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The Coming Climate Catastrophe- Can Countries Control it Collectively?
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Seriously, though, I'm pretty sure that nowhere near the above mentioned 97% of climatologists believe that such a doomsday scenario is likely. There's quite a bit of a leap from "Global warming is occurring, and human activities have something to do with it", to "water shortages, famine, and mass ecological disaster".
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
You might be thinking of a study last year on Greenland that found it was melting at a slower rate than it was before. The reason for this is that all the "easy to melt ice" went ahead and melted, now they're down to the tougher stuff. In the early 2000s, the melting rates were all projected based on current melting. But now glaciologists know how to nuance their projections to take into account different 'kinds' of ice.
Uh, no. Water scarcity, sea level rise, and destruction of agricultural areas is all in the "likely" box, depending on how much heating your talking about. The real doomsday scenarios- the nightmare stuff like the clathrate gun hypothesis- don't seem too likely at this point. But we're still gonna get hit by huge costs due to our changing of the climate.
This is deeply unethical and insane. "At least not as far as human existence is concerned" ? You mean like human existence in Bangladesh? Tell me, o' Kevin Nash, how is the market going to handle millions of people displaced by sea level rise and drought having to migrate? Often across national borders?
"Addressed by technological advances..." the market doesn't just miraculously shit out a technological advance when you need it. There's no guarantee whatsoever we'll develop the ability to reverse what we've done.
And remember, CO2 has a long tail. It stays in the atmosphere for a damn long time. Any emissions we put out, we're stuck with. That's the problem with CO2- it can accumulate, it can change the radiative balance of the atmosphere for the long term. So any delay in action just makes the problem worse when we finally decide we have to do something.
Proof is for math. Theories are for science. You've displayed no indication you understand the distinction, or really, understand science at all.
You don't know the difference between climate and weather and yet you claim enough authority to dispel the scientific consensus of every geoscience institution on the entire planet as hysteria?
No what's fucking asinine is some libertarian saying that this will destroy the world economy- when every sane analysis says it'll save us all money. What's asinine is taking a "wait and see approach" when we've been doing that for twenty years. We've waited and we've seen.
"Some hippies" is the entire geoscience community, with like, ten exceptions for some dudes who think it's cosmic rays.
Jesus Christ, this is a no-brainer. Save the Earth, save the Market. How well do you think the Dow is going to trade on the day the levees break in New York?
What about this, coal power kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year from measurable pollution. We are going to hit a production wall as soon as the economy recovers with oil, leading to its inevitable peak.
Neither of these solutions are handled well by the market. In case 1 the companies doing the polluting don't care, and in case 2 the market won't react fast enough to prevent the next great global recession.
Global warming is yet another good reason to do this, I'm aware we realistically have decades before it goes from "problem" to "catastrophe", and the situation may be salvagable even then, but look at the cost to fix it today vs the cost to fix it then.
I mean, personally I think automobiles are less of a problem for global warming than coal plants simply because we aren't going to be able to keep using them more than another 2 decades to near the extent we do now. Call me a nutjob but regardless of what we do I'm betting on $8+ gallon gas in the US within 5 years. Best to alter people's habits today, and look we get to save the planet while doing it. Fancy that.
we exhale CO2. all of those effects are likely to be seen simply by our increasing population and anything you do to halt emissions will eventually happen anyway. forcing people to buy hybrid cars will hardly even slow it down. if someone doesn't come up with a way to change CO2 into O2.... well we better have a really big war or release a virus that makes 90% of the population sterile.
also, stop acting like water will all of a sudden rise 10 feet and millions of people will have to migrate all at once to other places... it won't work like that.
This is a mirror on my thinking, the markets may not like a shift to renewables and drop in consumption, but thats thinking very short term when they really won't like a shift to having to fight for food in the Thunderdome.
Okay, "human population is causing CO2 rise" is pants-on-head insane. It does not compute. Yes, we exhale CO2. Yes, there are more of us now. But we are a tiny, tiny part of that fraction. This a total distraction from the real discussion, which is the huge amount of CO2 put out by human industry releasing previously trapped CO2 from fossil fuels.
A slow and steady rise still displaces coastal dwellers.
