[Climate Change] Lake Erie up to 60% Covered in Ice

There are so many problems with the climate change argument. But let's put those aside for the time being, and pretend that man's activities are accelerating climate change, and that climate change leads to undesirable results. Note how many thresholds are cleared in that statement (#1 the earth is warming; #2 man is causing it, #3 the effects are negative). There are probabilities attached to each of these 1,2,3 statements, and when combined, the likelihood of them all being true is quite low. The climate has changed for millions of years. We are quite self-absorbed to think that man's influence today is so influential as to rattle Mother Earth. But everyone dreams about being important -- especially liberals.

But let's pretend it's true. So now what do you do about it? What is the cost/benefit analysis that guides you to a recommendation on what to do? There are 22 climate change drivers. Which one do you try to isolate? If you do choose C02, how do you ensure that your efforts aren't wiped out by China and India's non-compliance? What benefits are derived, during a person's lifetime, from any sacrifices made? No one has made this argument. Everyone is for "going green" until they have to pay for it. It's an incredibly ignorant leap of logic to look at the polar bear picture on the tiny block of ice and then run out and demand that people pay high prices for wind/solar electricity. Rational people don't behave this way.

 

The frustrating part is there are a lot of people getting rich over the "green" movement.

The most effective way to go "green" is to cut back on our foot print on a day to day basis. However, no one wants to do this.

 

Thank you Santiago and Space Ghost. Either the libs are right and we are all doomed because of all that stuff that needs to be solved which cant be solved in time OR the libs are wrong but their so called solutions will hold us back and make green billionaires richer. trust the right people like the Coke Brothers who are smart and against global warming. in america we place our trust in the dollar so it makes sense to look to billionaires like the Coke family and see their ideas and the politicians they support.

 

Interesting subject.
Its hard for me to understand why going "green" considered liberal.
Pure fact is human population exponencially grown since the industrial revolution.
From 1 billion in 1800 to 7 billion today. It actually more than doubled since the 1950's.

To say that consumtion behaviour of 7 billion people does not effect the global eco-system is not being blind, its being criminaly stupid.

As a thresh hold we know now that warming of 2 degrees in a century (which is the rate were heading- not this stupid graph shown by tallanvor) will cause catastrophic results dangering the lives of millions of people and costing trilions of dollars.
By simple cost/benefit analysis you can understand that its better to invest now for preventitative methods than trying to correct after it hits. And it is proven that atleast in ghg emmissions it is possible to reverse or slow down processes.

And there are ways-
First is to understand that this is a big problem that effects all of us (in my view same as looking as foundementalistic Islam. It wont stop because you ignore it).
Second is creating insentives to people and businesses to try and confront it within the buisness world. Example- china will increase its vehicle usage by 30% in the next few years, weather we like it or not. So invest in better technology to cut down co2 emmission.
Be efficient. This is number one element that can really make a difference. Be more efficient in how you use your resources.
IT industry is actually in fault of the same co2 emission as aviation, just because of poor handling of its servers facilities. They recently found out that by better technologhy and "green" server centers they cut down more than half of they're power consumption hence saving tons of money.

Third is on education and awareness- if each and every one of us will just be more aware on our consumption behavior were not only going to benefit the living conditions of our children and grandchildren, but actually manage to save up a lot of money.

Bottom line- climate change is real, we can help maintain it to some level by increasing efficiency.

Thats it. Not too complicated and not liberal at all.

 

The chart I posted is the correct temperature (it tells you the source). The mistake you are making is saying 'the rate', you can cherry pick that from any date range you want (did you calculate the rate based off last year? last month? last week?). We did not go up 2 degrees last century. Also if you gonna question the data i posted, then post your own.

The solutions provided by most environmentalists involve restricting individual freedom (you must use this light bulb and must recycle this and consume no more than this). That most certainly is liberal or at least the left side of the political spectrum.


Nothing you stated was very compelling. Your argument is that because the population has gone up 7 fold that therefore humans must be having a cataclysmic effect on the environment? If you want Americans to spend trillions on the issue you need to be way more convincing than that.

 

The graph is meant to show that the temperature of the Earth is the same it was around 19 years ago. Nothing more than that.

Well this is my point, if 19 years there has been no increase in temperature and in the past decade its gone up .2 degrees, then clearly a decade is too short a period to discern rate from. We both cherry picked a time range and neither are telling of what the future holds. Looking back 100-150 yrs tells a better picture.

Almost every predictive model has been off

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-90-models-global-Tsfc-vs-obs-thru-2013.png

 

Wait you actually believe this??

.....Backing away slowly, without any sudden movements...

 

I don't have time to explain how science and modeling systems works- one thing you can't argue- there is an increase- hence global warming is real.
Models did not predict the exact data- but they did predicted the trend.

So yes, keep ignoring reality, burn down the house, why would you care?

 

And sorry about my poor English.
Obviously its not my native languish but- 'did predicted'?

 

From my perspective, I depend on the expert in the field to provide their assessment of the problem. I'm not a scientist or a mathematician to work out the probabilities. If I said something is this likely or that not likely, it's purely a guess and however I wish it to be that or this, it's still purely a guess unless I have hard # behind my guess. I trust the scientists that are expert in this field and I trust the Science process to work itself out (to keep on changing as new data and knowledge is obtained).

