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There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

science.nasa.gov

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Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#111

Post by wat10000 »

smitty1e wrote: post #95
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the crotchetiest and most out-of-touch people I know basically accept that the Earth is warming now My family is fundamentalist protestant, very midwestern, and I think about half of them believe that the earth is warming. Not trying to "win", just trying to say that a lot of this depends on the crowd you interact with. I don't know the percentage, but certainly there are still way too many people that don't e…

"Climate Change" implies that some sort of "constant climate" is even attainable, irrespective of desirable.

Only with an excessively literal interpretation.

If I pick up your house and drop it two streets over, that could be accurately described as a "location change" of your house. This is still true despite the fact that your house naturally moves some centimeters per year due to tectonic plates shifting around.

Similarly, when global average temperatures saw long term trends of a fraction of a degree of change per millennium, then suddenly started changing at multiple degrees per century, it's pretty reasonable to call that "climate change" despite the fact that it was not completely constant before.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#112

Post by barbazoo »

gaigalas wrote: post #36

Very exciting to live in an apocalyptical era. I'm looking forward to discover which one of the several global threats to humanity will put us down first.

Kids alive today will get to see some wild shit toward the end of the century.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#113

Post by randusername »

gaigalas wrote: post #36

Very exciting to live in an apocalyptical era. I'm looking forward to discover which one of the several global threats to humanity will put us down first.

> Very exciting to live in an apocalyptical era

Reminds me of that advice about depression more generally. Something like

"If you can't be optimistic, settle for being curious about the way it all unfolds"

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#114

Post by guelo »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #82
legitster wrote: post #45

Even the crotchetiest and most out-of-touch people I know basically accept that the Earth is warming now. They just either disagree on the cause or proportion. Some people just naturally resist hyperbole or sensationalist rhetoric, and I find it very helpful to reframe the argument from doom and gloom and fire and brimstone to something more realistic and grounded: "The longer we put off doing something, the harder a…

I'm a different kind of crotchety. I think it's real and potentially catastrophic. But I see very little chance of (sufficient) coordinated action to mitigate it. I.e., I think there's too much temptation for individual countries to pursue a competitive economic or military advantage by letting everyone but themselves make sacrifices. I hope I'm wrong.

Trump is implementing multi decade right wing fantasies in many fronts. The idea that we can't achieve anything is limiting yourself when you're in a political arena. To win, like Trump, when you get power you have to attack on many fronts, cultural, capital, legal, and approach it as a zero sum scorched earth war where norms are another obstacle in your way.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#115

Post by epistasis »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #89
epistasis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have to do anything about China, "China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months" https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha... China is building clean energy for a good chunk of the world, including itself. A better question may be: What is the US going to do to make up for its historical emissions? The US got wealthy by creating far more emissions than China, and all…

>If people in the US try to turn climate action into a blame game, it will end very very poorly for the US. Pure fantasy. What will happen to the US and who will do it to us?

The US can't even get countries to enter trade agreements anymore, because it's throwing around threats of large tariffs and annexation of others' lands. The world could drop the dollar as the reserve currency, something that was gradually happening but is now accelerating.

If the US starts trying to force other countries into climate action without taking into account its own contributions, the US will likely cut out of the global economy, and become far poorer as the rest of the world surpasses its wealth through vigorous trade.

The US was the sole remaining superpower, but has recently decided to only occupy a much weaker position with a mere "sphere of influence" and ceding leadership in other parts of the world to others. The US is signalling to allies in Europe that it will no longer lead, that the prior world is over and the US is bugging out, meaning Europe will gain far more influence.

