We *Need* to stop climate change

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Now, we all know that the Earth's climate is changing, bringing terrible weather. But no one is doing anything about it. Currently, with our energy production, there is 10 billion metric tons of CO2 being released by humans each year, and it's rising. If we don't stop it, this generation can be the last. So I propose a simple way to change this.

If a mass of people want to change something, they usually protest, and try to bring change. But none of that is working, so it seems. But I think if there is a mass of hand written letters to your government, there can be a change. So I propose is that we, as a community of well informed people, write letters to the governments. Tell them that their children won't have children at this rate, that when they die we have to clean up, and tell them how to change it. Tell them different ways to produce clean energy, such as solar, nuclear, hydro, or wind power. It's a large investment, but it will pay off by them living through history.

That was my rant, and personally I think we as a mass can change. Or at least bring more attention to. The governments can't deny that the climate is changing, through the rain during winter, and it snowing in central USA. We HAVE to change something, or the children of today won't have kids.

inb4 "Governments don't care", "We can't change anything"

[Sampa]

NO, we don't need to stop climate change! The climate is changing all the time, regardless of what we are doing!

[Flixxbeatz]

Unfortunately, it can't be stopped. It can only be slowed down.

[FishInferno]

Yes, The Earth does go through natural cycles of heating and cooling. But not on the scale that humans are causing. It is hard for people to say that it isn't our fault now, in 50 years there may not be a Disney World. I agree with the OP wholeheartedly.

The problem is simple: money. People only care about money, and this is the reason why we still use oil and why electric cars aren't mainstream.

[joppiesaus]

The only thing you can do is to do thing as efficient as possible.

I mean, changing your habits changes a lot.

If you don't use electronics, turn them off.

If you like to shower a long time, learn yourself doing shorter.

Buy double-glass windows, buy solar panels, buy electric-generating water warmers or sun collectors... There are a lot of innovative ideas. Like, instead of having water of the shower going to the sewers, have a heat exchanger(a spiral arround the waterworks) warm the water that goes to the boiler, that way you can shower a lot longer.

You can invest in those things if you buy for example a new house. It'll drain your fixed charges, too.

Recycle plastics and metal.

And then you have the people "climate is always changing", "third world country won't implement stuff so we don't make a difference".

But if you make a difference, sooner or later a third world country will do the same, because third world country's practically live in the past.

It's litteraly a "every little helps" solution. If everyone who drops junk on the ground puts one piece of junk per day in the garbage bin instead of dropping on the ground, everything would be a lot cleaner.

I planted a few plants a time ago, and that helps, too.

NO, we don't need to stop climate change! The climate is changing all the time, regardless of what we are doing!

That's like saying "I have a disease I don't need medicine to make symptoms less cause they'll go away anyway."

[RainDreamer]

We do need to stop it. That is no longer up to debate anymore, and has already been established. We might have been too late for some changes though: 2014 was the point of no return for parts of West Antarctica - or more specifically the glaciers around Amundsen Sea region. The estimate global water level rise as these glaciers gradually collapse is 1.2 meter, or 4 feet. And there is nothing we can do to stop it now.

The question now is, how do we stop further changes in the future, or how will we direct the changes toward a more sustainable direction, perhaps by terraforming that allow us to survive after the changes?

We need something effective, and we need it yesterday. Radical ideas would probably include massive decrease in human population, and thus consumption, or martial laws upon consumption rate. Though I doubt we want to do that. So what else can we do?

I know there is always "If each person do x" ideas, but if we can actually get each person motivated enough to do things, we would have solved quite a lot of problems already. We need something more strong handed.

Edited March 8, 2015 by RainDreamer

[Drunken Hobo]

But people with arts degrees writing in tabloid newspapers owned by people with interests in oil companies have told me it's all a scam and not to worry. Why would I trust millionaire scientists over humble individuals like Rupert Murdoch?

Checkmate, warmists.

[Guest]

http://humon.deviantart.com/art/Mother-Gaia-207388674

© humon.deviantart.com

[ZedNova]

You're wrong, politicians can deny it, that's something they are very good at...

We need something effective, and we need it yesterday. Radical ideas would probably include massive decrease in human population, and thus consumption, or martial laws upon consumption rate. Though I doubt we want to do that. So what else can we do?

