8 In 10 People Now See Climate Change As a 'Catastrophic Risk,' Says Survey (trust.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Thomas Reuters Foundation: Nearly nine in 10 people say they are ready to make changes to their standard of living if it would prevent future climate catastrophe, a survey on global threats found Wednesday. The survey of more than 8,000 people in eight countries -- the United States, China, India, Britain, Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Germany -- found that 84 percent of people now consider climate change a "global catastrophic risk." That puts worry about climate change only slightly behind fears about large-scale environmental damage and the threat of politically motivated violence escalating into war, according to the Global Challenges Foundation, which commissioned the Global Catastrophic Risks 2017 report. The survey, released in advance of this week's G7 summit of advanced economies in Italy, also found that 85 percent of people think the United Nations needs reforms to be better equipped to address global threats. About 70 percent of those surveyed said they think it may be time to create a new global organization -- with power to enforce its decisions -- specifically designed to deal with a wide range of global risks. Nearly 60 percent said they would be prepared to have their country give up some level of sovereignty to make that happen.

Comments

But President Trump goes

[RotateLeftByte]

Fake News. La-la-la-la-la-la I can't hear you.

Re:But President Trump goes

[taiwanjohn]

Trump, plus a good percentage of the US population, which means the ratios must be much higher in the other countries surveyed in order to average out to 80% overall. According to Gallup, just 42% of Americans "Think global warming will pose a serious threat in their lifetime." Obviously that's not exactly the same thing as "catastrophic risk" with no time constraint, but it's frankly lower than I expected.

Pew has a more lengthy survey which does a detailed breakdown of views by political affiliation. Here's one aspect I found intriguing:

One thing that doesn’t strongly influence opinion on climate issues, perhaps surprisingly, is one’s level of general scientific literacy. According to the survey, the effects of having higher, medium or lower scores on a nine-item index of science knowledge tend to be modest and are only sometimes related to people’s views about climate change and climate scientists, especially in comparison with party, ideology and concern about the issue. But, the role of science knowledge in people’s beliefs about climate matters is varied and where a relationship occurs, it is complex. To the extent that science knowledge influences people’s judgments related to climate change and trust in climate scientists, it does so among Democrats, but not Republicans. For example, Democrats with high science knowledge are especially likely to believe the Earth is warming due to human activity, to see scientists as having a firm understanding of climate change, and to trust climate scientists’ information about the causes of climate change. But Republicans with higher science knowledge are no more or less likely to hold these beliefs. Thus, people’s political orientations also tend to influence how knowledge about science affects their judgments and beliefs about climate matters and their trust in climate scientists.

Re:But President Trump goes

[Dorianny]

In general the less educated Conservatives tend to believe that the whole Climate Change things is a conspiracy against economic development by the "business hating Liberals," while the more educated ones tend to discount certain aspects of the body of research, such as how much influence human activity has on Climate change or the severity of the effects of Climate change will have on the World, especially the United States. With the research getting stronger and stronger with each new study it will get harder and harder for them to keep up the facade that the research is just not convincing

Re:But President Trump goes

[No Longer an AC]

You have been modded "Funny" but I think there is some insightfulness there:

"Nearly nine in 10 people say they are ready to make changes to their standard of living if it would prevent future climate catastrophe,"

Oh really?

Last things first - there's that huge qualification that they would do it "if it would prevent future climate catastrophe". Most of us don't believe we have much if any impact at all. If I do have an impact, it's terribly insignificant.

And we'd make changes to our standard of living? Wait a minute there - are you talking about any major changes?

Because I can only do so much. I already do try to make as little impact on the environment as I can. If someone wants to suggest an easy way for me to do better I'm all for it, but I'm not going to inconvenience myself too much. It's too warm in here right now. I could open a window, but I'm gonna turn on the AC instead! Seriously.

But I recycle every soda can that I buy! Well, that's good but I can only recycle as much as I already am.

So I do think it's at least sort of fake. Most of us aren't going to do any more than we're already doing. I do care about the environment, but to be honest I'm not willing to sacrifice my standard of living. I like my car and my AC and I'm not going to stop buying things because they come with too much plastic packaging. (Would I really refuse to buy a product just because its packaging wasn't eco-friendly?)

Quite frankly, the only things I can think of to do that would be more eco-friendly are too much trouble for me to bother with or would have very little impact if any.

