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On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

environmentalprogress.org

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Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#21

Post by mulmen »

mcphage wrote: post #17
mulmen wrote: post #12

> Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels. Can someone help me with this? I just moved and have both a fireplace and natural gas furnace. I had intended to supplement the furnace with wood heat in the winter. In what ways is wood worse than natural gas? I can imagine a few but I’m not sure they are right: Wood disadvantages: Local air quality Removal of trees Wood advantages: Renewable Neutra…

My understanding is that the particulates caused by wood fires are terrible for our lungs, especially inside houses: https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/

Thanks, this is exactly the kind of starting point I was looking for.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#22

Post by mooshmoosh »

pmiller2 wrote: post #4

Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction” > The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world” > Climate change is not making natural disasters worse > Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003 > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska > The build-up of wood…

I think the "fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003" is referring to this:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/90493/researchers-d...

It's till 2015, not till 2020, and the explanation for the fall is 4 paragraphs in. It seems to be a move away from slash and burn agriculture and towards more modern, permanent farming.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#23

Post by caconym_ »

So I guess the fact that he went to live in the jungle as a kid is supposed to prove he isn't a crank now, 20+ years later? That's really, really not how it works.

I definitely think a lot of the climate alarm is hyperbolic and misrepresentative, but not so much in the sense that it isn't a problem as that it's a problem that will only become obvious to laypeople long after the chance to prevent it from killing a lot of them is past.

If he wants to convince me, he needs to do a lot less talking about how virtuous he is, less talking about his new book, and more showing me real data and scientific results.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#24

Post by joe-collins »

wyldfire wrote: post #6

It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets. Because global disasters of so many kinds could sum up to extinction. While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster. > The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural ga…

> It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets... While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster.

Greatest in the sense of absolute scale, or with sufficiently long planning horizons, perhaps. But I doubt that any quantity of attainable prioritization will deliver any of that value, on the scale of the time we have before climate change starts inflicting drastic damage on our overall stability and way of life.

Put another way, I wish Musk the best. He's absolutely mad, and a terrible person to have as a superior, but for all of that... he's accomplishing far more than I think anyone had right to expect. I think it will still amount to too little as a "climate change lifeboat", but if we adequately mitigate our immediate woes while we wait, and his successors can maintain his vision, drive, and disrespect for petty things like work/life balance, they might actually take us somewhere a few generations down the line.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#25

Post by wilburTheDog »

It appears the author wants to convince us of his credentials as a progressive and then use any good will that generates to try and persuade us that environmentally progressive ideas are wrong. He claims we have been 'badly misinformed' by people with 'unsavory or unhealthy motivations'. But this synopsis of his book makes it look like it could have been written by a coalition of lobbyists from the meat and nuclear industries. Who are we to trust?

Also I think it's interesting that the only positive review he includes is from Richard Rhodes. I have never read anything from Richard Rhodes, but the second amazon review of his book Energy: A Human History has this to say 'the author is highly skeptical about renewable sources like wind and solar, waxing instead about the lost promise of nuclear'.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#26

Post by AnimalMuppet »

smohare wrote: post #8
iamstupidsimple wrote: post #2

Climate alarm-ism has honestly set back the whole movement in my opinion. For decades, we've only been 10 years away from extinction and it gave conservatives all the ammo needed to write climate change off as fake. Heck, even The Simpsons mocked this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKaBv6ALcI

Except that’s entirely the denialist straw man. It’s not we’re going to face a cosmic ray style annihilation in 10 years, but rather that we’re cavalierly approaching tipping points that will likely have repercussions for 10,000 years.

Well, some environmentalists overstating their case ("alarmism") have made that not exactly a strawman.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#27

Post by AnimalMuppet »

pmiller2 wrote: post #4

Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction” > The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world” > Climate change is not making natural disasters worse > Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003 > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska > The build-up of wood…

> Netherlands became rich not poor while adapting to life below sea level

Yes, there is credible evidence, at least for that one.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#28

Post by pmiller2 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #27
pmiller2 wrote: post #4

Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction” > The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world” > Climate change is not making natural disasters worse > Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003 > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska > The build-up of wood…

> Netherlands became rich not poor while adapting to life below sea level Yes, there is credible evidence, at least for that one.

I believe it, but this is the least relevant of any of the rather broad claims the author is making without citation other than "see my book." What happened in a single, tiny European country that wasn't exactly poor to begin with is unlikely to scale worldwide as sea levels rise.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#29

Post by belorn »

pmiller2 wrote: post #4

Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction” > The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world” > Climate change is not making natural disasters worse > Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003 > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska > The build-up of wood…

> The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”

50-80% of atmospheric oxygen are estimated to come from algae and cyanobacteria in the ocean. This seems pretty clear cut. - http://www.greenlineprint.com/blog/where-are-the-lungs-of-th...

> Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change

1: Illegal wildlife trade, 2: Habitat destruction, 3: Invasive species, 4: Pollution, 5: climate change. While I could see an argument that the ordering is incorrect depending on scope, the numbers from 1-3 is pretty clear from an short term perspective as being the major issues right now. - https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/biggest-threats-to-wild...

The other ones I am more unsure about. I would had guessed that Netherlands status as a rich country came from their past as a colonial empire, but it might be correct that it is because their current status as an massive exporter of farmed food. That statement is likely scope dependent.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#30

Post by tsherr »

mulmen wrote: post #12

> Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels. Can someone help me with this? I just moved and have both a fireplace and natural gas furnace. I had intended to supplement the furnace with wood heat in the winter. In what ways is wood worse than natural gas? I can imagine a few but I’m not sure they are right: Wood disadvantages: Local air quality Removal of trees Wood advantages: Renewable Neutra…

Renewable isn't really accurate for wood, at least not in human time scales. A maple takes about 25 years to mature. It's about three maple trees to a cord. Assuming 5 cords per winter, we're talking 375 trees before the first tree cut can be reharvested (assuming it was replanted immediately). That doesn't into account soil depletion and carbon release.
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