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[Global Warming] : Where will YOU be when we break the planet?
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I mean, sure, let's keep up the fusion research, but let's not count on it being our salvation either.
No, I agree completely, but Climate Change is an easier sell. The idea is to start fixing things, not win Jeopardy tournies, right?
Yea, I am not disagreeing with you. I just hate that we have to change terms because people started getting reactionarially political.
Yeah, I was actually looking on Scripps for, like, a PDF or an article or something that describes the drop in O2, and I couldn't find one, and I was just like, "eh, meh, whatevs, I'll just link their main O2 dude"
Me too.
The only thing we can hope is that as time goes on people stop being so anti-science.
Like, when I was in high school I had a hard time understanding how global warming could lead to harsher winters, but once you can leap over that little hurdle there shouldn't be a problem.
A good way to go about it might be presenting the arguments as "The Effect of Global Warming on Climate Change" which is a completely accurate way to frame it, and might direct people toward understanding how rising global temperatures can lead to harsher winters.
But, I'm not a scientist so it is perhaps a bit easier to compromise on this one for me.
People don't give a shit: Winter still exists so Global Warming is a lie, herpaderp. Hense Global Climate Change.
See, the thing is, I totally prefer that extended version...but that doesn't make for effective soundbites, and thus of course it gets truncated to one or the other of those buzzwords.
The current anti-science climate (heh) is pretty interesting as well, but I think it both needs its own thread and also has been done to death.
Maybe not though!
Over the whole year. Since like 1900. The global average temperature of the planet has gone up.
Of course, we need computers to maintain that kind of development.
And one flood in Thailand wiped out about 75% of hard drive manufacturing.
So... we're kind of fucked.
I wouldn't be worried about hard drives, to be honest. Energy is far more bigger challenge.
http://wtvr.com/2012/04/09/march-cranked-up-the-heat-and-the-records/
Anyone who views the problem and solution in terms of blame and sacrifice, which is pretty much every political voice on the matter, needs to be ignored. I want to hear more from those who have actual innovative solutions.
If and when we do royally fuck ourselves into a desert, I think then we can look back and place blame, and most of it IMO will be on the heads of those, Gore included, who insisted on preaching a moral/spiritual/quasi-religious/misanthropic slant... who like most religious nuts, steadfastly denied that we could achieve salvation except through sacrifice and penance for our sins. We need to stop thinking that way, because we never solve problems that way.
We solve problems through innovation and engineering. Make an electric car that everyone wants (we're almost there). Replace coal with nuclear. Invent nanobots that eat atmoshperic carbon and shit nitrogen or something. Stop talking about how I have to do less and be less and accept less and use less and spend more for less... that leads nowhere.
Sounds like a plan!
The medieval warm period was a) less than half the temperature change we're seeing right now, b) seems more significant due to the little ice age that followed it when it was really kind of avergae, and c) was eased into over a period of some four hundred years.
It is not comparable to current climate change trends.
Additionally, I don't think they are mutually exclusive. While we have essentially "missed the boat" in terms of cutting down emissions to reduce climate impact from said emissions, the takeaway shouldn't be "welp, guess we fucked that up! Who cares at this point!"
An analogy that comes to mind is to compare the earth's climate at this point to the lungs of a chronic smoker. We essentially are past the point where quitting "smoking" won't help the damage we have done to our lungs, and we probably have cancer....but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and stop smoking.
This was a kind of tortured analogy, but to continue it- drastic restructuration of energy policy combined with bio/geo/mechanical engineering solutions are certainly how we fix the mess we are in now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't make the actual problem harder on ourselves.
We do solve problems through engineering and innovation, this is true! But we are also trying to play damage control at the same time, so we should also aggressively be pursuing emission reduction!
Turns out emission reduction is also an innovative solution, by the definition of "innovative".
That is, trying not to emit so much carbon/other greenhouse gases/pollutants is not really the de-facto standard yet, and thus it compromises an innovative solution.
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To paraphrase George Carlin:
Doesn't it seem wrong to use technology to fix the problems that technology introduced?
No, no it doesn't, actually.
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Like, we can all cut down on emissions, sure, but we do need to research into stuff as well.
Returning to the age of the Amish is a super stupid idea on how to solve climate change.
-.-
The problem is complex, but it is actually fairly well understood because it's impact is being studied by nearly every large research body on the planet. Just about every single branch of science intersects with it.
The typical 'well one side says it's fake, the other says it's a horrifying problem, so I want to sit in the middle!' attitude that humans tend to have is not the appropriate approach to an issue. Go and read the literature, both in popular science magazines & actual published papers, and make an informed opinion based on what the body of evidence is.
I don't sugar-coat uncomfortable issues in order to placate people that are ignorant and/or bigoted.
Most of the literature I've read refers to the problem as 'global warming'; only the popular press tends to use the term 'climate change', and most of the time it's because they feel that the actual data is too 'extreme' a view. I'm sorry, but that's nonsense: satellites & oceanic temperature buoys don't have political inclinations.
