Replying to Avatar boston wine

Elsat, appreciate you chiming in.

When I read “on record” I typically take that to mean “since humans started taking regular measurements”. I’d also be curious to know whether the planet would have been tolerable for human activity 50 million years ago.

I think there’s a “middle way” here, that can acknowledge the impact human activity is having on global temperatures, which is likely to create *both* negative humanitarian outcomes, as well as improved technology for managing the environment in which we live. (I’m familiar with the “fossil future” theory from Alex Epstein).

I’m not in the camp of “we need to panic and control how people live”. I’m sure you’ve seen me write many times about how individual choice is always the way forward. And when the billionaire WEF “climate advocates” drive ever-higher carbon emissions in their private jets while telling people in developing countries to eat cricket flour, it’s hard not to wonder, wtf is this about. And I’m certainly not choosing my investments based on wall street’s idea of “environmentally sound” choices because we all know those incentives are broken.

But when I hold all the different factors, including historical events, independent science, mainstream narratives, general hypocrisy, and the incentives of people and firms on different sides of the discussion, my reasoned conclusion continues to be that it would be really great if we could put less carbon/methane into the atmosphere and increase human energy consumption from sources that cause fewer negative externalities.

Side note - One of the things I love about nostr is the opportunity it provides to engage with people whom I like and respect, on topics that are traditionally “inflammatory” or “triggering” on classic social media — which in other contexts always seems to lead to reductive useless banter, and instead typically find common ground, or at least mutual respect.

Heading to bed, but always glad to engage. It’s a special thing we’re building here.

Appreciate having this discussion on nostr. If you are familiar with Alex Epstein’s work then you are on a great path. I agree 100% that keeping an eye on things is the right way.

What I see is that through state schooling, corporate journalism propaganda, and idealogical universities the narrative is anti-human.

I never hear an anti-beaver, or anti-buffalo narrative for suiting the environment to their needs!

When I hear generalities like crisis, negative externalities, negative humanitarian outcomes I prefer to discuss to specific outcomes, and measures.

One of the points Alex brings home for me is that humans are experts at adapting to the climate. How is this possible: short-term prediction and monitoring (we know a hurricane is coming), quick response (evacuate hurricane zone), and human constructed shelter (hurricane shelter).

In terms of numbers, humans have never been safer from the climate! See chart below.

Therefore, if humans are safer from the climate than ever before, it is not logical to claim “climate crisis”, and use this as a justification for the expansion of the fiat corporate-banker state.

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An example of the polluted discourse: Oil bad anti-human standard article from corpo press: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/oil-ads-lights-on-energy

Thanks for the thoughtful dialogue.

It makes it clear that the layers of nuance around the entire discussion are not typically fit for social media blurbs and media soundbites.

People can agree that human activity (specifically, the rapid addition of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere) is increasing global temperatures, and then still disagree about what to do with that information.

Draconian, top-down regulations are (as usual) more likely to hurt average people than to help solve a problem. And as bitcoiners, we all know that “follow the money” reliably sniffs out corruption — and few groups are better funded than the oil lobby (or have such an existential incentive to fight for their industry).

But pure business self-interest doesn’t always lead to efficient outcomes either. The oil lobby funded some of the anti-nuclear environmentalists, creating massive inefficiencies in energy markets and reducing the potential for human flourishing that continues to this day (see Germany).

I can hold this while also acknowledging the ESG funds are often complete bullshit, and many of the panic pieces in mainstream media are often little more than clickbait.

All of this is one reason I’m insanely bullish on Bitcoin. Stranded/renewable/sustainable energy sources are often cheap and perfect for miners, yet disregarded by public utilities because (until now) there’s been no efficient way to monetize that energy. See Africa/Gridless.

It’s yet another of Satoshi’s perfect consequences (whether intended or not). The pure self-interest of energy companies — renewable or otherwise — can and is being used to reduce atmospheric methane releases, support cheap renewable energy to power entire villages, and so much more. (Landfill mining!!!)

🤝 discussion.

Yeh, I’m optimistic on the latter as well. Fiat capital misallocation will be greatly reduced.

In policy monologue, and corpo-speak the starting point is “climate crisis”, therefore action X, Y, Z.

To add a wrench to the “most people agree” statement on co2, if you look at the data over tens of millions of years - it is not clear that the trace gas co2 drives temperature change (see chart below).

The lack of understanding of the uncertainty and unknowns of the system, and the sketchy motives of control and fiat redistribution make me extremely skeptical of policy founded on no credible basis.

Totally respect any skepticism of policy implementation. Especially when there’s wealth and power on the line — which there usually is.

I’m always a bit wary of charts like this, because there’s so much context excluded. Which of those periods would have been tolerable for human life, agriculture, etc.? Were there insane storms and fires or was it placid and chill? Also dinosaurs 😉

My general understanding is that measuring carbon over periods of millions of years tends to yield a much more vague picture, compared to what we can learn from carbon deposits (?) from recent centuries.

As I tend to be more likely to mistrust the incumbent powers-that-be, if I had to pick, I’d say it’s more likely that there’s more misinformation coming from oil/gas-producing countries, companies, lobbies, than from your garden-variety (pun intended) environmentalists.

But media is broken, money/incentives are broken, and sourcing reliable information is tough nowadays, (mostly) regardless of viewpoint.

At least there’s one thing we know of that continually churns out consensus-based truths every ten mins