(CNN)Last year was the Earth's warmest since record-keeping began in 1880, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA said Wednesday.
It's been clear for quite some time that 2015 would steal the distinction of the hottest year from 2014, with 10 out of the 12 months last year being the warmest respective months on record -- and those records go back 136 years.
While it wasn't necessarily a surprise that 2015 finished in first place, its margin of victory was startling -- it lapped the field, with the average temperature across the entire planet 1.62˚F (0.90˚C) above the 20th century average, more than 20% higher than the previous highest departure from average.
This was aided by a December that looked and felt more like a March or April for much of the Northern Hemisphere, where traditional winter holidays had weather that was neither traditional nor winter-like.
In fact, December became the first month to ever reach 2 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for the globe. In the United States, December was both the warmest and the wettest on record -- no other month has ever held both distinctions for the country.
It is somewhat ironic that this news comes out of Washington on a day the city prepares for what could be one of the biggest snowstorms in its history -- but big snows can occur even in the warmest years. Remember Boston last year? Despite the snowiest winter on record for Boston, the state of Massachusetts still ended the year with temperatures far above average.
Why was 2015 so warm? The biggest culprit was a major El Niño, which has joined 1997-1998 as the strongest El Niño ever observed. El Niños, which are characterized by significant warming over topical ocean waters in the Pacific, not only warm the ocean but also pump lots of excess heat into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures.
El Niño years tend to be warmer than non-El Niño years (neutral or La Niña years). El Niño was a major driver of the heat this year, but certainly not the only factor. The change also was "largely driven by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere," a NASA press release said. This is evident in that recent neutral or even La Niña years have been hotter than previous strong El Niños.
Much like sports writers who start their preseason predictions immediately following the final buzzer of the previous season's championship, many climate scientists and weather forecasters are already saying 2016 could push the chart-topping temperature climb even higher, with El Niño lingering into spring and the continued influence from man-made climate change.
The odds would certainly favor that, as 15 of the top 16 warmest years have occurred since 2000 (1998 being the lone pre-21st century year on the list). The last time we had a year become the coldest on record was 1911.
What's interesting is that there's a Congressional investigation of NOAA underway, over evidence that NOAA falsified its temperature data. News been awfully quiet on this front... no?
In case some people just want to read one of the responses to this "investigation" so that they can be totally surprised about what kind of investigation this could possibly be:
I don't think there's any way to more passive aggressively say "stop jerking us around over all this bull gak you <insert insinuation that committee chairmen is a moron>" without being overtly aggressive XD
I don't think there's any way to more passive aggressively say "stop jerking us around over all this bull gak you <insert insinuation that committee chairmen is a moron>" without being overtly aggressive XD
The official global temperature numbers are in, and NOAA and NASA have decided that 2015 was the warmest year on record. Based mostly upon surface thermometers, the official pronouncement ignores the other two primary ways of measuring global air temperatures, satellites and radiosondes (weather balloons).
The fact that those ignored temperature datasets suggest little or no warming for about 18 years now, it is worth outlining the primary differences between these three measurement systems.
Three Ways to Measure Global Temperatures
The primary ways to monitor global average air temperatures are surface based thermometers (since the late 1800s), radiosondes (weather balloons, since about the 1950s), and satellites measuring microwave emissions (since 1979). Other technologies, such as GPS satellite based methods have limited record length and have not yet gained wide acceptance for accuracy.
While the thermometers measure near-surface temperature, the satellites and radiosondes measure the average temperature of a deep layer of the lower atmosphere. Based upon our understanding of how the atmosphere works, the deep layer temperatures are supposed to warm (and cool) somewhat more strongly than the surface temperatures. In other words, variations in global average temperature are expected to be magnified with height, say through the lowest 10 km of atmosphere. We indeed see this during warm El Nino years (like 2015) and cool La Nina years.
The satellite record is the shortest, and since most warming has occurred since the 1970s anyway we often talk about temperature trends since 1979 so that we can compare all three datasets over a common period.
Temperatures of the deep ocean, which I will not address in detail, have warmed by amounts so small — hundredths of a degree — that it is debatable whether they are accurate enough to be of much use. Sea surface temperatures, also indicating modest warming in recent decades, involve an entirely new set of problems, with rather sparse sampling by a mixture of bucket temperatures from many years ago, to newer ship engine intake temperatures, buoys, and since the early 1980s infrared satellite measurements.
How Much Warming?
Since 1979, it is generally accepted that the satellites and radiosondes measure 50% less of a warming trend than the surface thermometer data do, rather than 30-50% greater warming trend that theory predicts for warming aloft versus at the surface.
This is a substantial disagreement.
Why the Disagreement?
There are different possibilities for the disagreement:
1) Surface thermometer analyses are spuriously overestimating the true temperature trend
2) Satellites and radiosondes are spuriously underestimating the true temperature trend
3) All data are largely correct, and are telling us something new about how the climate system operates under long-term warming.
First let’s look at the fundamental basis for each measurement.
All Temperature Measurements are “Indirect”
Roughly speaking, “temperature” is a measure of the kinetic energy of motion of molecules in air.
Unfortunately, we do not have an easy way to directly measure that kinetic energy of motion.
Instead, many years ago, mercury-in-glass or alcohol-in-glass thermometers were commonly used, where the thermal expansion of a column of liquid in response to temperature was estimated by eye. These measurements have now largely been replaced with thermistors, which measure the resistance to the flow of electricity, which is also temperature-dependent.
Such measurements are just for the air immediately surrounding the thermometer, and as we all know, local sources of heat (a wall, pavement, air conditioning or heating equipment, etc.) can and do affect the measurements made by the thermometer. It has been demonstrated many times that urban locations have higher temperatures than rural locations, and such spurious heat influences are difficult to eliminate entirely, since we tend to place thermometers where people live.
Radiosondes also use a thermistor, which is usually checked against a separate thermometer just before weather balloon launch. As the weather balloon carries the thermistor up through the atmosphere, it is immune from ground-based sources of contamination, but it still has various errors due to sunlight heating and infrared cooling which are minimized through radiosonde enclosure design. Radiosondes are much fewer in number, generally making hundreds of point measurements around the world each day, rather than many thousands of measurements that thermometers make.
Satellite microwave radiometers are the fewest in number, only a dozen or so, but each one is transported by its own satellite to continuously measure virtually the entire earth each day. Each individual measurement represents the average temperature of a volume of the lower atmosphere about 50 km in diameter and about 10 km deep, which is about 25,000 cubic kilometers of air. About 20 of those measurements are made every second as the satellite travels and the instrument scans across the Earth.
The satellite measurement itself is “radiative”: the level of microwave emission by oxygen in the atmosphere is measured and compared to that from a warm calibration target on the satellite (whose temperature is monitored with several highly accurate platinum resistance thermometers), and a cold calibration view of the cosmic background radiation from space, assumed to be about 3 Kelvin (close to absolute zero temperature). A less sophisticated (infrared) radiation temperature measurement is made with the medical thermometer you place in your ear.
So, Which System is Better?
The satellites have the advantage of measuring virtually the whole Earth every day with the same instruments, which are then checked against each other. But since there are very small differences between the instruments, which can change slightly over time, adjustments must be made.
Thermometers have the advantage of being much greater in number, but with potentially large long-term spurious warming effects depending on how each thermometer’s local environment has changed with the addition of manmade objects and structures.
Virtually all thermometer measurements require adjustments of some sort, simply because with the exception of a few thermometer sites, there has not been a single, unaltered instrument measuring the same place for 30+ years without a change in its environment. When such rare thermometers were identified in a recent study of the U.S., it was found that by comparison the official U.S. warming trends were exaggerated by close to 60%. Thus, the current official NOAA adjustment procedures appear to force the good data to match the bad data, rather than the other way around. Whether such problem exist with other countries data remains to be seen.
Changes in radiosonde design and software have occurred over the years, making some adjustments necessary to the raw data.
For the satellites, orbital decay of the satellites requires an adjustment of the “lower tropospheric” (LT) temperatures, which is well understood and quite accurate, depending only upon geometry and the average rate of temperature decrease with altitude. But the orbital decay also causes the satellites to slowly drift in the time of day they observe. This “diurnal drift” adjustment is less certain. Significantly, very different procedures for this adjustment have led to almost identical results between the satellite datasets produced by UAH (The University of Alabama in Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, California).
The fact that the satellites and radiosondes – two very different types of measurement system — tend to agree with each other gives us somewhat more confidence in their result that warming has been much less than predicted by climate models. But even the thermometers indicate less warming than the models, just with less of a discrepancy.
And this is probably the most important issue…that no matter which temperature monitoring method we use, the climate models that global warming policies are based upon have been, on average, warming faster than all of our temperature observation systems.
I do believe “global warming” has occurred, but (1) it is weaker than expected, based upon independent satellite and weather balloon measurements; (2) it has been overestimated with poorly adjusted surface-based thermometers; (3) it has a substantial natural component; and (4) it is likely to be more beneficial to life on Earth than harmful.
I'll be honest with you, I won't waste my time reading anything else you are going to post on this.
The response from NOAA makes it pretty clear that this is just another witch-hunt and I'm going to sit firmly in the science camp here. But feel free to add this to your collection of "truths".
d-usa wrote: I'll be honest with you, I won't waste my time reading anything else you are going to post on this.
K.
The response from NOAA makes it pretty clear that this is just another witch-hunt and I'm going to sit firmly in the science camp here. But feel free to add this to your collection of "truths".
So those 300 scientists challenging NOAA are not... in the science camp?
Ooooookay.
What are they then? Band camp*? *not that there's anything wrong with band camp.
Such measurements are just for the air immediately surrounding the thermometer, and as we all know, local sources of heat (a wall, pavement, air conditioning or heating equipment, etc.) can and do affect the measurements made by the thermometer. It has been demonstrated many times that urban locations have higher temperatures than rural locations, and such spurious heat influences are difficult to eliminate entirely, since we tend to place thermometers where people live.
