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 Seaward wrote:
That's nine kinds of ironic on a board devoted to plastic fighting mens games.

Trying to claim that owning a few hundred pieces of moulded plastic represents consumerism is inane.

The problem isn't coming up with solutions, by the way. The "problem" is that nobody cares. Seriously. Nobody gives a gak about this issue.

And on this I actually agree with Seaward. If we wanted sustainability we'd have it. The difference being, I suspect, that Seaward concludes 'and therefore we should carry on not caring about it', whereas I happen to think that we should at least try to do the sensible thing, even if its quite likely that people will insist on being crazy.

 whembly wrote:
I feel like you haven't read any of my earlier posts.

Sorry, I did read them, so I don't think I'm missing anything that would work as a counter to my point that how activist groups might have sold the cause reflects not at all on the science underpinning that cause.

Really Seb?

So, do you believe everything your government tells you?

No, of course not. This isn't about some guy coming out and just saying it. This is about a scientific field establishing a theory then refining it and testing it over the course of four decades, all along the way steadily bringing on board every major scientific institution on the planet. We are at the point where rejecting this means you are rejecting the very idea that science can tell us things about the planet.

It's the highest of hubris to believe that we human kind has that sort of influence over mother nature, that many Climate Alarmist is perpetuating.

That's an argument from metaphysics or philosophy, not science. Science will tell you that an increase in CO2 emmissions will increase global temperatures, producing a wide range of local impacts and changes in weather patterns. This isn't new science, greenhouses have been a thing for more than a hundred years. And that is really the only thing that matters.

Here's the dealio Sebster... many scientists are convinced that human activity is a factor in influencing global warming... right? I'm not discounting that. Okay?

Well, if by many you mean 97% of scientists active in the field, then yeah.

In addition, it is also well known that the causes extend outside human activities that we had no part in creating and which we are powerless to stop (Solar activites, volcanoes, oceanic trends, etc...). Here's the kicker... NO ONE is able to definitively peg a percentage of the warming that we’ve seen so far is attributable to natural vs. human causes. It's all educated guesses...

Actually, solar flares have been utterly debunked, as there has been no warming pattern on other planets. Volcanoes increase greenhouse gasses, but they also offset those emissions with a number of other emissions and an increase in cloud effect. The oceanic trends are cyclical, with cycles up to 15 years iirc, and while they make the data more complex, they do nothing to offset or increase long term warming trends.

And there are sophisticated models to track the input and importance of all kinds of effects. Thousands of boffins work away at that stuff all day long.

The IPCC thought they had the answers in the 90s, which we now know is proven to be wrong.

The models weren't as sophisticated as they are now, but calling them wrong is simply not true.

The true danger, imo, is that someday people will realize that no matter what we do, we will never stop global warming entirely because a good fraction of the causes are natural and not anthropogenic.

Non-anthropogenic causes are very long term, gradual processes, measured in hundreds or thousands of years, not the decades we're witnessing.

Um... no, the tree ring data had to be hand-picked to get the desired result (getting that hockey bend). Even the National Academy of Science Report from 2006 clarifed that the hockey-stick methodologies lead "questionable historical reconstructions."

It's discredited largely by the scientific community.

Ah yes, you're right on that. I was thinking of a different paper. Maybe. Some of my reading on this goes back a long time now... might be I read about the hockey stick thing before the conclusion.

Anyhow, point to you.

But I will point out that with the hockey stick graph... that's science working as it is supposed to. A problem is shown with one method and its results, and it is no longer used. Meanwhile there are dozens of other studies that use other methods that produce results just like the infamous hockey stick graph, and there is no sensible challenge to the methods in any of those studies.

That doesn't mean I want these industries to willfully ignore current laws/regulation to pollute the environment in the name of the almighty dolla... but, to have bureaucrats to artificially impose an "emission tax" is an asinine policy is crazy pants. There are better ways to achieve this.

Economics disagrees with you. And this is one of the places where it becomes clear I'm actually a lot more right wing than you - I believe a properly designed market will reach an optimum conclusion far better than government rules.

Because the research isn't complete Seb... We don't know what we don't fething know. There's no reason to implement drastic policies until we know for sure.

I think you're wildly overstating how drastic the policy will be. We had this debate in Australia before our own Carbon Tax was put in place... and then it came and nothing. No industry collapse, no massive spike in employment. Just... a really small increase in the cost of living, and ridiculous amount of whinging.

Nah... it's the poorer country that are the big polluters (throw in India, China and Russia too).

While they have great poverty, they are not the poor countries. Ironically, it is in the process of moving from poor countries to developing countries that's led to their increase in pollution. If you want real poor look at India and China's neighbours - look at countries like Bangladesh, and tell me how practical it will be for them to adapt to climate change.

And you should remember who actually gets the goods produced by their pollution heavy manufacturing - it is you and I who end up wearing the shirts they produce, watching the tvs they produce.

Well, you've certainly done a good job of establishing that you have no clue about this subject.

First of show me an emission less car that can pull several thousand pounds and travel several hundred miles on a charge?

Second, does everyone here realise that the power your using to charge your toy electric car most likely came from the burning of fossil fuels?

Your car may not spit emissions out of a tail pipe, but its producing emissions all the same... Just from a big ol coal burning plant.

Sorry if that burst your "feel good" bubble.

 Seaward wrote:
And that's the dire, dire, DIRE situation you're telling us about. Our lifeboat will sink, unless everyone in the world hugs a tree and starts singing Kumbaya. I know that's not going to happen, so why bother?

