Lab f1: Climate

Firstly, some more general remarks, then the promised interview below: 

On theo OboxPlanet, the responsibility for choosing the right actions falls on each individual. Whether it’s protecting the climate, safeguarding the environment, or treating animals well, everyone acts independently without waiting for state directives. On Earth, in contrast, people often rely on state regulations, living by the motto, “If the state hasn’t outlawed it, it can’t be terribly wrong.”

On Earth, states can only enact laws that are supported by a majority of the population or at least not actively opposed by them. Regarding climate change, there is significant disagreement among states. A closer look at the Paris Climate Accord reveals that outside of wealthy industrial societies, there are few hard and measurable commitments.

Climate activists sometimes argue that climate change poses a danger to life and property, justifying preventive measures as acts of self-defense. There is heated debate, especially among freedom-loving libertarians, about what constitutes a danger to life and property that would justify self-defense. Many arguments hinge on the concept of “an objective and reasonable fear of injury or death or damage to property”. For instance, a direct threat like someone pointing a gun is clear, but can a climate activist’s concern that “maybe in 20 years, my garden will be flooded” justify using violence against someone driving a gasoline-powered car?

The question of what justifies defensive force exists on OboxPlanet just as it does on Earth. However, on OboxPlanet, this is determined through property protection and neutral judges, making it a flexible, fast, and straightforward process. On Earth, the political process is comparatively slow and cumbersome. Changes require significant effort and a majority support or tolerance. For a comparison of these different approaches, see the following interview.

Last but not least, the greater wealth and self-responsibility on the OboxPlanet might give climate activists a larger audience than on Earth.

Now for a firsthand-account from the OboxPlanet. This interview is set on Earth. Marco is an experienced traveller to the OboxPlanet.

This interview is reprinted in the chapter “Environment and Conservation” because the topics overlap.

Interviewer: You often mention how much wealthier people are on OboxPlanet. That implies they consume far more energy than we do on Earth. They must have experienced climate change for a long time.

Marco: Climate change is an unknown concept on OboxPlanet for two reasons. Firstly, there is no pollution, and there never has been any pollution to speak of. Secondly, there is no state, so thinking about its potential effects doesn’t make sense. Imagine if there were no cars on Earth; planning traffic rules would be pointless. It just doesn’t enter your imagination.

Interviewer: Let’s address one point at a time. No pollution ever? That’s hard to believe.

Marco: Let’s say there’s much less pollution. That’s because property rights have always been strictly enforced, which prevents polluters from damaging or infringing on others’ property.

Interviewer: Can you give an example?

Marco: Sure. Let’s say “General Productions” builds an industrial plant, and the neighbors complain that its emissions invade their property. This could include smoke, noise, sewage, odor, or anything else. Normally, they would seek out a neutral arbiter to resolve their differences.

Interviewer: That sounds like a good neighborly solution. What if it is a more serious accusation?

Marco: Then the quarreling parties involve their insurance companies. As we discussed in the chapters on ethics and security, almost everybody has an insurance contract to protect their property from damage. Business firms have additional insurance for liability claims to protect their assets. These insurance companies now come into play.

Interviewer: And how exactly does that play out?

Marco: Initially, the quarreling parties’ insurance companies try to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides. If this still does not work, all insurance companies have a portfolio of neutral judges from which the quarreling parties can choose. The first choice is mostly the accuser’s, but that’s not really important. If the first ruling is acceptable to both parties, the case is closed. Otherwise, the second party gets to choose a different judge. If the verdict is the same, the case is over. If the two judges come to opposite conclusions, a final appeals court makes the ultimate ruling.

Interviewer: This sounds too easy to be true. Does everybody play by these rules?

Marco: These procedures are written down in the insurance contracts which all clients accept when they sign. It’s part of everyday life, and people are familiar with them. They are simple, quick, and relatively inexpensive—they just make sense, “common sense,” so to speak.

Interviewer: And who gets to choose the judges? Who ensures they are not biased?

Marco: Competition among the insurance companies. Insurance companies want to choose judges who have made the best rulings in the past, the most widely accepted rulings under the circumstances. These legal services are usually familiar with local customs and values and are well established and respected in their communities. Their rulings reflect what is considered “common sense” in the community. There is no perfection in human affairs, but this is probably as close as humanly possible.

Interviewer: This sounds like endless litigation and countless court cases before anybody can do anything. Isn’t it much simpler and more efficient when state legislators and bureaucrats make rules that are clear and applicable to everybody?

Marco: No. The magic word is “common sense.” In our example of the production plant, “General Productions” has a very good idea of what the acceptable “common sense” rules are in a particular community. They can and will coordinate uncertain details with their future neighbors. Everyone aims to avoid quarrels because they know that if they try to cut corners and violate “common sense,” the court will likely rule against them. Secondly, disputes are bad for one’s reputation and profits in business.

Interviewer: Back to the claim that there has never been pollution—where does that come into play?

Marco: Through the tradition of protecting private property, pollution has always been suppressed, at least more so than on Earth. On Earth, during the start of the industrial revolution, some new industries or steam train companies were allowed to pollute because the state wanted to foster industrial development. The “public interest” sometimes takes precedence over individual property rights. On OboxPlanet, there is no state that could grant special privileges to certain producers.

Interviewer: Are you saying the industrial revolution happened without the environmental pollution we experienced on Earth?

Marco: It’s useful to realize that before the industrial revolution, conditions were similar. People lived indoors with open fires and terrible smoke exposure, especially in winter. This caused widespread lung diseases and short life expectancies, but nobody knew any better, neither on Earth nor on OboxPlanet. When the first production plants emitted smoke and ashes, people were much more tolerant than today. But with enough food on the table and central heating providing clean comfort in winter, people started demanding better.