So, human activity?
I do believe “global warming” has occurred, but (1) it is weaker than expected, based upon independent satellite and weather balloon measurements; (2) it has been overestimated with poorly adjusted surface-based thermometers; (3) it has a substantial natural component; and (4) it is likely to be more beneficial to life on Earth than harmful.
So those 300 scientists challenging NOAA are not... in the science camp?
That entirely depends what kind of scientists they are. Science is an absolutely gigantic field with relatively minor areas of overlap (aside from very basic principles). Someone who studies virulence factors in Streptococci or maps asteroids would be little better than a random talking head when it comes to climate science.
I used to spend time arguing about climate change on forums and a lot of the 'scientific' counter evidence originated from scientists who were working outside of their field (sometimes completely outside their field). I don't know about this specific instance, to be honest I don't care, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was more of the same.
That entirely depends what kind of scientists they are. Science is an absolutely gigantic field with relatively minor areas of overlap (aside from very basic principles). Someone who studies virulence factors in Streptococci or maps asteroids would be little better than a random talking head when it comes to climate science.
Spencer has a PhD in meteorology so he has expertise in a relevant area, and his research is pretty good. It's worth noting that he does believe that the Earth has gotten warmer, just not in line with model predictions. The problems come up when he deliberately tacks conservative.
What is the context of this letter? You are presenting it to imply that they signed some sort of letter disputing the NOAA findings. Is that what it is? I assume it comes from the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology, but where is the actual letter?
So those 300 scientists challenging NOAA are not... in the science camp?
(Let me rephrase that) No, those 300 dudes are firmly in the getting paid to post bs camp and either lack the necessary knowledge or just straight up lie about these things.
I thought blindly accepting the majority consensus is anithema to science? Having detractors constantly trying to disprove it only makes the theory stronger(if they don't end up disproving it of course ).
Really? Using that tired old nag? Have you been paying any attention to the price of oil over the last year? The oil companies have been losing so much money they couldn't afford a conspiracy against global warming if they even wanted to.
Which really shows how much GW is a for not lowing prices since plastic is cheaper than it's been in years.
Sinful Hero wrote: I thought blindly accepting the majority consensus is anithema to science? Having detractors constantly trying to disprove it only makes the theory stronger(if they don't end up disproving it of course ).
A common misconception. In fact, accepting the majority consensus at some point is necessary for science to function, otherwise we'd still be sitting about pondering Zeno's Paradoxes - at some point if it looks 99.95% like a duck and quacks 99.95% like a duck, everyone usually accepts it's probably a fething duck and moves on. I mean it's still technically possible that I'll wake up one day and find a a PHD student has proven Phlogiston Theory or that the mechanism behind Quantum Gravity is driven by subatomic toffee, but, for some totally unknowable reason that I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that the oil industry has no interest in Phlogiston as a source of income, there are no articles in national newspapers or politicians on committees or huge collections of internet conspiracy nuts claiming that relativity and quantum mechanics are totally fictional plots by dastardly physicists to secure grant funding.
Regardless, the process rather relies on the detractors in question being qualified scientists with honest motivations, rather than paid lobbyist shills, politically-motivated non-scientist officials or non-expert scientists, and idiots who genuinely pull that "hurr durr it's snowin' outside so howzit global warm? Lol science are dumz" nonsense. I mean seriously, would anyone be happy with the idea of letting their GP perform complex neurosurgery on you - afterall, they're all doctors, right? But many folk will seemingly happily accept geologists or botanists or theoretical astrophysicists telling them that climate science is wrong.
Whenever you get a scientific theory that challenges or threatens some powerful establishment or another, the pattern to attack that theory is pretty much all the same. I mean, there’s plenty of controversy in science, and sometimes the debate gets heated and even very personal. And there is often legitimate concern about bad data and proper science will follow through on those concerns, and often find bad data (and just occasionally find fraud).
But where you can pick the difference between an ordinary scientific debate and an anti-science spoiling campaign is the latter will make no effort to form a scientific theory of their own. They’ll just attack the theory developed from people attempting genuine science. So if you’ve ever read about the efforts to attack evolution, or the cigarette companies attempt to discredit research linking cancer and smoking, you see a very similar pattern to what see with climate change denial. There’s never any effort to build an alternate model to be tested. Because there’s no real scientific interest in what’s happening, just a need to protect their own worldview, or protect their income flow.
And the people attempting to deny climate change have, of course, never made any attempt at an alternate theory, never put forward their own predictions to be tested. Because it is nothing more than a spoiling campaign looking to delay public realization as long as possible.
sebster wrote: Whenever you get a scientific theory that challenges or threatens some powerful establishment or another, the pattern to attack that theory is pretty much all the same. I mean, there’s plenty of controversy in science, and sometimes the debate gets heated and even very personal. And there is often legitimate concern about bad data and proper science will follow through on those concerns, and often find bad data (and just occasionally find fraud).
But where you can pick the difference between an ordinary scientific debate and an anti-science spoiling campaign is the latter will make no effort to form a scientific theory of their own. They’ll just attack the theory developed from people attempting genuine science. So if you’ve ever read about the efforts to attack evolution, or the cigarette companies attempt to discredit research linking cancer and smoking, you see a very similar pattern to what see with climate change denial. There’s never any effort to build an alternate model to be tested. Because there’s no real scientific interest in what’s happening, just a need to protect their own worldview, or protect their income flow.
And the people attempting to deny climate change have, of course, never made any attempt at an alternate theory, never put forward their own predictions to be tested. Because it is nothing more than a spoiling campaign looking to delay public realization as long as possible.
Sinful Hero wrote: I thought blindly accepting the majority consensus is anithema to science? Having detractors constantly trying to disprove it only makes the theory stronger(if they don't end up disproving it of course ).
Your point hinges on the word ‘blindly’. Obviously is some scientific group announced some conclusion, and just insisted we take their word for it and never show their data, it’d be ridiculous to just accept them because they're scientists.
But if a theory is worked on for generations by hundreds of scientific institutions, constantly challenged and tested, resulting in refinements & reworkings, until it produces models with strong predictive and explanative power, then accepting it isn’t blindly accepting science. It’s just recognising that scientific institutions have some basic value.
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Ustrello wrote: Does Deus vult count as an alternate theory?
It's probably a stronger alternate theory than 'solar cycles'.
sebster wrote: Whenever you get a scientific theory that challenges or threatens some powerful establishment or another, the pattern to attack that theory is pretty much all the same.
This also tends to happen when you have a theory that is wholly embraced by some powerful establishment or another. People opposed to that establishment look with cynical eyes and try to figure out what "the agenda" is, assuming ulterior motives from the start.
Yes, because it is far from tired and it isn't a nag. Our current economic model is based largely around oil; the changes needed to address climate change will have a direct impact on the 'old order' therefore there is a great deal of reluctance to accept the (strong) scientific consensus and there is strong motivation to try and discredit it.
In their “hottest year ever” press briefing, NOAA included this graph, which stated that they have a 58 year long radiosonde temperature record. But they only showed the last 37 years in the graph.
Spoiler:
Here is why they are hiding the rest of the data. The earlier data showed as much pre-1979 cooling as the post-1979 warming.
Spoiler:
I combined the two graphs at the same scale below, and put a horizontal red reference line in, which shows that the earth’s atmosphere has not warmed at all since the late 1950’s
Spoiler:
The omission of this data from the NOAA report, is just their latest attempt to defraud the public. NOAA’s best data shows no warming for 60 years. But it gets worse. The graph in the NOAA report shows about 0.5C warming from 1979 to 2010, but their original published data shows no warming during that period.
Spoiler:
Due to Urban Heat Island Effects, the NOAA surface data shows nearly one degree warming from 1979 to 2010, but their original radiosonde data showed no warming during that time. Global warming theory is based on troposphere warming, which is why the radiosonde data should be used by modelers – instead of the UHI contaminated surface data.
Spoiler:
NOAA’s original published radiosonde data showed no net troposphere warming from 1958 to 2010, when the data set ended.
Spoiler:
The next graph shows how NOAA has altered their 850-300 mb temperature data since 2011. Another hockey stick of data tampering.
Because we should definitely believe a man who made similar claims 2 years ago and was was proven false then, right?
Edit: well, I should mention that while he was wrong, he was right about something different. He was correct that there were errors in the data, but not correct about why they were there, or what the difference actually was.
I don't know enough about this field to offer up a specific critique, although a lot of assumptions are being made, but a Blog calling itself 'Real Science' which saw fit to post this gem has little in the way of credibility.
I don't know enough about this field to offer up a specific critique but a Blog calling itself 'Real Science' which saw fit to post this gem has little in the way of credibility.
I've certainly seen a lot of bad data get thrown into the system over my 14 years as a meteorologist, but I'm not going to jump on this guys wagon without some better sourcing of where he got his data.
I'm glad that all of this will be preserved for history so that people can look back and study how we convinced ourselves of total bs and were really smug about it.
So much work for future historians, and it's just this debate!
I'm glad that all of this will be preserved for history so that people can look back and study how we convinced ourselves of total bs and were really smug about it.
So much work for future historians, and it's just this debate!
The best part is that this statement works no matter what you believe!
I don't know enough about this field to offer up a specific critique but a Blog calling itself 'Real Science' which saw fit to post this gem has little in the way of credibility.
I've certainly seen a lot of bad data get thrown into the system over my 14 years as a meteorologist, but I'm not going to jump on this guys wagon without some better sourcing of where he got his data.
I know you know this... but, for others reading this posts...
Some of it is sourced Whembly, but things like his last one the 850-500mb chart, where is he getting that from?
And I like to refer the the AMS as the Weather Mafia... if you're not a made man, aka a part of AMS, you'll never get one of the good paying jobs in this career field. It's why I'm leaving weather behind when I retire from the Air Force.
djones520 wrote: Some of it is sourced Whembly, but things like his last one the 850-500mb chart, where is he getting that from?
