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> Indeed there are so many things one could be concerned about.. > - An asteroid could wipe out all life on Earth. - The supervolcano known as Yellowstone migh
by Melouv 7y ago
> Indeed there are so many things one could be concerned about..
> - An asteroid could wipe out all life on Earth. - The supervolcano known as Yellowstone might erupt. Again. - Supernova gamma ray burst might hit the planet, sterilising it (and us). - A massive and catastrophic solar flare hitting Earth. - If Carl Sagan is correct, and extra-terrestrial intelligent life does exist, and they turn out to be belligerant, Earth could be attacked. - A global pandemic caused by some super-disease suddenly emerging.
True, all of these things are out of our control and also not currently happening. Climate change is and we can also do something about it.
> And this is 100% going to happen: our own life-giving star, Sol, WILL destroy the planet in a few billion years time.
Ehh sure, this and the above paragraph are prime examples of what-aboutism. This is generally not useful for solving problems.
> I am yet to be convinced human beings are responsible for a changing global climate. Global Climate Change is a thing, yes, and that climate has been changing since the formation of planet Earth 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years ago.
Yes the climate has been changing. It generally did not change at the rate we're seeing now.
It might not be manmade but that would make timing (right after the industrial revolution, coal power plants, plastic, etc that all happened at a __very__ large scale recently) a huge coincidence.
I don't think humans can possibly affect this planet in terms of /global/ Climate Change in any measurable magnitude. There are forces which affect and cause /global/ Climate Change which are vastly more powerful than us mere humans.
Maybe it helps to think about it like that; Humans aren't changing the climate - you're right. But corporations are doing it to satisfy human demand.
While corporations are run by us they exhibit vastly different behavior as well as operating at a completely different scale than us.
> Humans can affect their local climate for sure - a city has a different local climate compared to an equivalent area of wildland. All that tarmac and concrete does have an effect locally. But to suggest that the human race - which inhabits a small percentage of the landcover of a planet of which two thirds of its surface is water - is the main cause of Climate Change, reeks of hubris and agenda.
We use most of that land cover for agriculture and changing it by deforestation etc. The water parts of earth are.. Well I don't really see your point there. 1/3 is a looot of area to affect, surely enough to change the climate by a tiny bit (2 deg) which then causes runaway effects. It throws the system off balance.
> The best thing we humans can do is to put things into perspective, deal with a dynamic, ever-changing global climate which is out of our control, try our best to keep the place tidy - we do need more effort on that front - do what we humans are great at doing which is coming up with great and new technologies (I'm looking at you, fusion power to be a workable thing within my lifetime!), and make the most of our individual limited time on this Earth by following your aspirations and fulfilling your potential.
I think you're right here. In the end it doesn't after what causes climate change anyway - it is happening and it is killing us so we need to do something about it.
Thing is, if we don't know the cause for these extreme rates this will be hard. Humans seem like a very likely cause here and the specific sources (e.g. coal, flying) are conveniently in our control. So even if you're still not sure, acting as if we're the cause is a good action plan, don't you think?
- chr1 7y ago> it is happening and it is killing us While the "it is happening" part has good amount of supporting data and is almost certainly true, the killing us part is much more questionable, most predictions agree that if we do nothing it will cause <10% gdp loss in 2100 compared to the scenario where it did not happen. So we need to make sure that whatever we do to prevent climate change doesn't cause more economic loss than climate change itself, and mostly invest in developing new technology and helping poor countries to become richer.
- esotericn 7y agoThought experiment: tomorrow we delete the countries of Africa. Literally gone, the continent ceases to exist. Maybe we keep SA and the northern bits like Tunisia etc. Global GDP probably declines less than 10%, right? You can't reduce everything to money in these terms.
- chr1 7y agoThat's a very important point, and i should have mentioned it in my comment. In 100 years the poor countries will be much richer, and we have opportunity to help improve their situation sooner which in turn would help everyone by making markets larger and increasing the number of people working on science. In some cases helping this countries directly will have more effect than wasting money on biofuel subsidies. Bjørn Lomborg have many interesting talks/writings about this issue.