13 ms·

Climate change is one of the most interesting issues in politics because of how pure and overt the motivations of the opposition are. It's so hilarious to me t

by ralusek 10y ago

Climate change is one of the most interesting issues in politics because of how pure and overt the motivations of the opposition are. It's so hilarious to me that you can have a politician with major donations from Coal/Fossil Fuels try to legitimately discredit a trend that 98% of the scientists in this field have agreed is proven by data. I also can't think of another issue where 98% of experts in a field have empirically demonstrated with data that trends are occurring, yet we're still allowed to just "believe" or "not believe" in its occurrence.

mikeash 10y ago
It's also interesting because of how important it is. If people didn't believe the Earth was round or that smoking causes cancer, it would be sad and ridiculous but it wouldn't have a huge impact. Lots more lung cancer and heart disease deaths for the second one, but life goes on. But this is one of the few issues where convincing people it's real makes a huge difference for our civilization. It's crazy (but perhaps also expected) that it's also one of the few issues where the scientific conclusion is simply not accepted by so many.
- curiousgeorgio 10y ago
  > this is one of the few issues where convincing people it's real makes a huge difference for our civilization Without arguing over the validity of AGW here, is there really any evidence that we could make a "huge difference" as you claim? Apart from using technology to deal with extreme climate conditions, is there anything demonstrably within the realm of human possibility that could significantly delay or reverse such climate change?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    It's too late to stop it, but greatly cutting CO2 emissions will make the damage much less severe. Climate change isn't a binary proposition, where we either get it or we don't. We're pretty much locked in to some degree of change at this point, but how much change we get still depends on how much more CO2 we dump into the atmosphere.
    - malchow 10y ago
      "We're pretty much locked in to some degree" I'd say so! [1] [1] http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-change.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-cha...
    - flukus 10y ago
      > Climate change isn't a binary proposition In some ways it kind of is. If we hit the threshold of a particularly nasty feedback mechanism then we go from little impact to severe impact quite quickly.
    - curiousgeorgio 10y ago
      > cutting CO2 emissions will make the damage much less severe What does that actually mean? The best models of a few years ago predicted huge increases in the loss of life due to climate change by today, yet we continue to see a decrease in climate-related deaths (thanks to technology that helps people adapt to climate rather than the other way around). We've been wrong, not just in scale, but in the direction of the trend that (at least in my opinion) matters most. So if there is a warming trend, how much do you really think we can postpone or alleviate its effects by driving a Prius and using recycled shopping bags - in terms of human lives saved? Even under the completely unrealistic, hypothetical assumption that we could get every country on earth to make it priority #1, how does that affect the overall picture? Do you think, possibly, that kind of focus/priority might actually be a net loss if we sacrifice innovation that saves lives in the face of any climate change (as we do now) for a drop-in-the-bucket-scale difference in an otherwise unavoidable trend?
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Which models predicted a huge loss of life due to climate change by today? The technology for adapting to climate has been around for decades, so I'm skeptical that some change there has made a difference. Your mention of "recycled shopping bags" as if it had anything to do with climate change makes me suspect that you're not being entirely sincere here.
      - zbyte64 10y ago
  - MaysonL 10y ago
    Stop using fossil fuels?
    - zbyte64 10y ago
      Or at the very least stop distorting the market to favor fossil fuels over alternative energy sources.
  - strommen 10y ago
    Mitigation is the key word here. The best-case scenario is that over the next 30 years we ramp down our greenhouse emissions to zero, and the planet warms up by ~2 degrees Celsius and stays there. We're not currently on track for this, but it's still achievable (or close to it). The worst-case scenario is that we do nothing at all to solve the problem, and the planet warms up by 10+ degrees over the next century. And the temperature would continue to increase until we literally run out of fossil fuels to burn. There's a big difference between 2 and 10 degrees warming. I think modern civilization could survive the former, not so sure about the latter.
