I have been taking the same approach until I discovered that offsets for flights are pretty much the scam of the century. I'm on mobile right now, but let me know if you want to read something about that later.
Here is something academic on the aviation industry specifically (though I find their work a bit incomplete, because they don't address that the overall scheme is flawed, even where communication is accurate):https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02615...
Here is an assessment of carbon offsets by a certifier themselves. They hold that 30% of their offsets are "high quality". The assessment is in response to an investigation by the Guardian which found that 94% of offsets don't hold much weight: https://www.sylvera.com/blog/guardian-offsets-response
And finally, my favorite, but wordy. Because I need to see things "in action" to believe them. Here is an in-depth example of an offset project. Tldr: in that specific case, it's accounting magic. You build a model that predicts growing emissions in the future, so by just keeping emissions stable you can claim emission offsets: https://sci-hub.se/10.1057/s41265-016-0024-4
If you have any kind of reaction, or thoughts, let me know. This is part of my day-to-day work, so I am always curious to learn how to communicate things.
Thought the US only constituted for ~11% of global emissions (or something of that magnitude). If that’s true, then even if we somehow managed to make ourselves neutral it still wouldn’t make much of a difference right?
Isn’t the real issue with the massive populations of people who don’t have the wealth to pay for the cleaner options? If you’re poor and need to provide for your family, you’re going to maximise for that as opposed to the climate.
I’m not sure that American Conservatives are the issue here…
Compensating for non-uniform geographical distribution of the sensors is obviously necessary. Any claim that researchers have failed to do so requires evidence.
The irony here is when researchers obviously do compensate for this, the ignorant see this and accuse them of manipulating the data to support their agenda.
Please explain then the Scripps CO2 trend line? These measures are taken at some of the most remote places on earth. I would know because I personally collected atmospheric samples at the Alert, Nunavut sample point. The fact is we have drastically changed the composition of or atmosphere to include more CO2 and the physics is clear on the effect that has on the amount of heat retained.
It is a perspective matter of mankind’s share of contribution to nature’s CO2 level, with respect to CO2’s in constrasted toward the many different (but much greater) non-CO2 gases’ contribution of Earth atmosphere heat radiation ( absorption/scattering) therein.
Warning: napkin math, ahead:
Since CO2 represent 0.04% of Earth atmosphere whilst H2O (the biggest offending atmospheric heat radiation) is at the very most 4% ( or H2O is 100x worse) leaving us with the mankind’s measured amount that is only impacting at the very most 20% toward the CO2 level, that narrows mankind’s impact of CO2 contribution to less than 0.002% of atmosphere.
And while CO2 is less than 1/12th of total bandwidth of atmospheric radiation (in contrast to the most impactful H2O by 100x by volume) by its total bandwidth contribution toward Earth radiation, mankind’s CO2 contribution of retention to heat got narrowed down to less than 0.0017% of the Earth atmospheric heat (based on CO2 alone).
Bonus: IMHO, methane is seriously an overrated bogeyman as an impacting mean of retaining atmospheric heat but the tundra remains the largest short-term store of methane and should not be lightly discounted there; Los Banos, California (think land of million shits, cow manure) and 4-Corner New Mexico are currently the two largest man-made methane producer in US (we haven’t sufficiently quantify the thousands of poorly capped well heads left behind by ancient oil companies).
Caveat: I have made no attempt to say that a certain bandwidth/band of heat energy frequency range has more influential impact over another IR sub-band, notably entirely within the IR side of the spectrum. But my IR lab work of inter-sub-band IR preliminary shows even lesser impact by CO2 … than water vapor (H2O), but that’s my direct scientific observation of dissemination of between sub-IR band and its corresponding energy level.
Caveat: I have made no calculus (just the napkin math) but the above would be better redone using CO2 contribution share in contrast against many other gases’ share … in terms of absorption and scattering.
