We *Need* to stop climate change

[InterCity]

So why do we have this thread? If we're universally screwed, no point ranting about it.

We're screwed? Don't reiterate it. It helps nothing.

I was coming late to the party with my remark, but when I read this, I'll have to make it anyway.

I think that we're screwed, but not universally. Regarding the climate change, we can just hole ourselves up somewhere. There are still two big blue yonders left to conquer, regardless of the humans thinking otherwise: That is air and sea. We can simply move some population to the higher ground and the rest to floating cities or giant blimps, let go of some unnecessary stuff like cars (We can just as well travel by electricity-powered trains, monorails and ships) and wait for the better times to come (I'm pretty convinced that they will come, but not after another ice age, see history books for details). In the unlikely event of near-obliteration of life on the Earth at least some of us can hole up in closed-cycle bases similar to space colonies and wait until the planet is habitable again. So the solution exists.or FTL travel to come.

The problem is that the wannabe-sentinent species of Homo Sapiens Sapiens just can't realize that other individuals of that species are of that species as well, thus refusing to cooperate in the name of progress and evading major setbacks that collapse of the society would indeed cause. Nobody will build these cities unless they're paid for it. The problem is not the climate, it's the humanity itself. By polluting the sh*t (sorry, but had to use that word) out of our homeworld, making bigger and better and more deadly weapons and plotting against each other, we'reh trying our best to destroy ourselves. Frankly, I'm quite surprised we didn't succeed to do that yet.

But in my opinion, aside from the humanity's more and more desperate attempts to suicide, the immediate concern should be mineral resources and non-renewable sources in general. If there's one thing that the humanity is good at, it's mining, drilling, scavenging, excavating and gathering resources. In fact, we're so good at that that we've managed to nearly deplete the earth's oil supply in a little more than a century. Good job, Texaco & co.

The problem with mining is that there comes a time when there is nothing to mine, and in that precise moment we'll start fighting over what's left.

Recycling will help, but not solve the problem: With increasing number of people and increasing development, we need more and more resources. If we stop mining and only recycle, the progress would at best come to a grinding halt; or worse, go backwards. The solution is to mine; mine; drill and excavate some more.

What I say, is that we should put everything to research space travel and then follow the typical scenario of 4X strategy games, slightly edited to suit our needs: For those of you who don't know, that is

1. Explore

Find the nice everyting in spa(aaaa)ce

2. Expand

Get the space potato where there is most nice everything or nicest everything

3. Exploit

Do what we're best at (see above for details)

4. Exterminate

Deal with any competition who wants *our* nice everything, either diplomatically or else.

5. ???

Repeat steps 3-4 as desired or until we have left a hollow ball of stone

6. Rinse and repeat

Lift the anchors, take off, find another space potato etc...

If we're right about the infinity of space, it should take helluva lot of time to mine everything. We'd be okay until evolution would find something better than that, and then... I'm sure that that wouldn't be my problem anymore.t climate changes. Instead, pick up the vials, test tubes, and do science! So we can destroy (yet another) planet. That's after all what we're best at.

Stop the talk about climate changes. Instead, pick up the vials, test tubes, and do science! So we can destroy (yet another) planet. That's after all what we're best at.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Those mined-out planets could be put into a stable state and used as nurseries etc. It would be a pity to dispose of an almost okay planet.

[Nibb31]

I was coming late to the party with my remark, but when I read this, I'll have to make it anyway.

I think that we're screwed, but not universally. Regarding the climate change, we can just hole ourselves up somewhere. There are still two big blue yonders left to conquer, regardless of the humans thinking otherwise: That is air and sea. We can simply move some population to the higher ground and the rest to floating cities or giant blimps, let go of some unnecessary stuff like cars (We can just as well travel by electricity-powered trains, monorails and ships) and wait for the better times to come (I'm pretty convinced that they will come, but not after another ice age, see history books for details).

I wonder who is going to pay for your giant blimps that house 8 billion people? There isn't enough helium on Earth to fill them up, and to produce enough hydrogen from seawater probably creates more ecological problems than it solves. You need the materials to build them, and power to transform raw minerals into a giant blimp.

In the unlikely event of near-obliteration of life on the Earth at least some of us can hole up in closed-cycle bases similar to space colonies and wait until the planet is habitable again. So the solution exists.or FTL travel to come.

Do you have any idea how much kinetic energy you need to accelerate a single person, with life-support and supplies, from 0 to 26000 km/h? Now multiply that by 8 billion people, add the construction materials to build a space colony that can support such a population, and try to find an energy source that can be converted into that amount of kinetic energy. Good luck with that.

