What are the implications of 'irreversible'? Practically irreversible? Cannot be reversed naturally? If we run out of ice, what's to say cooling down the planet by halting carbon production won't recreate the ice caps?
Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
21–30 of 138 posts
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#22Climate change was never going to be reversible with behavioral measures. Even if everyone had followed the Kyoto protocol to the letter starting in 1992 that wasn’t going to avert climate change, because nobody contemplated how quickly China and India would develop. There is no calculus where you can significantly limit climate change through behavioral measures that also allow the third world to have comfortable, m…
> The solution to climate change is not governments and politicians and lawyers. It’s engineers. It’s always been engineers.
I like the sentiment, and we're always going to need newer, better tech. Part of it will be engineering, but part of if also has to be pure science, which I suspect won't be profitable enough for the private industry to pursue. Government needs to fund such efforts. I think this applies generally (not just to climate).
Appealing to government isn't just about trying to go from no help to some help. It's also about getting them to stop doing harm. The Guardian claims that the US subsidises the fossil-fuel industry to the tune of $20B each year.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#23There was a lot of talk about how the world will be "uninhabitable by 2050" or "civilization will crumble by 2050" and anecdotally, that really backfired for all my elderly aunts and uncles. They happily admit that climate change is real but don't care because they will be dead by 2040. Hell, I'll be in my 80's.
Kek, in 1970 crude oil was predicted to run out in 2020. They also predicted the world will be inhabitable by now because of intense pollution. How are we? We breathe cleaner air and use more petroleum than 1970. I will be 55 in 2050, and I bet my entire fortune that the world will be better then.
Not sure that works. That's like telling a child, "Watch out for that car. Oh! Lookout for that one, too." And the kid thinks, "Well, neither of those hit me, why should I care?" And the next one flattens him.
Just because you can pick two things from the past that didn't turn out as expected doesn't mean the next potential danger isn't valid. Now, maybe we come up with some clever CO2 scrubbing technology and we start engineering the atmosphere, but that doesn't mean the danger doesn't need to be addressed. There was a lot of work that went into finding new ways to get oil and regulation to improve the air. Without acknowledging the problem we could have had those catastrophes.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#24There was a lot of talk about how the world will be "uninhabitable by 2050" or "civilization will crumble by 2050" and anecdotally, that really backfired for all my elderly aunts and uncles. They happily admit that climate change is real but don't care because they will be dead by 2040. Hell, I'll be in my 80's.
They sound like terrible, self-centered people.
Like most humans. Hell, we comment here using devices made by slaves on the other side of the world. We could choose not to. We could make our life harder so that we didn't sponsor slavery. We don't. We are all very selfish.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#25No matter how you put it, people will find tendentious excuses for ignoring the issue, and when they are no longer tenable, they will switch to another, without any concern as to whether it is consistent with their previous position.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#26There was a lot of talk about how the world will be "uninhabitable by 2050" or "civilization will crumble by 2050" and anecdotally, that really backfired for all my elderly aunts and uncles. They happily admit that climate change is real but don't care because they will be dead by 2040. Hell, I'll be in my 80's.
They sound like terrible, self-centered people.
Sorry, we don't have a better breed of people to populate this planet.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#27Climate change was never going to be reversible with behavioral measures. Even if everyone had followed the Kyoto protocol to the letter starting in 1992 that wasn’t going to avert climate change, because nobody contemplated how quickly China and India would develop. There is no calculus where you can significantly limit climate change through behavioral measures that also allow the third world to have comfortable, m…
> The solution to climate change is not governments and politicians and lawyers. It’s engineers. It’s always been engineers. I like the sentiment, and we're always going to need newer, better tech. Part of it will be engineering, but part of if also has to be pure science, which I suspect won't be profitable enough for the private industry to pursue. Government needs to fund such efforts. I think this applies general…
Agree with all those points.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the BP World Energy statistical review for 2018, they showed that though renewable energy had fantastic falls in prices, there wasn't enough addition to meet new energy demand, especially in China and India for industry, and for the USA regarding its huge growth in natural gas. They then asked the question, how much faster would renewables need to grow to JUST meet this new energy demand (nevermind decarbonizing e…
According to IPCC projections we need to hit zero emissions worldwide within the next decade to avoid a 2C increase. Can politicians do that?
Of course not, even a totalitarian fascist regime would not be able to force their population to such a large downgrade in their lifestyles to achieve zero total emissions; any government trying to do that would get violently overthrown by their people.
The only conclusion that can be made from these IPCC projections is that we will not avoid a 2C increase because there's no chance that people would be willing to "pay the price" to achieve that.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#29There was a lot of talk about how the world will be "uninhabitable by 2050" or "civilization will crumble by 2050" and anecdotally, that really backfired for all my elderly aunts and uncles. They happily admit that climate change is real but don't care because they will be dead by 2040. Hell, I'll be in my 80's.
Kek, in 1970 crude oil was predicted to run out in 2020. They also predicted the world will be inhabitable by now because of intense pollution. How are we? We breathe cleaner air and use more petroleum than 1970. I will be 55 in 2050, and I bet my entire fortune that the world will be better then.
You actually are betting your entire fortune on that the world will be better then. Because in the current szenarios for the year 2050 without major actions to combat climate change, your fortune most likely will be gone.
I personally hope that the world will be better in in 2050, but the only way for that to come true is in my eyes very systematic action to go reneweable across the bord.
Re: Did Setting a Timeline Doom the Fight Against Global Warming?
#30There was a lot of talk about how the world will be "uninhabitable by 2050" or "civilization will crumble by 2050" and anecdotally, that really backfired for all my elderly aunts and uncles. They happily admit that climate change is real but don't care because they will be dead by 2040. Hell, I'll be in my 80's.
Kek, in 1970 crude oil was predicted to run out in 2020. They also predicted the world will be inhabitable by now because of intense pollution. How are we? We breathe cleaner air and use more petroleum than 1970. I will be 55 in 2050, and I bet my entire fortune that the world will be better then.
A '08 reanalysis of 72's Limits to Growth show the world has progressed remarkably closely to its predictions for "business as usual".