The exhalation argument is bullshit because breathing is CARBON NEUTRAL. All that CO2 you breathe out came from a source that absorbed it - plant matter that you either ate or was eaten by something you ate.
The entire point is that we are pumping tons of carbon that was sequestered (in fossil fuels) out into the atmosphere.
the current human population exhales about 5 billion kg of Co2 per day or 1.8 trillion kg (1.8x10^12) a year. there is about 3x10^15 kg of Co2 in the atmosphere. the epa says that automobiles produce 1.37x10^12 kg per year
doesn't look like nothing to me.
Yes. Thank you. I was so busy keeping my brain from exploding I couldn't articulate this point.
The other problem is that we're steadily destroying natural sinks for carbon as well- deforestation, etc. So nature is absorbing less and we're adding more. In fact, we'd have cleared 500 PPM by now if nature wasn't taking up a lot of the slack. About 50% of what we emit is absorbed.
I mean great, the US taxes the shit out of carbon. As a result the poor probably get fucked. This is pretty much unavoidable. They bear higher costs for energy, a lot of which isn't completely able to be mitigated, and a lot of semi-skilled jobs are currently tied up in CO2 generating industries (coal mining, refinery work, construction, etc). You won't be able to cover the subsidies necessary to prevent this purely from carbon taxes and any generalized tax increase will likely doom your scenario from the get go. Demand shifts, CO2 levels fall.
Meanwhile places outside the United States will continue generating increasing CO2 levels since doing so is a fairly easy means to gain prosperity, considering the alternatives. The primacy of making people not poverty stricken will easily overwhelm any hand wringing about potential future catastrophe.
i didn't realize that there are 6 times more plants than there were in the 1800s... i thought it was actually the opposite....
or did you not why i brought up breathing?
we grow our food.
(I am dying of laughter over here.)
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
so arable land is actually increasing and not decreasing?
cool.
Take a fucking biology class. The carbon people exhale doesn't come out of nowhere, and you aren't eating coal and drinking oil.
Let me break it down for you:
1. We grow food (corn, wheat, arugula, avocados, lettuce, whatever) - during the growing process those plants take in CO2 (because that's what plants do) and store it in the form of glucose and other molecules.
2. We eat the plants and absorb the carbon storing nutrients inside.
3. Our bodies process the carbon storing nutrients, releasing the energy and separating the carbon
4. Our bodies dispose of the carbon by exhalation
GOTO 1
Alternatively:
2a. Livestock eat the plants
2b. We eat the livestock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CellRespiration.svg
If you can't accept this then you need to answer the following question:
Where is the "extra" carbon in your equation coming from?
Yes, I think about this aspect a lot.
How will this be dealt with? Imagine the perfect scenario where the U.S and Canada become carbon-neutral.
Will the neutrality of North America be able to make up for the rest of the worlds' CO2 production?
We put out how much of the CO2 on a global scale? I really have no idea so will not offer any numbers.
Well, Europe and Japan are already on board, with Latin America also cool with it to a degree. We can finance clean-energy industrialization for Africa and Latin America. Then the problem is (mostly) just India and China. It's a matter for diplomacy.
More importantly, any reduction in emissions is good for the globe. You're basically articulating a perfect solutions fallacy- the absence of a perfect, worldwide solution does not mean any individual state can't contribute. We have to start somewhere, and the US can pretty easily afford to start a major shift towards sustainable and emissions neutral sources.
No, there are a variety of ways to avoid that, some already discussed on this thread. Also, it's important to note that the fucking of poor people from an emissions tax is nothing compared to the fucking of poor people that would emerge from serious global warming. Net poor people fucking is waaaaay on the side of what would happen if we did nothing, and much harder to mitigate with public policy tools. It'd take more than a tax credit to make up for sea level rise or droughts.
No, but it would definitely help. And we can always support efforts elsewhere in the world to reduce emissions.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
Absolutely. Note, however, that the net carbon impact of the United States is still ahead of China- they're going to have to pump out what they're doing for a couple more years before their total impact is ahead of the US.
But again, it's not like it wouldn't help to have the western world go carbon efficient. It would make diplomacy easier w/ regard to the industrializing countries, and in so doing we'd have developed ways to "skip ahead" of dirty industrialization. We have a lot of these already, all we'd have to do is demonstrate their viability.