Interviewer: That sounds like what happened on Earth. How did it differ on OboxPlanet?

Marco: The political processes are much slower than the court system on OboxPlanet, plus we have the above-mentioned possibility to use “public interest” to overrule private property rights. Most importantly, people got richer much quicker on OboxPlanet and had the means and priorities to clean up the environment.

Interviewer: How did this play out? What is the greatest difference in the result today?

Marco: The push for clean and quiet production and transportation facilities led to the adoption of electrical solutions earlier and more widely than on Earth. Nuclear power was developed much earlier, not by the military with destruction in mind, but purely for powering electrical plants, ships, and long-range train engines. Today, electricity production by fusion has become economical. It’s the process of creating energy like the sun, by combining atoms instead of splitting them. On OboxPlanet, they have “the sun’s way of producing energy” available right there on the planet, driving down energy prices to levels we cannot even imagine on Earth.

Interviewer: Back to climate change and CO2. Was this ever an issue?

Marco: The CO2 topic, as we know it, is less of a factor because fossil fuels have largely been replaced by electric power. However, it is conceivable that something will be considered a threat to the wellbeing of the whole planet. Insurance companies, which would have to pay for damages caused by their clients, constantly search for potential dangers. Plus, people are rich enough to act even on a small chance that something bad will happen. So far, there have not been worldwide scares and coordinated actions.

It is no coincidence that many of the climate activists are rather young. One reason may be that for the older generation, many of the arguments sound quite familiar from other crisis we have lived through. Whether this topic is different from other alarms or not, we cannot know for sure. And while history never repeats itself in all the details, there are some lessons we can learn from experience.

Up to the time of globalization, existential crisis were primarily religious phenomena. In the Middle Ages, in Europe, there were several predictions that the world would come to an end unless people would fast, pray, pay, go on pilgrimages and crusades, pay dues or self-flagellate. While this may sound stupid to our modern ears, it may still make us wonder: why do people voluntarily punish themselves with acts that obviously have no direct and. perceivable effect on solving the problem? Do these examples point to a masochistic streak in human nature, a desire to pay for some undefined guilt?

With the globalization of politics and trade, priests got replaced by scientists. Here are some of the scares within the last generation: 

1. In the 1960’s an 1970’s, overpopulation scares predicted widespread famine and societal collapse.

2. in the 1970’s, global cooling advocates believed in a global cooling trend that could lead to an ice age.

3. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, scientists kept warning of the imminent depletion of resources like oil, gas and minerals.

4. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, acid rain scares predicted widespread devastation to forests, bodies of water, and human health.

5. During the 1980’s, an irreversible ozone layer depletion scare predicted dire consequences worldwide.

6. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, there were reoccurring alarms that tropical rainforests would disappear within a few decades.

What is the common dynamic of all of these scares?

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the scares all started in the academic and political circles of rich countries and for the most part, awareness of them remained limited to these countries. the reason is clear and simple and rooted in human nature. When you struggle for food and survival, you have little or no interest in anything else. Studies show that it takes 5000 dollars income for people to start caring about the longterm welfare of their environment. Or you can take the “washing machine” acid test. Hans Rosling, a Swedish physician and professor points to his experiences that many students claim they would be willing to give up driving an automobile for protecting the climate. When Rosling proceeds to ask whether they are willig to wash their cloths by hand, it’s another story. Today, on earth, this backbreaking and time-intensive labor is still keeping roughly 2.5 billion girls and women from doing other work like going to school or contributing their brainpower to humanity. 

Since the Earth has a state and the OboxPlanet does not, it is useful to see what role, what possible interest the state could have in crises. There exists, in politics, the saying “never let a crisis go to waste”. If we transfer the problem to the state, no wonder that it calls for more power to regulate and to tax. This in turn creates a bureaucracy and state-dependent industry which will fight all it can to keep up state support. And then there are the anti-wealth forces, often with a religious-type motivation. They are happy to call for less travels, less fun in your spare-time, less drinks, less fancy food and less wealth and comfort in general. Too often these rules of course apply “for thee, not for me”. Politicians make all kinds of excuses and exceptions for themselves, like the pigs in the novel animal farm, see the climate conferences, flooded by countless private jets.

And what happened to all the crisis that didn’t happen? Did academics and politicians learn and apologise? Looking at past crisis, nothing happened, or better: the last crisis was drowned in a new one. 

To sum it up: Crisis start in rich countries and have little to no echo in poorer regions. In the 1960’s, when almost 90% of the World population was on an economic survival level, there was little worldwide appetite for scares. Nowadays, with 15% on the same economic survival level, the reception is greater. But don’t let yourself be fooled: politicians like to show off in conferences but when push comes to shove at home, the climate issue takes a backseat no matter the rhetoric. 

Some big picture facts on climate policy. China likest to boast its great investments in renewable energies. That’s true and half the story. At the same time, according to the energy research organisation CREA: “Coal power plant permitting, construction starts, and new project announcements accelerated dramatically in 2022, with new permits reaching the highest level since 2015. The coal power capacity starting construction in china was six times as large as that in all of the rest of the world combined”, which, according to another source, equals starting two large coal power plants each week.

Now it’s your turn. Suppose you believe we should reduce CO2, do you believe we can achieve this as planned on our Earth?

Things we could learn and implement from the OboxPlanet:

A global problem must have a global appeal. It must be perceived as such by a majority and then it will be dealt with on PlanetObox as well as on Earth. The fact that the Chinese and Indian population does not seem to care should give us pause to think. Is it conceivable that this is one more of countless world scares in recent decades, scares that only we in the West perceived and scares in which we believed just as much as the climate issue?