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The world is losing the war against climate change

economist.com

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Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#321

Post by ZeroGravitas »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #316
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the use of fossil fuels in chemical or plastic production factor into climate change? I've seen this mentioned before and didn't really understand it, and interestingly that person also mentioned Vaclav Smil (in fact, it may have been an article written by him). Is there something I'm missing or is that conflating two realted but different things for no obvious reason? Or does carbon end up in the air due to…

You'll emit carbon dioxide when you make plastic: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic...

Most of this seems to be the standard carbon footprint of any manufactured good e.g. the diesel used by the trucks delivering things, the coal burnt to generate the electricity to heat the factories.

It doesn't seem to be inherent to plastic, though possibly it's impossible to drill for oil/gas without leaking some into the atmosphere. Seems to be a small fraction of the total though.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#322

Post by sykhic »

bmarkovic wrote: post #309
sykhic wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't believe that having fewer people in the world would lead to less pollution and less harm to the environment due to human activities? Or you don't believe someone is suggesting that there needs to be fewer people? It seems clear to me that if there were only 5 million people in the world then human caused climate change wouldn't be an issue. Isn't that obvious? I'm not advocating that we get to that level. I…

Given how most polution comes from places where people generally have very little children, I doubt that reducing births in the third world would be an effective measure. We need to solve for different variables: energy source (we need more nuclear), transportation (we need people to utilize public transportation and drive less cars), and we'd need to work on carbon capture (which is a technological problem). Solving…

If the world's population were 100 million people then pollution would probably not be an issue.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#323

Post by a_tractor »

sehugg wrote: post #216
Merad wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the US. The majority of the country isn't to the point of believing that climate change poses a serious threat, and among non-Democrats attitudes towards climate change are actually regressing: https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-concern-s...

Those who haven't experienced it directly might underestimate how effective the right has been at tying anti-environment beliefs to political identity, even among people who are highly educated in the sciences and should know better.

To be fair though, a lot of people on the right simply do not agree with the proposed solutions, specifically those found in the UN Paris Agreement.

The left seems to get confused by this, as illustrated by your comment, where criticism, disagreement, or political opposition towards a specific set of solutions that just happens to contain products of many philosophical biases and geopolitical agendas (wealth redistribution, supranational bureaucracy, non-Democratic decision making), is turned into "anti-environment beliefs" or other overly-simplistic derogatory characterizations.

Denying the sanctity of the Paris Agreement, much less its ideological foundations, isn't even getting into the science and yet it would be enough to paint someone as a "climate denier" and likely dis-invited to dinner parties.

>how effective the right has been at tying anti-environment beliefs to political identity

The right is not "anti-environment," nor do they think that scientific truth is a matter of consensus or faith. At the very least, that straw-man wouldn't be something the right would choose for itself... Observing that the Paris Agreement was really a UN-led wealth redistribution scheme deceptively using the noble cause of protecting the environment as a front and rejecting it is not "anti-environment." It is clearly political, but if you want to be honest about who is responsible for intentionally misrepresenting what is simply an opposing position to the neo-liberal global agenda, and making it a highly charged emotional issue with almost religiously devoted followers where opponents are basically treated like heretics, its not the right.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#324

Post by a_tractor »

TOGoS wrote: post #152
anoplus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the activism I follow in my country in last decade, I learned that politicians are apathetic, and a good activism is needed to make them move. That's how lazy governments work. So I think until we fix governments performance we need to engage in efficient activism. What is efficient activism? This question interests me.

Workplace organizing. It's a lot easier to get people to fight for something when they know they'll benefit from it directly (via higher wages, better working conditions, etc). A unified working class is the most effective tool we have for fighting countering the power of bug business, who would rather let the world burn than stop building pipelines. Most people don't like what's happening to the world -- they just f…

We already have "the power." People just don't want to accept the responsibility of their own contribution to the demand of said pipelines.

While big business doesn't want to stop building pipelines, nobody wants to stop buying whatever comes out of them, either. It would be fun to see you try to convince the "working class" of the developing world to stop what they are doing and cease their from-behind pursuit of material wealth. You could try to bribe them but I'm not sure if that is what I would call sustainable.

With "workplace organizing" the benefits are immediate and obvious, and the eventual consequences, negative or otherwise, are not. Kind of thing where a wage increase is obvious, but the eventual outsourcing of your job for cheaper labor, or the eventual bankruptcy of the business when the pensions are due, is not.

We face the opposite problem here, since the effort involved (lifestyle changes) and the negative effects (higher taxes) are immediately obvious, while the benefits are neither immediate nor obvious.

Its more like you are trying to convince people to demand lower wages...

The problem itself (specific to AGW) is not even immediately obvious, apparently you need PhDs from multiple disciplines to understand the problem or you are dismissed with the Courtier's reply, leaving you reliant on an Appeal to Authority. That isn't necessarily wrong, but that is what you are dealing with. Manifesting change then depends on establishing complete faith in that authority or consensus, and, in contrast to a pay raise, the only thing you can utilize as motivation for change is guilt and fear. Then you have to be ensure that bad actors won't try to manipulate that fear via groupthink for less noble purposes... We don't have a great track record for that.

Anyway, I sort of think the seemingly fanatical calls for massive top-down solutions to this problem tends to do more to defeat or demoralize individual or bottom-up efforts, as you might promote, and seems designed to evoke increased permissiveness to those who seek mainly to centralize and expand corporate and government power.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#325

Post by WillPostForFood »

candiodari wrote: post #191
WillPostForFood wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more telling that nuclear is on the decline. The right doesn’t take the problem seriously, and the left doesn’t take the solution seriously. So of course there is no progress.

That's one of the engineering solutions that people seem to be terminally opposed to. We have global warming ... and we have engineering solutions, indeed nuclear could do a lot as well, especially in countries like China. Let's NOT USE THOSE ! They're scary ! Science is wrong and evil ! Green glowy children ! And of course, somehow you can criticize science like nuclear and it's safety record, but shout "science den…

Sorry you got down votes, but I totally agree.
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