5 ms·

At the risk of being overly anecdotal, I find it interesting to see the evolution of people in my life who are anti clean energy movement. First they denied cl

At the risk of being overly anecdotal, I find it interesting to see the evolution of people in my life who are anti clean energy movement. First they denied climate change. Then they moved to saying changes were happening but it was normal global fluctuations. Now they are telling me that increased carbon will stimulate growth and help feed the world. I find it amazing. I dont truly know if global warming is a thing as I'm not a scientist studying this. I do know the vast majority of scientists are screaming we are heading for trouble. Even if they are wrong, why would we take the chance. I find people fighting a change to improve carbon and other global warming causes dumbfounding. Even if the scientist are likely wrong, the downside/cost of pursuing green tech is reasonably limited and why would you take the chance on something so profound.

Symmetry 9y ago
If you look at the effects on carbon dioxide on plant life in isolation from everything else they're right. On the other hand higher temperatures will slow down growth leading to a small net positive or negative depending on which staple crop we're talking about. And on the gripping hand shifting patterns of rainfall are liable to totally screw everything up in a way that could be totally disastrous but which is very hard to predict. But a reluctance to admit that you're wrong is a big part of human politics. Maybe we can find some way to reframe the issue so that it doesn't seem like a retreat to them?
- goatlover 9y ago
  And if the Amazon dried up considerably, we'd probably be looking at a big net loss.
  - Symmetry 9y ago
    Or the Gulf Stream shutting down and Europe freezing. Or any of a dozen other things. And the Sahara greening wouldn't make up for it because nobody lives there to farm it.
jackmott 9y ago
>Even if they are wrong, why would we take the chance Because the economic consequences of fossil fuel regulation could be massively deadly or at least disruptive as well, that is why people and companies spend millions of dollars lying about it. The balance of power of nations and corporations would be totally upended.
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  > The balance of power of nations and corporations would be totally upended. Most of these "skeptics" (accepting a very loose meaning of the word) are in the US, and given the US's massive geographical resources, of desert, planes and coastline, and its expertise in technology development, I can't see why it as a nation would object, in terms of a zero sum transfer of power between nations. The really dramatic shift would be away from the Middle East, in particular Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, and I struggle to see why the US should do anything except cheer that.
- duozerk 9y ago
  Exactly. And the very act of stopping most fossil fuel use may result in a very fast increase of warming because of the diminution of global dimming - although how much (and wether or not it's significant) is highly debatable - could be nothing, could be a straight up +1C in a few weeks. And as you said, stopping the fossil fuel use worldwide would upend our entire modern civilization, result in massive food shortages and an economic crisis, and likely significant conflicts as well. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
- tankenmate 9y ago
  Some nations however are looking ahead, look at Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Morocco in the past hasn't been a major source of fuel, however they are now creating huge solar farms and planning to export power to Spain (and the rest of Europe). And Saudi Arabia are pumping huge amounts of money in to solar farms and are home to some of the cheapest solar farms in the world, subsidy floor prices are low as 1.79 US cents per kWh according to offers for tender this month. [0] [0] https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/world-s-cheapest-prices-submitted-for-saudi-arabia-s-first-solar-project-1.663842 https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/world-s-cheapest-...
darethas 9y ago
You perfectly described the 2009 USA Today comic on the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Comic for reference: https://i.imgur.com/qbtnwmA.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qbtnwmA.jpg
