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On July 26 2012 21:33 Uncultured wrote:Wow. Thank you for this amazing talk between McPherson, and Kim Hill. I would never have come across this if it weren't for you. There are points to think over on both sides here.
You're most welcome. I just happened to switch on the radio one day and this was playing. I only caught about half of it at the time, so I went and looked for the rest in the archive.
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On July 26 2012 20:18 Pandemona wrote:
Wait so your saying that climate change is caused by the carbon that is in the ground...and when it's all burnt we will have a fucked up climate?
There is 20trillion $s worth of Carbon in the ground waiting to be used and that would take a long time? I would not know how long it would take us to burn all that and let alone find it all. But we have been working on different sources of energy for years now, it's only a matter of time before Oil becomes useless anyway and we're all riding around in silly electric cars and waiting for a gust of wind or a sunny day to power up our heating systems and electricity supplies.
What I'm saying is that we have already spent and borrowed as if those $20 trillion worth of carbon fuels have already been burned.
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The problem here is: None of us want to turn off our things. Because that's what it takes.
None of us want to give up our car.
None of us want to get more efficient computers.
None of us want to give up air conditioning.
These are the things that cause the problem; our use of energy. So, there's a lot of talk about "What do we do? WHAT DO WE DO?" and watch, as it becomes more and more frantic. As the masses shout, louder and louder, to wonder what should "we" do to save the planet.
Well, the answer is, cut back your own consumption. You're part of the "we". If this is really something you believe in, it's time to man up and cut back. Buying a hybrid car doesn't mean anything. Buying an electric car means very little. Public transportation, people. Get used to it. Riding a bike and walking. These are what is required to hit that 2C target you want.
It's not just about a "hit to the economy". It's about devastation to the economy, and a complete reworking of the way you live your life. But the journey starts with a step, and instead of frantically wondering what we should do, why aren't YOU taking action?
Why do there have to be laws? Hmm? Why does everything have to be made into a law? You can act. I'm curious to hear the reasons people don't. Because everyone else is a bunch of earthfuckers that just want to destroy the planet, so what's the point? Meanwhile, you're being an earthfucker too while you blame the world for its problems.
The alternatives aren't there right now. Nuclear works, but the public doesn't want it. The rest are infantile and not practical. So? The only options are A. Sway opinion on nuclear. B. Cut consumption drastically.
But you won't do it. You'll stand around. Question why everyone else isn't doing anything. And fail to look at yourselves as the source of the problem.
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On July 26 2012 21:40 SeaSwift wrote:
Too many people have too much invested in denying Global Warming for any kind of global government-sanctioned policy to succeed, especially in the US.
What will probably happen: we'll go along as per usual, burn up some fuel, then the evidence about global warming will become concrete in terms of data analysis. Nothing will happen. Then, one day, a disaster caused by the climate change will hit an LEDC like 2004. No action will be taken in the US.
Then, a disaster will hit an affluent part of the States, a place where even scum-sucking selfish lobbyist billionaires might live or have emotional investment in. Suddenly, the race to become President will be based around who can convince people the best that they have been for preventing climate change all the time. They will attempt to cut down on energy useage in the US, with limited success. Instead, they will put political pressure on other countries, specifically those taking out hydrocarbons from the Earth. Eventually, the energy production will switch to less destructive sources, such as wind farms or (most likely) Nuclear fission or maybe fusion.
By then, climate change will be pretty bad. People will die. Rich businessmen and Republicans in America will convince themselves that the situation is fine, that they took the rational course of action, that there wasn't enough evidence at the time when they had the choice to minimise human energy consumption, that there were too many people alive anyway.
And people will look back and agree, just as most people on the internet do today: fuck everything about US politics.
I chuckled while reading this. The cynical style reminds me of catch 22.
Australia is pretty bad like this too (the US has it way worse it seems), the coal industry has a huge stranglehold over politics, and one of the main guys from the coal industry tried to buy out the last center-left newspaper that exists, but failed. Ironically it only helped people realise what was going on, when the conservative party didn't see a problem with it despite massive public opposition.