So while it's probably true that nearly 9 in 10 people say they would change their standard of living to save the planet I think it's "fake" to think that nearly 9 in 10 people would actually bother to make any significant changes to their standard of living.

What would I give up? Nothing.

I think it's more likely that nearly 9 in 10 people are either dishonest or aren't seriously considering a lower standard of living.

--

Or to put it in simpler terms....if you told someone they could save the planet if they just recycled their empty soda cans they'd probably do it, but if you told them they'd have to stop drinking soda they would laugh at you - not that recycling aluminum cans is going to save the planet but I do it anyway.

It would probably be better for the planet and definitely better for my health if I didn't drink soda in the first place, but screw that!

Re:But President Trump goes

[mellon]

It is cyclical, but there is nothing in the fossil record showing as rapid an upward cycle as we are seeing now. That's why the worry.

Re:But President Trump goes

[jellomizer]

I would avoid jumping onto the conclusions that Conservatives are less educated than Liberals. The larger correlation is that liberals will live more in Urban Areas, while Conservatives live in Rural areas. In these different areas, their world view is different. In Urban areas, a strong government is an overall positive, as there are services that need to be provided, and with a lot of people working closely together, a strong rule of law and regulations is needed for that area to function. In rural areas they are more left to fend for themselves, there tax money is going to places where they will see no benefit, and there is a culture if you have a problem you need to solve it yourself. So such regulations proposed by the government seem like an overall negative.
Now both areas have highly educated people, and less educated who will vote for whatever party. In urban areas the Poor are often under educated and vote liberal because government is trying to prevent them from dying, as the city environment can prevent them from living off the land and being able to fend for themselves. In rural areas, the poor who have resources to fend for themselves, doesn't need rules and regulations trying to stop them from doing what they need to do to live.
Conservatives seem to rule corporate higher management, and even modern farmers you need to be just as technical savvy as a Silicon Valley tech worker. These people have those degrees, but because they are working commercial they tend not to flaunt them as much. While in urban areas, there are more colleges and universities, and government agencies, where people will need the education status to help push their agendas.
Now in terms of Science. Liberal groups have seemed to reject science that says "This product is safe" (GMO, Vaccines...) because they expect government to make sure what we do is safe. While Conservative groups reject science that says "This product is dangerous" (Global Warming, Fracking...) because they are afraid that government will take away necessary tools for them.

Re:But President Trump goes

[interkin3tic]

There are numbers on this subject. We really don't need to guess or say "Well it goes both ways cause I know some people on both sides" or "we don't really know do we?" Because we do: conservatives tend to have less education while liberals tend to have more. Not an absolute, sure, but there's clear bias.

The urban government useful vs rural government bad thing is one factor probably, but there's definitely an element of tribalism going on in the GOP today that causes some uneducated rural whites to vote for Trump. And the GOP has definitely undergone a brain drain where all they stand for is saying "no" to anything besides tax cuts.

Re:But President Trump goes

[Ogive17]

As someone who lives in rural America, most people here don't realize how much Federal aid comes our way. They just assume that because our taxes are lower than urban areas, it means our costs are lower and that we more wisely use the tax revenue. In fact, we probably (making an assumption without citation) receive more federal money per capita than urban areas. More roads, more utilities, more police, more fire are needed to provide the same service in my town of 25k that is spread out over approximately 12 sq. miles (31 sq. km).

Education level does not matter, life experience matters. Most people here have never spent more than a week or two (vacations) away from the region and have certainly not traveled to other countries. They don't know the benefits of urban living and don't care to learn about them. It's different from their life and they'd rather be ignorant about it.

Re:But President Trump goes

[drinkypoo]

I think there's another interpretation of these facts which you have neglected to consider. Many people might make substantial changes to their lifestyle if they believed that it would do any good. But do you know what happens when individuals make changes to lifestyle? Fuck-all. The majority of people can't or won't make substantial changes, so those people's efforts is just pissing in the wind.

The majority of environmental damage benefits not the poor, but the ultra-wealthy. Most of those people don't give one tenth of one fuck about you or me, and are utterly unwilling to make substantive changes in their lifestyles. The few that are willing to make changes have the economic power to have substantial environmental impact, but they are overwhelmed by the rest. The poor aren't shopping at Wal-Mart because they think it's fancy. They're not buying imported Chinese foodstuffs because they think they're of high quality. They're buying what they can afford.

