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Global Warming Has Made the Weather Better For Most In US -- For Now (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article on LA Times: Since Americans first heard the term global warming in the 1970s, the weather has actually improved for most people living in the U.S.. But it won't always be that way, according to a new study. Research shows Americans typically -- and perhaps unsurprisingly -- like warmer winters and dislike hot, humid summers. And they reveal their weather preferences by moving to areas with conditions they like best. A new study in the journal Nature has found that 80% of the U.S. population lives in counties experiencing more pleasant weather than they did 40 years ago. "Virtually all Americans are now experiencing the much milder winters that they typically prefer, and these mild winters have not been offset by markedly more uncomfortable summers or other negative changes," writes Patrick Egan, a political scientist at New York University, and Megan Mullin, professor of environmental politics at Duke University. However, if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, 88% of the current population will live in areas where the weather is less pleasant than it was before. The paper does not predict how changing weather patterns will influence migration patterns over the coming century.
No, no one is saying that, you stupid troll.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Prognostications that tell me what I'll like in the future are annoying. Now it's my turn. Canadians will like becoming one of the world's largest providers of agriculture. So, there.
so the crappy pre-global warming weather we had is what we need to go back to? back when i was in the army all the guys i knew from the midwest talked about their normal winters of -20 with the wind chill
Just curious... But why do you expect a country boy (or girl) from Iowa to care about someone on the other side of the planet?
Serious question... Because you're asking that person to change their lifestyle and pay more money, to help people they don't know and will never meet.
how did people live in central asia and siberia thousands of years ago if it's supposed to be a frozen tundra? how did the mongols cross it along with the huns? maybe this is normal weather?
It's what Russia has been saying for years: "Warming? In Russia? How is that bad? It's usually f8cking cold here!"
Table-ized A.I.
Because the rest of the world helps the US so much.
It has been better for the US, therefore it must be good.
By 'better' they probably just mean 'hotter' because everyone likes really hot weather, right?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I moved back to where I grew up in part because I missed the winter. I'm back and have very little winter in this place - snow doesn't last (too warm), lakes don't freeze early enough (same reason) - I would have moved further north if I'd have known ahead of time that I was going to run in to this. I really enjoy snow and cold myself; I know I can always make more heat or put on another layer of clothing but making cold air is a challenge - and the world doesn't need me running around naked.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
What do you predict will happen it something like a major change in humidity affects a region that has a nuclear arsenal and faces hostile neighbors? Keep in mind that's mainly just added moisture from a change in local weather patterns, something likely of typical changes in the future.
Man's influence on global warming comes from pollution. The lion's share of pollution does not come from first-world consumer waste. It overwhelmingly comes from third-world industrial waste. The third world countries are struggling to compete in the global market, and can't afford environmentally-friendly production technologies. So, rather than starve to death, they pollute. A lot.
I could link sources, but I don't have any on hand and am too lazy to search for them. If you are actually interested, you can google it yourself.
So anyway, there really is no reason why someone living in Iowa should care...they aren't the problem.
They do. The US wouldn't have close to this standard of living without those working for cheap in China, or without oil from Venezuela and the Middle East.
Why is it that altruism should only go one way? Why is it us who should show altruism and not the other ones?
I read something a while back that 20th century weather was a "statistical fluke" and humanity will never experience another period of stable weather. Oh, well. I'm moving to the hills in the next 20 years to avoid raising sea levels in California.
No, no one is saying that, you stupid troll.
It's not the best way of saying it, but the essense of it, I believe, is correct. The average person (pedants: as defined for the entire population, not just Slashdotters, so hush your mouth!) doesn't grok 'climate science' any better than they understand 'rocket science' enough to fabricate and launch a satellite into geosynchronous orbit, so when someone talks about 'global warming', what do they do? They look outside the window at what's going on, or maybe look at the weather forecast; the average person is not the most forward-looking person you'll ever meet, they're more concerned about tomorrow, or next week, or maybe as far as next month, but 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now? Usually, not so much. If the weather has been nice where they are, they're not going to get very disturbed by the abstract ideas of some news report that says in 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now, things won't be pleasant, and similarly, they find it difficult to get too upset by the fact that people they don't know in some country they'd be hard-pressed to find on a map is experiencing what is for them bizarre and destructive weather patterns. If you want to see the majority of U.S. citizens being forefront-of-their-thoughts concerned about 'global warming', you'll likely have to wait until they're being seriously inconvenienced by it, which of course will be way, way too late to do anything about it. Which is why scientists and others who do understand the implications of global warming keep amplifying their reports on it -- which of course just causes the deniers of global warming to amplify their claims that they're just spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Then the religious types chime in to muddy the intellectual waters even further, confusing the faithful with passages from the Bible that aren't even necessarily relevant.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
They deliver that oil out of the goodness of their hearts? No? Well you're just a fuckwit than.
Trade is for mutual benefit. Our it wouldn't happen.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'll listen to someone speak on altruism after I see dirt under their fingernails from helping a neighbor weed their garden, or see them give 20% or more of their money to charities that aren't owned by them or their family trust. I'll listen to someone speak on altruism after they give up their own Christmas so they can bring Christmas to a family down the street that couldn't afford it. I listen when someone uses the word to enrich their own life through selfless improvement of the lives of others, purchased by time, blood, and sacrifice.
Forgive me for not listening to politicians, celebrities, and climate scientists when they speak on altruism. They use it as a word to control the lives other people, rather than using it as a way to help those people get control of their own lives
They use the term "altruism" in the same way many of them use "love" to describe deviant, non-exclusive, consequence-free sexuality. It's a sick, twisted perversion of the word used with the intent to destroy that which they refuse to work for and therefore cannot obtain or understand, at worst, and an ignorant teenager explaining physical infatuation, at best..
For the most part weather is the western world has been getting better for residential living...
Without humans it would actually had been much colder albeit there would be more species still in existence.
Weather is not static, nor is the earths atmosphere which bleeds off into outer space.
Lets stop talking about anthropomorphic climate change and actually make it fact by actively managing it and taking responsibility.
Come the next ice age we will need to burn all that oil and coal currently in the ground.
When you take in the Heat Waves of the 30's we're no where near that bad in the US, and from the 60's to 1991 had a significant effect of global cooling due to a fairly large amount of SO2 in the Stratosphere due to a series of volcanic eruptions. Is this an improvement due to Global Warming CO2 or an improvement due to a lack of SO2 eruptions into the Stratosphere. I can go into why the rain has spontaneously increased since about 2010 due to an enhanced evaporation effect caused by the last solar cycle that was made possible by the Suns Northern field going wonky. This was in part predicted by NASA when they started detecting Northern polarity CME's ripping though the Magnetic field as if they were Southern CME's back in 2008. But no just because I have facts on my side I get labeled the Equivalent of a Holocaust denier.
Who is saying they shouldn't? They also should. Let say we should all reduce our emissions to 4 tons/person/year.
That means the typical American must cut 80% of their emissions. The typical Indian can still double. But by altruism they shouldn't raise them 10 fold.
Why is it that altruism should only go one way? Why is it us who should show altruism and not the other ones?
Nobody said that it should. But as an evolutionary matter, it is good if it goes primarily forward (i.e. if we care about the future of our species and of our children more than we care about our own.)
Aren't we constantly told that workers in China and India lower the standard of living in the US? No more high paying jobs, etc.
That's almost scientific. It has a measurable number and it does not use the evasive "may" or "could", using a solid "will" instead.
What's missing is the when. 2021? 2026?
Meanwhile, I'm sorry to say, none of the similar predictions of the past have come true — at least, none that the adherents of the Climate Science are able to cite today.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So what you're saying is that we should cut our emissions so they don't suffer from bad consequences of Global Warming, and they should raise theirs so we can benefit from the good consequences of Global Warming?
I don't think you understand how climate works.
Well it has been recognized for a while. That Global Climate change will have areas which benefit from it and those that will not.
For the most part, and why it is hard to call people to action, is that we as humans are rather adaptable to climates, so while our long term environmental food cycles and water cycles are affecting a lot of life in the world. We as humans are not so affected. Attempts in the past to try to exaggerate the effects on humans (Images of NYC flooded so you can only see the top of the statue of liberty) May mobilize some, but it also turns a lot of people away, as these potent images, which turn out to be false, discredits the more realistic problem.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"Better weather".
Um, no.
It has extended the range the mosquito which carries the Zika virus can infect people.
Like half of California and almost all of the South.
Better?
I don't think so.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Altruism and selfishness represent opposite extremes on a wide spectrum. You seem to be committing a fallacy of excluded middle. Failing to be altruistic doesn't automatically make one selfish.
Demanding altruism from others is also a bit strange. Usually it is because the one doing the demanding is actually being selfish in some way. They want something to be true (for whatever reasons) and are going around demanding that others make personal sacrifices (without reward) to make it so.
Historically speaking, the common good is better served through government intervention.
First, saying that you live in Iowa (as one poster puts it), and don't know or will ever meet someone from the other side of the world is a) massively ignorant and downright nasty (where does some of your food come from? how 'bout your clothes, or cars, or computers or computer parts come from?), and b) did I mention "ignorant"?
I've lived in Texas and Florida. I'm in the DC metro area now, and the weather's starting to remind me of Texas. Which I find horrifying.
Why, you ask?
Let me give you two reasons that *will* affect you in Iowa.
1. Fire ants will move north. If you've never run into them, I suggest you take a trip south and walk over a nest. That, alone, should convince you that you *don't* want winters with hard freezes.
2. Kudzu, aka "the vine that ate the South". As someone I used to know put it, "it was imported in the 20's, thinking it would be good cattle food. Instead, kudzu liked the South a *lot* better than cattle liked kudzu." Growing a yard a week doesn't mean 3 feet, it means your whole damn yard.... I would *not* want to see it getting to large food croplands.