But its the reason we were the second last country to sign the kyoto agreement. The reason given was, "well China isn't doing shit, so negh" [regardless of what the rest of the world is doing]. Pretty childish. So we voted in a different guy who just fucking signed it and said "right glad we got that over with". Pity the agreement is pretty weak, but at least its something.
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I think this article (and thread) is a bit too sensationalist.
You can't simply look at the levels of expected fuel usage and immediately equate that with today's pollution emission rates. Technology continues to find new and better ways of controlling pollution and emission -- whether by producing filters that work better, or refining fuel that burns cleaner. You just can't extrapolate pollution trends like that without taking into account technology improvements and other mitigating factors!
For example, people in the 70's thought that by the mid-90's or 2000 the ozone layer would be depleted enough to be a huge health hazard. What they didn't factor in is the discovery that CFC's were the major contributing cause of the depletion. With the ban of CFCs, the ozone layer is actually gradually healing (slowly, but it is healing).
If you couldn't be arsed to read all of that, here's your TL;DR
![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/extrapolating.png)
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On July 26 2012 23:55 happyft wrote:I think this article (and thread) is a bit too sensationalist. You can't simply look at the levels of expected fuel usage and immediately equate that with today's pollution emission rates. Technology continues to find new and better ways of controlling pollution and emission -- whether by producing filters that work better, or refining fuel that burns cleaner. You just can't extrapolate pollution trends like that without taking into account technology improvements and other mitigating factors! For example, people in the 70's thought that by the mid-90's or 2000 the ozone layer would be depleted enough to be a huge health hazard. What they didn't factor in is the discovery that CFC's were the major contributing cause of the depletion. With the ban of CFCs, the ozone layer is actually gradually healing (slowly, but it is healing). If you couldn't be arsed to read all of that, here's your TL;DR
I don't think you can compare that sketch to 30 years worth of data, recognized by the large majority of scientific academies and first world nations. You'd think that thousands of academics committing literally their entire life to this line of research would have taken all those factors you mentioned into account when producing their projections.
1 degree celcius rise may not seem like much for a hundred years, but then you venture into positive feedback mechnisms and solar fluctuations and you find that it's a very delicate tightrope of ecological balance. As a geologist I've studied examples where ash clouds from a volcano reflecting the sun's raise was enough to lower the temperature of the earth into a positive feedback loop causing an ice age.
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/768YP.png)
Global growth of solar energy capacity
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LG00x.png)
Global installed wind capacity, by year.
A lot of the nice increases we see on these graphs are due to sustained public pressure towards funding for solar/wind infrastructure and for technological development so that the production and manufacturing of renewables reaches an economic level. These two trends are ones which give me hope that things aren't so bad that we should despair. But they aren't so good either that we should get complacent and think the problem solved, because in addition to continuing to invest in renewables, we need to actively work towards limiting / eliminating fossil fuel usage in whatever ways we can.
tldr; the battle is neither lost nor won, ignore people that try to push the 'climate change is inevitable line, so lets just keep on doin like we're doin' -- that perspective originally comes from oil/energy companies PR folders.
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I find it ridiculous how people trust the all mighty new god "science" to find another source of energy as potent as oil in the little time we have left if we continue consuming the way we do now...
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On July 26 2012 23:55 happyft wrote:I think this article (and thread) is a bit too sensationalist. You can't simply look at the levels of expected fuel usage and immediately equate that with today's pollution emission rates. Technology continues to find new and better ways of controlling pollution and emission -- whether by producing filters that work better, or refining fuel that burns cleaner. You just can't extrapolate pollution trends like that without taking into account technology improvements and other mitigating factors! For example, people in the 70's thought that by the mid-90's or 2000 the ozone layer would be depleted enough to be a huge health hazard. What they didn't factor in is the discovery that CFC's were the major contributing cause of the depletion. With the ban of CFCs, the ozone layer is actually gradually healing (slowly, but it is healing). If you couldn't be arsed to read all of that, here's your TL;DR
The reason the ozone wasn't completely depleted was precisely because people did something about it BECAUSE the trend was correct. We need to paint 'if-we-do-nothing' scenarios because that is what we face if we don't change what we're doing. They aren't sensationalist at all.