Oh look, and here Seaward tells us he knows that gak isn't going to happen. Peer reviewed science built up over a period of forty years can suck it, because Seaward knows.

 sebster wrote:
Trying to claim that owning a few hundred pieces of moulded plastic represents consumerism is inane.

No more inane than claiming they fall into Peregrine's "buy what you need," proposal.

And on this I actually agree with Seaward. If we wanted sustainability we'd have it. The difference being, I suspect, that Seaward concludes 'and therefore we should carry on not caring about it', whereas I happen to think that we should at least try to do the sensible thing, even if its quite likely that people will insist on being crazy.

I don't see anything sensible at all about hamstringing our economy in the hopes it might, maybe, possibly do something about a problem we may not be able to affect anyway.



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 sebster wrote:
Oh look, and here Seaward tells us he knows that gak isn't going to happen. Peer reviewed science built up over a period of forty years can suck it, because Seaward knows.

This is a reading comprehension fail on your part, sebster, and a fairly significant one. I was saying that not everyone's going to get on board with the environmental agenda, not that climate change will not occur.

Jesus Christ. It wasn't even a difficult sentence to parse. I get that you get angry and start foaming, but come on.

 BarBoBot wrote:
First of show me an emission less car that can pull several thousand pounds and travel several hundred miles on a charge?

Whether or not it exists right now it can exist. There's no inherent limit in the technology that prevents it, and the biggest factor in the absence of vehicles like that is the fact that nobody is forcing car manufacturers to develop and build them.

Second, does everyone here realise that the power your using to charge your toy electric car most likely came from the burning of fossil fuels?

Sigh. Go back and read where I've said that electric cars are only part of the solution, and should be accompanied by nuclear/hydroelectric/geothermal/solar power.

Also, even if you're getting electricity from fossil fuel power plants there are significant gains in efficiency and emissions when you scale up the size of your power plants. A well-designed coal power plant is going to produce less pollution per unit of energy than the engine in your car, and that's ignoring the differences between carrying electrical energy over power lines vs. driving trucks full of gas everywhere to supply your car.

Just from a big ol coal burning plant.

And guess what I also oppose.


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 Seaward wrote:
No more inane than claiming they fall into Peregrine's "buy what you need," proposal.

Yeah, because I was clearly talking about "needs" as in basic survival, not "don't buy useless garbage that just collects dust in your closet until you finally throw it away".

22 years ago text books told me that my home town would be part of a new coast line right around now.

There have been other scary claims which appear to have taken a small drop of science topped off with large amounts of scare mongering and politicization.

Climate change is real, but can the layman be pulled up for believing that 'THE SCIENZ' is hokum when it is fed through biased channels?

 Mr. Burning wrote:
22 years ago text books told me that my home town would be part of a new coast line right around now.

There have been other scary claims which appear to have taken a small drop of science topped off with large amounts of scare mongering and politicization.

Climate change is real, but can the layman be pulled up for believing that 'THE SCIENZ' is hokum when it is fed through biased channels?

Yeah, there is exaggeration on both sides.

 Seaward wrote:
No more inane than claiming they fall into Peregrine's "buy what you need," proposal.

"Buy what you need" would be almost inane, if it weren't for the fact that as a species we so rarely do it. Instead it becomes really, really useful advice. I mean, read my sig, there it is right there, albeit in a slightly different form, and for a slightly different purpose.

Whereas your suggestion, that a couple of hundred pieces of plastic are consumerism in the way that a new hummer might be... well that's just silly.

I don't see anything sensible at all about hamstringing our economy in the hopes it might, maybe, possibly do something about a problem we may not be able to affect anyway.

Whereas I don't see anything sensible at all about throwing terms like hamstringing out there, when we know the costs of carbon reduction and they simply aren't 'hamstringing'. And I find it perhaps sillier still to go straight from 'oh is there much of a problem', as you asked in a thread not that long ago, to now deciding that there's nothing we can do about it.

This is a reading comprehension fail on your part, sebster, and a fairly significant one. I was saying that not everyone's going to get on board with the environmental agenda, not that climate change will not occur.

It can be read either way. It doesn't really matter, as whether your argument rests on assuming the boat will sink, or whether it rests on needing everyone to hug and sing kumbaya, they're both very stupid claims.


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 Mr. Burning wrote:
Climate change is real, but can the layman be pulled up for believing that 'THE SCIENZ' is hokum when it is fed through biased channels?

Very true. It's often said that politically active groups have done a lot of harm by overstating the immediacy and threat of climate change, despite meaning well. The issue I have with that is that I don't really want to give those groups the credit of meaning well - too many are little more than attention whores.

 BarBoBot wrote:
How many years have they been claiming that oil is going to run out? The "experts" said it would be gone by now, but somehow we have found more oil, and more ways to get oil from different sources.

...

Obviously there is not infinite oil.

 sebster wrote:
"Buy what you need" would be almost inane, if it weren't for the fact that as a species we so rarely do it. Instead it becomes really, really useful advice. I mean, read my sig, there it is right there, albeit in a slightly different form, and for a slightly different purpose.

Whereas your suggestion, that a couple of hundred pieces of plastic are consumerism in the way that a new hummer might be... well that's just silly.

The only difference is the scale, sebster. Space Marines aren't somehow a more utilitarian purchase than a Hummer.

If nothing else, this thread has inspired me to finally pull the trigger on that $2K quadrotor I'd like to dick around with now and then.

Whereas I don't see anything sensible at all about throwing terms like hamstringing out there, when we know the costs of carbon reduction and they simply aren't 'hamstringing'. And I find it perhaps sillier still to go straight from 'oh is there much of a problem', as you asked in a thread not that long ago, to now deciding that there's nothing we can do about it.

