Climate Change

see Global Warming

U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/cei/graph

see esp (2020-06-27) Ways To Nudge Future

my rough beliefs (Jul'2024)

• it's definitely happening
• it's almost-certainly mostly human action (mostly burning fossil fuels, but also causing wildfires)
• it will probably be catastrophic for a big portion of the world - esp places where it's already hot, where they're near and just-above ocean-level.
• we've been failing to make the costs of fossil fuels real/transparent - when oil prices have gone up due to Russia/Ukraine war, many governments have subsidized fuel use; and of course SUVs are more and more the primary US car-purchase
• we need a Carbon Tax and a Water Tax (Clean Water)
  • cf energy/water used by web3 and then GenAI

my rough beliefs (Jun'2006)

• Global Warming is almost certainly happening
• there's much less certainty as to how much of it is due to human action vs just variation (Little Ice Age vs Medieval Warm Period)
• there's even less certainty as to how catastrophic the effects will be
  • see David Friedman
• there's even less certainty as to whether any realistic changes in human action could reverse/stop the effect
  • and how extreme the Side Effects would be
    • GeoEngineering could really screw up (see SnowPiercer)
    • increasing energy costs could increase starvation
• some Public Policy that might make sense
  • end various forms of subsidy of Cheap Oil to make its true costs (Energy Accounting) more transparent, thus supporting increased investment in new technology that might help (Technological Determinism)
  • Carbon Tax
  • ???