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We all know by now CO2 and CH4 leads to a warmer planet. We also know what's driving greenhouse gas levels to rise across Earth. Contributors are deforestation,

We all know by now CO2 and CH4 leads to a warmer planet. We also know what's driving greenhouse gas levels to rise across Earth. Contributors are deforestation, intensive animal farming, and primarily the combustion of carbon fossil fuels like coal, tar sands, oil, natural gas etc. But here is the underlying problem, despite us knowing how bad things are, (97+% of scientists who study this field agree we are causing the planet's climate to shift away from the temperate climate we thrived in) not enough is being done at present to truly solve the problem. What really is disheartening and what no one in the media and government is talking about is how in 2015 CO2 levels rose by the largest amount in human recorded history. 3.05 PPM http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html We are being lied to and mislead by our governments that uniform actions are being performed to save the planet for the future of man. Vested interests in the fossil fuel industry continue to drive climate change. Yes, solar energy is starting to become incredibly efficient but not enough of it is coming online in proportion to fossil fuel burning that persists and is also installed annually. If we do not rally against it, our ability to live on this planet is at stake. The lives of our posterity are also at risk because of the burning. It will not be until we take extreme actions not on a country level but as humanity together that we will slow the burning and save ourselves. What are these actions you might ask that will actually be effective? These can range from banning fossil fuels entirely, global carbon pricing system, banning deforestation, changing human diets, extreme uniform investment in renewable energy and potentially fourth generation nuclear reactors, more funding for developing nations to install alternative energy sources, and to shift the transportation grid towards sustainability.

