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Dissent on Global Warming

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#2
Just one of the secondary symptoms.

There is only one, One Single Global problem.

Overpopulation. Resolve that and all the secondary problems of ecosystem collapse, overfishing, peak-oil etc goes away instantly.
 
#3
Actually there have been many scientists who have disputed the causes of global warming (oops.....I'm sorry...if you happen to be freezing your kojones off right now...it's not Global Warming...it's...um..Climate Change)

The scientists that contribute to the IPCC have no faith in any findings by these "outsider" scientists.

Mostly the outsiders are debunked as fakes, freaks, phonies or having no qualification.

If they do have the qualification they are still regarded as rogues being paid by certain factions who have a vested
interest in keeping things as they are.

However if you agree that global warming is caused by carbon emissions, what actually can be done about it is another matter.

First off the number of aircraft in the sky around the globe simultaneously at any given moment. Jet driven and prop driven. Calculate the amount of carbon emission being produced daily.
Nary a whimper about this mostly.......

The focus seems to be more about carbon-taxing people.
 
#7
I'm an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience in chemistry and environmental science. I have mixed feelings about the actual causes of global warming, but I am pretty much in the camp that it wouldn't be the most inconvenient thing to try to do something positive to combat it. Problem is, there are so many loud-mouthed

bread bakers
taxi drivers
book binders
gas station attendants
postal workers
sewing machine manufacturers
proctologists
lawyers (sorry; redundant)
car salesman
civil engineers
bomb makers
bomb diffusers
football players
dentists
garbage collectors
yarn makers
mad men
sane men
librarians
gutter cleaners
hair stylists
lottery executives
card dealers
wrought iron welders
wall street stompers
pot-smoking college students
accupuncturists
sky-divers
bowling alley shoe sprayers
social workers
IT gurus
bishops
rock-breakers
butchers
and
every day people who base their view on the political stance rather than on the scientific stance. The ultimate truth regarding global warming, and more importantly, climate change (global warming can result in drastic weather pattern changes that may not necessarily involve "hotter") has nothing to do with politics. It either is or isn't something we can do something about, regardless of which side of the aisle you align with.
 
#9
FretlessMainly said:
I'm an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience in chemistry and environmental science. I have mixed feelings about the actual causes of global warming, but I am pretty much in the camp that it wouldn't be the most inconvenient thing to try to do something positive to combat it. Problem is, there are so many loud-mouthed (people) and every day people who base their view on the political stance rather than on the scientific stance. The ultimate truth regarding global warming, and more importantly, climate change (global warming can result in drastic weather pattern changes that may not necessarily involve "hotter") has nothing to do with politics. It either is or isn't something we can do something about, regardless of which side of the aisle you align with.
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I studied environmental management at university. I cannot claim to have your experience of knowledge. I think the most eye-opening course I studied was one whereby we compared the economic value of mitigation vs avoidance. Havin to admit that 'there is no economic value in reducing emissions now' just didn't make sense to me then, and it still doesn't make sense now. It seems that those that will be hit the hardest by climate change (Bangladesh et al) will be those that never once benefitted from our economic and political systems. Therefore it is too easy to say "it makes poor economic sense to fit a scrubber plant to our coal fired power station because it would take too long to pay itself off". I guess 'global commons' don't factor too well into economic systems... there is no value is trying to prevent Bangladeshi citizens from getting wet feet in twenty years time by taking action now.
 
#12
FretlessMainly said:
The ultimate truth regarding global warming, and more importantly, climate change (global warming can result in drastic weather pattern changes that may not necessarily involve "hotter") has nothing to do with politics. It either is or isn't something we can do something about, regardless of which side of the aisle you align with.
Click to expand...

Exactly. It could be that our activities are only accelerating a natural warming trend. If that's the case, there's not a danged thing we can do about it. I'd say we should spend as much time planning for sea level rise as we are trying to stop or reverse the current trend, because I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of ice melting over the next 50 or 100 years.

However, a large enough volcanic eruption could virtually instantaneously put the skids on warming. Which gives me an idea ...
 
#13
PilbaraBass said:
There are other green technologies that DOhave economic payback...retrofitting old coal fired plants does not (not yet anyway)...

Nothing wrong with pushing sustainable technology
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I agree. The problem is that our government tends to push one kind of technology, which then gets a stigma, so they push another... rinse repeat. Onshore wind was the big breadwinner for a while. Some believed that wind farms were sped through the planning process. I know of one wind farm near where I grew up that had an Environmental Impact Assessment that was smaller than the menus at my local Chinese Takeaway. True enough, the dust generated from vehicle movements over the site got into the local water courses and ruined spawning grounds for rare fish species. The wind farms in Scotland are also built on heather moorland a lot of the time (though lately they've cleared forestry to put them in).Peat does not like being trampled, so I wager that the true carbon footprint of these developments is incalculable. Given that you need to pour a thousand tonnes of concrete to secure these turbines, I wager that they never offset their carbon footprint during their 25 year life cycle....

Anyway.... on the subject of overpopulation. It is a myth. It is indicative of how poorly western economic and political systems function that we cannot manage resources over a long term period. Politicians work in 4 year cycles, so don't care about technology or development that may take 25+ years to fully work. Economists argue there is no value in something that takes that long to pay itself off. This is an issue with Keynesian economics, but those of the Chicago school would argue that it is not the job of the market, at all, to save the environment from destruction. See the problem here? It isn't Africans having too many babies...
 
#14
Global warming = more energy driving the world's weather systems = more weather, and lots of it. Climate change.

Any sort of sober analysis of the evidence would have to conclude that human activity is either causing or accelerating current patterns of climate change. The link posted by the OP shows this to be a pretty much unavoidable conclusion. One of the underlying factors is energy consumption per capita in the world's most industrialised economies. Those levels in themselves are unsustainable, but as much larger sections of the world's population are currently in the process of gearing themselves up to similar levels of consumption, I can only see the problem getting much worse. There may be some sort of solution to this, but it's unlikely to be one that most people would regard as fun.
 
#15
vin*tone said:
Not overpopulation - overconsumption. There's a huge difference there. The earth can support twice as many people who consume half as much.
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People tend to consume. Here a large screen TV, mobile, air conditioning and a car are seen as the minimum basics to live.

There is also a push towards a consumer based economy.

I feel that a value added tax would go along way to help tame rampant consumerism.
 
#16
bassybill said:
Global warming = more energy driving the world's weather systems = more weather, and lots of it. Climate change.

Any sort of sober analysis of the evidence would have to conclude that human activity is either causing or accelerating current patterns of climate change. The link posted by the OP shows this to be a pretty much unavoidable conclusion. One of the underlying factors is energy consumption per capita in the world's most industrialised economies. Those levels in themselves are unsustainable, but as much larger sections of the world's population are currently in the process of gearing themselves up to similar levels of consumption, I can only see the problem getting much worse. There may be some sort of solution to this, but it's unlikely to be one that most people would regard as fun.
Click to expand...

Like live simpler lives using less energy? Severe population control?

It seems that the continent already implements this to one extent or another. It's my understanding that Europe uses about half the petroleum per capita the US does.

A mere couple of dollar per gallon tax on motor vehicle fuel, like most civilized nations, would help lead the US in a similar direction.
 
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