Climate Change

[jacksonM]

Greenland glacier growing....

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/ke ... ncna987116

Population of Polar Bears increasing...

https://www.thegwpf.org/as-polar-bear-n ... es-status/

Combine with another thread talking about historic flooding due to record cold and snowfall.

Am I the only one who sees a connection with these stories and the Mueller Investigation? I mean advancing a narrative to attain a purely political objective without much regard for the truth?

I have great respect for science and real scientists because they have done a lot of undeniable good in the world and we owe them a debt of gratitude. I have no respect for politicians who use them to advance to their own agenda.

[boglerdude]

How much CO2 is released into the atmosphere daily, globally?

Whats the incentive for anyone to "push climate change"

[WiseOne]

Sorry guys, but the evidence that the planet is warming up is irrefutable. Warming involves greater fluctuations which can manifest as localized cold snaps. You can't cherry pick these and use them as contrary evidence.

I was (again) reminded of this when I started getting allergy symptoms this past week. I checked local pollen counts, and lo and behold, the season has already started. In March!!!! This is the earliest ever. Just 10 years ago, you were safe until early to mid May in this area.

Whether the warming trend is fueled by atmospheric CO2 generated from fossil fuels is another topic. The evidence is pretty strong. It will never get to 100% since that would require a test planet and a time machine, but at some point you have to call it. Feel free to debate from this point.

[Cortopassi]

The glacier story makes it clear this pattern is temporary.

The polar bear story, all that is telling is that our idea that less sea ice was bad for bears is incorrect.

Neither seem to be proof of anything radically different in climate change.

[jhogue]

So who is doing the cherry picking?

The climate change alarmists strike me as precisely the same crowd of "scientists" that tried to spread panic in the wake of the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s now-thoroughly refuted The Population Bomb in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As Yogi Berra used to say, “Prediction is hard, especially about the future.”

[Xan]

I was (again) reminded of this when I started getting allergy symptoms this past week. I checked local pollen counts, and lo and behold, the season has already started. In March!!!! This is the earliest ever. Just 10 years ago, you were safe until early to mid May in this area.

How do you know that isn't a localized warm snap as a result of global cooling?

[Mountaineer]

Sorry guys, but the evidence that the planet is warming up is irrefutable. Warming involves greater fluctuations which can manifest as localized cold snaps. You can't cherry pick these and use them as contrary evidence.

I was (again) reminded of this when I started getting allergy symptoms this past week. I checked local pollen counts, and lo and behold, the season has already started. In March!!!! This is the earliest ever. Just 10 years ago, you were safe until early to mid May in this area.

Whether the warming trend is fueled by atmospheric CO2 generated from fossil fuels is another topic. The evidence is pretty strong. It will never get to 100% since that would require a test planet and a time machine, but at some point you have to call it. Feel free to debate from this point.

As is the irrefutable evidence for cooling or staying the same. It just depends on the timeframe and subset of the universe one chooses to favor at the moment. Ultimately, for the earth, science predicts intense heating (sun will engulf the earth) followed by cooling of the entire universe (entropy) from its present state. No need to get our knickers in a twist; perhaps it is best to only concern ourselves with things under our personal control. At best, our "evidence" is only a few hundred or several thousands of years old (depending on your belief system) out of eternity.

[stuper1]

My limited understanding of the evidence for human-caused warming is that a lot of it is based on computer modeling. I do computer modeling at work. I know that I can get a computer model to say whatever I want it to say. Sometimes I can get completely different "answers" just by tweaking a parameter or two by a little bit.

I'm not sure that we understand all of the factors at play well enough to know with any great certainty what the real cause of warming is. Correlation is not causation, as they say. If we need to rebuild our cities to move them farther inland, that seems like a great jobs program, and it seems like a lot of people need jobs world wide.

This supposedly evil technology that has supposedly caused global warming has without question raised the world's collective standard of living by orders of magnitude.

[I Shrugged]

Heck, we are still coming out of the last ice age which was only 10,000 years ago. Who knows where the top is? The climate history is one of ice age after ice age.

I'm very skeptical because of the political motives on both sides. Even though I'm on one of them.