Chart of various gases of atmospheric radiation of biggest retention/reflective:
Sidenote: I planted several hundred trees during 1970s around one top-25 urban area as part of the city’s larger 1-million Tree project and they all now look cool today, and literally cool as in a huge shade. I should be able to boast that I did my part of CO2 reduction arguably at a larger scale when compared to my fellow men.
Sea surface temperatures are measured using a satellite. These charts are not the sea surface temperature, but the data is available for you after a brief search.
Back in 1979, suburban A had a temperature reading station, we can compare to today's readings from that same reading station.
Also back in 1979, suburban B did not have a temperature reading station but had gotten one added in (oh let's say halfway to 2001) later. How do you compensate for bias by newly-added suburban B into its overall mean when it is obvious that any suburban is warmer than a nearby forest.
There are two bias variances to consider for B, growth rate of concrete surface area and loss of forestry (for CO2), in addition to its population growth rate.
I’m not a skeptic but I’m not sure I would pick these for the most alarming charts. Crossing 1.5 is arbitrary. The sea surface spike looks less ominous with the higher 2016 anomaly in the same chart. Arctic sea ice hasn’t hit a new low for 11 years.
For 2023 I would go with Antarctic sea ice, Canadian wildfires, Great Lake snow cover, and record-breaking heat waves…
Clever might be the right word here. As we programmers know being clever sometimes leads to really stupid solutions.
As someone who read quite some of the reports and also occasionally into underlying studies I have to say that this is unarguable happening. The amount of research that went into this topic is so deep and so wide that arguing against it is basically the equivalent of closing your eyes, putting your fingers into your ears and going "Lalalala".
Being unable to do comprehensive reading and understanding basic physical processes is not a good starting points in 2023.
It has been happening inarguably for some time now, we need to accept that we won’t convince the last group and switch over to figuring out what we can do about it.
Because I am not seeing much about that, certainly not from the activists.
Meanwhile in Europe the term "Eco-terrorism" changed the meaning, from the entity which poisons or destroys the ecology to the youngsters which are gluing themselves to the art and streets in protests of politicians doing nothing. In UK they have even made a TV series about it ...
Here is the answer to Fermi paradox "Where is everyone?", - they have not passed the great filter as we probably will not pass it either ...
I feel I'm in an unusual position because I have a BSME degree. Which means I'm familiar enough with basics that I can do a very rough analysis. And when I do that what I see I makes me really nervous. And yet I know I simply can't do anything more than that because it's way to complex. Any time that happens I fall back in what technical people in the field say. And those people are terrified. The flip side is anyone not a technical practitioner I discount what they say out of hand because I know they have no ability to discern anything.
I feel like there's a really unfortunate effect where we see someone else's tribal beliefs when they say stuff that's unhinged from our collective available understanding, like blanket calling all climate change information "fake news", and it results in us strengthening our own beliefs because we know this person with the opposite belief has totally garbage methodology on the topic.
But it's not actually evidence for our beliefs, and we don't notice how it strengthens our own tribal beliefs, and so we don't notice that it's also unhinged to causally talk about "global total destruction" in this context, and only validated by tribal effects. And then our "fake news" friends notice our garbage methodology and take it as evidence for the correctness of their beliefs.
> I've given up on changing their minds. No matter how deep I analyze their data and point out the flaws, they won't budge an inch.
I think it's easy to oversimplify their views. There's a pretty good scale of belief that some would call "denial" that isn't quite that.
1. Is it because they distrust the people talking about it? Have those people been wrong previously?
2. Is it because they distrust the proposed solutions to it? Do they feel there is an ulterior agenda behind those solutions? Or do they simply feel the proposed solutions are too expensive and unreasonable [1]?
3. Is it because they distrust the idea that humans cause climate change, not just nature?
4. Do they feel that it is an important issue; but believe it is a much lower priority issue than solving food, housing, education, safety, and other issues [2]?
