Starfish - Part 2

To continue the thread are there certain acts intended to be helpful but instead are a waste of time and money?

Looking again at the food bank example.  If the objective is to solve food insecurity even for a single individual much less a family then donations don't achieve the objective.    If the objective is incremental not fundamental then the donations aren't a waste.  

To refer back to Bill Gates's perspective of global warning.   He asserts that the goal should be for the rich countries (e.g. US, EU, Britain, Japan) to get to net zero emissions by 2050 and with solutions that can be implemented by middle class countries (e.g China, Latin America) by 2060 and poor countries (e.g. India, sub-sahara Africa) by 2070.

I'm not a climate scientist I accept his assertions.  

I also accept that this will be very expensive.

I also accept that the free market cannot get us to net zero.  It will take tax dollars and lots of them.

I also accept that tax dollars are finite and should be spent efficiently.

With that in mind does it make sense to convert a coal power plant to natural gas?  If so, should it be subsidized by our taxes? 

The answer depends on how you frame the problem and what are the goals.   If the goal is to reduce emissions by 2030 as much as possible then the answer is Yes.   If the goal is to get to net zero by 2050 then the answer is very likely No.

Similar to the food bank how one sees the frames the objective - incremental or fundamental matters.   In the case of global warning I'm told that incremental reduction of green house gases is insufficient.   The only sensible objective is net zero.   So subsidizing conversion from coal to gas is actually counter-productive as it spends scarce tax payer dollars on something that isn't part of a net zero future.