Irreversible climate damage is imminent

[blue4]

I'd rather use our intelligence to come up with a third option that actually makes sense.

First, find a lobbyist. Then wish on a falling star they can sell it to both sides. Then cross your fingers that corporate America doesn't torpedo it. Intelligence has zero to do with it.

 

[FilterFunk]

First, find a lobbyist. Then wish on a falling star they can sell it to both sides. Then cross your fingers that corporate America doesn't torpedo it. Intelligence has zero to do with it.

^This. You always end up having to go through somebody. Unfortunately, that's the way it is.

One can affect change at the grass-roots level, but big-time change usually involves some measure of politics.

 

[will33]

First, find a lobbyist. Then wish on a falling star they can sell it to both sides. Then cross your fingers that corporate America doesn't torpedo it. Intelligence has zero to do with it.

Although we may be of different stripes politically, I have to like this for it's simple truth.

I also don't buy into the "both sides of the aisle" thing, as if there are two and only two "sides" to anything and one must "buy into" one or the other.

IMO, it's a divide and conquer strategy...a magicians trick. "Everybody pay attention to this hand so you don't see what the other one is doing". Are you "for or against" X, when "X" isn't really what needs addressing.

 

[duff beer]

If the air today is better than in the 60's, than at least one knee jerk solution that cost money worked. It's far cleaner now than when I was a kid. As for American solutions, this is the reality we face. One side tends to overtax and overreact, one side simply wants to fiddle while Rome burns. Between those two realities, IMO I'd rather overreact instead of doing nothing.

One of the biggest myths is that those who don't believe in global warming also don't care about the environment. Please apply some common sense and don't make such a simplistic argument. There are plenty of people who truly care about the environment but who also don't buy into "the sky is falling" hype.

I don't know anyone on either side of the issue that wants to live in a polluted world. I think everyone should care about how much they pollute and how they treat the planet, and as a general rule, most people do. But also, with a few exceptions, governments have a very hard time doing anything right or effectively. To think that they can do anything measurable about the climate requires a massive leap of faith that most people, myself included, are not willing to make.

 

[callofcthulhu]

I'll ignore your rudeness and correct your analogy.

The video is saying "study shows 97% of beef has cheese on it" when the full abstract is 34% of beef is used to make hamburgers and 97% of hamburgers have cheese on them.

Pardon the vernacular, but: bro, do you even science?

Proper experimental methodology demands that you ask one very specific question and eliminate as many unrelated variables as possible. There is NO experimentally sound way to conduct the study "Is the Earth warming, and if it is, are humans responsible?" That proposal would not fly in a 5th grade science class any more than it would with a university funding panel, and both the 5th grade teacher and the university panel would tell their applicants the same thing - "You need to pick ONE hypothesis to explore, you've got two here."

All your statistic shows is that 66% of studies under the climate change umbrella opted to question the first hypothesis, and 34% the second.

That does NOT change the RESULTS of those studies.

In your analogy, the question "Are humans responsible for global warming" equates to "How many hamburgers have cheese on them?" For you to point out "But only 34% of beef is used for hamburgers!" is completely irrelevant to the question.

Further, the only reason there aren't as many studies specifically looking at the question of human involvement is because it's only been recently that the scientific community has been able to say conclusively that the Earth IS warming (thanks to the 66% you're pointing out). Give it a few more years of fewer and fewer studies asking the obvious question and more and more studies asking the next logical question, and even your phantom statistic will begin dwindling.

 

[BawanaRik]

You all do realize that there really is no such thing as a corporate tax or business tax don't you? It's as rediculous as thinking renters don't pay property taxes. Those are all just costs of doing business that get figured into the price and passed along to the end user.

You can't tax your way out of any problem. You can only tax your way into problems, that's all.

I feel that services must be paid for. And while theoretically people who use those services would freely and volunteer pony up the coin to pay for these services this might just be an example of theory and practices exhibiting a gap.

 

[BawanaRik]

Stop subsidizing big oil I agree with. So even if a gallon of gas costs $5 instead of $3.40, you're still going to artificially raise it to $10.

Question: who gets the other $5 and why?

Pot holes. Better highways.

Check out the YouTube vid about the AutoBahn. Gas at 10 bucks a gallon but roads and drivers capable of 200 mph speeds.

To quote BeBop Deluxe.

It's a fair exchange.

 

[BawanaRik]

I am not happy when a government offers a solution to a problem via taxing it.

Governments are not in the business of solving problems.......they are in the business of acquiring money for the government.

Problem solving and solutions to problems are by and large done by independent people and thinkers .

Most governments and politicians use the ideology of "Find a parade and get in front of it".

There have been many inventive remedies to many problems that have been killed off by governments and the corporations that they are in bed with.

Basic taxes like ones used for highway maintenance etc. are necessary of course........but you don't need a panel of scientists to tell you there's a pothole in the road.

We might not need a panel of scientists to tell us we need to fix a pot hole.

But that doesn't mean they don't need jobs.

This may seem to be slightly facetious. It's not!

But it's just an honest observation of humanity.

 

[blue4]

One of the biggest myths is that those who don't believe in global warming also don't care about the environment. Please apply some common sense and don't make such a simplistic argument. There are plenty of people who truly care about the environment but who also don't buy into "the sky is falling" hype.

I don't know anyone on either side of the issue that wants to live in a polluted world. I think everyone should care about how much they pollute and how they treat the planet, and as a general rule, most people do. But also, with a few exceptions, governments have a very hard time doing anything right or effectively. To think that they can do anything measurable about the climate requires a massive leap of faith that most people, myself included, are not willing to make.

