Erik Uden 🚩Mar 4, 2024

How much money do you think the United States has spent since 1945 on the Cold War? Sometimes they ask this question then from the back of the audience comes in answer ‘billions and billions‘. A huge underestimate – billions and billions. The amount of money that the United States has spent on the Cold War since 1945 is approximately 10 trillion dollars. Trillion, that’s the big one with the ‘T’. What could you buy with 10 trillion dollars? The answer is: You could buy everything in the United States except the land. Everything. Every building, truck, bus, car, boat, plane, pencil, baby’s diaper. Everything in the United States except the land, that’s what we have spent on the Cold War.

So, now let me ask: How certain was it that the Russians were going to invade? Was it 100% certain? Guess not since they never invaded. What if it was only let say 10% certain? What would advocates of big military buildup have said? We must be prudent. It’s not enough to count on only the most likely circumstance. If the worst happens and it’s really extremely dangerous for us we have to prepare for that. Remote contingencies if there is serious enough have the prepared for. It’s classic military thinking – you prepare for the worst case.

And so now, I ask my friends who are comfortable with that argument, including the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, why doesn’t that same argument apply to Global Warming. You don’t think it’s 100% likely? Fine. You are entitled to think that. If it’s only a small probability of it happening since the consequences are so serious, don’t you have to make some serious investment to prevent it or mitigate it? I think there’s a double standard of argument working and I don’t think we should permit it.

— Carl Sagan, An excerpt of a speech given on the 2nd of September in 1990 at the 5th Emerging Issues Forum at NCSU

Carl Sagan Keynote Speech at Emerging Issues Forum

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Show threadTed LemonMar 4, 2024
@ErikUden @hosford42 The problem with arguments like this is that the person you are arguing with is in it for the money, not the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle worked to justify the Cold War, so it was used, to immense profit. The same principle works against continue profit in oil, so it is no longer the right argument to use. The point is to keep the cash cow going, not to prevent disaster.
Show threadAaronMar 4, 2024
@abhayakara @ErikUden Consider who is reading this, though. It may not work on the person being actually addressed, but the rest of us can see the hypocrisy. And if enough of us take notice and apply pressure, we can change what is profitable for those in power. So posting these sorts of things is far from pointless.
Show threadTed LemonMar 4, 2024

@hosford42 @ErikUden The thing is, we are already aware of the problem. We already want to fix it. We are even aware of the hypocrisy. That’s not the knob that needs to be turned.

We need to be activated toward effective action. Not just activated. What is the effective action? What is the next step to take? That’s what we should be talking about.

Show threadAaronMar 4, 2024
@abhayakara @ErikUden I'm on board. Let's talk about it. What are the most effective actions we can take, right here, right now? Are there organizations we can join to help us coordinate those actions for maximal effectiveness? If not, we need to create them.
Show threadMagnus AhltorpMar 4, 2024

@hosford42 @abhayakara @ErikUden
1. Participate in a climate demonstration at least once a month.
2. Vote for the party/candidate that has the best and most radical climate politics where you live, on all political levels.
3. Talk about your fear of climate change in different situations, for example with friends and colleagues.
4. Try to reduce your own emissions as much as possible.

In this order.

Show threadTed LemonMar 5, 2024

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

Unfortunately these are all things we've been doing since 1970 that haven't worked:

Moreover, several of them are actually tactics that have made us less effective.

Protests can be useful, mostly because they are a way to foster movements. They are effective when they gather popular support. They usually are used to discredit the movement, because they are so easy to misrepresent in the news. One person breaking a bottle and it's a violent protest.

Show threadMagnus AhltorpMar 5, 2024

@abhayakara @hosford42 @ErikUden If you concede that protests are effective when they gather popular support, why would you not encourage as many people as possible to participate?

One of the huge causes of inaction is that people feel they are alone, and that the opposition is the majority. A recent study showed that 69% were for a climate income tax, but only a minority thought that other people had answered that.

Show threadTed Lemon
@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden Protests seem to have worked well in Germany so I can’t argue against that. There have been some successes in the Netherlands. I think a big factor is that there appears to still be a free press in those countries. There is no free press in the US, so the same conditions don’t apply.
Mar 5, 2024 at 1:23pmWeb
Show threadTed LemonMar 5, 2024
@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden Btw, I was in a bit of a stream of consciousness yesterday when I posted all that and I came across as thinking I have all the answers. I don’t. But some answers I’ve seen really do poorly in practice. I’m a bit old, so I’ve been at this for a while. I really don’t want us to keep repeating the same efforts that don’t work.