More public transportation (Specifically mag-levs above streets in high density city areas), further taxes on CO2 emissions from industrial complexes, advanced recycling programs, LFTR power plants, increased use of solar panels, decommissioning coal and oil power plants, employing natural and artificial photosynthetic plants around areas that produce Large amounts of Co2.

All this requires money though; a LOT of money. Good luck getting any government to cough it up, when each politician is only thinking about how they are going to get re-elected.

[GoSlash27]

IRT the OP:

Whether we "need to" stop climate change or not is debatable, but moot; we can't.

I'm not getting into the rest of it. Too political.

Best,

-Slashy

[Guest]

It will not help at all. Most air pollution is produced by China and India, their industry. They are unaffected by all your taxes and laws. And they cannot do anything about it, because it will cause their economies to crash. All the governments are only concerned by holding power TODAY and avoiding any responsibility TOMORROW. So above-mentioned governments will not attempt to fiddle with their economies to attempt to make them more green in fear of economy collapse. It's because their industry is only competitive because of cheap (or forced) labor and very non-green technologies.

Other part of pollution is produced by cars, and it's unavoidable too.

I think, that about 75% of car owners not really need cars. They can use public transportation or work at home.

But people buy cars because "only losers don't own car" and all that. Especially in developing countries. Cars are mostly used to elevate new-rich's egos there.

Cars pollute air, cars kill people (a lot), cars block ways for ambulances, and some car owners even do not allow ambulances to pass by to show-off how they "cool and powerful".

So yes, we doomed.

Edited March 8, 2015 by Guest

[EdFred]

You want to stop climate change? Be the first to throw out your computer, don't use ANY electricity, don't travel anywhere except by foot or horse, or buy any products that contribute to generating CO2, including transportation, go back to using firewood for heat. Then after you've set an example, convince everyone else to do the same thing.

Oh, you don't want to live like it's 1515 rather than 2015? So you don't really want to stop it do you? Yeah, neither does anyone else.

- - - Updated - - -

It will not help at all. Most air pollution is produced by China and India, their industry. They are unaffected by all your taxes and laws. And they cannot do anything about it, because it will cause their economies to crash. All the governments are only concerned by holding power TODAY and avoiding any responsibility TOMORROW. So above-mentioned governments will not attempt to fiddle with their economies to attempt to make them more green in fear of economy collapse. It's because their industry is only competitive because of cheap (or forced) labor and very non-green technologies.

Other part of pollution is produced by cars, and it's unavoidable too.

I think, that about 75% of car owners not really need cars. They can use public transportation or work at home.

But people buy cars because "only losers don't own car" and all that. Especially in developing countries. Cars are mostly used to elevate new-rich's egos there.

Cars pollute air, cars kill people (a lot), cars block ways for ambulances, and some car owners even do not allow ambulances to pass by to show-off how they "cool and powerful".

So yes, we doomed.

You obviously live in a big city. (Most likely Europe) The closest public transportation for me is almost 10km away. And it's in the opposite direction of my job. Sorry, I'm not not walking 10km to get on a bus to go to the store, only to carry my groceries on foot 10km to my house.

[Claw]

This topic often devolves quickly. Please remember, discussion of ideas is fine, attacking people is not. Please make sure the conversation stays on topic and civil.

Cheers,

~Claw

[Drunken Hobo]

It will not help at all. Most air pollution is produced by China and India, their industry. They are unaffected by all your taxes and laws. And they cannot do anything about it, because it will cause their economies to crash.

The same was true for CFCs, albeit on a smaller scale. Poor countries couldn't afford to develop and produce alternatives, so rich Western countries did and the effects trickled down to the poorer countries, who abandoned CFCs once it became viable. Same thing happens with other technologies, such as nuclear & wind power.

Of course the ozone depleting was a more immediate and obvious problem than a slow rise in temperatures, and the pro-CFC lobby wasn't nearly as powerful as the fossil fuel industry. There was also Greenpeace who actually did good work backed up by science, rather than the massive self-promoting profit-hungry corporation they are now.