And I like to refer the the AMS as the Weather Mafia... if you're not a made man, aka a part of AMS, you'll never get one of the good paying jobs in this career field. It's why I'm leaving weather behind when I retire from the Air Force.
I see... That last graph, he links the raw dataset for 2016 w/o sourcing header, it looks like he pulled it from the public ncdc.noaa.gov FTP site.
The 2011 dataset is sourced:
Spoiler:
******************************************************************* *** Annual and Seasonal Global Temperature Deviations *** *** in the Troposphere and Low Stratosphere, 1958 - 2010 *** *** *** *** *** *** July 2011 *** *** *** *** *** *** Source: J. K. Angell *** *** Air Resources Laboratory *** *** National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration *** *** *** *******************************************************************
Even if climate change wasn't happening, oil is an unsustainable economic greed engine that benefits a select few greatly.
The temperature of the earth is not the only reason we should abstain from oil and transfer our society to an alternative.
There are better power sources that would empower the general public if implemented and allowed to be used in place of oil. Furthermore, most of them don't involve spewing poison into the air we breathe.
The production of beef and deforestation are largely overlooked when people talk about climate change yet they are both as important if not more important than abstinence from oil.
Oil is part of a sickness of greed that humanity suffers beneath. Whether or not the earth is warming, the agendas of those attempting to say it isn't are both clear and morally reprehensible. They just want their money, and don't want you to have any of it for your own use, because that gives you power and freedom.
I want my children to live in a safe, sustainable environment with some forward progress rather than greed-locked stagnation with no regard to human happiness or health. Radical Capitalism should be abolished regardless of climate change, and sustainable power generation for our society would ensure a nearly endless stream of jobs, as well as lesser dependence on having said jobs.
The people who have all the money in the world desperately want the rest of us to remain powerless beneath them. The removal of our oil addiction as a species could only strengthen us and move us forward toward a brighter future, one where I could be proud of the collective super organism we represent.
At present I am a wage slave, dreaming of an endless ocean of advancement we might never get to realize, worrying about the comfort and health of my offspring. We can do better than this.
It is completely pointless for us laymen to argue over the details of this research. We do not have necessary training to properly judge it. But if overwhelming majority of experts tell me that this thing is real, then I'm going to believe them. To do otherwise would be lunacy.
When it comes to the whole global warming debate, all I see is two dogs fighting over a bone. That bone is anthropogenic climate change.
I believe that Humanity is having an effect on climate. But I also believe that there are natural factors at work here, as well. Man's contribution is just another additive in the climate change stew, one of several.
But I don't believe for a moment that Man is the sole, or even the majority, factor in current climate change trends. Even if there is "scientific consensus" that it is. I tend to be skeptical of any "consensus" in scientific matters that are mired in political and policy debates. The same goes for those that claim Man isn't a key factor in global climate change, when it's obvious that we are.
There is truth in both camps. You just have to sift to the political BS to get to it.
I tend to be skeptical of any "consensus" in scientific matters that are mired in political and policy debates.
Why? A consensus is a consensus and, in general, scientists will follow the data. A scientific consensus is probably the most reliable there is because scientists are trained specifically to generate, interpret and evaluate data.
In this instance there is a huge consensus, far bigger than it would be if there was nothing more to anthropogenic climate change than ideology.
Goddard's method is to take old data, any old data that gives him the pattern he wants, and then compare that data to NASA's figures, and because they differ NASA lies. He doesn't rely on good data, he doesn't even spell out what data he will be using before his work. He just does and finds some data, from anywhere, that suits his argument, and uses that.
It's really terrible science. And it's also kind of a mirror image of what the climate skeptics do - just as Goddard doesn't define his method or data set before seeing if the data suits his theory, the climate skeptics make no effort to determine exactly who has or hasn't got the credentials to be an authoritative voice on the subject. It's a terrible way to do science, and a terrible way to do anything except confirm your existing bias.
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oldravenman3025 wrote: When it comes to the whole global warming debate, all I see is two dogs fighting over a bone. That bone is anthropogenic climate change.
I believe that Humanity is having an effect on climate. But I also believe that there are natural factors at work here, as well. Man's contribution is just another additive in the climate change stew, one of several.
There are natural variations in climate change, ocean warming patterns on so on. We see those tracked over decade long patterns. And over an extremely long period of time, measured in millenia, we see very slow heating and cooling patters.
What we're seeing right now, a steady pattern underneath the oceanic heating and cooling pattern, is something we've never at this rate. Temperature increases that we've observed over thousands of years are now being measured over decades.
End of the day, if you're wondering which 'side' to pick in this, consider that one side, made up practicing climate scientists, said we'd see global temperature rises. They didn't have all the information, they didn't fully understand the oceanic patterns, but once that's accounted for, what they said happened - we started to see temperature increases. The other side said there wasn't going to be any temperature increases. When they were wrong, they simply moved the goalposts, sure there were temperature increases, but it isn't due to man.
End of the day science is about models with predictive power. One side has some models that were rough but broadly accurate 20 years ago, and then spent the next 20 years refining and improving their models. The other side has nothing. There's no models, not even any alternate theories.
What amazes me is the number of people talking about "belief" in the climate debate, and all from one side. As if scientific evidence is a matter of faith. There is no real evidence that the science is wrong. There is some minor quibbling around the edges, but there has been no peer reviewed work that shows that the data is wrong. There has been a lot of holding on to minor errors in some data (something that will happen with such a complex data set) and arguments that it must be politically biased, with no evidence. But there is no evidence that climate change is not happening or is caused by anything other than human activity.
@Puffin... in regards to that gem, he's just posting actual newspapper clippings. lol...
Which he is using to attempt to claim that gun control was phase 1 of the holocaust.
He then goes on that Sandy Hook "reeks of third party involvement" lol. Throw in a few "libtards" and "leftist idiots worshipping your Messiah OBOZO" and that's about the sum total of the website.
Whembly you should be ashamed of linking that, but then again, crazy bs is de rigueur for Republicans now.
When it comes to the whole global warming debate, all I see is two dogs fighting over a bone. That bone is anthropogenic climate change.
I believe that Humanity is having an effect on climate. But I also believe that there are natural factors at work here, as well. Man's contribution is just another additive in the climate change stew, one of several.
But I don't believe for a moment that Man is the sole, or even the majority, factor in current climate change trends. Even if there is "scientific consensus" that it is. I tend to be skeptical of any "consensus" in scientific matters that are mired in political and policy debates. The same goes for those that claim Man isn't a key factor in global climate change, when it's obvious that we are.
There is truth in both camps. You just have to sift to the political BS to get to it.
Indeed.
One of the bigger arguments against claiming that man being the major cause of climate change is that we have almost no data from over a hundred years ago. And a hundred or so years is worthless for projecting or claiming causality when you are trying to project trends that will last for thousands and thousands of years. Especially when you lack data from the "before" time period and trying to claim things about the "after".
Are we effecting the environment? Yeah. But a major volcanic eruption still puts more pollution into the air than anything we humans have ever done.
Temperature is one of the bigger areas where guessing is all we have about the past. We can tell the composition of the air from pockets trapped in ice, but that doesn't tell us much about the temperature of the entire world at the time that ice was formed. The only solid data we have is for the last century or so, and that is a terrible sample size.
I think that "is man causing change" is sort of a foregone answer. I think the better question is whether or not we can do anything about it, because if the answer is "no" - and I think it is - then the former is sort of a moot question.
The US might be able to change our contributions to climate change, at great economic cost, but there is no valid reason to think that we could significantly influence China or India or Russia to do so.
The problem simply doesn't have immediate enough repercussions.
Which are mostly out of date, and don't actually say climate change is not happening, but question if it is as extreme as predicted, causing some of the effects we see or just saying its happening, but is it a bad thing.
One of the bigger arguments against claiming that man being the major cause of climate change is that we have almost no data from over a hundred years ago. And a hundred or so years is worthless for projecting or claiming causality when you are trying to project trends that will last for thousands and thousands of years. Especially when you lack data from the "before" time period and trying to claim things about the "after".
Are we effecting the environment? Yeah. But a major volcanic eruption still puts more pollution into the air than anything we humans have ever done.
Temperature is one of the bigger areas where guessing is all we have about the past. We can tell the composition of the air from pockets trapped in ice, but that doesn't tell us much about the temperature of the entire world at the time that ice was formed. The only solid data we have is for the last century or so, and that is a terrible sample size.
There is plenty of data. Ice core samples, naval records, tree growth records, coral records all give us very good data about the climate.
The consensus is clear. Climate change is happening, and it is man made. The dispute now is down to how bad is it and what the acceptable level of warming is.
Crimson wrote: It is completely pointless for us laymen to argue over the details of this research. We do not have necessary training to properly judge it. But if overwhelming majority of experts tell me that this thing is real, then I'm going to believe them. To do otherwise would be lunacy.
Ah, but clearly all those experts were wrong.
Spoiler:
The 'Drumpf' bit is just my Chrome joke addon. The tweet is real.
Kilkrazy wrote: The UK has weather records from the mid-17th century onwards, and naval hydrographical records starting from at least the early 19th century.
The argument now is what we are going to do to prepare for and reduce the impact of climate change.
Kilkrazy wrote: The UK has weather records from the mid-17th century onwards, and naval hydrographical records starting from at least the early 19th century.
The argument now is what we are going to do to prepare for and reduce the impact of climate change.
<--- Doesn't have kids.
Every Saturday, I go to CostCo and buy a case of aerosol hair spray cans, then I walk into my back yard and empty them.
For those who believe humans are the primary cause of global warming, the only material impact 1st world society can make is to ensure the third world (which represents mainland Asia and Africa and parts of S. and C. America) remains largely unindustrialized, rural, and by implication impoverished.
