Do You Believe in Man-Made Climate Change?

[eyeball]

3 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

Oh for God's sake.  I'm the one who should be facepalming.

Thanks for making my point for me though!

What point, that you read a lot about climate change?

I guess if it only took 0.43 seconds to generate 24,800,000 results it stands to reason you could wade thru them all in just a couple minutes.

Let me guess you started at the bottom of the list.

 

[Zeitgeist]

19 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

Could you get on it?  Let me know when you've finished.

I don't mean to be flippant, but fantasy was always the only answer to climate change. 

This kind of community building is already underway.  Unless it becomes policy, it will only happen in pockets.  Basically I can't stand any of the political parties because to me the most important public policy issue, assuming all other policies remain the same, is building fast, frequent, and widespread mass transit.  Governments aren't responding, even though traffic and congestion are driving the public nuts.  I don't care if all departments slash their budgets by 15-20 percent to pay for it.  I don't care about tax cuts or increasing social services.  The only issue that counts in urban Canada now is moving masses of people and goods quickly and easily -- and doing so would cut greenhouse gas emissions.

[dialamah]

1 hour ago, bcsapper said:

I read about climate change all the time.  It's what I do for a living.

If this is true, I would give your opinion more weight.

1 hour ago, bcsapper said:

So I think you are making it up.  You can prove me wrong if you want, or don't.  It makes no difference to me.

If you are an expert, I am willing to defer to your expertise - thought it doesn't mean I'm going to join the 'give up' brigade.  If you can share information that I cannot access, please do so, thanks.  If you can't, I guess that means you are making it up.

In the meantime, here are a couple of sources that persuade me that mitigation is worth the effort and cost.

https://climate.nasa.gov/solutions/adaptation-mitigation/

https://www.thegef.org/topics/climate-change-mitigation

[Guest]

2 hours ago, eyeball said:

What point, that you read a lot about climate change?

I guess if it only took 0.43 seconds to generate 24,800,000 results it stands to reason you could wade thru them all in just a couple minutes.

Let me guess you started at the bottom of the list.

 

No, my point that fantasy plays a large part in the ambitions of those who think we are going to stop climate change.  The first point on the first article was "Walk, cycle or take transit".  Yep, that'll do it!

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

This kind of community building is already underway.  Unless it becomes policy, it will only happen in pockets.  Basically I can't stand any of the political parties because to me the most important public policy issue, assuming all other policies remain the same, is building fast, frequent, and widespread mass transit.  Governments aren't responding, even though traffic and congestion are driving the public nuts.  I don't care if all departments slash their budgets by 15-20 percent to pay for it.  I don't care about tax cuts or increasing social services.  The only issue that counts in urban Canada now is moving masses of people and goods quickly and easily -- and doing so would cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Your still just talking about one country, though, right?  Good ideas all, but not going to help with climate change.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, dialamah said:

If this is true, I would give your opinion more weight.

If you are an expert, I am willing to defer to your expertise - thought it doesn't mean I'm going to join the 'give up' brigade.  If you can share information that I cannot access, please do so, thanks.  If you can't, I guess that means you are making it up.

In the meantime, here are a couple of sources that persuade me that mitigation is worth the effort and cost.

https://climate.nasa.gov/solutions/adaptation-mitigation/

https://www.thegef.org/topics/climate-change-mitigation

It is true, but I'm not an expert.  I'm involved in greenhouse gas reduction.  (I'm sure I've mentioned this before) As I'm in Alberta, it's CH4 not CO2 that I work with, but that's still an important greenhouse gas, and one the federal government is very keen on reducing in the atmosphere.  Given that, I do have to pay more than passing attention to the subject, including attending conferences and discussing the issue with people who are experts.  (I'm not kidding here:  A resigned "Oh yeah, we're screwed" is the most common lament heard in the bar at one of these things.  But everybody wants to help)

This from your article:

In GEF’s first 25 years, we have provided support for 940 climate change mitigation projects expected to contribute 8.4 billion tonnes of direct and indirect greenhouse gas emission reductions over time. 

