Good intentions + no detailed quantitative understanding is simply a recipe for bad outcomes, in my opinion.
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Replying to @michael_nielsen
I’ve been restraining myself from writing about this... understanding climate change as a moral crisis is somewhat correct, but risks making it impossible to address the practical crisis.
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Replying to @Meaningness
As a moral crisis it seems somewhat similar to air pollution in the 1960s to me. So many people moralistically saying we need to carpool, drive less etc. Turns out those things had little impact. But catalytic converters, emissions standards etc reduced pollution enormously.
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @Meaningness
This doesn't mean analogous solutions will help here. But I'm pretty suspicious of the motives of many moralizers.
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @Meaningness
This, from Naomi Klein, is an example: it comes very close to treating the climate crisis as an opportunity to advance her favourite political causes. I'm pretty suspicious of this style of thinking, no matter what the underlying politics.pic.twitter.com/aS31TayCFw
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @Meaningness
What's missing in discussions about climate change is the tradeoff we face between mitigating it and economic growth. Here's a little thought experiment highlighting this tradeoff.pic.twitter.com/vBelK85WzJ
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Replying to @XiXiDu @michael_nielsen
Left and right both, for different reasons, want to insist that the cost will be fantastically great. I am super non-expert, but back-of-envelope seems to say ~~2% of global GDP, which we can easily afford.
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Replying to @Meaningness @XiXiDu
The Stern Review - which I have not read - estimated costs around 1% of global GDP. IIRC he later said his estimate was somewhat too low. My half-assed guess is it was actually too high - dealing with crises tends to produce hard-to-anticipate benefits. Still, 1% is substantial
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @XiXiDu
Currently the US is about 16% of world GDP. We spend about 6% of US GDP on administrative obstacles to healthcare providers and payers communicating with each other. Mandating a standard interface there would save 6% of US GDP, which is 1% of world GDP, which might be enough…
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Replying to @Meaningness @XiXiDu
Interesting. Where's that 6% figure from? Coincidentally, the figure I've heard for total US energy spending is 1.1 trillion which is about... 6% (or so) of GDP.
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It’s somewhat made up I’m afraid. Estimated based on % of GDP that disappears into the insurance system without explanation. Afaict, based on what I’ve read, most of that is the cost of insurers and providers arguing about who pays how much without a coherent rule set, but >
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the best accounting I’ve been able to find acknowledges that no one knows for sure.
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