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The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

economist.com

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Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#151

Post by defrost »

zeristor wrote: post #150
defrost wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest Question: what bearing does that have on the words written by and opinion of: Tim Palmer, Royal Society Research Professor Emeritus at the Department of Physics, University of Oxford.

Have you seen the Prime Ministers who have graduated from Oxford? Johnson, Truss, etc Oxford is tanking.

Orthogonal to any current arc of Oxford, he's a graduate from the 1970s, elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, and a Royal Society Research Professor.

Is attacking the man because of an institute the best you can do, rather than address the content of his writing?

Maybe you take issue with the meat of, say, this from 26 years past: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/article/378/2166/201...

By all means say something meaningful.

FWiW I too like The Goodies, Monty Python, and wouldn't mind seeing The Forever War given a film treatment by a good director ... just not a fan of ankle deep casual dismissal by association - it's not this chap's fault the UK keeps electing the wrong sort of toff.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#152

Post by jurgenburgen »

dgellow wrote: post #99
jurgenburgen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's very little to do in Europe. Plenty to do. We don’t have oil or natural gas so relying on fossil fuel to power our economy is stupid.

Europe does have oil and gas (Russia, Norway). But your overall point stands

Technically true but kind of irrelevant in practice when we’re in a lukewarm war with Russia.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#154

Post by JKCalhoun »

cautiouscat wrote: post #29

I recognize this is deeply cynical and definitely doomerist. What can I as an individual actually do to stop this? Why should I even bother reading articles like this at this point? I can't do anything. I can't action it. I can collect my recycling, pop solar panels on my roof and be the most carbon footprint conscious person and it wouldn't move the needle an atom's width. Politicians don't care, and the ones that d…

No, I feel the same—my mind has gone down the same paths as yours and found no substantive answers.

Instead, I have tried to relax and to enjoy the company I am going down the slide with.

To quote Vonnegut, “There's only one rule that I know of, babies—‘God damn it, you've got to be kind.ʼ”

We can still do that.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#155

Post by thrance »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #31

I’m not sure: when I was in high school / university it was well understood that places like Florida would be under water and unlivable by now. Already then you could find this exact article title in a dozen publications per year, especially in academic publications. Al Gore made a third career out of it. It was alarmist and too soon then but it’s not alarmist and too soon now? Nobody upvotes an article titled “Thing…

> I’m not sure: when I was in high school / university it was well understood that places like Florida would be under water and unlivable by now.

Nobody was claiming that Florida would be under water by 2026. You just made up an hyperbolic claim and attributed it to academics to discredit them.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#156

Post by alexpc201 »

Less time to do what precisely? Prevent China from emitting 10 times more CO2 than the rest of the world combined? Good luck with that, meanwhile the West leads millions of people into poverty to pursue a strategy that will not make a dent in climate change if it is caused by CO2.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#157

Post by ryathal »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #19

why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't? is it too politicized, are the required changes too damaging to the economy to start agressively implementing them?

1. The damage was understood, fairly easily measured, and could be done repeatably. 2. The cause was widely agreed upon. 3. Solutions weren't predicated on massive societal change. 4. Compliance was fairly easy to track and enforce.

Climate change is lacking all of these to various degrees.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#158

Post by card_zero »

alexpc201 wrote: post #156

Less time to do what precisely? Prevent China from emitting 10 times more CO2 than the rest of the world combined? Good luck with that, meanwhile the West leads millions of people into poverty to pursue a strategy that will not make a dent in climate change if it is caused by CO2.

Now, now, it's only half as much as the rest of the world combined, and only twice the USA and Canada together.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#159

Post by card_zero »

engineer_22 wrote: post #89
chneu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. This is defeatist talk. This is the logic folks use when they make dozens of small actions that add up, like buying more plastic cuz "it doesn't matter". The honest truth is people who use this logic have made the decision and just don't want to say, "I don't care." Small actions make big differences at scale. 8 billion people all making hundreds of decisions a day make a difference. Once an individual star…

Capitalism enables too much material wealth. Astounding.

It's that old dichotomy between capitalism and the alternate system, people being very well behaved.

Re: The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change

#160

Post by defrost »

card_zero wrote: post #158
alexpc201 wrote: post #156

Less time to do what precisely? Prevent China from emitting 10 times more CO2 than the rest of the world combined? Good luck with that, meanwhile the West leads millions of people into poverty to pursue a strategy that will not make a dent in climate change if it is caused by CO2.

Now, now, it's only half as much as the rest of the world combined, and only twice the USA and Canada together.

and only 15% of the global cumulative total to the USofA's 25% (plus/minus the usual quibble about sources and definitions).

Meanwhile, the problem persists and grows.

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