lettergram 10y ago
CO2 emissions have remained relatively constant from energy producing sources since the 90's in the U.S.[1]. Obviously, this is not the case for China and the alike. However, what we also don't consider is that cattle, swine, and most of all Humans digestion produce an exorbitant amount of those emissions. I just spend ~10 minutes searching and couldn't find a source regarding how much CO2 we as humans produce, but I would guess it's a lot more than other livestock. CO2 levels have less of an impact than other chemicals on the atmosphere[2]: > It (livestock) generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure. [1]https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.ht... [2]http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772
- spdustin 10y ago
  Human digestion doesn't produce nearly the amount of methane as cattle. Our digestive processes don't rely so heavily on fermentation. Of course, if we stopped eating meat, our digestive processes over time would evolve to include more fermentation, so... Hard to say. But, now, humans aren't ruminants, and so produce climatically insignificant amounts of methane. Livestock doesn't even account for the majority of methane production anyway; landfills, fossil fuel production, and burning of biomass produce even more. That said, we do need to reduce our dependence on ruminants as a food source. Methane production aside, a significant amount of deforestation occurs to make grazing land for cattle. Add in carbon/methane emissions during transportation of livestock products, environmental effects of the deforestation... Cattle have a fairly large carbon "hoofprint". (I use carbon footprint, or humorous derivation thereof, to include methane, which does after all include carbon)
JoBrad 10y ago
Honestly, the whole point of worrying about climate change is its impact to humans (the earth has survived far worse over its history, and will likely survive worse in the future). The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts to humanity - arguably as much as climate change itself (i.e. doing nothing) - and has a huge upfront cost, to boot. Additionally, such extreme actions will result in large black markets that render those bans moot, and abide by very few or none of the laws and regulations we have in place to mitigate some small amount of impact to our climate, making the situation worse than it is now. The only real solution is to innovate our way out of a large amount of our polluting habits, in a way that is cost-effective. Also, I don't recall any governmental agency saying that we are taking appropriate action to save the planet. Most agencies are saying that we should start taking action, but that we've already passed the point of no return.
- blondie9x 10y ago
  Can you prove that one of my suggestions would have a negative impact on humanity and economic growth?
  - JoBrad 10y ago
    In general, the issue I see is using a hammer to prevent people from surviving in a complex environment, vs using innovation to promote a more sustainable way to make a living. People aren't usually polluting because they love dirty air, water, hate polar bears, or even because they think it's a good thing to do. People drive cars for hours each day because there isn't a viable (cost-effective) alternative. > banning fossil fuels entirely No fossil fuels means the global delivery of goods and services comes to an immediate halt. Medicine, food, clothing, power - everything stops. We are absolutely too reliant on fossil fuels, and we have to change that. But you may be forgetting how long it took to get us hooked on one of the easiest-to-consume energy resources on the planet. Moving to a resource which takes more work to get energy from is not going to happen overnight. And if we did come up with something overnight, it's probably not thought-through enough to be a real solution. > banning deforestation This issue is much more complicated than it seems. Let's take the Amazon rainforest as an example. A large portion of the deforestation is occurring because single-family farms are clearing forest to make a farm, so they can grow crops. How do we handle situations like that without materially affecting the ability of people to support themselves?
phkahler 10y ago
I often forget the difference between deforestation and desertification. For the later, which is an even worse problem you might want to watch this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl... As for some of your other suggestions "global carbon pricing system" reminds me of cap-and-trade which is a very political process if implemented. A simpler and fairer way to do that is to simply tax hydrocarbons and coal coming out of the ground. Then the price will be passed on to whomever uses it - tax the source rather than the use, it's much simpler and less subject to political manipulation and agendas. As for changing peoples diets, why not change their reproductive habits? All of these problems stem from having too many people. You can cut down a few forests, you can pump a few oil wells, you can raise cattle, the problem is having too much of that stuff to support an untenable number of people. We don't even have jobs for all of them. IMHO every country should have a means to provide birth control to anyone who wants it. A simple and effective long term attack on all of these problem, but no, it may not be enough by itself.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
> If we do not rally against it, our ability to live on this planet is at stake. I think you're speculating here, we don't actually know this. I believe the primary reason we haven't done anything yet is because the effects of increased CO2 levels haven't yet reached the scale of mass food production shortages, or a sudden increase the price of basic food stuffs. And since we can't know whether that will ever happen, we're easily able to ignore, or at least not be very concerned about, climate change. Your proposed solutions all require agreement on a global level. I can't see that happening until we actually face an immanent existential threat. And lastly, on a personal note, the reason I've stopped caring is this: people have been trying to tell us the environmental end of times is nigh for decades, and it hasn't happened. Each year we continue to produce more food and feed more people. Granted, we should probably stop burning fossil fuels, but I disagree with the reasoning. We shouldn't stop burning fossil fuels because of the CO2 output, I think that's a red herring. We should stop burning fossil fuels because of all the other junk doing so puts in our environment. More uranium has been released in to the environment by burning coal for electricity that nuclear power probably ever will.
- graeme 10y ago
  Your fifth paragraph (the personal note) is atrocious reasoning. It's the equivalent of saying "There won't be a housing crash. People have warned about that for years, but each year home prices keep rising." The effects of the carbon we're releasing vastly exceed human lifespans. So you have to be prepared for the possibility that predictions will take decades to have a visible impact. The counter to your "we produce more food and feed more people claim" is that we've done so largely by drawing down capital stocks. Stored carbon, topsoil, aquifers, etc. We can't know that those increased support numbers are proof of anything. They might be, but we'd only know in hindsight. And by then it's too late.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    Yes, I agree it is atrocious reasoning. It's probably not reasoning at all in the sense of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way. I don't care because I'm emotionally exhausted by the situation. While I do think we should do something, it's not clear to me what I should do other than occasionally shout at the screen from my chair. I suppose I could vote Green or vote with my dollar, if I thought it would help. I could put solar panels on my roof, but I'm not a home owner so I can't. I could buy an electric car but I don't have tens of thousands of spare cash, nor the desire for a vehicle loan, because I'm trying to save for the deposit on a house. Maybe what I can do is seek solace in the knowledge that future generations will be able to look back and read that I was at least angered for a brief period by the circumstances I find myself in. And in the mean time I'm going to continue doing the things I like that make living worthwhile, which means driving 200+ kilometres one or twice a month to get to the surf or the mountains in my not-so-fuel-efficient camper van, and having the occasional steak. But that's just it isn't it, if 'saving the world' means giving up the things I like, I'm not interested, really, until there is zero friction and everyone else is doing it. And this is the revealed preference of almost all of us on this planet: we're too busy surviving, or too busy enjoying, to stop for a moment and think "should we be doing these things, no? okay let's change". And even when we acknowledge we should change, we don't. We're trying, but it's mostly token gestures. All the evidence suggests that dead people, previous generations, don't care much about the environment, and since the consequences / benefits to inaction / action are multiple decades out it is very hard for us to act now. I don't believe we, the global community, will act until our ability to survive is in immediate danger.
amagumori 10y ago
I'm going to make an argument that will probably be very unpopular, but here we go. The global economic system is the primary incentive system for human behavior. Under global free-market capitalism, firms are incentivized to increase profits. Unless a superior profit incentive exists for reducing environmentally hostile practices, energy and manufacturing firms will continue to make profit-optimizing choices at the expense of the environment. With our current predominant global economic system, laissez-faire capitalism, there is no way to make firms act in an eco friendly way if it's less than optimal from a profit perspective.
- Recurecur 10y ago
  The problem is not capitalism, it's lack of ethics. Since our educational process (which used to include religious teachings promoting ethics for most people) no longer instills an ethical framework, anything goes. Transition from capitalism to some other economic system will do nothing to help, since unethical people will still maximize their experience at the expense of everything else. Witness the communist USSR - it was the worst offender in history as far as the environment goes. China, while arguably more capitalistic in recent years, is also a huge environmental offender. Until humanity in general, and the US in particular, returns to a concerted effort to improve ethically, we remain in deep trouble. That process of ethical improvement had gone on for hundreds of years, but seems to have regressed since around 1950.