[WiseOne]

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world ... ecadalTemp

Leaving aside the question of cause, the average global temperature has been increasing. Last year was the 4th warmest year on record. The hottest 5 years on record were 2014-2018.

https://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/ ... -on-record

Seasons have advanced over large areas of the US. Spring now starts 2 months ahead of what it used to here. There's a tree called "Juneberry" in Central Park that now yields berries in April. It was named "June" for a reason. Yes that could be a localized phenomenon, but it serves to counter the isolated examples that you guys are quoting. For every one that you come up with, I can give you a counterexample, so it doesn't get us anywhere.

What you CAN debate is what's causing the warming trend. Is the the natural end of the ice age? Normal planetary fluctuation that just happened to coincide with the industrial revolution? A direct consequence of increased atmospheric CO2? All are potentially reasonable explanations. What we definitely know is how much atmospheric CO2 has increased, and what the chemical properties of CO2 are. Lacking a test planet and time machine, from there you pretty much have to predict based on modeling. Yes there are assumptions involved, but you can validate those predictions with real life observations. I do computational modeling for my field myself, so I understand the tradeoffs.

So far though, I haven't heard anyone provide any information that could counter that third argument, and I'd genuinely like to hear them if they exist. It is definitely a tough question whether to literally remake our economy and spend a lot of money to reduce atmospheric CO2. There are bound to be tradeoffs like a lower quality of life for most people, driving some populations into poverty, and limiting money spent on things like medical care, infrastructure, education etc. The Green New Deal tries to tell us we can have it all, but of course we can't.

[dualstow]

Even if we reduced our carbon emissions ala the NGD, would it matter if China, India and other emerging countries did nothing and continued to pollute the crap out of the environment?

Pollute the crap into the environment.

[jacksonM]

Although there are a good number of scientists who disagree with the so-called "consensus" I can accept the basic premise of anthropogenic global warming.

What I have a hard time swallowing is that it is an existential crisis that we only have 12 years to solve with drastic action or else we are doomed. I regard that as mostly political rhetoric by those who are green on the outside but red on the inside. Even it were true how much effect would it have if the U.S.A. was the only country to take the drastic action being proposed? So unless China, India, and other major CO2 producers join the effort we are probably doomed any way.

[Maddy]

Even if we reduced our carbon emissions ala the NGD, would it matter if China, India and other emerging countries did nothing and continued to pollute the crap out of the environment?

Up until this point, the beneficiary of and the propelling force for all that crap generated by China has been the American consumer. With the rise of the Asian middle class, which is estimated to be approximately ten times the size of our own, we are indeed headed for a day of reckoning. But are we in any position to tell this new class of Asian consumers that they aren't entitled to feed at the same trough as their American counterpart?

[Maddy]

In case you missed it:

Greenpeace co-founder and former president of Greenpeace Canada Patrick Moore described the cynical and corrupt machinations fueling the narrative of anthropocentric global warming and “climate change” . . .

Moore explained how fear and guilt are leveraged by proponents of climate change:

Fear has been used all through history to gain control of people’s minds and wallets and all else, and the climate catastrophe is strictly a fear campaign. . .

Scientists are co-opted and corrupted by politicians and bureaucracies invested in advancing the narrative of “climate change” in order to further centralize political power and control, explained Moore.

Moore noted how “green” companies parasitize taxpayers via favorable regulations and subsidies ostensibly justified by the aforementioned narrative’s claimed threats, all while enjoying propagandistic protection across news media.”

And so you’ve got the green movement creating stories that instill fear in the public. You’ve got the media echo chamber — fake news — repeating it over and over and over again to everybody that they’re killing their children. And then you’ve got the green politicians who are buying scientists with government money to produce fear for them in the form of scientific-looking materials. And then you’ve got the green businesses, the rent-seekers, and the crony capitalists who are taking advantage of massive subsidies, huge tax write-offs, and government mandates requiring their technologies to make a fortune on this. And then, of course, you’ve got the scientists who are willingly, they’re basically hooked on government grants.

When they talk about the 99 percent consensus [among scientists] on climate change, that’s a completely ridiculous and false number. But most of the scientists — put it in quotes, scientists — who are pushing this catastrophic theory are getting paid by public money, they are not being paid by General Electric or Dupont or 3M to do this research, where private companies expect to get something useful from their research that might produce a better product and make them a profit in the end because people want it — build a better mousetrap type of idea. But most of what these so-called scientists are doing is simply producing more fear so that politicians can use it to control people’s minds and get their votes because some of the people are convinced, ‘Oh, this politician can save my kid from certain doom.’

https://www.technocracy.news/greenpeace ... -and-scam/

[boglerdude]

Theres 10x more money behind oil companies and oil rich countries, and the researchers they fund. And the advertising space they can buy.

