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Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

economist.com

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Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#111

Post by acqq »

CptJamesCook wrote: post #64

The conclusion of this article is not that global warming is dangerous but that local air pollution is bad for public health: "According to research published last year, spending a day in Beijing is currently akin to smoking almost 40 cigarettes. Decoupling emissions from economic growth thus helps both people and planet. Convincing Mr. Trump of this fact is now an urgent and daunting challenge." Why should Donald Tr…

It's mentioned at the end of the article but it's not the main message. The reason it's mentioned is to give the argument why China will have to reduce their own emissions, no matter what other countries do. Then it concludes that Trump should understand the same that China has to understand: "Decoupling emissions from economic growth thus helps both people and planet."

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#112

Post by eli_gottlieb »

mordocai wrote: post #35
blondie9x wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad Americans cannot vote for some of the most prominent cabinet members the way they vote for President/Vice-President. Many of these appointees will have a more direct impact on people's lives but yet they have no say in who will represent them. Democracy?

Representative Democracy yeah. The people voted in Trump who now gets to appoint those positions.

>The people voted in Trump

Well no. The people voted in Clinton, and the Electoral College upweighted some votes and downweighted others in a way that favors Trump. The EC once had a distinct purpose, but right now just seems to give Republicans a structural advantage, to the ultimate detriment of Democrats and Democrat-leaners in small or rural states.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#113

Post by hourislate »

snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: What if Trump does believe global warming is real, but recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects? What if he expects the world to go to hell over the next 50 years and is focused on protecting the U.S. specifically? What would he do? He'd build a wall across the lower border of the U.S. to…

It's an interesting theory but I doubt he has looked that far ahead. What you have laid out would be something more along the lines of US Strategic Thinking for the next 100 years.

The one thing most folks over look is how far are we ready to go to protect America? Global warming will unleash the largest migration the world has ever seen. There will be more than 2.5 billion people trying to escape somewhere more hospitable. You will have millions showing up on your shores from the far reaches of the world. An example is the 400 Sri Lankans that showed up in a boat off the coast of British Columbia 3 years ago. What to do? At some point there could be a million people showing up on the shores of North America (US/Canada) every month, can you imagine the chaos.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#114

Post by CapitalistCartr »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #112
mordocai wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representative Democracy yeah. The people voted in Trump who now gets to appoint those positions.

>The people voted in Trump Well no. The people voted in Clinton, and the Electoral College upweighted some votes and downweighted others in a way that favors Trump. The EC once had a distinct purpose, but right now just seems to give Republicans a structural advantage, to the ultimate detriment of Democrats and Democrat-leaners in small or rural states.

That how our Representative Democracy works. Each system has its own way of voting and counting; that's ours.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#116

Post by leot »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #105
sqeaky wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are unaware of the scope of the problem. (also I did not and cannot downvote you) The amount of life and species lost to human activities already makes the past few thousand years a major extinction event in line with the 5 other major ones. With this fact in mind taking the stance that this is OK because "life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change" is the moral equivalent of saying killing most…

Moral is a human construct and as such it is subjective. Anyhow, I said that the life on earth survived a couple of disastrous events and still flourishes. Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. There were times when there wasn't any coast at all, or it was somewhere else. And does it really make a difference? You won't see anything of the war of resources except you live for 200 years. You may ta…

What do you mean by "flourish"?

Increasing biodiversity?

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#117

Post by eli_gottlieb »

hbt wrote: post #69
snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: What if Trump does believe global warming is real, but recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects? What if he expects the world to go to hell over the next 50 years and is focused on protecting the U.S. specifically? What would he do? He'd build a wall across the lower border of the U.S. to…

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this. No one has a solution for climate change that doesn't involve changing personal habits. People don't want to do that. Eating less meat or a carbon tax (i.e taxing the working poor) is not a solution. It's admitting defeat. People don't need to "believe in climate change". We simply need to build a solution that is much better than what they have available now. What that…

>Eating less meat or a carbon tax (i.e taxing the working poor) is not a solution.

The poor emit disproportionately little CO2. A carbon tax mostly taxes industry.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#118

Post by eli_gottlieb »

snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: What if Trump does believe global warming is real, but recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects? What if he expects the world to go to hell over the next 50 years and is focused on protecting the U.S. specifically? What would he do? He'd build a wall across the lower border of the U.S. to…

No, Trump is not the God-Emperor of Mankind and does not possess century-level prescience. You can totally make a decent science fiction novel out of this, though.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#119

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

hueving wrote: post #92
jdavis703 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize a plurality of American voters voted for Hillary Clinton? She's leading by margins larger than Kennedy and Nixon. Edited to use correct terminology.

>You do realize a plurality of American voters voted for Hillary Clinton Nobody cares. Both candidate vote totals combined don't even make up the majority of the US population.

Non-voters are just accepting whatever the majority (er, plurality) of voters decides.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#120

Post by derrickdirge »

leereeves wrote: post #14
strictnein wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are pushing harder than anyone to get away from dirty power. Where do you gather that from? They use more coal than the entirety of the rest of the world combined. Their coal usage has more than doubled over the past ~15 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/energy-environmen...

This is from your link: > Now Beijing is trying to slow things down. > In guidelines released on Monday, China halted plans for new coal-fired power stations in many parts of the country, and construction of some approved plants will be postponed until at least 2018. Whether this will amount to anything, who can say?

It seems like for it to amount to anything, they would also have to close down currently operational plants.
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