lisper 9y ago
> I dont truly know if global warming is a thing There is no question that global warming is happening [1]. Even denialists will concede this. They only question the severity of the problem and whether it's man-made or natural. High temperature records are broken nearly every year nowadays. The last time we had a record low temperature was 100 years ago (though I can't find the reference at the moment). [1] http://www.climatesignals.org/data/record-high-temps-vs-record-low-temps http://www.climatesignals.org/data/record-high-temps-vs-reco...
- mikeash 9y ago
  Unfortunately, there are plenty of people out there who think it's not actually happening at all. Look for people talking about 1998 as the warmest year on record, the "global warming pause," the little ice age, cherry-picking temperature measurements, and crying foul over the techniques used to transform raw measurements into a global temperature anomaly number.
  - lisper 9y ago
    Yeah, should have said "even some denialists will concede this."
jbattle 9y ago
10-20 years from now they will all be saying "of course we wanted to do something at the time but the lefties wouldn't let us address climate change." Something about nuclear power (probably)
- tertius 9y ago
  Many lefties support Nuclear.
  - jbattle 9y ago
    I'm not saying it'll be an honest argument ;)
djsumdog 9y ago
Climate change is sadly, totally irrelevant. There are so many other types of pollution that are completely ignored due to the emphasis on CO2. In China there are factory cities with giant lakes of sludge. They expense is to make our semi-conductors, flash memory and other electrical components. There is a tremendous amount of waste from the batteries (although Li-Ion batteries are cleaner to produce than the previous generations; and Musk is building a plant in the US at least). The true problem is consumerism and planned obsolescence. Phones should last 10 years. They should have standard components like a PC. There should be one kernel that runs on all of them, like a PC. Old laptops should be re-purposed. We need to actually be able to recycle a Pentium 3 instead of shipping all our e-waste to Africa and China where kids pick through them for inefficient amounts of metals. We need to stop consuming as much stuff. We need to pay higher prices for components that last longer, have a more complete recycling cycle and companies should actually be praised for not meeting sales targets if it means their old stock is simply lasting longer and no longer needs replacement. You shouldn't buy a new laptop if the old one is "two years old and running slow." I'm not saying CO2 isn't a problem, but the sole focus on it is saddening because it's not the problem itself. It's a symptom of an extremely consumerist society. You cannot replace every gas vehicle with an electric one over the next 20 years. We simply don't have the resources. There are 4 barrels of oil that go into ever set of tiers, not to mention all the plastic and trim. We are getting more wind turbines and solar to better power those cars, yes .. cars that will simply never be built. We need to reduce cars, have better train systems in every city, live smaller, consume less and make things last. No amount of CO2 emission reduction will solve the actual problem of increasing mass consumption, not until our population starts to curb. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see any real changed in the developed world until the next bubble bursts or the next major collapse.
- gaius 9y ago
  There are so many other types of pollution that are completely ignored due to the emphasis on CO2 This is true. In the UK Gordon Brown was so obsessed with CO2 he enacted policies that actually increased particulate pollution from Diesel engines.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
mikeash 9y ago
I've seen people jump between those different arguments in the same conversation. Many deniers/skeptics/whateveryoucallthem tend to go for the strongest claim they think they can get away with, but will retreat to whatever they think might work in a given discussion. In addition to the different arguments you mention, there's also: it's manmade and harmful but not worth the cost of fighting.

