Climate Change - General Discussion : Read the Mod Note in post #1 before posting

Wanderer78 wrote: »

It's important to realise the complexity of the subject matter, in order to approach resolving our environmental issues, we currently have no other options but to turn to our political institutions in order to do so. I personally believe, if one ultimately wants to save the planet, you need to ultimately leave it, i.e. currently it is in fact impossible for humans to survive on this planet, without having negative impacts to it, I'm also not convinced our political institutions are equipped to do this yet, including pro environmental parties such as the green party, as we must first accept our most fundamental economic theories and ideologies are in fact flawed, leading me to term them, 'anti-human and anti-environmental in nature'.

Climate change is a threat to human flourishing not human survival. I see it like WW2. We fought the NAZIs and Fascists for the survival of our way of life, our values and for human dignity.

If we lose the battle against climate change we will see a lot more human suffering than we saw in WW2, and it won't be over by Christmas. The longer it takes for us to fight back, the worse the outcome will be for our children and their children.

It doesn't take one person on a crusade to stop this. It takes a consensus that we need to act, a fight back against climate change denial and apathy so that we can make the changes that are required for us to adapt and mitigate the damage

Akrasia wrote: »

Global political cooperation, this is an emergency and immediate global action is required. We need massive global investment in infrastructure to speed up the transition to renewable energy. Strict emissions reduction strategies, stricter energy efficiency regulations on buildings, industry and food production. Global investment in helping developing countries to transition to carbon neutral economies and to utilise their solar energy resources. Trade embargo's against nations and industries that cannot produce sustainably. Carbon taxes to speed up the transition to green technology and subsidies to make the technologies affordable. The universal adoption of existing CO2 scrubbing technology to capture carbon from industrial sources so it can be sequestered.

For a start

Climate systems are complex and we don't yet understand everything about them or the outcomes and we definitely don't know the future. We don't live in hunter gatherer society our current society is quite complex, the 20th century ideologues like you that imposed simplistic notions of how society should run ended up slaughtering millions of their own people and impoverishing the remainder. It does not take much to break us today, we go a taste of that with the recent snow event at the end of March as the just in time systems we are dependent on were disrupted, fortunately people on this forum saw what was coming and a lot of people were able to act to mitigate the temporary disruption and even take advantage of it. It did lead to loss of earnings and animal deaths are up 80% over this time last year and this is within the scope of normal weather patterns for Ireland at this time of year. We were better prepared for this event than the 2010/2011 cold snaps. If such severe weather events become more regular during the climate cooling cycle then we will adapt to them and implement methods and processes to overcome the hardships involved because we have definitive data and costs to act on.


The political intentions behind the global warming movement are clear and their dogmatic version of climate science is ancillary to their agenda.

Christiana Figueres

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”

So there is no doubt she restated it

Christiana Figueres

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

I think the mods would prefer this thread kept to the technical discussion of climate systems, politics can be discussed elsewhere on the forum. I reckon this particular thread has reached it's conclusion.

Pa ElGrande wrote:

I think the mods would prefer this thread kept to the technical discussion of climate systems, politics can be discussed elsewhere on the forum. I reckon this particular thread has reached it's conclusion.

Even though I understand this statement, I'd naturally have to also disagree with it, i.e. this is indeed a highly complex subject matter which actually requires immediate and urgent action, inclusively of our political institutions

dense wrote: »

So you are articulating a belief that humans are in fact "alien" to this planet, imposters, and in order to preserve it would be best advised that humans not behave as humans but as lower intelligence forms to be led as a herd by ambitious eco fascists in order to "save the planet".

Let me assure you that the planet will save itself, regardless of whether humans are on it or not.

So there is obviously some other ideology at play here that you're not telling us about; as in why you're using a save the planet angle to adjust fundamental human behaviour considering that the planet will take care of itself.

Humans are problem solvers. It is our nature to identify risks and overcome them.

We, as humans, have identified that we are causing our global climate to change. We have identified that this change will reduce our ability to survive and flourish here, so we as humans should act together to solve this problem. Just like how we solved smallpox, developed antibiotics, prevented the loss of our ozone layer, reduced smog and acid rain...