I don't recall making that argument. You made that statement and implied I said it. I merely put forth the notion that what some people call knee-jerk reaction, others see a solution that apparently worked.

It's also a big myth that government can't do anything right. When you consider it has no "right to refuse service" to anyone and the vast population it has to provide service to, it works pretty well. It's convenient for some to put forth the myth that it never works. To think that any corporation will do anything without government pressure is the giant leap of faith.

 

[DerHoggz]

Pot holes. Better highways.

Check out the YouTube vid about the AutoBahn. Gas at 10 bucks a gallon but roads and drivers capable of 200 mph speeds.

To quote BeBop Deluxe.

It's a fair exchange.

We've gone over this before, but saying Autobahn drivers can drive at 200mph is completely wrong. In fact VAG, BMW, andMercedes limit their cars to 155mph, with limited exceptions. Even so, 200mph is not approachable in many cars.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

One of the biggest myths is that those who don't believe in global warming also don't care about the environment. Please apply some common sense and don't make such a simplistic argument. There are plenty of people who truly care about the environment but who also don't buy into "the sky is falling" hype.

Most people who believe in global warming don't believe that "the sky is falling" either, the scorched earth approach seems to be what the people who don't believe in global warming, think that those who do believe, believe in.

Plus, looking into alternatives now means that the transition from fossil fuels will be smoother, when they do become scarce/too expensive for the regular user.

 

[callofcthulhu]

I'm sure George Carlin has already been brought up a few times in this thread, but here's a clip that will hopefully not leave any room for the (painfully ironic) misinterpretation that his anti-alarmist view was somehow anti-environmentalist and/or anti-environmental regulation:

Edit: apparently I can't embed a clip at a timestamp in the new format? Weak. Fastforward to 3:07.



He wasn't anti-environmental regulation, he was pro-human extinction.

No, the sky is not falling. But the days of there being a human race to stand under it are quickly coming to an end, and the greenhouse effect is a proven way of doing it - it's what happened to Mars. Mars is still there, it still has a sky, but we look up at it and think "Gee, you think there was ever life there?" If you eagerly await the day that aliens will cruise by the Earth and wonder aloud "Gee, you think there was ever lifer there?" as Mr. Carlin did, by all means, let's keep up the status quo. The misanthropist in me finds it somewhat comforting as well.

I think the most forgiving estimates put the point of no return - the point at which the damage caused to the atmosphere by carbon emissions cannot be undone (assuming we continue increasing our emissions at our current rate) - at 2030. Yes, that is not a lot of time to dismantle billions of dollars of industry. And yes, it will probably be about another hundred years or so before we begin to see the repercussions of having crossed that threshold, so it's hard to weigh the value of something so far in the future against not wanting to pay taxes now, not wanting to trust the government now, and not wanting to think too hard about our daily routines now. But I think that any value analysis that does not factor in the end of humanity as a possible outcome is simply not a realistic one.

 

[duff beer]

But I think that any value analysis that does not factor in the end of humanity as a possible outcome is simply not a realistic one.

Lol.

 

[vin*tone]

And you can't put a price on green smugness...

How much taxpayer money subsidized your solar panels? Where did the materials to build them come from? What happens to the by-products from manufacturing? Were the materials needed harvested in "green" manner? What is the CO2 footprint of a solar panel factory?

Well it's not made of rainbows but the solar unit would have no bigger impact than any other appliance in my house. So given that I have no intention to go live in a cave this is a pretty good alternative. You call it "smugness" I call it just being practical. Certainly beats sitting around whining that there is no solution. As far as net emissions goes - a quick google gives me this:

"Most estimates for concentrating solar power range from 0.08 to 0.2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. In both cases, this is far less than the lifecycle emission rates for natural gas (0.6-2 lbs of CO2E/kWh) and coal (1.4-3.6 lbs of CO2E/kWh) [6]."

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/...energy/environmental-impacts-solar-power.html

So over the life cycle of the panels you're looking at about 1/20th the impact of coal fired electricity (includes manufacture). Google is your friend.

 

[ZenG]

Solar panels are no good in Alaska.....it's dark there all winter......

 

[callofcthulhu]

Lol.

The 2030 date was extrapolated from the statistics found here:

Invalid Link Removed

By all means, direct me to a peer reviewed study conducted by the smartest minds in the most advanced nations that found contentious results.

I'll wait.

Solar panels are no good in Alaska.....it's dark there all winter......

A quick google search shows there are solar panels in development that will be able to generate power at night. But even without them, think of how much surplus power Alaska can put back into the grid during the Summer when the sun doesn't set at all!

 

[Rickenmonster]

As long as the global population continues to increase, all the hybrids and windmills in the world won't help. Greenhouse gas emissions are not the problem-they are a result of the problem.

 

[DwaynieAD]

I don't recall making that argument.

you may not have made that argument. I'm not going back to check, but I know that argument has been made countless times in this thread and every thread like it.

 

[blue4]

you may not have made that argument. I'm not going back to check, but I know that argument has been made countless times in this thread and every thread like it.

You can go back to check. I get the feeling you assume you're doing me some sort of favor by not checking. Perhaps not, forum posts are hard to judge sometimes. While you're there, check out I_got_a_mohawk's post about assumptions made by the other side as well.

 

[nukes_da_bass]

We've gone over this before, but saying Autobahn drivers can drive at 200mph is completely wrong. In fact VAG, BMW, andMercedes limit their cars to 155mph, with limited exceptions. Even so, 200mph is not approachable in many cars.

I buried a thunderbird turbo coupe speedometer at 130 mph once. Even if I could have gone faster, the car lacked the breaking/banking/steering power to make it anything other than a MORE foolish choice.