[jacksonM]

The glacier story makes it clear this pattern is temporary.

The polar bear story, all that is telling is that our idea that less sea ice was bad for bears is incorrect.

Neither seem to be proof of anything radically different in climate change.

Well, melting glaciers and declining polar bears were the poster children for global warming/climate change so what will be the new ones?

When I first moved into my house my homeowner's insurance was going through the roof and my first yearly premium was > $4k. This was due to a period of more frequent and stronger hurricanes and climate change predictions said they were only going to get worse. What followed was the longest period of no hurricanes hitting the U.S. in history and I was just quoted a premium of $529 for next year. So apparently insurance companies aren't taking the predictions any more serious than the rest of the public.

I used to not believe in evolution but have done a complete about face on it so I'm more than willing to change my mind about things. When global warming predictions don't pan out the way they so often seem not to, good luck in changing public perceptions to marshall something like the GND.

We've all seen plenty of "consensus" opinions turn out to be wrong and alarmist predictions fail so I think skepticism is a good thing. Just one example would be the government nutritional guidelines which, it now appears, did much more harm than good.

[WiseOne]

"IMO 2020" looks like it may pass, which brought up some interesting statistics, (which i can't quote exact) but it raises the point that the pollution volume for a short period of cross ocean shipping in cargo ships burning high sulphur fuel equals something like years worth of all the cars/trucks on the planet... the illogic of green think, and the red agenda underneath shine through when they want everyone to give up everything to be green..

I like the "IMO 2020" proposal, at first glance anyway, it seems like far more logical approach to a big source of pollution than the tyrannical solutions the global cooling global warming climate change people are putting forward..

+1!!!

I remember posting something in the past about giant cargo ships. Absolutely amazing that this is completely ignored in the general hysteria. Just one of those ships, burning No 6 oil, produces pollution comparable to the entire output of the US passenger car fleet. Replacing every car with Priuses would barely move the needle on atmospheric CO2, compared to reducing our dependency on cheap crap from China. I marvel at the fact that the "Energy Star" rating looks only at usage of the appliance, and completely ignores the energy required to manufacture it, transport it, replace it, and dispose of it - which should be prorated over its expected lifetime. Which has gone down significantly, of course. You could argue that some modern Energy Star appliances actually end up using just as much or even more energy as your old one that lasted >20 years.

It's all so much political theater.

[moda0306]

"IMO 2020" looks like it may pass, which brought up some interesting statistics, (which i can't quote exact) but it raises the point that the pollution volume for a short period of cross ocean shipping in cargo ships burning high sulphur fuel equals something like years worth of all the cars/trucks on the planet... the illogic of green think, and the red agenda underneath shine through when they want everyone to give up everything to be green..

+1!!!

I remember posting something in the past about giant cargo ships. Absolutely amazing that this is completely ignored in the general hysteria. Just one of those ships, burning No 6 oil, produces pollution comparable to the entire output of the US passenger car fleet. Replacing every car with Priuses would barely move the needle on atmospheric CO2, compared to reducing our dependency on cheap crap from China. I marvel at the fact that the "Energy Star" rating looks only at usage of the appliance, and completely ignores the energy required to manufacture it, transport it, replace it, and dispose of it - which should be prorated over its expected lifetime. Which has gone down significantly, of course. You could argue that some modern Energy Star appliances actually end up using just as much or even more energy as your old one that lasted >20 years.

It's all so much political theater.

I've heard it brought up. My man Chomsky brought up how if you adjusted for the cost of pollution from transportation and protection of trade routes, "Free Trade" is far less efficient than our current numbers have it out to be. Of course, naturally all we are exposed to is the talking points of political power, so we're not going to see attacks on certain types of things that don't resonate very easily with the masses. That's why everything "green" has to be associated with a "jobs" program so non-environmentalist working-class-poor don't lose interest in the dems (any more than they have).