The more that the US attacks others without providing any leadership, the less that the US will be able to take from the world. Up until recently, the US's position of massive economic strength was largely due to it's dominant position among nations and the goodwill that others had towards it. Turning the climate problem into a blame game on other countries would further weaken the US's position and options.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#116

Post by legitster »

pdonis wrote: post #100
legitster wrote: post #45

Even the crotchetiest and most out-of-touch people I know basically accept that the Earth is warming now. They just either disagree on the cause or proportion. Some people just naturally resist hyperbole or sensationalist rhetoric, and I find it very helpful to reframe the argument from doom and gloom and fire and brimstone to something more realistic and grounded: "The longer we put off doing something, the harder a…

> many of the changes we are talking about don't even really cost us anything This is the part that seems to vary widely based on which warming alarmist you're talking to. Many of them are not saying there are things we could do that "don't even really cost us anything" that would deal with the problem--they're saying we need to devote a significant fraction of global GDP to CO2 mitigation. Things that "don't really…

> Building a lot more nuclear power plants is the key thing that doesn't really seem to be happening right now

I mean, this is the clear and obvious one. Nuclear theoretically should be much, much cheaper than it is if it were not for the regulatory costs thrust upon it.

It also harrows out people who are legitimately concerned from "moralist concern junkies". You'd think climate change being a global existential crisis would make people open to nuclear energy or more drastic measures like geo-engineering, but the frequency with which people refuse to compromise undercuts the their legitimacy.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#117

Post by wat10000 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #88
legitster wrote: post #45

Even the crotchetiest and most out-of-touch people I know basically accept that the Earth is warming now. They just either disagree on the cause or proportion. Some people just naturally resist hyperbole or sensationalist rhetoric, and I find it very helpful to reframe the argument from doom and gloom and fire and brimstone to something more realistic and grounded: "The longer we put off doing something, the harder a…

> many of the changes we are talking about don't even really cost us anything I hear that often, but it's never followed by details about any of the actual changes that are being talked about. The ones I actually hear (especially politicians) advocate for are catastrophically expensive and dubious in their effectiveness. Banning coal or gas-powered cards might (might) be a good idea in the long run, but it definitely…

Banning coal is a complete no-brainer at this point. Has been for quite a while. Never mind climate change, it's horribly polluting. The only reason it's still remotely economically viable is because the people who burn coal don't bear the costs of their pollution. If they actually had to compensate people for all the cancer, lung disease, poisoned ground water, contaminated seafood, and other such problems they cause, coal would vanish.

It's already to the point where the ridiculous coal fans who infest our government are forcing coal power plants to remain open when their operators want to close them because they're no longer profitable to operate.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#118

Post by randusername »

legitster wrote: post #45

Even the crotchetiest and most out-of-touch people I know basically accept that the Earth is warming now. They just either disagree on the cause or proportion. Some people just naturally resist hyperbole or sensationalist rhetoric, and I find it very helpful to reframe the argument from doom and gloom and fire and brimstone to something more realistic and grounded: "The longer we put off doing something, the harder a…

I can understand people having their own reasons for dismissing the facts or the rhetoric.

What I can't wrap my head around is the conspiracy thinking around environmentalism.

What's so nefarious about clean air and water? I'll never forget when my grandmother walked out of WALL-E because she said it was government propaganda. She is a regular person, not a coal magnate or anything.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#119

Post by ChrisClark »

smitty1e wrote: post #95
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the crotchetiest and most out-of-touch people I know basically accept that the Earth is warming now My family is fundamentalist protestant, very midwestern, and I think about half of them believe that the earth is warming. Not trying to "win", just trying to say that a lot of this depends on the crowd you interact with. I don't know the percentage, but certainly there are still way too many people that don't e…

"Climate Change" implies that some sort of "constant climate" is even attainable, irrespective of desirable.

And you're just like the deniers who pick apart irrelevant things, and then smugly smile.

Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

#120

Post by wat10000 »

phkahler wrote: post #102
16bytes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be contrarian, but if you cared, you could easily rule out your suspicions. It's not even worth it to say why or how, since not even doing rudimentary research means that you aren't interested in developing a well-informed opinion.

>> Not to be contrarian, but if you cared, you could easily rule out your suspicions. That's just false. You might try to rule it out yourself to see. My comments here and the responses demonstrate that it's a waste of time to argue against people in the purity cycle of global warming. My position is one of moderation not denial - and I'm downvoted, told I don't care, and I haven't done even the minimum of research.…

It took me about five seconds to find this: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-do-we-blame-climate-chan...

Do you have any reason to believe otherwise besides a couple of anecdotes about looking at the sky and short-term temperature variations?

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