Some random thoughts on climate change

[gill77]

Yes, you have stated your preference to reduce man-made carbon emissions in several posts.

I can understand, however, how other posters may have overlooked it because you also seem to be arguing that the climate change we appear to be experiencing now due to human activities is small (and unimportant) given the much bigger swings in climate that the earth has seen over geological time. Perhaps this isn't what you mean to convey.

As I have tried to point out, we are best served by the current climate and any change is likely to be detrimental -- regardless of its cause. So unless or until we think we can control the earth's climate, I think our best course of action is to minimize activities that we have reason to believe might move the climate in any direction. There may come a day (in 10's or 100's of thousands of year) when we might want to take action to counteract climate change being caused by other factors (e.g. orbit, solar activity, volcanoes).

FWIW, the consensus seems to be that CO2 levels (in the last 500M years) topped off in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 parts per million, which would be 0.5% to 1.0%; nowhere near 70%.

My smile about Talib is that you cited him as an expert to debunk the idea of trusting experts. It seems a bit circular to me.

People get their panties in a bind pretty quickly over climate change. Seems like it cuts off the blood flow to the reading and cognition portion of the brain.

I still believe that should one of the drivers of those long term major climate swings take hold, Katy bar the door. Could be a sun cycle or a meteor, or maybe nothing we can put our finger on, but I don't see the magic flat line. It really doesn't matter to the cancel culture crowd. They don't let up until you spout their preferred rhetoric. Kind of scary in a 1984 kind of way. Not saying that cheetah over there is not really darn important, but don't overlook the elephant in the room.

That 70 percent is part of a brand new study referenced in the Youtube. I'm not hanging my hat on it. One percent is still 25x our current amount. It should get critical thinkers to pause for a second.

Not sure what to say about the Taleb thing. He certainly qualifies as an expert, but one who kind of makes his name taking on other experts, chewing them up and spitting them out. Hate to start referencing my brother in law, that would not get much traction I believe.

I would like to apologize for adding a short cancel culture rant to this reply.

When I was young, the student movement was adamant in calling bullshit re the Vietnam war. Nothing like the smell of tear gas in the morning. The civil rights movement was right there also calling bullshit on discrimination. Feminism was there also. Talk about forcing real change. That was real as a heart attack. Everyone seemed to want a new, different perspective. Not that it was automatically bought into, but it was a learning, life enriching experience.

People today are more like stepford wives. A view that does not fit the prescribed rhetoric is basically attacked. Does not compute, don't really hear the words even though they are spoken again and again. When the narrative becomes what they want to hear the channel frees up and they actually hear. It is amazing. Also not healthy for them or society.

 

[extide]

You must be really on top of this. I would have never guessed 412 ppm equates to .04 percent of our atmosphere.

Basic math, yet again buddy:

 

[PowerEngineer]

People get their panties in a bind pretty quickly over climate change. Seems like it cuts off the blood flow to the reading and cognition portion of the brain.

It might be a mistake to assume that it only happens to people on one side of the discussion.

I still believe that should one of the drivers of those long term major climate swings take hold, Katy bar the door. Could be a sun cycle or a meteor, or maybe nothing we can put our finger on, but I don't see the magic flat line. It really doesn't matter to the cancel culture crowd. They don't let up until you spout their preferred rhetoric. Kind of scary in a 1984 kind of way. Not saying that cheetah over there is not really darn important, but don't overlook the elephant in the room.

Well, this again reinforces the reasonable perception that you are downplaying the importance of our controllable contribution to climate change by citing other factors outside our control. IMHO you are coming across as suggesting "it is foolish to do anything about the cheetah in the room right now because an elephant may be joining us in the room some day".

That 70 percent is part of a brand new study referenced in the Youtube. I'm not hanging my hat on it. One percent is still 25x our current amount. It should get critical thinkers to pause for a second.

Unless you are familiar with the author, YouTube videos are little better than town gossip. There are plenty of YouTube videos claiming that the earth is flat, that the moon landings were a hoax, and that 9/11 was an "inside job". Like it or not, you do "hang your hat" on supporting materials that you link or reference.

Not sure what to say about the Taleb thing. He certainly qualifies as an expert, but one who kind of makes his name taking on other experts, chewing them up and spitting them out. Hate to start referencing my brother in law, that would not get much traction I believe.

If you are saying that Taleb is your brother-in-law, then I have to say that your family gatherings must be more intellectually stimulating than mine.

I would like to apologize for adding a short cancel culture rant to this reply.

When I was young, the student movement was adamant in calling bullshit re the Vietnam war. Nothing like the smell of tear gas in the morning. The civil rights movement was right there also calling bullshit on discrimination. Feminism was there also. Talk about forcing real change. That was real as a heart attack. Everyone seemed to want a new, different perspective. Not that it was automatically bought into, but it was a learning, life enriching experience.

People today are more like stepford wives. A view that does not fit the prescribed rhetoric is basically attacked. Does not compute, don't really hear the words even though they are spoken again and again. When the narrative becomes what they want to hear the channel frees up and they actually hear. It is amazing. Also not healthy for them or society.

I gather that we both hail from the same generation. I too have rather fond memories of youth-driven efforts during those times to force societal changes on the Vietnam war, civil rights, women's rights, drug criminalization, and sexual morays. Some efforts were more successful than others (and some were better ideas than others). Of course, there was a lot of opposition -- mostly from older people. You remember the violence around civil rights, the visceral reactions to flag and draft card burnings, the "love it or leave it" bumper stickers, etc. We were the young upcoming generation looking for change running head on into an older generation comfortable with the status quo.

