Hodad

Um, you might want to read that again. It says you don't seem unreachable or insane. But that was just a first impression. You could convince me otherwise, lol.

I'm pretty mellow, but I believe I already explained why this stuff matters. It's not just a harmless opinion, like whether one prefers chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Our experts are telling us as in unison and as loudly as they can that we're facing an existential threat that demands immediate action, and we have laypeople casually hand-waving uncountable hours of research and study in a way that sows doubt and undermines the building of personal and political will to act. If you tell your neighbor not to trust climate science, that has an effect on them. Especially when it comes to making a difficult or inconvenient change to their lifestyle. Just like when a person tells their neighbor not to trust vaccines. It's not a harmless opinion. It sows doubt and there are real stakes. I took the effort to type out a reply (now several) to you specifically because you do not seem unreachable (or insane). I suppose like anyone who participates in a forum there is the small hope of changing minds, that perhaps reframing an issue with critical thinking will prompt reconsideration where mountains of data have not. That you would ask yourself why you are simply choosing not to believe a near-unanimous consensus of experts. That's the why. You asked.

Hah. I think you've got our roles reversed here. The medical community has an overwhelming consensus that vaccines are safe and effective. There are a few crackpots and discredited liars out there who sow FUD that undermines that consensus and the anti-vaxxers glom onto an extreme minority opinion rather than accepting the settled science. The exact same scenario has played out in climate science. Overwhelming consensus among scientists -- and near unanimity among climate scientists -- yet some people find themselves drawn to (usually unqualified) fringe dissenters to pretend that the science isn't settled. It is. Overwhelmingly so. You, sir, and the other folks who remain "unconvinced" of mankind's influence on climate change, are the anti-vaxxers in this situation. And the problem in both cases is not merely philosophical or academic. The anti-vaxxers and climate deniers are creating the appearance of controversy where, scientifically speaking, there is none. It undermines the urgency for action and leads people to make choices that ultimately harm themselves and their communities. Whether it's a suburban soccer mom who's unvaxxed kid kills a pediatric cancer patient in a measles outbreak or some a-hole in a 1-ton diesel "rolling coal" to smoke out a nearby Prius, these people translate FUD into harm.

It's a long established and well known fact of economics that consumption taxes tend to be regressive. In simplest terms, the less money a person has, the greater the portion of their budget that must be spent on consumable goods. The higher a person's income, the more of their money into investments and other non-consumption activities, leaving it untaxed. Or, to put it another way, consumption taxes tax consumers, and the poor have no spare money to direct away from consumption--it is all consumption. And yes, you can craft consumption taxes so that they exempt basic goods like food and fuel, but that is a blanket carve out, so you are also exempting the wealthy who don't need such an exemption. Still the bill must be paid, so that difference must be made up elsewhere. Whereas with an income tax you can structure it progressively with exemptions that apply only to the poor, minimizing the burden on those least able to pay and shifting a greater part of the burden to those most able to bear it. The latter of which, those on top of the socioeconomic pyramid, are also those who most benefit from a stable status quo. Of course it's also true that you can craft those laws poorly and corruptly to benefit the wealthy (the thoroughly debunked Republican trickle-down nonsense) but setting aside the quality of execution, yes, income taxes are more progressive and consumption taxes more regressive. And yes, I am in the US, but I'm perfectly fine with taxes. I live in a high tax area, but I'd be happy to pay more for a better social safety net, national health care, better primary and secondary education etc.

Sure, any government needs money, but there are many ways to achieve that end. Sales taxes are naturally regressive, so I'd prefer more equitable alternatives like income, wealth, corporate profit, etc.

Asking questions is great and healthy. Not listening to the answers that are provided is less so. If you don't have any ability to conduct climate science yourself (applies to any specialty), then you turn to the experts for answers, right? And when every climate scientist is telling you that yes, mankind is driving climate change, that's your answer. It's not "drinking koolaid" to listen to experts who are doing the work that you can't or don't do yourself. It's just basic, rational behavior. If you don't have any qualification or capability as a cardiologist, but 100 of 100 cardiologists tell you fried foods are killing you, and you say "Hm, I'm not convinced," what is that? Or flip it around. I'm assuming you are an expert in something. If a layperson came and asked you and 99 of your peers about some basic fact of your expertise, and you all gave the same answer, but. instead of taking in the information and adjusting their worldview the layperson said "Nah, I don't think you guys know what you're talking about." You'd think that person was an idiot, no? Healthy skepticism is great, but at a certain point, in the face of overwhelming evidence and expert consensus, it's not skepticism, but contrarianism or something similarly counterproductive. It's not driven by reason or rationality. I mean that literally. It is not clearly is entangled with love or money or political identity or some other baser alignment that is suppressing reason. I don't know what your particular entanglement is, but it's simply no longer rational to dismiss what is virtually unanimous acknowledgement in the climate science community.

No offense, but are you qualified in some way that makes your hesitation seem reasonable? Once there was a legitimate question about human impact on planetary warming, but that was decades ago. The notion of climate change has some pretty severe economic implications, so of course it's become entangled with politics, but the core question is a scientific question and in the scientific community that question has been answered. We're talking about near unanimity among scientists, surveys at 97-100%. At this point, not a single scientific body dissents from the core fact of mankind is driving climate change. The last holdout was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which stopped dissenting in 2007. So what's your hesitation? If you're a heterodox climate with a pet theory, sure maybe you have some cause to question. But as a layperson, it just seems kind of crazy. It's like if you went to the cardiologist and after she ran your labs she said, "Your cholesterol is way too high, your arteries are clogging and you're headed for a heart attack unless you lay off the fried foods." Maybe if you really love fried foods you go for a second opinion? But if you go to 100 cardiologists and only 99 of them tell you the same thing are you really going to be unconvinced and bet your future that they're all wrong? That's basically where we are today. People who aren't "convinced" today are simply being willfully ignorant. Climate deniers aren't driven by reason or some incisive critical thinking. There just isn't any logical platform to support it. They are instead tied up in politics and culture wars and everything else that orbits around is today a generational crisis. If we keep failing to confront reality and to take some collective action it will become an existential crisis.

I see what you did there. And yes even if one were to completely ignore the very real crisis of climate change, winning the alternative energy race is as vital as a space race or an arms race to the future economic and military security of the country.