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Did you though the same when we were told that in 20 year the Earth would be unhabitable due to the holes in the ozone layer and that it would take hundreds of

by wtdata 7y ago

Did you though the same when we were told that in 20 year the Earth would be unhabitable due to the holes in the ozone layer and that it would take hundreds of not thousands of years to heal (that was 25 years ago btw)? How about when Al Gore told your that inconvenient truth that the sea levels world rise 100m during the next decade (that was 15 years ago btw)?

samcday 7y ago
Sure, there's been plenty of scares in the past. Many of them even seemed extremely legitimate and had plenty of esteemed voices behind them. But let's not talk in the abstract here. We're talking about climate change now. In 2019. And I believe very strongly that our planet is going through unprecedented changes that are caused by human activity. Those changes will result in suffering for a huge number of fellow members of my beloved species. If you don't believe the same things I do, that's cool. I truly hope I'm wrong and you're right.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
> holes in the ozone layer Funny you mention that. No one needed to panic, 1980s politicians appeared to remember what some of their job was. Two rather right leaning free-market monetarist politicians - Thatcher and Reagan - championed international action to phase out freon and other CFCs. Very successfully. The ozone hole closed. At the exact same time Thatcher was making speeches - to the UN and many others about the need for strong international action on climate. That was less successful. Had anyone bothered to listen we might have sorted emissions by now. Here's one snippet from her 1989 UN speech[1]: "We should work through this great organisation and its agencies to secure world-wide agreements on ways to cope with the effects of climate change, the thinning of the Ozone Layer, and the loss of precious species. We need a realistic programme of action and an equally realistic timetable. Each country has to contribute, and those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not." How prescient. > sea levels world rise 100m during the next decade He did not say that. [1] https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817 https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817
- samcday 7y ago
  I wish more of the comments here were like this. Most of my comments are rubbish troll-bait, I'm glad people like NeedMoreTea exist. Someone who can calmly and rationally make a series of excellent points grounded in fact and history :)
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    :)
- wtdata 7y ago
  The thing is, those Thatcher speeches (and of course all the movement in Europe) worked, we reduced our emissions by almost 30% in 30 years. Which makes it specially bad when a bunch of people from the comfort of their life in here, now decide they can go around with their extremist views of environmentalism causing havoc in no less than in an European country: i.e. the only set of industrialized countries that actually addressed the problem. https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ And my post was not about not taking measures, but about the catastrophic scenarios we keep being presented. > The ozone hole closed. Well, the thing is my point is exactly the exaggeration of those catastrophic scenarios: 1: we kept being told the hole would take hundreds of years to close even if we completely shuted down all CFC emissions at the time. 2: China continues to emit CFCs: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952
  - samcday 7y ago
    You made a similar point about China in one of the other siblings. But now you've expanded it to the point where you're contradicting yourself. On the one hand, you're saying that trying to tackle climate change in the UK is pointless because China is contributing the lion's share of CO2. But then on the other hand you're equating the climate change crisis to crises that have come before and were proven to be exaggerated scenarios. It might be worth you stating where you stand on climate change, otherwise I'm not really sure what points you're actually trying to make.
hannob 7y ago
> Did you though the same when we were told that in 20 year the Earth would be unhabitable due to the holes in the ozone layer Yeah, it's really strange that a planetary risk doesn't come to pass when society reacts swiftly and does what science recommends them to do (i.e. banning CFCs, which the world did in the Montreal treaty).
- wtdata 7y ago
  When counteracting what I said, you conveniently left aside: 1: The part where we, at the time, were told that the hole would take hundreds of years to close: It didn't. (Pear Reviewed article from 1996: https://www.nap.edu/read/9042/chapter/1#6 https://www.nap.edu/read/9042/chapter/1#6) 2: China is still producing those CFCs: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952
  - samcday 7y ago
    So what you're saying is, the fact we were wrong about how long it would take to recover proves that the whole thing was a farce? Your data says nothing to counter whether the ozone hole was actually a major problem (spoiler: it was). The fact that China is flaunting the rules the international community agreed on means what, exactly? The undeniable fact is the ozone hole did NOT continue to grow, because the majority of the world halted their use of CFCs. And wouldn't you know it, when we stopped using CFCs we stopped fucking up our ozone!
    - wtdata 7y ago
      > So what you're saying is, the fact we were wrong about how long it would take to recover proves that the whole thing was a farce? It proves the all thing was an exaggeration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