What comes around goes around. You and I are now part of the comfortable older generation that is more interested in maintaining our status quo. No big changes please; let us live out our lives in peace! What happened to us? We're part of the demographic that elected Donald Trump (god have mercy on us). And now these young whippersnappers are trying to get us all worked up about climate change.

I think the uniformity of thought (which you refer to disparagingly as "cancel culture", "1984", and "Stepford") is no different today than it was back in our day (e.g. not much tolerance for Vietnam war proponents on college campuses or for George Wallace rallies). Yes, perhaps a bit too quick to judge and/or dismiss, but then so were we.

Frankly, I am a bit encouraged that they are acting like we did when we were young.

 

[Muse]

Nope. No denial. I don't think we should mess with mother nature.

There was just an article posted that it postponed an ice age.

Who knows, a spike up in temps could follow. Better than an ice age.

Too late, we're raping her.

 

[Muse]

Wrong the oil companies will never stop peddling their products. Too much money involved.

Unless demand goes down. If the price of oil goes low enough, production will decrease. It's supply/demand curve. Myself, I drive less than 1500mi/year. I'm not alone in trying (successfully) to shrink my carbon footprint.

 

[renz20003]

Unless demand goes down. If the price of oil goes low enough, production will decrease. It's supply/demand curve. Myself, I drive less than 1500mi/year. I'm not alone in trying (successfully) to shrink my carbon footprint.

I drive 50000 miles a year... in a truck that gets 12 mpg. Can’t stop though, it provides a good living. On the bright side if you can get 34 people to drive 1500 miles a year that will mitigate my mileage. Probably not my emissions though.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I drive 50000 miles a year... in a truck that gets 12 mpg. Can’t stop though, it provides a good living. On the bright side if you can get 34 people to drive 1500 miles a year that will mitigate my mileage. Probably not my emissions though.

That's small peanuts anyway. What REALLY needs to change, is the fact that trucks and everything is powered by gas in first place. We can't stop driving, we can't stop heating our houses, and we can't stop buying things we need. What needs to change is the entire way the supply chain and economy works, so that all the processes are green. We need full electrification of all vehicles including large cargo ships and airplanes, and we also need 100% renewable electricity, and to also make it affordable to heat with electricity.

Even if every single person goes 100% green for their own life style, that only contributes to about 2% of the pollution.

I personally would like to get to a point where I can get an EV and go fully green and live off grid and also reduce my overall waste (especially plastic), but at the end of the day it's more of a feel good thing, as even if everyone did that it would barely make a difference.

Oil in itself won't go away and there is nothing wrong with using oil products for physical items, it's burning it for energy that really needs to stop.

 

[Muse]

I drive 50000 miles a year... in a truck that gets 12 mpg. Can’t stop though, it provides a good living. On the bright side if you can get 34 people to drive 1500 miles a year that will mitigate my mileage. Probably not my emissions though.

I get where you're coming from.

You know what they say? It's very hard to convince anyone of anything, no matter how truthful, if it's contrary to what makes them a living.

 

[Brainonska511]

That's small peanuts anyway. What REALLY needs to change, is the fact that trucks and everything is powered by gas in first place. We can't stop driving, we can't stop heating our houses, and we can't stop buying things we need. What needs to change is the entire way the supply chain and economy works, so that all the processes are green. We need full electrification of all vehicles including large cargo ships and airplanes, and we also need 100% renewable electricity, and to also make it affordable to heat with electricity.

Even if every single person goes 100% green for their own life style, that only contributes to about 2% of the pollution.

I personally would like to get to a point where I can get an EV and go fully green and live off grid and also reduce my overall waste (especially plastic), but at the end of the day it's more of a feel good thing, as even if everyone did that it would barely make a difference.

Oil in itself won't go away and there is nothing wrong with using oil products for physical items, it's burning it for energy that really needs to stop.

We can't stop all of our wasteful ways, but we can improve in many ways beyond just doing what we're doing but green. Buying smaller vehicles, smaller homes, insulating homes better and using programmable thermostats, eating less meat overall, and a myriad of other little things could help.

But the reality is, this is a problem that needs more than individual action - we'll need governments to step up and force compliance on industry (and likely consumer choice)

 

[Red Squirrel]

We can't stop all of our wasteful ways, but we can improve in many ways beyond just doing what we're doing but green. Buying smaller vehicles, smaller homes, insulating homes better and using programmable thermostats, eating less meat overall, and a myriad of other little things could help.

I'm pretty sure most people already are doing all of this, just so they can save money. But it's not really enough when you have cruise ships and cargo ships spewing out more pollution than a million consumer cars do in a year. Planes are probably comparable to that in terms of pollution too. But those who arn't probably should, if anything, to save money. Utility bills, gas etc is only getting more expensive with time.

 

[Brainonska511]

I'm pretty sure most people already are doing all of this, just so they can save money. But it's not really enough when you have cruise ships and cargo ships spewing out more pollution than a million consumer cars do in a year. Planes are probably comparable to that in terms of pollution too. But those who arn't probably should, if anything, to save money. Utility bills, gas etc is only getting more expensive with time.

I know there are the big sources of pollution and GHGs, but how many people buy vehicles larger than they really need (and by need, I mean needs more often than "I may buy a big thing at the hardware store once a year")? How many just turn to hundreds of Amazon packages go deliver stuff individually to their door? A lot of choices in fighting climate change don't always jive with what is cheapest in the short term for Joe Schmo.