

If it doesn't begin with a B and rhyme or smell like "fart" then ajax doesn't read it.

Probably so. Plus, backfire effect on steroids!

You know that what you are saying here is ridiculous don't you? Europe's environmental regulations, if carried through as they should be, cannot possibly "save the planet" on their own,

That's kind of the point of the thread. Nonglobal environmental regulations and economic sacrifices don't save the planet. They just make the people who are subject to these regulations poorer and in the case of France, hot in the summer and cold in the winter.