And so forth. I think that very often; it is distrust of the people talking about it more than the idea. Remember that the World Economic Forum talks about climate change, but also bragged about how "You will own nothing, and be happy" which was the biggest self-own of the millennium. There aren't many people I run into who say "there is no climate change, period," but there are plenty who think that it's exaggerated, meant to benefit a political cause, meant to change social behavior to benefit somebody's agenda, etc. I can't say that is 100% unwarranted. Claiming "the world is going to end unless we do my solution X" is kind of like using vinegar to attract flies.
[1] And while I'm on the "unreasonable," it's vague but extremely hard to change and quantify. We could theoretically end child molestation if we had cameras in every room of every house; but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. We could theoretically end illiteracy if we locked every child in a room with a book 24/7 until they learned to read, but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. They could easily just feel that the climate change "solutions," regardless of the science, even if they are effective, just aren't at their level of reasonable. The reasons for that could be as different and varied as grains of sand on a seashore.
[2] California doesn't do themselves any favors when they scream about climate change while having severe homelessness, housing affordability, high taxation, and other issues that affect people personally on a day-to-day level. In my personal opinion, people would be much more sympathetic to solving climate change if they had their other ducks in a row. You can't convince people to think about the future if the present is a mess. You can't convince somebody to save 20% of their income for retirement when they've got $20K in credit card debt.
In an effort to find coming ground, I’ve found it’s better to argue the idea that humans should do everything we can to control climate.
Most people I know who reject the evidence of climate change seem to be into consuming and building lots of stuff, so this angle seems to appeal to that mindset.
It makes me think—maybe it’s a complete waste of time to try to “convince the other side” or “change their minds”. What if instead we agree on an outcome, like complete and total control over the earths climate? Would that help getting folks to run in the same direction?
If you think about it; the logical conclusion of humanity in our solar system is building a Dyson sphere around the sun and controlling climate for a huge population.
It's not much, but its way better that most lifestyle changes (avoiding transatlantic flights, recycling, vegetarianism), and personally helps me feel like I am part of the solution rather than the problem.
Any reason why the specific transatlantic flights? I mean, I can understand the need to avoid frivolous flights, but if there’s a justification to fly, I would guess the transatlantic one would be less wasteful than other kinda of flights that can be served by alternative means.
Meanwhile, your equivalent in China is pointing that US CO2 emissions per capita are still way above China’s, cherry-picking the right metric to avoid any responsibility.
Also, as a European person myself don’t talk to me about Germany and Climate. Germany is a fucking joke and the worst example of a Climate friendly policy due to their rejection of nuclear. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
>Germany is a fucking joke and the worst example of a Climate friendly policy due to their rejection of nuclear.
Couldn't agree more. Funnily enough the single most important reason Germany abandoned nuclear is because of the Green party, which promotes itself as the climate party.
That they singlehandidly returned Germany to coal power (the actual policy was enacted by the CDU, but was 100% the result of decade long anti-nuclear activism by the Green party) does not seem to matter. Germany has now fully left nuclear power under a Green "Economy and Climate" minister, the sane alternative would have meant an enormous loss of face for that party.
If this does not tell you that there will never be a politcal solution to the problem I don't know what to say.
> That they singlehandidly returned Germany to coal power (the actual policy was enacted by the CDU, but was 100% the result of decade long anti-nuclear activism by the Green party) does not seem to matter.
Man, isn't it handy that the opposition party is at fault for what the party in power does? Those evil Greens just forced the CDUs hand, they had no choice (except for their actual power in the government, but why count that?).
> Wrong. German (and US!) CO2 output is declining Chinese has risen drastically.
Per head? China has roughly 9 tons per capita and the US has 14-15 tons per capita.
So even if the US cut their emissions by a third China would still be more resourceful there. We have to do more to reduce our carbon footprint because we have such a huge footprint.
If we forget all about politics for a moment and look at the problem in an abstract fashion: Isn't it resonable that the worst offenders have to cut their emissions to a level that matches the upcoming countries before we can demand something from others?
If climate chage is threatining all life on earth it should be a priority that all countries reduce their CO2 output. Or at tge very least that they do not drastically increase their output evefy year, as China does.
