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rwallace comments on I need to understand more about... - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: DilGreen 07 October 2010 09:15AM

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Comment author: rwallace 12 October 2010 10:26:35PM 3 points [-]

My position is that I don't know what's going to happen with the climate, because the whole topic has become so murky with politics that acquiring a reliable grasp of the truth for laymen like myself would take more effort than I'm willing to invest.

I do, however, think I can say something about the proposed solutions. Most of them fall into two broad categories.

  1. Let's give governments more power to control our lives. I think this is a terrible idea, regardless of what the climate is or isn't doing, for reasons adequately discussed elsewhere.

  2. Lets push harder to develop and deploy practical, renewable energy sources. I think this is a great idea, the more so because there are several good reasons we need to be doing it, not just climate. Wider deployment of nuclear energy, with further improvements in cleanliness and safety; cheaper solar panels; electric cars; oil from algae; investments in these have been paying off already. Let's do it some more.

So my position seems to be one of epistemological apathy but instrumental optimism; oddly, more or less the reverse of some of the other comments.