TL;DR: You're not going to get poor people to make changes while rich people are flying past in their own private jets. And since most people in the world are poor, there's only one direction in which to look for where the changes need to occur.

Re:But President Trump goes

[cbeaudry]

Wrong. Fossil records do not have the resolution for which to compare rate of change. 100 year rate changes are smoothed by the resolution, so there is no way of telling if the current rate of 0.85c over 150 years is unique, however it most likely is not at all.

Re:But President Trump goes

[AaronW]

Here's a good graph showing warming and cooling.

Regulatory capture

[Esteanil]

While I fully agree with climate change being a catastrophic risk, a global organization with enforcement power will immidiately become the most valuable target for lobbying in the world.

I believe we'd see such an organization effectively ruled by the very interests it's set to regulate within a few years at most.

Re:Regulatory capture

[Bongo]

I'm sure some will just claim you're just an anti-goverment nut, but taking a broad view, given we're talking an issue that affects the species, humans have through history gone from small tribes to large empires to nation states, and now we're tipping towards global organisation.

However, there's something very interesting in this sequence, and that's that the shift from empire to nation state was a reduction in authoritarianism, and a move towards more individuality.

Now, individuality is often criticised as the root cause of all the greed which drives overconsumption, which lead many to say we need a sort of Chinese communist regime where a central authority sets consumption limits, but there's an issue around, WHY did we historically move from empire to nation states?

And a simple answer ot that is the empires are unsustainable in the sense that they eventually become too big to govern. Authoritarianism collapses when there's too many people and the system is too complex to manage, whatever someone's best intentions may be.

So here's a thought: the globalised stage will be MORE individual, just that, the individual will be MORE intelligent, and as we continue to develop, the intelligence, knowledge, and compassion of each individual will increase. Just as most ordinary people now realise that racism is bad, and work to eradicate racism from their own minds, so too, gradually, we become more intelligent global citizens.

And the bad news is, there is no shortcut to that. If the world is really about to end in 20 years, well sorry, too late, people can only develop their individual compassion and intelligence at a normal pace, and if that's too late then that's too late. The alternative, as you say, is some sort of global authoritarian genocide, caused either deliberately or inadvertently.

We need to pursue the most effective technology solutions whilst human psychology catches up to a globalised world. That probably means lots of nuclear, whatever best form of tech that may take.

Ya kanny change the laws of physics and ya kanny change the human psychology any faster than it can grow naturally.

So learn to love your fellow dumb human and build lots of nuclear.

Re:Regulatory capture

[AmiMoJo]

A much simpler and quicker fix is to just shift the subsidies to cleaner energy. Energy is expensive really, it only looks cheap to the end user because much of the cost is either hidden in tax funded subsidy or externalized to someone else.

In the end, people will usually vote with their wallets. Then they bitch and moan that their wallets are being targeted, because it's the only way to save the fucking planet.

Re:Regulatory capture

[Dins]

Exactly this.

My position on climate change has always been why does it matter whether climate change is happening and whether it's man-made or not? This planet is the only one we have and polluting it isn't going to get us anywhere. That, and we need to get off fossil fuels as they are a limited resource. So subsidize the shit out of existing green energy tech and triple the R&D money going to new energy tech. Do that enough and the problem will fix itself.

Re:Regulatory capture

[AmiMoJo]

Except that you recommended nuclear, which is one of the most expensive forms of energy we have. The new plant at Hinkley Point C is the most expensive object on earth and is guaranteed way, way above the odds for every watt-hour of energy it produces for its entire lifetime.

They had to promise all that because no-one would build it. In the end, the French are building it with Chinese money. In the UK.

Re:Regulatory capture

[Anonymous Coward]

From the first comment on another shameless piece of propaganda:

This phase of Burbo Bank has an installed capacity of 252.4 MW, a capacity factor of 32.5%, an 'Expected Life' of 25 years, occupies an area of 40 sq km and costs £800 million.

Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant has an installed capacity of 3,200 MW, an availability factor of 90%, a 'Design Life' of 60 years, occupies an area of 0.69 sq km and costs £18 billion.

84.2 Burbo Bank-sized offshore wind farms would have to be built to deliver the same amount of [intermittent] electricity as the [24/7] electricity HPC will deliver.

84.2 Burbo Banks would cost £67.36 billion and would occupy an area of 3,368 sq km - that's 58 km x 58 km. Hinkley's site measures 830 metres x 830 metres.