oh, and
![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/global_warming.png)
On July 26 2012 22:03 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 20:18 Pandemona wrote:
Wait so your saying that climate change is caused by the carbon that is in the ground...and when it's all burnt we will have a fucked up climate?
There is 20trillion $s worth of Carbon in the ground waiting to be used and that would take a long time? I would not know how long it would take us to burn all that and let alone find it all. But we have been working on different sources of energy for years now, it's only a matter of time before Oil becomes useless anyway and we're all riding around in silly electric cars and waiting for a gust of wind or a sunny day to power up our heating systems and electricity supplies. What I'm saying is that we have already spent and borrowed as if those $20 trillion worth of carbon fuels have already been burned.
But who cares? really. If shit gets bad, which it will if we do nothing, there will be global economic havoc much much worse than a few companies losing the ability to spend their reserves. You think the current droughts and Katrina was bad? These are baby kicks.
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Interesting read. Kind of depressing really. I can't imagine what the world will look like in 50 years.
This passage struck me as particularly ridiculous:
In 2009, for the first time, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce surpassed both the Republican and Democratic National Committees on political spending; the following year, more than 90 percent of the Chamber's cash went to GOP candidates, many of whom deny the existence of global warming. Not long ago, the Chamber even filed a brief with the EPA urging the agency not to regulate carbon – should the world's scientists turn out to be right and the planet heats up, the Chamber advised, "populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological and technological adaptations."
So apparently we will be able to adapt our physiology to climate change. Superfast evolution ftw!
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I'm the opposite of a climate defeatist: I'm an economic defeatist. I feel as though the collapse of the global economy is inevitable anyway. If we cut ourselves off from the trillions we've invested in carbon futures, we lose a chunk of cash larger than the entire US economy. If we don't, global warming continues, food and water supplies shrink and prices skyrocket, and we lose large sections of landmass to the rising oceans, and the US's major financial/commercial centers (New York and California) go in the drink.
The only difference between the two scenarios is that the first one gives us a chance to come back by introducing chaos: We lose $20 trillion and then gamble on hyperinflation by reintroducing a big portion of that via government investment (printed money) in green energy. If we're really, really lucky, and a lot smarter than we've been thus far, maybe we can lose the money slowly enough to not cause a global economic shock.
But the first step in fixing any problem is admitting we have one, and we haven't had a great track record in the US on admitting that maybe we need to change ourselves to adapt to the royal mess we've introduced.
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On July 27 2012 00:40 Pseudo_Utopia wrote:
So apparently we will be able to adapt our physiology to climate change. Superfast evolution ftw!
it's not that we need to actively engage in evolving... when things get fucked up, the people people that survive are the ones who do things differently than those who dont. then in retrospect we can call that evolution
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On July 26 2012 15:53 starfries wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:50 dvorakftw wrote:On July 26 2012 14:26 Shady Sands wrote:By now, some of you may have already read the Rolling Stones' excellent article I'm amazed to learn we really have the point where many are increasingly of the opinion that we all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place and some say that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. While that's a great book, what does that quote have to do with global warming?
I wonder if this guy is still around and if he now has his answer.
All you people saying the science is settled and anticipating economic collapse are, in the politest of terms, fucking idiots.
User was warned for this post
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On July 27 2012 00:54 dvorakftw wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:53 starfries wrote:On July 26 2012 15:50 dvorakftw wrote:On July 26 2012 14:26 Shady Sands wrote:By now, some of you may have already read the Rolling Stones' excellent article I'm amazed to learn we really have the point where many are increasingly of the opinion that we all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place and some say that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. While that's a great book, what does that quote have to do with global warming? I wonder if this guy is still around and if he now has his answer. All you people saying the science is settled and anticipating economic collapse are, in the politest of terms, fucking idiots.