I'd appreciate you not putting words in my mouth, thanks. My stance on this has always been, "I don't care." Is it happening? Whether the answer's yes or no (and I personally think it's yes), I don't care. It doesn't justify reconfiguring the way we live and do business. And pretending that getting to where guys like Peregrine want us to be would be a mostly painless, cheap process? Please. Either you're being disingenuous, or you don't know what you're talking about.

Sustainability's not going to gain any ground until it makes a modicum of economic sense. A good friend of mine went into sustainability consulting when he got out of the Navy and got his Master's. It doesn't work for most companies. They increase spending or decrease productivity, and have nothing to show for it. Shareholders don't give a gak about a sense of environmental well-being.

It can be read either way. It doesn't really matter, as whether your argument rests on assuming the boat will sink, or whether it rests on needing everyone to hug and sing kumbaya, they're both very stupid claims.

I don't think they're anywhere near as stupid as, "Hummers are bad, plastic toy soldiers are useful!" but to each their own. The major economies do in fact all need to be on board with any of these sustainability pipe dreams, because the plan doesn't work without that being the case. China or India or even the EU would be quite happy to fill a US-sized void if it meant increased growth with the only offset being some nebulously-defined, far-off doomsday where the beach is a little colder (or warmer, depending on who you're listening to and what day of the week it is when the prediction's being made).

 Seaward wrote:
The only difference is the scale, sebster. Space Marines aren't somehow a more utilitarian purchase than a Hummer.

Actually the space marines are more utilitarian. Unless you're the type of person who buys a bunch of model kits and then tosses them in the closet to collect dust those space marines will probably give you a lot of enjoyment. The Hummer, on the other hand, is something people only buy because it has been successfully marketed as a status symbol. Remove that marketing and most of the Hummer buyers probably wouldn't be getting much more enjoyment out of it than they would be getting from a more sensible car, and they'd feel pretty stupid about their gas bills.

And pretending that getting to where guys like Peregrine want us to be would be a mostly painless, cheap process?

Who said anything about it being painless? Of course it's not going to be painless, but that's not the point. The question is whether you want to suffer some pain now, or a lot of pain later. Like I said about electric cars, the choice is to invest in the technology now and suffer the short-term costs, or do nothing and have no cars at all when gas costs $100 a gallon and electric car technology hasn't been developed to the point where it's practical for everyone to own one. Or it's the choice between a small cost of living increase now, or a massive cost of living increase in the future when crop yields fall and food prices start increasing. Or it's the choice between paying for new infrastructure now, or paying for even more new infrastructure later every time a major hurricane hits (and they're expected to become more frequent).

What you're doing here is saying that you'd rather pay no taxes this year in exchange for paying double the taxes for the rest of your life. Unless you're old enough that you don't expect to live to feel any of the effects of climate change, and don't care about the effects on your children/younger friends/etc, that's an absolutely insane choice to make.

Shareholders don't give a gak about a sense of environmental well-being.

And this is why things like carbon taxes are a good approach. Obviously our entire economic system is designed to favor short-term profits no matter what the long-term costs are, but if you give business a choice of working towards better sustainability and making a profit (even if it's less than they'd like) or being taxed to death then even the most selfish and short-sighted shareholder can see the obvious correct choice.

China or India or even the EU would be quite happy to fill a US-sized void if it meant increased growth with the only offset being some nebulously-defined, far-off doomsday where the beach is a little colder (or warmer, depending on who you're listening to and what day of the week it is when the prediction's being made).

The potential effects of climate change go way beyond being a little annoyed at the weather being warmer or colder than usual. For example, what do you think happens when the climate in major farming areas stops being so ideal for farming? How many people should starve to death to satisfy our need for more useless junk to buy?

 Seaward wrote:
The only difference is the scale, sebster. Space Marines aren't somehow a more utilitarian purchase than a Hummer.

Yes, the difference is scale. We are talking about dealing with finite resources, and you don't realise that scale is perhaps the most important thing.

I'd appreciate you not putting words in my mouth, thanks. My stance on this has always been, "I don't care." Is it happening? Whether the answer's yes or no (and I personally think it's yes), I don't care. It doesn't justify reconfiguring the way we live and do business.

Except, of course, the cost of minimising emissions are cheaper than the cost of adapting. As I've explained to you before.

And pretending that getting to where guys like Peregrine want us to be would be a mostly painless, cheap process? Please. Either you're being disingenuous, or you don't know what you're talking about.

Peregrine's stance was individual action, which incurs no cost other than that each person puts on themself. The complaint against that is it is impractical, not that the burden is too great.

And you are being disingenuous in pretending the only solution is one like Peregrine's. Current models call for a slow increase emission reduction efforts over a period of time and if you spent any time looking at them you'd find them remarkably not scary.

Sustainability's not going to gain any ground until it makes a modicum of economic sense. A good friend of mine went into sustainability consulting when he got out of the Navy and got his Master's. It doesn't work for most companies. They increase spending or decrease productivity, and have nothing to show for it. Shareholders don't give a gak about a sense of environmental well-being.

Well fething duh. That's why you build an economic system in which unsustainable business practices incur an economic cost. Hence cap and trade.

I don't think they're anywhere near as stupid as, "Hummers are bad, plastic toy soldiers are useful!" but to each their own.

Do you actually not understand how some things are bigger than other things?