Add to the £67.36 billion the cost of the dedicated gas-fired back up plant for the regular and sometimes prolonged periods when "...the 260 foot blades spans an area the size of the London Eye..." don't have a whoosh in them, and it would be fair to say, we could get 4 Hinkleys and therefore 4X more low-carbon [24/7] electricity for the same money.

It's quite pathetic how renewables supporters like Jillian Ambrose apply nauseous levels of pure propaganda to articles such as this. No attempt whatsoever of presenting any element of the substantial downside to offshore wind.

HPC isn't nearly as expensive as the alternatives being pushed. Countries that aren't drowning in anti-nuclear hysteria propagated by tools like you actually have inexpensive nuclear, and better technology will only tip scale further. Dismissing the most effective tool, and helping to maintain artificially inflated costs makes you a traitor to your supposed cause.

The only winners in your fantastical renewable-only scenario are those harvesting the subsidies, and those supplying the fossil fuels which will continue to provide the bulk of the energy.

Re:Regulatory capture

[Anonymous Coward]

Batteries at $100/kWh will be great for electric cars, yet still orders of magnitude too expensive for seasonal energy storage, which is a requirement if you don't want people freezing to death. It is not uncommon to have essentially zero wind and solar output for weeks on end during winter.

Your "bright" renewable future will continue to depend on fossil energy, as it does today. It certainly isn't cheap if you account for the cost of backup generation or storage necessary to provide reliable power.

Re:Regulatory capture

[swillden]

You're absolutely right, of course. The best way to manage this problem is to internalize the externalities; make energy producers pay the full cost of their operations. This would mean either a heavy carbon tax or -- even better -- strict regulation on carbon emissions that require fossil fuel burners to capture and sequester all of their emissions. Burning dirty coal for power is just fine if you don't put anything into the atmosphere.

In practice, subsidizing clean energy is more politically feasible, though. Giving money to build new businesses costs taxpayers, but the cost is spread widely so no one gets really upset... and the people involved in the new businesses are enthusiastically supportive. People in competing old businesses will grumble a bit, but if the subsidy doesn't instantly make them uncompetitive, opposition won't go much beyond grumbling.

In contrast, adding large new costs to existing businesses makes the people involved in those businesses really angry. They get very vocal and start throwing their influence and money around. If voters were purely rational and actually weighed all of the costs and benefits, that wouldn't matter, but that's not how it works.

Something's fishy in Denmark.

[darthsilun]

54 out of 100 Senators and 234 out of 435 Representatives, and Twitler don't.

The numbers don't line up.

Re: Something's fishy in Denmark.

[silentcoder]

As a South African - go fuck yourself with your racist stereotypes.

South Africans mostly consider climate change a serious risk to our lives, and one of the nasty impacts of climate change is to raise food prices - by much more than combating it ever could. South Africa has huge investments in renewable energy and these are growing (And make up the ENTIRETY of private sector energy investment).
The only deniers in South Africa are conservatives and they make up about erm 1% of the population - they're a loud minority but they are about as influential on the country's culture and politics as pissing in the ocean is on it's salt level.

Reality Check

[hyades1]

It really doesn't matter if 99 out of 100 people see climate change as a real threat. As long as the top 1% keep earning billions of dollars off the status quo, and understand they will be protected from the effects, nothing is going to change.

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

Because "fuck you, got mine."

Re:Reality Check

[tbannist]

It really doesn't matter if 99 out of 100 people see climate change as a real threat. As long as the top 1% keep earning billions of dollars off the status quo, and understand they will be protected from the effects, nothing is going to change.

You know, that only works as long as that 1% can convince enough of the 99% that it's not really a problem. And really, I don't think the top 1% are actually aligned on doing nothing. Of course, they're divided over the whether to take action, often based on whether or not they are invested in the industries that will be hurt by taking action.

One of the problems of some of this anti-climate change lobbying that people like Rupert Murdoch (owner of coal mines) have engaged in, is that they've spawned groups they can't really control. Trump is the end result of trying to stir up opposition to reasonable policies. If you can't trust the government, can't trust science and can't trust the media, who are people supposed to trust? They set the stage for the rise of Trump and we can only hope that they live to reap the bitter fruits of their labours.