What a useful contribution. Please, do elaborate.
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On July 27 2012 00:54 dvorakftw wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:53 starfries wrote:On July 26 2012 15:50 dvorakftw wrote:On July 26 2012 14:26 Shady Sands wrote:By now, some of you may have already read the Rolling Stones' excellent article I'm amazed to learn we really have the point where many are increasingly of the opinion that we all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place and some say that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. While that's a great book, what does that quote have to do with global warming? I wonder if this guy is still around and if he now has his answer. All you people saying the science is settled and anticipating economic collapse are, in the politest of terms, fucking idiots.
The science is settled in the same sense that anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause climate change is as settled as genetic variation/mutation and selective pressures cause evolution. It's not settled in that all of the specifics and intricacies as to how this happens in every situation, still has unexplored regions. That's just how science works.
If you mean the 'science' of economics, then yeah, it's a pretty ridiculous perspective that collapse is inevitable if we leave the oil in the ground. It isn't inevitable at all, it's a PR job.
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On July 27 2012 00:56 Vega62a wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2012 00:54 dvorakftw wrote:On July 26 2012 15:53 starfries wrote:On July 26 2012 15:50 dvorakftw wrote:On July 26 2012 14:26 Shady Sands wrote:By now, some of you may have already read the Rolling Stones' excellent article I'm amazed to learn we really have the point where many are increasingly of the opinion that we all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place and some say that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. While that's a great book, what does that quote have to do with global warming? I wonder if this guy is still around and if he now has his answer. All you people saying the science is settled and anticipating economic collapse are, in the politest of terms, fucking idiots. What a useful contribution. Please, do elaborate.
best just to ignore his posts at this point. in both this thread and the greenland one all he does is throw around insults without making any point whatsoever. the closest he came to contributing to the debate was posting a graph unrelated to the current discussion and then not make any claims based on said graph
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I think climate change is real and the solutions are already present. Nuclear power is the biggest avenue for drastically reducing carbon fuel consumption. To reduce CO2 that's already in the air, I'm positive there's a way for us to do it, people just don't do it.
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sorry op but basing your entire article off something rolling stone magazine tells you something about the earth seems a bit retarded, you know, maybe because its a music magazine?
look at a fucking scientific paper that tells me this please and not some retro wannabe hipster faggot writing on shit he has no clue about
This entire article made me want to puke with it's stupidness and saying "NOT EXACT NUMBERS, BUT YOU GET THE POINT" is a little like saying, i can't use the calculator on my computer longer than 5 seconds without hurting my brain, so here's just a random #.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On July 27 2012 01:07 eits wrote:
sorry op but basing your entire article off something rolling stone magazine tells you something about the earth seems a bit retarded, you know, maybe because its a music magazine?
look at a fucking scientific paper that tells me this please and not some retro wannabe hipster faggot writing on shit he has no clue about
This entire article made me want to puke with it's stupidness and saying "NOT EXACT NUMBERS, BUT YOU GET THE POINT" is a little like saying, i can't use the calculator on my computer longer than 5 seconds without hurting my brain, so here's just a random #.
you're a retro wannabe hipster faggot
User was warned for this post
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I think the "obvious" answer is that we dump the carbon fuels, and part of that 20 trillion dollars comes from investment in alternatives. How much of that could come from alternatives? I have no clue.
The problem is, no one will care, or even worse, have the real authority to do anything about this on the scale that needs to be done. This is one of the first truly global problems humanity is facing, and we are ill organized and equipped to deal with it right now. Does that mean we shouldn't try at all? No, I don't think so.
I don't think this is something that most of us that are alive now will really suffer for, or not in a major ways. However, 4 or 5 generations after us very well might be at that "well, we might be fucked" point, and they won't have a way out.
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EPT