And, of course, all the climate-change deniers, who claim to be Free Markets Forever!!! can't seem to see any business opportunities in the changeover to producing renewables, and the equipment for creating renewable energy generation.
mark
I haven't cherry picked a single thing. I've seen global warming advocated cherry pick around the evaporation data. It's not convenient because the results are in stark contradiction with several global warming claims. Oh it's flat from 1950 to 2010 so it can't show any global warming, all while totally ignoring that it did go up and follow the last solar cycle along with the Rain following the same solar cycle pattern. But no I must be cherry picking by Including data and you can't be cherry picking by excluding data.
...so I need to figure out where that 12% is that is going to be nicer then before and start buying property.
I live in Canada, and the weather has indeed been getting better for me. As far as I'm concerned, we've terraformed the earth to make it more habitable here and I'm not really upset by it at all.
"They" do not think it. You think it. Stop projecting.
"His name was James Damore."
Askng, as one poster does, why someone in Iowa should pay to fight climate change to help someone they've never met, or will never meet, on the other side of the world is both amazingly ignorant and stupid.
Where do some of your food, or a lot of your clothes, car parts, computers and computer parts come from? So yes, it *directly* affects you.
Second... let me give you two reasons that will hit you, personally, says the guy who lived in Texas and Florida for some years.
1. Fire ants will move north. If you've never met them, I suggest you take a trip south, and walk over a nest.
2. Kudzu, aka "the vine that ate the South". As someone I knew put it, "it was imported from Japan in the 20's as cattle food. Turned out that kudzu liked the South a lot better than cattle liked kudzu." When they say it grows a yard a week, they don't mean 3 feet, they mean your whole damn yard. It kills trees. Now consider it getting to cropland, and not dying back over a winter with long, hard freezes....
Meanwhile, the climate change deniers, who all seem to be Free Markets Forever!!! can't seem to see *any* opportunities to make money in the switchover to renewables.
mark
It's called altruism.
Excellent concept, but a bit abstract for the average person.
Millions of Americans are just trying to pay the rent/mortgage, feed their families, keep their jobs, and retire with dignity.
Next to those concerns, the concerns of an Indian half way around the planet are rather far down the list.
You might not LIKE that, but it is reality and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
But also, because the rest of the world could (and should, legitimately) tax trade with polluting countries, which could impact that selfish Iowa boy even more.
No decision happens in a vacuum...
First, a lot of the rest of the world is polluting as well, so everyone taxes everyone else and we're back to square one.
Second, from a practical point of view, you generally shouldn't pull the tiger's tail. The United States of America has the most powerful military on Earth and we control the world's reserve currency. We are more likely than not to come out on top of such a dispute. The Iowa country boy (or girl) may well tell our leadership to go kick someone's ass until they leave us alone.
Now you might think the above is rather... well, not what you would choose... and that's fine... but remember that most Americans don't even have a passport and even fewer have ever left the country. Most don't really think much about other nations, except when it comes to economics and their jobs.
You don't have to like the above, but disliking it doesn't make it go away or make it untrue.
The earth is still in the last ice age, in an inter-glaciation period, that started 2.5 million yeas ago.
Let say we should all reduce our emissions to 4 tons/person/year.
That would still be much too high, we need to get it lower than that to really stop the CO2 rise.
That means the typical American must cut 80% of their emissions.
That is true, and that has zero chance of happening any time soon. You might *want* it to happen, but various forces are at work, largely political and economic, that will prevent it from happening within our lifetime.
If the weather has been nice where they are, they're not going to get very disturbed by the abstract ideas of some news report that says in 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now, things won't be pleasant, and similarly, they find it difficult to get too upset by the fact that people they don't know in some country they'd be hard-pressed to find on a map is experiencing what is for them bizarre and destructive weather patterns.
Quoted for truth...
The average person out in the world simply doesn't pay this nearly as much attention as people who post on message boards about it. Even my wife, who has to listen to me talk about this from time to time, doesn't really care all that much.
Oh sure, if you say "do you care about the Earth's environment for your children", she'll say "yes, of course, we should keep it clean". Then if you follow up and say, "So are you ok to give up your nice big truck and get a small car, and watch clothes by hand, and have no air conditioning?", she will say: "Are you nuts? No!"
If you were to push her on it, she'll probably say something like, "Even if I give all that up, nothing will change and other nations will keep polluting".
For now, it's screwing other people over. Within a few decades it will be screwing that country boy and his kids over. And really, it's already screwing the country boy over, but just in more subtle ways, like rising food costs and the increasing price of his property insurance.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The climate fear mongers have to desperately address the fact that the facts on the ground are contrary to the media narrative. You can only insult people so much before they just tune you out.
This is why "Global Warning" is now called "Climate Change".
An obvious response to the retort "then it must be boiling someplace else" might be to point to the geopolitical complications of climate change. Much like with GMOs, it's not always about the "but science". There are a wider range of issues to be considered.
Climate hysterics are usually absent any suggestions regarding how to handle the situation. The who's and how's are actually the least interesting part of the discussion.
One of the British talking heads actually gets this and has moved on to the "now what" part of the discussion.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Grok is actually a pretty useful term. The fact that it was fabricated by a novelist is no good reason to shun it. It's a meaningfully distinctive term.
Most people don't actually grok this stuff. They just repeat what others have said. It's total appeal to authority nonsense like quoting lines out of the Bible. It's even less sophisticated than that actually.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Large areas of the United States have been in drought conditions for over two decades now.
Some of that has to do with population growth and migration.
We're suffering from water issues here in North Texas because the people who issue permits to build new homes are not the same people who manage our water supply.
20 years ago, the government wanted to build a huge new reservoir north of DFW, but the NIMBY people up north stopped it.
So now we have 2 million more people than we did 20 years ago, and no new water supply. And the permit people keep issuing permits to build new homes.
Moral authority is best achieved through leadership by example.
Americans in particular are better paid, get to keep more of what they make, and have more effective disposable income. They also have choices that citizens of other industrialized nations simply don't have.
If you spent 20% of your income on charity, you would still be ahead of Europeans.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Because the "good side" isn't permanent, and once the more severe effects, like rain belts shifting, you're going to see the "bad side".
Beyond that, in many areas, mild winters are really fucking bad. Where I live, that means much lower snow pack, which means major water restrictions and wildfire season coming earlier and earlier every year.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Both China and the US could tell the rest of the world to f*ck off and do pretty well. We're large countries with a lot of useful land and ample natural resources. People like to fixate on the US as an industrial power but we really never stopped being an agricultural one. That's what ultimately matters in the end.
The Iowa farm boy can likely adapt to what comes. It's the urban city dwellers that will suffer first and worst.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Just curious... But why do you expect a country boy (or girl) from Iowa to care about someone on the other side of the planet?
Because I expect them not to be assholes. I expect people with a basic education to have learned a little empathy, to have read some books in which they walked in another person's shoes and saw through another person's eyes, and learned to understand that other people are real, and that everyone is better off when we have a little consideration for one another -- even for people we'll never meet. I also expect an Iowa country boy (or girl) to understand that their children or grandchildren may very well meet those people from the other side of the world, and that the meeting will go better if the Iowans haven't spend the last three generations screwing up the lives of the people they're meeting.
Or is basic human decency and a measure of foresight somehow absent in Iowans? I've certainly never noticed that on my visits to Iowa, nor in the Iowans I've met elsewhere.
Appeal to authority is completely fine, as long as it's true authority.
You may be told that. It doesn't mean it's true.
An interglacial period doesn't mean the glaciers are going to reappear tomorrow, and it certainly doesn't give us license to vomit CO2 into the atmosphere in ever-increasing quantities under the false impression that we're helping.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
But many humans can't. Look what happens when a bunch of humans from the Middle East decide they want to pick up and move to Europe.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It is for agrarian and urbanized civilization.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The US has had a negative balance of trade since the 70's, meaning that each year they need to borrow money from the rest of the world to support their standard of living.
This is why "Global Warning" is now called "Climate Change".
The term "Climate Change" has been pretty common for several decades now. The IPCC, for example, was founded in 1988.
You've probably heard it before, but...
A chunk of thousands of years ago, a particularly nasty invasive species escaped from its natural habitat in Africa. Everywhere it went, it took over, causing the extinction of many animal species. To date, no workable approach to containing this species, either via mechanical methods or via evolution of a predator species, has come into being. However, as with every known population explosion known to anthropologists, biologists, and paleontologists, sooner or later there will be some sort of mass societal collapse and the species will either go extinct or withdraw into a few small, isolated colonies.
And yeah, I do mean us.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Right. Burn the heretics, in other news, Colorado, where I live, has had one of the best ski seasons in years.
Is that that "manishs destiny" I've been hearing about?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And really, it's already screwing the country boy over, but just in more subtle ways, like rising food costs and the increasing price of his property insurance.
Perhaps, but he might be more concerned about next month's rent or mortgage payment than what might happen in 20 years.
You cannot expect someone to have a long range view when they are simply trying to live day-to-day.
isn't that part of that bible doctrine you seem to like so much?
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
But you do expect governments to take a long range view.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Read this whole discussion. You'll find plenty of slashdotters who seems to think that way.
Altruism and selfishness represent opposite extremes on a wide spectrum. You seem to be committing a fallacy of excluded middle.
I fail to see the middle in this particular example. "I am from Iowa, I don't care about the rest of the world, why would I change anything?" is pretty much the definition of selfishness.
Because I expect them not to be assholes.
Prepare to be horribly disappointed...