Re:Armchair heroics

[danbert8]

Right, this survey found that 8 out of 10 people will lie to a surveyor. Everyone SAYS they want cleaner air, less pollution, and to stop global warming. They just want everyone else to stop consuming so they don't have to. It's the same thing with every problem caused by a group. Everyone complains about traffic while moving further away from their workplace and not wanting to ride the bus or carpool.

Re:eight in ten people believe in ghosts

[Opportunist]

Sorry, but when was Greenland green?

Re:Actually the earth has been cooling!

[Opportunist]

Yes, but for the vast and clear majority of earth's history, humans didn't want to survive on its surface. Including 50 million years ago.

But then again, we also have not even been around for even a sliver of geologic time. Like the old joke says

Planet 1: Dude, you look horrible, what's going on with you?
Planet 2: I have homo sapiens
Planet 1: Ah, don't worry. It will pass.

Re:eight in ten people believe in ghosts

[Gavagai80]

Glaciers have covered most of Greenland for the past 2-3 million years. Not hundred.

no way!!

[markdavis]

>"it may be time to create a new global organization -- with power to enforce its decisions[...]have their country give up some level of sovereignty to make that happen."

THAT would be the worst mistake ever, especially for the USA. We have already seen many of the things "the world" would want to do and much of it runs contrary to the Constitution.

Action needed regardless of cause

[sjbe]

Whether or not you believe humans are responsible for climate change, the evidence is clear that climate change is occurring. A great many of the follow on consequences of climate change are highly predictable and many of them are bad. As such, logically it is almost irrelevant whether or not humans are the driver of the change even though the evidence seems bullet proof that we are responsible. Either way it clear that it is happening and it is equally clear is something we need to plan for and quite likely attempt to mitigate. You don't have to believe humans are responsible for it to be logical for us to take substantial action on the problem. It's really no different in principle than a volcano erupting - we still have to take action to address the consequences.

Of course the sticky bit of the problem is that dealing with the issue requires human action which will come at a cost. The only (sort of) sane reason to not act to deal with climate change is because someone has economic self interest interest in ignoring the problem. It's understandable if not justifiable. There are of course a few illogical reasons why people oppose taking action the most notable of which seems to be tribalism. Thing is that whether people believe in it or not they will end up dealing with the problem sooner or later. The cost of dealing with it sooner is lower but human nature being what it is it's not clear if that will happen before there are some severe consequences.

It's not about the science

[sjbe]

The percentage of believers doesn't prove facts. It proves belief.

Missing the point. The point is that when enough people get behind an idea it becomes possible to take meaningful action. This is a political survey regarding the effectiveness of scientific communication. The science is what it is and this survey does not deal with the science. The debate is largely a political and economic one and this seemingly is ammunition in that debate.

Tragedy of the Commons

[hipp5]

Nearly nine in 10 people say they are ready to make changes to their standard of living if it would prevent future climate catastrophe

Well of course they would. Faced with a clear path to avert catastrophe, people will take it. If you tell people "do this thing, or your life will be ruined", they'll probably do that thing. The problem is that the path to averting climate catastrophe is too abstract from peoples' daily lives. Right now it's more like "do this thing, and depending on whether or not other people do similar things, your life might not be ruined."

Avoiding catastrophic climate change will take a huge collective action. But since each of our individual actions have a small effect on their own, it's hard for our brains to balance the pain/cost of those actions with a benefit. Few people are willing to lower their standard of living without a clear link between their particular sacrifice and avoiding catastrophe.

I'm not sure I'm providing any insight into how to solve this problem, but rather that it's not too surprising to see the results as worded.

Re:eight in ten people believe in ghosts

[Oswald McWeany]

"Green" land was an example of medieval marketing BS. The reason it is called "Green" land was the same reason almost every state in the US has a city called "Mount Pleasant", "Greenville", and "Springfield".

It's to make the place sound inviting. Norsemen were trying to establish permanent colonies on Greenland, and wanted to attract people with the prospect of a green fertile island. (it was in reality, a cold frigid place)

Yes, there was a few hundred years in the medieval period where the earth warmed slightly. And, yes, Greenland was slightly warmer than today. It still was a harsh, frigid place to live and work, and even colonies set up back then tended to collapse because of the harsh conditions. It was hard to get permanent settlements to thrive.

Elites should put up or shut up

[schwit1]

We really should ban air conditioning in the District of Columbia and tax the blue zones, just to be on the safe side.

