Triple bottom line
Triple bottom lines are all the go way up in Ironbark...
Here's a trio which should get your mental juices flowing:
[1] If we do nothing to prevent catastrophic climate change happening, then those catastrophes, collectively, will crash the global economy.
[2] If we take the measures required to prevent catastrophic climate change, we will crash the global economy.
[3] Accepting that the size of the global population is the biggest elephant in the room, and if something were to happen which brought it down to a sustainable size in time to prevent catastrophic climate change, the economy would crash.
Ergo, the economy will crash.
We are now merely arguing about the best way to deal with it.
Here's a trio which should get your mental juices flowing:
[1] If we do nothing to prevent catastrophic climate change happening, then those catastrophes, collectively, will crash the global economy.
[2] If we take the measures required to prevent catastrophic climate change, we will crash the global economy.
[3] Accepting that the size of the global population is the biggest elephant in the room, and if something were to happen which brought it down to a sustainable size in time to prevent catastrophic climate change, the economy would crash.
Ergo, the economy will crash.
We are now merely arguing about the best way to deal with it.
posted by The Editor at
9:10 AM
17 Comments:
3 = 2, therefore you don't have a triple bottom line at all. Which is fine because that leaves a simple binary choice - suffer now or suffer later.
I only disagree with your last statement, and then only because I think it is wildly optimistic. I see no evidence of a widespread informed debate; rather there is much posturing and some half-measures.
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AndrewM, I think, with regard to 3, that you misunderstood what I meant by "if something should happen to..."
LW, I agree. But no one in a democracy will vote for a dictator, so we'll see nothing but "business as usual".
"Nature will take its course."
It won't be pretty...
So much for human "wisdom" or "supremacy".
Apes have more wisdom.
Please excuse my cynicism.
Being a selfish soul, I shall opt for later. Having extended my allotted span of 3 score and ten by 15, it will not occur during my visit on earth.
Vestie, do you have grandkids?
Gerry, I'm surprised your conspiracy theory antennae haven't quivered yet... those most opposed to carbon restrictions are big business and the owners thereof.
Theory 1 - refer Ben Elton's "Stark" - they think we're all f***d anyway so why bother.
or
Theory 2 - there's a lot of money to be made if you have cash and you're in the right place when proverbial hits the oscillating device.
or
Theory 3 - all climate change deniers are congenitally stupid
I'll back self interest over despair and stupidity any day.
Particularly given that I can see exactly how 4-5 degrees of global warming could create some huge money making opportunities if you're cashed up... (send $50 in a stamped self addressed envelope for your one time only opportunity to be rich ;-p )
If you have an Ayn Rand view of the world, 8 billion dead in 2050 while you live in hermetically sealed comfort could be a good thing....
JL
G'day John. Thanks for dropping in. I've been thinking of our past stoushes quite a few times of late, and wondering if your opinions had changed, and if so, how.
Still the free marketeer, eh?
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Yep, it's John alright. Hope he pops in again. I'd even promise to be nice and gentle with him. :-)
Ahhh Gerry, see that's the problem, you assume too much - am I a free-marketeer ? No not particularly. I've always taken a regulated market stance. Our banks are solid while the US and UK crumbled for exactly that reason. We in fact need more regulation in parts of our markets for the same reason (and it will be fought tooth and nail by those with vested interests). That doesn't stop me extrapolating the likely outcomes of markets that aren't regulated though...
Waves to Lemmiwinks yeah I'll come up and visit Armidale again one day. KR1 gathering cobwebs, ditto the raptor.
Back to the original topic, if had a bit of spare change I'd be buying a nice block of land in Alaska or the Northwest territories of Canada cheap about now (mind you US or Canadian citizenship would help).
Global warming might just save the US from the Chinese millenium - how's that for irony.
JL
JL,ok, my memory must have played tricks on me again. :-) But...
"Global warming might just save the US from the Chinese millenium - how's that for irony."
Please explain.
China's economic strength, as I see it, comes from the consumers' penchant for cheap goods and the capitalists providing those cheap goods by way of shifting their production offshore (to China in this case). How will "global warming" (I prefer the term anthropogenic climate change) change this dynamic?
Yes OK, climate change (anthropogenic or not) is more accurate.
Why could it save the US ? Think about the very likely scenario of 5+ degrees C average temp rise. From the mapping I've seen this will cause desertification of large swathes of China, whereas the US has this nice little pocket of land right up near the north pole they purchased off Russia a century or so ago.
In the short/medium term China will rise and manufacturing shift to China will continue - eventually they will decide to exercise their market power and their martial power, at which point the US and Russia will potentially be forced back into the game.
If climate change puts significant pressure on China's ability to support it's people then that will be a constraint, whereas the US (who are one of the key causes of it) will have the opportunity to shift north - and given they've already shut down most of the manufacturing the cost impact of relocation becomes less onerous. They build new start of the art factories in the now warm climate of Alaska... The irony is therefore that climate change they helped create may just save them.
It's a scenario, depends on how fast and how far warming goes. Of course if it goes far enough we turn into Venus and it becomes a very moot point.
JL
@JL: I'm tipping that the sort of catastrophic climate change projected will come in the latter half of this century at the earliest. By then the US economy will have crashed, its population will have disintegrated into survivalist militia skirmishes of the sort that make a Mad Max movie look like playtime. You know the scenario - the meanest, most heavily armed gangs of petrol and food thieving marauders will have their way with the prettiest women silly enough to get found, etc. With a bit of Deliverance thrown in for good measure.
By then, anyone with an ounce of decency will have moved to another country (if they have the required ounces of gold.)
Your desire for the downfall of the US leads you to historically unsupported conclusions...
Empires with as much financial and military weight as the US don't fall that fast unless they get invaded. I don't see anyone likely to be ready for that quick enough to decimate them.
It is extremely possible (I'd almost say probable) that the US will end up a facist dictatorship before global warming hits in a big way. You'd have to map a hitler style rise in the event of hyper inflation as a high probability. The US armed forces tend to be strongly right wing particularly at the senior echelons, if public order crumples far enough then the army and marines will take over.
The Mad Max scenario is improbable outside of maybe the poorest areas. Historically this has rarely happened to major powers, it's most common in vassal states when the overlord departs.
In the event of a major civil war you'll end up with 2 or at most 3 powerful countries and the left overs no one cared about (probably Arizona, New Mexico etc provided there's no significant ore or oil in there).
In order of probability I'd suggest the US in 2050 would be:
1. A shadow of it's former self but in denial about it, in the top 10 of world powers but def not no.1 (ie UK 19th to 20thC transition), Ottoman empire etc) 50%
2. A facist dictatorship bent on world domination and at war on at least 3 fronts. 25%
3. Once again the supreme and undisputed world power. 15%
4. In the throes of or post civil war leading to multiple countries with differing major power alignments. 10%
That's my opinion, and it's worth exactly the amount you paid for it ;-) but it's based on reading a lot about the rise and fall of empires, and I've been trained for a decade or 3 in critical thinking.
JL
It's always comforting for me to see people with superior opinions, such as your good self, sharing their absolute truths with us on this blog, John. :-)
Further to that mild sarcasm, here's some commentary from better minds than mine
http://www.economist.com/node/21528591?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/thecelestialeconomy
Very interesting, John. Thanks for that link.
However...
BTW, have you read Hoodwinked by John Perkins?
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