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Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

today.oregonstate.edu

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Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#411
post #386
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This way of behaving in life is a very "rat each other out" choice from the prisioner's dilemma. Whenever I notice someone plays this game of shifting overton window instead of just stating what they want, specially at work, I can never take them seriously again.

Wouldn't it be better described as haggling? Weve already got a word for it, and it's the polite thing to do in a lot of cultures

It's not haggling to pretend. In haggling the goal of each person is clear and there's only dimension, price, and each participant wants an outcome to maximize in a specific direction out of 2 possible ones (price up, price down).

What I mean are social situations that are way more complex like if you tell me I need to let you pass me in some queue because your grandma is dying, but turns out you just wanted to get home quicker to relax. At work there's a lot of this stuff when people exaggerate in a malicious way assuming everyone is doing it, and I can't stand it.

If we're haggling I know what we're doing and I'll also haggle.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#412

Climate change is unavoidable. People should start moving to highland now.

I'm covered, I live on a topological local maxima of 100 feet above the "major" local minima of "800ft" on essentually solid rock, assuming it doesn't become the next sahara, I should be able to collect plenty of rain water for personal needs and have methods to filter it. Currently have enough solar for off grid and backup generators as secondary. Hopefully well armed enough to stave off interlopers if it becomes that desperate. I doubt if my house would survive a tornado though, but should be covered from other natural disasters.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People never picture themselves as being among those great numbers who suffer and die in these scenarios.

Be realistic, you are more likely to die from cardiovascular issues or car crashes.

doing my best to cover those too. I try to stay physically fit and eat a diet that is anti-inflammatory

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#414
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re clearly not doing more than anyone given that their emissions rate per capita and as a proportion of industrial output keeps climbing. > China now emits more than 60% as much per capita as the US, where thirty years ago it was more like 5% China was very poor and has been developing... It does not mean that they aren't doing a lot, and probably more than the US do. > In fact, China’s emissions have been so…

What part of per capita are you not getting?

No snark, please. It seems that you are not getting what I wrote:

Regarding per capita figure the thing to keep in mind is that China used to be very poor and has been developing. Per capita figures therefore started very low and have been increasing rapidly with development, and are still much lower than the US's. This is also why India's figures are quite low.

Regading overall figures, obviously then what is relevant is the overall population, as explained.

Can't repeat the same thing over and over if you refuse to engage, so good night and good luck.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Americans emitted the same per capita rate as China, they would have a lower standard of living. This shouldn't be the argument anyway. The focus should be on cleaner and more efficient technologies, which includes nuclear.

> This shouldn't be the argument anyway. Why not? The reverse sounds more insightful: If the rest of the world adopts and American standard of life, emissions would be much higher. Should we expect the world to adopt a sub-US standard of living forever, or should we address the impacts of our standard of living?

If the rest of world adopts the American standard of life, that means technology continues to progress, and there's a lot more highly educated people innovating. Given that sustainability and climate change are serious concerns now, I don't agree that it will continue to be a bad thing.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Americans emitted the same per capita rate as China, they would have a lower standard of living. This shouldn't be the argument anyway. The focus should be on cleaner and more efficient technologies, which includes nuclear.

By that argument China should be releasing more CO2, unless you have a reason why Chinese people shouldn't have the same quality of life as Americans.

Or build more nuclear, solar and wind plants, which they're doing.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#417
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>China was destroying its environment in the 1950s already To be fair, every country was destroying the environment, even in the west, well after the 1950's as well.

Not quite to the same extent, or nearly as late. China's Four Pests campaign, for instance, ran from 1958 to 1962 and was ecologically disastrous. Meanwhile, in the US you already had strong conservationist movements starting up, leading to the creation of the EPA by 1970. While China finally adopted some environmental protections in 1979, it wasn't until the late 1980s/early 1990s that they could override industrial…

> Not quite to the same extent, or nearly as late. China's Four Pests campaign, for instance, ran from 1958 to 1962 and was ecologically disastrous.

Operation Ranch Hand ran 1962-1972, so that's a pretty lazy snipe.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#418
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an absurd level of nitpicking... the phrase "is about" means both of those things in common speech, and everyone can tell which you mean depending on context. Language is defined by regular people through its use and context, scholars only describe it after the fact- to their extreme dismay. You might be technically correct within the jargon of, e.g. an academic literature course, but you aren't correct to in…

I don't really care about your opinions on academic literary analysis, it's OK to be wrong and have your own thoughts on the matter, but prepare to be confused when people don't agree that the Transformer movies are about the dangers of aliens turning into vehicles. For someone who doesn't care what Gibson thinks of his own artistic works you sure do have a strong opinion on Gibson's artistic work.

You are mis-representing people that intuitively understand that a phrase can have different meanings depending on context, as fundamentally confused and actually muddling the two concepts.

Nobody would say "transformers are about the dangers of aliens turning into vehicles" but people would say it is "about aliens that can turn into vehicles." They might also say something like it's "about the the struggle to live day to day without being sure if everyday things are truly as they seem" - if that's were what it's about- I'm not actually familiar with transformers.

As an academic and a human (both!) I think it is important to remember how to keep the jargon from whatever you study distinct in your mind from common usage, so you can still communicate with people that didn't study whatever you studied.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#419
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>US emissions per capita keep falling while China’s keep skyrocketing. It's sus to ascribe countries as bad emitters because they're developing higher QoL instead of choosing to be stuck as subsistence shitholes with low per capita emissions. The only way for countries to stay at subsistence/developing per capita emissions is to stay susbsistent/developing. Of course some wierd people think that's fine. A fairer desc…

Whether a country is a bad emitter is a factor of its total and per capita emissions. It has no inherent moral meaning, but it has serious implications for how we can slow down climate change. At current rates, China is going to be a larger per capita polluter than the US ever was, because it’s still choosing the quick, cheap, and dirty approach to so much of its industry including those focused only internally. As a…

there's no reason for you to reply to maxglute. they never quote anything for reference, preferring to hallucinate things out of thin air. and they always want to have the last word, which is a sign of immaturity/insecurity.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you control for population But why would you control for population? So there are a vast number of Chinese who can't afford a large share of China's emissions, so what? What's your mindset here, that we have to determine the most guilty individual person and ignore governments? There may be lots of people in China but it's one government and it's emitting a lot, in absolute terms. Is Liechtenstein (population un…

> But why would you control for population? Because the amount of changes that a society has to make in how it lives to get to net zero is determined by how much each person emits. The average US person emits 15 tons CO2 every year (there is distribution about it). The average China person emits half that. So obviously the US has to make a larger change in the structure of society. Of course, it is better to subdivid…

> So obviously the US has to make a larger change in the structure of society.

That's not obvious at all. Suppose the difference in per capita emissions between country A and country C is that in country A they drive big cars and in country C they drive small ones. Well, both countries ought to stop using internal combustion engines. How is that a "larger change" for country A, just because they have larger cars?

And as for "reigning in" the super rich, what does that mean? You want to tax them more and ban yachts, perhaps? Do you think this sector is at all significant in real terms, in terms if the slice of actual effect these very few high individual emitters have on total emissions compared to general transport, power generation, industry and construction?

Focussing on any individual's carbon footprint is not the way. It's been tried since the 90s and it doesn't work, in much the same way that John Lennon didn't bring about world peace despite getting a large number of fans to agree that it sounded like a good idea. The problem there was that they didn't have the power to decide the matter. In the case of climate change, specific policies about fuel for power generation and transport can decide it. Taxing the rich is just a complete sideshow that probably happens to please you for unrelated reasons.

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