I’ll believe global warming is a crisis, when the people who scream it’s a crisis start to act like it’s a crisis themselves.

Re:Armchair heroics

[Gravis Zero]

Everyone SAYS they want cleaner air, less pollution, and to stop global warming. They just want everyone else to stop consuming so they don't have to.

There is a social psychology where people are only willing to change/sacrifice if people around them are doing the same. This is why we need individuals that will get the ball rolling and why we need entertainment media to put a lot of positive emphasis on things that are good for the environment without being so extreme as to alienate the audience. If every home makeover show included changing homes over to solar and battery then you would have a lot more people doing the same.

Behavior (both social and individual) is based on feedback loops, so the stronger the feedback the faster the change.

Let me help

[Anonymous Coward]

Most political AGW "fixes" involve taxing CO2, not methane. Methane produced mostly by farmers, who lobby heavily, and are in Iowa the first presidential caucus. If you are interested in winning elections and don't care about solving AGW you need to not admit methane is a bigger problem, which is what liberals do.
Taxing CO2 is taxing the middle class, which to liberals is perfectly acceptable. As the DNC has shown, screw the middle class and lose the "blue wall". Instead of admitting they hate the working class they come up with "Its the Russians" when they lose.

Now that the reason they tax the wrong things is covered, lets see what happens with that tax money... It goes to Solyndra, which ended up producing nothing of value and was split up and sold off in pieces. However they did donate heavily to Obama's election. Along with Fisker Auto (not even an American company, but owned by Al Gore), and A123 again who heavily donated to the DNC and was sold off to China.

So looking at how the DNC deals with AGW, they tax people who they think aren't likely to hurt them in elections, and give that tax money to people who help them get elected and don't seem to care if it helps with AGW at all.

Put me down as the guy who looked at the solutions put into place to solve AGW and noticed it doesn't actually help but is a money scheme for the DNC instead.

Re:Let me help

[mellon]

Methane is a hugely valuable resource. What blows my mind is how many people are leaving that money on the table. Methane from farms is zero-impact, because it comes through a renewal cycle, not from fossil fuels. If you put all your manure in methane digesters, you can generate a fuck-ton of power from it, and as a bonus, what comes out of the digester is a lot less nasty to dispose of.

Re:Let me help

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is this liberals don't care about methane BS coming from? I remember the Obama admin creating regulations to force frackers to capture methane venting during drilling operations while I saw that was quickly undone by Trump. Most people I know are ready to take on Climate Change from every angle necessary, no golden cows.

Let's be honest with ourselves, democrats aren't the problem with Climate Change. Al Gore and every destroy the middle class type argument are just more fake news frothing up from the merchants of doubt.

Re:Let me help

[Anonymous Coward]

And here is the anti-science, increase middle class taxes, liberal. Every scientific study says methane is a massive problem, but since the "regulators" set the rules to measure over 100 years instead of 20, they can ignore methane and the dreaded taxing people that help me get elected.

Methane - 8% of greenhouse emissions, x86 times the impact of CO2 (Yes, that makes is a significantly bigger problem than CO2). Completely ignored by anti-science DNC who sets taxing policy based on who they don't like, not based on science.

Just look at proposed solutions and what has been done or is proposed and you QUICKLY see that they don't see it as a problem. They see it as tax revenue to give to people who help them get elected. They don't care about AGW in the least.

And here is the anti-truth, twist the words of the person I'm quoting typical american political partisan. I did not say that methane is not a "massive problem", I said it is not as big a problem as CO2. Methane levels are 1080 parts per billion above pre-industrial levels. CO2 levels are 140,000 parts per billion above pre-industrial levels. Since you object to 100 year measurements, lets just go with the difference it makes RIGHT NOW, and we come up with CO2 having a 50% larger impact than methane, in terms of the amount added to the atmosphere by human activity. This is completely unrealistic comparison of the two for the long term effects, but it is the most extreme one you are going to get and it still falls short of your claims.

As for your political ranting, maybe I'm missing something here as I'm not american, but I thought the GOP, not the DNC, was the party of choice amoung the farming communities you rail against.

Re:Let me help

[ShanghaiBill]

Methane - 8% of greenhouse emissions, x86 times the impact of CO2 (Yes, that makes is a significantly bigger problem than CO2).

Methane induced warming is measured by "CO2 equivalence", so the number you are quoting is already multiplied by the potency.