I expect people with a basic education to have learned a little empathy, to have read some books in which they walked in another person's shoes and saw through another person's eyes, and learned to understand that other people are real, and that everyone is better off when we have a little consideration for one another -- even for people we'll never meet.
See my first point... your expectations are not reality. We could debate all day long if they SHOULD be, but that is another conversation... they aren't, today...
I also expect an Iowa country boy (or girl) to understand that their children or grandchildren may very well meet those people from the other side of the world, and that the meeting will go better if the Iowans haven't spend the last three generations screwing up the lives of the people they're meeting.
Actually no, the Iowa child is highly UNLIKELY to grow up and meet the person from the other side of the planet... unless we're are war with them...
Or is basic human decency and a measure of foresight somehow absent in Iowans?
I suspect you measure "basic human decency" differently than some people. They will be friendly and nice to you, but they are mostly concerned with their own lives, paying their own rent/mortgage, feeding their kids, keeping their jobs, etc.
While they care in the abstract about "people everywhere", on a day-to-day basis it is not realistic to expect them to become MORE poor to maybe kinda sorta help someone, somewhere else. And that is what you're asking them to do, in the here and now.
It might well benefit their children in the long run, but it hurts them in the short run and most people don't do what hurts in the short run.
---
If you want to talk about making a difference, then if all Americans were so "empathy" towards the world, we should all turn off our air conditioners right now. That "comfort" is hurting everyone else, right?
Honestly, what do you think the odds of that happening are? Zero? Less than Zero? Not a snowballs chance in hell?
But you do expect governments to take a long range view.
I do? Not really, not the US Government...
Why? Because we hold national elections every 2 years and everyone is up for relection at least once every 6 years.
In the House, everyone is up for election every 2 years, so frankly if it isn't happening in the next 2 years, it isn't much on their RADAR screen...
No, what I am saying is that heavy polluters (such as the Americans) should be forced to reduce their emissions
Ahh yes, your "one world government"...
Who exactly is going to force Americans to do this? You and what Army?
You might think that response is flip, but I challenge you to walk among average Americans, as a foreigner, and tell them that you think Americans should be "forced" by someone else to do anything.
You'll quickly get reminded that we have the most powerful military in the world, and if you'd like a demonstration, you're welcome to try.
while the low polluters (such as the Africans) should be forced not to raise theirs too much.
Raise? You really haven't done the math, have you? They can't raise, they need to cut. Everyone needs to cut. The whole planet, on average, needs to cut 80% of the CO2 output by 2050, or we're in a pile of trouble.
The irony is that I fully get that, I just don't think it is going to happen. To cut world-wide by 80% would require the US to cut by 90%, we'd go to war to prevent it.
Of course, I am not against trade, so the African should have a right to lease his emission rights to the highest bidder.
Right, again we find the real interest... wealth transfer... What you REALLY want is money, which is why COP21 didn't really accomplish anything, because the poor nations won't shut up about money.
I fail to see the middle in this particular example.
That is because you don't want to... but it is there...
"I am from Iowa, I don't care about the rest of the world, why would I change anything?" is pretty much the definition of selfishness.
That isn't what is being said, that is what you choose to hear...
In reality, the person from Iowa isn't saying anything at all because this isn't on their radar screen. It might be number 127 on their "care about list".
If you actually asked them, a more accurate response might be:
"I am from Iowa, I do care about the rest of the world, but not enough to destroy my own life over it. I'm not going to stop driving a pickup truck or turn off the air condition because an island in the Pacific might flood. Perhaps the people who live there can move?"
Better is pretty subjective. Here in MA, our incredibly early spring followed by a couple of cold snaps has completely obliterated the peach crop for the entire state.
That is true, and that has zero chance of happening any time soon. You might *want* it to happen, but various forces are at work, largely political and economic, that will prevent it from happening within our lifetime.
Yes but it comes back to the fundamental issue. Most won't change the simplest thing in their life to allow things to get better. Instead they'd rather wait for the government to force their hand.
How many people do you know purchased a truck or high consumption vehicle because the gas prices were going in the shitter? I know at least 2. That's a small drop in the bucket but it starts with simple change which I don't believe will happen without government involvement. Sad isn't it?
It's the ignorant attitude towards the issue that's the most bothersome, the "I don't give a fuck" attitude. Since people won't act on their own lets hit their pocketbook. Add massive taxes on energy. See how much motivation people have to buy a more appropriate car, appliance, house... Let businesses build on greener ideas. This worked when the gas prices moved up. That's what motivated the solar industry to bloom and the car companies to become more efficient. Additionally more tax money hopefully means investments in greener energy sources.
Good or bad weather - it's a matter of perspective.
Californian farmers would probably like to see a lot of rain spread over several months.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Yes but it comes back to the fundamental issue. Most won't change the simplest thing in their life to allow things to get better. Instead they'd rather wait for the government to force their hand.
Maybe... maybe not...
Last year I replaced all the bulbs in my house with LED... I had some CFLs (I replaced those too), but still had many incandescent...
All are gone now, 100% LED, even the closets...
It is a nice gesture, but it won't change the outcome because I still have a huge house and 8 tons of air conditioning running and drive a 3 ton truck...
I don't put solar up because it doesn't make economic sense, but I will when it does...
One of the British talking heads actually gets this and has moved on to the "now what" part of the discussion.
You can't get to "now what" when you can't even get the majority to agree there's a problem coming (present for others).
Was it at the G20 that climate change was one of the most discussed topic? Maybe I have my summits all wrong but I do recall there being a discussion to get countries like China to work with the rest of the developed countries. Anyhow, the fact that the topic was seriously discussed more than before is a sign that "now what" may be in the process of being determined.
Personally, I think governments have to all agree to spend the future generation's money towards greener power plants. It's the only way we get out of this potential disaster quickly.
How many people do you know purchased a truck or high consumption vehicle because the gas prices were going in the shitter? I know at least 2. That's a small drop in the bucket but it starts with simple change which I don't believe will happen without government involvement. Sad isn't it?
I drive one of those trucks, but I also drove it back when gas was $4/gal. I've owned a Yukon XL for a long time now (our current one is our third). I find the vehicle useful, so the gas price doesn't bother me. Gas could be $8/gal and it wouldn't change the vehicle I drive.
The problem is that a better version of that vehicle isn't offered. Where is the EV Suburban? How about the EV Minivan? The EV SUV? (and the Escape doesn't count). I suppose Toyota makes the Highlander Hybrid, but at $50K, it is out of the price range of most people.
It's the ignorant attitude towards the issue that's the most bothersome, the "I don't give a fuck" attitude.
I don't think it is that bad... I think many people care, it just isn't in their top ten list of cares...
My wife is more worried about what is for dinner this week, getting the kids to their activities, making sure the house is kept nice, spending time with her friends, planning for retirement.
The "environment" is nice, but it ranks below all that.
Since people won't act on their own lets hit their pocketbook. Add massive taxes on energy. See how much motivation people have to buy a more appropriate car, appliance, house...
All that would do is crush the economy, put millions out of work, destroy home values, and cause endless other problems.
People replace cars, on average, every 11 years. Some every 3 years, others drive them 20+ years.
But houses get replaced far less often. My home was built in 2001, it is 3,800 sqft. It likely will be standing in the year 2100. You can't say "buy a more appropriate house" when someone else just has to buy mine.
Unless you plan to tear them all down, but that isn't realistic.
The truth is, the changes had to happen 30 years ago... Today, it is far too late to stop, you won't cut CO2 in the time we have left to do it in to stop global temps from running way past levels that the experts say is safe.
We simply will have to adapt to the world that comes.
because random anonymous slashdot posters from around the world represent the majority of americans.
I never said that. I was replying to operagost who said "no one is saying that", which is obviously not true.
except they are saying that behind the curtain (not the USA) it's horrible. Don't believe it. Just like the Great Pacific garbage patch, which the media always shows photos of trash in water, but it doesn't exist. They then say it is tiny undetectable particles of plastic. Great Invisible Pacific garbage patch, yeah don't believe it. It is all a play for power over us.
Wrong, read the discussion before making stupid comments.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
maybe because there is more to the world than just the US?
Well, it would be pretty cool to populate the arctic and I suppose the increase in ocean would be a boon for marine life..
I'm guessing from your username that that would be the Jolly Green Giant?
other countries don't have the same problem with climate deniers/skeptics/whatever:
http://www.nytimes.com/interac...
Who exactly is going to force Americans to do this?
Well it would be simpler if the Americans forced themselves by electing a government that will do it, but if we have to, the rest of the world could theoretically unite and tax the US for polluting too much. That would be legal under WTO treaties.
Raise? You really haven't done the math, have you? They can't raise, they need to cut. Everyone needs to cut. The whole planet, on average, needs to cut 80% of the CO2 output by 2050, or we're in a pile of trouble.
Well first a cut of 20% is better than no cut. And a raise of 20% is better than a raise of 50%.
If the planet, on average, want to cut 20%, that could mean that US have to cut 50% while some African countries get to emit more. What's wrong with that?
What you REALLY want is money
Me? I'm part of a rich, polluting, western country. I wouldn't get any of that money.
How many people do you know purchased a truck or high consumption vehicle because the gas prices were going in the shitter? I know at least 2. That's a small drop in the bucket but it starts with simple change which I don't believe will happen without government involvement. Sad isn't it?
I drive one of those trucks, but I also drove it back when gas was $4/gal. I've owned a Yukon XL for a long time now (our current one is our third). I find the vehicle useful, so the gas price doesn't bother me. Gas could be $8/gal and it wouldn't change the vehicle I drive.
The problem is that a better version of that vehicle isn't offered. Where is the EV Suburban? How about the EV Minivan? The EV SUV? (and the Escape doesn't count). I suppose Toyota makes the Highlander Hybrid, but at $50K, it is out of the price range of most people.
