The odd thing is that what we're doing has been "sustainable" since the Industrial Revolution. I am honestly interested in what "sustainable" actually means. It would seem that nothing is truly sustainable. I should like to see evidence of what actually is and isn't sustainable because from my chair, "sustainable" isn't wel defined. Dinosaurs lived in a sustainable environment and yet, here we are.
My feeling is that the sense of emergent disaster is manufactured by those with vested political and financial interests.
Progress in things like energy, manufacturing, etc., is welcome and naturally occurs as a function of a free market and a desire to achieve a competitive advantage. However, this 'end is near' cult that would have us believe the ice caps would have been gone by now and island nations would have disappeared. We've had a grand total of .36 degrees warming over the past 100 years. The climate is changing -- but not that much: not enough to warrant 50,000 people jetting off to Paris to talk about it on the taxpayers' dime.
Let's improve industrial processes to eliminate toxic pollution (you know, real pollution -- things like Benzene and Mercury and 2.5 particulates,) and stop wasting everyone's collective time with Chicken Little exploitations of the politically active, but stupid masses of people that seem to think their kids will become scrambled eggs on the sidewalk if they don't recycle that plastic bottle immediately.
There are people that actually believe Chinese smog is from CO2! It's depressing how incredibly wrong public opinion often is due to well placed agitators with a PhD after their name and a bank account full of grant funds.
How about you just ignore the cult and look at what actual scientists have to say? You are mostly displaying complete lack of clue, just as some of the cultists.
> There are people that actually believe Chinese smog is from CO2!
Yes, the world is full of idiots, big deal. That doesn't mean that there aren't some quite good scientists who have some pretty convincing measurements of what is happening right now to offer, and who certainly don't expect CO2 to form a fog or whatever in our atmosphere.
Isn't it weird how justified people who are sure they are right right feel to label almost anyone else as idiots?
Read me out here and get some good ideas for a campaign: There are literally 1000s of good reasons for people who aren't scientists to be sceptical, feel free to start with the 1400 or 1600 private jets that landed in Davos to discuss CO2 and AGW.
If someone is serious about this that would be a mighty good place to start, not because the emissions from 1500 planes matter but because they show, loud and clear, that those who claim to care really doesn't care at all
> feel free to start with the 1400 or 1600 private jets that landed in Davos to discuss CO2 and AGW
That's a really stupid reason why be skeptical. First of all, these people are mostly the governing elites, not scientists (actually all of them, I don't think there is a climate scientist with a private jet). If anything, the fact they are discussing it means it exists!
But OK, maybe you believe there is a conspiracy of those 1000 private planes owners going on, whatever that is. This is still not a reason to distrust scientists, just like existence of huge profits of pharmaceutical companies is not a reason to a priori distrust modern medicine. In fact, it may as well be a symptom of the thing being true.
First of all, these people
are mostly the governing
elites, not scientists...
It's still evidence of massive hypocrisy by many of those who claim to care very much.
Note: not blaming the scientists here, just saying that if someone wants to help people believe then they should probably start here by education the politicians about hypocrisy and the importance of being a good example.
But OK, maybe you believe
there is a conspiracy of
those 1000 private planes
owners going on, whatever
that is.
I don't claim there is a conspiracy, I show evidence that a lot of people who claim to care in practice do not.
Another "reality check": how many of these rich warming enthusiasts are buying property in Canada, or 6m (or whatever implausible sea level rise they claim to expect) above current ports? How many are selling their nice beach houses?
> Why you make your argument not taking into account the actual science?
Why make this about me?
Personally I really don't get AGW but I very much want to reduce oil consumption which I feel we should anyway, I reuse and recycle quite a bit etc.
> Why I have to listen to some "wealthy warmings" and not real scientists?
Still there is a massive problem where anyone who cares enough to read the news but doesn't have time or possibility to read the reports will see massive support from celebrities who then go on to travel by private jet to climate conferences. This does something to people.
Why is it that everyone feel they are doing the environment a service by downvoting and patronizing everyone that asks, telling that we are all either stupid or shills.
Trying to help you guys with a massive perception problem here and this is what I get back.
I'm not anti AGW. I cannot say I am convinced myself although I work in renewables(need to find and sit down with the numbers some day I fear, none of the AGW proponents seem to care about sharing those though although many care to rubber stamp and label.) But just because I am not convinced myself I hope that doesn't prevent me from pointing out obvious problems that is seen by anyone but that nobody in the party seems to care about?
Of course, when these "rich warming enthusiasts" do that, they will be blamed for supporting the cause so that their properties in Canada can have higher value.
Is that guy a wealthy warming enthusiast? Has he sold his beach properties? The tweet seems to be about something else.