"You can pump as much CO2 in the atnosphere until we reach per capita parity, then you must reduce it as well" is an absurdist stance to take. Nobody who takes climate change seriously can believe that.
It is horrible that country like USA doesn't aim at extremely fast pace to get it's emissions to same level than some other countries. Let's say Congo. They could easily force these changes to their population, but no...
Yes. This is really simple, I am sure that the population will be readily convinced to drastically reduce their living standards. You just need some dictatorial power, easily done.
Yeah, but this is a game theoretical problem. Let's assume this: the rich per capita emitters say we should look just at absolute number (a metric that by pure coincidence makes them look better) and the worst absolute emitters say we should look only at per capita emissions (a metric which coincidentally makes them look better).
The issue there is that both are right in a certain way. We need to get the absolute emissions down, but to do so fairly the worst emitters per capita should commit to the biggest savings.
Now if both stiffly insist on their position we end up worse off in the long term than if one just gave in.
Wow, you can tell this site has gained alot of traction since Reddit has been having issues. Sad to see zero intellectual discussion and pursuit of curiosity here.
There's three big issues here.
A. It's arguable the actual impact humans have on climate change.
B. Even if A is true, then we stil have geopolitics since the technology isn't ready or mature enough for mass adoption, and when major polluters are massive ships and factories, it doesn't matter what you personally do. Not only that, but if on a nation level you do impliment these policies, you're giving up your own freedoms to another country like China who won't and WILL overtake you by having immense economic efficiencies since they use oil and just pollute. Then you end up in the same situation you were anyways, but now under a communist dictatorship where you can't complain, with no countries like Nato or anyone else to save you. Very dystopian.
C. Even if we do hit the end times with climate change, all the science points towards Geoseeding as being a solution way before that.
Sad to see it's just circle jerking of fake intellectuals going "YA BRO ANYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE IS DUMB, UNEDUCATED" or "Being unable to do comprehensive reading and understanding basic physical processes is not a good starting points in 2023." - atoav , or "I've basically given up on anything drastic happening until the dipshit conservatives in the US stop their moronic crusade on this topic. I give my money monthly to a carbon sequestration company and mostly use my bike and mass transit, but offsets for flights." - Sporkland, truly the greatest sanitation engineers of our time.
“ Sad to see it's just circle jerking of fake intellectuals going "YA BRO ANYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE IS DUMB, UNEDUCATED" or "Being unable to do comprehensive reading and understanding basic physical processes is not a good starting points in 2023." - atoav , or "I've basically given up on anything drastic happening until the dipshit conservatives in the US stop their moronic crusade on this topic. I give my money monthly to a carbon sequestration company and mostly use my bike and mass transit, but offsets for flights." - Sporkland, truly the greatest sanitation engineers of our time.”
You do understand that this paragraph paints you as exactly the same type of person you’re mocking, yes?
Good job tackling any of my points. You win 5 morale highground updoots. You're on a tech site, which is aimed to support intellectual discussion, but I don't see you doing any of that. Must be difficult for you.
(B) is an interesting take. Who is to say "the other" guy is not already polluting to their max. If one country lowers its emissions,it is what aboutism to then suggest it must be a zero sum game and that other countries would increase their pollution. (It doesn't really matter what China does, the world needs to lower emissions and one country not doing so is not reason to then do nothing. That same line of reasoning caused the US to lose the solar panel industry to china)
(A) arguments around this are pretty over. I think that is why so little time is spent on it now. The Anti-science & big oil crowd win so long as nothing happens. Reading a list like A, B, C certainly sounds like someone talking themselves out of getting shape (A) I can't get in shape,(B) even if I can, someone else will be in better shape, (C) by the time I need to worry about being in shape, there will be a technology that makes it easy for me anyways.
