We'll never reverse climate change, you can sign as many European or global agreements as you like but change will never happen. Has anything made a difference yet apart from seeing cleaner air in lockdown 1?
Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity
- Thread starter Buster15
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
And the depressing thing was that even after that drastic impact on our normal behaviour, emissions barely declined.
Long read, about half way through, but very interesting.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html
https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html
This attitude is nearly as bad as "there is no global warming", and possibly as dangerous. Who said anything about reversing climate change? The stated goal of the Paris Agreement is limiting the increase to 2 maximum degrees, and if possible 1.5 degrees. You ask if anything has made a difference, but even the most wildly optimistic plans involve a significant warming compared to today, and that is if we implement quite strong measures.
But there's a big difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees, and a massive difference between 2 degrees and 6 degrees. Very nearly literally anything we do today is going to impact the quality of life for humanity in the future. Nihilistically throwing our hands up in the air and proclaiming that it's all futile is dangerous and immoral.
I feel like there should be more comment on the ridiculous costly decisions that are made just to appease certain people in this race against the clock.
No gas boilers by 2025 is one from the UK which is totally absurd.
There are many other decisions made at local level which will make no difference at all, but “something has been done” so somebody, somewhere is happy.
I am also tired of people saying doing something is better than nothing. Well no it isn’t. Not always. And to clarify I am 100% agreed that climate is changing and the earth is warming
Sorry for the pile-on, but apart from mitigation (which @nimic addressed), there's also adaptation - another extremely expensive thing that should start ASAP, is actually very concrete (getting people off floodplanes, strengthening dikes and barriers, increasing heat protection in cities (more trees, white and green roofs, etc.), and so on) - but has politicians dragging their feet just as much as mitigation.
Totally wrong. I am not in the global warming denial group. Just saying targets won't be met by any accord and forcing energy prices up won't mean shit. Believe me, I can see the chimneys of Tara Steel from my house. How can they produce less emissions in their line of business? Its utter gash to pretend otherwise.
And if we do nothing about it…?
It's like you didn't read my post at all.
I'm confused by what you're saying. If we need gas consumption to be reduced to contain the damage that has been done then that makes sense from a climate perspective, . If you can say that the figures are wrong that would need explanation but people are going to have to make sacrifices here unfortunately.
The people making sacrifices may need compensation, but that's a different issue.
I read it again, no change of opinion.
.....She doesn't like living with an 'eco' warrior then?
Mine neither, years ago (before we were truly aware of the damage being done,)and I had two daughters still living at home, I would arrive home from work and as I drove towards the house, would gasp that every light in the house was on, but when I got in they were all congregated in the kitchen. The arguments went on for hours after I marched around the house turning all lights off!
Sorry to say haven't done much to brag about since in saving the planet, it was money I was trying to save then!
Keep up the good work
I would agree that efforts so far are paltry, that is mainly because they ain't working, yet the lock-down for two or three months did (by accident) help the ozone layer close up and may be is pointing the way forward? If two or three months a year the majority of air travel is curtailed and same on the roads, only emergency services allowed (world wide) can help clean up the upper atmosphere, surely that's something world powers could get to grips with.
Sure, it will need individuals to agree to 'normal' life being changed, work patterns, social behaviour etc. but after the pandemic what is 'normal' anymore?
@Buster15 is right, it is about consumers changing their habits, but its not about destroying their lives, balances have to be struck, how we achieve it is the main impasse. We cannot expect people to sacrifice 'their today's for someone else's tomorrow' that's been done and hasn't stopped wars, etc. We can however asked or even demand that people do change their habits... can't we?
Hopefully you have fitted LED lights. They were initially pretty dear. I have done the complete house with £1 LEDs from the pound shop. Much better better and so far, I have not had to replace even one. They are between 3w and 5w......She doesn't like living with an 'eco' warrior then?
Mine neither, years ago (before we were truly aware of the damage being done,)and I had two daughters still living at home, I would arrive home from work and as I drove towards the house, would gasp that every light in the house was on, but when I got in they were all congregated in the kitchen. The arguments went on for hours after I marched around the house turning all lights off!
Sorry to say haven't done much to brag about since in saving the planet, it was money I was trying to save then!
Keep up the good work
No sorry, but have used low energy lamps in all the main lighting units in the house, had some for five years now, think they are between 8-12w. again costly to start off with, but I do have some LEDs in outside units and display cabinets etc. Switched to warm air central heating sometime back, which is effective and less harmful than normal boiler/pump/radiators, etc. especially with open plan stairwells. Air flow (so I'm told) is all important over the whole house, only downside so far is we had to beef up extractors fans over hobs to make sure cooking smells don't permeate all over.
