Climate change video

[BigToque]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDsIFspVzfI

He states that the only cost to us, should we decide to act on changing is a global econominc depression.

It seems like a pretty big assumption to make when the "alternative" disaster in his opinion is a complete breakdown of the world as we know it.

It kinda seems like you could make either scenario better or worse to fit your own point of view.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I always ask these people.

What are the actual impacts to global warming. Don't just say we all die. Give me scenario.

I don't deny GW. I just think that its no where as bas as everyone says it is. I think it probably is beneficial in some ways

 

[StageLeft]

I don't want to waste 10 minutes on this guy if he's going to come to the conclusion that at the end we should do all we can to counter it because the side effects of that are better than "the worst that could happen" (extinction?). If that's his argument, it's as stupid as me moving to the North Pole because, as bad as that is, it's better than the worst that could happen, which could be for instance a nuclear strike within a mile of my house.

 

[Squisher]

I'm in the midst of a book about global warming which basically says the exact opposite.

It's called "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg's view is that climate change is happening and that it is probably man made, but that by trying to change the weather we will bankrupt the world economy and cause significantly more deaths in the world than if we just try to minimize the affects of climate change. It's very compelling.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: Squisher
I'm in the midst of a book about global warming which basically says the exact opposite.

It's called "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg's view is that climate change is happening and that it is probably man made, but that by trying to change the weather we will bankrupt the world economy and cause significantly more deaths in the world than if we just try to minimize the affects of climate change. It's very compelling.

Bjorn Lomborg is a well known junk scientist.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: Squisher
I'm in the midst of a book about global warming which basically says the exact opposite.

It's called "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg's view is that climate change is happening and that it is probably man made, but that by trying to change the weather we will bankrupt the world economy and cause significantly more deaths in the world than if we just try to minimize the affects of climate change. It's very compelling.

Bjorn Lomborg is a well known junk scientist.

Not only that, but there's no really compelling reason why it should destroy the world economy. You simply internalise an externality (carbon), and it's business as usual. Sure there will be tricky transition sectors to manage, but it's not the end of the world

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I don't want to waste 10 minutes on this guy if he's going to come to the conclusion that at the end we should do all we can to counter it because the side effects of that are better than "the worst that could happen" (extinction?). If that's his argument, it's as stupid as me moving to the North Pole because, as bad as that is, it's better than the worst that could happen, which could be for instance a nuclear strike within a mile of my house.

I don't know, this guy could be credible. He's got enough Pepsi and Mountain Dew in him to boost his stats to at least +10 credibility.

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: Squisher
I'm in the midst of a book about global warming which basically says the exact opposite.

It's called "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg's view is that climate change is happening and that it is probably man made, but that by trying to change the weather we will bankrupt the world economy and cause significantly more deaths in the world than if we just try to minimize the affects of climate change. It's very compelling.

Bjorn Lomborg is a well known junk scientist.

Thats not true at all because for one thing he is NOT a scientist at all nor does he claim to be. From what I know his arguments are based on statistics and political science and not climatology. The point is NOT to deny that global warming exists but to point out that the cost to fix it outweighs the destruction it would cause. Personally this is exactly along my line of thinking although I have never read Bjorn Lomborg's book, only heard his speech to the enviroment and publics works committee of the senate (he was the other panelist along with Al Gore although Gore got all the attention of course). IF you look at alot of government programs designed to make our lives safer you can determine the "dollars per life saved" for each of these programs. Now some are VERY good, I think some like giving kids shots to avoid infections have a cost ~10,000$/life, however other (more often than not environmental ones) are much worse. Some of the EPA "superfund" sites are on the order of 1,000,000,000$/life, which is obviously absurd. Now I am no expert in climate change, but the point is that if the USA spends 10,000,000,000,000$ on it and that only saves 10,000 lives then that is 1,000,000,000$/life which is an absurdity, in general the "cutoff" point is ~5,000,000$/life where people consider the risk to be acceptable, so spending 200 times that much means you could save 200 lives in other causes for every 1 life you save from global warming. Really I know people think that any sort of discussion where you are putting values on peoples lives makes you some freaking Nazi, but in the REAL WORLD we have LIMITED RESOURCES and the key in life is to find the most efficient way to use the resources we have to increase our quality of life.

Originally posted by: dug777
Not only that, but there's no really compelling reason why it should destroy the world economy. You simply internalise an externality (carbon), and it's business as usual. Sure there will be tricky transition sectors to manage, but it's not the end of the world

The problem here is that this is exactly what politician WONT do. The fact of the matter is that even with "internalizing" the externalities associated with each fuel coal will STILL be the winner. However people like to think in this "black and white" world and once they get an idea that coal is EVIL then they want to get rid of it completely and NOW not just make it more expensive so that eventually the market goes away from coal. There are some good graphs out there showing the cost of different fuel sources based on the carbon tax, and a carbon tax really only help nuclear and later natural gas, you need absurdly high carbon taxes to justify renewables, taxes which are much much higher than the actual damage caused by that coal.