Obviously someone has learned a lot about communication in the Corona crisis, because in this climate thingy the communication continues exactly the same way:
* Presenting models, which allegedly can determine the coming weeks/months/year exactly in advance (I remember "Either you are vaccinated or dead until Christmas") and must never be questioned, because they are consensus in THE science (tm).
* One must fight misinformation and fake news (that is, everything that contradicts these models in terms of facts).
* THE science (tm) is only supplied by a handful of actors in the media.
Actually, every self-thinking person would have to be aware of this Wuhan virus origin theory disaster, which was first defamed as a conspiracy theory and has since been confirmed by the US intelligence services.
Any lessons learned?
And just as little as all unvaccinated people died before Christmas, just as little as the prophecies in the 80s that the children of today would no longer see trees and forests, just as little as all seals and polar bears are slaughtered and extinct, just as little arctic would be ice free 2022 - and the list could go on and on - just as little should one trust models of THE science (tm) that these accurately represent reality and should therefore be considered religious truth.
The basis of any science is critical discourse. Who defames the participants of this critical discourse from the beginning as idiots or being dumb having because of a different opinion, should rather consider whether (s)he speaks here of science or religious fanaticism.
P.S.: 2007 the "Polar View" project adjusted the original model predicting Arctic to be ice free 30 to 40 years to 15-20 years. So today. Oh no - it's still not ice free. But now WWF predicts that the Arctic is not going to be ice free in 30 years but already in 15 years. 16 years later - still predicting the same stuff over and over.
Extrapolations are inaccurate. It is a family of curves. There are some that tell us that by 2035 we might get +4°C (I hope that this will not happen). But even if we will reach +4°C by 2050, by some less pessimistic models then the environment for human existence will be doomed. Unfortunately at some point there will be exponential changes in methane increase in the atmosphere due to the melting of permafrost and methane-hydrates in the oceans. This was already a case once approximately 55 million years ago https://www.britannica.com/science/Paleocene-Eocene-Thermal-...
The recovery took like 120k-200k years. The ecosystems were replaced ...
Unfortunately there are a little chances that the Antarctica will be green again, because there probably no fertile soil left (scraped by the ice shield shifts and melting).
The idea of building an ark in NZ, Norway, Alaska, Greenland, or elsewhere will not help the humanity to survive.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadHere is something academic on the aviation industry specifically (though I find their work a bit incomplete, because they don't address that the overall scheme is flawed, even where communication is accurate):https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02615...
Here is an assessment of carbon offsets by a certifier themselves. They hold that 30% of their offsets are "high quality". The assessment is in response to an investigation by the Guardian which found that 94% of offsets don't hold much weight: https://www.sylvera.com/blog/guardian-offsets-response
And finally, my favorite, but wordy. Because I need to see things "in action" to believe them. Here is an in-depth example of an offset project. Tldr: in that specific case, it's accounting magic. You build a model that predicts growing emissions in the future, so by just keeping emissions stable you can claim emission offsets: https://sci-hub.se/10.1057/s41265-016-0024-4
If you have any kind of reaction, or thoughts, let me know. This is part of my day-to-day work, so I am always curious to learn how to communicate things.
US CO2 output is declining.
Isn’t the real issue with the massive populations of people who don’t have the wealth to pay for the cleaner options? If you’re poor and need to provide for your family, you’re going to maximise for that as opposed to the climate.
I’m not sure that American Conservatives are the issue here…
Ethically every gram of CO2 we are putting out moves us into the wrong direction.
What does "neutral" even mean. 11% emissions sounds about right, but you aren't even counting the absorbtion of the US against it.
CO2 offsetting is a ridicolous greenwashing proposition.
(We do hold 20% of the whole world's prison population, so there's that.)
Sitting in traffic for an hour because public transit infrastructure is woefully underfunded and ignored is not an improved standard of living.
No longer being allowed to roll coal on bikers doesn't lower average living standards.
Life expectancy is not even top 20 and dropping. Social mobility is also not top 20, cost of healthcare is up there, poverty is up there.