It doesn't require a deep understanding of the specifics of climate to realize that if the human-affected climate change hypothesis is correct, then even radical changes by the ~25% of the global population that is generating and consuming power won't offset only marginal changes by the 75% to increase consumption.
Even if the industrialized world collectively united and cut its energy consumption by half, population growth and demographic shifts would wipe out that net effect in the span of 2 generations.
Technological changes are likely to hasten this trend, not diminish it, as consumer goods that consume marginal amounts of power (like phones, internet servers) will have much lower hurdles for adoption and implementation than do infrastructure and plant renovations. And that assumes no backsteps on fripperies like 'electric cars' or 'solar panels' that devour development money but yield negligible production output/consumption declines.
Then you go look at things like the non-GMO/'natural' food trends and increases in niche produce consumption (all of which drop yield/acre on finite land mass and therefore up energy consumption on a per calorie basis) trends and you realize that the developed world is actually accelerating towards greater unsustainability.
So what does the discerning individual do? Up your individual consumption as much as you possibly can, because it's likely never going to be cheaper on either a nominal or inflation-adjusted basis than it is right now, and any unilateral austerity measures you personally adopt will be swallowed by the 3rd world attempting to get to $10k USD/year per capita income.
sourclams wrote: For those who believe humans are the primary cause of global warming, the only material impact 1st world society can make is to ensure the third world (which represents mainland Asia and Africa and parts of S. and C. America) remains largely unindustrialized, rural, and by implication impoverished.
...
sourclams wrote: For those who believe humans are the primary cause of global warming, the only material impact 1st world society can make is to ensure the third world (which represents mainland Asia and Africa and parts of S. and C. America) remains largely unindustrialized, rural, and by implication impoverished.
The single biggest contributor to climate change is the beef industrial complex. If we eliminated that we would reduce our impact considerably.
Misses the point, China/India open up a new coal plant every couple weeks, and need to to support growing 'grassroots' consumer consumption. Even if you gave them 'emission reduction' technology for free, lower production capabilities and nationalistic tendencies will still keep 'new' manufacturing in domestic channels, which means you have to give them actual hardware for free, in a fragmented logistic chain, meaning it's virtually impossible to actually implement.
The single biggest contributor to climate change is the beef industrial complex. If we eliminated that we would reduce our impact considerably.
This one is laughable, but not for the reason you might think. It illustrates my point perfectly. The US and Australia have aggressively liquidated (made total herd smaller) cattle inventories, and have been doing so since about 2004 (at varying rates but herd size has trended lower for more than a decade now).
Yet global cattle herd is roughly the same, due to growth in the S. American herd, primarily Brazil. Further, these Brazilian cattle are much 'dirtier' given that they will be pastured on cleared rainforest grassland, whereas the US herd would primarily be feedlotted in enclosures with excess grain production from largely existing farmland input into them. You can condemn the 'industrialization' of this supply chain, but it's vastly more efficient than 50 years ago, and it's light years ahead of the S. American herd.
So, perfectly illustrated, marginal 'improvement' in the Developed World are completely offset by the Developing World.
And this further ignores that the beef produced by those cattle is going to be more sustainable 'per calorie' than much of the produce section of the grocery store, and certainly moreso than the floral section which has 0 caloric value but consumes enormous amount of water and supply chain 'space'. Meat is 70% water, which means it's 30% food. Spinach, by contrast, is more than 95% water, therefore less than 5% food, so much of the supply chain for 'fresh vegetables' is dedicated to leafy greens that are just a means of transporting refrigerated water at several dollars a pound.
The US imports a lot of beef, but it also exports a lot of beef, and net will be close to flat or small negative trade balance.
These are actual facts, and I know them due to having been employed to track and run analysis on this for several years, but if you want to adhere to your ideology out of convenience, feel free.
We are the primary consumers of the beef industrial complex. It is the single biggest contributor to climate change. Facts
I really doubt you even know what you're protesting against when you say 'industrial complex' since the US cow herd is held by ranchers and farmers at an average of about 40 head per operation, but if beef consumption makes you angry, your corner florist must make you absolutely livid.
Doesn't change the fact that beef industry needs to cease.
Now we're actually getting somewhere. See, in defense of an ideal, you're willing to go complete Totalitarian, dictator-state and decide what is best for the many in spite of market signals and consumer demand to the contrary.
This is exactly what I proposed initially, which was the deliberate maintenance of impoverishment of some section of society. You've focused on the US Cattleman, which I point out is self-defeating because the international Cattleman will completely absorb, and circumvent your proposed 'tariff'.
You're on the right track but you're not thinking big enough. You can't just suppress a Developed World sector, you have to nip the demographics trend in the bud and keep the most rapidly growing/consuming marginal player from advancing. Because even drastic first world austerity will get overshadowed by marginal excess in the 3rd world majority.
What we have to do is keep the global, rural poor both rural and poor. And, preferably, international, because we can all see what happens to homogeneous N european countries when they import even a small number (relatively) of these asylum-seekers (whether political or economic).
What we have to do is keep the global, rural poor both rural and poor. And, preferably, international, because we can all see what happens to homogeneous N european countries when they import even a small number (relatively) of these asylum-seekers (whether political or economic).
What does happen to homogeneous Northern European Countries when they import even a small number of asylum-seekers?
Doesn't change the fact that beef industry needs to cease.
Now we're actually getting somewhere. See, in defense of an ideal, you're willing to go complete Totalitarian, dictator-state and decide what is best for the many in spite of market signals and consumer demand to the contrary.
This is exactly what I proposed initially, which was the deliberate maintenance of impoverishment of some section of society. You've focused on the US Cattleman, which I point out is self-defeating because the international Cattleman will completely absorb, and circumvent your proposed 'tariff'.
You're on the right track but you're not thinking big enough. You can't just suppress a Developed World sector, you have to nip the demographics trend in the bud and keep the most rapidly growing/consuming marginal player from advancing. Because even drastic first world austerity will get overshadowed by marginal excess in the 3rd world majority.
What we have to do is keep the global, rural poor both rural and poor. And, preferably, international, because we can all see what happens to homogeneous N european countries when they import even a small number (relatively) of these asylum-seekers (whether political or economic).
There is plenty of data. Ice core samples, naval records, tree growth records, coral records all give us very good data about the climate.
The consensus is clear. Climate change is happening, and it is man made. The dispute now is down to how bad is it and what the acceptable level of warming is.
OK buddy, lets start with some science, those records rely on the fact that the things they are measuring CO2. As a Chemical Engineering student I can assure you that as a liquid cools down, its ability to retain dissolved gases in it decreases. This means that as the sea cools the CO2 in the water decreases and as it warms up the concentration of CO2 increases.
This means as the earth's mean temperature fluctuates (climate is too vague and ill defined a term for this discussion) the CO2 dissolves into and out of the ocean, sort of like the earth is breathing.
This means there are two probable reasons for climate change, 1 CO2 is released and dissolved into the oceans to compensate for the climate, or 2 an external factor is effecting the climate and CO2 levels simply correlate.
I am conflicted as you are trying to explain an extraordinarily complex system with only one factor. We still don't know what caused the Ice Ages concretely (most agree it has to do with Milankovitch Cycles) and you are assuming you of all people have the enlightened mental capacity to take what is probably the most complex system in the galaxy, completely unique and most likely solitary and take one of its many variables and boil it down to one cause.
What we have to do is keep the global, rural poor both rural and poor. And, preferably, international, because we can all see what happens to homogeneous N european countries when they import even a small number (relatively) of these asylum-seekers (whether political or economic).
What does happen to homogeneous Northern European Countries when they import even a small number of asylum-seekers?
feeder wrote: Are you going to make a habit of speaking for me? Because if so I'm out.
I'm taking your naive ideology to the necessary next steps implied by your desired end state. 'Ban the US industrial cattle complex' will maybe, maybe buy 15 years of 'global warming slowing' or whatever you want to call it. Because, (and this estimate will have legitimacy because I'm a subject matter expert on the US cattle industry and antecedent supply chain) 'banning' the US from producing Beef will simply spike US Beef prices by 400% and incent a quintupling of Australian and Canadian beef production to backfill the US supply chain and satisfy end consumer demand. The enormous surge in profitability in international cattle and beef markets will actually promote faster herd growth in the countries where herd growth is most common today. The net effect on warming will be zilch, except that the US trade deficit will go more negative and our supplying countries and their secondary supply chain competitors (like Brazil who would then backfill Australian importers that were shut down when trade flows altered for Aus/NZ to go to US) would see net wealth increase.
Which would then promote their GDP, and per capita energy consumption, and infrastructure to support it, which would accelerate global warming.
And since stopping global warming is the penultimate goal, promoting growth of these emerging markets has to be stopped. Because that's the only way to slow the 'grassroots' consumption growth that will most contribute to global warming over the next 100 years (which apparently is the window of time we have in which to Stop Global Warming Or Else).
The measure you're suggesting is simply a stopgap that would reduce quality of life for Americans indefinitely while boosting economic growth for the demographic that will accelerate global warming.
feeder wrote: Are you going to make a habit of speaking for me? Because if so I'm out.
I'm taking your naive ideology to the necessary next steps implied by your desired end state. 'Ban the US industrial cattle complex' will maybe, maybe buy 15 years of 'global warming slowing' or whatever you want to call it. Because, (and this estimate will have legitimacy because I'm a subject matter expert on the US cattle industry and antecedent supply chain) 'banning' the US from producing Beef will simply spike US Beef prices by 400% and incent a quintupling of Australian and Canadian beef production to backfill the US supply chain and satisfy end consumer demand. The enormous surge in profitability in international cattle and beef markets will actually promote faster herd growth in the countries where herd growth is most common today. The net effect on warming will be zilch, except that the US trade deficit will go more negative and our supplying countries and their secondary supply chain competitors (like Brazil who would then backfill Australian importers that were shut down when trade flows altered for Aus/NZ to go to US) would see net wealth increase.