And to your point about disposal, I think there should be a "pollution tax" on every product sold based on a 3-or-4-tier expectation of how soon it WILL end up in a landfill and the products that make it up. Think of a "deposit" on a can, but for everything. For things that "can" be recycled, you can get your deposit back.

The amount we throw away is sick. I see no problem with accurately and simply taxing externalities for what they are... theft, at best, and negligent manslaughter at worst.

[dualstow]

Theres 10x more money behind oil companies and oil rich countries, and the researchers they fund. And the advertising space they can buy.

If someone actively chooses not to believe in something, or they have reasons for not wanting to act on something- global warming, vaccinations, the earth is round, we went to the moon, etc -- it is convenient to ascribe an agenda to it. The military-industrial complex, the evil mainstream media.

I find it funny how many people choose to believe or not believe in something, and try to connect the dots after the fact. It's backwards thinking, both literally and figuratively.

[Kriegsspiel]

Even though it's by far the most effective way to be less environmentally destructive, simply buying and using less shit hardly ever gets a plug, like you guys said. In addition to the tanker fuel thing, which I remember WiseOne posting a while ago, resource extraction accounts for half of worldwide carbon emmissions and 80% of biodiversity loss (according to a UN study).

"Using less stuff" is pretty much the working definition of "being poor" though, so I don't see it gaining much traction outside of hippies and us ERE people. Even minimalist/Kondoers go back to accumulating stuff.

[moda0306]

Even though it's by far the most effective way to be less environmentally destructive, simply buying and using less shit hardly ever gets a plug, like you guys said. In addition to the tanker fuel thing, which I remember WiseOne posting a while ago, resource extraction accounts for half of worldwide carbon emmissions and 80% of biodiversity loss (according to a UN study).

"Using less stuff" is pretty much the working definition of "being poor" though, so I don't see it gaining much traction outside of hippies and us ERE people. Even minimalist/Kondoers go back to accumulating stuff.

Well the answer is kind of obvious in some ways... the "prosperity" of the working class of our economy is utterly and completely resting on continued and growing conspicuous consumption. When people talk about how "wealthy" we are, they're certainly not taking about the balance sheets of the working class and the ability of those balance sheets to functionally feed their current lifestyle for any decent period. This is why I can't stand talking about "wealth" as flat screen TV's, great TV shows, and the internet. All are great from a consumption fun standpoint, but owning goods produced is NOT owning the means of production.

Add to that the utterly hobbled bargaining power of the working class as an economic institution, and I don't see good outcomes. One thing I run through my head is "for every % decrease in reduced aggregate demand, how much falls on the capital class in the form of reduced profits, and how much falls on the workers in the form of reduced hours & wages?" I don't think that would be a pretty picture at all. It seems to me the bargaining power of organized capital to adjust to reduced demand is markedly better than disorganized labor. But I could be wrong...

[Xan]

I find it funny how many people choose to believe or not believe in something, and try to connect the dots after the fact. It's backwards thinking, both literally and figuratively.

We are rationalizing machines, no doubt about it. We can and do rationalize just about everything. I think there have been studies that all show virtually all the time, our gut comes up with an answer and our brains figure out reasons to support it.

But I have to quibble about choosing to believe something. I don't think that's possible. You can be influenced by outside factors, certainly... And maybe you can choose to behave in a way contrary to your beliefs. But I don't think fundamentally we have any capacity to choose what we believe.

[dualstow]

We are rationalizing machines, no doubt about it.
...
But I have to quibble about choosing to believe something. I don't think that's possible. You can be influenced by outside factors, certainly... And maybe you can choose to behave in a way contrary to your beliefs. But I don't think fundamentally we have any capacity to choose what we believe.

I think I see what you're saying, and I agree in certain circumstances such as belief in God. That's not something provable and it can't be faked. One can *pretend* to believe in God, and one can wish they believed in God (better feelings about life after death, the comfort that there is Someone out there), but ultimately, one cannot really choose. They either do or they don't.

What's more on my mind is something like climate change*, which, on the surface of it, is provable/disprovable, which should be provable, but... For most people, we rely on experts and we choose which experts to side with. There are many scientists out there, on both sides, who are confident in their beliefs. There are people who don't bother to read the research -- let's skip those. There are those who only look at the research from one side -- let's skip those, too.