by wtdata 7y ago

samcday 7y ago

Sure, there's been plenty of scares in the past. Many of them even seemed extremely legitimate and had plenty of esteemed voices behind them. But let's not talk in the abstract here. We're talking about climate change now. In 2019. And I believe very strongly that our planet is going through unprecedented changes that are caused by human activity. Those changes will result in suffering for a huge number of fellow members of my beloved species. If you don't believe the same things I do, that's cool. I truly hope I'm wrong and you're right.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

> holes in the ozone layer Funny you mention that. No one needed to panic, 1980s politicians appeared to remember what some of their job was. Two rather right leaning free-market monetarist politicians - Thatcher and Reagan - championed international action to phase out freon and other CFCs. Very successfully. The ozone hole closed. At the exact same time Thatcher was making speeches - to the UN and many others about the need for strong international action on climate. That was less successful. Had anyone bothered to listen we might have sorted emissions by now. Here's one snippet from her 1989 UN speech[1]: "We should work through this great organisation and its agencies to secure world-wide agreements on ways to cope with the effects of climate change, the thinning of the Ozone Layer, and the loss of precious species. We need a realistic programme of action and an equally realistic timetable. Each country has to contribute, and those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not." How prescient. > sea levels world rise 100m during the next decade He did not say that. [1] https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817 https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817

samcday 7y ago
I wish more of the comments here were like this. Most of my comments are rubbish troll-bait, I'm glad people like NeedMoreTea exist. Someone who can calmly and rationally make a series of excellent points grounded in fact and history :)
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  :)
wtdata 7y ago
The thing is, those Thatcher speeches (and of course all the movement in Europe) worked, we reduced our emissions by almost 30% in 30 years. Which makes it specially bad when a bunch of people from the comfort of their life in here, now decide they can go around with their extremist views of environmentalism causing havoc in no less than in an European country: i.e. the only set of industrialized countries that actually addressed the problem. https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ And my post was not about not taking measures, but about the catastrophic scenarios we keep being presented. > The ozone hole closed. Well, the thing is my point is exactly the exaggeration of those catastrophic scenarios: 1: we kept being told the hole would take hundreds of years to close even if we completely shuted down all CFC emissions at the time. 2: China continues to emit CFCs: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952
- samcday 7y ago
  You made a similar point about China in one of the other siblings. But now you've expanded it to the point where you're contradicting yourself. On the one hand, you're saying that trying to tackle climate change in the UK is pointless because China is contributing the lion's share of CO2. But then on the other hand you're equating the climate change crisis to crises that have come before and were proven to be exaggerated scenarios. It might be worth you stating where you stand on climate change, otherwise I'm not really sure what points you're actually trying to make.

hannob 7y ago

> Did you though the same when we were told that in 20 year the Earth would be unhabitable due to the holes in the ozone layer Yeah, it's really strange that a planetary risk doesn't come to pass when society reacts swiftly and does what science recommends them to do (i.e. banning CFCs, which the world did in the Montreal treaty).

wtdata 7y ago
When counteracting what I said, you conveniently left aside: 1: The part where we, at the time, were told that the hole would take hundreds of years to close: It didn't. (Pear Reviewed article from 1996: https://www.nap.edu/read/9042/chapter/1#6 https://www.nap.edu/read/9042/chapter/1#6) 2: China is still producing those CFCs: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952
- samcday 7y ago
  So what you're saying is, the fact we were wrong about how long it would take to recover proves that the whole thing was a farce? Your data says nothing to counter whether the ozone hole was actually a major problem (spoiler: it was). The fact that China is flaunting the rules the international community agreed on means what, exactly? The undeniable fact is the ozone hole did NOT continue to grow, because the majority of the world halted their use of CFCs. And wouldn't you know it, when we stopped using CFCs we stopped fucking up our ozone!
  - wtdata 7y ago
    > So what you're saying is, the fact we were wrong about how long it would take to recover proves that the whole thing was a farce? It proves the all thing was an exaggeration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf