Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Income Inequality and Climate Change

The head of the AAAS wrote a letter to its members where he states:

Based on the evidence, about 97% of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening. Yet a large fraction of this country’s population and policymakers can’t seem to accept the fact that the climate is changing. It’s time to shift the debate from whether human-caused climate change is happening to what we can do about it.We need to make it clear that scientists believe that doing nothing now is extremely dangerous and could result in abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts on future generations.

He links to the AAAS Report.  The Report iterates the above in high level. The Report, like so many others, expresses imminent dire consequences unless "we" do something. The problem is the we and the problem is that people really do not understand the consequences.

Frankly Income Inequality is the same. People always want more money and if they can get it from those who already have it then many are satisfied. Climate Change however is a bit more complex since the  taking away via taxes or even goods from many.

These two "threats" to our existence seem almost religious in their attempts to make "people understand".

The problem with Climate Change is; so what is the problem? It gets warmer, the ocean rises a bit, we are told it has risen a foot already and we see no change. Hurricanes? Frankly they have always been there but now we allowed people to move into areas well known for calamities and we insure them with people's taxes! Dumb? Yes, quite so. Climate Change is a "sky is falling" argument. It says that someday we will have massive problems but most people cannot relate to that. People can relate to not having more money especially if it is free, just look at Venezuela. It works for a while or at least until the economic system collapses.

Thus the key question is not the existence but the real consequences. So the oceans rise, never heard of Holland. So it gets warmer, the winters are too cold already. So some plants die off, plant ones that survive better. It is not the science of Climate Change but the consequences which are often seen as not that bad.

The same is with Income Inequality. Why is it bad? Like why is Climate Change bad? How does it or will it harm me?