Comment Re:-1, Lung cancer? Why your analogy fails totally (Score 1) 313
People in Country A don't get an increased risk for lung cancer because Country B has a lot of smokers.
It's not my analogy, it's someone else's analogy. And the analogy was about risk taking, not responsibility and harm to others.
You mean like the Montreal Protocol? That 'ineffective' and abusive regime?
That's a false analogy. The Montreal Protocol was quite limited in its economic effects because there were good substitutes for CFCs.
Cooperation has to bring competitiveness to heel on this issue, so that anyone taking an 'If they don't do it, we will' attitude to high-GHG modes of production will be made to feel the pressure.
And that is precisely why many people reject more aggressive international action on AGW. If it came down to it, many of us would much rather live in a world of 4C higher temperatures than in a world in which any organization is able to bring that kind of pressure on any country.
But I don't think that's even necessary. Just because AGW activists like you are not convinced of the competitiveness of low-GHG energy and are speaking out of both sides of their mouth about it doesn't mean that that everybody is. I think R&D investments in renewable energies, elimination of subsidies for fossil fuels, as well as government efforts to promote nuclear energy, would get GHG emissions to fall naturally and quickly, and countries will do it voluntarily. But I also predict that's the best compromise AGW activists are going to get.