Prisoners have the smallest carbon footprint of us all. Is this progress? (bitter sarcasm)
Look through the comments here. There’s really fucking stupid takes. Sometimes even with their IRL identity attached.
Can't say we didn't work hard for this.
It’s a no-win situation.
Warning: napkin math, ahead:
Since CO2 represent 0.04% of Earth atmosphere whilst H2O (the biggest offending atmospheric heat radiation) is at the very most 4% ( or H2O is 100x worse) leaving us with the mankind’s measured amount that is only impacting at the very most 20% toward the CO2 level, that narrows mankind’s impact of CO2 contribution to less than 0.002% of atmosphere.
And while CO2 is less than 1/12th of total bandwidth of atmospheric radiation (in contrast to the most impactful H2O by 100x by volume) by its total bandwidth contribution toward Earth radiation, mankind’s CO2 contribution of retention to heat got narrowed down to less than 0.0017% of the Earth atmospheric heat (based on CO2 alone).
Bonus: IMHO, methane is seriously an overrated bogeyman as an impacting mean of retaining atmospheric heat but the tundra remains the largest short-term store of methane and should not be lightly discounted there; Los Banos, California (think land of million shits, cow manure) and 4-Corner New Mexico are currently the two largest man-made methane producer in US (we haven’t sufficiently quantify the thousands of poorly capped well heads left behind by ancient oil companies).
Caveat: I have made no attempt to say that a certain bandwidth/band of heat energy frequency range has more influential impact over another IR sub-band, notably entirely within the IR side of the spectrum. But my IR lab work of inter-sub-band IR preliminary shows even lesser impact by CO2 … than water vapor (H2O), but that’s my direct scientific observation of dissemination of between sub-IR band and its corresponding energy level.
Caveat: I have made no calculus (just the napkin math) but the above would be better redone using CO2 contribution share in contrast against many other gases’ share … in terms of absorption and scattering.
Chart of various gases of atmospheric radiation of biggest retention/reflective:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/WG3sI.png
CO2 is 0.035% of Earth atmosphere:
https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmosphere#:~:text=The%20atmo....
Sidenote: I planted several hundred trees during 1970s around one top-25 urban area as part of the city’s larger 1-million Tree project and they all now look cool today, and literally cool as in a huge shade. I should be able to boast that I did my part of CO2 reduction arguably at a larger scale when compared to my fellow men.
Also back in 1979, suburban B did not have a temperature reading station but had gotten one added in (oh let's say halfway to 2001) later. How do you compensate for bias by newly-added suburban B into its overall mean when it is obvious that any suburban is warmer than a nearby forest.
There are two bias variances to consider for B, growth rate of concrete surface area and loss of forestry (for CO2), in addition to its population growth rate.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-first-days-june-sur...
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/custom-upl...
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-...
https://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/atmospheric_co2/primary_mlo...
For 2023 I would go with Antarctic sea ice, Canadian wildfires, Great Lake snow cover, and record-breaking heat waves…
I've given up on changing their minds. No matter how deep I analyze their data and point out the flaws, they won't budge an inch.
Probably even total global destruction would not make them reconsider. It's become tribal at this point.
As someone who read quite some of the reports and also occasionally into underlying studies I have to say that this is unarguable happening. The amount of research that went into this topic is so deep and so wide that arguing against it is basically the equivalent of closing your eyes, putting your fingers into your ears and going "Lalalala".
Being unable to do comprehensive reading and understanding basic physical processes is not a good starting points in 2023.
Because I am not seeing much about that, certainly not from the activists.
Here is the answer to Fermi paradox "Where is everyone?", - they have not passed the great filter as we probably will not pass it either ...
Or a more complicated one where studies where done: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont...
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+arguing+won%27t+change+people%...
But it's not actually evidence for our beliefs, and we don't notice how it strengthens our own tribal beliefs, and so we don't notice that it's also unhinged to causally talk about "global total destruction" in this context, and only validated by tribal effects. And then our "fake news" friends notice our garbage methodology and take it as evidence for the correctness of their beliefs.