We have the resources to fix the problem, or at least reduce the impact to a manageable level. We just need to make a choice to act to phase out fossil fuels sooner rather than later

dense wrote: »

She did, and others too.

They're unhappy with capitalism but can't bring themselves to naming the system they do want.

Quite a few disparate groups with failed ideologies who have coalesced around CAGW all with ulterior motives. On the dark green end of the spectrum you have the neo-maltusians, neo-eugenicists and others who see humans as parasites on earth and want the human population reduced of course they see themselves are enlightened and not subject to their own ideology. The middle of the spectrum who rally under the moniker "climate justice" who see international socialism under the auspices of the UN and income redistribution with power in their hands as members of the enlightened tribe, to the light green end of the spectrum that just wants a nice clean safe environment without doing anything but virtue signalling as observed by the late George Carlin " [..] environmentalists don’t give a **** about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.".


If you really believe CAGW is a problem, then you have to sort yourself out and act in your own personal capacity to measure and reduce your personal carbon footprint, and you must relate your personal experience to show the way for others and tell us how you reduced or improved your standard of living as a result. When you tell us the solution is the state must reduce our freedom and well being using coercion to solve this problem you must realise you are asking for both your own and our enslavement and imprisonment. If you have the solution then go raise the capital and use the principle of voluntary exchange of private property rights to solve the problem, you won't because that carries much higher personal risk and the probability of failure is high.


Some questions for the CAGW believers:

1. How much energy did you use yesterday?
2. Do you measure your daily consumption?
3. Based on your consumption patterns have you find ways to eliminate waste or not consume energy?
4. What will you do today to reduce your energy consumption?
5. Are you financially better off as a result of your efforts?
6. Does your family support your efforts?
7. Did you have to compromise your standard of living to achieve those energy savings?
8. Are you eating more that you should? Are you throwing away food?
9. Did you drink coffee from a Styrofoam cup in the last week? How did you dispose of said cup?


These questions can go on since every activity you carry out in a modern world requires the expenditure of energy, and if you are not measuring your consumption and charting the savings from your efforts then really I must conclude you don't believe the science and you are just virtue signalling.

"Putting a price on carbon, in the form of a fee or tax on the use of fossil fuels, coupled with returning the generated revenue to the public in one form or another, can be an effective way to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. That’s one of the conclusions of an extensive analysis of several versions of such proposals, carried out by researchers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)."

http://news.mit.edu/2018/carbon-taxes-could-make-significant-dent-climate-change-0406

dense wrote: »

If all environmentalists stopped using oil or gas the world would be a better place for everyone else.

If all environmentalists stopped constanty buying and walking around with bottles of water and cups of coffee the world would be a better place for everyone else.

If all environmental would stop preaching to others about what they want them to do, the world be a better place.

If all environmentalists lived by example the world would be a better place.

People are fed up to the back teeth listening to plastic environmentalists whinging about how bad everyone else is.

If people want to make a difference, sure, go and be brave and make it.

Then they can come back and tell us how good life is for them and their families using just solar power and wind, going vegan to reduce methane, changing the car to electric to cut their emissions, contributing any spare cash they might have to Trocaire in order to rectify climate injustice, teaching their own kids the value of not having children because it's simply not sustainable and dispensing with foreign holidays and modern technology so as to reduce their carbon footprint.

Sounds a gas.

Who's up for it?

Or is it all just aspirational stuff, full blown virtue signalling without taking the first step?

Surely the crowd that advocates dancing against climate change can be leaders here, using their vast network of environmentalists to effect real change here in this country.

No, they're just well heeled attention seeking hobbyists, trying to show much they care about how much they care.

If it was just 'environmentalists' pushing this then you would have a point. I haven't quoted a single environmentalist or any lobby group anywhere in any of these threads. I base all of my arguments on scientific research and when I refer to expert opinion, it's a scientific expert, and I prefer to use the scientific experts who have the most experience and the best reputation in their given field.

Pa ElGrande wrote: »

With an average temperate of about 1ºC and a temperate range of -10º to 10ºC during the short Summer months the Arctic will never be ice free in either your or my lifetimes.

Arctic temperatures were above zero for a record 9 days this February which is pretty unusual given that it's dark 24 hours at that time of the year.

