Friday, December 06, 2013

Our Stake in GHG Emissions

I recently saw this tweet (which I'll keep anonymous out of respect of the author):

"We all cause greenhouse gases to be released into the sky; but most of us do not have special interest in continuing to do so"

I'm not sure that is true. Of course, it's true we don't all have special interests in the context of a team of lobbyists and a corporate rent seeking apparatus. But we all do have an interest in GHGs being released into the sky. We all enjoy refrigeration, air conditioning, transportation, fire, police, and rescue services, as well as telecommunications, personal computing, smartphones, iPads, google wickipedia, Instagram etc. Access to all of these goods and services at affordable prices involve trade offs related to GHG emissions and we all have direct interests in their continual release into the atmosphere, and indirect but strong interests in the 'special' interests that work to keep that path as clear and unobstructed as possible.

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