innovation is not a faucet, you can't just pour a big one when you feel like it. of course you know this, but you identify "desperation" as the fuel for it.
which is definitely a big part of our human struggle, but that doesn't mean we can't do better by looking at exactly those previous transformational periods. (and we can see that it did not affect everyone the same, hence waiting for crop failures in areas that emit the vast majority of CO2 means condemning tens/hundreds of millions of people to having a super doubleplus ungood time. oh and that's when wars start, when desperation makes it look like a better alternative.)
it was not innovation that decreased smog and lead pollution.
yet at the same time there's this paradox of history drawing straight lines on graphs:
switching to cars generated a lot of economic surplus directly. just as back in the days the new railway lines.
the problem with CO2 that it's an externality. exactly that horse to car switch introduced this hidden trade off, and we need to make it seen, and then markets can/will pick the innovative solutions that optimize for less CO2.
which is definitely a big part of our human struggle, but that doesn't mean we can't do better by looking at exactly those previous transformational periods. (and we can see that it did not affect everyone the same, hence waiting for crop failures in areas that emit the vast majority of CO2 means condemning tens/hundreds of millions of people to having a super doubleplus ungood time. oh and that's when wars start, when desperation makes it look like a better alternative.)
it was not innovation that decreased smog and lead pollution.
yet at the same time there's this paradox of history drawing straight lines on graphs:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/13/does-reality-drive-str...
switching to cars generated a lot of economic surplus directly. just as back in the days the new railway lines.
the problem with CO2 that it's an externality. exactly that horse to car switch introduced this hidden trade off, and we need to make it seen, and then markets can/will pick the innovative solutions that optimize for less CO2.