The GEF has provided at least US$4.2 billion and leveraged $38.3 billion from other sources for more than 1,000 mitigation projects and programs in over 160 countries. We support a wide variety of mitigation strategies, but production and consumption of energy is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. GEF investments are geared to mitigate these emissions through specific projects. For example:  

Energy efficiency: introducing standards for consumer appliances and equipment, such as lighting, air conditioners and motors, and stronger building codes. 

Renewable energy: commercializing and scaling technologies like solar, wind, small hydro, biopower and geothermal energy. 

Policy: introducing feed-in tariffs, reverse auctions and other market-based mechanisms and financial instruments to speed up investments in clean energy.

Still equals this from my previous post:

All that work, and more, and greenhouse gases are still rising.  Reasons for that include increasing population and increasing industrialization in developing countries to bring people out of wretched poverty, but telling people it will help if we just do this or that is also a factor, because it has, over the years, led people to believe that the problem was solvable with minor lifestyle changes.  It's not.  It's not solvable without global cooperation of a kind which has never even been imagined before, along with a level of deliberate privation for many which will probably result in global conflict.  That's not any kind of expert talking.  It's just an opinion based on observations.  But I've yet to be convinced otherwise.

Edited February 2, 2020 by bcsapper

[Zeitgeist]

34 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

Your still just talking about one country, though, right?  Good ideas all, but not going to help with climate change.

My point is that good climate change policy can't be sold on the basis of climate change alone.  It has to be good economic and quality of life policy.  Layering on carbon taxes or putting draconian restrictions on energy usage don't work because such policies appeal to an unquantifiable problem, in the sense that we don't really know how much impact our current way of living and producing things is impacting climate.  We do know that there are cost and convenience benefits to having a subway station down the street, a workplace and shops nearby, and a safe, local, reliable food and energy supply.  That building these kinds of communities is about the best we can do to reduce greenhouse gasses without driving up the cost of living means that there are good policies that achieve many desirable non-climate related goals while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  That's the kind of public policy that people of all political stripes, people working in the public sector, big business, unions, tree-huggers, and all form of special interest wack-job can support.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Zeitgeist

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

My point is that good climate change policy can't be sold on the basis of climate change alone.  It has to be good economic and quality of life policy.  Layering on carbon taxes or putting draconian restrictions on energy usage don't work because such policies appeal to an unquantifiable problem, in the sense that we don't really know how much impact our current way of living and producing things is impacting climate.  We do know that there are cost and convenience benefits to having a subway station down the street, a workplace and shops nearby, and a safe, local, reliable food and energy supply.  That building these kinds of communities is about the best we can do to reduce greenhouse gasses without driving up the cost of living means that there are good policies that achieve many desirable non-climate related goals while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  That's the kind of public policy that people of all political stripes, people working in the public sector, big business, unions, tree-huggers, and all form of special interest wack-job can support.

Yes, but you did start your original post with " I think the only way to fight climate change".  Those ideas are all great, but they will fight climate change in the same way that giving up one chocolate chip will fight obesity.

[Zeitgeist]

2 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

Yes, but you did start your original post with " I think the only way to fight climate change".  Those ideas are all great, but they will fight climate change in the same way that giving up one chocolate chip will fight obesity.

Maybe, but then we can at least say we have a climate change policy, whether or not having any kind of climate change policy would make any difference to climate.  Anyone who does a little research will quickly realize that Trudeau's carbon tax will make very little quantifiable difference to climate change (if any), but it does add to the cost of living in a very measurable way.  The only climate policy worth having should support other desirable goals that would be worth fighting for if climate change didn't exist.  Canada has a minute impact on global emissions.  The countries that could make a substantial difference are putting their economies first.  Jobs/economics will trump environmental concerns, so climate policy has to be a subset of good economic policy (that doesn't rely solely on subsidies of green tech).

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Maybe, but then we can at least say we have a climate change policy, whether or not having any kind of climate change policy would make any difference to climate.  Anyone who does a little research will quickly realize that Trudeau's carbon tax will make very little quantifiable difference to climate change (if any), but it does add to the cost of living in a very measurable way.  The only climate policy worth having should support other desirable goals that would be worth fighting for if climate change didn't exist.  Canada has a minute impact on global emissions.  The countries that could make a substantial difference are putting their economies first.  Jobs/economics will trump environmental concerns, so climate policy has to be a subset of good economic policy (that doesn't rely solely on subsidies of green tech).