[RainDreamer]

Hah, sounds like we can have some fun sci-fi ideas where human once again fraction, but this time by where they live. Some went to the sea, some went to the sky, each with a separate way of living. Might turn out to be interesting. Imagine the sea folk giving crap to all the sky folk dumping trash down on them.

[Roadkill]

I don't yet believe that Earth is "past the point of no return". I wrote and rewrote this post twice already. I keep sidetracking into a long rant about my own observations as a truck driver. To try and sumarize it all up, I simply don't see any of the dire predictions that have been made over the last 30 years coming true. Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter all still came in the same order this year, just like they have for the 44 years I've been alive. I refuse to let fear rule my judgement. The internet says I should be afraid. The mass media says I should be afraid. The Weather Channel says I should be afraid. My eyes tell me different though. I still see most folks going about their daily lives just as they have my whole life. And I guess the one thing that sticks in my craw, I don't believe we need to stop climate change. I like climate change. I like the fact that some days are hot, some are cold, some are dry, and some are wet. I don't want it to be the same all the time. That, IMHO, is the definition of hell. No variety, no spice, no change. NO THANKS!

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

I don't yet believe that Earth is "past the point of no return". I wrote and rewrote this post twice already. I keep sidetracking into a long rant about my own observations as a truck driver. To try and sumarize it all up, I simply don't see any of the dire predictions that have been made over the last 30 years coming true. Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter all still came in the same order this year, just like they have for the 44 years I've been alive. I refuse to let fear rule my judgement. The internet says I should be afraid. The mass media says I should be afraid. The Weather Channel says I should be afraid. My eyes tell me different though. I still see most folks going about their daily lives just as they have my whole life. And I guess the one thing that sticks in my craw, I don't believe we need to stop climate change. I like climate change. I like the fact that some days are hot, some are cold, some are dry, and some are wet. I don't want it to be the same all the time. That, IMHO, is the definition of hell. No variety, no spice, no change. NO THANKS!

You see, it rained in December. Then got to -40. Then was hot.

That's climate change. It is subtle. Notice the amount of mass weather? Like heavy snow storms, lots of rain etc. That's climate change.

Scientists are seeing this, it's happened to Venus. Same reason, different source. It's very real

[Arugela]

To OP: I'm pretty sure stopping climate change is the definition of destroying the earth. Please, explain this motive.... Besides we have a bunch of planets in our solar system already with reduced or increased climate change.

And who says we have any ability to even affect climate change. If you deal with plants enough you learn most of things some people describe as damaging are natural process required for the life of things in the ecosystem. If you did what you wanted you would destroy us all!!!! 8\

Maybe if we made people grow their food for a few years before they got into arguments on the internet about climate control... If only parents cared enough to do it.... We once did it.

And, sorry, but the arguments on global warming are not established. None of the people arguing about it even have any knowledge on it. Including the scientists. None of them have done more than potted a plant if they have even done that much.

And I'm with edframs earlier statement. You guys need to learn this stuff yourselves from experience. I bet none of you have even grown in a garden let alone understand the complexities of the rest of what you are talking about. Without that knowledge you cannot get into these arguments. How many here can give me exact calculated details on how much it takes to produce power from one means to a next. That is no different than if you cut own wood for fires. You have no idea without going it in exact detail which one takes more. For all you know it's saving trees by power mass electricity over something else. Or Solar panels produce more waste in the production or any other argument. Without knowledge arguments cannot go anywhere.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Arugela

[PakledHostage]

None of the people argueing about it even have any knowledge on it.

This includes you, presumably? Just saying.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

To OP: I'm pretty sure stopping climate change is the definition of destroying the earth. Please, explain this motive.... Besides we have a bunch of planets in our solar system already with reduced or increased climate change.

And who says we have any ability to even affect climate change. If you deal with plants enough you learn most of things some people describe as damaging are natural process required for the life of things in the ecosystem. If you did what you wanted you would destroy us all!!!! 8\

Maybe if we made people grow their food for a few years before they got into arguments on the internet about climate control... If only parents cared enough to do it.... We once did it.

And, sorry, but the arguments on global warming are not established. None of the people arguing about it even have any knowledge on it. Including the scientists. None of them have done more than potted a plant if they have even done that much.

And I'm with edframs earlier statement. You guys need to learn this stuff yourselves from experience. I bet none of you have even grown in a garden let alone understand the complexities of the rest of what you are talking about. Without that knowledge you cannot get into these arguments.

By climate change, I mean the human based one. Where we are pumping out more carbon, than any other natural source on the Earth.

[Arugela]

I'm aware of what you're argument is. How do you know any of it is even correct? How do you know any of it is harmful or anything else?

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

I'm aware of what you're argument is. How do you know any of it is even correct? How do you know any of it is harmful or anything else?