The rest of us can only read and listen to both sides and, like a jury, decide who makes the most convincing case. Because not all of us can slog through all of http://www.realclimate.org/ even once, let alone keep up with it and understand all of it. We choose a side of experts.

*ooh, they just said the term on the radio as I typed it!

[moda0306]

Well the answer is kind of obvious in some ways... the "prosperity" of the working class of our economy is utterly and completely resting on continued and growing conspicuous consumption. When people talk about how "wealthy" we are, they're certainly not taking about the balance sheets of the working class and the ability of those balance sheets to functionally feed their current lifestyle for any decent period. This is why I can't stand talking about "wealth" as flat screen TV's, great TV shows, and the internet. All are great from a consumption fun standpoint, but owning goods produced is NOT owning the means of production.

I would disagree with that. The standard of living of 'poor' people in this country is really good. They still get decent health care and food, have cell phones, TVs, air conditioning, etc, and most basic needs met. Way better life than the middle class 100 years ago.

Pug,

First we need to separate "Wealth" as measured by a balance sheet that can feed a lifestyle without work from "standard of living," even if only measured by diverse and reliable access to goods and services on the consumer spectrum. "Wealth" gives you financial security if you can't work. Air Conditioning and cell phones do not. I find that folks on "the right" play word games with these terms and conflate them when convenient and when not, choose not to. I don't mean this as an insult cuz I don't think it's all that deliberate.

Secondly, free-marketers should be more than respectful of the idea that value is subjective. To the degree my tv has "objective market value," it's probably about $150. Subjectively, in non-financial terms, compared to a host of other things, a TV is NOT that valuable to me. And I'd argue that it's not that valuable to MILLIONS of people. It's just some entertaining piece of plastic. This is only a better life than 100 years ago IF you accept an objective measure of value. But value is subjective. A tv, cell phone, and air conditioning in a stuffy apartment are only as valuable as people subjectively value it within their own universe of needs and wants and priorities.

Thirdly, this "stuff" is only affordable if you work for a decent income, and all that work is dependent not just on a massive amount of aggregate demand for a subset of goods & services, but that demand actually GROWING from year to year. Further, some things, like cell phones and television, simply act as a weak replacement to the sense of belonging and togetherness with friends and family that is encouraged by our atomized society. Air conditioning is far more important when you're in a stuffy, cramped apartment than if you lived in an environment with fresh air and little persistent heat held onto by a physical structure. Health care is... ok in some ways, but in others, is simply a weak bandaid to the absolutely terrible food that our economy is designed to turn out (mostly corn & soybean based garbage).

But people are living on the edge of not being able to pay bills, and any lower demand will hit them first because they haven't organized as a labor unit against capital's ability to contract wages massively if business turns around. No amount of electronic doodads can make someone feel peace of mind in this situation, and since saving is a zero-sum-game, the working class simply "saving" their way to prosperity as a whole is a half-measure at best.

[Kriegsspiel]

"Using less stuff" is pretty much the working definition of "being poor" though, so I don't see it gaining much traction outside of hippies and us ERE people. Even minimalist/Kondoers go back to accumulating stuff.

Well the answer is kind of obvious in some ways... the "prosperity" of the working class of our economy is utterly and completely resting on continued and growing conspicuous consumption. When people talk about how "wealthy" we are, they're certainly not taking about the balance sheets of the working class and the ability of those balance sheets to functionally feed their current lifestyle for any decent period. This is why I can't stand talking about "wealth" as flat screen TV's, great TV shows, and the internet. All are great from a consumption fun standpoint, but owning goods produced is NOT owning the means of production.

What are you saying? I can agree with you that people colloquially refer to their cars and TVs and houses as wealth, but we both think the definition is better understood as owning productive assets like companies (or shares in companies), loans/bonds, and income-producing real estate?

My point was that everyone on the planet right now can't live like the middle class does. Are you just arguing that the middle class doesn't own the means of production for the items they buy? Because...

Add to that the utterly hobbled bargaining power of the working class as an economic institution, and I don't see good outcomes. . . It seems to me the bargaining power of organized capital to adjust to reduced demand is markedly better than disorganized labor. But I could be wrong...

... wouldn't follow. If the working class organized to increase bargaining power, they would use it to buy more stuff or buy the means of production. It really doesn't take much ownership of the means of production to live a.. what's the right word, sustainable life?