[quote[The major economies do in fact all need to be on board with any of these sustainability pipe dreams, because the plan doesn't work without that being the case. China or India or even the EU would be quite happy to fill a US-sized void if it meant increased growth with the only offset being some nebulously-defined, far-off doomsday where the beach is a little colder (or warmer, depending on who you're listening to and what day of the week it is when the prediction's being made).

 Peregrine wrote:
Actually the space marines are more utilitarian. Unless you're the type of person who buys a bunch of model kits and then tosses them in the closet to collect dust those space marines will probably give you a lot of enjoyment. The Hummer, on the other hand, is something people only buy because it has been successfully marketed as a status symbol. Remove that marketing and most of the Hummer buyers probably wouldn't be getting much more enjoyment out of it than they would be getting from a more sensible car, and they'd feel pretty stupid about their gas bills.

I don't think of the Hummer as a status symbol, personally, but beyond that, this is a very bizarre argument. If someone enjoys their Hummer, whatever might be motivating that enjoyment, that's no different than someone enjoying their Space Marines. You're adding a very weird moral connotation to the different forms of enjoyment that simply isn't organic.

Who said anything about it being painless? Of course it's not going to be painless, but that's not the point. The question is whether you want to suffer some pain now, or a lot of pain later. Like I said about electric cars, the choice is to invest in the technology now and suffer the short-term costs, or do nothing and have no cars at all when gas costs $100 a gallon and electric car technology hasn't been developed to the point where it's practical for everyone to own one. Or it's the choice between a small cost of living increase now, or a massive cost of living increase in the future when crop yields fall and food prices start increasing. Or it's the choice between paying for new infrastructure now, or paying for even more new infrastructure later every time a major hurricane hits (and they're expected to become more frequent).

And those are all false choices, I'm afraid. Exactly none of the scenarios you presented are binary. It can be one, or the other...or any number of different points between. It's not, "full-on electric cars now, go go go, or no cars at all!" We know this because...well, we have electric cars now, and no government mandate for them.

What you're doing here is saying that you'd rather pay no taxes this year in exchange for paying double the taxes for the rest of your life. Unless you're old enough that you don't expect to live to feel any of the effects of climate change, and don't care about the effects on your children/younger friends/etc, that's an absolutely insane choice to make.

No. What I'm saying is that between the choices of, "Pay no taxes this year, and run the incredibly murky, ill-defined, and possibly non-existent risk of a tax increase next year," or, "Pay double taxes this year, and run the incredibly murky, ill-defined, and possibly non-existent risk of a tax increase next year," I'll take the former.

And this is why things like carbon taxes are a good approach.

If they worked, I'd agree with you.

Obviously our entire economic system is designed to favor short-term profits no matter what the long-term costs are, but if you give business a choice of working towards better sustainability and making a profit (even if it's less than they'd like) or being taxed to death then even the most selfish and short-sighted shareholder can see the obvious correct choice.

Not really. Obviously this is purely anecdotal, but as I said, I have a buddy who does this stuff for a living. He believes in the mission, same as you. The reality is that a lot of businesses dip their toes in the sustainability pool, realize that it's costing more than it's benefiting, and either back right out or at least swear off wading deeper.

We're simply not going to get to a point where we're telling business, "Ah ha! You declined to go green when you had the chance, so here's your Tax Doom!" That's, forgive the pejorative, absolute liberal fantasy.

Find a way to make it profitable, and you might have something. But it has to be "real" profitable, not, "We can exploit this government money glurge for a while until everybody else catches on and tries to cash in," profitable.

The potential effects of climate change go way beyond being a little annoyed at the weather being warmer or colder than usual. For example, what do you think happens when the climate in major farming areas stops being so ideal for farming? How many people should starve to death to satisfy our need for more useless junk to buy?

Everyone seems to have made their peace with the amount dying now, for the same reason. I'm not sure a few percentage points of increase will incite a crisis of conscience.


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 sebster wrote:
Peregrine's stance was individual action, which incurs no cost other than that each person puts on themself.

This tells me all I need to know about how little you bother to read of a thread before wading in to toss about inaccurately. The guy calling for governments to force a halt to combustion engine vehicle production and switch entirely over to electric is advocating only "individual action"?

Tell you what. When you want to read and comprehend what's being said, you can come back to the adult table.

 Seaward wrote:
I don't think of the Hummer as a status symbol, personally, but beyond that, this is a very bizarre argument. If someone enjoys their Hummer, whatever might be motivating that enjoyment, that's no different than someone enjoying their Space Marines. You're adding a very weird moral connotation to the different forms of enjoyment that simply isn't organic.

Yes, and I'm proposing that, as a society, we need to value direct enjoyment more than things like status symbols. And it's not a moral connotation, it's a utilitarian analysis of whether or not a person is getting much benefit from the resources they're consuming. Right now we have a society that encourages consumption for the sake of consumption, which leads to lots of credit card debt and a lot of wasted resources. We need to start asking ourselves whether we really want that thing we're about to buy, or if we're just buying it because the marketing experts have convinced us that we "need" it.

And I'm not proposing a ban on ridiculous toys like the Hummer. I'm proposing voluntary change, that we stop seeing things like the Hummer as an appealing purchase. It's the difference between saying "you should be a good person and donate to charity" and imposing a 90% income tax and directing all of that money to the official government charity programs.

And those are all false choices, I'm afraid. Exactly none of the scenarios you presented are binary. It can be one, or the other...or any number of different points between. It's not, "full-on electric cars now, go go go, or no cars at all!" We know this because...well, we have electric cars now, and no government mandate for them.

Obviously it's not binary, but the point is that "who cares" isn't a sensible opinion here. We need to start taking action, not just shrugging and saying "not my problem yet" or being so terrified of the immediate costs that we set ourselves up to pay a much higher cost in the future.

