181–190 of 264 posts
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Which regulations does it replace?
Cap and trade, in California, at least. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2017/03/02/californ...
However, our contemporary Republican part uses "anti-regulations" as code for "anti-government, anti-law enforcement", so I doubt carbon tax will get any play.
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Not quite the same. Climate scientists are notoriously bad at predicting consequences of climate change - kind of like how meteorologists are often bad at predicting the weather. Why is it okay to be skeptical of what meteorologists are predicting, but not okay to be skeptical of what climate scientists are predicting? It's one thing to be skeptical of sciences that have stood the test of time like civil engineering…
Why is there still a pop culture cliche of weathermen being terrible at their job? Precipitation forecasts are usually accurate several days out and temperature forecasts are good a week or two out, in my experience. If I want to know if it's going to rain on Saturday I check the weather on Thursday and it's usually right. When there's a big storm comin', a local meteorologist does rolling updates with the latest dat…
I don't know much about climate science, but won't plants multiply and grow faster until we eventually hit a new equilibrium CO2 level? I guess the only danger is reaching thermal runaway before that happens? Then again, earth CO2 levels have been far higher in the past without signs that it killed off much life on Earth. Is rising CO2 that dangerous? Don't humans already have effective ways to reduce surface heating…
On a species level we'll probably survive it, but that doesn't mean it won't be disastrous at the individual level. Suppose, for example, that a natural disaster reduces the human population by 50$ over a few decades. Humanity survives, but the deaths of 3-4 billion people would be pretty awful.
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Life on Earth will be fine. The problem is the survival of our own species. It heavily relied in ~15,000 years of stable climate to flourish, and we're cutting that stability short.
One thing I thought about a while back related to this. Predictions show that increased energy in the atmosphere results in stronger storms. Storms are not preserved in the historical record, so how bad will they be? The relationships between temperature and energy tend to be supralinear... Has anyone looked at common species from warm earth periods to predict storm severity? I remember reading that palm-like trees u…
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"It won't cost all that much." You aren't a starving peasant in Bangladesh, dude. Reducing energy consumption to any significant degree will doom millions of people to an unpleasant death. And no, solar and wind won't do it. At least not earth-based solar. Space-based solar might do the trick, but the risks and costs would be extremely high. There is exactly one feasible alternative to fossil fuels, and that is nucle…
You don't get to say "The Earth will be fine" in one thread and then commiserate with a Bangladeshi peasant in another thread just because you find it convenient. Choose your pick.
2. You don't get to advocate the end of fossil fuels by spreading disaster scenarios while ignoring the very real human costs that would result from what you are advocating.
This is very bad (albeit completely unsurprising) news, but I really don't see that the word "threshold" is appropriate. Is there some special bad thing that happens once 410ppm is reached, that's qualitatively different from 400ppm? Nope. The article itself is quite clear about this: e.g., it quotes one climate scientist as saying "These milestones are just numbers, but they give us an opportunity to pause and take…
One thing that is universally ignored in this type of hysteria-promoting article is that all of the carbon in fossil fuels used to be in the atmosphere. Every atom of it. That's why they're called "fossil fuels". Guess what? The earth was just fine.
Show this to any conservative who claims that global warming has nothing to do with human activity. I guess it's just a giant coincidence that we live in the time of the highest CO2 concentration in millions of years? And the highest disappearance of species?
"Millions of years" is an eyeblink in the history of the earth. In fact, the CO2 level has been much higher than this level in the past (like, orders of magnitude higher). The earth was fine. And no, this isn't the era of the "highest disappearance of species". Not even close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
CO2 levels:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
The sources are all linked from this site.
Note that the CO2 level in the Cambrian was around 7,000 ppm, or about 17 times the level that this article is having hysterics about. Note that even during the Jurassic (when there were plenty of large land animals and a flourishing ecosystem) the level was about 3,000 ppm (7 times higher than the articles "threshold"). I repeat: the Earth was fine.
2. Extinction. The Wikipedia article I linked has a chart showing the proportion of species that have gone extinct during previous mass extinction. Note that the currently touted "mass extinction" is just a tiny blip.
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Infiltration? Espionage? lol seriously? The Republicans shamelessly flaunt their positions and policies. Dishonesty and deception? Again, lolwut. Parties are collections of people, they do not stand for specific ideas. Anyone that gets on the Republican membership list is, by definition, a Republican. Example A: Trump. Signing up to a different party sounds exactly like what you're describing. Open the door to intell…
I don't know how you expect me to take you seriously with "lolwut." But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt once. > The Republicans shamelessly flaunt their positions and policies. What is the point of this statement? Do you mean to say that Democrats don't do that? Or is it okay that they do, because you agree with them? In which case it's entirely hypocritical to say that, criticizing your opponents for doing ex…
Seriously? There were many registered Republicans who voted in their primaries and then ended up voting for Hillary over Trump. Were they being dishonest? Or did they just look at the two options given and make the choice that they feel best reflects their values?
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One thing that is universally ignored in this type of hysteria-promoting article is that all of the carbon in fossil fuels used to be in the atmosphere. Every atom of it. That's why they're called "fossil fuels". Guess what? The earth was just fine.
And the Earth will be just fine after us humans have ceased to exist. As humans I think we should be concerned just a little.
Humans will also be fine.
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And the Earth will be just fine after us humans have ceased to exist. As humans I think we should be concerned just a little.
Humans don't start to show negative effects until the CO2 level in air reaches at least 2,000 ppm (and some won't show any effects until about 5,000 ppm). That's around 4 times the "threshold" that the article is concerned about. Humans will also be fine.