@sigue @vnikolov

It would be interesting to know the reason for that. I'm definitely not an expert in this area, but if I had to guess, the one big reason for backing off from nuclear, even just something that is dirtier, might be that it gets harder and harder to cool these things as the ambient temperature of freshwater sources goes up. Not to mention freshwater being scarce. But that's just a random guess.

I mean, it's possible somebody just gave them a good price on coal and they decided not to care about the future of the planet...

If someone with actual expertise is reading along, they should feel free to offer other/better thoughts.

@glitzersachen @vnikolov @sigue

I think the general belief in the time frame I was talking about was the climate change would take a long time and that we only needed to address it quickly. So there was a sense that nuclear plants took perhaps 10 years to build and did not rely on trusting research to come through with something so if it had been begun in 2010, they would have been online in 2020.

It seemed to me that a long timeline for climate change was unlikely. In 2008, I privately picked 2035 as likely date of human extinction. Still seems plausible to me now.

I have over the interval between then and now bargain down to believing that's more like the date of civilization collapse. People quibble over whether humans would really go extinct, and how you would prove that. I think it's preposterous to waste any time talking about such things, because it implies that somehow that's enough better that we don't have to worry. So the conversations become more coherent if I just say collapse. I still think actual extinction is not out of the question but it's not worth the quibble time to defend.

But I also didn't want to publish a specific number, because that misses the point as well. Way sooner than 2100 was my point. 2100 makes it feel like everyone involved in the discussion can safely say it won't affect them in their lifetime and so doesn't matter.

I think it's clear to people in Europe especially this week that it will affect them within their lifetime, so I feel unhappily vindicated.

But my point is that if you think that the timeline is short, the importance of doing things like that decisively is key. Too many arguments, especially by environmentalists, are about the right way to do things. Because they feel that the whole problem is caused by doing things the wrong way.

But right now we are in a burning building, with people talking about what the right architecture for safety practices are for building buildings, when really we need to stop the fire.

I am frequently misunderstood when I say we need capitalism to solve this problem. And we need the politicians we have to solve this problem. That is not a statement that I like capitalism, or don't hold it responsible. It is not a statement that I like these politicians. It is purely a statement about how fast climate is moving and about the unreasonableness of saying that we can afford to start a green party and wait for momentum to build, which takes several election cycles. No one's going to switch at the next election. And then those politicians getting into office we'll have to move with them maybe amazing swiftness. I don't think it could be done in fewer than 12 years and that would be super super aggressive. And 12 years from now is 2038, 3 years after I think civilization collapses or we'll be extinct.

I don't believe in long arc politics just now. Having that much time is the goal, not the tactic.

So my point is that sometimes the choices of what you have to do in order to survive or not based on some happy theory about what would be nice if suddenly the world were made of rational people and everybody started behaving in a way that was not selfish. I believe if there is a solution to climate change, it has to work now, not 10 years from now, and it has to assume that people are not all full of virtue, but rather are regular fallible, corruptible folk. They are not, to borrow a metaphor, the army we might wish to have, but the army we actually have. And by army I mean the people who would fix climate change.

Some might even say that we should take the government by storm, pardon in the metaphor. But that would just create chaos that could not be resolved in 10 years either. So we have the economic system we have and the people we have, and I believe that if there is a solution it involves motivating those people to do the right thing. And that's why you hear me saying things like maybe rent taking is an acceptable compromise. Acceptable here relates entirely to my belief about how aggressive the acceleration of climate change is.

I hope I'm wrong. But it matters to have a very definite theory and to understand that you're a gambling all human future on that theory in order to pick an appropriate strategy. I believe the correct strategy is intimately tied up in how much time we have left. And that vague numbers are not helpful.

An acceptable strategy for a 20-year timeline would look different, but it's still involve things people would think are odd compromises.

A 30 year or 50 year timeline but also look different.

But with each of those steps, I would argue that you have much more trouble defending that timeline. It is hard to imagine our political system holding together under climate stress for that period of time.

The rich seem to think that just a few will survive, that money can select, that the rest are expendable. So many questionable assumptions there. But I'm out of space in this ramble, so I'll stop.