And no, it's not full-on electric cars. That's the end goal, but not something that would happen overnight. My preference would be a gradually increasing limit on how many non-electric cars can be produced, like we did with improving MPG standards. This motivates companies to work on making better electric cars instead of quietly burying the technology (like they did with previous electric cars) as a danger to their business model.

No. What I'm saying is that between the choices of, "Pay no taxes this year, and run the incredibly murky, ill-defined, and possibly non-existent risk of a tax increase next year," or, "Pay double taxes this year, and run the incredibly murky, ill-defined, and possibly non-existent risk of a tax increase next year," I'll take the former.

Except it's not that ill-defined. We know that consequences are pretty likely, and we know that the more we do to reduce carbon emissions the less severe those consequences are likely to be (or, the longer it will take for the worst consequences to hit). You're assuming a lot more uncertainty and helplessness than the experts in the field.

If they worked, I'd agree with you.

Obviously the system isn't perfect, but the basic concept provides a useful starting point. You can't fix short-sighted greed, so you change the rules to make doing the right thing the profitable thing, and ensure that companies that refuse to work towards better sustainability are unable to compete with companies that do.

Not really. Obviously this is purely anecdotal, but as I said, I have a buddy who does this stuff for a living. He believes in the mission, same as you. The reality is that a lot of businesses dip their toes in the sustainability pool, realize that it's costing more than it's benefiting, and either back right out or at least swear off wading deeper.

Yes, but that's because the current system isn't making a strong enough effort to reward sustainability and punish companies that refuse to cooperate. Imagine a hypothetical new policy that outlines steps towards sustainability and imposes a 100% tax on all revenue for any company that fails to meet them. Obviously that's extreme and never going to happen, but if it did I can guarantee that every business would be doing their absolute best to comply with the new sustainability goals, and any CEO that refused would be instantly replaced by the angry shareholders.

We're simply not going to get to a point where we're telling business, "Ah ha! You declined to go green when you had the chance, so here's your Tax Doom!" That's, forgive the pejorative, absolute liberal fantasy.

Unfortunately you're right about it being fantasy. Too much of our government cares more about making their CEO friends lots of money than doing the right thing, so we aren't going to get any real change. But the fact that our current (and foreseeable) government is too greedy and stupid to do the right thing doesn't change the fact that it's the right thing to do.

Find a way to make it profitable, and you might have something. But it has to be "real" profitable, not, "We can exploit this government money glurge for a while until everybody else catches on and tries to cash in," profitable.

But that's never going to happen until it's too late. We're stuck with an economic system that would rather make $2 now than $1 a year for ten years (see every GW news thread for the past year). It's always going to be profitable to sacrifice the future for short-term gains, and by the time climate change gets bad enough that it's impossible to make money without changing it's way too late. You need government regulation and funding to force the system to care about the future and make the necessary investments.

Everyone seems to have made their peace with the amount dying now, for the same reason. I'm not sure a few percentage points of increase will incite a crisis of conscience.

Yes, obviously we're happy to let people starve to death as long as we're nice and comfortable here. But the point is that the effects of climate change potentially go way beyond just minor annoyances about the weather not being quite what you like. To give another example, how many additional city-destroying hurricanes have to hit the US before you think that anti-climate-change policies are justified? Even if you don't want to address the moral issue the economic damage caused by that kind of disaster is clear.

Graphs of carbon dioxide levels over millions of years mean little when lined up with the type of climate at the time.
The problem with climate change is 'change'.
We're used to everything being the same, as rising sea-levels means coastal towns and islands get swamped. This is only a problem for those areas, as the new coast can take over from them. But, no-one wants that, so there's this huge amount of work done to stop it.
If the equator becomes uninhabitable, people move to the tropics, and we're all squashed up a bit more. But we could grow the same crops, just in new areas. As the poles warm, there'll be more space to live there, and it evens out a bit more.
Or, something similar, depending on who you talk to.

So, change is painful and expensive, but the planet will survive, as will most things on it. Somewhere new.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yes, and I'm proposing that, as a society, we need to value direct enjoyment more than things like status symbols. And it's not a moral connotation, it's a utilitarian analysis of whether or not a person is getting much benefit from the resources they're consuming. Right now we have a society that encourages consumption for the sake of consumption, which leads to lots of credit card debt and a lot of wasted resources. We need to start asking ourselves whether we really want that thing we're about to buy, or if we're just buying it because the marketing experts have convinced us that we "need" it.

And I'm proposing that we all choose to stop human conflict.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but you're talking about re-wiring the way humanity...works, for lack of a better term. Status symbols and things of that sort aren't some modern invention. And I don't think you'll have any success whatsoever at getting a species that is, in most cases or maybe at the macro level, inherently selfish to suddenly commit to self-sacrifice in pursuit of a goal we can't really clearly define.

Obviously it's not binary, but the point is that "who cares" isn't a sensible opinion here. We need to start taking action, not just shrugging and saying "not my problem yet" or being so terrified of the immediate costs that we set ourselves up to pay a much higher cost in the future.

I disagree. If all of the varied doomsday predictions are true, it'll certainly be someone's problem, and I hope that generation's pretty clever and figures out a way to McGuyver themselves out of it, but it's absolutely not going to be our problem.

And no, it's not full-on electric cars. That's the end goal, but not something that would happen overnight. My preference would be a gradually increasing limit on how many non-electric cars can be produced, like we did with improving MPG standards. This motivates companies to work on making better electric cars instead of quietly burying the technology (like they did with previous electric cars) as a danger to their business model.