Which would then promote their GDP, and per capita energy consumption, and infrastructure to support it, which would accelerate global warming.
And since stopping global warming is the penultimate goal, promoting growth of these emerging markets has to be stopped. Because that's the only way to slow the 'grassroots' consumption growth that will most contribute to global warming over the next 100 years (which apparently is the window of time we have in which to Stop Global Warming Or Else).
The measure you're suggesting is simply a stopgap that would reduce quality of life for Americans indefinitely while boosting economic growth for the demographic that will accelerate global warming.
feeder wrote: Are you going to make a habit of speaking for me? Because if so I'm out.
I'm taking your naive ideology to the necessary next steps implied by your desired end state. 'Ban the US industrial cattle complex' will maybe, maybe buy 15 years of 'global warming slowing' or whatever you want to call it. Because, (and this estimate will have legitimacy because I'm a subject matter expert on the US cattle industry and antecedent supply chain) 'banning' the US from producing Beef will simply spike US Beef prices by 400% and incent a quintupling of Australian and Canadian beef production to backfill the US supply chain and satisfy end consumer demand. The enormous surge in profitability in international cattle and beef markets will actually promote faster herd growth in the countries where herd growth is most common today. The net effect on warming will be zilch, except that the US trade deficit will go more negative and our supplying countries and their secondary supply chain competitors (like Brazil who would then backfill Australian importers that were shut down when trade flows altered for Aus/NZ to go to US) would see net wealth increase.
Which would then promote their GDP, and per capita energy consumption, and infrastructure to support it, which would accelerate global warming.
And since stopping global warming is the penultimate goal, promoting growth of these emerging markets has to be stopped. Because that's the only way to slow the 'grassroots' consumption growth that will most contribute to global warming over the next 100 years (which apparently is the window of time we have in which to Stop Global Warming Or Else).
The measure you're suggesting is simply a stopgap that would reduce quality of life for Americans indefinitely while boosting economic growth for the demographic that will accelerate global warming.
His argument is emotional, how dare you challenge it with logic and reason!
What we have to do is keep the global, rural poor both rural and poor. And, preferably, international, because we can all see what happens to homogeneous N european countries when they import even a small number (relatively) of these asylum-seekers (whether political or economic).
What does happen to homogeneous Northern European Countries when they import even a small number of asylum-seekers?
Cologne December 31st 2015 happens.
99.9% of the population of Cologne having an uneventful day?
His post had content, as unnecessarily condescending as it was. The last 2 posts haven't. Include something with content and relevance or just don't post.
You simply can't stop, or even slow, global warming while still allowing the 3rd world to grow its population at current rates. No matter how many cattle you kill, if roughly 4.5 billion people grow by 1% per year, you could annihilate the entire US from the face of the Earth and net energy needs/output will still be higher 100 years from now than they are today.
Compromise has to be made along the way, and not just eating more salad or recycling old car batteries. And nobody actually has the stomach for that, so all global warming is today is a racket for policy makers and the 'green' energy companies that they funnel money towards.
Human impact on Global Warming remains completely unquantifiable (remember, as recent as 1970s it was global cooling that was going to kill all humanity) and as such, unmanageable. And that's ignoring the enormous issue of 3/4 of the world that is trying to find enough corn mush to feed itself, never mind combatting 'warming'.
Attacking the smaller, reducible issues like deforestation, or energy insecurity, especially now when commodity prices are at multiyear lows, will have a lot more success and lay the foundation for future efforts without the fly-by regulatory nonsense time is currently being wasted on.
What we have to do is keep the global, rural poor both rural and poor. And, preferably, international, because we can all see what happens to homogeneous N european countries when they import even a small number (relatively) of these asylum-seekers (whether political or economic).
What does happen to homogeneous Northern European Countries when they import even a small number of asylum-seekers?
Cologne December 31st 2015 happens.
99.9% of the population of Cologne having an uneventful day?
Do you ever read the news? Not the media, or the stuff you find with google searches to support your ideology, but the news.
sourclams wrote: For those who believe humans are the primary cause of global warming, the only material impact 1st world society can make is to ensure the third world (which represents mainland Asia and Africa and parts of S. and C. America) remains largely unindustrialized, rural, and by implication impoverished.
The single biggest contributor to climate change is the beef industrial complex. If we eliminated that we would reduce our impact considerably.
Yeah, no. Just no.
Methane isn't even on the radar for causing pollution. Cattle operations do cause a lot of pollution, but that's water runoff and not gaseous. That's one of those total bullgak crackpot theories(pun intended).
Methane isn't even on the radar for causing pollution. Cattle operations do cause a lot of pollution, but that's water runoff and not gaseous. That's one of those total bullgak crackpot theories(pun intended).
What about pollution from transporting feed/cattle/meat, processing feed/cattle/meat, refrigeration of meat, raising/housing cattle?
I won't claim that it adds enough to be the biggest source of carbon emission, but I'm just curious how that might compare to other sources of meat.
If anything I would put beef as being a bad offender towards water usage and being an inefficient source of protein in general, but I never really thought much about it in the way of carbon emissions.
Methane isn't even on the radar for causing pollution. Cattle operations do cause a lot of pollution, but that's water runoff and not gaseous. That's one of those total bullgak crackpot theories(pun intended).
What about pollution from transporting feed/cattle/meat, processing feed/cattle/meat, refrigeration of meat, raising/housing cattle?
I won't claim that it adds enough to be the biggest source of carbon emission, but I'm just curious how that might compare to other sources of meat.
If anything I would put beef as being a bad offender towards water usage and being an inefficient source of protein in general, but I never really thought much about it in the way of carbon emissions.
Beef is definitely the least efficient source of protein. Chicken and fish are the best.
But the whole "cows are causing global warming" argument is all based on the actual methane the cows digestive system creates, which is actually a negligible amount. Its usually pushed by the same pathetic people who pass out those fliers telling people to stop eating meat because pigs and chickens are cute, and somehow meat consumption is the root of all evil, etc...
As far as transportation and all that goes its not all that different from any other food which needs transporting. Weight is the primary concern in terms of transportation and a ton of beef weighs the same as a ton of chicken. So the primary factor in sustainability is the feed input, and cows are definitely the worst converter. At least if we are talking grain fed beef. Grass fed is whole different matter, you can't raise chickens on grass alone. So areas of grassland that are worthless for growing crops only have use in beef production.
Ouze wrote: I think that "is man causing change" is sort of a foregone answer. I think the better question is whether or not we can do anything about it, because if the answer is "no" - and I think it is - then the former is sort of a moot question.
The US might be able to change our contributions to climate change, at great economic cost, but there is no valid reason to think that we could significantly influence China or India or Russia to do so.
One of best pieces of work on this is the Stern review, headed by a UK economist. He found the cost of adapting to reduce climate change to be vastly lower than the cost of adapting to a changing climate. It's much cheaper to change to LED lights than it is to re-locate entire farm sectors to account for changing rainfall patterns, to give a very general example.
And while I agree that having the US and other developed countries put controls on and thinking that will do the job by itself is foolish, there is an important requirement for wealthier countries to lead the way. Solar panels, for instance, have achieved a scale of production such that they're now rapidly closing with older tech on a $/kw basis, in the context of household energy. The rebate for electric cars has similar made the proposed Tesla 3 viable, which could produce a base point for a rapid expansion in electric cars. Examples like this show how incentives in the US and other countries can create a base starting point for new technologies, which can then be expected to become viable in growing markets. So as new infrastructure is built in China and other developing countries they are more likely to use newer, greener tech. It's a roundabout way of getting to the end goal, but it seems a lot more workable than treaties and pledges.
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sourclams wrote: For those who believe humans are the primary cause of global warming, the only material impact 1st world society can make is to ensure the third world (which represents mainland Asia and Africa and parts of S. and C. America) remains largely unindustrialized, rural, and by implication impoverished.
Uh, no. You've confused resource consumption with greenhouse emissions. They are related but distinct. The latter is actually being solved through a mix of new energy technologies, albeit much slower than would be ideal. The former is a bigger, but much less pressing issue, and one likely to be resolved through basic market economics resulting in a more balanced share of resource consumption.
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sourclams wrote: And this further ignores that the beef produced by those cattle is going to be more sustainable 'per calorie' than much of the produce section of the grocery store, and certainly moreso than the floral section which has 0 caloric value but consumes enormous amount of water and supply chain 'space'. Meat is 70% water, which means it's 30% food. Spinach, by contrast, is more than 95% water, therefore less than 5% food, so much of the supply chain for 'fresh vegetables' is dedicated to leafy greens that are just a means of transporting refrigerated water at several dollars a pound.
And now you're comparing beef to flowers and spinach as alternative food sources. You skipped by grains, pretty much for the reason of trying to be as cynical as possible. Don't do this, my eyes can only roll so far back.
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sourclams wrote: You're on the right track but you're not thinking big enough. You can't just suppress a Developed World sector, you have to nip the demographics trend in the bud and keep the most rapidly growing/consuming marginal player from advancing. Because even drastic first world austerity will get overshadowed by marginal excess in the 3rd world majority.
Oh, and now I see what this is about. Playing the hard man fantasy, applied to environmental policy. Okay, whatever.
sebster wrote: So if you’ve ever read about the efforts to attack evolution, or the cigarette companies attempt to discredit research linking cancer and smoking, you see a very similar pattern to what see with climate change denial.
There was a documentary that I watched in my political science class last semester that brought up an interesting "phenomenon." The majority of of the chief lobbyists who defended Big Tobacco are the same exact people who are now working to defend/discredit other major and minor issues in politics in much the same way. One guy went from tobacco to furniture, pulling a massive con-job on California's "flame retardant" materials requirement for furniture. A few have gone over to climate-change-denial as well. The addage presented in "Thank You for Smoking" was 'if you can do tobacco, you can do anything,' and that definitely seems to be true.