I have a truck-SUV, not the wanna-be car-SUVs of late. Sure, the fuel consumption is high. About 18 miles per gallon last time I checked. But price per gallon and miles per gallon aren't absolutes. Gallons burned in a period of time is a real number. It's always an interesting conversation with a smug prius-type person that tries to "shame" me into trading in my truck. People * Miles/Gallon matters too. My old truck wins with 3 or 4 people vs 1 alone in a prius. And I can have 5 people, 3 dogs, 4 bikes and 2 kayaks with barely a hit on the mileage. This is it's purpose in life. Good luck getting a prius to be as useful.
The prius coworker example, she drives 50 miles to work, I go 4, and prefer to ride a bike when the weather is nice. Even at a ridiculous fuel economy advantage, she burns 2 gallons everyday while I burn half a gallon if any at all. She gets a new car every year, my truck is 7 years old. It goes on, but gets personal. (And don't worry, last time I mentioned it, some slashdotter wrote a nice scientific sounding flame about how me riding my bike to work is worse for the planet. Crop fertilizers, transportation, refrigeration, and on and on. Supposedly I'm responsible for releasing 25% MORE CO2 into the air when I leave the truck at home and ride a bike. You just can't win with these "climate religion" people...)
I'm all for being a good steward of the planet, "we do not inherit the Earth, only borrow it from our children", and all. But god damn fucking hell, these enviro-religous wackjobs just don't seem to have any common sense. My barely used old truck is not killing the planet, (as shown by lower overall total consumption), but prepare for the wrath of satan's panties if you suggest buying a new iphone every year is a bad idea...
I am from Iowa, I do care about the rest of the world, but not enough to destroy my own life over it. I'm not going to stop driving a pickup truck or turn off the air condition because an island in the Pacific might flood
How is that a middle ground? That's pure selfishness. A middle ground could have been "I'm willing to put in place a cap and trade system that could mean it will be more expensive to drive my truck if it can help reduce the emissions of my polluting country".
That's why the solution is to tax gas even more. She uses more gas with her Prius because she drives more? Then she pays more.
You keep your SUV in your garage? You don't pay. Simple and fair.
If you were to push her on it, she'll probably say something like, "Even if I give all that up, nothing will change and other nations will keep polluting".
Exactly. That's what I envision the majority of people's attitude towards this is. What really needs to happen? Is a universal changing of hearts and minds on the subject. Good luck with that! The person that comes up with the Magic Formula to do that will solve all the worlds' problems in one fell swoop -- and will also, unfortunately, be very likely to end up the ruler of the entire world, for good or ill. ;-)
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Well it would be simpler if the Americans forced themselves by electing a government that will do it
You're talking about a country that has laws that allow this:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016...
Under Idaho's 1972 "Child Protective Act," parents are immune from prosecution for any charges - including involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide - if they depend exclusively on faith healing.
Good luck with that...
the rest of the world could theoretically unite and tax the US for polluting too much
Theory is nice, but in reality that isn't going to happen. If by chance it did, you'd just start WWIII. It isn't a realistic solution.
If the planet, on average, want to cut 20%, that could mean that US have to cut 50% while some African countries get to emit more. What's wrong with that?
There is almost zero chance the US will cut CO2 by 50% within our lifetimes. Maybe within our children's lifetime. I think we'll be lucky to get a 20% cut in the next 35 years. But I'd be happy to be surprised.
Cutting by that much would simply require changes and sacrifices that Americans don't want to make and see no reason to make. Remember that most Americans do not have a passport and have never left the country. A whole lot of Americans see foreigners as people who take their jobs.
It's called altruism.
Altruism is voluntary.
Government-mandated "altruism" is simply confiscation at gunpoint and redistribution.
The planet has (geologically) just come out of an ice-age and is still climbing the warming slope before once again descending to another ice-age. Human contribution to the warming trend amounts to a rounding error in this meta-trend.
Global warming alarmism is simply a propaganda tool being used by those seeking ideological/political power and control, and who desire global wealth and political power redistribution.
The climate will change regardless of any actions we take or don't take and humans will do what humans do best and have always done.
Adapt and prosper.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Well a Yukon XL also starts at $51k, so you could have had a Highlander Hybrid ($48k).
Toyota also launched a much more affordable Rav4 Hybrid. And the Prius V also have enough cargo for most people.
No decision happens in a vacuum...
First, a lot of the rest of the world is polluting as well, so everyone taxes everyone else and we're back to square one.
Well not really, European countries and Japan would get an advantage compared to US/Canada/Autralia because they pollute a lot less.
Second, from a practical point of view, you generally shouldn't pull the tiger's tail. The United States of America has the most powerful military on Earth and we control the world's reserve currency. We are more likely than not to come out on top of such a dispute.
You are going to invade, say, the UK because they tax your pollution?
Now you might think the above is rather... well, not what you would choose... and that's fine... but remember that most Americans don't even have a passport and even fewer have ever left the country. Most don't really think much about other nations, except when it comes to economics and their jobs.
You don't have to like the above, but disliking it doesn't make it go away or make it untrue.
I get that. I think it was best summarized by my the first post. F*ck the rest of the world. Those who modded me down should read your comments, they'd see I were right.
"I'm willing to put in place a cap and trade system that could mean it will be more expensive to drive my truck if it can help reduce the emissions of my polluting country".
Are you actually serious? You expect the average American to say that?
Half of America is living pay-check to pay-check, asking them to pay anything more for energy would just push them into the poor house.
Cap-and-trade is a stupid idea anyway. It says that you can pollute so long as you pay someone else. Except the stuff still gets emitted, solving nothing.
If you actually set the cap to a number that would be useful, there would be nothing to trade since we wouldn't have an economy.
---
Finally, cap-and-trade is just wealth transfer again...
A carbon tax at least leaves the money right here, and that might get done at some point. But sending the money overseas? America will tell you to shove that idea where the sun doesn't shine.
Are you actually serious? You expect the average American to say that?
You asked for a middle ground. Not my fault if you don't like it.
Half of America is living pay-check to pay-check, asking them to pay anything more for energy would just push them into the poor house.
Tell that to those living with nothing in Africa.
Cap-and-trade is a stupid idea anyway. It says that you can pollute so long as you pay someone else. Except the stuff still gets emitted, solving nothing.
If you actually set the cap to a number that would be useful, there would be nothing to trade since we wouldn't have an economy.
Wrong again. You always bring the perfect solution fallacy. Setting a cap at current world levels would still be better than no cap. And there would still be an economy.
Finally, cap-and-trade is just wealth transfer again...
A carbon tax at least leaves the money right here, and that might get done at some point. But sending the money overseas? America will tell you to shove that idea where the sun doesn't shine.
Your premise that the money should stay in the US is flawed. Why shouldn't it go overseas if those living with the impacts of US pollution live there?
Anyways I'm open to both solutions. With a carbon tax, you need to dynamically adjust the tax to meet targets, however.
...while the low polluters (such as the Africans) should be forced not to raise theirs too much.
So you want to prevent Third World populations from advancing to 20th-century (never mind 21st-century) levels of technology/industry/medicine and living standards by force?
Strange definition of "altruism" you have there.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
No, I want them to have the same emissions rights as we do. We will reduce ours while they raise theirs, meeting them somewhere in the middle. And that middle should mean a reduction compared to the current level.
If you want to see the majority of U.S. citizens being forefront-of-their-thoughts concerned about 'global warming'
I suspect the biggest problem with people in the US understanding global warming is not the warming part, it's understanding what 'global' means.
Trade is for mutual benefit.
...when the trading partners have equal bargaining power.
It must suck to live in your head.
And the fourth Reich would have Washington DC as its capital. The US would be on the wrong side unlike in the first two WW.
Maybe... but I wasn't saying what is "good" or "bad", I was saying what was...
So let's start with 20% or even 10% if you prefer.
Sure, but those drops won't have a major impact on the outcome.
Frankly, I suspect a 20% drop will happen almost by default, just due to people buying more efficient stuff over time. The problem of course is that over the next 35 years, how much will the US population grow? 10%? That wipes out half of the 20% drop.
Just don't ever blame the Chinese until they reach that point too.
This is not democracy, and it isn't "playground fairness". We can blame the Chinese all we want, and they can ignore us. :)
And they are either wrong or selfish.
That is an opinion, a point of view...
Consider for a minute that if push came to shove, many Americans would say, "ok, if the world can't support everyone, perhaps it is time for some of them to go".
Rather than cut our own way of life, if we removed 2/3 of the people in the world, that helps solve the problem too.
Note: I'm not endorsing such a plan, nor saying it is a good one. I'm simply saying there is more than one way to solve a problem.
I hope you'll help me so that they change their minds.
My mind was only changed in the past year, and I'm at least somewhat smarter than the average person, or at least better off. The climate scientists did a REALLY crappy job of shouting about the problem 30 years ago. I think we're WAY past the point where it can be stopped.
Let me toss a point your way. Have you considered that it might cost less to adapt to the changing world than to try and prevent it from happening?
Yes, I know, some people will say, "why not do both". Well, sometimes you can't, if you split your efforts, sometimes both sides fail.
If "better" means warmer, sunnier days, then you won't get enough rainfall and that will make it difficult to grow food. Unless your "better" weather is perfectly balanced in the 20 percent of counties where there would presumably be more rainfall and you could grow all of your groceries there.
And also, warmer, sunnier weather means drier weather, and drier weather means wildfires. While "fires" aren't weather, they certainly are not pleasant and do not contribute positively to ones quality of life in the short term.
You asked for a middle ground. Not my fault if you don't like it.