But that's not what's happening, and I've seen enough Teslas driving around DC to know it's not. If they wind up being successful, they'll just be pioneers into the market, not the only players. Demand will grow organically as the technology improves and drops in price. Government trying to force that to happen on its own schedule is not a good idea, because it rarely works well.

Except it's not that ill-defined. We know that consequences are pretty likely, and we know that the more we do to reduce carbon emissions the less severe those consequences are likely to be (or, the longer it will take for the worst consequences to hit). You're assuming a lot more uncertainty and helplessness than the experts in the field.

Maybe, but I don't think I am. I'm hardly an expert in this field or anything, but I do try to keep at least general knowledge-abreast, and the impression of the consensus I have is, "Something will likely happen, someday. We may or may not be able to stop it." That's about as specific as the agreement gets.

Obviously the system isn't perfect, but the basic concept provides a useful starting point. You can't fix short-sighted greed, so you change the rules to make doing the right thing the profitable thing, and ensure that companies that refuse to work towards better sustainability are unable to compete with companies that do.

I don't see any way of doing that without the government spending tons upon tons of money.

Yes, but that's because the current system isn't making a strong enough effort to reward sustainability and punish companies that refuse to cooperate. Imagine a hypothetical new policy that outlines steps towards sustainability and imposes a 100% tax on all revenue for any company that fails to meet them. Obviously that's extreme and never going to happen, but if it did I can guarantee that every business would be doing their absolute best to comply with the new sustainability goals, and any CEO that refused would be instantly replaced by the angry shareholders.

Well, sure, if you impose policies that basically amount to, "We'll drive you out of business if you don't go green," then everybody's going to try to go green. Would that work in forcing the vast majority to do so? Absolutely.

The problem is that you're not guaranteeing those companies stay profitable with the new regulations; all you're doing is tying one hand behind their backs when it comes to foreign competition not subject to such rules.

But that's never going to happen until it's too late. We're stuck with an economic system that would rather make $2 now than $1 a year for ten years (see every GW news thread for the past year). It's always going to be profitable to sacrifice the future for short-term gains, and by the time climate change gets bad enough that it's impossible to make money without changing it's way too late. You need government regulation and funding to force the system to care about the future and make the necessary investments.

The problem with that notion is, as I said, if everybody the world over isn't held to the same standards, you're going to create lopsided competition that inevitably will hurt our economy. If you're going to do that sort of thing, you need to be considerably more concrete than you are about the consequences of not taking action, and what action to take. (Using the general "you," by the way.) Nobody's there yet.

Yes, obviously we're happy to let people starve to death as long as we're nice and comfortable here. But the point is that the effects of climate change potentially go way beyond just minor annoyances about the weather not being quite what you like. To give another example, how many additional city-destroying hurricanes have to hit the US before you think that anti-climate-change policies are justified? Even if you don't want to address the moral issue the economic damage caused by that kind of disaster is clear.

There you go. Economic effects are the way you want to argue this if you want to see change, but it's not enough to convince me yet. New Orleans was destroyed because it's a below sea level swamp with gakky levies. When the sea reclaims Manhattan, maybe.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 BarBoBot wrote:
Thats right, tank our economy, while the people who lead the charge don't stop anything they do, because they can afford "carbon credits"

Well if you don't practice any sustainable methods you won't have much resources for an economy either...

Thats wrong on its face actually.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BarBoBot wrote:
Fearmongering at its best.

Agree with me or we WILL DIE!

Next you'll say "its for the children!"

Agree with me or the children will die?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Let me ask you this same question I asked the other posters: What would you have us do... specifically?

Stop approving coal power plants and start approving much cleaner nuclear/solar/hydroelectric plants instead (and the anti-science morons and NIMBYs can stfu and deal with it), impose a mandatory deadline for moving 95% of new car production to electric-only (and invest in the infrastructure to make that possible) so that only the occasional hobbyists and collectors are burning gas, promote a cultural shift away from buying useless stuff just for the sake of owning stuff, and transfer the entire US military budget into developing practical fusion power along with efficiency improvements in power distribution and similar areas. Nuclear power and an all-electric infrastructure get emissions down immediately, while fusion provides a clean long-term solution.

There's the rub.
1. NUMBYs DON"T just STFU. They block them. Look at the wind projects off New England. Oh wait...
2. Coal just gets shipped to China which conveniently seems exempt from all this.
3. Nuke reactors? The same hippy tree huggers who want us to "just conserve" and use flower power are against nuke power in a big way.

Oklahoma is trying to block new wind power projects. Wind blowing across this flat state is one thing that we will never face a shortage...

 BarBoBot wrote:
I suppose I'll have to leave it up to someone as "enlightened" as yourself to tell me when I'm allowed to upgrade my stereo speakers... Becuase apparently I'm entirely too stupid to know for myself.

Sorry but this reeks of socialism. I'm sure the real reason people cant spend money on what they want is because you have deemed it "unfair" that some have more than you.

No no get it right. That reeks of communism's crappier more annoying sister who can't get a date- nanny statism.

We only need basic food, water, shelter and transport to obtain such. Everything else is "rampant consumerism."




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 BarBoBot wrote:
I don't care if you want an electric car, just don't push your gak on me.

I don't want an electric car, I want to minimize the damage done to the environment. And that means everyone* goes all-electric, with zero-emission cars charging from clean nuclear/hydroelectric/etc power. Turning this into some "freedom" issue where everyone has their choice of car is missing the point entirely. Unless you're a mindless Ayn Rand cultist freedom has its limits, and this is a situation where imposing some of those limits is justified.

