2. Climate change is predicted to cause food supply problems for hundreds of millions of people, trillions of dollars of economic damage, and rising sea levels that flood coastal cities. I don't see how the other problems you mention are more dire.

3. The problems you mention – homelessness, drug abuse, crime, healthcare – are problems that affect us on a domestic level. Climate change disproportionately affects poor people in other countries, yet the CO2 in our atmosphere has been disproportionately created by wealthy countries. How is addressing this snobby?

4. True climate change action would require upending the entire energy sector of the economy. How would this be not taking any action? Just because the action hasn't taken place yet doesn't mean the preaching should stop.

I find climate change opposition adopts the following trajectory: 1. It's not real. 2. Ok, but humans aren't causing it. 3. Ok, but it's not worth solving.

Your response is currently on step 3, and I don't see the logic behind it.

This is exactly the type of politics I dislike when it comes to climate change: I called into question some of the political aspects of climate change, and now I'm being cast out of as an infidel, non-believer, someone opposed to climate change progress, and being given a bunch of straw man arguments.

2. OK, but what are you really contributing here? I didn't specifically mention any other problems when I said other problems have more immediate or greater consequences, so when you say "that's not the case with other problems you mention." Well, nevermind. I assume you latched onto problems I later mentioned that are easier to make changes with in your community, like crime, homelessness, etc., and conflated that with the earlier argument I made.

Also, to address this idea about climate change being irreversible. That's a problem, because it may likely be very likely to be very difficult, but keep in mind: climate change has been happening for billions of years and carbon sequestration technology already exists. Atmospheric CO2 and temperatures already have been higher than they are now... The idea that it is irreversible is not scientific fact. Anyways, that discussion can easily serve as a straw man debate than really getting distracts from the message of what I was saying: It IS a worthy cause to fight against, I said that.

You do 2 things in your post: you prioritize climate change below other problems (apparently without naming them, which I mistook), and you criticize the behaviors of climate change activists. Please correct me if I'm wrong in understanding your assertions.

I replied with 1 and 2 to show how climate change is the most dire and threatening problem we face. And I replied with 3 and 4 to address your criticisms of climate change activism.

I view climate change as by far the biggest problem humanity has on its plate. I think the alarmism is plainly justified.

He's also expressing concern for wealthy individuals concerning themselves with "climate change", but don't have the capability to make a direct, observable impact. He thus raises the question: "If we can save 10 humans now, is it worth worrying about saving 100 later?"

This is a deeply philosophical issue that deserves thoughtful discourse, but it seems you've devolved it into a battle and put intent behind his words such as "you criticize the behaviors of climate change activists" that probably don't fairly represent his.

> He thus raises the question: "If we can save 10 humans now, is it worth worrying about saving 100 later?"

No, he said "I can think of a number of other issues that pose similar if not more immediate, or greater risks to humanity that have lower economic costs to solve." That is a much broader statement than saying, "I can think of problems with lesser risks, but that are more immediate." I don't see how my points 1 and 2 don't address his claim. I am challenging him by pointing out the nuances (irreversibility) and seriousness of climate change.

> you've devolved it into a battle and put intent behind his words such as "you criticize the behaviors of climate change activists" that probably don't fairly represent his.

He says, "Global warming activism also bothers me in some ways. Snobs have an absolute affinity for it..." That is criticizing the behaviors of climate change activists.

2. This is not yet known. What if Russia opens borders and lets people in as long as they stay in Siberia?

What if food supply shortage helps innovate instead or changes priorities?

3. Snobby in a way for criticizing countries that are going through their versions of industrial revolution when the West went through it already.

4. Not much action from that person. People are really bad at counting calories. I bet everyone is way off when counting their carbon footprint and they would get outraged by others when they themselves could be outputting way more.

Best thing to do in terms of carbon footprint unless you are directly working on solutions is to not have children and start working on solutions. Finger pointing and preaching doesn't help.

2. That's why I said "predicted." Relocating hundreds of millions of poor people to Russia is not a solution to climate change. Look at the problems we are having now with accepting a couple million refugees from Syria. Plus, this doesn't address the flooding and economic cost. The long-term effects of climate change on humanity are overwhelmingly negative.

3. Virtually all climate change activists I know of primarily advocate reducing emissions at home (in the US for me). The goal is not to prevent other countries from industrializing, it's to prevent them from emitting CO2. This may be possible with green energy. Ultimately, the atmosphere doesn't care where the emissions come from.

4. I don't really care what supporting climate change action says about an individual person, I care about results.

> Best thing to do in terms of carbon footprint unless you are directly working on solutions is to not have children and start working on solutions. Finger pointing and preaching doesn't help.