Back when I was in a geology class, the professor showed us aerial photos documenting that the Rainier Glacier was actually growing over a period of 5 years around 2009. (granted it was literally only a foot a year) I would be curious to see what has been released as far as since then. This may have been the warmest January Washington has recorded (so says The Media™) but I can visually see that Mt. Rainier has a gakload of snow on it, compared to how it looked last winter, or even what was left in April of 2014 when I arrived.
In case some people just want to read one of the responses to this "investigation" so that they can be totally surprised about what kind of investigation this could possibly be:
Mwahaha! Yeah. Good one. Look dude, seriously, this idea that it's easier to get government money for climate change research than it is to get oil and mining money is just bonkers. I know it gets passed around the anti-climate change world a lot, so you might have heard it often enough to think it's sensible, but holy hell come on.
OK buddy, lets start with some science, those records rely on the fact that the things they are measuring CO2. As a Chemical Engineering student I can assure you that as a liquid cools down, its ability to retain dissolved gases in it decreases. This means that as the sea cools the CO2 in the water decreases and as it warms up the concentration of CO2 increases.
This means as the earth's mean temperature fluctuates (climate is too vague and ill defined a term for this discussion) the CO2 dissolves into and out of the ocean, sort of like the earth is breathing.
You should maybe send some of your knowledge to NASA or IPCC. I'm sure they'd love to hear the insight of a chemical engineering student, and would rush to include your hard won knowledge in their models.
Methane isn't even on the radar for causing pollution. Cattle operations do cause a lot of pollution, but that's water runoff and not gaseous. That's one of those total bullgak crackpot theories(pun intended).
The impact from cows has been degraded somewhat in the last few years, but to claim emissions are not a pollutant at all is just completely wrong. Methane from cows is roughly on par with car emissions as a source of global warming.
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Grey Templar wrote: But the whole "cows are causing global warming" argument is all based on the actual methane the cows digestive system creates, which is actually a negligible amount. Its usually pushed by the same pathetic people who pass out those fliers telling people to stop eating meat because pigs and chickens are cute, and somehow meat consumption is the root of all evil, etc...
No. Just not even close. Methane from cows has been studied extensively by large research bodies including NASA and the EPA. The exact amount of emissions is debated (as it varies based on what cows are fed and other factors), but the general impact is known to be about as great a cars.
Mwahaha! Yeah. Good one. Look dude, seriously, this idea that it's easier to get government money for climate change research than it is to get oil and mining money is just bonkers. I know it gets passed around the anti-climate change world a lot, so you might have heard it often enough to think it's sensible, but holy hell come on.
Sebster, the US Government alone has spent over 4 billion in the last several years on researching climate change, and associated topics. Per the EPA's website, they grant close to 30 million a year on Climate Research.
Sebster, the US Government alone has spent over 4 billion in the last several years on researching climate change, and associated topics. Per the EPA's website, they grant close to 30 million a year on Climate Research.
That is big money.
No where near the billions that are spent on oil subsidies though.
Sebster, the US Government alone has spent over 4 billion in the last several years on researching climate change, and associated topics. Per the EPA's website, they grant close to 30 million a year on Climate Research.
That is big money.
No where near the billions that are spent on oil subsidies though.
Right, and with my background in meteorology, it's going to be a cake for me to go to the gov and apply for oil subsidy money.
That is a stupid argument. There is still billions of dollars being pumped into this "research". It's about the biggest influx of money our career field has ever seen, of course those who are benefiting from it want it to keep going.
In the last several years, NOAA's budget has increased from 4.5 billion to 5.5 billion. About a 22% increase. In the meantime, things like the DoD have seen budget cuts. So yeah, I say without a doubt in my mind that the massive budget increase they've seen has definitely been impacting some of the research.
Because of this large pot-o-money, AND the fact that the government funds almost 100% of the research into climate change... you cannot view any results of such research as completely unbiased.
When you're talking about this huge sums of money, it is important to recognize the institutional bias from the climate research community to view virtually all climate change as human-caused.
Once that is acknowledged, then it's really important for the research community to publish their raw data & methods to be independently verified. You know... really basic scientific method/validation gak.
So, instead of taking whichever side's as gospel... encourage the community to justify and prove their findings.
Because of this large pot-o-money, AND the fact that the government funds almost 100% of the research into climate change....
....in the US. Its not as if other countries and institutions don't conduct their own work in this field, which coincidentally seem to come up with the same findings.
Because of this large pot-o-money, AND the fact that the government funds almost 100% of the research into climate change....
....in the US. Its not as if other countries and institutions don't conduct their own work in this field, which coincidentally seem to come up with the same findings.
Are there any privately funded climate change research in the UK?
Are there any privately funded climate change research in the UK?
Are you under the impression that privately funded research is unbiased and government grants are driven towards a pre-determined conclusion? Because history generally disagrees with you.
Are there any privately funded climate change research in the UK?
Are you under the impression that privately funded research is unbiased and government grants are driven towards a pre-determined conclusion? Because history generally disagrees with you.
To address the dubious claims about Methane it isn't so much that Methane emissions are as prolific as CO2 it's that Methane is just such a potent greenhouse gas. With Methane emissions a little pollution goes a long way.
I still have yet to see any reputable research showing methane related to cattle specifically to be even a minor contributor to global warming. All the sources I see are from kooks and whackjobs.
Methane is 20 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It's still not as potent as Water Vapour, which is by far the most significant Greenhouse Gas, but it's very important.
Cattle are terrible for the environment in more ways than just their methane output though. The leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is slash and burn agriculture focused on cattle ranching. It's a disaster.
There is a large body of evidence out there on cattle generated methane's impact on climate btw.
I still find the claims to be dubious. Largely because Earth has had huge herds of herbivores for thousands and thousands of years. Our cattle operations aren't even close to overtaking the herds which were around during the last ice age all over the globe, and those would have made just as much methane as our cattle operations.
Actually, you'd be suprised. There are about 1.4 billion cattle alive today. The amount of animals alive just to feed us all is astounding. For instance there are around 19 billion chickens. It's quite impressive. Now, I'm not sure about a direct comparison, but It'd be closer than you think.
You'd still need to show the methane production of cattle today overall is significantly higher than those herds were creating in the past, which would be pretty tough to prove.
Either way, beef is a bit of a false flag. There are bigger fish to fry, and at this point climate change is inevitable so blaming X or Y is pretty pointless. We need to focus on adapting to the changing climate.
IMO Climate change is a natural process that has been accelerated in some amount by man's activities, how much is entirely unimportant. We'd have to deal with it eventually one way or the other, so we should stop wasting effort and money in assigning blame and focus on adaptation.
sebster wrote: The impact from cows has been degraded somewhat in the last few years, but to claim emissions are not a pollutant at all is just completely wrong. Methane from cows is roughly on par with car emissions as a source of global warming.
In fact, methane might be the real killer, it's a far more potent greenhouse gas (I think ~80 times more effective). There is some evidence that destabilization of methane deposits might have wreaked havoc with Earth's climate in the past, if runaway CO2 levels were to trigger runaway methane escapement, it would be like turbocharging the system.
Grey Templar wrote: I still find the claims to be dubious. Largely because Earth has had huge herds of herbivores for thousands and thousands of years. Our cattle operations aren't even close to overtaking the herds which were around during the last ice age all over the globe, and those would have made just as much methane as our cattle operations.
But I'll give them a read anyway.
There weren't humans pumping out billions of tons of CO2 at the time of the ice age, etc.
The really bad danger of methane is the amount of it currently locked up in melting permafrost. There is a good chance of a runaway warming effect.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Actually, you'd be suprised. There are about 1.4 billion cattle alive today. The amount of animals alive just to feed us all is astounding. For instance there are around 19 billion chickens. It's quite impressive. Now, I'm not sure about a direct comparison, but It'd be closer than you think.
There's about 1 billion cattle, and a little less than half that in [human owned] buffalo. The US directly controls roughly 90 million cattle, or slightly less than 10%. You could eliminate the entire US cattle herd, and Oceania+India+South America could make up that headcount deficit in about 15 years. Which is an illustration of why combating climate change through 'regulating' the US herd is futile.
But here are some uncomfortable truths about the global cattle herd, and cattle ownership:
Meat is very near to the first thing an impoverished (<$3k-$5k USD/year per cap GDP) population buys once they reach a certain income threshold (>$5k USD/year generally). The threshold moves depending on geography, and the protein can be fish, or chicken, or whatever, but in general once a person goes from 'nothing' to 'something' their first investment is in a meat-heavier diet. I've done lots of work in analyzing consumptive trends for differing decades and geographies and income levels and regardless of time slice, we see these nice S-curves develop where consumption goes from flat/zero to hit exponential increases up to about 60 lbs/person/year once income reaches roughly $20k USD/year, and then there's a linear flattening until we reach what looks like 'biological maximum' in the vicinity of 100 lbs/person/year.
The two fastest growing populations globally are Muslim and Hindu. Muslims have a variety of dietary restrictions, but no beef ingredient restriction; Muslim communities tend to go hand in hand with some sort of bovine herd. Hindus do not consume cattle flesh, but they do consume milk and milk byproducts, again requiring a base cattle herd.
One can shout 'cows are bad' all one wants, but it amounts to battling ALL of the major demographic trends. Long-term, the only way you prevent animal herd growth is to prevent wealth growth. These two things are inextricably related. You must control Muslim populations, or keep the rural poor, poor. (The 'most' sustainable thing that could be done from that standpoint is take the rural poor, round them up in ghettos, and let the commercial food production giants feed them off of least-cost calorie formulation. Wrap your head around that one for a moment.)