But it really isn't the middle ground... That implies that the person from Iowa owes an "equal life" to the person in India or Africa,
You're thinking that somehow resources should be divided equally, that the person in Iowa who lives in a 2,000 sqft house, has 2 cars, 3 kids, a job, etc. should somehow worry about the person far, far away.
I don't think you're being realistic with that thinking.
Tell that to those living with nothing in Africa.
Fair enough, but why exactly is that the person in Iowa's problem? To be honest, the people in Africa aren't really living in the 21st century anyway, not most of them (some are of course). Look at the tribal warfare, the endless slaughter... When they decide to drop all of that, they might find they can build themselves a civilization and won't need our help. We did it hundreds of years ago, what's holding them back?
Setting a cap at current world levels would still be better than no cap. And there would still be an economy.
True, but it wouldn't accomplish anything either... All it would do is cause wealth transfer. Why should the Iowa person become more poor so you can feel good about yourself, all the while nothing is actually happening?
If you actually had a solution that you could say, "this is it, this will solve the problem, we're saved, you just have to do X", you actually might be shocked to find the person from Iowa (and Texas, and other places) would say yes. The problem is, your "solution" solves nothing, but costs us money.
The real solution is so extreme, it isn't even worth discussing. So talk of "well, lets just start at 10%, then 20%, and we'll get there". That is a nice way of saying, "lets toss you nice froggy into the pot of water, it isn't that hot... we'll just turn it up slowly..."
Your premise that the money should stay in the US is flawed. Why shouldn't it go overseas if those living with the impacts of US pollution live there?
Because it is our money, not theirs. They didn't earn it, we did. If they want money, they can go earn it themselves. Those of us who are the "makers" get tired of the "takers", and that is all cap-and-trade really is.
As for the pollution, I agree it sucks, but life isn't fair and frankly... we developed industry first, so there you go... If clean tech is so cheap and great, they should be falling all over themselves to adopt it. Perhaps in 100 years they'll pass us if they play their cards right.
With a carbon tax, you need to dynamically adjust the tax to meet targets, however./quote.
If you're Spock from Vulcan, yes... :) Humans and politicians are funny however, I doubt it would work that way in practice...
We can't even get a small gas tax increase passed, and most people agree it needs to be done.
Well a Yukon XL also starts at $51k, so you could have had a Highlander Hybrid ($48k).
The Yukon XL that is $51K doesn't compare, it is the base model with cloth seats while the Highlander Hybrid is fully loaded.
Further, you can't say that because they aren't remotely the same type of vehicle. Can the Highlander tow 4 tons, carry 7 people in comfort, while hauling everything and the kitchen sink in the back?
The Yukon also has a real 4WD system, vs the AWD system of the Highlander.
Fully loaded, the Yukon XL stickers at about $80k, so really not the same thing.
Also worth noting is how few Highlander Hybrids are sold, they are a very small volume vehicle.
Toyota also launched a much more affordable Rav4 Hybrid.
Yea, but that isn't a SUV, it is a fancy hatchback.
And the Prius V also have enough cargo for most people.
Completely different use case... and frankly the Prius is an expensive status symbol more than it is helping the environment.
You are going to invade, say, the UK because they tax your pollution?
Now who has the "perfect solution fallacy" :)
It is very simplistic to say that you'd tax our exports, Trump is getting a lot of attention in the US calling for a blanket 30% import tax on anything made in China, but the reality is far more complex...
You'd start a trade war, and if you're not careful, a real one. You would upset and turn over the alliances and power balance of the world over CO2. Any gain you might think you make would be lost in the ensuing mess.
I get that. I think it was best summarized by my the first post. F*ck the rest of the world. Those who modded me down should read your comments, they'd see I were right.
No, you just phrase it as harshly as possible without considering the other side...
Americans have no desire to fall on our swords if it won't actually accomplish anything. And it won't.
I've said it before, I'll say it again... The changes that have to be made to REALLY make a difference would be unacceptable, even in Europe. I'm not quite sure you understand what a 80% cut in energy consumption would really mean, but you are more or less asking everyone to go back 200 years in time.
That may be true, but the same cannot be said for the northern regions underlain by permafrost. Which is quite a bit of territory. Those places will melt, subside, fill with water, and turn into rather unpleasant bogs. They will also release quite a bit of CO2 and CH4 in the process. We may get more use out of existing farmland, and be able to grow a wider variety of crops, but heating up thin, rocky soils or permafrost will not create more usable farmland. Most people seem to neglect this idea when talking about being able to farm the Arctic.
Out of curiosity, is the phenomenon of permafrost a normal part of educational curriculae in the US? I grew up in Alaska, you see...
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Who exactly is going to force Americans to do this? You and what Army?
Perhaps nature and her army of hurricanes and tornados.
You might think that response is flip, but I challenge you to walk among average Americans, as a foreigner, and tell them that you think Americans should be "forced" by someone else to do anything.
A change in temperature that radical for the US would have consequences. I'd suspect that constant destruction of assets due to extreme weather events would be the outcome that will force you. Of course it is probably already too late so by the time that realization is made there will be new denials.
You'll quickly get reminded that we have the most powerful military in the world, and if you'd like a demonstration, you're welcome to try.
And the crappiest heathcare of all westernized nations, but what would you know. But at least your miliatry will be able to fill sandbangs and have a war on weather. Like the big muscular belligerent drunken asshole at the bar being a jerk and throwing their weight around. No one likes that guy.
The saddest thing is you used to be really nice, before all that power corrupted you.
Now who has the "perfect solution fallacy" :)
You clearly don't seem to get what it means. Invading the UK is not a perfect solution, not even an imperfect one.
You'd start a trade war, and if you're not careful, a real one.
From my point of view, polluters already started the war by exporting their greenhouse gases to other countries.
The changes that have to be made to REALLY make a difference would be unacceptable, even in Europe.
Again, you are using the same fallacy. Even a reduction of 10% is better than not doing anything.
I'm not quite sure you understand what a 80% cut in energy consumption would really mean, but you are more or less asking everyone to go back 200 years in time.
Look, let me tell you this straight. You are an idiot if you think the only two possible outcomes are either a 80% cut or the status quo (a big increase over the next decades).
Also, even if I were asking for a 80% cut, I am not asking it to everyone, only to the big polluters.
But it really isn't the middle ground... That implies that the person from Iowa owes an "equal life" to the person in India or Africa,
You're thinking that somehow resources should be divided equally, that the person in Iowa who lives in a 2,000 sqft house, has 2 cars, 3 kids, a job, etc. should somehow worry about the person far, far away.
I don't think you're being realistic with that thinking.
It's not about equal life or equal resources. However, the person in Iowa is polluting the air of the African. That means the Iowan owes the African. Wether you like it or not.
Fair enough, but why exactly is that the person in Iowa's problem? To be honest, the people in Africa aren't really living in the 21st century anyway, not most of them (some are of course). Look at the tribal warfare, the endless slaughter... When they decide to drop all of that, they might find they can build themselves a civilization and won't need our help. We did it hundreds of years ago, what's holding them back?
Let's just hope they don't, isn't it? Otherwise, they'd send us their pollution too and it would be even worse.
Your thinking in the end is nothing more than racism. The African don't deserve to pollute and live just like we do. If we lower our emissions, they should lower theirs too.
True, but it wouldn't accomplish anything either...
Nothing? You must be kidding. Capping the CO2 at current levels would accomplish a lot. It would be far better than the current trend, which is a big raise worldwide, which could be even bigger (thanks to countries in Europe making some effort).
The problem is, your "solution" solves nothing, but costs us money.
Are you denying the consequences of global warming?
Because it is our money, not theirs. They didn't earn it, we did. If they want money, they can go earn it themselves.
And why wouldn't that logic apply to pollution? It's your CO2, keep it in your country. Sending your CO2 abroad is just as bad as stealing their money.
We can't even get a small gas tax increase passed, and most people agree it needs to be done.
By "we" I assume you mean the US. Other developed countries already tax gas far more.
We don't currently have the technology to produce the energy necessary to maintain a 21st century 1st-World living standard and technology level at the emission reduction levels that have been put forth as necessary to have a significant and meaningful impact.
This means the US population would face reductions in medicine, food, technology products/services and transportation, all of which would affect the poorest the worst, costing avoidable widespread death & suffering, and you would be telling Africans they are not allowed to advance these things for the lives of their own people beyond *just here*...and no more.
Based on models that can't even reproduce historic climate changes of the past with any reliability.
Yeah. Good luck with that. Better wear a helmet.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Again, you are using the same fallacy. Even a reduction of 10% is better than not doing anything.
I don't agree with that premise. That is probably why we're having such a hard time with this one...
Whatever is spent to obtain a 10% reduction is likely better spent adapting to the changes that are coming, because that 10% won't much a serious difference in the long term outcome.
Also, even if I were asking for a 80% cut, I am not asking it to everyone, only to the big polluters.
That won't be enough... The experts says it needs to be 80% of industrial nations and 60% for everyone else... that is what it will take to hold to 2C.
Look, let me tell you this straight. You are an idiot if you think the only two possible outcomes are either a 80% cut or the status quo (a big increase over the next decades).
Now, now, no need to call me names. I don't think I've called you any.
I don't think any future big increases are happening, all major parties get the problem, changes are being made. I think a 10-20% cut per PERSON will happen regardless, just because of better technology and improved laws about fuel economy, plus wind and solar, while not super cheap, are indeed much cheaper, so they'll be used more.
I'm simply saying it won't remotely be enough to stop run away warming and that the changes that the experts say will be required... aren't going to happen.
---
Let me put this another way. If you're on the Titanic, 10 min after it hits the iceberg... you can talk all day long about small changes to try and keep the ship afloat. A bucket brigade, sailing it in reverse, counter flooding... None of it would have changed the outcome...