Given how climate sensitive much of China is and how badly they could fuck themselves with global warming, it's in their long-term interest to try for carbon emission reduction. But it's in their short term economic interest to catch up to the rest of the world as quickly as possible. Bridging that gap is going to be extremely difficult, but we have to try.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
I'm not sure how relations are these days, but I'm prone to think they are pretty strained. Maybe I'm wrong.
You tax the shit out of carbon in your own country, and then anything coming into the country is taxed (tariff) based on how much carbon was emitted making it. Countries that are taxing carbon production like your own country don't have to pay the tariff and free trade with those countries continues as normal.
Edit: basically if canada/USA/mexico/European union all tax their own carbon emissions but china doesn't anything coming from china to north america or europe get's carbon taxed at the point of entry.
Not likely. China sees it as a covert attempt to stall their economic progress, and (accurately) points out that the industrialized countries have the luxury of going green in modern times because they had an extremely dirty period of growth.
Relations are decent in some areas, strained in others.
I think they started outpacing us in yearly emissions in...2005, maybe? If I knew how to put images into posts, I'd go find a chart.
from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
below is a table of the changes in greenhouse gas2 emissions of some countries.[89]
Country Change in greenhouse gas
Emissions (1992-2007)
India +103%
China +150%
United States +20%
Russian Federation -20%
Japan +11%
Worldwide Total +38%
Edit: see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Put another way, Honda has cleaner cars produced more cheaply and efficiently and if the Big Three hadn't had theirs heads up their asses they could have easily copied those innovations years ago and been much better off for it.
I agree that we need to make some changes in the American life-style(big cars, carbon-emissions, dependency on foriegn oil, etc.) But I don't know if this will slow or stop the progression of Global Warming, because (a)if the damage has been done, how do we fix it? & (b) the Earth decides when it is going to change(climate wise), so if it takes a turn for a more heated Earth, are we not fucked already?
Yes, humans have played a part in the warming of the planet. Yes, the old arguements about liberals being socialists/fascists because they want more environmentally-friendly products are stagnant. However, you can't deny that some may have taken these ideas and combined them with either profitable means, trend-setter pride, or both. I hate arguements where someone says "Global warming is a myth because there is no scientific evidence" because they're fucking retarded, or (and I've been told this) "You're just being stubborn. Obviously, your not a good guy 'cause you don't care about the planet." because I (1) never said I don't care, (2) how is it stubborn that I have an opposing view, and (3) you took what I said and twisted it into something deformed to try and make me look bad. Please, go die. You'll do humanity AND the planet some good.
But I'm WAY off point. Anyways, America always seems to be a fairly liberal country(stubborn at times) so we'll be seeing some changes in our Auto industry soon enough. Also, get China on the ball. Perhaps not a complete makeover is nessecary, but it would be wise if they didn't follow in the industrial country's footsteps completely. As for taxing carbon emissions, cars should be taxed, but judging from the current economic situation, not for a while. Breathing, yes, cause if you could really find a way to do it, you should get the "Can Sell Anything" award.
Earth isn't going to incinerate into a glowing timber anytime soon, but making sure that we've got some clean are in 50-60 years would be nice.
Latin America is only cool with it because they don't have to do anything currently. And you honestly think we are going to be able to fund and maintain a clean industry industrialization for half the world? Man, why don't we just solve global warming via pixie dust, it would be about as realistic a scenario.
Actually I am espousing a cost-benefits argument. If the cost of some prohibitive tax is great, and there are small or unknown benefits, then we should not bear that cost. Hence I favor gradual changes that reduce the societal cost.
I am extremely skeptical of the claims that the tax revenue incurred from taxing carbon can remedy the harm caused to the poor. I don't actually oppose taxing externalities such as CO2 production. It is perfectly reasonable. But such a tax should be graduated to minimize societal shocks and should not be punative. Which sort of runs contrary to 'tax the shit out of it'. And we should at least make an attempt to quantify what the actual cost (as best as we can) of the externality is.
And you honestly think that America is going to engage in a global trade war over a carbon tax? We are not. Such an idea would be a political and economic catastrophe.
