So, there are still people not believing it?

[Crni Vuk]

So, I guess the 'science' is still not settled yet, right?

Apparantly, we seem to have some 12 years left to really do something here, preventing the worst effects of the Climate Crysis.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

But, it seems there are still to many out there who don't even believe that it's either happening or that humans play a role in it. The worst part that I discovered so far, are people trying to explain how CO2 is not a green house gas, hell even questioning the effect CO2 has in it's ability of infrared absorption.

 

[nkchan16]

There are still people who believe the Earth is flat and unashamedly defend it, despite the fact that they live on a continent discovered by the knowledge of the Earth being a sphere almost 600 years ago. These are all the signs of a failed education system.

 

[GonZo_626]

Well the science is not "settled" and it never should be as they should keep adding to the models and trying to make them better. CO2 is and is not a green house gas, too much and bad things happen, too little and we kill or stunt the plants. See how this can get confusing, some scientist even argue if methane is a bigger concern then carbon.

Now those that argue that us humans are not fucking with the environment, something to be said about them. The real question is how do we fix this with out fucking things up more? The only thing I know is working in isolation as a single country does nothing, and if the major players don't come on board nothing will get better. Also I wonder why there is no talk about carbon capture or how much is sequestered too. Canada puts out a fair amount of carbon compared to our small population, but with the vast lands we have and huge amount of forest, as a country we actually reduce carbon on the planet (never mind the fact that we put out like 0.01% as is).

Also I do think that we may be jumping the gun on a quick change to renewables and that they cannot hope to actually replace our current power generation needs andwe should be looking at a more phased approach for now. Example Texas.

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/a-s...carbon-emissions-look-to-texas-of-all-places/

 

[Crni Vuk]

Actually, yes the science is 'settled', in the sense that our earths global temperature is growing and that green house gases are the cause for it, of which Methane and CO2 play a huge part in it and humanity is a contributing factor here. No scientist, that I know of, says everything would be known or they have all the answers or every detail could be predicted. That's not how it works.

Look, if we're talking about a general concensus here, then most of the big questions are simply settled. Like why is the temperature growing? What is the most likely cause? It's the same as with many othe topics, like gravity or electro magnetism, the 'basics' are not disbuted.

And one idea, we really have to get rid of - go and read Club of Rome - is the idea of economic growth, which is ludicrous on a planet with finite resources and space. We're living in a society of abdunance, and we're wasting resources for meaningless goods. How long is that supposed to last? Another 50 or 100 years? In just 1 or 2 decades there will be more plastic than fish inside our oceans, we're also right in the middle of the next mass extinction, caused again mostly by humans due to pollution, loss of habitat, mining of resources, and most importantly, the way we farm our food, mostly the meat production but not only. This idea, that our economy could grow each year by 1 or 2% is killing us. Literaly.

 

[Hassknecht]

It's too late. With all the voices calling for desperate measures to stop or limit climate change, few things are actually being done. The western world missed the mark actually decades ago with chronic underfunding of nuclear fusion research and now many countries like Germany getting rid of nuclear fission power without having any alternative. We could have been on the road to solve all this years ago. But now society moves too slowly. As a result, the easy years will be over.

 

[DarkCorp]

The reason is those stupid goddamn tree huggers.

We HAVE cleaner forms of power, NUCLEAR. But the anti-nuke fucktards see a few small examples like Fukushima, which wasn't even a fault with the plant so much as a goddamned tsunami, or Chernobyl or 3 mile and flip the fuck out.

We could work on wind or thermal or hydro, but noooo, the same fucking animal/tree huggers bitch about how it will affect nature.

And we could do more but like I said in past discussions, people in general will need MORE than the 'temp is rising'. We need these damned so called 'scientists', to actually do their damned jobs and present reliable, scenarios based on cold hard numbers. If we reduce it to 25-30 degrees, we get THIS. We reduce it by 35-40 degrees, we get THIS. We reduce 40-45 degrees, we get THIS.

You are affecting peoples jobs, ways to support their families, the amount of power they will get. In order to get people to sacrifice, we need MORE than just, 'the temperature' is rising'.

FFS, we had gloom and doomers who were saying it was going to be a fucking Water World about 20 -30 years ago. Fear mongering with no concrete info, does nothing to help.

 

[Hassknecht]

Sadly, there's some truth to that. While the current state of the environment is mostly the fault of laziness and unchecked capitalism, our future prospects being reduced to anarcho primitivism is the Green's fault. We could have had clean and safe energy in the form of next gen nuclear power plants by now, plants that are passively safe, potentially small sized for decentralized power generation, and even breeder plants that could get rid of the old waste we already produced. Even the whole "but uranium is also limited and bad to mine" shtick is bullshit, we could have much more efficient power plants that would give us centuries worth of clean power, but nope, not going to happen anymore. Nuclear fission should have been the bridge technology to bring us to feasable nuclear fusion technology, but that stuff has been underfunded since its inception. Initially not because of the Greens, though, they didn't exist yet, but mostly because civilian nuclear fusion doesn't help you with building nuclear weapon.
A lot of shit from all sides led to this, no use in pointing the finger in one direction. It's a target-rich environment for finger-pointing.

 

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

Now... temperatures is one thing.

What about oversaturation with CO2 leading to changing how much osmosis occurs in plants? If there's more CO2 available, plants will slow osmosis down, also slowing the absorption of micronutrients from the soil, as there is enough base material available to them in the plain air. That's also one thing far too few people talk about.

Also, what about those folks who like to profess 'Climate Change!' to get free money, but end up doing other things with them?

You know what - I've been a bit fed up with humans for a good while now. I wouldn't mind if a bunch of us died in some sort of an upheaval. Sorry to be so blunt. But it is how I feel.

 

[Hassknecht]

CO² has a multitude of effects. Too large of a temperature change will absolutely fuck a lot of things up for a LOT of people. Here in Europe we're somewhat lucky because we'll either get subtropical to tropical climate (which will cause a lot of problems, but not make this place less inhabitable) or a small ice age, which is also not the end of the world.
It's very problematic for the african continent, though, where we'll see increased desertification and just plain inhospitability. Given their uncontrolled population growth, that'll be the biggest problem.
Hm, Russia has lots of basically uninhabited space that's mostly not used too much because the extreme continental climate there sucks too much. What if climate change makes places like Siberia much more tolerable throughout the year? Obviously, Russia wouldn't take part in this, but y'know, just an idea.

 

[SquidWard]

Actually, yes the science is 'settled', in the sense that our earths global temperature is growing and that green house gases are the cause for it, of which Methane and CO2 play a huge part in it and humanity is a contributing factor here. No scientist, that I know of, says everything would be known or they have all the answers or every detail could be predicted. That's not how it works.

Exactly. We can talk about how our understanding of how everything works and what plays parts in what will always be a changing thing but that's not beneficial right now. If we're on a doomsday clock or we've already passed it, it's not about how much science can change in 10 or 20 years. It's about "What do we know?" and "This is what we know, this is how we know how to fix it. Let's figure out the best way to go about it."

We can't act on what ifs and wait and sees. If we're seeing some very bad happening on a global level that may be irreversible for a very, very long time then we probably should take what we know and apply it appropriately as we possibly can.

Like people say gravity is technically a theory, we don't fully understand it but our knowledge of it can be and is used in practical senses. We gotta use what we know because we don't have what we don't know yet. And as far as the habitability of Earth goes, I'd rather change our ways of life and be safe than extinct. We don't currently have anywhere else to go.

 

[Hassknecht]

It's not like preserving the environment and cutting down on pollution is a bad thing even if it's not strictly necessary. People who were alive in the 50s will tell you that the air is much better and cleaner now, even though we have a lot more cars.
Our lifestyle will have to change, because we missed the opportunity to invest in technology that would let us keep our lifestyles while simultaneously making a lot of things better. Hope the pockets that were filled in the meantime were worth it.

 

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

CO² has a multitude of effects. Too large of a temperature change will absolutely fuck a lot of things up for a LOT of people. Here in Europe we're somewhat lucky because we'll either get subtropical to tropical climate (which will cause a lot of problems, but not make this place less inhabitable) or a small ice age, which is also not the end of the world.
It's very problematic for the african continent, though, where we'll see increased desertification and just plain inhospitability. Given their uncontrolled population growth, that'll be the biggest problem.
Hm, Russia has lots of basically uninhabited space that's mostly not used too much because the extreme continental climate there sucks too much. What if climate change makes places like Siberia much more tolerable throughout the year? Obviously, Russia wouldn't take part in this, but y'know, just an idea.

Russia also has a lot of gas frozen in there. If it's getting warmer, that will pop out.

And a large part of Russia will turn to a muddy swamp, too.

 

[Hassknecht]

Russia also has a lot of gas frozen in there. If it's getting warmer, that will pop out.

And a large part of Russia will turn to a muddy swamp, too.

Yeah, the permafrost melting would be a big issue, possibly leading to a Clathrate Gun scenario. Which is potentially an extinction level event. But a swamp can be drained and made arable, so that's not too bad.
Gotta use all the space possible.

 

[Crni Vuk]

It's not like preserving the environment and cutting down on pollution is a bad thing even if it's not strictly necessary. People who were alive in the 50s will tell you that the air is much better and cleaner now, even though we have a lot more cars.
Our lifestyle will have to change, because we missed the opportunity to invest in technology that would let us keep our lifestyles while simultaneously making a lot of things better. Hope the pockets that were filled in the meantime were worth it.

