Global Warming, and Standards Organizations
Up until recently, in my mind, I had a picture of how International Goverments would work toward international standards to reduce global warming. Today, it occurred to me that there may be a problem with that approach. There are two fundamental issues at stake here:
- What targets, goals, etc. are necessary to prevent global warming (and various other environmental concerns).
- What compromises are governments willing to make to achieve those goals.
I’m under the impression that most of the information regarding the targets/goals/etc is currently coming from individual actors or small groups of people. The conventions that have been held are trying to resolve both of those issues simultaneously, which is incredibly difficult - it results in a sort of tragedy of the commons, where it is in each government’s best interest to minimize the sanctions, but in everyone’s interest to maximize them. However, there is still disagreement about what outcomes are necessary to prevent these issues.
It seems to me, therefore, that we could benefit greatly (as a world) by founding open, international, environmental standards organizations - whose purpose is not to create laws or sanctions that *must* be followed by governments. Rather, their purpose would be to identify the necessary outcomes, and come to an internationally recognized agreement on just what it will take to achieve those outcomes. I hope to get some feedback on this post - please submit your thoughts.
p.s. check out Leonardo Academy.