Lexicus
Deity
What does "necessary" all by itself mean anyway? I think it's obvious that "necessary" here means "necessary if we want something approaching a tolerable existence for our children and grandchildren"....
[RD] Global Warming/Climate Change:What are your thoughts II?
- Thread starter stfoskey12
- Start date
I don't see what's so unscientific about unknown variables, mass extinction events (many of which have happened before) and usage of probabilities.
This makes zero sense
Lexicus
Deity
I bet there is a 10/10 chance that five years ago jay was denying climate change even existed.
That is basically the MO. The ultimate problem is that the implications of climate change are distasteful, so you start out be denying the science and when you can't do that anymore you deny that the science has any implications, and so on.
Sadly, the Republicans will probably be able to do this until it becomes too late to do anything much.
EgonSpengler
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2014
- Messages
- 12,260
I wish I could find it now, but I heard or read recently that climate change may (or will, I can't remember the exact language now) make large parts of the United States virtually uninsurable. That's on top of the security implications that the Defense Dept, among others, are worried about. The American "poster child" for global warming shouldn't be a polar bear standing on a tiny piece of sea ice, it should be a New Yorker standing up to her knees in brackish water, a Californian choking on smoke, or a Marine deploying to some dusty corner of the world.
stfoskey12
Emperor of Foskania
Interesting.
I'm working on a 5 page research paper on how accurately climate models predict change. But it's just a high school research paper.
I think the future would still be tolerable for most in the developed world. Maybe not good, but I think most of the mid-latitudes will remain habitable. I'm mostly concerned for developing countries in the tropics that have fewer resources to adapt.
Oh, right. I forgot about that.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
This is the kind of conclusion you come to by hearing whose voice is loudest and then "feeling" out the truth based on that.
Lexicus, you should have seen when OJH tried to debate fiscal spending a couple years back. Very consistent thinking with the above statement. Deficits are bad because the fed was pulling hard against a lever that if they lost their grip could spring away and cause an accident. Springs and levers. You'd love it.
In actuality political advocates are pushing for a "4", meanwhile the biologists of the world are pretty resigned to massive human die off being already too late to stave off. So they're at the 8 or 9, but no one cares. People want the apocalypse anyway.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
I'll take that bet. How do I collect?
That said, ten years ago I was saying that Al Gore was an idiot who grossly overstated his case. He still is. Look at the ten-year predictions from An Inconvenient Truth. None of them were close.
Cutting back on coal for air quality is a very good reason to do so. Claiming it is necessary to avert a climate disaster is not a good reason. It is only politically expedient.
J
Lexicus
Deity
And "ignorant" would be a charitable term for people who think Al Gore's claims reflect on climate science in any way.
Lexicus
Deity
stfoley said:
I'm most concerned about South Asian countries with nuclear weapons.
metalhead
Angry Bartender
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2002
- Messages
- 8,031
J, just because you can shuffle around emissions so as not to necessitate banning coal to stave off climate change is meaningless. You can play that shell game until you reach the conclusion that nothing is necessary, and therefore the problem can be left to sort itself out. It's an intellectually bankrupt line of reasoning.
Cutting emissions is necessary, of that there is no doubt. You don't have to ban coal, but you have to reduce emissions somehow. That banning coal can help reduce emissions in addition to improving air quality is another reason supporting a ban. I don't quite see how you've managed to twist your logic around to conclude that climate change is somehow a reason not to ban coal.
Cutting emissions is necessary, of that there is no doubt. You don't have to ban coal, but you have to reduce emissions somehow. That banning coal can help reduce emissions in addition to improving air quality is another reason supporting a ban. I don't quite see how you've managed to twist your logic around to conclude that climate change is somehow a reason not to ban coal.
I don't think the data bear that out. AGW concerns are a combination of science and politics. It's science, 'cuz we need predictions. And it's politics because it's cross-border theft and internalized profits.
There is scientific consensus for 'business as usual' is 'omg!'. Where we meet the 2-3 level of concern is when we're able to limit warming to less than 2 degrees centigrade. 2 degrees C is within the 'we can compensate the externalities'. And this is a global consensus. Any specific nation doesn't have the right to increase the temperature of the globe or deny others their proportionate share of the buffer.