[Nuke]

get fusion working this century and we might survive. doddle and were screwed.

there is little you can do to make humans stop using hydrocarbons, short of killing them of course, or cut off their supply and let them kill eachother, or give them something better to be decadent with. thus is the way of entropy. people wont do anything until they need to and by then its too late. fusion helps too, the universe needs us to burn up all the stray hydrogen isotopes. thus is the way of entropy.

hail entropy!

Edited March 8, 2015 by Nuke

[Bill Phil]

Without climate change we wouldn't exist in the first place...

[Drunken Hobo]

Without climate change we wouldn't exist in the first place...

Without cataclysmic asteroid impacts we wouldn't exist in the first place...

Sounds like a good argument for a cataclysmic asteroid impact.

[GoSlash27]

Without cataclysmic asteroid impacts we wouldn't exist in the first place...

Sounds like a good argument for a cataclysmic asteroid impact.

Nobody's arguing for cataclysmic asteroid impacts, just as nobody's arguing for climate change. You stand about as much chance of stopping either of them. In fact, you've got a *better* chance of stopping the asteroid impacts. At least that's theoretically possible....

Best,

-Slashy

[EdFred]

Nobody's arguing for cataclysmic asteroid impacts, just as nobody's arguing for climate change. You stand about as much chance of stopping either of them. In fact, you've got a *better* chance of stopping the asteroid impacts. At least that's theoretically possible....

Best,

-Slashy

Well, if we all chose to live like it was 1515, we could stop it, if coupled with that we let the rain forests come back. But I'm pretty sure no one on this board wants to live like that.

[vger]

Controlled explosions - send dust into the air to reduce sunlight by a tiny margin? (VERY tiny nuclear winter)

[GoSlash27]

Well, if we all chose to live like it was 1515, we could stop it, if coupled with that we let the rain forests come back. But I'm pretty sure no one on this board wants to live like that.

I'm not sure even that would do the trick. People were clearcutting and burning a lot of trees back then. And even if we could reduce our carbon footprint to zero (stop breathing, etc)... does it reverse the climate change? Last I checked, the answer was no... Maybe slows it a hair.

Best,

-Slashy

[Drunken Hobo]

Nobody's arguing for cataclysmic asteroid impacts, just as nobody's arguing for climate change. You stand about as much chance of stopping either of them. In fact, you've got a *better* chance of stopping the asteroid impacts. At least that's theoretically possible....

Best,

-Slashy

By decreasing the rate that we're releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere we could slow the rate at which climate change happens. It won't be possible to stop entirely, but that doesn't mean we should put in absolutely no effort. That's the equivalent of heading towards an accident in a car and refusing to brake, because you're going to crash anyway. Much better to crash at 10 mph than 40 mph.

Edited March 8, 2015 by Drunken Hobo

[Tex_NL]

As long as the biggest polluters value economic profit above all else there is little anybody can do.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html

And even if the top polluters suddenly decide to act it has never been proven mankind is actually capable of changing the climate.

[GoSlash27]

By decreasing the rate that we're releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere we could slow the rate at which climate change happens. It won't be possible to stop entirely, but that doesn't mean we should put in absolutely no effort. That's the equivalent of heading towards an accident in a car and refusing to break, because you're going to crash anyway. Much better to crash at 10 mph than 40 mph.

More like crashing driving off a cliff at 39.9998 mph instead of 40. And how do you know it's "better"? What are the costs in the meantime for imposing a crash effort (assuming you could, which you can't)?

How many additional people would die in the name of "slowing global warming"? I'm not a betting man, but if I were I'd be willing to lay down huge money that you've never considered that angle. Unintended consequences and such...

For that matter, how do you even know there's a "crash"? Climate has been changing since the dawn of time, and the planet has always corrected itself.

The idea that "attempting something you know you can't do at any cost is better than doing nothing" is a logical fallacy.

Edited March 8, 2015 by GoSlash27
"crashing" is a bad analogy

[Tex_NL]

The only way we might have some kind of impact is to stop using fossil fuels completely. Re-planting trees to compensate for fossil fuel use is a lie!

Lets say you use fossil fuels and emit 1000 tons of CO₂. Now you plant a new forest in order to absorb those 1000 tons worth of CO₂. Nice and clean you might think, the total sum is zero. WRONG! No matter what you do with those trees eventually they will either rot or burn, releasing all the captured CO₂ back in to the atmosphere.