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Convincing people that global warming is a real thing
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I made a crude update to the graph posted earlier, unfortunately I'm at work so only have access to Pages so it's not exact:
Given that the graph goes by 10,000 year increments I had to put the line straight up to reflect such a small amount of time. About a 100ppmv increase in 60 years.
You can see another 100ppmv increase on the graph from 200-300 about 330,000 years ago. That jump took about 10,000 years though.
EDIT: I think I accidently resized the graph on upload... I'll try that again.
I mean, it's already estimated that a sixth of the world's population is starving. Are the consequences of climate change greater than "poor people are even more fucked"?
Generally most have targets are stopping further growth from a certain point in the past, which does mean reductions from today. It's usually either 2005, 2000, or 1990 (IIRC) and then sometimes a certain percentage below those levels by 2020 or 2050. And I really don't consider cutting emissions in half by 2050 to be so unrealistic provided that structural systems are put in place in order to promote better living patterns.
When you look at how much of the pollution is literally produced in order to promote wasteful practices it should cheer you up because that's a loss that can be completely eliminated while improving standards of living rather than confirming the demagogue's fears of forcing everybody to go Amish or something. A lot of places have reached 'peak suburb' and a lot of officials are taking a holistic approach and more sustainable view towards a great deal of land-use, transportation, and development patterns. That alone accounts for most of emissions. Cleaning up industry can take a long while if we just stop acting stupid in everyday life.
Ah ha ha ha ha
I'm sorry if I came across dickish when I refuted that graph.
I've had worse... what with not being quite as left-wing as a lot of the people I associate with in person and on the internets. =)
Care to post some examples? Also, what can realistically be done to get people to give up wasteful practices that hasn't been done yet?
More vice taxes, or simply outlawing products... it sucks, but it would work. At least to some extent.
Edit: Also, things like better public transit... or simple (though sometimes expensive) changes like "green roofs" on buildings in city centers.
Also for the hard left. Hippies need to suck it up and embrace our brilliant atomic future.
This and a whoooole lot of other really cheap solutions.
How much glazing do you have on the southside facade of your house or any other building you interact with? How many of them have sun shades, light shelves, and/or awnings on them? Why not?
This isn't an issue of wasteful like 'people are littering half eaten sandwiches' wasteful, it's more like 'people are being made to pay a great deal of money in order to feel more uncomfortable for no real reason' kinds of wasteful. Eliminating traffic congestion would save $87bn per year and 3bn gallons of gas (meaning a great deal of pollution from being emitted into the atmosphere) and 4bn hours (500,000 years) of wasted time collectively. I can't imagine too many people fighting tooth and nail in order to keep their extra 20 minutes tacked onto a commute moving at a crawl.
So you want to ration my clusterfuck of a commute? What are you, Canadian?
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Says the guy with the Dr. Strangelove avatar
How much would it actually cost to eliminate traffic congestion, though?
It's not even that, it's creating more options and choices amongst the populace. A number of which are already being promoted in spite of governmental agencies rather than in compliment with them. Housing prices near transit stations/nodes are the only places where the prices are rising meanwhile exurban homes collapsed worse than anywhere else. This is sort of part of the whole 'peak suburb' thing I was talking about. Seeing how there's only so much real estate next to a transit connection the most obvious solution to bringing prices down (and profit off of it) is to increase the number of transit hubs, thus transforming the real estate nearby. &c.
And this is just with regards to public trans. Never mind land use tweaks, zoning changes, and other 'smart growth' stuff that would also have a big dent. And never mind materials and building design that would eliminate tons of wasted power demand without even doing the cool stuff like BIPV's and tromb walls and shit that could cost $Connecticut.
With enough climate shift you end up with enough convergent problems that the various stabilizing elements of modern society are worn away and eventually it collapses (but in one of those slow, "how did we end up here?" sort of ways where you suddenly realize that there weren't always guard towers that shot outsiders behind barb-wire fences).
If we end up with a rise in sea levels, fisheries dying out, increasing salinity in farmland/desertification - enough little things all happening at the same time because of climate change, then we start to be in real trouble and you need to start wondering "am I within the top X% of the wealthy who will comfortably survive things like this?"