Symmetry 9y ago

If you look at the effects on carbon dioxide on plant life in isolation from everything else they're right. On the other hand higher temperatures will slow down growth leading to a small net positive or negative depending on which staple crop we're talking about. And on the gripping hand shifting patterns of rainfall are liable to totally screw everything up in a way that could be totally disastrous but which is very hard to predict. But a reluctance to admit that you're wrong is a big part of human politics. Maybe we can find some way to reframe the issue so that it doesn't seem like a retreat to them?

goatlover 9y ago
And if the Amazon dried up considerably, we'd probably be looking at a big net loss.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  Or the Gulf Stream shutting down and Europe freezing. Or any of a dozen other things. And the Sahara greening wouldn't make up for it because nobody lives there to farm it.

jackmott 9y ago

>Even if they are wrong, why would we take the chance Because the economic consequences of fossil fuel regulation could be massively deadly or at least disruptive as well, that is why people and companies spend millions of dollars lying about it. The balance of power of nations and corporations would be totally upended.

Brakenshire 9y ago
> The balance of power of nations and corporations would be totally upended. Most of these "skeptics" (accepting a very loose meaning of the word) are in the US, and given the US's massive geographical resources, of desert, planes and coastline, and its expertise in technology development, I can't see why it as a nation would object, in terms of a zero sum transfer of power between nations. The really dramatic shift would be away from the Middle East, in particular Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, and I struggle to see why the US should do anything except cheer that.
duozerk 9y ago
Exactly. And the very act of stopping most fossil fuel use may result in a very fast increase of warming because of the diminution of global dimming - although how much (and wether or not it's significant) is highly debatable - could be nothing, could be a straight up +1C in a few weeks. And as you said, stopping the fossil fuel use worldwide would upend our entire modern civilization, result in massive food shortages and an economic crisis, and likely significant conflicts as well. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
tankenmate 9y ago
Some nations however are looking ahead, look at Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Morocco in the past hasn't been a major source of fuel, however they are now creating huge solar farms and planning to export power to Spain (and the rest of Europe). And Saudi Arabia are pumping huge amounts of money in to solar farms and are home to some of the cheapest solar farms in the world, subsidy floor prices are low as 1.79 US cents per kWh according to offers for tender this month. [0] [0] https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/world-s-cheapest-prices-submitted-for-saudi-arabia-s-first-solar-project-1.663842 https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/world-s-cheapest-...

darethas 9y ago

You perfectly described the 2009 USA Today comic on the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
Comic for reference: https://i.imgur.com/qbtnwmA.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qbtnwmA.jpg

lisper 9y ago

> I dont truly know if global warming is a thing There is no question that global warming is happening [1]. Even denialists will concede this. They only question the severity of the problem and whether it's man-made or natural. High temperature records are broken nearly every year nowadays. The last time we had a record low temperature was 100 years ago (though I can't find the reference at the moment). [1] http://www.climatesignals.org/data/record-high-temps-vs-record-low-temps http://www.climatesignals.org/data/record-high-temps-vs-reco...

mikeash 9y ago
Unfortunately, there are plenty of people out there who think it's not actually happening at all. Look for people talking about 1998 as the warmest year on record, the "global warming pause," the little ice age, cherry-picking temperature measurements, and crying foul over the techniques used to transform raw measurements into a global temperature anomaly number.
- lisper 9y ago
  Yeah, should have said "even some denialists will concede this."

jbattle 9y ago

10-20 years from now they will all be saying "of course we wanted to do something at the time but the lefties wouldn't let us address climate change." Something about nuclear power (probably)

tertius 9y ago
Many lefties support Nuclear.
- jbattle 9y ago
  I'm not saying it'll be an honest argument ;)

djsumdog 9y ago

Climate change is sadly, totally irrelevant. There are so many other types of pollution that are completely ignored due to the emphasis on CO2. In China there are factory cities with giant lakes of sludge. They expense is to make our semi-conductors, flash memory and other electrical components. There is a tremendous amount of waste from the batteries (although Li-Ion batteries are cleaner to produce than the previous generations; and Musk is building a plant in the US at least). The true problem is consumerism and planned obsolescence. Phones should last 10 years. They should have standard components like a PC. There should be one kernel that runs on all of them, like a PC. Old laptops should be re-purposed. We need to actually be able to recycle a Pentium 3 instead of shipping all our e-waste to Africa and China where kids pick through them for inefficient amounts of metals. We need to stop consuming as much stuff. We need to pay higher prices for components that last longer, have a more complete recycling cycle and companies should actually be praised for not meeting sales targets if it means their old stock is simply lasting longer and no longer needs replacement. You shouldn't buy a new laptop if the old one is "two years old and running slow." I'm not saying CO2 isn't a problem, but the sole focus on it is saddening because it's not the problem itself. It's a symptom of an extremely consumerist society. You cannot replace every gas vehicle with an electric one over the next 20 years. We simply don't have the resources. There are 4 barrels of oil that go into ever set of tiers, not to mention all the plastic and trim. We are getting more wind turbines and solar to better power those cars, yes .. cars that will simply never be built. We need to reduce cars, have better train systems in every city, live smaller, consume less and make things last. No amount of CO2 emission reduction will solve the actual problem of increasing mass consumption, not until our population starts to curb. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see any real changed in the developed world until the next bubble bursts or the next major collapse.

gaius 9y ago
There are so many other types of pollution that are completely ignored due to the emphasis on CO2 This is true. In the UK Gordon Brown was so obsessed with CO2 he enacted policies that actually increased particulate pollution from Diesel engines.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

mikeash 9y ago

I've seen people jump between those different arguments in the same conversation. Many deniers/skeptics/whateveryoucallthem tend to go for the strongest claim they think they can get away with, but will retreat to whatever they think might work in a given discussion. In addition to the different arguments you mention, there's also: it's manmade and harmful but not worth the cost of fighting.