lettergram 10y ago

CO2 emissions have remained relatively constant from energy producing sources since the 90's in the U.S.[1]. Obviously, this is not the case for China and the alike. However, what we also don't consider is that cattle, swine, and most of all Humans digestion produce an exorbitant amount of those emissions. I just spend ~10 minutes searching and couldn't find a source regarding how much CO2 we as humans produce, but I would guess it's a lot more than other livestock. CO2 levels have less of an impact than other chemicals on the atmosphere[2]: > It (livestock) generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure. [1]https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.ht... [2]http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772

spdustin 10y ago
Human digestion doesn't produce nearly the amount of methane as cattle. Our digestive processes don't rely so heavily on fermentation. Of course, if we stopped eating meat, our digestive processes over time would evolve to include more fermentation, so... Hard to say. But, now, humans aren't ruminants, and so produce climatically insignificant amounts of methane. Livestock doesn't even account for the majority of methane production anyway; landfills, fossil fuel production, and burning of biomass produce even more. That said, we do need to reduce our dependence on ruminants as a food source. Methane production aside, a significant amount of deforestation occurs to make grazing land for cattle. Add in carbon/methane emissions during transportation of livestock products, environmental effects of the deforestation... Cattle have a fairly large carbon "hoofprint". (I use carbon footprint, or humorous derivation thereof, to include methane, which does after all include carbon)

JoBrad 10y ago

Honestly, the whole point of worrying about climate change is its impact to humans (the earth has survived far worse over its history, and will likely survive worse in the future). The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts to humanity - arguably as much as climate change itself (i.e. doing nothing) - and has a huge upfront cost, to boot. Additionally, such extreme actions will result in large black markets that render those bans moot, and abide by very few or none of the laws and regulations we have in place to mitigate some small amount of impact to our climate, making the situation worse than it is now. The only real solution is to innovate our way out of a large amount of our polluting habits, in a way that is cost-effective. Also, I don't recall any governmental agency saying that we are taking appropriate action to save the planet. Most agencies are saying that we should start taking action, but that we've already passed the point of no return.

blondie9x 10y ago
Can you prove that one of my suggestions would have a negative impact on humanity and economic growth?
- JoBrad 10y ago
  In general, the issue I see is using a hammer to prevent people from surviving in a complex environment, vs using innovation to promote a more sustainable way to make a living. People aren't usually polluting because they love dirty air, water, hate polar bears, or even because they think it's a good thing to do. People drive cars for hours each day because there isn't a viable (cost-effective) alternative. > banning fossil fuels entirely No fossil fuels means the global delivery of goods and services comes to an immediate halt. Medicine, food, clothing, power - everything stops. We are absolutely too reliant on fossil fuels, and we have to change that. But you may be forgetting how long it took to get us hooked on one of the easiest-to-consume energy resources on the planet. Moving to a resource which takes more work to get energy from is not going to happen overnight. And if we did come up with something overnight, it's probably not thought-through enough to be a real solution. > banning deforestation This issue is much more complicated than it seems. Let's take the Amazon rainforest as an example. A large portion of the deforestation is occurring because single-family farms are clearing forest to make a farm, so they can grow crops. How do we handle situations like that without materially affecting the ability of people to support themselves?

phkahler 10y ago

I often forget the difference between deforestation and desertification. For the later, which is an even worse problem you might want to watch this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl... As for some of your other suggestions "global carbon pricing system" reminds me of cap-and-trade which is a very political process if implemented. A simpler and fairer way to do that is to simply tax hydrocarbons and coal coming out of the ground. Then the price will be passed on to whomever uses it - tax the source rather than the use, it's much simpler and less subject to political manipulation and agendas. As for changing peoples diets, why not change their reproductive habits? All of these problems stem from having too many people. You can cut down a few forests, you can pump a few oil wells, you can raise cattle, the problem is having too much of that stuff to support an untenable number of people. We don't even have jobs for all of them. IMHO every country should have a means to provide birth control to anyone who wants it. A simple and effective long term attack on all of these problem, but no, it may not be enough by itself.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