I think it's easy to oversimplify their views. There's a pretty good scale of belief that some would call "denial" that isn't quite that.
1. Is it because they distrust the people talking about it? Have those people been wrong previously?
2. Is it because they distrust the proposed solutions to it? Do they feel there is an ulterior agenda behind those solutions? Or do they simply feel the proposed solutions are too expensive and unreasonable [1]?
3. Is it because they distrust the idea that humans cause climate change, not just nature?
4. Do they feel that it is an important issue; but believe it is a much lower priority issue than solving food, housing, education, safety, and other issues [2]?
And so forth. I think that very often; it is distrust of the people talking about it more than the idea. Remember that the World Economic Forum talks about climate change, but also bragged about how "You will own nothing, and be happy" which was the biggest self-own of the millennium. There aren't many people I run into who say "there is no climate change, period," but there are plenty who think that it's exaggerated, meant to benefit a political cause, meant to change social behavior to benefit somebody's agenda, etc. I can't say that is 100% unwarranted. Claiming "the world is going to end unless we do my solution X" is kind of like using vinegar to attract flies.
[1] And while I'm on the "unreasonable," it's vague but extremely hard to change and quantify. We could theoretically end child molestation if we had cameras in every room of every house; but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. We could theoretically end illiteracy if we locked every child in a room with a book 24/7 until they learned to read, but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. They could easily just feel that the climate change "solutions," regardless of the science, even if they are effective, just aren't at their level of reasonable. The reasons for that could be as different and varied as grains of sand on a seashore.
[2] California doesn't do themselves any favors when they scream about climate change while having severe homelessness, housing affordability, high taxation, and other issues that affect people personally on a day-to-day level. In my personal opinion, people would be much more sympathetic to solving climate change if they had their other ducks in a row. You can't convince people to think about the future if the present is a mess. You can't convince somebody to save 20% of their income for retirement when they've got $20K in credit card debt.
Most people I know who reject the evidence of climate change seem to be into consuming and building lots of stuff, so this angle seems to appeal to that mindset.
It makes me think—maybe it’s a complete waste of time to try to “convince the other side” or “change their minds”. What if instead we agree on an outcome, like complete and total control over the earths climate? Would that help getting folks to run in the same direction?
If you think about it; the logical conclusion of humanity in our solar system is building a Dyson sphere around the sun and controlling climate for a huge population.
It's not much, but its way better that most lifestyle changes (avoiding transatlantic flights, recycling, vegetarianism), and personally helps me feel like I am part of the solution rather than the problem.
Those paying the price will be the children of both nations.
Wrong. German (and US!) CO2 output is declining Chinese has risen drastically.
There is no equivalence here. China is doing nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, putting them on equal footing with the US/Europe is lying.
Meanwhile, your equivalent in China is pointing that US CO2 emissions per capita are still way above China’s, cherry-picking the right metric to avoid any responsibility.
Also, as a European person myself don’t talk to me about Germany and Climate. Germany is a fucking joke and the worst example of a Climate friendly policy due to their rejection of nuclear. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
Couldn't agree more. Funnily enough the single most important reason Germany abandoned nuclear is because of the Green party, which promotes itself as the climate party. That they singlehandidly returned Germany to coal power (the actual policy was enacted by the CDU, but was 100% the result of decade long anti-nuclear activism by the Green party) does not seem to matter. Germany has now fully left nuclear power under a Green "Economy and Climate" minister, the sane alternative would have meant an enormous loss of face for that party.
If this does not tell you that there will never be a politcal solution to the problem I don't know what to say.
Man, isn't it handy that the opposition party is at fault for what the party in power does? Those evil Greens just forced the CDUs hand, they had no choice (except for their actual power in the government, but why count that?).
Per head? China has roughly 9 tons per capita and the US has 14-15 tons per capita.
So even if the US cut their emissions by a third China would still be more resourceful there. We have to do more to reduce our carbon footprint because we have such a huge footprint.