*Excluding the occasional dedicated hobbyist/collector, whose impact on the overall problem is negligible.

You must be a Yankee (see after a few decades I've finally managed to exclude the term "Damn" as a preface). I drive 84 miles back and forth to work. You electro car can't hack it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
People don't want to believe something that would require they change their convenient lifestyle or which would hit them in the wallet. This thread is descending into 'waah, that sounds like socialism' and 'b-but I can't have everything I want' in response to the suggestion that we take a serious look at the waste and pollution resulting from wasteful consumerism.

The reason that alternative energies will have to be supported eventually is because fossil fuels are running out and the cost will spiral, it'll hit people in the wallet. There just isn't the interest to act 'for the environment'. And some people don't even believe fossil fuels will run out. Hell, a not insignificant number of poeople in the US struggle to believe in an Earth millions of years as old required for fossils or the arguments required in studying climate change over extremely long periods.

You first. Guive up your electricty right now you evil consumerist!


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 Kilkrazy wrote:

 BarBoBot wrote:
How many years have they been claiming that oil is going to run out? The "experts" said it would be gone by now, but somehow we have found more oil, and more ways to get oil from different sources.

...

Obviously there is not infinite oil.

And? At that point crank up the nukes or its 1850s time. Either way "green" will correct at that point. Aint llife grand?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Oklahoma is trying to block new wind power projects. Wind blowing across this flat state is one thing that we will never face a shortage...

Oklahoma could get rich selling power to evil Kalifornia when tornado season comes.

Who cares, I'll be dead by then.

 Soladrin wrote:
Who cares, I'll be dead by then.

You are a dead man walking anyway - living below sea level - utter stupidity!

 d-usa wrote:
Oklahoma is trying to block new wind power projects. Wind blowing across this flat state is one thing that we will never face a shortage...

Really?

I mean, holy hell that place is windy.

There was this power company (I think this was in Colorado) that was trying to make it so only they could legally set up solar power.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Who cares, I'll be dead by then.

You are a dead man walking anyway - living below sea level - utter stupidity!

To be fair, I live in the south-east, I'm above sea level.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 BarBoBot wrote:
Thats right, tank our economy, while the people who lead the charge don't stop anything they do, because they can afford "carbon credits"

Well if you don't practice any sustainable methods you won't have much resources for an economy either...

Thats wrong on its face actually.

How do you keep an economy going if you run out of natural resources then?

There is a tremendous arrogance, not to mention worrying trend of paranoia, in assuming you know better than the vast number of experts in a field. Whether it's that the warming is happening, that it's caused by humans, or that it will be ecologically significant, I reckon very few of us here are well enough educated to make judgements on that.

I've had enough training in ecological science to be pretty damn confident that the impacts on our ecosystems (which, by the way, is where your frigging food and water come from, not just a bunch of trees that hippies like to hug) will be significant, though likely not "catastrophic" in a "wipe out all humans" kinda way. We're currently living through a mass extinction event due to human caused change, changes in global temperature will accelerate that change. You might not care about that, in which case I have opinions about you that will violate rule 1, but at least have the self interest to recognise that our current systems are based around the ecosystem as is, and adapting to change will be costly and chaotic.

Anyhow. I'm pretty defeatist on this issue. I reckon my side is right, but will ultimately fail to prevent or even make a significant impact on warming due to human nature. I reckon we're going to be seeing the effects of warming until some other thing reduces human population or productivity significantly, whether that be ecological collapse (which would likely be localised) or a few plagues in succession (Seems fairly likely given the increase in travel and population density).

I'm just pretty angry at the drivel pumped out by the opposing side, most of whom really obviously are influenced primarily by political leaning and weird anti-everything paranoia, rather than any reading or attempt to understand the issue. It's a damn shame. This thread has made me angrier than anything I've read in a long, long time, but it's to be expected.

The bitter satisfaction that history will likely not be kind to the deniers is the only thing that even slightly cheers me up.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 BarBoBot wrote:
Thats right, tank our economy, while the people who lead the charge don't stop anything they do, because they can afford "carbon credits"

Well if you don't practice any sustainable methods you won't have much resources for an economy either...

Thats wrong on its face actually.

How do you keep an economy going if you run out of natural resources then?

You will either run out or you won't "sustainable" in the industrial world doesn't mean what you think it means.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 BarBoBot wrote:
Thats right, tank our economy, while the people who lead the charge don't stop anything they do, because they can afford "carbon credits"

Well if you don't practice any sustainable methods you won't have much resources for an economy either...

Thats wrong on its face actually.

How do you keep an economy going if you run out of natural resources then?

You will either run out or you won't "sustainable" in the industrial world doesn't mean what you think it means.

Thanks for giving us a post with zero content in it, then again why should I be surprised.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
I feel like you haven't read any of my earlier posts.

Sorry, I did read them, so I don't think I'm missing anything that would work as a counter to my point that how activist groups might have sold the cause reflects not at all on the science underpinning that cause.

Wait... so now I'm the "activist group" here?

Really Seb?

So, do you believe everything your government tells you?

No, of course not. This isn't about some guy coming out and just saying it. This is about a scientific field establishing a theory then refining it and testing it over the course of four decades, all along the way steadily bringing on board every major scientific institution on the planet. We are at the point where rejecting this means you are rejecting the very idea that science can tell us things about the planet.

Yeah... here's the thing Seb, You and I are probably a lot closer on this issue than we think. The difference is maybe the "urgency" to do something about it.

Many of the problems I have is that certain groups (both sides if I may add) with agendas will take these studies, and push it as gospel. That Hockey Stick graph is one such example...