Americans should be doubly worried since you definitely don't have the history or governmental belief in looking after the welfare of your citizenry to not have bad things happen to you.
Less monies than it would create via economic expansion, even if we ignore the cost of pollution.
In 2002 public trans. got $12.5b in public subsidy. That paid for $19.4b in congestion savings, $8.0b in roadway cost savings, $12.1b in parking cost savings, $22.6b in consumer cost saving, and $5.6b in reduced crash damages. [cite]
By not subsidizing everything so as to be effectively free?
If you aren't paying for something it is going to be wasted. That's just the basics of economics and human nature. Change the rules and suddenly people act differently to suit the new environment. It's the basis of the flaw of projection, because projecting anything out far enough presumes the impossible. That nothing ever changes due to conditions.
So you're saying I need to go ahead and buy a gun for killing myself while I can still afford it?
Oh pshaw.
I'd just like to clarify that I'm only half-joking.
Did anyone point out that this never happened? There was never a scientific consensus that the world was heading into another ice age? That this is just another talking point trotted out by global warming deniers?
You talk about educating yourself, but you didn't bother to look this one up?
Here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole/#more-536
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
you are
You still probably should before Obama takes 'em all.
Temperatures are bound to change just because of changes in earth's orbit, tilt, etc. Milankovitch cycles, sunspots, all sorts of crap. I no longer buy the CO2 emissions are dooming us nonsense. Perhaps if it does have a minor effect, yet if I does I would it is negligible. Some nonsense carbon credit, cap and trade scheme isn't going to do shit. Efforts taken to suppress those skeptical of global warming haven't done anything to change my opinion either. Seems global warming has increasingly become a tool to promote all sorts of policies.
Now I support reducing pollution in general, cutting oil use, and more nuclear power including removing old restriction on reprocessing. But we shouldn't keep shooting us in the foot with this CO2 madness. We should take advantage of the coal we have converting it to synthetic oil when needed, etc.
British publisher and writer Ernest Benn [1875-1954]
YES! DAMN SCIENCE! What with the providing reasonable answers and all to the skepticism!
I seriously doubt you ever "bought" it.
Maybe you should come in saying why it is wrong rather than just declaring it wrong because it is some kind of suppressive conspiracy.
You should realize that a couple degree shift in global temperature does not mean there is a universal constant in the increase of local temperatures and that it would likely lead to further extremes of local climates rather than just making a prototypical 70° day into a 75° day.
I'm also rather surprised at your dismissal of market based economics. Particularly given a wildly successful program that can act as a direct comparison.
How are they being suppressed?
They don't get facts.
It's completely unfair that the people who think human influenced global warming is the case have facts on which they can support their claims but those skeptical of global warming get no facts upon which to base their claim.
I think the best thing for you would be to move away from civilization, where you can't hear any information about anything, buy some land and liquor and just enjoy life because you are incredibly irrational and naive about every negative thing you ever hear. Then again, this could have a lot to do with your age.
I used to actually. One year I had an earth science professor I had was rather skeptical of the whole thing and figured if it was true we would run out of resources and nuke each other long before it becomes a serious problem anyway. He urged people to come to their own conclusions on the matter.
I am not claiming a massive conspiracy. But manmade global warming "deniers" are immediately jumped on for dare questioning the scienceâ„¢ behind it. Consider what happened here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124657655235589119.html
Also we are always finding out shit like this.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090423205104.htm
Another interesting opinion piece.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4990704/Nobody-listens-to-the-real-climate-change-experts.html
British publisher and writer Ernest Benn [1875-1954]
For some reason I don't see why that debunks global warming at all.
There is an incredible majority of scientists and organisations that support the idea that Climate Change is happening. Read This handy list on wikipedia.
They mostly have the benefit that unlike nuclear radiation, climate change only really affects poor people first.
But at this point we can't do anything about it.
Primarily because even if everyone in the US half'd their output you've still got the rest of the world to worry about. It's always on us.
So in other words, we're fucked eventually no matter what, so enjoy life while you can.
The Earth has natural cycles and much bigger ups and downs than we'd like. We'd like it to be a perfect, unchanging environment. But that's not how it works.