Hi cant',
Interesting points from you as usual, although, on this occasion I'm no more convinced by them than you are by mine. With the possible exception of your comments about insurance companies which are well made, I don't see much in your post that suggests I'm wrong. Sorry. Ooops, this apologising lark is infectious!
If business in general - and the property / construction markets in particular - really believed that we've only got 12 years to sort this stuff out - then we would already have seen a major shift in policy and development. 12 years isn't long term for major construction - it's short to medium. Forward planners in every authority up and down the land would be looking to release land well above see level and the developers would be snapping it up knowing that everyone in low lying areas will be forced to move there. In turn, this would be complemented by development control departments restricting or refusing development in low lying areas. As you acknowledge in your post - this isn't happening. My original point about mortgage companies not giving standard 25 - 30 year mortgages still stands.
". . .And as for the markets being on top of everything, that's tantamount to saying that the markets really are efficient when anyone with a grey cell or two already knows that the markets are efficient until they're not and that "until they're not" scenario usually happens quite suddenly. . ." I agree with this and, in my post, added the caveat about black swans. Whatever climate change is - it certainly isn't a black swan. The markets have known about this for yonks and - as far as I can see - aren't especially bothered by it. My conclusion is that there's good reason for this which means either the science isn't as robust as we're being lead to believe or the situation isn't as bad as the protesters make out.
For the record, I'm no climate change denier (it's clearly changing) and, like our friend Sig', I'm completely on board with recycling and anti-polluting etc. Back in the late 80s, I was an active member of the Green Party and have voted either for them or the LibDems in every election except the last one. (Needless to say, I won't vote for either again and am now politically homeless.) Anyway, my thesis is that the whole climate change narrative is a fractured mess, riddled with what Jordan Peterson refers to as 'low resolution thinking'. The objectives of Extinction Rebellion read like a no-hope wish list and there's no clear direction around which everyone can unite. I don't doubt that Greta T' and other young activists mean well but I'm afraid their protests are misplaced and will have little or no impact on politicians and other decision makers.
Tim.
Obviously, I'm sorry that you're sorry....or is that I'm not sorry that you're not sorry? We shall have sort this out or it'll be pistols at dawn , I fear.
The video was for entertainment and not to be taken that seriously. My point was that there are people who make a living out of knowing stuff about the climate who are a smidge concerned about what they perceive to be happening.
I'm with you 100% on the 12 year rubbish which smacks of the Mayan long count cobblers where it was all supposed to go tits up in 2012. We're still here methinks, unless I'm a figment of my imagination.
It seems to me that one factor (as Barjohn mensches) that gets in the way of our understanding is simply that in geological terms we don't really matter at all, having been given the briefest of candles that don't even register on that time-scale. Our problem with climate change/global warming is
our problem only. Yes, it's a pity that we're eradicating one species after another but in the greater scheme of things, if we're not around to care about the extinction of some cute furry little bugger then none of that stuff matters as mama nature will set about repopulating the world with intelligent über-cockroaches. I don't see many people weeping over the loss of the trilobites or velociraptors. The only thing that is sensible for us to be concerned about is our own survival and
anything that pertains to it....like keeping the bees alive whilst limiting and eventually reducing our numbers, which is a kind of pragmatism that governments and politicians are a long way from being able to sell to hoi polloi. In the meantime, if it takes a demented child and deranged tree-buggers to get people to think and maybe provoke an infinitesimal gleam of common sense, then so be it.
My earlier rant about the boiling frog thing and efficient markets was to point out that the Black Swan ain't it. That pertikler foul fowl comes out of nowhere whereas in the current circumstances we're sick of hearing about Tipping Points and Precipices so the risk is firmly out there in the public domain even if we can't assess the degree. So, as the temperature rises and we waffle on about what may or may not be happening we are well into the realm of the empirical where we have to actually experience the catastrophes before we are prepared to acknowledge that there was,
after all, a fair chance of them occurring. At which point, as Miami and London disappear under the waves and the world runs short of cereals because them thar polly naters ain't polly natin no more, the naysayers can graciously say that perhaps,
after all, they were wrong and there was something to worry about
after all.
A jolly Sunday to all