There is 200 times more CO2 than CH4 in the atmosphere.

Methane has a much shorter half-life in the atmosphere, so it is not as much of a long term problem. Methane is 86 times as potent, but has a potency factor of 34 over a century.

Last year, the world emitted 36B tons of CO2, and about 0.25B tons of CH4, equivalent to about 8B tons of CO2 in 100-year warming potential. So methane is a serious problem, but far less than CO2.

Methane emissions are declining in most 1st world nations, mostly because of better wellhead equipment, but also because of declining beef consumption.

Methane emissions are rising in less developed countries, mostly because of rising meat consumption. Taxes on beef may be able shift consumption to chicken or pork, but are unlikely to be politically feasible on a wide scale.

Methane emissions by country.
CO2 emissions by country.

Disclaimer: I don't eat meat, so don't blame me.

Re: Warming?

[Entrope]

You forgot to pole Poll-land.

The real solution may be dirt cheap...

[Acron]

From MIT's Technology Review:

https://www.technologyreview.c...

So why aren't we talking about spending a few hundred million into engineering R&D to come up with this potentially real and very inexpensive kind of a solution as quickly as possible? Why are we instead talking about huge bureaucracies and trillions of dollars in carbon taxes for forever? That's because we're allowing politicians etal come up with the solution, instead of engineers and scientists.

I'll believe they are serious when...

[Mspangler]

They demand the end of commercial air travel. After all, it's not necessary to humanity, (we lived without it until less than a hundred years ago), and it puts out a lot of CO2, and it's not possible to electrify in the foreseeable future.

Until then, it's "make someone else change or pay so that I can keep my perks."

Re:I'll believe they are serious when...

[david_thornley]

Air travel is not a total luxury. Lots of people have to travel, and if they're traveling alone there's no real environmental advantage to driving. Over long distances, flying becomes more attractive, as aircraft are more efficient at cruising altitude while the delay of driving mounts up.

Moreover, we aren't trying to crash the economy and return to technology that can support maybe a billion or two humans on this planet. It's worthwhile slowing carbon emissions down while we do more research and development. We're not going to get all fossil fuels abolished for a long time to come, and we need to develop technology (carbon sequestration, geoengineering, whatever) to make up for that.

My carbon footprint is trivial, and completely eliminating it will do nothing noticeable for the planet. The only way any reduction I make can be significant is in concert with hundreds of millions of other people, and that generally requires government action, so I don't see where the "authoritarian" comes in for Heinberg. However, I don't take anyone who is flat against GMO food too seriously. You'll notice he wants scrutiny of global trade agreements, but not of GMO.

We've had environmental problems before. We got a lot of people interested in helping out, but the way we got results was government action.

Re:eight in ten people believe in ghosts

[budgenator]

And while the medieval warm period was, in fact, a thing (with parts, notably the coastal regions, of Greenland being rather greener than today)- it was so incredibly localized that it did not affect global average temperatures at all.

Research is indicating that the medieval warm period was much more global than those with financial interests in it being regional will admit.

Observed increases in ocean heat content (OHC) and temperature are robust indicators of global warming during the past several decades. We used high-resolution proxy records from sediment cores to extend these observations in the Pacific 10,000 years beyond the instrumental record. We show that water masses linked to North Pacific and Antarctic intermediate waters were warmer by 2.1 ± 0.4C and 1.5 ± 0.4C, respectively, during the middle Holocene Thermal Maximum than over the past century. Both water masses were ~0.9C warmer during the Medieval Warm period than during the Little Ice Age and ~0.65 warmer than in recent decades. Although documented changes in global surface temperatures during the Holocene and Common era are relatively small, the concomitant changes in OHC are large. Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years Science 01 Nov 2013:
Vol. 342, Issue 6158, pp. 617-621
DOI: 10.1126/science.1240837

Humans, Human Civilization and the environment all did much better at warmer temperatures.

re: nuclear and cost

[King_TJ]

The main reason nuclear has been so costly isn't because the technology itself isn't feasible.
The extremely high costs have historically had a lot to do with politics, fear of nuclear energy, and contractors taking advantage of the fact that it's "scary stuff".

Almost every time a new plant is schedule to be constructed, it turns into a big battle with groups fighting against it and requires expensive site surveys, safety studies and more. (Well, perhaps not in Communist countries where the people don't really get any say-so anyway -- but safety seems to take a back seat to just getting something up and running anyway, in those situations - a la Chernobyl.)