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: dug777
Not only that, but there's no really compelling reason why it should destroy the world economy. You simply internalise an externality (carbon), and it's business as usual. Sure there will be tricky transition sectors to manage, but it's not the end of the world

How do you internalize the massive manufacturing and transportation component of the world economy? I guess if we all became Hunter/gatherers.

I think I'll go look for some thatch for my roof.

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: Squisher

Originally posted by: dug777
Not only that, but there's no really compelling reason why it should destroy the world economy. You simply internalise an externality (carbon), and it's business as usual. Sure there will be tricky transition sectors to manage, but it's not the end of the world

How do you internalize the massive manufacturing and transportation component of the world economy? I guess if we all became Hunter/gatherers.

I think I'll go look for some thatch for my roof.

When people talk about "internalizing the externalities" related to coal and other forms of energy them mean that the damage done by the waste (SOx, NOx, particulates, CO2) is payed by the energy companies, in other words they pay a "carbon tax, or pay for NOx and SOx allowances equal to the damage done by these chemicals", those taxes then go into things like treating asthma or acid rain caused by coal plants, or helping to fun cleaner technologies.

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13

What are the actual impacts to global warming.

it'll get warmer

then it'll cool back down

then it'll warm up again

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: Squisher

Originally posted by: dug777
Not only that, but there's no really compelling reason why it should destroy the world economy. You simply internalise an externality (carbon), and it's business as usual. Sure there will be tricky transition sectors to manage, but it's not the end of the world

How do you internalize the massive manufacturing and transportation component of the world economy? I guess if we all became Hunter/gatherers.

I think I'll go look for some thatch for my roof.

When people talk about "internalizing the externalities" related to coal and other forms of energy them mean that the damage done by the waste (SOx, NOx, particulates, CO2) is payed by the energy companies, in other words they pay a "carbon tax, or pay for NOx and SOx allowances equal to the damage done by these chemicals", those taxes then go into things like treating asthma or acid rain caused by coal plants, or helping to fun cleaner technologies.

Bingo, roughly

I suspect young squishy isn't actually interested in understanding any of that, however

Remember, although the cost initially falls on the energy company/aluminium smelter/chip foundry, the cost is ultimately borne by the consumer.

Most of the modeling I've seen shows very limited GDP/GSP impact over the medium-long term, but as I previously noted, there are some severe sectoral impacts that will need to be managed.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Here's one quick obvious error in his reasoning and, thanks, BTW, for wasting my damn time.

What if we enact change and it has unintended negative consequences? That has to be added to the grid. The earth has cycles and all of a sudden jumping in and affecting one of those cycles WITHOUT knowing for sure if that intervention is needed scares me FAR more than things getting hot for a while. Seriously, that's like potentially-turn-the-planet-into-a-rock kind of bad. You don't mess with something on a mammoth scale that's been fine on it's own for, what do evolutionists believe, a few hundred billion years?

Such a smug bastard too. And why not, he suckered chumps like you into spreading what amounts to a chain letter. WTG!

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
Here's one quick obvious error in his reasoning and, thanks, BTW, for wasting my damn time.

What if we enact change and it has unintended negative consequences? That has to be added to the grid. The earth has cycles and all of a sudden jumping in and affecting one of those cycles WITHOUT knowing for sure if that intervention is needed scares me FAR more than things getting hot for a while. Seriously, that's like potentially-turn-the-planet-into-a-rock kind of bad. You don't mess with something on a mammoth scale that's been fine on it's own for, what do evolutionists believe, a few hundred billion years?

Such a smug bastard too. And why not, he suckered chumps like you into spreading what amounts to a chain letter. WTG!

The planet's definition of fine, and humanity's, are rather different things

Do some reading on past ice ages. Not exactly compatible with human life as we know it.

To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: dug777
To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

Okay, so pre-industrial CO2 levels were at some specified number. Great. How about all the other atmospheric gases? What if there is a balance there and we disturb it? What if the earth would have gone back to those levels and our introduction or whatever we do to lower CO2 doubles the natural effect? Dug, you pretty damn well HOPE people are looking at this as rocket science.

