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That is because they will be busy dealing with the inevitable wars that catastrophic climate effects would trigger. If we do nothing about climate change there

That is because they will be busy dealing with the inevitable wars that catastrophic climate effects would trigger. If we do nothing about climate change there will be a major shift in which parts of the world are habitable and where food can be efficiently produced, and that will almost certainly mean wars will be fought. The problem is that to do anything about climate change we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. We need to be willing to spend the time and money and effort on a massive reorganization of our civilization to make it less dependent on fossil fuels, which among other things will require us to use less energy to live our lives. The sad part is that most of the work will not require new technologies or significant research efforts; we just need to bite the bullet and deploy the technologies we already have.

yostrovs 8y ago
I've yet to see a single individual lead a life like the one you and everyone screaming about global warming is calling for. Not Al Gore, not the science guy, not the astrophysicist, no one. There is no one. Please stop looking to average people to change their lives completely when you're not willing to do it.
- xienze 8y ago
  > I've yet to see a single individual lead a life like the one you and everyone screaming about global warming is calling for. Not Al Gore, not the science guy, not the astrophysicist, no one. Well that's because all you need to do is shift money and "offset credits" around to solve the problem, not actually cut emissions!
- betterunix2 8y ago
  First of all, I said we need to reorganize our society, so the existence of one or two hypocrites is totally irrelevant. Reorganizing society means changing how cities are planned, how, when, and where roads are built, and changes in the regulations of whole industries. One person's behavior is not really the issue here. The issue is how hundreds of millions of people go about their daily lives. That aside, I already live in a place where the majority of people do not own a car (and I did not even get a driver's license until I was 25 years old), and of those that do the majority do not use their car in their daily commute. As a first step we should reorganize other cities and their suburbs to be less automobile-centric and to be more walkable and to have more effective public transit. There are local efforts underway even in very conservative areas of the United States (Salt Lake City comes to mind), but we need a larger effort that is part of a national strategy. The only thing holding us back is fear of change and an attitude of laziness (which is what the "it's too expensive and hard to do" argument represents -- especially given the fact that we already did something at that scale in the 20th century when we reorganized our society to support a car-based commute), and both of those are problems that require competent leadership more than anything else.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    > The only thing holding us back is fear of change and an attitude of laziness Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. > especially given the fact that we already did something at that scale in the 20th century when we reorganized our society to support a car-based commute No. We didn't rebuild the cities to do that, for the most part. We built the new growth in a different way than the existing cities. But fixing the existing setup to be less car dependent would require a whole lot of rebuilding. (You mention Salt Lake City. Trax and Frontrunner are fine, but they haven't emptied I-15. You want to change Salt Lake so that I-15 is empty? You're going to have to do a lot more than extend Trax.)
    - chimprich 8y ago
      > Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. Not doing it will likely be more expensive. There have been plausible studies that indicate the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change is significantly greater than what it would cost to avoid it.
    - arbitrary_name 8y ago
      So, instead of rebuild, legislate to ensure forward planning and ongoing redevelopment is progressive and sustainable ( let's leave the definition of that alone for this conversation). Tearing down and rebuilding is not the only option. And as another commenter notes, the cost of dealing directly with climate change could be orders of magnitude higher. So let's try to have a more open and honest debate rather than covering our ears and shouting :)
      - yostrovs 8y ago
        Yes, please try that. That includes saying something new in your comments instead of simply lecturing others how to behave.

yostrovs 8y ago

I've yet to see a single individual lead a life like the one you and everyone screaming about global warming is calling for. Not Al Gore, not the science guy, not the astrophysicist, no one. There is no one. Please stop looking to average people to change their lives completely when you're not willing to do it.

xienze 8y ago
> I've yet to see a single individual lead a life like the one you and everyone screaming about global warming is calling for. Not Al Gore, not the science guy, not the astrophysicist, no one. Well that's because all you need to do is shift money and "offset credits" around to solve the problem, not actually cut emissions!
betterunix2 8y ago
First of all, I said we need to reorganize our society, so the existence of one or two hypocrites is totally irrelevant. Reorganizing society means changing how cities are planned, how, when, and where roads are built, and changes in the regulations of whole industries. One person's behavior is not really the issue here. The issue is how hundreds of millions of people go about their daily lives. That aside, I already live in a place where the majority of people do not own a car (and I did not even get a driver's license until I was 25 years old), and of those that do the majority do not use their car in their daily commute. As a first step we should reorganize other cities and their suburbs to be less automobile-centric and to be more walkable and to have more effective public transit. There are local efforts underway even in very conservative areas of the United States (Salt Lake City comes to mind), but we need a larger effort that is part of a national strategy. The only thing holding us back is fear of change and an attitude of laziness (which is what the "it's too expensive and hard to do" argument represents -- especially given the fact that we already did something at that scale in the 20th century when we reorganized our society to support a car-based commute), and both of those are problems that require competent leadership more than anything else.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  > The only thing holding us back is fear of change and an attitude of laziness Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. > especially given the fact that we already did something at that scale in the 20th century when we reorganized our society to support a car-based commute No. We didn't rebuild the cities to do that, for the most part. We built the new growth in a different way than the existing cities. But fixing the existing setup to be less car dependent would require a whole lot of rebuilding. (You mention Salt Lake City. Trax and Frontrunner are fine, but they haven't emptied I-15. You want to change Salt Lake so that I-15 is empty? You're going to have to do a lot more than extend Trax.)
  - chimprich 8y ago
    > Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. Not doing it will likely be more expensive. There have been plausible studies that indicate the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change is significantly greater than what it would cost to avoid it.
  - arbitrary_name 8y ago
    So, instead of rebuild, legislate to ensure forward planning and ongoing redevelopment is progressive and sustainable ( let's leave the definition of that alone for this conversation). Tearing down and rebuilding is not the only option. And as another commenter notes, the cost of dealing directly with climate change could be orders of magnitude higher. So let's try to have a more open and honest debate rather than covering our ears and shouting :)
    - yostrovs 8y ago
      Yes, please try that. That includes saying something new in your comments instead of simply lecturing others how to behave.