Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[broncofan]

http://www.climatehustlemovie.com

Here's a stupid movie to watch

Or not to watch. You couldn't pay me. Masochism.

[Stavros]

CDR Communications, the production company that made this film is part of the Cornwall Alliance via the James Partnership, an evangelical movement which campaigns against climate change science, you can read about it in these links -

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2010/...-evangelicals/

The imdb listing for CDR films-
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4297552/?ref_=tt_ov_dr

[Stavros]

Last month figures showed that since shops began charging 5 pence for a plastic bag, the trend suggests an 83% decline in the number of new plastic bags being taken out of the shop by customers. This remarkable statistic also suggests that apparently minor adjustments can have a major impact as long as the plastic bags we do have do not end up in the sea. A 5 pence tax is affordable, yet people will still try to avoid paying it by using and re-using bags they already own. This further suggests that modest measures to protect the environment can actually work, not impose a cost burden on consumers, and reward those trying to improve the environment with funds. I think that is a win-win situation. Another example would be for people with cars not to use them for short journeys that can be made on foot, for people who eat meat to consumer it only 3 times a week and thus reduce the need for herds across the world, and so on. But if we can go further to prevent paper bags in shops being used as an alternative to plastic bags (which I think are not common in the US -?), the long term impact on forests will also be beneficial, though we still use too much paper in other areas of life.
The BBC report on the story is here-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36917174

[nitron]

Nature , it's hammering , slowly but painfully (http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ear-on-record/)....,
(http://www.natureworldnews.com/artic...tists-warn.htm)
2500 years ago, AESCHYLUS said,"We learn nothing save thru suffering ,the pain of wisdom falls drop by drop upon the heart and sleep ,against our will comes wisdom , the grace of the god(s) is forced on us".
We must be hammered into pieces before we learn anything and be able to change. We are not capable of Rational thought.
Sorry Stavros, I think it's going to be really , really hard.

[trish]

Of course Aeschylus was given to hyperbole and drama. A great deal of what we know we enjoyed learning. Euclid demonstrated that humans are indeed capable of rational thought. The problem is greed, desire and ego often short circuit reason.

[Stavros]

Nature , it's hammering , slowly but painfully
2500 years ago, AESCHYLUS said,"We learn nothing save thru suffering ,the pain of wisdom falls drop by drop upon the heart and sleep ,against our will comes wisdom , the grace of the god(s) is forced on us".
We must be hammered into pieces before we learn anything and be able to change. We are not capable of Rational thought.
Sorry Stavros, I think it's going to be really , really hard.

Too pessimistic, Nitron, and it is not rational thought that is at fault, but irrational behaviour often not informed of the full range of options. If we can reduce the distribution of plastic bags by 83% in less than a year, we can achieve other environmentally friendly goals that do not cost a lot in terms of either cash or effort. I suspect the 5 pence tax has clarified it for people who otherwise 'can't be bothered' to re-cycle their trash or drive when they can walk. You don't even need to believe humans are causing advanced global warming to treat the environment with respect, but doing so could in the long term have more advantages than cynics like to claim.

[nitron]

trish>"...humans are indeed capable of rational thought....",
moi>" people are capable of not reaching for the donuts,but..."


Rational thought vs irrational . Long term vs immediate .. Do we even have the time that's really needed to face our own instincts? We can't even admit that were risen apes.

[trish]

Of course we have the time, if you don't run out the clock telling everyone that all action is for naught, you might as well party or the devil will save you. We save ourselves or we go extinct - our choice.

BTW: I didn't rise from Hominoidia, although we do share a common ancestor. But one doesn't have to subscribe to the modern evolutionary synthesis to be influenced by 5 pence charge per plastic bag to start using reusable canvas bags.

[Stavros]

Advance notice of a book on the Arctic Death Spiral by Peter Wadham, which argues that as the ice-cap in the Arctic melts, and it is melting at around 13% a year, so the planet will carry on warming with devastating effect in parts of the world that will be uninhabitable due to the lack of water, food and in 50 degrees centigrade no shelter without air conditioning-

The warming now being widely experienced worldwide is concentrated in the polar regions and Wadhams says we will shortly have ice-free Arctic Septembers, expanding to four or five months with no ice at all. The inevitable result, he predicts, will be the release of huge plumes of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, accelerating warming even further.

He and other polar experts have moved from being field researchers to being climate change pioneers in the vanguard of the most rapid and drastic change that has taken place on the planet in many thousands of years. This is not just an interesting change happening in a remote part of the world, he says, but a catastrophe for mankind.

“We are taking away the beautiful world of Arctic Ocean sea ice which once protected us from the impacts of climate extremes. We have created an ocean where there was once an ice sheet. It is man’s first major achievement in re-shaping the face of the planet,” he writes.

Wadhams also offers man-made solutions to man-made problems-


But he joins other climate researchers to cross lines that the public may still find unacceptable. He wants global action to find new ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and is not afraid of nuclear power – both of which answers can be swallowed – but he also argues for a colossal, global research programme in geo- engineering.

This is the deliberate attempt to reduce warming by the planetary-scale manipulation of weather patterns, oceans, currents, soils and atmosphere to decrease the amount of greenhouses gases.

Spraying sun-reflecting chemicals into the atmosphere, mimicking volcanoes, blocking sunlight and fertilising the oceans with iron filings attracts people who think that technology has all the answers, but it should strike fear into most of the world, which has not been responsible for warming and which has no reason to trust politicians’ or scientists’ further meddling with planetary forces.

the full article is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-peter-wadhams

[Stavros]

I don't know if it is the species that is in danger or science and the reason through which it reaches its conclusions, but we can be sure that however many scientists dance on the edge of a pin, whatever these representatives of the 'expertariat' conclude is of no importance to the planet or the Trump administration, except of course, as a threat:

The environmental movement is “the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world”, according to an adviser to the US president Donald Trump’s administration.

Myron Ebell, who has denied the dangers of climate change for many years and led Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until the president’s recent inauguration, also said he fully expected Trump to keep his promise to withdraw the US from the global agreement to fight global warming.
Ebell said US voters had rejected what he dubbed the “expertariat” and said there was no doubt that Trump thinks that climate change is not a crisis and does not require urgent action.
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...er-myron-ebell