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There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

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

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not per capita. The US is still the worst large country. If you account for offshoring manufacturing then the US looks even worse. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Why should should per-capita be most important? If country A keeps their population stable and emissions under control, but country B of the same starting population, keeps doubling their population and doubling their emissions, why should country A have an increasingly declined allowance of emissions when they were more responsible in keeping their total emissions down (by not having as many people)?

Because per capita is the only thing that makes sense.

If China were to split into 10 countries each emitting 10% of what they do now it'd be the exact same emissions, but according to you it would be much better.

Similarly if the EU would become one country, that country would be high up on the list, much higher than member countries now! Oh no!

Looking at per capita emissions is much more fair.

Anyway, China's emissions are falling since last year ( https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha... ). What's the US doing?

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

#72
post #66

We've already lost the battle to prevent catastrophic change: https://davidsuzuki.org/story/is-it-too-late-to-escape-clima... And 7 of 9 boundaries have been crossed? https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-bound... This is starting to look more like the movie _Don't Look Up_.

Wasn’t that film explicitly about climate change denial?

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

#73

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…

The problem with Pascal's wager logic is you have to change your behavior based on all kinds of crazy low-probability events. You must worship every god, be an AI-doomer, a climate-doomer, a nuclear-doomer.

Pascal's wager is generally agreed to be logically unsound, so it's somewhat insane that we've revived it in all these modern contexts. If you believe in it, at least be consistent and sacrifice a goat to Zeus every couple years.

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

#74

So what are we going to do about China?

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 those historical emissions are now a problem for the rest of the world.

If people in the US try to turn climate action into a blame game, it will end very very poorly for the US.

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

#75
post #5

Oh wow, a true statement on a government website. I'm sure they'll take it down within a day.

Maybe a way to game the modern right is to draw attention to something true so that they remember it exists, then they try to censor it, thereby triggering a Streisand effect.

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

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A troll response I presume. Or perhaps sarcasm without the indicator.

Not a troll comment. China produces as much or more CO2 as much as the next 5 countries combined. It's logical to start with the king of greenhouse emissions if you want to stop global warming.

You can't really isolate China's emissions. They manufacture a huge proportion of the goods the rest of the world needs to operate. The green countries are essentially outsourcing their pollution to China.

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

#77

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…

Another reframing that may be useful is energy security/redundancy.

If you have a cheap source of solar panels and batteries, the only downside to installing them all over the country is up-front cost (which pays itself off quickly). The upside you gain is a substantially more robust, less centralized power grid that can continue to operate if something happens to impede your supply of fossil fuels or part of the grid gets cut off.

Looking at how things have played out elsewhere in the world the past few years, that's powerful.

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

#78
post #72
post #66

We've already lost the battle to prevent catastrophic change: https://davidsuzuki.org/story/is-it-too-late-to-escape-clima... And 7 of 9 boundaries have been crossed? https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-bound... This is starting to look more like the movie _Don't Look Up_.

Wasn’t that film explicitly about climate change denial?

Well it was a metaphor I guess but I certainly took it that way.

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

#79
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that almost no one denies the warming itself, just the link to greenhouse gasses. That link is unfortunately much harder to prove than rising temperatures by itself. The proof is there nonetheless, but it's easier to cast doubt on it, and that's what certain groups have been doing.

>> My impression is that almost no one denies the warming itself, just the link to greenhouse gasses. I fall in that category. My suspicion is that water vapor from air travel is by far the biggest contributor. I saw the blue skys after 9/11. I read the NASA guys that said daily temperature range increased measurably. I saw the blue skys again during Covid19. I'm also of the opinion that anyone looking at historical…

> My suspicion is that water vapor from air travel is by far the biggest contributor.

Have you calculated the water vapor generated from air travel, and compared that to the water vapor already generated by the water cycle? (just normal evaporation from lakes/rivers/oceans/plants)

Even as back-of-napkin math, this should be a pretty easy sanity check.

I think you're off by a few orders of magnitude here, but I also don't want to discourage you from adopting a "check for yourself" mindset.

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

#80

I wonder if we should move beyond this messaging. It’s well known to the smart half of the population that climate change is happening. There is apparently some debate on the cause. But this point is mostly irrelevant, it is problem-oriented thinking. By keeping the conversation in the problem-realm you invite troglodytes into the conversation to insert their bullshit. Instead, if we move forward with “presumption of…

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