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It's pretty much a consensus that it's more than possible to mitigate the impact of the lower income while still having tons of money left over for infrastructure and reinvestment, but someone else will need to see if they can find the specifics on the math.
My understanding is that it's possible because the average carbon usage is much higher than the median carbon usage. Basically the higher your income the exponentially higher your energy usage (heating energy requirements increase by I believe the square of the increase square footage of home size, flying regularly is significantly worse than commuting to work, etc). That means if you take half the money that carbon taxes raise and just split it up evenly among everyone, most people get as much or more back as the tax will cost them, the people above average usage will bear an increased cost, and there's still tons of cash free to use.
The consensus is that it is happening and humans are having an impact. There is absolutely no "scientific consensus" that global warming will result in catastrophe. None. At all. In fact it's a minority opinion.
So yes it's hysteria. It's being exacerbated by people like you who claim the world will asplode because of cars and light bulbs. Global warming alarmists belong in airports handing out flyers, not shaping public policy.
You're welcome to believe that gaia is angry and ready to strike us down with lightning bolts and a rising water table. You're welcome to go live in a cave and swear off technology. What you're not welcome to do is tell me how much it should cost to drive a car, or use the internets.
China doesn't like that shit either.
I'd like to see the math if it can be dug up. Since it seems that a lot of that consumption would also be mitigated by the use of newer goods than the poor. A new house is likely to have better insulation than an aging apartment. A new car likely has more stringent emissions control than a beater. Organic food likely has a smaller carbon footprint than McDonalds. I'm amenable to the idea that this is not the case, or that it is overwhelmed by those other factors, but I'd like to see the math. And also if it takes into account the job destruction that will be caused by the shift to higher tech green jobs. Consumption is just one side of the coin.
What do you mean by catastrophe, Kevin? You seem to be responding to a straw man. I did not suggest that we need to live in caves, for example.
A quick and dirty google finds the article I was thinking of here by Ezra Klein at American Prospect. The article is a bit light and its focused on cap and trade auctions vs free permits (basically generating revenue versus only limiting emissions) but it links to the CBO analysis and the math for any tax is the same.
This also doesn't deal with jobs, but I find it hard to believe there's going to be a net job lost in at least the short or mid term. Immediately, there should be minimal job losses because the tax is just an extra cost that for the most part will be passed on to the consumer. As new technologies are developed they'll create new jobs ahead of the job destruction in dirty industries. In the longer term there will possibly be some job lose as consumption is cut back, but that's more than likely a necessary occurrence (6 billion can't consume at the same level Americans currently do).
Is the climate of the earth changing?
Yes.
Are humans having a significant impact on this change?
Yes.
Will this result in catastrophe?
We don't know.
Wait, what?
Weather is inherently chaotic, and poorly understood to boot. We can't really say what will happen.
So something awesomely good could come from it?
Yes, maybe.
So something horrendously bad could come from it?
Yes, maybe.
When will we know if it will be good or bad?
We don't know.
Ok... so if we lessen our impact, how long will it take to get back to "normal"?
We don't know.
But the more change occurs the longer it will take to get back to normal, right?
Probably a lot longer, but we don't really know.
So this change is basically a gamble then? Unknown results, which we won't be able to change back? Which could be good, bad, or neutral?
Pretty much.
So if this is a gamble, whats the safest bet?
...
In addition to the "insurance" argument, in which the uncertainty of the situation still results in a logical selection of mitigation because the possible negative consequences are pretty horrific, I'd like to make a couple of comments...
"Something awesomely good" is much less likely than "Something horrendously bad." While the consensus is that it will be bad but not civilization-ending bad, the uncertainty is such that we can't rule out the possibilty of consequences far worse than we project, whereas we can more easily rule out consequences far better than our current projections.
And further, it's really unlikely that something we'd call "better" is going to come of this. Countless (non-human) species are going to become extinct, and the weather will become increasingly unstable. As I understand it, the normal mechanisms that maintain Earth's environment cannot cope with the rate of warming that is currently projected. Even if the end result were not so bad (although personally I like having things like coral reefs on my planet), the interim period while things stabilize will be pretty awful.
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