If we forget all about politics for a moment and look at the problem in an abstract fashion: Isn't it resonable that the worst offenders have to cut their emissions to a level that matches the upcoming countries before we can demand something from others?
"You can pump as much CO2 in the atnosphere until we reach per capita parity, then you must reduce it as well" is an absurdist stance to take. Nobody who takes climate change seriously can believe that.
The issue there is that both are right in a certain way. We need to get the absolute emissions down, but to do so fairly the worst emitters per capita should commit to the biggest savings.
Now if both stiffly insist on their position we end up worse off in the long term than if one just gave in.
There's three big issues here.
A. It's arguable the actual impact humans have on climate change.
B. Even if A is true, then we stil have geopolitics since the technology isn't ready or mature enough for mass adoption, and when major polluters are massive ships and factories, it doesn't matter what you personally do. Not only that, but if on a nation level you do impliment these policies, you're giving up your own freedoms to another country like China who won't and WILL overtake you by having immense economic efficiencies since they use oil and just pollute. Then you end up in the same situation you were anyways, but now under a communist dictatorship where you can't complain, with no countries like Nato or anyone else to save you. Very dystopian.
C. Even if we do hit the end times with climate change, all the science points towards Geoseeding as being a solution way before that.
Sad to see it's just circle jerking of fake intellectuals going "YA BRO ANYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE IS DUMB, UNEDUCATED" or "Being unable to do comprehensive reading and understanding basic physical processes is not a good starting points in 2023." - atoav , or "I've basically given up on anything drastic happening until the dipshit conservatives in the US stop their moronic crusade on this topic. I give my money monthly to a carbon sequestration company and mostly use my bike and mass transit, but offsets for flights." - Sporkland, truly the greatest sanitation engineers of our time.
You do understand that this paragraph paints you as exactly the same type of person you’re mocking, yes?
(A) arguments around this are pretty over. I think that is why so little time is spent on it now. The Anti-science & big oil crowd win so long as nothing happens. Reading a list like A, B, C certainly sounds like someone talking themselves out of getting shape (A) I can't get in shape,(B) even if I can, someone else will be in better shape, (C) by the time I need to worry about being in shape, there will be a technology that makes it easy for me anyways.
* Presenting models, which allegedly can determine the coming weeks/months/year exactly in advance (I remember "Either you are vaccinated or dead until Christmas") and must never be questioned, because they are consensus in THE science (tm).
* One must fight misinformation and fake news (that is, everything that contradicts these models in terms of facts).
* THE science (tm) is only supplied by a handful of actors in the media.
Actually, every self-thinking person would have to be aware of this Wuhan virus origin theory disaster, which was first defamed as a conspiracy theory and has since been confirmed by the US intelligence services.
Any lessons learned?
And just as little as all unvaccinated people died before Christmas, just as little as the prophecies in the 80s that the children of today would no longer see trees and forests, just as little as all seals and polar bears are slaughtered and extinct, just as little arctic would be ice free 2022 - and the list could go on and on - just as little should one trust models of THE science (tm) that these accurately represent reality and should therefore be considered religious truth.
The basis of any science is critical discourse. Who defames the participants of this critical discourse from the beginning as idiots or being dumb having because of a different opinion, should rather consider whether (s)he speaks here of science or religious fanaticism.
P.S.: 2007 the "Polar View" project adjusted the original model predicting Arctic to be ice free 30 to 40 years to 15-20 years. So today. Oh no - it's still not ice free. But now WWF predicts that the Arctic is not going to be ice free in 30 years but already in 15 years. 16 years later - still predicting the same stuff over and over.
The recovery took like 120k-200k years. The ecosystems were replaced ...
Unfortunately there are a little chances that the Antarctica will be green again, because there probably no fertile soil left (scraped by the ice shield shifts and melting).
The idea of building an ark in NZ, Norway, Alaska, Greenland, or elsewhere will not help the humanity to survive.