Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[Yvonne183]

So, did you lot save the world from destruction yet? Did you throw your cars away? Stop buying clothes made from a polluting factory? Stop heating your home?

Anyways, I heard that it was dinosaur farts that caused global warming.

So I guess today it must the cows,, yea, everytime a cow farts another polar bear crashes through the ice and drowns.

[trish]

So was there an argument in there or just a lot of willful ignorance? Every time a anti-science nitwit posts against climate change another rare hardwood falls in the Amazon and an oil CEO somewhere acquires another stock option.

[Yvonne183]

So was there an argument in there or just a lot of willful ignorance? Every time a anti-science nitwit posts against climate change another rare hardwood falls in the Amazon and an oil CEO somewhere acquires another stock option.

My response was a perfectly correct response. With this thread going through many pages what exactly have the posters to this thread done to save the earth?

I still see cars jamming the streets of NYC, they all can't be right wing anti science wackos. I am taking a good guess that most are liberal environmental Obama supporters. If these wacko nut jobs care so much about the earth then why don't they stop driving their cars? And another thing, there would be no problems with oil companies if no one bought their product.

There are many many rich liberals either in Hollywood, politics, business. Why don't these wackos get together and pool their money into an earth friendly product? Why wait for the Gov't to do something when the liberals have the means to do something for themselves.

I am not debating the science of global warming on whether it is real or not, what I am saying is why don't the liberal enviors get off their asses and do something constructive. I can't believe that all those cars in Manhattan belong to right wing nut jobs.

[Stavros]

My response was a perfectly correct response. With this thread going through many pages what exactly have the posters to this thread done to save the earth?

I still see cars jamming the streets of NYC, they all can't be right wing anti science wackos. I am taking a good guess that most are liberal environmental Obama supporters. If these wacko nut jobs care so much about the earth then why don't they stop driving their cars? And another thing, there would be no problems with oil companies if no one bought their product.

There are many many rich liberals either in Hollywood, politics, business. Why don't these wackos get together and pool their money into an earth friendly product? Why wait for the Gov't to do something when the liberals have the means to do something for themselves.

I am not debating the science of global warming on whether it is real or not, what I am saying is why don't the liberal enviors get off their asses and do something constructive. I can't believe that all those cars in Manhattan belong to right wing nut jobs.

In one respect your reaction goes to one of the core issues in environmental politics: we are all in this together, but getting everyone to do the same thing is impossible. It is not just about liberals driving to work instead of walking or taking the bus, it is about a belief that the secret weapon to dealing with carbons emissions and the threats we are told we face are often right here, with us and how we act as individuals to reduce our own waste, manage our immediate environmental in a better way, and I think a lot of people have in fact changed the way they do things.

The problem is that global processes cannot be influenced by one political faction alone, the USA could ban 'blood diamonds' from badly run mines in the Congo, it could ban the import of timber from the forests of Indonesia and Brazil where loggers with no rules are tearing at the lungs of the earth without mercy: now Brazil plans 200 dams on the Amazon -if there is no rain forest of any magnitude in 50 years time, there will at least be forests of concete buildings.

How does any 'liberal' in New York affect the policies of capitalist firms for whom the market is all that matters? And by the time that anything is done, it is too late, as James Lovelock is arguing -yes, Gaia will react and the earth will re-cycle itself, but probably a million years from now.

But your frustration and critical remarks are pointed: at the very least we should as individuals change the way we live, if that is part of the solution.

[trish]

I usually prefer to stay out of arguments concerned with what should be done about climate change. My posts have been devoted to the explaining the atmospheric mechanisms responsible for climate change, the evidence and debunking the arguments of naysayers.

But I shall make a brake from my usual modus operandi. IMO we face a classic tragedy of the commons scenario. Suppose for a brief moment that you thought climate change was an important issue that required your personal involvement. Suppose you feel that to conserve gasoline and to minimize car emissions every should limit their highways speeds to 55 mph. Can you safely impose that limit on yourself when everyone around you is traveling 80 mph? Instead of having any significant effect on the output of carbon emissions you have simply become a hazard! In Europe it may be feasible to give up driving altogether and use public transportation, but in the U.S. public transportation is woefully inadequate to most people’s needs. This sort of conundrum occurs over and over again. One person winterizing their home, using efficient lightbulbs, walking to work, driving a fuel efficient vehicle doesn’t make much of a dent in anthropogenic climate change. Can we expect everyone the first world and the developing world of their own conscious volition to adopt behaviors that will reverse the direction our annual planetary energy imbalance? Unless some wonderful, cheap, new and irresistible technology comes to our rescue I don’t see much hope for a bottom up solution, do you?