    - curiousgeorgio 10y ago
      > and the planet warms up by ~2 degrees Celsius and stays there Everything I've read from the "experts" seems to suggest that we're experiencing a runaway trend that realistically cannot be stopped, regardless of what we do. Why should we believe 10 degrees, 2 degrees, or any of the figures mentioned are possible, probable, or frankly anything more than numbers pulled from a hat when they've been absolutely wrong, pretty much every time an "expert" has made predictions for more than about 5 years (and not just wrong by a hair, but by orders of magnitude)?
      - infinite8s 10y ago
        Do you have any references to a scientific expert making a prediction that was off by orders of magnitude?
    - antisthenes 10y ago
      AFAIK, we're already committed to a 2C rise by 2100 even if we stop any and all CO2 emissions today. And those models don't take into account potential feedback loops.
  - nikdaheratik 10y ago
    By "we" do you mean the few people reading this on the forum, or all of humanity? There are a number of actions that can be taken to keep things from getting too hot to handle. People seem to be under the mistaken assumption that AGW is a problem to be solved and then we can just go have a party of something and move on with our lives. It's more like a relay race for a world record or something. Each new technology or change gives us more time to get ahead of the problem. We may not see the end of the race no matter what, we can't even know if we're ahead really until 80-100 years from now, but we just gotta do the best we can on our leg and make things easier for the next runner when we pass off the baton. Getting as much coal (especially) and oil left in the ground as possible buys us more time before something bad happens. Advancing the tech for solar and wind or putting another non-fossil fuel power plant in place buys us more time. If we had to, we could go towards more extreme strategies like solar deflection or CO2 sequestering, but those are dicey at best. The end goal isn't a world without any problems, but some place where clean energy is everywhere and the potential for war, famine, and extreme weather is better than it otherwise would be. This isn't going to happen overnight, but then the problems that caused it started 100 years ago.
deleted 10y ago
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khattam 10y ago
>you can have a politician with major donations from Coal/Fossil Fuels try to legitimately discredit a trend that 98% of the scientists in this field have agreed is proven by data Which politician? What data? >98% of experts in a field have empirically demonstrated with data that trends are occurring I would think those experts would have better things to do, but any source? What is hilarious to me is to see ignorant pseudo intellectuals who believe in political propaganda without even considering what the implications are. So, yeah, climate is changing, it always has and yes human activities affects it too. So what do your politicians do about it? Collect money from people who have no other alternative but to use the same fuel and give it to their friends, move manufacturing to different parts of the world causing more resource usage in transportation instead and pushing inferior, impractical and just as environmentally taxing technologies by subsidising them. How is any of it helping the cause again?
- zbyte64 10y ago
  Yes, experts in the field have better things to do then demonstrating the harmful effects of certain human activities /s
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  Subsidies have encouraged the renewable energy industry to explode and drop prices radically, and soon unsubsidized renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuel energy.
dv_dt 10y ago
I hate to inject politics into this forum, but my reading of the US political landscape for President is pretty grim and I think the topic is very serious. One major Presidential candidate denies climate change outright, the other one has at best a lukewarm plan (pardon the pun) and has gotten more dollars from fossil fuel donors than the climate denier (that in addition to pulling lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry into her staff). There is only one third party candidate who proposes any sort of serious push that is actually needed to combat climate change in a feasible timeframe. And even if they pull off a win, they're unlikely to get broad support from congress.
ebfe 10y ago
The correlation between race and IQ.