But not only is the air temperature increasing, water temperatures are rising very quickly, and given that the arctic is an ocean and all the ice is floating, warm ocean temperatures will melt more ice than warm air temperatures.
In the Chukchi Sea for example, the water temperature was 11 degrees warmer than average in 2017

Be the change that you wish to see in the world and apply the knowledge you have learned from the science to your own life, go measure and quantify your own personal contribution to global warming and apply that knowledge and don't mind the naysayers. It is only your actions that will persuade others in your community to change their behaviour since you will not find any new converts to your crusade here.


If you wish for state violence to impose the prophecy handed you by others then realise those same standards will be applied to you and your family and will not have the freedom to disagree. Do you think that all the people who earnestly thought socialism was the way forward in the 20th century expected that they would be sent to Gulags for having the wrong opinions? These were not evil people they were well meaning. What do you think the people in the dark green end of the environmental spectrum are going to do if they ever get power? I'll tell you; they will implement their own apocalyptic vision of the world and you will do their bidding you won't have a choice.

WTF are you on about violence? Prophesy?

This is a technological economic and political problem that will have technological, economic and political solutions

Akrasia wrote: »

[..] WTF are you on about violence? Prophesy?

This is a technological economic and political problem that will have technological, economic and political solutions

All the prophesies of an ice free Arctic by climate scientists have been wrong, none has yielded a credible explanation as to why they have been so wrong and with that track record of failure they are no longer credible.

Human behaviour does not change in order to implement the wish list that others have handed you it necessarily requires that your and my freedoms are reduced. The negative consequences of such a political system that would implement these changes on human welfare are well known but ignored by people like you who do not think beyond the solution proposed. The state does not have wealth on its own, it must tax the labour of it's citizens and guest workers and when it attempts to plan peoples lives it as the solutions you have endorsed do it becomes a dictatorship. With no freedom to exchange property rights or thought this creates chaos and the complex chains of market interactions that ensure your present day survival fail.

dense wrote: »

So let's talk numbers.

410ppm.

Let's say 5% of that C02 is "man made".

Huh?

30% of the atmospheric CO2 is anthroprogenic (we've added an additional 46% to the pre industrial 280ppm)

That's 20.5ppm.

So let's just say we COMPLETELY stop emitting C02, which we are told, is what we should do.

When would we get down to 389.5ppm?

To the "optimum" 280ppm? What year?

What year will the climate return to it's "natural equilibrium" after us having stopped emitting C02?

The residence time for CO2 in the atmosphere is based on balancing the carbon cycle, the amount of carbon the planet can sequester versus the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere. This is dependent on a number of factors including the temperature, how much CO2 is already dissolved in the oceans, the growth rate of plants and the amount of ice cover on the planet (during 'snowball earth' the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere shot up because the ice covering the rocks and soil prevented chemical interactions with CO2 in the atmosphere and allowed it to accumulate)

If we stop emitting CO2, some of that CO2 will be sequestered very quickly, (within a few years) but some of that additional CO2 will still be present in the atmosphere centuries from now.
If we completely stopped emitting CO2, it is estimated that over the 21st century, we would see the atmospheric concentration fall by about 40ppm
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-10-3.html

The fight against global warming is extremely important because the emissions we generate today accumulate in the atmosphere and take a very long time to leave.

The 280ppm figure is not an 'optimum' level of CO2, it is the baseline used for discussingthe human impact on CO2 concentrations. We don't have to go back to 280ppm. It was previously agreed that 400ppm was the threshold for when we would start to see dangerous consequences of climate change, we passed that barrier years ago, and we have seen dangerous consequences already. We are in damage limitation mode. We're too late to avoid climate change, we now need to make sure that the damage we cause isn't civilisation ending.

We can do this if urgent measures are implemented, but if we fail to act, the extra emissions we release will continue to warm the planet for generations, leading to global temperature increases many times more than what we have already seen.

dense wrote: »

And I'm on here challenging anyone to just explain exactly how and when "transitioning off fossil fuels" will effect a manmade restoration of that arctic summer ice and the means for humans to arbitrarily control the climate and prevent it from changing.

I try to see other people's points when they post, even if the posts aren't clearly written, but you're just talking gibberish now.