Even an ice age would be tolerable. Northern climates would be impacted, but we'd go on. Simple greenhouses and hydroponic farms could produce food in fringe areas. The skiing would be great.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: dug777
To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

Okay, so pre-industrial CO2 levels were at some specified number. Great. How about all the other atmospheric gases? What if there is a balance there and we disturb it? What if the earth would have gone back to those levels and our introduction or whatever we do to lower CO2 doubles the natural effect? Dug, you pretty damn well HOPE people are looking at this as rocket science.

Even an ice age would be tolerable. Northern climates would be impacted, but we'd go on. Simple greenhouses and hydroponic farms could produce food in fringe areas. The skiing would be great.

What about mass extinction?


Hero, so we can establish your level of scientific understanding, please answer these questions:
1) How old is the earth?
2) Does plate tectonics occur?
3) What is plate tectonics?
4) How old is life on earth?
5) How old is life on land?
6) Where do fossil fuels come from?

 

[SlickSnake]

Mars is warming up.

Mars Is Warming Up. How Does This Effect The Global Warming Debate?

And

Data Suggests Mars Has Been Warming For The Last 2 Decades

Obviously the suns output has changed enough to warrant a solar system wide change. But I am also not discounting the fact we are effecting our atmosphere in a negative way. Cutting down rain forests and pollution must have a negative impact on the atmosphere over the course of time.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: dug777
To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

Okay, so pre-industrial CO2 levels were at some specified number. Great. How about all the other atmospheric gases? What if there is a balance there and we disturb it? What if the earth would have gone back to those levels and our introduction or whatever we do to lower CO2 doubles the natural effect? Dug, you pretty damn well HOPE people are looking at this as rocket science.

Even an ice age would be tolerable. Northern climates would be impacted, but we'd go on. Simple greenhouses and hydroponic farms could produce food in fringe areas. The skiing would be great.

What about mass extinction?

From what?

Hero, so we can establish your level of scientific understanding, please answer these questions:
1) How old is the earth?
2) Does plate tectonics occur?
3) What is plate tectonics?
4) How old is life on earth?
5) How old is life on land?
6) Where do fossil fuels come from?

1) How old is the earth? X where X = The age of the earth.
2) Does plate tectonics occur? Trick question, plates aren't techtronic, they're ceramic.
3) What is plate tectonics? A company that manufactures really great subwoofers.
4) How old is life on earth? It was published by Milton Bradley in 1952.
5) How old is life on land? "
6) Where do fossil fuels come from? Fossils?

How answer mine:
3) Did you drop out of high school?
4) Why should I answer your insulting questions?
5) WTF do they have to do with my point?
6) Is this a Red Herring?

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: SlickSnake
Obviously the suns output has changed enough to warrant a solar system wide change. But I am also not discounting the fact we are effecting our atmosphere in a negative way. Cutting down rain forests and pollution must have a negative impact on the atmosphere over the course of time.

People are so concerned over a few degrees of warming, that they've forgotten about the poisons we're spilling onto the planet. When did we give up on that?

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: dug777
To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

Okay, so pre-industrial CO2 levels were at some specified number. Great. How about all the other atmospheric gases? What if there is a balance there and we disturb it? What if the earth would have gone back to those levels and our introduction or whatever we do to lower CO2 doubles the natural effect? Dug, you pretty damn well HOPE people are looking at this as rocket science.

Even an ice age would be tolerable. Northern climates would be impacted, but we'd go on. Simple greenhouses and hydroponic farms could produce food in fringe areas. The skiing would be great.

I'm not really in the mood to get stuck into a good old fashioned argument, but I would suggest previous ice ages were marginally more severe than your perhaps intentionally flippant comments suggest

I'm off to have beer and watch some Futurama, later y'all :beer:

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: Squisher

Originally posted by: dug777
Not only that, but there's no really compelling reason why it should destroy the world economy. You simply internalise an externality (carbon), and it's business as usual. Sure there will be tricky transition sectors to manage, but it's not the end of the world

How do you internalize the massive manufacturing and transportation component of the world economy? I guess if we all became Hunter/gatherers.

I think I'll go look for some thatch for my roof.

When people talk about "internalizing the externalities" related to coal and other forms of energy them mean that the damage done by the waste (SOx, NOx, particulates, CO2) is payed by the energy companies, in other words they pay a "carbon tax, or pay for NOx and SOx allowances equal to the damage done by these chemicals", those taxes then go into things like treating asthma or acid rain caused by coal plants, or helping to fun cleaner technologies.

Bingo, roughly

I suspect young squishy isn't actually interested in understanding any of that, however

Remember, although the cost initially falls on the energy company/aluminium smelter/chip foundry, the cost is ultimately borne by the consumer.