Yes, I don't disagree.  Except I don't mind paying taxes if they contribute to the greater good.  Increased research into climate change mitigation is never a bad thing.  It would be nice if they used a bit of it to fix the potholes, too.  Increased infrastructure spending on mass transit, sure, why not. 

But saying no to pipelines and trying to shut down industries, when such will not help in the fight, are not tactics I can agree with.  Unless everyone does, of course.

[dialamah]

1 hour ago, bcsapper said:

All that work, and more, and greenhouse gases are still rising

 

1 hour ago, bcsapper said:

It's not solvable

Mitigation is not the same as "solving".  If all the efforts made in the articles I'd cited had not been made, we'd be that much worse off now.  The less we do now, the worse it will be later financially and all other ways. 

My argument is not that we can stop or reverse climate change, only that we should be willing to do whatever we can to mitigate its effects.  Too many are not - because China/India (who are actually doing more than Canada towards mitigation) or because it's a "carbon tax" (which economists have identified as one of the least expensive/painful ways to reduce fossil fuel use) or because "I like meat; how dare climate hysterics take away my meat".

And then those people also attack a 16-year-old - one of the people who will have to bear the burden of climate change - for asking us to take some responsibility and do our part now. 

[Zeitgeist]

10 minutes ago, dialamah said:

 

Mitigation is not the same as "solving".  If all the efforts made in the articles I'd cited had not been made, we'd be that much worse off now.  The less we do now, the worse it will be later financially and all other ways. 

My argument is not that we can stop or reverse climate change, only that we should be willing to do whatever we can to mitigate its effects.  Too many are not - because China/India (who are actually doing more than Canada towards mitigation) or because it's a "carbon tax" (which economists have identified as one of the least expensive/painful ways to reduce fossil fuel use) or because "I like meat; how dare climate hysterics take away my meat".

And then those people also attack a 16-year-old - one of the people who will have to bear the burden of climate change - for asking us to take some responsibility and do our part now. 

When a plant-based meatball sub costs almost double what a meat sub costs, we can see how food companies are taking advantage and making climate change an excuse to jack up prices.  While I don’t want to see rain forests turned into cattle farms, people need to eat.  This is the problem also for organic food and health food in general.  Only the rich get to enjoy it.  Meanwhile poor inner city residents get diabetes.  

[dialamah]

10 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

When a plant-based meatball sub costs almost double what a meat sub costs, we can see how food companies are taking advantage and making climate change an excuse to jack up prices.  While I don’t want to see rain forests turned into cattle farms, people need to eat.  This is the problem also for organic food and health food in general.  Only the rich get to enjoy it.  Meanwhile poor inner city residents get diabetes.  

Do you think "meat substitutes" are some kind of answer to reducing industrial animal farming?

Do you think people require meat every single day?

Vegetables are still cheaper than meat.  Eating vegetable based meals every day, and having meat two or three times a week would maintain health, better than eating plant-based meatball subs every day and certainly cheaper. 

If everybody in Western countries (developing countries consume less meat than Western counttres, so their participation would be less impactful) were willing to make those changes, it would go a fair way to reducing emissions and, longer term, mitigating the effects of climate change.  

But when it's suggested, what is the response?  Mockery and complaints about "climate hysteria".  A relatively small change, and so many people refuse.  

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, dialamah said:

 

Mitigation is not the same as "solving".  If all the efforts made in the articles I'd cited had not been made, we'd be that much worse off now.  The less we do now, the worse it will be later financially and all other ways. 

My argument is not that we can stop or reverse climate change, only that we should be willing to do whatever we can to mitigate its effects.  Too many are not - because China/India (who are actually doing more than Canada towards mitigation) or because it's a "carbon tax" (which economists have identified as one of the least expensive/painful ways to reduce fossil fuel use) or because "I like meat; how dare climate hysterics take away my meat".