Keep in mind, we're at about a -2 level of 'concern' in the modern era. Due to the nature of borders, we cannot merely rely on market solutions to the concern. As well, we currently subsidize fossil carbon harvesting and use. Like, actual subsidies encouraging usage. That's the status quo we're fighting. We're fighting a status quo where people have their consumption subsidized.
I appreciate that you're going after the anti-coal message. The truth is that coal is in many ways 'one of the worst', but that doesn't mean it's the worst for any specific situation. Each piece of energy production has its place. But we have to remember, we have a carbon budget. It's a budget we've known about since 1992. The industrialized countries did their level best to consume this budget as much as they could, with the hope of foisting the burden onto their next generation and their weaker neighbors.
I get incredibly frustrated at a large cohort of people. Their main contribution has been looking for reasons that we shouldn't take defensive measures. This is a valuable input, for sure. But they've also wasted a lot of time when it comes to creating those necessary defensive measures. And by creating this delay, and even nurturing it, the level of necessary braking is vastly higher than it needs to be.
By analogy, an austerity budget is a LOT harder to manage when it's being created too late. Cutting back your spending to pay back a $10k debt (19%) is vastly easier than cutting back to pay a $100k (19%), when you find out it's your kids who inherit that debt.
The economics of handling AGW are remarkably mainstream. Debt, borrowing, natural capital, dividends, and externalities ... many of these words can come up in discussion.
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
We can fix this. We take billions upon billions in money, build a fleet of giant rockets with enormous capacity, and launch them in huge waves to the edge of space. Then, super sized mechanized arms reaching deep into the vast cargo bays, taking full loads and throwing inconceivable amounts of big bill currency out into space to block the sunlight.
Alternately solar cycle 25 being minuscule should make things really cold.
Alternately solar cycle 25 being minuscule should make things really cold.
Most people don't really understand the difference between a billion and a trillion dollars, but it's neat that you're correct.
If we were only interested in counter-acting the thermal forcing, we could do it. We currently devote trillions of dollars to emitting fossil carbon. And it would only take billions of dollars to put up reflective particulates to counter the warming. We don't want to do this because of the oodles of negatives from doing so, obviously. But still.
Is it truly a surprise that humanity can accidentally affect the globe when we devote a sizable fraction of our industry to the endeavour?
If we were only interested in counter-acting the thermal forcing, we could do it. We currently devote trillions of dollars to emitting fossil carbon. And it would only take billions of dollars to put up reflective particulates to counter the warming. We don't want to do this because of the oodles of negatives from doing so, obviously. But still.
Is it truly a surprise that humanity can accidentally affect the globe when we devote a sizable fraction of our industry to the endeavour?
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Actually, there is doubt. We are not sure it will help significantly. It-cannot-hurt is not sufficient, because we don't know that either. We have gone down some very dark alleys over the distinction.
Ethanol, for example. It burns dirtier, has a substantial negative impact on engine life and tune, causing more bad emissions and costs more fuel to produce than it yields. That's three emissions increases from a "clean" program. Other effects include corn sweetener and higher meat prices. For this, taxpayers pay cash money. Farn Boy can probably tell us how much.
For something to be necessary, it has to be sufficient, or part of a sufficient system. Show us the sufficient system, then we can talk necessity. Until then, all you have is party line psuedo-science.
J
Old Hippy
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2011
- Messages
- 3,606
between 2005-2009 was $us 17 billion not to stop coal burning but to give security to the supply in a oil hungry world
a good example of political vote buying for something that was not supported by sustainable energy viewpoints, good luck getting the recipients of an outrageous taxpayer funded bribe to give it up while they also vote for coal burning to continue
if the US put a price on carbon it would make them more efficient and cheaper than china and return many jobs back stateside, because it is something the US does better than ASIA and it has done a lot of the hard work already instead saying burn coal gives China the economic advantage and they get cheap coal from Australia
It wasn't carbon neutral. It was an experiment that needed to be run. Remember, half the population is only trying to ruin the necessary experiments
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
The poorest countries will feel it first. In USA(#1), the southwest will feel it the hardest first. We won't really care until a large western city runs out of clean water period or a Chuck-Norris class Hurricane hits Miami, or New York, or something.
Perhaps a stupid question, but how can producing ethanol by fermenting sugar, then burning it not be carbon neutral? Surely all of the carbon that burning it releases was taken in by the sugar at some point? I mean, technically speaking coal is carbon-neutral - the problem is that it's carbon neutral only over the really, really long term.
