Shepard Saabye

5 May 2019

1. Blog on the reflection concerning the Climate Choices Deliberation.
2. Did any of the Options appeal to you more than the others?
3. Did you hear or think of any new way of addressing the issues associated with the warming of the climate?
4. What are your thoughts on the use of Public Deliberation in the classroom or the community? Is this something you would like to facilitate?

1. To me, none of the options were really that great. I guess I was more or less looking for a magic answer, and outside of taking personal responsibility for your own products and wastes, I hadn’t thought much further. There are some major issues with all three options, but personally I believe privacy and the defense of the rights of the people is the most important issue in modern politics.

2. Climate change policy must be constructed in a way to most minimally interfere with the rights of the citizens. With that said, there are parts of option three that make sense to me, like economic incentives for innovation and for finding a cost-effective solution to the problem. As soon as a true solution is viable, it will be quickly implemented in the US and every other western country.

3. There are several problems with addressing climate change. First, it’s not localized to just one area. The symptoms aren’t just the ice caps melting, but also a change in the amount of precipitation across the globe, weather patterns, etc. All of these issues can be explained as man made or otherwise, but again there are more sources of the problem than even a million reasons could explain. While the US and Western countries are motivated to address the obvious problem, other parts of the world may not follow suit. Therefore, an all-encompassing strict legal reform would not be effective. While this idea isn’t exactly new to some people, its something that is often not mentioned, and gradually forgotten. Therefore, a better solution must be found for the world to adjust its efforts, and that’s where the incentives of economics will play a major part in correcting the issue.

4. Public deliberation is an interesting method for the discussion of these problems. It’s a very important topic, and may help further spread awareness, but the actual usefulness of the public deliberation format doesn’t seem to be particularly high to me. I enjoyed the deliberation, but until the deliberation can be conducted with people who have both a say in, and an understanding of, the problems affecting the community, state, country, and globe, these deliberations will not be the most effective, personal, or efficient way in addressing the problem.