We'll get there eventually!
I'm coming around to the view that geo engineering is inevitable. Too much damage, not enough action and I can't see it changing. Far from a solution though.
Even “eco-Warriors” don’t really want to change much except raising taxes and coming up with non-binding agreements.
How many people are going to cut down on a meat based diet and dreaming of living in a single family home.
Are northern countries going to subsidize wide scale replacement of gas and electric heating with solar thermal?
We waste tonnes of energy especially from burning coal on Bitcoin mining ffs
How many people are going to cut down on a meat based diet and dreaming of living in a single family home.
Are northern countries going to subsidize wide scale replacement of gas and electric heating with solar thermal?
We waste tonnes of energy especially from burning coal on Bitcoin mining ffs
No gas boilers by 2025 is just for new build homes. It doesn't mean you can't replace your current gas boilers with a new one after 2025 if you need to, but there will be grants and such to possibly go to a 'low carbon alternative', if you want to.
The idea that we can convert all the old housing stock to run on electric heat pumps is the absurd part, we will still need gas in the short term and if we can work out a way of producing enough Hydrogen than we may re-purpose the gas network to run on hydrogen and convert gas appliances in the old housing stock to hydrogen appliances.
Watched Planet of the Humans tonight. Feck I feel depressed, the hypocrisy of it all, just people with money and power trying to maintain their wealth and lifestyle, all of which isn't sustainable. I don't think anyone actually has a solution that the world population would be willing to accept, so nature will end up sorting it out for us in the next few hundred years.
Without sounding like Thanos, people need to have less kids - its starting to happen already in some places, I honestly think its our best hope, and something we can be in control of rather than waiting for bent politicians to change policies.
People are already having less kids, it's pretty much a defining feature of a well-developed country - and the decline starts early. China is predicted to have a population of 1 billion in 2100, meaning 400 million fewer than today. Now obviously the One Child policy had something to do with the scale, but the decline was inevitable.
This whole thing is good (and he did a few similar ones), but I'll link to a particularly relevant part.
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This one is also great. Much shorter than the other one (though actually a multi-parter).
Genuine question but is overpopulation really the pressing issue here rather than that some groups tend to control and use many times more resources than the majority of human beings? 8 billion people is a huge amount of people vying for resources that are diminishing but when you think of the systems that prop up extravagant wealth and consumer lifestyles, isn't that the real driving force behind the problem?
The current climate state of Earth is an interglacial period within an icehouse climate state. The current interglacial period began about 11 or 12 thousand years ago. The current icehouse climate state began millions of years ago. The Earth fluctuates between greenhouse climate state and icehouse climate state. Greenhouse climate state dominates Earth's 4.5 billion year history. There have been 5 main icehouse climate states in Earth's history including the current one.
From an interglacial period within an icehouse climate state the Earth can either get warmer and return to a greenhouse climate state or get colder and enter a glacial period of an icehouse climate state. There is nothing wrong with the Earth getting warmer or colder from the perspective of the Earth itself. The Earth getting warmer or colder can lead to consequences that are a problem for people. The Earth is currently getting warmer but there is no way to know if we are returning to a greenhouse climate state because the Earth got warmer during the last interglacial period and the one before that. The global temperature during the peak of the last interglacial was higher than the current global temperature.
From an interglacial period within an icehouse climate state the Earth can either get warmer and return to a greenhouse climate state or get colder and enter a glacial period of an icehouse climate state. There is nothing wrong with the Earth getting warmer or colder from the perspective of the Earth itself. The Earth getting warmer or colder can lead to consequences that are a problem for people. The Earth is currently getting warmer but there is no way to know if we are returning to a greenhouse climate state because the Earth got warmer during the last interglacial period and the one before that. The global temperature during the peak of the last interglacial was higher than the current global temperature.
Oh ffs.
I've got his book, it's a great read.
Overpopulation is an issue, but more in terms of emissions than availability. Everyone could have enough if people didn't overconsume, produce and goods were more accessible to all humans, and nothing was wasted.
The Earth indeed doesn't care and is on its own cycles. None of that matters here though. The issue with global warming is twofold.
First, more or less since the beginning of industrialization, overall Earth temperature (i.e., the global average) has been going up at an unprecedented rate, far quicker than anything the Earth's cycles would cause and which can only have been caused by human CO2 emissions.