IMO a top down approach is required; e.g. enforceable treaties, laws and regulations governing energy and emissions. I make no specific suggestions here.

So what about those Hollywood types? They are just like any other fiscally successful human being: they live in comfort. I don’t expect the wealthy to live in hovels or have a smaller footprint than a homeless man on a city street. Do you? People will generally have footprints in proportion to their worth. So what is an environmentally concerned wealthy person to do short of giving up all their wealth and take to the street. They can do what every other environmentally concerned person does: take public transportation when possible, drive fuel efficient vehicles, walk, buy wisely, “winterize” and “summerize” their homes appropriately, perhaps supplement their energy intake with solar cells etc. Al Gore bought a old home...a big one to be sure...and made it 11% more energy efficient. That may be better than building a new home with a smaller footprint which would’ve left the old inefficient home in someone else’s hands still eating up energy at the older inefficient rate. There is one more thing an environmentally concerned wealthy person can do, even if they do have a bigger footprint than most of us: they can afford to give more money to environmental organizations, lend their voices to the environmental cause and take the heat (of which there is plenty). There's an implied argument that goes something like this. Liberal wackos are hypocrites, especially the wealthier ones. Hence they can't really believe in climate change. Hence it's just a ploy to implement socialist regulations against the energy industries. Pay attention to politics and never mind the science. Do I really need to point out the flaw in this argument?

I’m not wealthy and I don’t consider myself an environmentalist. I don’t push people to conserve nor do I insist they cut their greenhouse emission rate. I am a scientist, and I can tell you that due to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere more energy slips through our atmosphere in the day than slips out at night creating a heat imbalance, our climate is shifting poleward (you can see the ecological systems moving with it), glaciers are melting contributing to a runaway effect, and the extra energy in the climate system is creating more violent weather events.

I personally ride a bicycle to work, I walk downtown, I drive a Prius, I’ve tried to properly “winterize” and “summerize” my home. I do it because that’s just me; I don’t do it because I think it’ll will stop climate change.

What do you do?

[hippifried]

I drive a Prius,

What? Too cheap for a Tesla?

[InHouston]

Climate change is bullshit. It's just another ploy by the politicians to tax you again. There was a time when the North Pole was covered with palm trees. Man had nothing to do with that. Now it's frozen over and covered with ice.

[Ben]

Climate change is bullshit. It's just another ploy by the politicians to tax you again. There was a time when the North Pole was covered with palm trees. Man had nothing to do with that. Now it's frozen over and covered with ice.

But it's the politicians who are denying global warming.


Three Quarters of Senate Republicans Don't Believe in Climate Change:


US Senator Says Global Warming a Political Hoax:


Perry suggests global warming is a hoax:



Santorum At CPAC: 'Facade Of Manmade Global Warming':

[Ben]

And Senator Jim Inhofe is very qualified to talk about the science of global warming. As he has a background in real estate and insurance.



Unlike, say, David Suzuki:

[trish]

There was a time when the North Pole was covered with palm trees. Man had nothing to do with that. Now it's frozen over and covered with ice.

So what? There were forest fires seventy million ago too that men had nothing to do with. Are we to conclude that men can’t start forest fires?

Yes the climates Earth have undergone changes and fluctuation since Earth had climate. So what? The stock market fluctuates too. But if you lost money in one a particular bad run of the market you want to know the specific reasons behind that particular fluctuation. Before plants evolved photosynthesis there was very little oxygen in the atmosphere. Humans would not have been able to breath. Through photosynthesis plants entirely changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, nearly asphyxiating themselves. When Krakatoa erupted the Northern hemisphere experienced winter in July. Since the industrial revolution the output of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere has created a sustained accumulating heat imbalance giving us summers in February. The point is each specific event has a specific set of causes and “it just always does that” is not an explanation.

Climate change is bullshit. It's just another ploy by the politicians to tax you again.

Yes and Texas experienced a drought because the Rick Perry didn’t pray hard enough. Your post goes no further than opinion. I was hoping for just a little substance. But citing the motivations of politicians goes no way toward establishing or disputing a point in physics, atmospherics, chemistry or climate science. Anyway, thanks for your opinion. It always amazes me that someone would go to the trouble of posting such an unoriginal opinion when it is so obviously flawed and foolish. It’s not like we’re voting here. We’re having a discussion.