Why are short term goals more the rule than the exception, and is climate change a result of such reasoning?

Answer 1

Any way you look at global climate change, why are we building a society dependent on a resource that can't be sustained? That is a short term thinking problem

Answer 2

It often comes doen to cost. For example, it's cheaper to patch the holes in the road than it is to resurface the whole road. At least it is in the short term. In the long term, after having patched the road each year for 10 years it would have been cheaper to have resurfaced the whole thing in the first place.

It's also human nature to want things and to want them quickly so we're naturally looking for short term gains and benefits.

Not sure how this relates to climate change as this isn't the result of short or long term goals. It's the result of natural cycles and industrialisation. We can't do anything about the natural cycles, we could slow down industrialisation but there would be an economic price to pay for doing so.

Just to put what Jim Z said into context. In the last 10,000 years the planet has warmed naturally by 1°C, at current rates it's warming by the same amount in 56 years (177 times as fast).

Answer 3

Just so you keep things in perspective the climate can and does abruptly change, most policy makers know that. Anybody that put's too much faith and resources in these ridiculous alarmists predictions, could be held criminally negligent to ignore the possibility that we could be entering into a new little ice age just as likely as global warming will continue. The last few thousand years have seen climate swings that make this little episode we are experiencing seem like paradise, that's what the smart money chooses to believe in, so why tie up a bunch of money and resources on a long term plan based on the predictions of junk science narrated by a socialists organization such as the IPCC.

http://www.longrangeweather.com/images/GTEMPS.gif

http://bourabai.georisk.kz/landscheidt/new-e.htm

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf


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Answer 4

1. "Annual" profits
2. Product to market cycle is approximately 2 years.
3. Governments, and therefore regulations related to doing business, change every 4-5 years.
4. People are fickle, markets change very fast.

It is difficult to maintain a long term vision in business.

Answer 5

Short term thinking has global warming alarmists believing that the warming trend in the last two decades is man made. Short term thinking prevents them from looking at the geologic record and understanding that we have been warming for roughly 10,000 years with some minor cooling and warming trends. Short term thinking keeps them thinking that the latest storm is proof of man made global warming instead of acknowledging that their short term thinking is merely anecdotal and completely non-scientific. That is why they shun science and try to convince everyone about a fictional consensus. Climate change is primarily the result of natural causes including variations in our orbit, variations in solar output, variations in solar magnetism and due to fact that continents have moved toward the poles and very little to do with short termed reasoning of short sighted humans.

Answer 6

Here's a bit of "historical information" on the subject.

Dinosaur picture books are also very illuminating if you can't get through this article. My 4th grader is done with his if you'd like...

Answer 7

We're only hairless monkeys after all. Yes, and the historical lack of information on the subject.