Second, this global warming is causing climate change which will increasingly quickly cause global change. This includes most prominently rising sea levels and changes in local temperature patterns. (E.g., hotter summers in Europe, with long periods of draught and big sudden downpours.) As a result of those, current patterns of inhabitation will be unsustainable: a lot of coastal regions will get flooded, forcing hundreds of millions of people to move (just think of the Nile Delta and Bangladesh, for instance), and agricultural practice will become impossible in some areas (due to the heat plus draught) or require a lot of change elsewhere (to adapt to the different weather).
So, this is a human-made situation that threatens to be catastrophic for humanity. The Earth doesn't care who lives on it (humans, animals, plants), and wildlife and plants will adapt (some species will go extinct, others will adapt, new ones will appear); but humans are in for a lot of trouble, and that's the main problem here.
They are both problems; it’s not an either/or proposition. As @nimic pointed out, some hyperbole about population growth is proving to be misguided. But that doesn’t mean sub-Saharan Africa, for one, will be out of the woods anytime soon. Food and economic insecurity - not enough food and jobs to go around - encourages resource destruction.
When are you going to enlighten us all with your theories on the lunar landings, 9/11 and contrails?
The difference is that the events you mentioned are all natural changes.
This time, the changes are NOT natural.
They are man made.
That is the difference.
We know what we are doing.
We know the consequences.
And we know what we should be doing to mitigate those consequences.
I trust you can understand that.
The only way you could know we’re in an interglacial period is based on science. We can’t identify it as an interglacial period through personal experience, without scientific instruments and scientific theories, so you just have to trust them and their “observations”. But can you really trust science? Can you really trust anyone?
Those scientists are involved in so many of those other conspiracies, can you really trust them here? Maybe we’re in a glacial period and we don’t even know it? Maybe they just made up the idea of glacial and interglacial periods? Maybe we’re in some giant, floating space bubble where everything visible in space is just a projection and a mysterious cabal are controlling the climate for their own amusement? So many questions.
Well that’s two in as many days.
They are like London buses.Some scientists are saying civilisation will collapse by 2050 due to climate change, pollution and resource depletion. Humans will bring about their own extinction through sheer greed and hubris. At least the dinosaurs could do nothing about their demise, we could have prevented this but we preferred to keep printing money.
I think 2050 is doom mongering, it'll be more likely be within the next few hundred years. Obviously as we as a species will adapt, it'll be a shit fight for the last places we can survive and thrive, so it'll be the strongest of us who survive and everyone else will eradicated, it's pretty much natures way, we've been going against it for the last few hundred years. I'd expect by 2050 we'll have a vast army of climate refugees, it obviously won't be pretty.
I look at it all now as people trying to maintain the way we currently live and not actually trying to stop the current accelerated climate changes. Drastic changes (that the masses won't accept) are the only solution, until such time we develop technologies that are sustainable. Imagine living in a world where people protest and fight with the authorities over something so minor as wearing a mask, then actually expecting them to completely change their lifestyles and expecting them to do it for the greater good.
They travel in herds?Well that’s two in as many days.
But @ManchesterYoda didn't actually deny anything. They're talking about Earth cycles, stuff that happens on geological timescales. That's not necessarily wrong. As scientists have pointed out over and over though, it's not what's driving current climate change. So the post is actually simply off-topic. Maybe they meant to post in one of the science threads.
Make it 2070 or 2080, and you're probably spot on. Will we go extinct? No. Are we going to fall down the ladder of civilisation big time? Oh yeah.
Meanwhile in Madagascar: "Madagascar is headed toward a climate change-linked famine it did not create".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/01/madagascar-climate-famine/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/01/madagascar-climate-famine/
Spot on.... we are getting ever closer to the "rearranging the decks chairs on the titanic" situation.
Alternatively WWIII could break out any time and we won't have to worry about climate change.
I think it unlikely that there will be another WW. It is now so much easier to damage another country using either or both Cyber/ Biological Weapons. And much cheaper as well.
Having said that, rising sea levels are going to pose a perfect storm.
Significantly reduced land mass with an increasing population. So, at some point in the not too distant future, there will be battles fought over contested land.
Time is slipping away.
It certainly is, but there could be some 'offsets' in that as temperature and climate change, there may be a period when e.g. the Lake District maybe able to give the Italian Lakes a run for their money as holiday destinations, that should save some aviation fuel?
Unfortunately overall is still likely to be that..." the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
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