Here in the U.S. - there has often been a lot of poor long-term projecting of energy needs, also contributing to high cost of nuclear plants. For example, the power plant not far from where I used to live in St. Louis, MO, Callaway County Nuclear plant, had a whole lot of issues in the past including no need to operate it at above 50% or so of its generation capacity because power demands just didn't grow as quickly as they anticipated when it was constructed. (I also recall some issues where construction materials for the cooling pipes didn't wind up meeting the promised standards, leading to an inability to run the plant at full power until that was redone.) It received the top safety rating for risk of damage due to an earthquake though, and is apparently running quite profitably today. That didn't stop a lawsuit in 2014 though, trying to prevent it from getting its operating license renewed, over new rules allowing above-ground storage of spent fuel after years of failed efforts to build a permanent national storage site in Nevada.

The people who keep arguing we should use other "renewables" refuse to recognize the fact that wind and solar power aren't "always on" power sources. You generate nothing after dark with solar, and the wind doesn't blow constantly at a good rate of speed. The work-around for that always revolves around ideas of implementing large storage batteries, which greatly increases the cost of those projects and reduces reliability. (Batteries are based on chemical reactions and they wear out. Refurbishing them amounts to gutting them out and rebuilding their insides, making that process almost equivalent to just manufacturing new batteries.)

Call me when...

[sycodon]

...Algore, Leo, Obama, and all the other celebrity AGW champions jetting around the world Signalling their Virtue are ready to curtail their lifestyles.

Re:Call me when...

[sycodon]

Please enlighten us. Have these people moved into a two bedroom home and started driving a Prius?

Re:Call me when...

[greythax]

Good work sir! Thank God you are hear to point out the hypocrisy of a few individuals. Surely that will fix AGW! You are doing God's work, sir!

Re: nuclear and cost

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK the cost has little to do with protesters or politics. In fact the UK government has been extremely generous to nuclear operators - it build all the original plants, then gave them to commercial operators basically for free, with a guarantee that it would pick up most of the cost of decommissioning, plus the usual subsidies like free insurance.

The problem are all to do with the technology itself. For example, the long term profitability of new nuclear is in doubt as renewable energy is replacing it. That's why the people building this new plant demanded a guarantee of extremely high prices and guaranteed sales for the lifetime of the plant. In Europe the decommissioning requirements are stricter too, because land is more valuable here, requiring the site to be made habitable again rather than just burying the reactor there until it becomes safe enough to move.

As for renewables, fortunately Europe is quite large and has plenty of distributed wind power. While batteries do wear out, they don't wear out as fast as people think and as we move to electric vehicles there will be vast numbers of them that can be re-used before being recycled. There are also other forms of energy storage. More investment is needed of course, which is why people want the subsidies for nuclear redirected.

Not a "risk" anymore

[gweihir]

A risk is something that has an element of potentiality. In the case of climate change, the catastrophe is already assured. The only question is whether it will be severe, very severe or "collapse of civilization"-level. Calling a "risk" is, once again, making it sound a lot more harmless than it is.

Too late

[OrangeTide]

We had a chance to make a real difference with climate change some 20 to 30 years ago. We chose to argue about it instead of developing the science and executing a plan. No use arguing about it anymore, climate deniers can say whatever they want and I simply don't care. They'll eat their words within their own lifetime, which will be at least something they can eat during the cycles of famine.

After the Warning = Was Re:Let me help

[atrimtab]

James Burke (creator of the "The Day The Universe Changed") covered a lot of the issues with methane back in a 1990 TV program called "After the Warming:"

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11...

which the farming and petroleum industry worked vigorously to discredit because both create or leak large amounts of methane into the environment as side-effects/externalities/pollution of their profit making businesses.

Looking up info on that program now provides more links to FUD spun by industry groups than accurate information. There are errors in this now 27 year old program, but the basic points are sound.

Organizations never want to pay for the externalities, negative side-effects and pollution their activities create. That will have to change or we'll need to get off this planet before we are buried in externalities.

That is not anti-business. That's a call for responsible enterprises that properly resolve the externalities they create.

Re:eight in ten people believe in ghosts

[AaronW]

Except we've hijacked that cooling period and are very quickly warming. https://xkcd.com/1732/