Most of the modeling I've seen shows very limited GDP/GSP impact over the medium-long term, but as I previously noted, there are some severe sectoral impacts that will need to be managed.

That's because the modeling you've chosen to accept are those that best make your argument. The models are all over the place.

The fact of the matter is that the draconian measures most often proposed will in fact cause more world wide death and disease than managing the problem with a mindset of a cost/benefit analysis.

By internalizing the externalities with excessive carbon taxes you will cause massive global economic impacts that might be better done by turning back the clock to the hunter/gatherer times. I actually am for carbon taxes, but this needs to be done with some level headed-ness.

And, as for "young," I imagine I have shoes older than you.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
Here's one quick obvious error in his reasoning and, thanks, BTW, for wasting my damn time.

What if we enact change and it has unintended negative consequences? That has to be added to the grid. The earth has cycles and all of a sudden jumping in and affecting one of those cycles WITHOUT knowing for sure if that intervention is needed scares me FAR more than things getting hot for a while. Seriously, that's like potentially-turn-the-planet-into-a-rock kind of bad. You don't mess with something on a mammoth scale that's been fine on it's own for, what do evolutionists believe, a few hundred billion years?

Such a smug bastard too. And why not, he suckered chumps like you into spreading what amounts to a chain letter. WTG!

The planet's definition of fine, and humanity's, are rather different things

Do some reading on past ice ages. Not exactly compatible with human life as we know it.

To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

You realize that CO2 is not the biggest greenhouse gas out there, right? It's just the most popular one among politicians right now.

 

[Oceandevi]

Originally posted by: FoBoT

Originally posted by: tenshodo13

What are the actual impacts to global warming.

it'll get warmer

then it'll cool back down

then it'll warm up again

get this guy a cookie he done figured it out

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: dug777
To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

Okay, so pre-industrial CO2 levels were at some specified number. Great. How about all the other atmospheric gases? What if there is a balance there and we disturb it? What if the earth would have gone back to those levels and our introduction or whatever we do to lower CO2 doubles the natural effect? Dug, you pretty damn well HOPE people are looking at this as rocket science.

Even an ice age would be tolerable. Northern climates would be impacted, but we'd go on. Simple greenhouses and hydroponic farms could produce food in fringe areas. The skiing would be great.

What about mass extinction?

From what?

Hero, so we can establish your level of scientific understanding, please answer these questions:
1) How old is the earth?
2) Does plate tectonics occur?
3) What is plate tectonics?
4) How old is life on earth?
5) How old is life on land?
6) Where do fossil fuels come from?

1) How old is the earth? X where X = The age of the earth.
2) Does plate tectonics occur? Trick question, plates aren't techtronic, they're ceramic.
3) What is plate tectonics? A company that manufactures really great subwoofers.
4) How old is life on earth? It was published by Milton Bradley in 1952.
5) How old is life on land? "
6) Where do fossil fuels come from? Fossils?

How answer mine:
3) Did you drop out of high school?
4) Why should I answer your insulting questions?
5) WTF do they have to do with my point?
6) Is this a Red Herring?

First of all, I'm going to assume you have never taken a course on ecology or college level biology. Extinction is currently occurring due to shifting habitats, and will accelerate along with climate change. Why do you think environmentalists care about global warming??

3) No
4) Because it's always a good thing when people reveal their ignorance.
5) A Creationist should not be arguing in a thread about science. Tellingly, it's usually creationists and other religious nutcases who argue against anthropogenic climate change. Anyway, you don't see me going to religion forums and arguing about whether Jesus was black or white, or Mormonism vs Protestantism.
6) It's a salmon

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
Here's one quick obvious error in his reasoning and, thanks, BTW, for wasting my damn time.

What if we enact change and it has unintended negative consequences? That has to be added to the grid. The earth has cycles and all of a sudden jumping in and affecting one of those cycles WITHOUT knowing for sure if that intervention is needed scares me FAR more than things getting hot for a while. Seriously, that's like potentially-turn-the-planet-into-a-rock kind of bad. You don't mess with something on a mammoth scale that's been fine on it's own for, what do evolutionists believe, a few hundred billion years?

Such a smug bastard too. And why not, he suckered chumps like you into spreading what amounts to a chain letter. WTG!

The planet's definition of fine, and humanity's, are rather different things

Do some reading on past ice ages. Not exactly compatible with human life as we know it.

To answer your question, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Return atmospheric CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level, rinse, wipe, repeat. If climate change still happens, at least you can somewhat smugly eliminate CO2 as a culprit

You realize that CO2 is not the biggest greenhouse gas out there, right? It's just the most popular one among politicians right now.

CO2 is the major greenhouse gas increased by humans... which is what we are concerned about.