From: Doctor Logic (doctor_logic@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jul 23 2002 - 14:11:40 MDT
[quote from: Mike on 2002-07-22 at 14:31:24]
As resources get scarcer, their market value rises, thus the market
incentivises conservation technologies and techniques. The market will
signal
the appropriate amount of capital to direct at such solutions as they become
economically feasible. Pushing fiat money at non-problems when they are not
cost effective wastes more resources than they save.
When high sea levels put most coastal cities under water, are we suddenly
going to stop burning fossil fuels? Of course not. There's no constituency
for this, and no vendor who will provide a fix for global warming.
If sea levels rise, we'll throw up our hands and say, "Darn!". We'll blame
the politicians that stood by and did nothing, but there's no one who will
be
able to sell us a global warming antidote that we will realistically pay
for.
If you live in a flooded apartment in NYC in 2025, will you buy global
cooling
services? What will you pay with? If you were rich, you'd be living in
Aspen. If you live in Aspen, you'd say it's "not your problem".
So a free market approach doesn't prevent global warming. It raises the
rent/property values in areas that are unaffected by global warming. It
makes
alternative civil engineering practices possible by raising the price of
conventional practices.
The net effect is to raise the cost of living on the planet in general, slow
progress, and make planetary society less stable.
Yes, free markets will allow us to adapt to global warming, even if it costs
more, but it cannot stop it. It's up to governments to make the decisions
that business cannot.
[quote from: Mike on 2002-07-22 at 14:31:24]
It is not clear that the death of the last living example of a species
eliminates all future potential repopulations. So long as DNA survives from
tissue samples in labs and museums (and, yes, trophy game collections of
hunters), and so long as genetic technology is allowed to exist, the
potential
to repopulate such species exists.
There you go. It's not clear. Maybe we should be sure before we eradicate
these species from the planet.
Hey, I'm not saying humanity won't survive anyway. It's just an unnecessary
waste. It is not logical.
Doctor Logic
---- This message was posted by Doctor Logic to the Extropians 2002 board on ExI BBS. <http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=52547 >
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