Nuclear energy if used correctly could help us in many way. But, I think what we really have to get rid of, is this idea of overconsumption, endless economic growth and simply wasting of resources. If we could somehow get rid of this, we wouldn't even really need to worry about nuclear energy. Even nuclear energy or green energy simply has to deal with the fact that our energy needs are growing exponentially. One big question that is coming with this new wave of digitalisation, where even your wall papers can tell you the room teperature and what ever if you're getting a heart attack in a few hours. If we could, trough some miracle satisfy our need for energy trough completely green sources, we would still run in to the issue that all the new fancy toys we develope, need more and more energy. But even suggesting something like austerity, makes you look like a lunatic these days ...

 

[Hassknecht]

Well yeah, people get used to shiny stuff extremely fast. We both grew up without mobile phones and constant Internet, and yet we both acknowledge how much we use that stuff now and how easy it is to get used to it.
Austerity is nice and all, but people won't like it. Soviet-style permits to buy and own a car are not going to sit well with people, and while I do think that the mental apex of our species was reached in the 1980s and that graphical user interfaces and easy-to-use Internet fucked our brains up big time, you can't really take it away from them anymore. Well, you can, with a massively centralized tyrannical government. Which is probably the end-goal of the long chain of administrative fuckups that led to this situation, anyway.
Less and less young people especially in urban areas are getting a car, though. So in some areas people are rethinking certain aspects.

 

[DarkCorp]

It will work if we have a coordinated campaign that is willing to compromise, EVEN if compromise is simply isn't enough. The other alternative as Haas has brought up, is tyranny and we KNOW that will not work.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Well yeah, people get used to shiny stuff extremely fast. We both grew up without mobile phones and constant Internet, and yet we both acknowledge how much we use that stuff now and how easy it is to get used to it.
Austerity is nice and all, but people won't like it. Soviet-style permits to buy and own a car are not going to sit well with people, and while I do think that the mental apex of our species was reached in the 1980s and that graphical user interfaces and easy-to-use Internet fucked our brains up big time, you can't really take it away from them anymore. Well, you can, with a massively centralized tyrannical government. Which is probably the end-goal of the long chain of administrative fuckups that led to this situation, anyway.
Less and less young people especially in urban areas are getting a car, though. So in some areas people are rethinking certain aspects.

There is no law that says a free and democratic society has to be a form of captalism or endless economic growth. It's in my opinion a misconception.

 

[Hassknecht]

There is no law that says a free and democratic society has to be a form of captalism or endless economic growth. It's in my opinion a misconception.

Absolutely. But if you want austerity you need control, therefore ending a free and democratic society. Don't hope that you can just teach them that all the shiny toys are not for everyone anymore.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Societies change all the time sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. Right now we can experience a growing neoliberalism in our societies after we had for more than 50 years a welfare state. I just don't believe that it's all set in stone. 60 Years ago, they would have thrown you in a hospital as homosexual, today you're shuned if you're homophobic and gay marriage is allowed. This change happend without preasure and control from the state and only by fighting for rights and changing societey by englightening people. I sincerely believe, that austerity, in the sense that we free our self from this consumerism and endless economic growth, we could actually gain more freedom, the freedom when you realize, that you actually don't need all of this 'stuff' to be truly happy and in balance with your self. Besides, I do not believe that you can dictate austerity anyway, I mean who should do it? People in Europe would rather destroy the world before they accept living in such a society, so any changes that is my opinion, can only happen if the majority of people actually see it as a good and positve change. And looking at anti-capitalist movements, minimalism, anti-grown movements, post-industrial ideologies/ideas gaining more and more popularity and so on, I would say there is a growing part in our societies that does undestand, hey if we continue with this kind of economy, we're kinda fucked. Just to make this clear! I am not saying that we should give up all kinds of comfort and that we should move in to the woods, living without electricity, or any kind of technology. That's not the point I am trying to make here. But, there are surveys that show that cities which decied to go green and support bicycling actually improved their quality of living. People are healthier and in general happier. An all of this was achieved by making cars less attractive to use.

You can encourage or oppose certain behaviour without making it in to laws and huge regulations for the individual, sometimes making regulations for large corporations can already do the trick. One big tool for our state, are taxes. Take global warming as example, where many propose a CO2 tax for decades and removing ALL subsidies for fossil fuels. Or maybe a tax on pollution in general. The more you pollute and destroy the enviroment as industry, the higher the taxes you pay, the higher the price of your product, the less people will buy it and eventually they will chose alternatives.

For example, if the environmental damage and adverse health efects caused by the mining and buring of coal in Germany, was completely paid by the companies that mine coal and use it for generating electricity the price would be so high, that it becomes unfeasible. One issue with fossil fuels today, but not only here, is that very often the companies that make the profit, do not pay for the caused damage. Be it the damage to the people which destroy their bodies as cheap labour or the damage to nature by destroying large areas.

 

[nkchan16]

The main problem is human overpopulation, which not only fucks the environment and destroys the planet and its resources, but also affects human behavior, ultimately affects human evolution in a bad way.