The second issue is that cow ownership, even here in the US, is badly fragmented. The mode herd size in the US is 30 head. The average herd size globally is 4 head. It is virtually impossible to regulate (much less enforce) cattle ownership due to this extreme fragmentation. The "cattle industrial complex" is only the feedlot level, which is just an intermediate stage in the total supply chain, and it's this step that contains and manages the animals and will have the least amount of environmental impact. This clustering of the herd actually lowers the barrier to implementing environmental-mitigating factors thanks to the economies of scale. This means that large commercial operations (run by Satan, if the enviro-types are to be believed) will have far less per-capita impact and perhaps even less gross impact on the environment and resource scarcity than the average 4-30 head owner that absolutely is not worried about fecal runoff or landscape impact.
So yeah, that's the laughable piece about the Cattle impact on global warming bit; IF cattle are a significant cause, "solutions" would be short-term at best, and only serve to fragment ownership at the most environmentally sustainable segment of the supply chain, putting more cattle in the hands of a 'dirtier' producer base that will be harder to regulate and enforce longer-term.
The cynical person would assume this would be obvious to anyone who even briefly looked into the details of the issue, and the continuation of this meme is to simply extract money from the commercial cattle supply chain.
sourclams: I do not actually disagree with much of what you are saying, but cattle are one of the bigger ecological challenges in the world right now.
We've exported them all over the world and basically terraformed large areas to turn them into cattle habitat, and nevermind the methane emissions, the sheer amount of land use for cattle farming, or the water use, are crazy.
It will take a change in attitudes and desires to get away from this, and as you correctly point out, demographics are trending the other way globally. I've personally cut down my beef consumption massively, but this makes little difference to the overall picture.
Grey Templar: Perhaps you are right, but there is little certainty in anything to do with climate science. The system is too chaotic and interlinked to be sure of what impact human contributions will have. Melting methane bogs in russia, increased water vapour in the the atmosphere, declining sea ice - all could be irrelevant if the sun decides to go into a cooler period.
However our best estimates suggest that human contributions are significant enough to warrant action. This may not turn out to be the case, but that's a pretty big gamble.
It's also irritating that the climate skeptic argument seems to have developed along the lines of:
"Warming is not happening."
"Warming is not caused by humans."
"Human contribution to warming is less than they're saying."
"It's too late to do anything about human contributions to warming."
Not accusing you, but having followed this for a long time that's the development I've seen.
Your argument about herds of large ruminants has several flaws too - modern cattle have been selectively bred for meat and milk production, both of these massively increase their methane output compared to the sort of output their ancestor species would have had. Due to the sort of digestive system ruminants have, they produce more methane anyhow, due to the action of bacteria in their gut.
Ruminants (and particularly cattle) were not actually common over much of the world for a long time until humans moved them there.
And finally, the planet is actually reasonably good at balancing these problems out as long as the ecosystem in general is healthy. But the last 200 years have seen a massive drop in biodiversity and especially in forest cover worldwide that has torpedoed the planet's capability to deal with the increased emissions from human activity.
I don't know what the answer is, but reducing meat intake is surely part of it.
Da Boss wrote: Methane is 20 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It's still not as potent as Water Vapour, which is by far the most significant Greenhouse Gas, but it's very important.
Just some general meteorological gee whiz info. The atmosphere ends becoming saturated with water vapor at about 6%. Once that threshold is hit, precipitation is pretty much a given, which will end up reducing the amount of water vapor. It's a self regulatory system.
Sure, I was just pointing out that there are more greenhouse gases than CO2, which gets all the publicity.
CO2 should also be self regulating, as increased CO2 should ideally increase photosynthesis. The problem is the reduction in photosynthesis from a variety of sources.
Da Boss wrote: Sure, I was just pointing out that there are more greenhouse gases than CO2, which gets all the publicity.
CO2 should also be self regulating, as increased CO2 should ideally increase photosynthesis. The problem is the reduction in photosynthesis from a variety of sources.
CO2 is arguable in its self regulation. If that were the case, we wouldn't be at levels drastically higher then during the ice age. All of the CO2 released from the melting glaciers would have eventually been reabsorbed in the 10,000 years or so prior to the formation of industry. What I think can be argued that if it were not for the massive influx of CO2 in the atmosphere, civilization as we know it would not exist, since large scale agriculture would have been impossible.
I don't know what the answer is, but reducing meat intake is surely part of it.
No, it's not, because marginal increases in developing world countries will outweigh even drastic decreases in the developed world over any intermediate-timeframe.
The most sustainability would come from the opposite of what you're generally suggesting; the parts of the globe most suited to commercial meat production (North America, Oceania i.e. "new" continents with robust infrastructure) should promote production and export to the developing world nations that are unsuited to it. This would promote meat production, again, necessary to fulfill global consumptive demand, but it would be in the 'cleanest' supply chains capable of highest yield versus the environmental impact.
And this doesn't even touch the 'meat consumption bad' fallacy. What are we supposed to eat more of, as we consume less calorie-dense meat? Vegetables and fruit are the usual answer, but due to irrigation needs these items consume enormous amounts of reservoir water specifically, which is what is becoming most scarce and most rapidly depleted and is in direct competition with potable drinking water. Livestock consumes lots of water as well, but again, livestock produce between 6x and 25x as much food (if measured in calorie output per input unit) as the leafy green vegetables (spinach is more than 95% water and has almost no caloric value, celery even worse) and 'luxury' fruits that we just assume are sustainable because they spring from Gaia, or something.
A much more rational prioritization would be to work towards eliminating overly intensive agriculture with high fragmentation; decorative flowers, nuts (almonds in particular), and consolidating commercial production of leafy greens into the base levels to fulfill reasonable daily mineral and vitamin rations while eliminating those that provide almost no caloric value (like celery).
But it's fashionable to pick on cattlemen, and unfashionable to tell Bridezilla that her splurge on $5,000 worth of flowers for "her special day" is irresponsible stewardship.
I can appreciate your desire to have positive impact, but you're going after the highest hurdle in a pointless way.
If we didn't cut down the rainforests to grow corn for cattle as well as cattle, CO2 might be self regulating yet still.
As it is, we've removed the world's lungs, and people still think it will breathe.
This argument will be solved in a short time, either with catastrophe or a paradigm shift. I for one would like to be on the right side of history in my lifetime.
People don't need to eat beef, FFS. It is and always was optional. Humanity shouldn't feel it has the right to endlessly expand its population without moving to another planet. We need to be smarter than bacteria in a petri dish.
The fact that this thread contains so many of you who are disregarding this on virtually no grounds is quite honestly depressing to me. You guys aren't helping my children have a secure future. We don't need to let the oil and beef moguls decide how long humanity gets to have a nice home, yet people will actively vote for them to have positions of power in office. If nothing changes, there will come a time when these separate ideologies about an obvious and easy to understand issue will result in conflicts, although humans are notoriously good at getting rid of their denial a moment before it's too late. I would simply like to be more proactive about the problem than wait until it's far more work than it should be. Stopping climate change by changing our actions and paradigm will be so much easier and cleaner than attempting to live with it while the world's species are choking and dying around us. There is no reason we can't engineer ways to fix this problem if we focus on it. I don't want to view you guys as an enemy or a threat to my survival and my children's survival.
If you can name one change in the last 200 years that has changed the world more than the industrial revolution and resulting population explosion, I'm all ears. Replace the work of scientists with a theory of your own that has as much data behind it as anthropogenic climate change does, and then have all the scientists in the world review it and change their minds.
Interestingly, I just heard a story on the radio today that the FBI is looking into whether or not the climate change deniers would be subject to prosecution similar to when the Clinton administration won a civil suit against big tobacco in the 1990s. Evidently a lot of the same names keep popping up between the two groups (climate change denier researchers and big tobacco illness denier researchers).
Gordon Shumway wrote: Interestingly, I just heard a story on the radio today that the FBI is looking into whether or not the climate change deniers would be subject to prosecution similar to when the Clinton administration won a civil suit against big tobacco in the 1990s. Evidently a lot of the same names keep popping up between the two groups (climate change denier researchers and big tobacco illness denier researchers).
Not exactly true. The Department of Justice has had "conversations" about taking civil action against "fossil fuel industry" for denying man made global warming. The DoJ forwarded the issue to the FBI but so far nothing has come of it. The anti-tobacco suit also had to do with a whole lot more than denying that cigarettes were harmful.
Still, the fact that the DoJ was willing to do this should frighten people.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Interestingly, I just heard a story on the radio today that the FBI is looking into whether or not the climate change deniers would be subject to prosecution similar to when the Clinton administration won a civil suit against big tobacco in the 1990s. Evidently a lot of the same names keep popping up between the two groups (climate change denier researchers and big tobacco illness denier researchers).
Not exactly true. The Department of Justice has had "conversations" about taking civil action against "fossil fuel industry" for denying man made global warming. The DoJ forwarded the issue to the FBI but so far nothing has come of it. The anti-tobacco suit also had to do with a whole lot more than denying that cigarettes were harmful.
Still, the fact that the DoJ was willing to do this should frighten people.
Thanks for the added information. I just caught a brief blurb. As to whether or not it should frighten people: if anything does come of it and the FBI does take action, and if it does go to court (lots of ifs there), then I really don't see anything wrong with it. If an industry is intentionally spreading false information in order to cook the books, so to speak, that should be something that is litigegated. Frankly, I would be more frightened if they thought something was wrong and they just turned a blind eye towards it.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Interestingly, I just heard a story on the radio today that the FBI is looking into whether or not the climate change deniers would be subject to prosecution similar to when the Clinton administration won a civil suit against big tobacco in the 1990s. Evidently a lot of the same names keep popping up between the two groups (climate change denier researchers and big tobacco illness denier researchers).
Not exactly true. The Department of Justice has had "conversations" about taking civil action against "fossil fuel industry" for denying man made global warming. The DoJ forwarded the issue to the FBI but so far nothing has come of it. The anti-tobacco suit also had to do with a whole lot more than denying that cigarettes were harmful.
