So by “cost effective mitigation” I presume you mean something akin to: Investing in green infrastructure, international agreements, and carbon tax, right?
Yes, that’s what I meant to refer to in my post above:
> It's worth the U.S. spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on climate-change mitigation. The EU is planning on spending 260 billion euro annually by 2030. That's roughly the scale of Biden's plan.
I’m not arguing against those investments. My point is that saying climate change will have “untold cost” suggests that massive economic shutdowns or “war time mobilization of the economy” will be worth it to avoid climate change. They won’t be. In particular, anything that jeopardizes economic growth through Green New Deal-style government takeover of vast sectors of the economy will cause more harm than it averts.
I think we have a different understanding of what a green new deal means. For me it means investing in green infrastructure, an amount that the global economy is already spending on carbon polluting ventures (including the military).
I can’t possibly see how reducing (in my opinion) stupid and corrupt business investments and increasing in sustainable infrastructure that will lower our carbon footprint can cause more harm then good. For me this fact is obvious. I think we there must be some fundamental difference between us for us to arrive at such different conclusions.
It advocates a “World War II” style mobilization, of the sort that existed back when the federal government took over almost half the entire economy.
I understand that’s not what you support, but people do support massive efforts like this to combat climate change. My point is simply that when you say climate change will have “untold cost” you make it impossible to understand why the programs you support might be worth it, while a World War II-style mobilization would do more harm than good.
Have you considered that someone might use an extreme starting point in a political negotiation in order to achieve something less extreme but generally in the same direction?
In a real negotiation, you select a high opening bid to leave yourself some wiggle room, but not one that’s extreme because that signals to the other side you’re unreasonable and it’s not worth negotiating.