Climate change is also not 'more accurate' than global warming, because the problem is a warming trend caused by CO2 concentration. If anything, the term 'climate change' makes the issue murky.
But it's fine, that question just rose up out of a discussion about ways to sell it to voters. And if you think it's getting solved without that, well, good luck with that.
Certainly doesn't.
The thing is, the "let's just do everything less" message doesn't fly for all the countries that aren't western. It's barely gotten any real popularity in the west itself. We can't expect China or India to just not get the stuff we got because we say so. A focus on us simply reducing emissions isn't going to work, because the rest of the world isn't going to until they have a good reason themselves. And "oh our poor planet" isn't a good enough reason yet for them.
I mean, we'll reduce emissions anyway by replacing energy-sources and finding more efficient technologies. It isn't like it won't happen, we should just focus on being more awesome instead of less awesome.
Here's the problem with this idea:
Suppose you really did manage to convince the American public of the gravity of the situation, and they voted-in progressive politicians who laid-out legislation in order to curb a disaster.
We will still be in enormous trouble, because we still also need China, India, Canada, Mexico & Russia, at the very least, to get on board.
Here: if you can find 3 Nature articles that use the term 'climate change' instead of 'global warming', either in the heading or throughout the body of the paper, I will change the thread title.
So your suggestion is to just... what? Do nothing? Get together and build an ark and wait for the flood?
Actually, if we were willing to clad the tokomaks with nuclear fuel then we could get there quite quickly. The main problem (well, the hardest problem) facing fusion right now is finding a material which stands up well to neutron bombardment, doesn't get too radioactive when you do so, transmits heat well and maintains its physical properties across a good temperature range. Uranium does that, you just get left with weopons grade plutonium at the end. Then you could probably get a continuous fusion reaction going on and you'd just need more efficient extraction techniques.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/about/index.html
There's also this.
http://www.nature.com/search/executeSearch?sp-advanced=true&sp-m=0&siteCode=default&sp-q=&sp-p=all&sp-q-2=&sp-p-2=all&sp-q-3=climate+change&sp-p-3=all&sp-q-4=&sp-q-5=&sp-q-6=&sp-q-10=&sp-q-11=&sp-q-12=&sp-start-month=&sp-start-year=&sp-end-month=&sp-end-year=&sp-date-range=0&sp-q-8=&sp-s=date_descending&sp-c=25
Informed policy makers have to be willing to say, "Sorry, but the public is just wrong. I am going to impose legislation that is not popular, for everyone's safety, because the academic community has shown me that this is a real problem."
That...actually is Canada's current stance. (Not the ark thing, the do nothing thing). "The BRIC isn't buying in to Kyoto? Well it's a waste of time then, we're out. FYI, if anyone needs fuel for totally unregulated industry...we left some flyers at the door."
And I'm sure that these informed policy makers are going to appear out of no where.
Schrodinger's cake must be delicious.
Well, I just made a promise I can't keep. I can't make the title change while jailed.
If a mod is reading this, could you change the thread title from [Global Warming] to [Climate Change]?
We could batsignal it?
And, if the US did act unilaterally we would find ourselves at a GIGANTIC comparative advantage as other nations tried to continue using high energy/high pollution technology. If we had acres of solar panels, dozens of nuclear power plants, biodiesel production and so on as the price of energy skyrocketed we would retain good access to energy. If we built low impact farmland and restored rivers,deltas and marshlands then temperature change and subsequent stress on local species would be buffered and productivity would remain higher. If we lowered water use in our cities and industry then lower rainfall would not diminish our industrial and agricultural capacity so much and mass death from thirst/dirty water could be avoided. If we installed white roofs on our homes and reflected sunlight as much as possible from all non-agricultural surfaces then again we'd save energy and urban heat island effects would be diminished which would lower ambient temperatures slightly, encourage rainfall and lower water stress in cities. if we planted forest, espescially heat tolerant trees, then water retention in the soil would be improved and each drop of rain would be used more efficiently. In adition carbon would be sequestered and oxygen would be generated, buffering the CO2 increase.
So if the US acts, and noone else does, then the US survives as do many of the species in it and the rest of the world burns. Hell, we might even be able to move fast enough to develop good enough tech to avoid the problem entirely.
There really is no reason to not act. Yes we can't save the planet alone, but we could save ourselves. It's like saying that if a ship is sinking due to someone knocking holes in the side you shouldn't put on a life vest. Yes, being in the water is going to suck and you'll be cold and wet, but you'll definately die if you do nothing.
Policy makers are currently informed. Your current president, for example, knows about the problem but doesn't want to appear 'extremist' or 'alarmist', so he hasn't proposed any large changes. Your body of senators are mostly well-informed, but about half of them don't give a shit about the future because, well, they'll be dead soon enough anyway.