Thread by @doctorow

About 4 billion people are in pandemic lockdown, but the forecast drop in CO2 emissions for 2020 is about 5%; to head off a global temperature rise of more than 1.5C, that number needs to be 7.6%.

scientificamerican.com/article/why-co…

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As @MazMHussain wrote, "This suggests emission levels relate less to individual behavior than larger structural factors only addressable through regulation."

https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/1256272121208213505

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Emergencies have a well-known leftist bias, which is why the right has such a hard time dealing with them, despite its worship of "rationalism" and its belief that "reality doesn't care about your feelings."

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Take Charles Koch: he became a billionaire by making a ton of long-term investments in hydrocarbon extraction and processing technologies with really long amortization schedules, and grew the business he inherited from his father a thousandfold.

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People like Koch are the subject of endless right wing worship that singles out his patience as a kind of natural gift that suits him to rule - the market gave Koch a lot of money because Koch has the foresight and reason to allocate capital well.

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It's why there's so much fetishization of the "marshmallow test," which purports to show that poor people are, by dint of some intrinsic deficiency, incapable of the mature foresight that is needed to govern themselves wisely.

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(of course, reality is very different - poor kids "fail" the marshmallow test because experience teaches them that promised opportunities rarely materialize, and the smart money is on seizing any chance you get rather than waiting for jam tomorrow)

vox.com/science-and-he…

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You know who REALLY fails the real-world marshmallow test? Charles Koch. Mister Long-Game can't see the value of taking a short-term hit to retool for renewables, even if the cost of failing to do so is civilization l collapse and a possible end of our species.

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Doctrinal worship of "personal responsibility" and "infallible markets" turns worshippers of reason into motivated reasoners, who insist that if a goal can't be attained by leaning on these two pillars, then the goal can't (and, morally, shouldn't) be attained.

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That's the root of idiocies like the Mayor of Las Vegas insisting that she can declare her city open and the "free market" will produce safety guidelines that keep people from dying.

pluralistic.net/2020/04/23/rio…

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And it's why the right has to tie itself in knots with ideas like "state capacity libertarianism" to figure out how to preserve its ideological purity without being roasted alive by climate change.

pluralistic.net/2020/03/21/mos…

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Human beings have a shared microbial destiny, a shared world, and a shared climate. Selfishness is not pareto optimal, especially when it comes to commons.

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Indeed, the "Tragedy of the Commons" was a fraud designed to justify the seizure of commons and the subjugation of their users as a preferable alternative to not being selfish.

thebaffler.com/latest/first-a…

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The climate lesson of the lockdown is that climate change is not a matter of personal responsibility. Even if everyone does NOTHING, just sits as still as possible and buy as little as possible, we will not head off the crisis.

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If you had any doubt about whether diligent recycling, ditching your car, and never boarding another airplane could save the world, now it should be dispelled.

We need structural change: to how we generate power, how we grow food, how we transport goods.

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The role for individuals to achieve that change is to band together in movements that demand the investment of capital and resources in refashioning our built world so that it continues to sustain human life.

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If the survival of the human race is beyond the reach of individual choices and market transactions, that doesn't mean that the human race shouldn't survive. It means we should find new tools to manage our resource allocation.

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The Cowboy Economist has a great analogy about the doctrine that holds that if markets can't do something, that thing is immoral and shouldn't be attempted: he likens this to a carpenter who refuses to use screwdrivers, and only uses hammers.

youtube.com/channel/UCL9PH…

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"Sorry, fella, I'm a hammer guy. That thing you want built needs screws and screws are WRONG, so you're wrong for wanting one."

Markets are tools for capital allocation, not moral arbiters. They can't solve all our allocation problems, especially these existential threats.

eof/