And then those people also attack a 16-year-old - one of the people who will have to bear the burden of climate change - for asking us to take some responsibility and do our part now. 

Sure but what are we arguing here?  It started (this time around) with the phrase "needless hit on our economy".  My argument is that any hit on our economy that does not help mitigate (or solve) climate change should not be made, because it is needless.  If it isn't helping, there is no need for it. 

Mitigation is relative.  You can mitigate CC more by quitting eating altogether than by becoming a vegetarian, but the difference would be so slight, and the effect on you so enormous, that such a measure would never be contemplated.  It's the same with Canada's fossil fuel industry (pardon me if I can't remember exactly what the "needless hit on our economy" was) If we deny a pipeline, the users of the final product will continue to use it, just get it from somewhere else.  If the pipeline is the Northern Gateway, they'll probably continue to use coal, when they could be using natural gas.

A carbon tax will only help if it applies to everyone.  That's not going to happen.  That's not to say I'm against one.  I think we pay too little for gas as it is.  (Personally, I'd like to see gas so expensive that ATVs and Snowmobiles went extinct)

As for China, I don't think there is much reason to be optimistic there.  While it is "the worlds largest developer of renewable energy, it is also the worlds largest consumer of coal" - Climate Action Tracker

It's also responsible for the construction, or the funding of the construction, of many coal fired power generation plants outside China, so that might not affect the statistics you are looking at.

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Do you think "meat substitutes" are some kind of answer to reducing industrial animal farming?

Do you think people require meat every single day?

Vegetables are still cheaper than meat.  Eating vegetable based meals every day, and having meat two or three times a week would maintain health, better than eating plant-based meatball subs every day and certainly cheaper. 

If everybody in Western countries (developing countries consume less meat than Western counttres, so their participation would be less impactful) were willing to make those changes, it would go a fair way to reducing emissions and, longer term, mitigating the effects of climate change.  

But when it's suggested, what is the response?  Mockery and complaints about "climate hysteria".  A relatively small change, and so many people refuse.  

I found it very easy to move to a diet that is about 90% vegetarian.  I only eat meat when I have to travel due to work.  Our home diet is 100% vegetarian  Actually, it's pescatarian because we do have the occasional fish.  Not often.  I do like tuna melts.

We did it for health reasons though.  We both feel much better for it.

[Zeitgeist]

2 hours ago, bcsapper said:

I found it very easy to move to a diet that is about 90% vegetarian.  I only eat meat when I have to travel due to work.  Our home diet is 100% vegetarian  Actually, it's pescatarian because we do have the occasional fish.  Not often.  I do like tuna melts.

We did it for health reasons though.  We both feel much better for it.

I agree and also prefer a mostly vegetarian diet, but good fresh produce and vegetables are not cheap.  Meat is getting quite expensive.  Plant-based protein meat substitutes are pricier.  Organic food?  That's the Whole Foods set, which isn't most people.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Zeitgeist

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

I agree and also prefer a mostly vegetarian diet, but good fresh produce and vegetables are not cheap.  Meat is getting quite expensive.  Plant-based protein meat substitutes are pricier.  Organic food?  That's the Whole Foods set, which isn't most people.

We do eat mainly organic food.  Also keep the processed food to a minimum.  I like cooking, so that's not too difficult.

[Zeitgeist]

26 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

We do eat mainly organic food.  Also keep the processed food to a minimum.  I like cooking, so that's not too difficult.

I'm also blessed to have those options, but that's not how it is for the majority.

[Army Guy]

On 2/2/2020 at 1:01 PM, dialamah said:

Honestly, this made me laugh so hard - we are already taking a 'needless hit on our economy', trying to deal with the early effects of climate change such as flooding and fire because we paid little attention years ago when scientists first voiced their concern.  And it's only going to get worse.  It's going to cost trillions, our options are between bad and devastating, at this point.

I glad you had a little chuckle....but in reality there is no NEW form of energy to replace Fossil fuels that is reliable or safe enough to use in ships, aircraft, or even trucks and cars...they are years perhaps decades away from finding an alternative...2. this is a global problem not a Canada one, and it needs to be solved globally....even if Canada went dark it would not make enough of a difference to make the changes that need to be done....