EDIT: are you a GWB apologist? It's difficult to believe that Daesh would have arisen without the Lesser Bush's misadventures in Iraq. In fact, if there had been two degrees cooling since 2003 and everything else had gone the same, it seems a pretty good bet that Daesh would still be with us.
No, the point was, when the s* (like drought) hits the fan, the refugees will be the ones trying to get properties in Canada. Rich people with money savings can do that anytime; they're no better than other humans, also discount the future pretty aggressively.
Discounting is rational behavior. No one lives forever. However, the predictions we hear seem pretty certain about events of the next few decades. Plenty of people will live that long. If they're certain, why don't they act like it?
How is attributing any particular human calamity to the climate different than attributing any particular storm to the climate? Pinker has argued persuasively that war and similar disasters have decreased significantly over recent periods. In that context one might think that the fortunes of Syrian refugees have more to do with politics and the media than with the climate. After all there were millions of refugees from violence within Africa during any decade of the twentieth century. They just weren't wealthy enough to make it to Europe. And in relative terms they were still fewer than refugees in earlier times, say 250 or 1000 years ago. How many fewer refugees would there have to be, for the changing climate to be credited for the decrease, rather than blamed for journalists' coverage of refugees?
First of all, wealthy people typically have multiple properties, in different places. So it's not like they are going to be homeless if they lose their villa in Florida. Second, they probably already risk hurricanes and tsunamis. Third, the predicted sea level rise is about 1 meter (if we don't count the land ice, which is unpredictable), so you can probably deal with that on one house (but much harder on city or nation scale). In short - if you're rich, you're still better off than others in case of global catastrophe, so there is little you can make in preparations. But I am an expert in habits of wealthy people, this is just a guess.
I agree with Steve Pinker, but if you actually read the book, it's not without caveats. Regarding attribution, we can somewhat attribute the drought to climate change (because we know from models that there is expected to be more of it) and so the conflict; it's not the sole cause, but it's a factor. I have no doubts there are going to be more mass migrations due to climate change.
> The odd thing is that what we're doing has been "sustainable" since the Industrial Revolution.
You then go on to set out how you're not sure what sustainable means. So let me see if I can help.
A simple guide would be that resource is being used in a sustainable way if the resource isn't being used up faster than it is replenished, or in other words 'If we keep doing this, can we keep doing this for a long time?'
So by that measure, solar power, wind, geo-thermal are sustainable - the fact that we use them, doesn't diminish the amount available. To an extent cutting down a tree and burning is sustainable, if you can grow trees fast enough. Fossil fuels aren't sustainable.
Firstly, there is a finite amount in the ground, and the speed at which we extract it far, far outweighs the speed at which new deposits are being laid down.
Secondly, we need to use the atmosphere as the dumping ground for fossil fuels' waste products - including CO2. The atmosphere isn't infinite and we can measure that CO2 concentrations are rising in line with our output.
Clearly, this is a simplified explanation, but I hope it is helpful. It does illustrate that no, we haven't being using resources in a sustainable fashion since the industrial revolution. Just because something hasn't run out yet, doesn't mean than it has been used sustainably.
Finally - sustainable resource use isn't a magic get out of jail free card. Yes, the dinosaur ecosystem was sustainable. That doesn't mean that they were immune from meteor strikes.
> My feeling is that the sense of emergent disaster is manufactured by those with vested political and financial interests.
My feeling is that if you looked into the actual science a bit, your feeling may change.
> There are people that actually believe Chinese smog is from CO2! It's depressing how incredibly wrong public opinion often is due to well placed agitators with a PhD after their name and a bank account full of grant funds.
Care to give just one example of this PhD agitation.
But the comment about "bank account full of grant funds" says a lot about all of your post.
> We've had a grand total of .36 degrees warming over the past 100 years. The climate is changing -- but not that much:
Apart that we're reaching 1 C above the pre industrial mean, 0.36 or 1 C is a LOT of change for 100-150 years.
My feeling is that the sense of emergent disaster is manufactured by those with vested political and financial interests.
Progress in things like energy, manufacturing, etc., is welcome and naturally occurs as a function of a free market and a desire to achieve a competitive advantage. However, this 'end is near' cult that would have us believe the ice caps would have been gone by now and island nations would have disappeared. We've had a grand total of .36 degrees warming over the past 100 years. The climate is changing -- but not that much: not enough to warrant 50,000 people jetting off to Paris to talk about it on the taxpayers' dime.
Let's improve industrial processes to eliminate toxic pollution (you know, real pollution -- things like Benzene and Mercury and 2.5 particulates,) and stop wasting everyone's collective time with Chicken Little exploitations of the politically active, but stupid masses of people that seem to think their kids will become scrambled eggs on the sidewalk if they don't recycle that plastic bottle immediately.
There are people that actually believe Chinese smog is from CO2! It's depressing how incredibly wrong public opinion often is due to well placed agitators with a PhD after their name and a bank account full of grant funds.