Still, the fact that the DoJ was willing to do this should frighten people.
Thanks for the added information. I just caught a brief blurb. As to whether or not it should frighten people: if anything does come of it and the FBI does take action, and if it does go to court (lots of ifs there), then I really don't see anything wrong with it. If an industry is intentionally spreading false information in order to cook the books, so to speak, that should be something that is litigegated. Frankly, I would be more frightened if they thought something was wrong and they just turned a blind eye towards it.
I actually did talk about the issue of these lobbyists and other people who moved from big tobacco into other industries. And I found/remembered the name of the documentary where I saw just how intertwined, and present they are on so many issues. It's called Merchants of Doubt, if you care for documentaries.
djones520 wrote: Sebster, the US Government alone has spent over 4 billion in the last several years on researching climate change, and associated topics. Per the EPA's website, they grant close to 30 million a year on Climate Research.
That is big money.
Of course there's money in climate research, it's a major field of research. The point is whether it's easier to get a decent contract through that government stream, or instead look to oil, coal and other companies and get them to fund your work. And the answer there should be extremely obvious. The resources sector will pay extremely good rates, and they don't even care if your work is scientific crap, just as long as the conclusions are right.
Think of it like this - 30 years ago there were three types of people getting paid for research. There were professional scientists who believed in man made global warming, there were professional scientists who were skeptical man made global warming, and there were professional skeptics who played at science. Theoretically there could have been a fourth category, professional believers who played at science, but the basic reality is there's never been any money in that - no environmental group is ever going to have the deep pockets of BHP or Rio Tinto.
Over the next 30 years the science developed and became increasingly clear, and the professional scientists who doubted man made climate change steadily dropped away. This has left two groups working at climate research, professional scientists who believe in man made climate change, and professional skeptics who play at science.
Because of this large pot-o-money, AND the fact that the government funds almost 100% of the research into climate change... you cannot view any results of such research as completely unbiased.
Really, this is just a fairly dramatic way of saying that you choose to doubt the findings of major research institutions like NASA.
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whembly wrote: Are there any privately funded climate change research in the UK?
What the hell kind of private organisation is going to pour millions of dollars in to research to verify findings already made by government?
The requirement you're setting up is ludicrous, something that's ever been expected of any scientific finding, ever.
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Grey Templar wrote: I still have yet to see any reputable research showing methane related to cattle specifically to be even a minor contributor to global warming. All the sources I see are from kooks and whackjobs.
"Methane (CH4) is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the United States from human activities. In 2013, CH4 accounted for about 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities." "Globally, the Agriculture sector is the primary source of CH4 emissions."
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Grey Templar wrote: I still find the claims to be dubious. Largely because Earth has had huge herds of herbivores for thousands and thousands of years.
High methane emission is not consistent among all large herbivores. That's the point. Cows are particularly bad for methane emission, because of how their digestive systems work. Please, just, I implore you to stop thinking up bits and pieces of knowledge to try and reject the findings coming out from major institutions.
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Co'tor Shas wrote: Actually, you'd be suprised. There are about 1.4 billion cattle alive today. The amount of animals alive just to feed us all is astounding.
It's even crazier when you think that it'll be a different 19 billion chickens two months from now, because we've eaten the last lot.
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Smacks wrote: In fact, methane might be the real killer, it's a far more potent greenhouse gas (I think ~80 times more effective). There is some evidence that destabilization of methane deposits might have wreaked havoc with Earth's climate in the past, if runaway CO2 levels were to trigger runaway methane escapement, it would be like turbocharging the system.
Oh for sure, methane is a huge issue. I was just pre-empting the argument that because the impact of methane has been downgraded about 25% over the last five odd years, that it's not a risk at all (I've seen that argument before a few times, not sure if I've seen it on dakka).
Despite that 25% downgrade it's still a major driver of climate change.
Sourclams: I'm not optimistic that we can change eating habits with regard to beef. It's tasty, milk and cheese and so on are getting more popular. As you point out, Islam is a growing religion and beef is a good option for them diet wise.
I also don't think that it's just developed nations who need to change, it's obviously even more important in developing nations, but also much harder to bring about there.
I don't believe the problem is easily solvable. And also, of course, some areas are more suited to cattle agriculture than others.
I also don't think cattle farmers are bad people - I grew up between two dairy farms in Ireland. My entire culture is obsessed with cattle. The word in Irish Gaelic for "road" is "bothar" - literally "cow path". Buachaill is boy, can be translated as "person who watches the cattle". Our most famous High King, Brian Boru - Brian of the Cattle Tributes. Our version of the Iliad - The táin bó cúailnge - the cattle raid at Coole. When I worked as a researcher, it was in cattle agriculture, because that's where the focus is at home.
Our agricultural production is pretty much the only reason we're not reaching our targets, but beef exports are one of the only things actually functioning in our economy past multinationals using it as a tax haven or property speculation.
I think acknowledging the problems posed by large scale cattle agriculture is possible while still accepting that the problem is both complex and intractable, and any solution will likely create economic and social problems for large swathes of the world's population.
But we should still think on the problem and consider solutions to it.
I'm quite optimistic that we can move away from producing and consuming vast quantities of meat. Tofu and bugs supported by more sensible local farming is an alternative. Plus people will eat what is readily available so that's a powerful method of influencing eating habits.
I'm not so optimistic that this will happen before massive environmental and economic collapse. The main problem is that food is produced to be sold rather than eaten which creates all sorts of perverse and dangerous incentives. Unless we replace the global economic system we can't solve any environmental problems.
Which, obviously, offers some difficulties of its own.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: If we didn't cut down the rainforests to grow corn for cattle as well as cattle, CO2 might be self regulating yet still.
The clearing of S. American rainforests is moreso to create pastureland for grazing animals (cattle) and soybeans than it is corn. The corn-cattle link is relatively unique to N. America on any sort of scale. Brazil is actually a pretty poor climate for corn, and it was the aberration of ethanol-policy-induced $6+/bushel corn that resulted widespread planting in Brazil in recent history. I suspect you're expressing a sentiment moreso than a fact here, but soybeans are more of an export crop for cooking oils and pig feed in Asia.
As it is, we've removed the world's lungs, and people still think it will breathe.
So here's another of the unnoticed hypocrisies of the urban developed world versus the rural developing world: much of the world's best arable farmland has buildings on it, because urban areas tend to accumulate, grow, and 'sprawl' from river basins and waterway sites that allowed them to become established as transportation hubs. Chicago and its suburbs, for example, is on some of the best-yielding farmland on the planet. One of the most sustainable things that society could collectively do today woudl be to take many of the large East Coast and Midwest population centers, and relocate them somewhere between the Rockies and Mississippi (much of which is still Federal land, even). Et voila, human habitation is now on crappy land full of clay and rocks and sand, and we've got millions of acres opened up for prime vegetable-planting.
But that'll never get proposed, because it would be hugely inconvenient. It's much better to preach about how 'we' [but not you] have removed the world's lungs, but never mind you're in the global 1% of standard of living, that dirt peasant trying to literally cut a farm our of jungle is the problem. (which I can actually agree with, but the easiest solution is to open up his local marketplace to commercial agriculture, which will out-produce him at lower cost and 'force' him off the land, so to speak, because he can't compete with economies of scale)
People don't need to eat beef, FFS. It is and always was optional. Humanity shouldn't feel it has the right to endlessly expand its population without moving to another planet. We need to be smarter than bacteria in a petri dish.
See, people don't need to consume beef (milk and leather) but most do want to. Beef also has a much longer shelf life than other meats and its byproducts, in the form of milk and cheese and butter, are both perishable and also highly demanded. Goats (and I am a firm advocate of goat farming, their conversions are incredible) and sheep yield far less milk than dairy cattle, meaning that it will take disproportionately MORE animals for the same amount of output. Sheep in particular have weaker digestive tracts which open them up to disease and diet issues. There's always tradeoffs.
The "solution" of 'banning cattle', or whatever is supposed to be done to limit cattle methane, is pretty stupid once you get into the details. Just like 'conserving' by driving a Prius, which has a battery made out of heavy and rare-earth metals and consumes electricity powered predominantly by coal, is also pretty stupid. These aren't really science or fact-based assessments, they're emotional sentiments "I feel I'm doing well therefore I must be doing well" [even though my actual impact is nil and might actually be counterproductive].
The fact that this thread contains so many of you who are disregarding this on virtually no grounds
What irritates me (and even so I'd never tell you how to live your life) is that you probably think you're a "sustainable" person even though I doubt you really understand the environmental impact or standard of living you're enjoying by being a non-agrarian urban or suburban-dwelling, leafy-green-vegetable eating, internet-and-all-of-the-attendant-electricity-consuming "enlightened" person. The sheer amount of preachy, implied altruistic intellectualism that you're spouting without much evidence that you understand the details to begin to even comprehend how complex these systems are is what's off-putting, regardless of your argument.
The poor farmer cutting down rainforest to make room for a quick cash crop is not the problem. It's the economic policies in place that make this the best choice for his continued survival.
What irritates me (and even so I'd never tell you how to live your life) is that you probably think you're a "sustainable" person even though I doubt you really understand the environmental impact or standard of living you're enjoying by being a non-agrarian urban or suburban-dwelling, leafy-green-vegetable eating, internet-and-all-of-the-attendant-electricity-consuming "enlightened" person. The sheer amount of preachy, implied altruistic intellectualism that you're spouting without much evidence that you understand the details to begin to even comprehend how complex these systems are is what's off-putting, regardless of your argument.
I am fully on board with the fact that a genuine equalisation of global resource use would mean the end of consumer electronics and cheap meat as well as other significant changes to our diet and general lifestyles. The first world lifestyle will one day end whether we would like it to or not and I would say it's much better to build a sane replacement voluntarily under orderly circumstances than scrabble in mad panic as it collapses.
for not lowing prices since plastic is cheaper than it's been in years.
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