I know it's harmful, because of this extreme weather in the world. It snowed in Egypt 2 years ago. It's raining in winter, snowing like hell in southern US. Eventually, this will get beyond a point that will result in worse weather. Much, much worse

[Arugela]

That is not proof of anything. For all you know that is normal.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

That is not proof of anything. For all you know that is normal.

So, your telling me that the recorded proof of extreme weather increasing with carbon is a coincidence?

Chart of weather to carbon

Chart of Temp to Carbon. Which if you took basic science in high-school, you will know directly affects weather

Notice the weather getting worse in the US, while we see that Carbon emissions are also getting worse

[tater]

Weather is not climate. That you cite outlier events as "proof" shows a profound lack of understanding. Alarmism on the subject is predicated on any change being unprecedented. Within the range of change they consider critical there is simply no good data for historical climate, much less paleoclimate. Instead, they use proxies for climate that are not terribly accurate as they all have many confounding factors.

Its not accidental that the rise shown in the graph above coincides with the era of more compete data sets and satellites. Same with things like hurricanes, they used to only get noticed when they hit land, now they are named, counted, and never make landfall.

Recent satellite data is actually useful, and directly of comparable to previous years with the same instrument. Even comparing to the previous sat involves complex algorithms, and involves some subjectivity. Pre satellite data is like comparing apples to... Horses (ground data with sparse coverage in space and time, etc).

Climate is is a complex system. The models depend on small changes in initial conditions making large changes in outcomes. The trouble is anything missed in the model might well be a bigger change in initial condition than changing CO2 inputs, sequestration, etc. Like the abysmal modeling of cloud cover they use, or solar inputs.

I think it is likely that humans have a measurable impact on climate, I think the magnitude is very poorly characterized. Any mitigation scheme that involves vast sums of money needs to operate with demonstrably predictive models in order to make the right decisions. I expect to be able to literally place an economic cost per 0.whatever change in average temp (a whole other can of worms), and we should be able to test it vs observations, not models. Doing something is not always better than doing nothing, or doing whatever limits pollution (universally good) at the least cost. Mitigation might well be cheaper. From an economic standpoint, the goal is not no pollution, but the right amount for optimal human wellbeing.

Edited March 11, 2015 by tater

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Weather is not climate. That you cite outlier events as "proof" shows a profound lack of understanding. Alarmism on the subject is predicated on any change being unprecedented. Within the range of change they consider critical there is simply no good data for historical climate, much less paler linage. Instead, they use proxies for climate that are not terribly accurate as they all have many confounding factors.

Recent satellite data is actually useful, and directly of comparable to previous years with the same instrument. Even comparing to the previous sat involves complex algorithms, and involves some subjectivity. Pre satellite data is like comparing apples to... Horses (ground data with sparse coverage in space and time, etc).

Climate is is a complex system. The models depend on small changes in initial conditions making large changes in outcomes. The trouble is anything missed in the model might well be a bigger change in initial condition than changing CO2 inputs, sequestration, etc. Like the abysmal modeling of cloud cover they use, or solar inputs.

I think it is likely that humans have a measurable impact on climate, I think the magnitude is very poorly characterized. Any mitigation scheme that involves vast sums of money needs to operate with demonstrably predictive models in order to make the right decisions. I expect to be able to literally place an economic cost per 0.whatever change in average temp (a whole other can of worms), and we should be able to test it vs observations, not models. Doing something is not always better than doing nothing, or doing whatever limits pollution (universally good) at the least cost. Mitigation might well be cheaper. From an economic standpoint, the goal is not no pollution, but the right amount for optimal human wellbeing.

First off - I know Climate != weather. But it does affect it in the long run

Secondly, that last paragraph is exactly what I assumed people would get from this thread. We need to lessen the impact of the climate.

[Arugela]

But the point of climate is that it impacts things. Doing something to something that you do not know about is the worst possible solution. It's always wrong. That is the definition of being responsible. Doing things based on knowledge and not speculation. Or it is, by definition, the only way to be responsible.

Nothing else works the way being described by climate proponents. It's that easy for a theory to be proven wrong with new information. It should be expected. And being expected, these conclusions to change things in this manner are abysmally irresponsible.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

But the point of climate is that it impacts things. Doing something to something that you do not know about is the worst possible solution. It's always wrong. That is the definition of being responsible. Doing things based on knowledge and not speculation. Or it is, by definition, the only way to be responsible.

See the charts above. If the fact that the weather is getting worse, due to temperature. And the amount of Carbon is increasing temperature. That tells you something.

[Arugela]

Your holding that more parameters can't exist and the data must fit your conclusion(at minimum). Your logic is faulty to it's core. What you said in no way proves anything. You can't prove it within the parameters and you can't prove there aren't more parameters. Tell us how do know that the given data proves what you said(your hypothesis)?