Yes, finger pointing doesn't help. But at least in the US, we already have the technological and economic means to drastically reduce our carbon footprint. The problem is political will. We need top-down political action to force green energy – as you hint at, individuals trying to reduce their carbon footprint will never be enough. There is unfortunately no other way.

- the 1000 year ocean cycle takes time, (which is now transporting heat and carbon into the lower ocean layers)

- building up the ice sheets again takes way longer, and ice sheets are important to the albedo, thus also have an influence on climate,

- there are some points where something big might change, such as ocean current patterns changing permanently(due to changes in heat and salinity distribution), permafrost thawing and releasing huge volumes of methane, ..

It's a massive problem to undo. Right now it'd be still relatively easy, but it might not stay that way.

(We'll have to learn how to control the climate longterm anyway since another ice age would be desastrous, but it's too soon. We're still to unknowledgerable and weak.)

The science was 'settled' on Eugenics during the early 20th century as well and we saw how that turned out.

There's no mention of any positive effects of global warming. The climate is certainly changing.. But then again it has always changed and the world will adapt and evolve as it always has. When Leonardo DiCaprio gives up a private jet for a city bus, then maybe I'll start to worry. The science has been misappropriated by anti-capitalist activists.

Forgive me for not trusting the anti-capitalist cabal that share more values with Lenin than with Milton Friedman.

Nope: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cli...

> Forgive me for not trusting the anti-capitalist cabal that share more values with Lenin than with Milton Friedman.

Stop reading crappy news sources. Have you read the IPCC 5th AR? The synthesis report summary for policymakers is an excellent overview and really easy to read: http://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_S...

It discusses evidence, projections for the future, practical effects for people and for economies, and potential mitigation techniques, all in common language. The IPCC reports are a combination of inputs from all the world's climate scientists. These aren't communists and Lenin fanatics (what the heck are you reading??), these are real scientists doing peer-reviewed work with real data. More about the IPCC 5th report: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report

This is a very serious issue and I'm really disappointed that the issue has been framed in such a way as to give you the impression that ignoring long-standing scientific principles that we use in every other area of our lives is the best way for you to act.

Myth. In the 1970s no one was quite sure what was coming, a few people raised the possibility of "global cooling" and one or two journalists hyped it up as journalists are wont to do, but in so far as there was a consensus it was that warming was much more likely to be a problem.

> eugenics

Not, so far as I can tell, a case of the science turning out to be wrong. What happened was that the Nazis were keen on eugenics and most of the world decided that that wasn't the company they wanted to be keeping. It's a change of values, not of scientific understanding.

> positive effects of global warming

The IPCC impact report, for instance, does talk about positive effects. It talks more about negative effects because most of the projected effects are negative.

Remember DDT? On one side you had Silent Spring, and on the other side you have people claiming bollocks and conspiracy and the like. I think the science is pretty settled on this one, really has been since the 1970s (eg, a metabolite of DDT, DDE, really is nasty for raptor egg shells, and wanton over-application of pesticide is an extremely poor way to control mosquitoes) but I still see things about the "DDT conspiracy" today.

Likewise, with climate change, I think the science is fairly settled to some degree. The issue here is that it's a very slow moving problem, with some degree of uncertainty. A lot of humans aren't terribly good at thinking very long term. Plus, the "easy" solution involves "giving up" our creature comforts, which contrary to the anti-capitalists opinion I don't anyone is going to want to do.

While you're right that most likely much of the world will adapt, there may be some pain points. We have so much infrastructure built along the coasts right now that could be affected by sea rise increases, for instance. Same with different weather patterns -- for instance, what's San Francisco going to do if climate change starts slowly, over time, affecting the Sierra Nevada snowpack they depend on for water?

The developed world, of course, probably can come up with some solutions for this; honestly I don't think the changes will be a complete disaster there. Poorer nations, might be another story. I'm not sure they are as able to cope.

No, scientists never predicted global cooling

> There's no mention of any positive effects of global warming

Perhaps because there is none that outweighs the negative effects?

Cool, like what?

> None of what I'm saying is that global warming isn't a worthy cause, just that the enormity and alarmism of the politics that surrounds it is cause for question.

I agree. But that doesn't make it less of an issue. And cutting off your nose to spite your face doesn't seem like a useful solution, so what's the answer?

Regular environmental damage, for one. We still have lots of forest-burning and toxic chemical exposure around the world. In fact, a major extinction is going on in the Amazon right now because of deforestation.

We could also throw in public health crises like heart disease and diabetes - like climate, we may be able to improve those by changing our behavior.

It is absolutely the case the case that present human and environmental health is under greatest assault by things other than climate. This is not to make climate less, but to point out that other problems loom a little larger than most people think.

