Rex Kerr
2 min readAug 19, 2022

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Well, I expect things to change. So the historical answer is not necessarily the same as the future answer.

The indoor wood-burning is irrelevant because moving to, say, natural gas also reduces carbon emissions. So it's a win-win.

I could agree with your point about nostalgia, except then I would have to disagree with almost the entire conservative outlook. I think there is some point to the outlook, though. Keep what works; part of what works is what people like. We could have everyone in the U.S. say, "Ciao" instead of "Hi"--but why? The change causes friction and accomplishes nothing on average; after the change things work no better than before, and the change itself is a burden.

You're also mentioning only the positive changes, which makes me suspect that you're not thinking clearly about the actual impacts. If you're arguing against the view that everything is a disaster with climate change, it's very appropriate to pick out examples of potential positive to say: no, everything is not a disaster.

For instance, the range of a variety of species of pines is determined in part by the prevalence of pine beetles (https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/bark-beetles-and-climate-change-united-states). A 3C change in temperatures would cause the ranges of pines to shift by hundreds of miles on average (or 2500 feet in mountainous areas). This is a drastic change to many landscapes. Yes, other trees will eventually grow in instead--oaks, maples, other varieties of pines, etc.--but the change is slow, dying pine forests are a hazard to humans and a problem for less-mobile wildlife, people with nice mountain cabins surrounded by pines will have nice mountain cabins surrounded by dead trees, and then dirt and shrubs, and then a hundred years later by oaks and maples (or whatever).

And this is one of a huge number of changes. Dismissing this as "change happens" is ridiculous when we're the ones doing it. If I install a mirror on the side of my house that bakes your plum tree and makes you install cactuses instead (if you want anything alive), it's not just "change happens". It's I am changing things in ways that you don't like.

We can add up all the positives and all the negatives and try to make a decision based on the overall outcome. But to dismiss the problems as "change happens" is no more fair than any other such change. (Like I decide to turn my house into a garbage pit...now everything stinks to high heaven unless you install a top-notch filtration system and you stay inside...but no problem! Change happens!)

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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