> If we do not rally against it, our ability to live on this planet is at stake. I think you're speculating here, we don't actually know this. I believe the primary reason we haven't done anything yet is because the effects of increased CO2 levels haven't yet reached the scale of mass food production shortages, or a sudden increase the price of basic food stuffs. And since we can't know whether that will ever happen, we're easily able to ignore, or at least not be very concerned about, climate change. Your proposed solutions all require agreement on a global level. I can't see that happening until we actually face an immanent existential threat. And lastly, on a personal note, the reason I've stopped caring is this: people have been trying to tell us the environmental end of times is nigh for decades, and it hasn't happened. Each year we continue to produce more food and feed more people. Granted, we should probably stop burning fossil fuels, but I disagree with the reasoning. We shouldn't stop burning fossil fuels because of the CO2 output, I think that's a red herring. We should stop burning fossil fuels because of all the other junk doing so puts in our environment. More uranium has been released in to the environment by burning coal for electricity that nuclear power probably ever will.

graeme 10y ago
Your fifth paragraph (the personal note) is atrocious reasoning. It's the equivalent of saying "There won't be a housing crash. People have warned about that for years, but each year home prices keep rising." The effects of the carbon we're releasing vastly exceed human lifespans. So you have to be prepared for the possibility that predictions will take decades to have a visible impact. The counter to your "we produce more food and feed more people claim" is that we've done so largely by drawing down capital stocks. Stored carbon, topsoil, aquifers, etc. We can't know that those increased support numbers are proof of anything. They might be, but we'd only know in hindsight. And by then it's too late.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Yes, I agree it is atrocious reasoning. It's probably not reasoning at all in the sense of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way. I don't care because I'm emotionally exhausted by the situation. While I do think we should do something, it's not clear to me what I should do other than occasionally shout at the screen from my chair. I suppose I could vote Green or vote with my dollar, if I thought it would help. I could put solar panels on my roof, but I'm not a home owner so I can't. I could buy an electric car but I don't have tens of thousands of spare cash, nor the desire for a vehicle loan, because I'm trying to save for the deposit on a house. Maybe what I can do is seek solace in the knowledge that future generations will be able to look back and read that I was at least angered for a brief period by the circumstances I find myself in. And in the mean time I'm going to continue doing the things I like that make living worthwhile, which means driving 200+ kilometres one or twice a month to get to the surf or the mountains in my not-so-fuel-efficient camper van, and having the occasional steak. But that's just it isn't it, if 'saving the world' means giving up the things I like, I'm not interested, really, until there is zero friction and everyone else is doing it. And this is the revealed preference of almost all of us on this planet: we're too busy surviving, or too busy enjoying, to stop for a moment and think "should we be doing these things, no? okay let's change". And even when we acknowledge we should change, we don't. We're trying, but it's mostly token gestures. All the evidence suggests that dead people, previous generations, don't care much about the environment, and since the consequences / benefits to inaction / action are multiple decades out it is very hard for us to act now. I don't believe we, the global community, will act until our ability to survive is in immediate danger.

amagumori 10y ago

I'm going to make an argument that will probably be very unpopular, but here we go. The global economic system is the primary incentive system for human behavior. Under global free-market capitalism, firms are incentivized to increase profits. Unless a superior profit incentive exists for reducing environmentally hostile practices, energy and manufacturing firms will continue to make profit-optimizing choices at the expense of the environment. With our current predominant global economic system, laissez-faire capitalism, there is no way to make firms act in an eco friendly way if it's less than optimal from a profit perspective.

Recurecur 10y ago
The problem is not capitalism, it's lack of ethics. Since our educational process (which used to include religious teachings promoting ethics for most people) no longer instills an ethical framework, anything goes. Transition from capitalism to some other economic system will do nothing to help, since unethical people will still maximize their experience at the expense of everything else. Witness the communist USSR - it was the worst offender in history as far as the environment goes. China, while arguably more capitalistic in recent years, is also a huge environmental offender. Until humanity in general, and the US in particular, returns to a concerted effort to improve ethically, we remain in deep trouble. That process of ethical improvement had gone on for hundreds of years, but seems to have regressed since around 1950.