So armed with those facts, there is NO reason to get off fossil fuels right now, and destroy a large portion of our economy.. 3. everyone in Canada says that climate change is the number one priority in this country and yet we some how voted in Justin again, with his climate plan which if we followed will not even get us to 2030 targets, and we knew that before Justin got elected...actions always talk louder than words, the voters are talking out of both ends, there is not enough support for a plan as aggressive as the greens, and that or something like it to meet our goals in 2030.

Very little Canadians are going to drive climate change and empty their wallets at the same time...And truly do you think all the bils we have already spent is going to sway voters, OOH yes they are going to change their mind when climate change can not be changed....That is reality...and Greta and you can point your fingers all you want, thats reality...and it is not because we don't believe in climate change or forms of it, I just don't believe man has the parts to save us..... This nation would not survive 2 weeks with out energy to power our lights, stoves and refrigerators, it would be total hysteria, out of control, like the wild west with the strong taking from the weak... 

[Guest]

"Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[Guest ProudConservative]

19 hours ago, bcsapper said:

"Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Good for them. Nuclear meltdowns are no fun.

[Guest ProudConservative]

On 2/3/2020 at 12:50 PM, Army Guy said:

I glad you had a little chuckle....but in reality there is no NEW form of energy to replace Fossil fuels that is reliable or safe enough to use in ships, aircraft, or even trucks and cars...they are years perhaps decades away from finding an alternative...2. this is a global problem not a Canada one, and it needs to be solved globally....even if Canada went dark it would not make enough of a difference to make the changes that need to be done....

So armed with those facts, there is NO reason to get off fossil fuels right now, and destroy a large portion of our economy.. 3. everyone in Canada says that climate change is the number one priority in this country and yet we some how voted in Justin again, with his climate plan which if we followed will not even get us to 2030 targets, and we knew that before Justin got elected...actions always talk louder than words, the voters are talking out of both ends, there is not enough support for a plan as aggressive as the greens, and that or something like it to meet our goals in 2030.

Very little Canadians are going to drive climate change and empty their wallets at the same time...And truly do you think all the bils we have already spent is going to sway voters, OOH yes they are going to change their mind when climate change can not be changed....That is reality...and Greta and you can point your fingers all you want, thats reality...and it is not because we don't believe in climate change or forms of it, I just don't believe man has the parts to save us..... This nation would not survive 2 weeks with out energy to power our lights, stoves and refrigerators, it would be total hysteria, out of control, like the wild west with the strong taking from the weak... 

Instead of everyone argueing about, who should pay the highest amount of carbon taxes.... Just slow down the population growth, and it will be better for international stability. Reducing population growth is far less complicated... than trying to manage 1000's of new environmental regulations, and the political diviseness that will follow.

Edited February 5, 2020 by ProudConservative

[-1=e^ipi]

On 1/31/2020 at 4:29 AM, August1991 said:

we simply don't know how CO2 (a very minor part of Earth's atmosphere) is connected to temperature.

Wrong. It's called radiative physics. We've known the physics for nearly 200 years, since Fourier first proposed the greenhouse gas effect.

 

On 1/31/2020 at 4:23 PM, Army Guy said:

Well it is true they have done experiments in a lab and Co2 does hold more heat, that being said how do we account for Antarctica ice core samples have a much higher co2 readings at some points twice and 3 times current levels, with much  colder and much higher temperature ratings for different time periods.  

Antarctic ice cores do not show this. Antarctic ice cores only go back a few hundred thousand years, in a few cases over a million years. The last time CO2 levels were this high was 3 million years ago during the Pliocene. Proxies other than ice cores were used to reconstruct CO2 levels that far back in time.

[-1=e^ipi]

31 minutes ago, ProudConservative said:

Reducing population growth is far less complicated... than trying to manage 1000's of new environmental regulations, and the political diviseness that will follow.

Or you could implement a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, which is simple and the most economically efficient way to reduce emissions...

[Michael Hardner]

5 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Or you could implement a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, which is simple and the most economically efficient way to reduce emissions...

No, no... Banning child bearing is much easier than a small tax.