by ralusek 10y ago

mikeash 10y ago

It's also interesting because of how important it is. If people didn't believe the Earth was round or that smoking causes cancer, it would be sad and ridiculous but it wouldn't have a huge impact. Lots more lung cancer and heart disease deaths for the second one, but life goes on. But this is one of the few issues where convincing people it's real makes a huge difference for our civilization. It's crazy (but perhaps also expected) that it's also one of the few issues where the scientific conclusion is simply not accepted by so many.

curiousgeorgio 10y ago
> this is one of the few issues where convincing people it's real makes a huge difference for our civilization Without arguing over the validity of AGW here, is there really any evidence that we could make a "huge difference" as you claim? Apart from using technology to deal with extreme climate conditions, is there anything demonstrably within the realm of human possibility that could significantly delay or reverse such climate change?
- mikeash 10y ago
  It's too late to stop it, but greatly cutting CO2 emissions will make the damage much less severe. Climate change isn't a binary proposition, where we either get it or we don't. We're pretty much locked in to some degree of change at this point, but how much change we get still depends on how much more CO2 we dump into the atmosphere.
  - malchow 10y ago
    "We're pretty much locked in to some degree" I'd say so! [1] [1] http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-change.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-cha...
  - flukus 10y ago
    > Climate change isn't a binary proposition In some ways it kind of is. If we hit the threshold of a particularly nasty feedback mechanism then we go from little impact to severe impact quite quickly.
  - curiousgeorgio 10y ago
    > cutting CO2 emissions will make the damage much less severe What does that actually mean? The best models of a few years ago predicted huge increases in the loss of life due to climate change by today, yet we continue to see a decrease in climate-related deaths (thanks to technology that helps people adapt to climate rather than the other way around). We've been wrong, not just in scale, but in the direction of the trend that (at least in my opinion) matters most. So if there is a warming trend, how much do you really think we can postpone or alleviate its effects by driving a Prius and using recycled shopping bags - in terms of human lives saved? Even under the completely unrealistic, hypothetical assumption that we could get every country on earth to make it priority #1, how does that affect the overall picture? Do you think, possibly, that kind of focus/priority might actually be a net loss if we sacrifice innovation that saves lives in the face of any climate change (as we do now) for a drop-in-the-bucket-scale difference in an otherwise unavoidable trend?
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Which models predicted a huge loss of life due to climate change by today? The technology for adapting to climate has been around for decades, so I'm skeptical that some change there has made a difference. Your mention of "recycled shopping bags" as if it had anything to do with climate change makes me suspect that you're not being entirely sincere here.
    - zbyte64 10y ago
- MaysonL 10y ago
  Stop using fossil fuels?
  - zbyte64 10y ago
    Or at the very least stop distorting the market to favor fossil fuels over alternative energy sources.
- strommen 10y ago
  Mitigation is the key word here. The best-case scenario is that over the next 30 years we ramp down our greenhouse emissions to zero, and the planet warms up by ~2 degrees Celsius and stays there. We're not currently on track for this, but it's still achievable (or close to it). The worst-case scenario is that we do nothing at all to solve the problem, and the planet warms up by 10+ degrees over the next century. And the temperature would continue to increase until we literally run out of fossil fuels to burn. There's a big difference between 2 and 10 degrees warming. I think modern civilization could survive the former, not so sure about the latter.
  - curiousgeorgio 10y ago
    > and the planet warms up by ~2 degrees Celsius and stays there Everything I've read from the "experts" seems to suggest that we're experiencing a runaway trend that realistically cannot be stopped, regardless of what we do. Why should we believe 10 degrees, 2 degrees, or any of the figures mentioned are possible, probable, or frankly anything more than numbers pulled from a hat when they've been absolutely wrong, pretty much every time an "expert" has made predictions for more than about 5 years (and not just wrong by a hair, but by orders of magnitude)?
    - infinite8s 10y ago
      Do you have any references to a scientific expert making a prediction that was off by orders of magnitude?
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    AFAIK, we're already committed to a 2C rise by 2100 even if we stop any and all CO2 emissions today. And those models don't take into account potential feedback loops.
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  By "we" do you mean the few people reading this on the forum, or all of humanity? There are a number of actions that can be taken to keep things from getting too hot to handle. People seem to be under the mistaken assumption that AGW is a problem to be solved and then we can just go have a party of something and move on with our lives. It's more like a relay race for a world record or something. Each new technology or change gives us more time to get ahead of the problem. We may not see the end of the race no matter what, we can't even know if we're ahead really until 80-100 years from now, but we just gotta do the best we can on our leg and make things easier for the next runner when we pass off the baton. Getting as much coal (especially) and oil left in the ground as possible buys us more time before something bad happens. Advancing the tech for solar and wind or putting another non-fossil fuel power plant in place buys us more time. If we had to, we could go towards more extreme strategies like solar deflection or CO2 sequestering, but those are dicey at best. The end goal isn't a world without any problems, but some place where clean energy is everywhere and the potential for war, famine, and extreme weather is better than it otherwise would be. This isn't going to happen overnight, but then the problems that caused it started 100 years ago.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

khattam 10y ago

>you can have a politician with major donations from Coal/Fossil Fuels try to legitimately discredit a trend that 98% of the scientists in this field have agreed is proven by data Which politician? What data? >98% of experts in a field have empirically demonstrated with data that trends are occurring I would think those experts would have better things to do, but any source? What is hilarious to me is to see ignorant pseudo intellectuals who believe in political propaganda without even considering what the implications are. So, yeah, climate is changing, it always has and yes human activities affects it too. So what do your politicians do about it? Collect money from people who have no other alternative but to use the same fuel and give it to their friends, move manufacturing to different parts of the world causing more resource usage in transportation instead and pushing inferior, impractical and just as environmentally taxing technologies by subsidising them. How is any of it helping the cause again?

zbyte64 10y ago
Yes, experts in the field have better things to do then demonstrating the harmful effects of certain human activities /s
woodandsteel 10y ago
Subsidies have encouraged the renewable energy industry to explode and drop prices radically, and soon unsubsidized renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuel energy.

dv_dt 10y ago

I hate to inject politics into this forum, but my reading of the US political landscape for President is pretty grim and I think the topic is very serious. One major Presidential candidate denies climate change outright, the other one has at best a lukewarm plan (pardon the pun) and has gotten more dollars from fossil fuel donors than the climate denier (that in addition to pulling lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry into her staff). There is only one third party candidate who proposes any sort of serious push that is actually needed to combat climate change in a feasible timeframe. And even if they pull off a win, they're unlikely to get broad support from congress.

ebfe 10y ago

The correlation between race and IQ.