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Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

bbc.com

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#41
post #31

This is absolutely the right direction to take. Ambitious programs are hollowed out since voters get angry and shift to conspiracy theories and populist parties to maintain their lavish lifestyle. CO2 emissions worldwide are still growing every year. This is painful to watch as western countries have started programs for reduction a long time ago - but they are vaporized by the strongly growing emissions by Asian cou…

Having unelected judges dictate important economic policy instead of elected politicians is the “right direction to take?” Do you see how attitudes like that might be contributing to the rise of “populist parties?”

Judges can only interpret the laws as they are written. If people don't like the results, they need to get their legislators to write different laws.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, climate histeria. The cause of wildfires is much more complex than "global warming". It involves forestry, proper maintenance, water management and many other things up to and including fires that are set by climate activists [1]. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/radical-environmentalis...

What's your point exactly? Climate change is an important factor in causing more wildfires, and it's going to get worse. Wildfires are only one example. We have to convice the wealthy and powerful people who make the decisions to act on it now. No-one is suggesting that we can ignore the other factors that you mentioned.

> Climate change is an important factor in causing more wildfires

Afaik, there's very little concrete evidence to support this claim.

There are many headlines, so please don't bother posting a bunch of junk links. I know they exist.

Hard science? Not so much.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It totally wasn't, and countries that had less heavy-handed responses such as Japan and most African countries didn't have a significantly worse outcome than the one that took dictatorship-like measures. On the other hand the negative effects of those policies are very strong, and for some ery visible. For instance France's debt skyrocketed from 100% to about 120% of GDP in a single year. Then there is impact on ment…

From my understanding, Japan didn’t have as big of a response because it’s already normal in their culture to wear a mask when sick.

And African countries may have a younger less overweight population along with a climate that requires less gathering inside.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#44

This is absolutely the right direction to take. Ambitious programs are hollowed out since voters get angry and shift to conspiracy theories and populist parties to maintain their lavish lifestyle. CO2 emissions worldwide are still growing every year. This is painful to watch as western countries have started programs for reduction a long time ago - but they are vaporized by the strongly growing emissions by Asian cou…

Modern civilization simply isn't possible without fossil fuels. There are finite reserves of oil, gas and coal, and it is inevitable that these will continue to be exploited until it is no longer viable. Without oil it wouldn't be possible to grow or distribute enough food to feed the current human population.

Climate change is a very real threat to human civilization, but mainly because of the size and distribution of the population, and lately expectation of people. The earth has been hotter in the past, and so the CO2 locked up in fossil fuels was originally in the atmosphere.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#45

This is absolutely the right direction to take. Ambitious programs are hollowed out since voters get angry and shift to conspiracy theories and populist parties to maintain their lavish lifestyle. CO2 emissions worldwide are still growing every year. This is painful to watch as western countries have started programs for reduction a long time ago - but they are vaporized by the strongly growing emissions by Asian cou…

Modern civilization simply isn't possible without fossil fuels. There are finite reserves of oil, gas and coal, and it is inevitable that these will continue to be exploited until it is no longer viable. Without oil it wouldn't be possible to grow or distribute enough food to feed the current human population. Climate change is a very real threat to human civilization, but mainly because of the size and distribution…

The "earth has been hotter" take seems a bit silly. Sure it's true. But do you want to live somewhere with an average summer temperature of 100F instead of 80F or 90F? Or more extreme.

Sure, the earth and life in general will survive global warming. But humans have a good chance of not.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#46
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point exactly? Climate change is an important factor in causing more wildfires, and it's going to get worse. Wildfires are only one example. We have to convice the wealthy and powerful people who make the decisions to act on it now. No-one is suggesting that we can ignore the other factors that you mentioned.

> Climate change is an important factor in causing more wildfires Afaik, there's very little concrete evidence to support this claim. There are many headlines, so please don't bother posting a bunch of junk links. I know they exist. Hard science? Not so much.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=climate%20change%20wi...

From a quick scan read of the abstracts it looks to me like every result on the first page here links climate change to increased incidence of wildfires. I'm not familiar with the literature or journals in this field, but the first page results here all have at least 100 citations and one has more than 500. In my field when I was doing my PhD this would have meant the work was very well received.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#47

This is absolutely the right direction to take. Ambitious programs are hollowed out since voters get angry and shift to conspiracy theories and populist parties to maintain their lavish lifestyle. CO2 emissions worldwide are still growing every year. This is painful to watch as western countries have started programs for reduction a long time ago - but they are vaporized by the strongly growing emissions by Asian cou…

Modern civilization simply isn't possible without fossil fuels. There are finite reserves of oil, gas and coal, and it is inevitable that these will continue to be exploited until it is no longer viable. Without oil it wouldn't be possible to grow or distribute enough food to feed the current human population. Climate change is a very real threat to human civilization, but mainly because of the size and distribution…

I've come to believe/agree that it is not possible for humanity to give up fossil fuels, but the physics of adding ever more carbon into the atmosphere is also calamitous. Taken together it seems we are on a path to certain doom.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#48

This is absolutely the right direction to take. Ambitious programs are hollowed out since voters get angry and shift to conspiracy theories and populist parties to maintain their lavish lifestyle. CO2 emissions worldwide are still growing every year. This is painful to watch as western countries have started programs for reduction a long time ago - but they are vaporized by the strongly growing emissions by Asian cou…

>Otherwise it would be a laughable attempt to collect the damage after it has occurred

Why do you think that? The number of extreme climate events is higher today than in previous centuries, but the number of people killed by these events - controlled for population - is much smaller. We are WAY better at mitigating climate problems after they happen than we are at stopping them from happening

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#49
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having unelected judges dictate important economic policy instead of elected politicians is the “right direction to take?” Do you see how attitudes like that might be contributing to the rise of “populist parties?”

Judges can only interpret the laws as they are written. If people don't like the results, they need to get their legislators to write different laws.

If only that were true.

In my experience, many judges make things up while not caring about the laws.

Re: Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court

#50
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climate change is an important factor in causing more wildfires Afaik, there's very little concrete evidence to support this claim. There are many headlines, so please don't bother posting a bunch of junk links. I know they exist. Hard science? Not so much.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=climate%20change%20wi... From a quick scan read of the abstracts it looks to me like every result on the first page here links climate change to increased incidence of wildfires. I'm not familiar with the literature or journals in this field, but the first page results here all have at least 100 citations and one has more than 500. In my field when I was doing my PhD this would…

Sigh.

That's exactly the sort of link I was hoping you wouldn't bother posting.

Anyone can run a Google scholar search to come up with a bunch of links to "prove" anything.

Try really researching the subject next time.

You might be surprised what you learn when you study something without assuming you already know the answer.

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