Life expectancies have risen by a ridiculous amount over the last 150 years. Wide-spread diabetes is a symptom of a wealthy society that is over-indulging - solve for that problem, and, you guessed it, climate change is assisted too.

Climate change can destroy our global ecosystem - the one that sustains all life. While these other things may be more urgent, nothing (aside from a large object in space heading to Earth) has quote the same existential gravitas.

And fighting some of those things, like pollution from coal plants, also goes hand in hand with reducing CO2 emissions.

The politics come from the fact that in many places, everybody but the strongly left have decided they don't give a crap, so many solutions you hear about are intertwined with left-wing politics.

I bike to work and I eat vegetarian. I'm not impressed with the rationalizations people come up with for doing nothing.

Just to be clear, the reputable scientific research is around the issue of climate change's impact on the environment, not on the effects to society. In other words, what that statement means is that we are capable of using the scientific method to make reliable predictions about how much the earth's temperature will rise, how much ocean levels will rise, etc.

The problem I see here is that the 'reputable scientific research' is being stretched to include outcomes to society: 'reputable scientific research says the outcome will be terrifying catastrophy.' That is not science: no one has a scientific experiment that can scientifically prove how many people will die or experience hardship due to climate change, let alone that outcome is terrifying catastrophe. By the way, what is 'terrifying catastrophe?' We can only produce simulations, models, guesses and conjecture, all of which are notoriously fallible devices, to predict what will happen.

Look, and I'm in agreement that the outcome of not acting on climate change will probably be terrible. My post clearly lays out that I am an advocate of climate change progress.

The extreme alarmism is not an indisputable part of the science, it is an indisputable part of the politics. The is something which has become worth questioning.

There are a lot of people shouting up and down about climate change without doing anything serious. Some of the most capable to help others are buying into a market of products and services that appear to have questionable benefit to human welfare. For example, hybrid cars that weigh over 2 tons and get 20mpg. Those investments in extremely marginal improvements in CO2 emissions, without directing effort to make improvements in other peoples lives in very obvious, relatively low-cost, and direct ways, especially in their communities, calls into question the value of the political movements impact on our resource allocation: is $20,000 better spent on a hybrid powertrain that improves fuel economy marginally on an over-bloated car, or is it better spent on other methods of saving lives, improving education, civil rights, individual freedoms, access to food and healthcare? We do have the capability to make the world a better place, and there is still a lot of low-hanging fruit as a means to that end. For example, we live in a world where more than enough food is produced to feed everyone, yet malnutrition is still a problem. Some estimate enough food is currently produced to feed the world twice over.

What I want to say is: it is worth questioning the politics. The climate change movement has become so political, so important and so untouchable of questioning that it raises concerns.

Why is it worth questioning the politics. One reason: are we spending our resources efficiently? I don't think we are.

I commend you for your efforts. For a period, I also biked to work and ate vegetarian.

"But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.. ..One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.."

--Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III, and lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007

When somebody burns coal as part of their business and pollutes my air, they are basically imposing a tax on me to subsidize their business. That's not capitalism or economic freedom, that's socialism for business.

Your confusion is well founded. It is actually the other way around. Privatizing externalities (the environmental costs) is honestly a well-respected market-based mechanism to solve problems that fall under the Tragedy of the Commons category, as is the case here. So it is arguably absolutely "capitalist," and "free market." It has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with using free market mechanisms. If you're interested in related reading, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax

Socializing the costs (which means to redistribute ownership to society) is arguably more consistently "communist." Communism is a really bloated term, economic ideology, in which the economy does not rely on markets, but on socialization of capital and production, arguably more accurately describes a situation where we socialize a cost to society.

On top of all that, developing nations are trying to get to our living standard. To do that, they'll be harming the environment as well in increasing amounts, so it's necessary for one to consider that as a factor.

A common way to consider these issues is to issue carbon credits that one can spend. If your business doesn't need them, you can sell them to another business which creates a market for them (and hence a cost). If you do something that reduces emissions you can get more credits. Every country would get some and could trade the credits as well. To help developing nations, they would get a larger share of the credits which would naturally limit the increase of CO2 emissions that the developed nations would get. But, if the developing nations don't need the credits they could sell them to the developed nations to get things they need.

That's all a pretty simplistic way of putting things and the system is far more complicated, but that's the overall idea.

So, it is a redistribution of the world's wealth, but it's still a capitalist system.

The problem is that if you don't give the developing nations something, they won't sign on to the agreement and they could build a lot of cheap but polluting plants and equipment and make things that much harder on the countries that do sign the agreement. It's all very tricky.

A friend of mine did his PhD work on energy planning in developing nations and he focused on India (and went to live there for a year, I was his remote tech support). He's now a senior person at a NGO that does work in developing nations so I've heard him talk about this at length before.

You're confusing goals and solutions here.