You know what WOULD have helped? All hands on deck, ripping up the decks and turning them into lifeboats. They had one mission, keep 1,500 people out of the freezing water for 100 minutes. They had, from the time it hit the iceberg, 2 hours and 40 min. In that time, they could have built makeshift lifeboats out of decking and other materials.
Would it have saved everyone? No, but it would almost certainly have saved someone...
What stopped them from doing it? They spent half the time the ship was sinking refusing to believe it could sink, then even after the crew told the passengers that the ship would sink, many refused to believe it anyway.
The point is, you think cutting 10-20% will help, but it won't. Even the experts say it won't. Cut big, or adapt to a new world...
---
Side note: Counter flooding actually might have bought the ship another 30-60 min, give or take. It wouldn't have saved the ship and it likely wouldn't have bought 1 hour, 40 min, but it would have kept it more level making it easier to build life rafts.
However, the person in Iowa is polluting the air of the African. That means the Iowan owes the African. Wether you like it or not.
According to whom? Serious reply to what I consider to be a serious point you've made. You seem to think that it is a given, settled, the the Iowan owes the African something. I don't agree with you. More to the point, I doubt the Iowan agrees with you and likely doesn't care much what someone in Europe thinks about him/her. The more names you call them, the less they'll listen.
Nothing? You must be kidding. Capping the CO2 at current levels would accomplish a lot.
No, actually it wouldn't accomplish anything. You think it would, because you're been sold the lie that there is some safe CO2 level that we can keep emitting. There might have been in the past, but now we're so far past it, we simply need to stop.
Do you know how much CO2 the world can emit and still remind under 2C temp rise? At this point it is about 500 gigatons. The proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are about 3,000 gigatons (and we're hunting for MORE!). You think slowing the burn will matter, but it actually won't. It has to stop, completely. Or to put it more simply, it has to become carbon neutral.
It doesn't matter if we take 35 years to burn 3,000 gigatons or 70 years or 150 years... the effect from the planet's point of view is largely the same. You're thinking human lifetime, not planet scale. Yes, CO2 does slowly get burned away and absorbed, but not in our human lifetime scale, it takes thousands of years in the volumes we're talking about.
While it is true that slowing the CO2 output buys time for our OWN lifetimes, it doesn't do squat for our kids. The climate change will accelerate and while humanity won't become extinct, we may have an unpleasant ride and many people may not survive it.
By "we" I assume you mean the US. Other developed countries already tax gas far more.
The interesting thing is that I believe it is common for Americans to look at the taxes of Europe and shake their heads. When people hear what it costs to buy gas over there, they just mutter something and carry on.
I get the sense that you feel that your ideas are better than ours. Maybe, maybe not, but you won't convince anyone with such an attitude.
WOW - just, WOW. You make the Third Reich's final solution look silly. That you even mention such a thing speaks volumes about how selfish you really are. That's psychopath talk there.
Right, because you've never heard of triage before...
Sometimes you have to pick who lives and who dies, or everyone may die.
It is quite possible that given the way humans live today, Earth simply won't support 7.4 billion people. Or 10 billion.
If that turns out to be true, then the outcome will be the same regardless of what you WANT to happen or not.
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But I understand your response, you're thinking from a narrow point of view, rather than considering all sides. You also assume that your point of view must be the correct one.
According to whom? Serious reply to what I consider to be a serious point you've made. You seem to think that it is a given, settled, the the Iowan owes the African something.
Well I agree some people don't realize it yet, but I think they are either wrong or misinformed. Just like if you steal my money, I consider you owe me no matter if you agree or not, I consider polluters owe the others. The more people are convinced the better, of course, but not having an universal recognition won't change the way I act.
I don't agree with you. More to the point, I doubt the Iowan agrees with you and likely doesn't care much what someone in Europe thinks about him/her.
Fortunately, even if he doesn't care, we live in a world where he can be forced to pay for it. The first of which is if his government make him pay.
No, actually it wouldn't accomplish anything. You think it would, because you're been sold the lie that there is some safe CO2 level that we can keep emitting. There might have been in the past, but now we're so far past it, we simply need to stop.
Do you know how much CO2 the world can emit and still remind under 2C temp rise? At this point it is about 500 gigatons.
Well first the Earth has a natural absorption rate for CO2. Second even if we miss the 2C rise, it's better to stay under 3C or even 5C than reach 10C.
So yes, stopping at current levels, while not perfect, is better than continuing to increase emissions at the current world rate.
The proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are about 3,000 gigatons (and we're hunting for MORE!). You think slowing the burn will matter, but it actually won't. It has to stop, completely. Or to put it more simply, it has to become carbon neutral.
It doesn't matter if we take 35 years to burn 3,000 gigatons or 70 years or 150 years... the effect from the planet's point of view is largely the same. You're thinking human lifetime, not planet scale. Yes, CO2 does slowly get burned away and absorbed, but not in our human lifetime scale, it takes thousands of years in the volumes we're talking about.
While it is true that slowing the CO2 output buys time for our OWN lifetimes, it doesn't do squat for our kids. The climate change will accelerate and while humanity won't become extinct, we may have an unpleasant ride and many people may not survive it.
I think you are wrong and you underestimate the Earth absorption capacity. A quick Google search brings me this article:
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-e...
It's from 2012 but still, 50% absorption is a lot better than 0.001% you are suggesting (as in thousands of years).
The interesting thing is that I believe it is common for Americans to look at the taxes of Europe and shake their heads. When people hear what it costs to buy gas over there, they just mutter something and carry on.
I get the sense that you feel that your ideas are better than ours. Maybe, maybe not, but you won't convince anyone with such an attitude.
That's exactly the point, in order to fight climate change their ideas are definitely better than yours. Sorry if hearing the truth makes you sad, but these are facts.
Again, you are using the same fallacy. Even a reduction of 10% is better than not doing anything.
I think a 10-20% cut per PERSON will happen regardless
No thanks to that Iowan boy/girl who is likely going to remain over 15 eCO2 ton/year. Thanks to Europeans who are making efforts, and thanks to Africans who are still not polluting.
I don't agree with that premise. That is probably why we're having such a hard time with this one...
I agree that's why we disagree.
I'm simply saying it won't remotely be enough to stop run away warming and that the changes that the experts say will be required... aren't going to happen.
The experts say these changes are required to keep the planet under 2C. They don't say it's not possible to keep the planet under 5C with smaller reduction of emissions.
Also they say the earlier we reduce CO2, the more we can emit per year in the long run. So they pretty much contradict your whole theory.
Let me put this another way. If you're on the Titanic, 10 min after it hits the iceberg... you can talk all day long about small changes to try and keep the ship afloat. A bucket brigade, sailing it in reverse, counter flooding... None of it would have changed the outcome...
You know what WOULD have helped? All hands on deck, ripping up the decks and turning them into lifeboats. They had one mission, keep 1,500 people out of the freezing water for 100 minutes. They had, from the time it hit the iceberg, 2 hours and 40 min. In that time, they could have built makeshift lifeboats out of decking and other materials.
Would it have saved everyone? No, but it would almost certainly have saved someone...
What stopped them from doing it? They spent half the time the ship was sinking refusing to believe it could sink, then even after the crew told the passengers that the ship would sink, many refused to believe it anyway.
The point is, you think cutting 10-20% will help, but it won't. Even the experts say it won't. Cut big, or adapt to a new world...
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Side note: Counter flooding actually might have bought the ship another 30-60 min, give or take. It wouldn't have saved the ship and it likely wouldn't have bought 1 hour, 40 min, but it would have kept it more level making it easier to build life rafts.
Unless you are suggesting we abandon the Earth and start making space "lifeboats", I don't think your example is remotely close to reality.
You miss the whole point of climate change. The whole world is going to be poorer (on average, that doesn't mean Greenland won't be richer) because of it. If we want to keep our standards of living, we must reduce CO2 emissions. Not the other way around.
You miss the whole point of climate change. The whole world is going to be poorer (on average...
I've seen no proof that AGW is that serious a problem or that immediate that the world should turn itself upside down and inside out as fast as possible over.
Reasonable and moderate actions on cleaning the environment coupled with adaptation seems the far more sensible choice.
"Consensus" is NOT science, it's politics, and there is far too much politics (and scummy politicians) and big money involved to be able to trust anything being said.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I find the vehicle useful, so the gas price doesn't bother me. Gas could be $8/gal and it wouldn't change the vehicle I drive.
See, that's the right attitude. I'm ok with that way of thinking because after all we work to have fun and part of that may require pollution of some sort. All I'm asking is for each to pay their portion of the solution by pay for their pollution. If we do that we will fund the government to implement better power plants, replace gas and coal plants while tapping into green energies like solar and wind.
I have thought the gas tax could use an increase for some time now...
I don't think it should be $8/gal, but it should probably get a schedule of increases.
Perhaps 5 cents, per gallon, per year, for the next 33 years.
That would raise it to about $2/gal by 2050.
By planning such a long roadmap, it gives consumers, car makers, and everyone else time to plan for the change.
What would be a disaster would be to raise it to $2/gal tomorrow, which I imagine some people would like to see.
All that would do is crush the economy, put millions out of work, destroy home values, and cause endless other problems
Why would it crush the economy? All your doing moving the money towards a problem that is costing the country lots of money. Shift the money towards updated power solution. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro... This means tones of new construction which equal jobs and continued growth.
People replace cars, on average, every 11 years. Some every 3 years, others drive them 20+ years.
This means at least 10% of vehicles get replaced every year. That's significant especially if you can get greener solution to become available like the Volt and Tesla.
But houses get replaced far less often. My home was built in 2001, it is 3,800 sqft. It likely will be standing in the year 2100. You can't say "buy a more appropriate house" when someone else just has to buy mine.