Also, data does not simplify a theory or proof. It only adds more work and more things to prove.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Arugela

[PakledHostage]

You can't prove it within the parameters and you can't prove there aren't more parameters. Tell us how do know that the given data proves what you said(your hypothesis)?

You're barking up the wrong tree. TheCanadianVendingMachine isn't (at least not as far as I can tell) an eminent climate scientist. Yet he/she is providing data and a hypothesis that is in line with the thinking of the world's leading experts on climatology.

If you have an alternate hypothesis that contradicts the established paradigm, then it is you who must provide the evidence in support of your case. You can't just make baseless claims and fault your opponent for not being able to disprove whatever crackpot idea you come up with.

Edited March 11, 2015 by PakledHostage

[GoSlash27]

You're barking up the wrong tree. TheCanadianVendingMachine isn't (at least not as far as I can tell) an eminent climate scientist. Yet he/she is providing data and a hypothesis that is in line with the thinking of the world's leading experts on climatology.

If you have an alternate hypothesis that contradicts the established paradigm, then it is you who must provide the evidence in support of your case. You can't just make baseless claims and fault your opponent for not being able to disprove whatever crackpot idea you come up with.

Actually, he/she is not. Climate change affects long term trends, not short term weather.

^ Correlation <> causation.

Best,

-Slashy

[micha]

But the point of climate is that it impacts things. Doing something to something that you do not know about is the worst possible solution. It's always wrong. That is the definition of being responsible. Doing things based on knowledge and not speculation. Or it is, by definition, the only way to be responsible.

But we ARE doing something. We ARE polluting the hell out of our planet. Of course we're not 100% sure what the consequences will be, the environment is a very complex set of systems, but we DO know that there WILL be some.

So by your own argument what you're saying is that we should STOP doing what we are doing (polluting our environment) until we can fully understand the ramifications?

(YouTube) I came across last year, which shifts the question of whether or not WE are causing climate change to one of risk management. Not entirely sure of the delivery, but the core argument is food for thought.

[Nibb31]

But the point of climate is that it impacts things. Doing something to something that you do not know about is the worst possible solution. It's always wrong.

Yet that's pretty much the definition of all human activity since the dawn of its existence.

Whether or not climate change is happening is not up to debate. We are seeing the effects with glaciers melting, sea levels rising, methane being released from melting permafrost, and more violent meteorological events than ever. The positive feedback loops are measured, explained, and predictable in models. The entire scientific community agrees that there is a climate problem and that it's getting out of control. And no, the entire scientific community is not part of a Greenpeace-driven conspiracy.

You might debate whether climate change is due to human activity or not. So we really have two options here:

- Either it is due to us burning stuff, in which case we should probably stop burning stuff.

- It is due to some other unexplained natural cause, but burning stuff is making it worse, in which case we should probably stop burning stuff.

Other than that, there are plenty of other reasons for us to stop burning stuff (burnt stuff residue isn't healthy to breathe, the more stuff we burn, the less there is to burn, and the more expensive it gets, we need to import stuff that burns from countries that are run by bad people, etc...)

I see absolutely no rational reason for us to keep on burning stuff, other than "I sell stuff that burns, so I don't want people to stop burning stuff" and "I want to keep on burning stuff because I don't care".

Funnily enough, the only place in the World that has influential decision-makers who are constantly denying scientific results also happens to be the only place in the World where politicians are openly funded by people who sell stuff that burns and are elected by people who don't care. What a coincidence !

Edited March 11, 2015 by Nibb31

[RainDreamer]

I kind of think it is always better to be on the safe side and plan for worst case scenarios. Like researching terraforming technology and creating biodomes so we can live in there when things goes bad. Also a bonus for future spacecraft habitat development when we already be able to create sustainable living space.

[vger]

How much extra CO2 are we be producing just by having so many "bodies" on the planet? Regardless of industry?

[PakledHostage]

Actually, he/she is not. Climate change affects long term trends, not short term weather.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/erikaandersen/files/2012/03/w1467103173.jpg

^ Correlation <> causation.

Best,

-Slashy

You are correct that climate does not equal weather, but climate change is expected to result in more extreme weather and that is the association that TheCanadianVendingMachine is getting at.

Also, to my knowledge, nobody has published a peer reviewed paper that associates the number of pirates with global temperatures. An immense amount of peer reviewed work has been published showing a causal relationship between CO₂ and global average temperatures, on the other hand. Correlation may not equal causation, but correlation also doesn't rule out causation.

Edited March 11, 2015 by PakledHostage

[Probe 1]

Technically, if you were to stop and reverse climate change entirely, you'd be on a barren, lifeless, kind of mars/mercury/moon like planet being constantly bombarded by planetoid objects, or comets and asteroid as they now are.