It is far from clear to me how this is "insightful." The Middle East is one long crescent of theocratic oppression, from Morocco to Malaysia. It's easy to glibly say, "Oh, well, we should just invest half a trillion dollars to make it a better place." How exactly would investing in Saddam's Iraq have made it "a better place?" How would investing in wealthy Saudi Arabia make it "a better place?" How would investing in the Taliban's 6th-Century religious dictatorship have made Afghanistan "a better place"? For that matter, why would the Taliban would have accepted, or allowed their countrymen to accept, your dirty western money?

It's part of the line of thinking that says, "Oh, there's a problem? We can just solve it by shoveling money at it!" In real life, things rarely work that way.

-aj

"$500 billion or so," invested according to political calculations (by which I mean, not market-based analyses that invest according to promising lines of research) = 1,000 Solyndras.

- aj

This will never happen, but not for the reasons you say.

There is a key factor that this entire comment thread seems to miss: The fact that Iran's economic infrastructure is incredibly vulnerable. Their entire economy relies on a fixed set of oil refineries and production platforms that, unlike the missiles, can't be moved or hidden. Iran can bluster all it wants, but attacking one US ship would lead to the destruction of their entire economy. They know this, and so does the U.S.

- aj

It's perfectly clear what I'm talking about, and further, your blanket statement ("doing something to mitigate problems is definitely preferable to doing nothing about them") is wrong.

Someone above noted that it's like saying that, because your car sustains a certain amount of wear on it's daily commute, you should rebuild the engine every night. That would be mitigating potential problems, too. Does that mean it's "definitely preferable to doing nothing"? No, because in this case the cost of mitigating potential problems would very quickly soar past the cost of doing nothing.

That's been the rational case against Kyoto from the beginning. We'd be bankrupting ourselves for a slight decrease in the rate of temperature increase.

- aj

.

Insightful? This is exactly the kind of ignorant, reflexive, argument-from-emotion-not-facts type of short-sighted thinking that used to be ridiculed here on Slashdot.

See my other posts pointing out that bankrupting the current generation -- NO MATTER HOW NOBLE AND WELL-MEANING THE INTENT -- does not help future generations; it HURTS them.

What helps your children is not mindless consumption OR foolish investing. It is wisely investing in things that create value, for them to build on in turn. Now, sure, you can say that implementing Kyoto would be an investment. Fine, we all get that. But that's not the question. The question is, considering its colossal costs, would Kyoto be the BEST investment? The wisest use of our resources? Would our children be better off with crippled economies and a lower standard of living, but with average global temps a degree or two below what they otherwise would have been? Or vice-versa?

Your kind of shallow, college-student-greenpeace-club emotionalizing is NOT insightful, and does not help clarify these issues.

- aj

"The alternative 'just use less' philosophy is based upon some crazy idea that 7 billion people can just live in yurts."

Yeah I don't get this either. All these thread commenters use terms like "wealth" or "consumption." Do they understand that they are talking about *standards of living*? This is the basic quality of life for everyone that we're supposed to be trying to *improve*. When you drain "wealth" from a society, it is the POOR who take in on the chin. It is the wealthy who have the money, education and political clout to cushion their fall.

- aj

"if USA was to sign, it would be MUCH easier to get India and China to sign on as well"

This is completely unsupported speculation. To my knowledge, these countries have never said, "Well, gosh. We'll sign it if the U.S. leads the way!"

Allow me to suggest that I have much more respect for these countries than you do, as I understand that they are perfectly capable of determining their own best interests.

- aj

This issue has been addressed since AGW issues first came into the public's consciousness in the early 1990s. Indeed, Bjorn Lomborg's book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, was largely a long treatment of this.

His argument went something like this:

* Even if Kyoto was completely implemented

* AND the resultant actions had best-case effects

* It would only make a slight dent in the rate of CO2 emission

* It would also be hugely expensive -- not "oh, one less yacht for the fleet," but as in significantly lowering standards of living around the world, especially for the poor.

* For the same amount of money, we could provide clear air, water and shelter for every poor person on earth.

* The best predictor of a generation's prosperity is the *previous* generation's prosperity. In essence, bankrupting ourselves doesn't help our children; it hurts them.

* So, society might be much better off not bankrupting itself to reduce climate change, but instead spending a much smaller part of its resources *adapting* to climate change, and investing the rest in ways that are ultimately more productive.

Lots of people argue with this. But my point in this is that many people do understand the basic issues, but also understand that what is in the best interests of future generations is NOT "Oh, obviously, we must cut CO2 at all costs."

- aj

Well, factually, you're half right.

It's true that the ""left spends a decade building up government run services and departments, taxing the rich, introducing more regulation and reigning in the worst aspects of capitalism"

But this part?

"Then the right spends a decade tearing it all down again, selling off government assets, cutting regulation and giving tax breaks to the rich."

This is deluded. The regulatory state grows every year, by any measure (number of regs, cost of regs, # of people employed enforcing regs, etc). There is no rollback. The wheel of government power is a ratchet -- it only turns one direction. The best that can be said is every decade or so, a futile attempt is made to hold the line, and slow the growth. But in the big picture, the story of society is the story of an ever-enlarging public sphere and an ever-shrinking private sphere.

- aj

I don't understand this. If there's one thing I've learned from the media (and from Slashdot in recent years), it's that Europeans are peaceful, enlightened New Humans, in contrast to us backwards, redneck, violent hicks in the states. Are you telling me Europeans have any concept of war?

Yeah right. Show me one example.

- aj

Most of us understand why the government can't just print more money. The price of everything would just go up. College tuition is exactly the same scenario. The only difference is that in this case, the government is printing a special kind of money -- money that can only be used for one thing. It is no surprise when then price of that thing just goes up accordingly. Subsidies (i.e., cheap loans) increase demand. Increased demand causes the price to rise. Consider: * The US massively subsidizes education. The price of education rises far beyond the rate of inflation. * The US massively subsidizes housing. The price of housing rises far beyond the rate of inflation. * The US massively subsidizes health care. The price of health care rises far beyond the rate of inflation. (Except, of course, the kinds of health care -- like cosmetic surgery or lasik surgery -- that do not typically get subsidized. Costs in these areas have plummeted.) Pointing this out inevitably draws attacks, like by acknowledging this, you are part of a conspiracy to deny education to poor people. And I don't pretend to have an answer to this dilemma. The only really clear thing is that the laws of supply and demand aren't *statutory* laws, that can just be altered with a pen and a lot of hand-waving. They are fundamental natural laws, and well-intentioned attempts to manipulate markets (from student loans to price-control regimes) almost always trigger equal and opposite consequences. The real shame is that important issues like these are so easily demagogued. Even though the system is clearly broken, no politician in his right mind would ever propose changing it. "Look!" people would scream. "He hates poor people!" - AJ

Ha ha. I looked at the linked comment, and was about to come back and write that that was the first time in the history of Slashdot that someone looked to DOC RUBY, of all people, for a "sensible explanation." It wasn't until then that I realized that the linker WAS Doc Ruby! Oh Doc, you magnificent bastard. - AJ

I don't actually completely disagree with you. Here in the US they are more typically floated by progressives, but on the other hand, it is one of those policy ideas that gets support from some conservatives as well. It's the authoritarian impulse that, unfortunately, unites left and right.

So in sum, you're right -- I should have chosen my words more carefully.

- aj