Many of the conclusions of these studies aren't robust... hence why it's intensely debated. The facts are that the claims of "rising confidence" in attributing effects to human greenhouse gas emissions and predictions of future warming and climate change are not supported by scientific evidence. There's still waaaaaaay too much variability to discount.

Back in school... we learned that in order to conduct a proper scientific "investigation", scientists must first formulate a falsifiable hypothesis to test.

An alternative and null hypothesis... must also be defined and validated.

So... take the IPCC or NASA hypothsis: That human-related greenhouse gas emissions will result in dangerous global warming.

The null hypothesis is that currently observed changes are the result of natural variability.

To invalidate the null hypothesis requires, at a bare bones minimum, direct evidence of human causation of specified changes that lie outside usual, natural variability.

The big studies, ie IPCC, NASA, Al Gore's Inconvient Truthers ( ) has failed to meet this burden of proof.

These studies relies on global climate models that cannot rule out natural variability as the cause of observed climate changes. As such, we cannot verify what impact, if any, anthropogenic activities on our climate.

It's the highest of hubris to believe that we human kind has that sort of influence over mother nature, that many Climate Alarmist is perpetuating.

That's an argument from metaphysics or philosophy, not science. Science will tell you that an increase in CO2 emmissions will increase global temperatures, producing a wide range of local impacts and changes in weather patterns. This isn't new science, greenhouses have been a thing for more than a hundred years. And that is really the only thing that matters.

Science is being used to determine those impact... as such, it's the Global Warming Alarmist™ crew cherry picking the dataset to push their agenda.

Here's the dealio Sebster... many scientists are convinced that human activity is a factor in influencing global warming... right? I'm not discounting that. Okay?

Well, if by many you mean 97% of scientists active in the field, then yeah.

fething hell Seb... that 97% figure is demonstratively disingenous and disproven. Is Forbes a reputable enough for you?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/?&_suid=139464373288105051434799097478

The IPCC thought they had the answers in the 90s, which we now know is proven to be wrong.

The models weren't as sophisticated as they are now, but calling them wrong is simply not true.

O.o

Okay...whatever dude. You are awfully dismissive that there's even a chance that these studies can be wrong.

The true danger, imo, is that someday people will realize that no matter what we do, we will never stop global warming entirely because a good fraction of the causes are natural and not anthropogenic.

Non-anthropogenic causes are very long term, gradual processes, measured in hundreds or thousands of years, not the decades we're witnessing.

There's a huge scientific community that refutes that.

Um... no, the tree ring data had to be hand-picked to get the desired result (getting that hockey bend). Even the National Academy of Science Report from 2006 clarifed that the hockey-stick methodologies lead "questionable historical reconstructions."

It's discredited largely by the scientific community.

Ah yes, you're right on that. I was thinking of a different paper. Maybe. Some of my reading on this goes back a long time now... might be I read about the hockey stick thing before the conclusion.

Anyhow, point to you.

Thanks.

But I will point out that with the hockey stick graph... that's science working as it is supposed to. A problem is shown with one method and its results, and it is no longer used. Meanwhile there are dozens of other studies that use other methods that produce results just like the infamous hockey stick graph, and there is no sensible challenge to the methods in any of those studies.

Yea, but not to the degree of the uptick on that hockey stick graph. That was the point man.

That doesn't mean I want these industries to willfully ignore current laws/regulation to pollute the environment in the name of the almighty dolla... but, to have bureaucrats to artificially impose an "emission tax" is an asinine policy is crazy pants. There are better ways to achieve this.

Economics disagrees with you. And this is one of the places where it becomes clear I'm actually a lot more right wing than you - I believe a properly designed market will reach an optimum conclusion far better than government rules.

You're talking about the market adapting to the business environment.

I'm talking about that it's crazy pants to institute policy based on something that is still going through a major debate in the scientific community.

Because the research isn't complete Seb... We don't know what we don't fething know. There's no reason to implement drastic policies until we know for sure.

I think you're wildly overstating how drastic the policy will be. We had this debate in Australia before our own Carbon Tax was put in place... and then it came and nothing. No industry collapse, no massive spike in employment. Just... a really small increase in the cost of living, and ridiculous amount of whinging.

I need to find the past plans... but, iirc, the US's Carbon Tax initiative was much more severe than anywhere else.

Nah... it's the poorer country that are the big polluters (throw in India, China and Russia too).

While they have great poverty, they are not the poor countries. Ironically, it is in the process of moving from poor countries to developing countries that's led to their increase in pollution. If you want real poor look at India and China's neighbours - look at countries like Bangladesh, and tell me how practical it will be for them to adapt to climate change.

And you should remember who actually gets the goods produced by their pollution heavy manufacturing - it is you and I who end up wearing the shirts they produce, watching the tvs they produce.

No real argument from me there...

But, getting the Global Market to sing the same tune is like herding cats across a river.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
People don't want to believe something that would require they change their convenient lifestyle or which would hit them in the wallet. This thread is descending into 'waah, that sounds like socialism' and 'b-but I can't have everything I want' in response to the suggestion that we take a serious look at the waste and pollution resulting from wasteful consumerism.

The reason that alternative energies will have to be supported eventually is because fossil fuels are running out and the cost will spiral, it'll hit people in the wallet. There just isn't the interest to act 'for the environment'. And some people don't even believe fossil fuels will run out. Hell, a not insignificant number of poeople in the US struggle to believe in an Earth millions of years as old required for fossils or the arguments required in studying climate change over extremely long periods.

And yet you're still killing Gaia by typing on a computer.