From my perspective, I don't assume what man influence is. I don't have that knowledge. I don't assume Mother Earth can't be "rattle". I don't have that knowledge. To assume either of that I think is just that- an assumption. I depend on data and expert in the field and I listen to them. I don't need to be important or not important, I just need to be aware of what is currently known. I don't know why "important" is at all important - it has no relevance in my opinion. If it true, it's true. If it's false, it's false. Whatever the data said, it is that.

If it's true and that we need to take action, than we take action. We do it in the best way we can. Cost/benefit analysis can be done to do it in the "best" way possible (this best way itself would be debated to death).

Those detail can be worked out. I think if we decided that we need to take action, we will come up with actions. If said only China and India decided to not take actions, I'm sure there are way to convince or even force them. The point is if you decide something need to be done, you will find a way to get it done. Someone else decision and thinking, I think, wouldn't be why you give up on what need to be done.

From my perspective, we leave a better world behind to our children. That's a huge benefit for me.

I'm sure some do, but I don't care about polar bear. As I said, I care about my children livelihood. I'm full of greed, but it's more for my children than for me. I would make sacrifices for them, if that's what it takes. I think even that is an assumption - sacrifices that is needed is not known.

My rationale is rational to me. I'm sure your rational is rational to you. As you think rational people don't behave this way, I think rational people don't behave your way - I actually don't but I can easily think that way.

That can be frustrating that people take advantage of this to get rich. It would not be why I would not do something I think is necessary.

 

True. And to build on that:

1. 99% of the Earth's surface heat comes from the sun. Nothing can be done about that.
2. Increases in C02 FOLLOW temperature changes, not the other way around. Classic confusion between correlation and causation for most.
3. Pointing to "science" and saying that the debate is over has been invalidated by the corruption, intimidation and suppression of dissent within the scientific community over the global warming issue. Your scientific career is over if you challenge the status quo on global warming. This line of thinking runs counter to everything that "science" stands for. Politics and money have invaded "science" and corrupted the process.

 

Although this is somewhat correct it is not the right way to adress the issue.
There is nothig you can do with the earth rotational angle, and other than stop deforestation not so much you can do about albedo.
You have to do what you can, and reducing GHG emissions is something you can do.
GHG, including co2 are definately strong contributing factors by all scientific measurments, even if not the only causes to climate change.
co2 is also a strong cause to the acidification of the ocean that will cause coral reef destruction which will result in further reduction of already depleting fish stocks.

In short, you have every reason in the world to try and reduce ghg emissions, if only because its one of the few factors that you can have actually have an impact on.

 

Do you really "have" to do that? Would it even make a significant difference?

I don't think we KNOW that we could have a significant impact on the earth warming or cooling, but we KNOW that certain measures would harm the economy. It's hard to sign off on measures that may or may not have the desired effect that will certainly cause economic distress.

 

When the heat at the Equator expands toward the poles, the cold air at the poles is displaced and moves toward the Equator. You can't explain that.

 

That's the crux of the politics of climate change. We know the costs of going green would be high, but the benefits are unclear, or rather, the benefits accrue to people who aren't paying those costs (islander's land that isn't going to sink any more). At the same time, this is just normal human nature, our risk averseness causes us to overestimate bad outcomes and discount the good ones.

 

This is a totaly valid question.
So lets move on from saying "global warming is a hoax" and start thinking how or if we can influence it, or a better question like that you adressed: Is it worth it?
This is an unknown factor.
I'm trying to think of it in business terms because after all- we don't care about nature, we care about our quality of life and our children's life.
So we do a risk assesment- with the knowledge we have today, will halting of the ghg man made emissions have an impact on climate change? The answer in short is yes. But not enough to stop global warming. It might delay it, but even taking the "greenest" approach would not help us with that.
So why bother?
I'm coming from a country of harsh environment.
Our neighbours constantly try to kill us, water sources are depleting fast, there's not much fish left in the sea and there no land for agriculture.
So what do we do? We try to outsmart this harsh environment. This is our only way. We invest a lot of money in technology for the future, to be more efficient, less polutting, re-use of water, desalination, alternative energy and high-tech agriculture. The name of the game is efficiency.

I would take that approach in global climate change battle.
There's no need to yell 'we all gonna die!', but be aware of the possibilities. Invest smartly on technologies that will help monitor and maintain the new world we're facing, allocate natural resources as if they are limmited, because they are, be efficient. Be aware that you can't produce more and more without consequenses, so produce what you need. Not more not less.

Reducing GHG does not hurt the economy, it brings it forward, forces it to think smarter, longer into the future.

 

This is 100% false. The strongest economies in the world are fueled by coal. Low cost energy is one of the most important determinants in raising standards of living, better healthcare, higher literacy rates, and many other quality of life issues. There is a compelling moral rationale to unlock the value of fossil fuels to lift developing economies and sustain the developed world.

"bringing it forward, being smarter" -- what does that even mean? It's just buzzwords meant to play on emotions. Empirical data and reality needs to set in at some point to measure the costs of these dreams. Everyone wants to 'go green' but what price will you actually pay? Will you pay an extra $100/month on your electricity bill to do it? Will you pay an extra $10,000 for a car to do it? I'd say less than 5% of America would enter into this trade... which is why the government is trying to ram this through. My point is this: Put the costs into the equation before announcing that the benefits are worth it. In the case of climate change, the benefits are far from even certain. The costs are quite easy to figure out, and they are high. This is why paying to fight climate change is so deeply unpopular in America.

 

Mankind is bad for the planet. We need volunteers to remove themselves so we will no longer hurt our precious planet. I think the people most worried about it should remove themselves first. Come on people, do it for the planet.