Higher gas/coal prices means you'll be inclined in investing in solar panels, better insulation and more efficient heater to bring down the cost of ownership. That's the intent of taxing non environmentally friendly resources. If you can't afford to live in a 3800 sqft house you'll sell and move to an affordable one. It's nobody else's fault you purchase a much larger house than you needed or could afford to live in. And if you purchased the house thinking 5% disposable income was enough to cover for the future growth in cost of ownership then you were ill advised or didn't care about the long term consequences.
The truth is, the changes had to happen 30 years ago... Today, it is far too late to stop, you won't cut CO2 in the time we have left to do it in to stop global temps from running way past levels that the experts say is safe.
That statement right there is the problem. People have already quit on the problem before it's over. The tax money collected by the government can be used to build better plants and help with green energy R&D. That's where the biggest impact will come from.
The US only has 12% of it's energy as renewable. Canada has 64%. You don't think there's change needed? Only the public can fund it and it must come from the tax payers pockets.
Absolutely agree.
From the government standpoint they can still start spending the money ahead of time because they know it's coming regardless. This will allow the next generation to benefit from action taking today and paid for over 20-30 years.
Why would it crush the economy? All your doing moving the money towards a problem that is costing the country lots of money. Shift the money towards updated power solution. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro... This means tones of new construction which equal jobs and continued growth.
Your failure to understand why it would doesn't make it untrue.
Read up on the broken window fallacy.
The US only has 12% of it's energy as renewable. Canada has 64%. You don't think there's change needed? Only the public can fund it and it must come from the tax payers pockets.
You fail to understand the global financial economy. Nations like Denmark and Canada can do that because they are a minor part of the overall picture. The US and China can't do it because someone has to buy all that coal, oil, and natural gas.
You might consider what the effects of a $20 trillion dollar write off would be if we decided to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground, before you get in such a hurry to do it.
There is more to this than what is technically possible.
From the government standpoint they can still start spending the money ahead of time because they know it's coming regardless.
The government has already done that... to the tune of nearly $20 trillion dollars...
This will allow the next generation to benefit from action taking today and paid for over 20-30 years.
Meh, it is a minor benefit for a huge expense. The real reason to increase the gas tax is to properly fund the transportation system. Highway and bridge repairs, etc.
The next generation won't notice a difference, it isn't enough of one.
Perhaps because they don't label anyone who brings up contrary points of view as deniers rather than trying to address their points.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
But also, because the rest of the world could (and should, legitimately) tax trade with polluting countries, which could impact that selfish Iowa boy even more.
Funny, because the US pollutes less than many other countries, some of them even in Europe. So, who exactly would be taxed more?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
https://www3.epa.gov/climatech...
It is starting to happen, and with solar, wind, and nat gas becoming cheaper than coal, it will happen quicker. Now that China is on board as well, maybe some real change will happen.
What I wonder is, who will stop those horrible polluters in Australia and Saudi Arabia?
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_w...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_w...
Check your numbers, the US is already below 18 tons/yr/person as of 2011.
Who is going to tell the Saudis or the Australians though?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is a good one to loook at to, but only goes to 2009.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
What type of pollution are you talking about? If it's local pollution then it's a local problem. But CO2 is a global problem as it doesn't stay close to the emitter.
And the US emit much more CO2/capita than any European country.
On the contrary, they do it a lot.
The problem in the US is that oil companies can buy political parties and the media, all this legally.
You must take into account other greenhouse gases too, not only CO2. These are usually counted in "equivalent CO2 tons". I suspect the US is actually at about 20 tons/person/year when you take them into account, but I didn't find any up to date information. I'm glad if it's lower than 18.
I found 2014 data:
https://www3.epa.gov/climatech...
US population was about 319 000 000.
6870/319 = 21.5 eCO2 tons/person/year
It is starting to happen, and with solar, wind, and nat gas becoming cheaper than coal, it will happen quicker.
Everyone keeps saying that, but until it shows up in the power bill, it just isn't true.
Wind is about 30% more expensive than coal, at least in Texas. Granted, it may be otherwise somewhere else, but Texas has more wind power than any other state and it STILL is expensive.
Worse, that wind power is subsidized by all of us to the tune of about 30%, so actually wind is 60% more expensive than coal.
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You are correct that natural gas prices have dropped to the point where it indeed is cheaper than coal, at least in new power plants.
Solar on the other hand, isn't remotely close, being about twice the price of coal/natural gas and about 50% more expensive than wind.
Now that China is on board as well, maybe some real change will happen.
China approved construction of 155 coal-fired power plants in the first 9 months of 2015.
http://energydesk.greenpeace.o...
The "clean China" message is nice propaganda, but the reality doesn't seem to match that.
The frightening thing is that she'd be absolutely correct. None of us can do anything remotely noticeable about it. It's the mother of all tragedies of the commons.
Also, there's nothing wrong with washing machines and air conditioning, depending on how the electricity for them is produced. If it's nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, or anything like that, it's fine. That's where we'll get the most economical mitigation.
I take it you weren't going to help wash the clothes, either.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
We don't have the technology to produce electricity from non-fossil-fuel sources? Getting rid of coal power plants would, I'd think, make a significant impact.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If consensus isn't science, what do you do to verify that there's enough gravity to keep you on the ground? There's firm scientific beliefs that that isn't going to change, but that's consensus.
No, sorry, reproducible experiments prove or disprove something, not consensus. It does not matter who agrees or disagrees.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
We don't have the technology to produce electricity from non-fossil-fuel sources?
Not as a replacement for current baseline power sources, no.
Getting rid of coal power plants would, I'd think, make a significant impact.
Without a viable replacement able to supply baseline power it will collapse the US power grid during the next winter. The US power grid came dangerously close to falling over this past winter due to the coal plants and nuclear plants already taken offline. Heck, the US power grid may collapse this winter without taking any more plants offline just due to increased demand due to population growth.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
No. Anytime there is sufficient freedom to be called 'trade', it's for mutual benefit or it wouldn't happen.
Just because someone is backed into a corner doesn't mean the shitty deals don't help.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What are reproducible experiments but experiments that have been reproduced and that are generally agreed to have been properly conducted? What use is a reproducible experiment that you have not reproduced? You accept other people's words that the experiment was indeed done. If you stop believing in what others in general say, how are you to progress? If you do believe in them, is that not consensus?
The only way a scientist can function is to assume that the consensus is generally correct.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What are reproducible experiments but experiments that have been reproduced and that are generally agreed to have been properly conducted? What use is a reproducible experiment that you have not reproduced? You accept other people's words that the experiment was indeed done. If you stop believing in what others in general say, how are you to progress? If you do believe in them, is that not consensus?
The only way a scientist can function is to assume that the consensus is generally correct.
So now it's semantic word games, eh? Independently verifiable results proven by independently conducted experiments are the only thing that count. Anything else is politics and hand-waving, but I repeat myself.
None of the predictions made by "climate scientists" has ever come to pass, none of the global cooling "crisis" of the 1970s nor of the global warming "crisis" currently in vogue.
They are both simply propaganda tools used to enable the transfer of wealth and concentration and centralization of political power.
There is more proof there were WMDs in Iraq than there is of an impending global climate crisis.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (sort on the 2009 year decending, and there are quite a few countries that come out as a suprise)
I was just looking at that. Now that I look at it again, I realize that one of the "European" examples wasn't actually, I misread Netherlands Antilles as Netherlands. But Luxembourg is higher than the US...Yay us? The point was, we all need to work on it, not just talk about how much the US should do, as the US isn't the only high polluter. I was even surprised at how close Canada's levels were to the US. I consider per capita CO2 emissions the best measure, but others prefer the raw numbers. It all means there is work to do everywhere.
With more modern numbers, I would expect that Germany and Japan would be much higher as they pretty much turned off their nuclear plants due to Fukushima, which was the wrong thing for the environment.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
OK right, you can thank tiny Luxembourg, which is to blame too. It has US-level of emissions per capita. All other European countries have emissions far lower.
Global EU average is less than half of the US. They are just not on the same scale, and any carbon tax would therefore affect the US much more.
It's not semantic word games, it's a fundamental misunderstanding on your part.
Science isn't about how much an individual scientists can accomplish starting from zero, but what they can accomplish based on what we already know. That requires some sort of agreement about what we already know; hence, consensus. If all or nearly all of the scientists in a field are convinced of something, there's very good reasons to believe it. It's not going to be politics, because that's not how science works.
There never was a scientific prediction of global cooling. There was some speculation like "increased particulates in the atmosphere might cause global cooling, we should look into it" and the media publicizing it for much more than it was worth. Currently, we're seeing some pretty significant climate change caused by global warming. Winters where I live are not the winters we had forty years ago, to give one example. We have predictions that are working out, despite very noisy data and very complicated models.
It's important to get the facts straight, and then figure out what to do. You appear to believe that scientists advancing science as best they can is a political conspiracy, which suggests that (a) you know nothing about scientists, and (b) you need to see a therapist.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Could they come up with a *less* scientific desciption than "pleasant"? It's not only scientifically vague, it's pretty much inherently subjective as the definition is "giving a sense of happy satisfaction or enjoyment."
Personally I prefer the house at about 67 degrees in the evening, while my wife wants to turn up the thermostat past 70. Though ironically she is always mentioning in the winter how she misses the snowy winter weather in the Midwest vs the warm, rainy winters in California.
Of course I would also imagine based on their precise metrics we have had 3-4 extremely "pleasant" winters here in CA lately, weather-wise! As long as you don't take into account the severe drought, water rationing, dead plants, or near-empty reservoirs and creeks.
And so has Tahoe in CA. But that's because the last few years of "best in years" were so bad it almost bankrupted the Tahoe ski resorts.
This may explain why we don't encounter alien life. It takes billions of years for evolution to go from a dead planet to technological civilization, and once technology exists, it's bound to be a positive feedback loop that destroys itself within a century or so of the discovery of radio signals, the briefest blip on the cosmological timeline. Corollary: even those civilizations that discover this law will not be able to stop the death spiral.
In no country do people drastically scale back their own consumption of anything in favor of saving the planet. Some government initiatives do work, e.g. you hand out subsidies for thermal insulation or replacement of heater units, but individually, even the climate-alarmed people don't do a lot. They may bike more etc. but if everyone in the World had the carbon footprint of a Dutch treehugger, we'd still be screwed, for life in general in the 1st World has a huge footprint per person, no matter what an individual does. Sure, ride your bike... but you need extra calories, and food isn't only a more expensive fuel than gasoline, it also has a carbon footprint. So does the bike and the bike road. Few cities make the decision that 'no road should go there, except a bike trail`; mostly, bike roads are add-ons. Even if you remote work and don't use a lot of resources yourself, your kid will go to school (big carbon footprint), you'll enjoy culture, media, public utilities infrastructure.... I recycle selectively. Good thing. But instead of the former one garbage truck visit per week, now it's on average, two.
Probably all these are worth it carbon-wise but make no mistake about it, the most ecologically minded Western family still uses orders of magnitude more carbon than the Earth average.
And even if the entirety of Europe and the US went low-carbon, what difference does it make, with China, India, Russia, Brasil; with a HUGE expected population growth of Africa; with the ever shrinking Amazonian forest etc.
And even if the entirety of Europe and the US went low-carbon, what difference does it make
A huge one?
The 200 million Africans of 1950 will shoot up to 2bn in around 30 years. Asia and now Africa dwarf Europe and the US. We here have irresponsibly high per-capita carbon footprints; Asia and Africa have irresponsibly high population growth. The latter is the way bigger problem because economic growth is on course in Asia, consequently their carbon footprint per capita converges, i.e. their overall carbon growth is quadratic. In Africa, if their level of procreation, and other factors don't lead to productivity, prosperity and thus more carbon intensive living, then there's gonna be hell and Africans will swarm the rest of the Earth, especially developed parts which are characterized with high per capita carbon use.
European population size is actually decreasing. I wouldn't worry about Europe and US because plain technological advance, electric cars and the ever growing popularity of eco-oriented thinking etc. ensure that these economies are decarbonized. However there's little regulation and enforcement in Asia, South America and Africa. Worry about these.
http://www.ucar.edu/communicat...
Each and every of these Asians and Africans have as much right to live as you do. Saying that they should not be allowed to pollute, or that Americans and Europeans should have a right to pollute more, is plain racism.
If world population grows, no matter where the growth comes from, that means polluters have to reduce their pollution even more.
"Grok is actually a pretty useful term."
No you are wrong.
Grok "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment"
Yea it a new age hippy dippy twaddle. It is so odd that Heinlein who if you read Starship Trooper was just a little left of Attila the Hun wrote Stranger in a Strange Land.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Because if things go to hell on Earth on the other side of the planet, that results in wars (essentially over scarce resources, but this can be dressed up in no end of other noble causes, religions, disputes, politics).
Wars tend to get messy and involve others. Before long your country boy (or girl) from Iowa is either expected to go "bring democracy/protect interests" on the other side of the planet, or is dealing with terrorist action at their local mall.
That's why we expect them to care. We're all on this planet together and it's only getting smaller.
That's why we expect them to care. We're all on this planet together and it's only getting smaller.
Then you're going to be massively disappointed...
Most people don't think about such things and aren't making long range plans.
Read up on the broken window fallacy.
Doesn't apply. You need to spend more time reading about the broken window fallacy. The concept is only applicable to scenarios where no innovation occurs. Say the boy breaks the glass window. The shop owner replaces the window with a better window which saves him energy cost and makes his business more attractive. The outcome is that his business will do better, not the other way around.
Same applies here. Moving toward renewable energies will remove existing issues while reducing cost of said energy long term. It's not a 5 year ROI, it's a 100 year ROI that must occur no matter what.
You fail to understand the global financial economy. Nations like Denmark and Canada can do that because they are a minor part of the overall picture. The US and China can't do it because someone has to buy all that coal, oil, and natural gas.
You might consider what the effects of a $20 trillion dollar write off would be if we decided to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground, before you get in such a hurry to do it.
There is more to this than what is technically possible.
The size of the economy is not relevant as long as you aren't pulling the plug overnight. Nobody is asking the carpet to be pulled from under specific economies. Instead a progressive approach must be taken to shift money towards said solutions.
Doing nothing will result in your country being less competitive on a global market. Countries who will have moved towards these better technologies will eventually be rewarded with lower general cost of operation. This means cheaper manufacturing and lower cost of living which on it's own is an impact. If you tack the cost of dealing with local environmental and health issues the argument stands even more firm.
The government has already done that... to the tune of nearly $20 trillion dollars...
Irrelevant. The spending has to occur to gain the edge. The sooner you stop relying on non-renewable energies the quicker you will become competitive in the global economy. The ROI is long term but it's there. Most here only look at the difference in cost of producing energy but if you tack on the extra cost incurred to deal with health and environmental issues you quickly find out it's much better than it looked early on.
Meh, it is a minor benefit for a huge expense
I'm sure some said the same thing about the railroad system or even the telephone infrastructure.
The concept is only applicable to scenarios where no innovation occurs. Say the boy breaks the glass window. The shop owner replaces the window with a better window which saves him energy cost and makes his business more attractive. The outcome is that his business will do better, not the other way around.
You assume he will remain in business, what if he doesn't have the money to buy your new, better window?
It is a large up front expense that takes many years, if ever, to pay off.
At the end of the day, it should be the business owner who makes that decision, not the boy (or government) who threw the brick through the window.
Same applies here. Moving toward renewable energies will remove existing issues while reducing cost of said energy long term. It's not a 5 year ROI, it's a 100 year ROI that must occur no matter what.
You assume that renewables will cost less long term. You don't actually know that.
The size of the economy is not relevant as long as you aren't pulling the plug overnight. Nobody is asking the carpet to be pulled from under specific economies. Instead a progressive approach must be taken to shift money towards said solutions.
The speed at which the economy can absorb the changes and the speed at which the planet needs them to happen are two different speeds.
What you fail to understand is that while it will take 100 years economically for some changes to be made, the planet needs wholesale changes in the next 35 years.
There is a disconnect that you refuse to consider, that disconnect is why you continue to get pushback, you're not living in reality.
I'm sure some said the same thing about the railroad system or even the telephone infrastructure.
Your comment indicates you don't even understand the point I was making.
The huge expense is trying to cut CO2 by 20-30%, while the planet needs 80%.
The changes won't stop runaway global warming, but will still cost a huge sum of money.
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In other words, you simply don't understand the scale of the problem, you're putting ducktape over holes in the dam without understanding the foundation of the dam is failing.
You assume he will remain in business
A poorly run business will eventually fail regardless of a broken window. The broken window will just cause it to happen earlier.
But if you want to talk about the economics of climate change then we can talk about the rising sea levels and the estimated 13 trillion dollars it will cost just to move the 13 million people on the shores. Combine this with current ongoing cost of dealing with these issues and all of a sudden you've got tones of money you can shift over to better power generating solutions which will better you population, your economy WHILE fixing the issue.
A poorly run business will eventually fail regardless of a broken window. The broken window will just cause it to happen earlier.
Well now you just aren't living in reality, using slogans and black and whites to try and make the point.
No business can survive anything and everything, they all have a breaking point. This might be the straw that breaks the camels back.
And at the end of the day, you ignored the point that the business owner didn't ask to have his window broken.
Frankly, your attitude is a really crappy one, you don't care about anyone but yourself, which is ironic because you color yourself with the "but help the poor people" nonsense, but you really wish to hurt others to make yourself feel better.
I see through it and so do a lot of other people, which is why you get the pushback that you do.
Your comment indicates you don't even understand the point I was making.
The huge expense is trying to cut CO2 by 20-30%, while the planet needs 80%.
Electricity production accounts for 37% of man made CO2 and growing. This will increase with the move towards electric vehicles and the increased demand for power.
https://www3.epa.gov/climatech...
The other issue is methane which is can occur in large quantities when fracking. Methane particle are significantly worst than CO2 in the same quantities.
The changes won't stop runaway global warming, but will still cost a huge sum of money.
You are only taking the portion of the equation that fits your arguments. In all your previous posts you never bring up the cost of doing nothing. The ongoing cost of doing nothing continues to increase and it doesn't come cheaper with time.
You tell me what cost of doing nothing is? I can tell you there are estimates in the 10s of trillions just to displace people from the coast due to rising sea levels.
Additionally, moving towards innovative technologies will promote growth in many other areas. There's a price for being pioneers but there's also a huge reward.
No business can survive anything and everything, they all have a breaking point. This might be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Good businesses are able to stand the test of time. Poor ones do not. If a glass causes you business to fail, god forbid one of your employees doesn't show up to work.
And at the end of the day, you ignored the point that the business owner didn't ask to have his window broken.
And we didn't choose to have a global crisis but we have one and in this case we have potential solutions. Very different than the broken window.
Frankly, your attitude is a really crappy one, you don't care about anyone but yourself
Really? Who do you think will survive this if we don't start paying up? The poor? You are out of your mind if you think that's how things will pan out.
which is ironic because you color yourself with the "but help the poor people" nonsense, but you really wish to hurt others to make yourself feel better.
So your suggesting that investing in our future is going to hurt people? It sounds to me like your understanding of the impact of government spending is flawed.