Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

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Dubstep Jesus: Jun 27, 2012; by exmarx

quote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the primary reason we are supposed to be alarmed about future climate change and continuing CO2 emissions because this change in climate will cause injury and suffering? Then why has the preponderance of data over the past century shown precisely the opposite?

Gee, it's almost like the past century isn't a good indicator of what will happen in the next century.

# ? May 16, 2016 06:20

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# ? May 14, 2024 14:53

Hello Sailor: May 3, 2006; we're all mad here

Back to the libertarian threads with you, jrod. The Cato Institute isn't a reliable source.

# ? May 16, 2016 08:12

ugh its Troika: May 2, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

He's not wrong about nuclear power, though. One of the founders of Greenpeace eventually left the movement over their unreasoning hatred of it.

In other news this new dumbass thing where a bunch of state AGs are going to try to pursue racketeering charges against various energy companies over their public opinions on climate change is dumb, doomed to failure, and a waste of taxpayer dollars. It's clearly protected speech. :psyduck:

# ? May 16, 2016 08:23

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Nuclear power is a funny thing where ideologies and reality clash. Classical greens hate it because it's a big concrete middle finger to any notion that humans shall become part of the environment (as opposed to not loving around with the environment by leaving it alone) to conserve it. Classical conservatives love it because it's a big business and national pride item. Neolibs are meh about it because ~the market shall decide~. Reactionaries love it because it upsets greens.

# ? May 16, 2016 08:40

BENGHAZI 2: Oct 13, 2007; by Cyrano4747

jrodefeld posted:

I feel like discussing climate change because it's been on my mind in recent weeks, so I'm gonna hop on this thread and hopefully spark some discussion.

Unlike other topics I bring up, I am not dogmatically opposed to humans taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change if such action is warranted. I feel as though the environmentalist left has done an appalling job of addressing a number of important concerns and counter-arguments that people have. So I will now put forward a few of my thoughts and I am genuinely interested in hearing your response. I don't have the final answer on any of this, especially not something as complicated as climate science.

The first question I'd like to ask is: what is your reason for having concern about anthropogenic climate change? This may seem like a self-evident question, but I think it is one that bears serious consideration. On the one hand, your primary concern regarding the effects of climate change could be the welfare of humanity. In this case, you'll worry about rising sea levels because coastal towns could be flooded, displacing people. You'd worry about increased storm activity because it will cause needless human deaths in the future, property damage and so forth. You might even worry that unchecked human activity would result in the climate being unlivable for humanity in a century or so. I'll call this the humanitarian environmentalist perspective.

On the other hand, there are some environmentalists who believe that humans are essentially a cancer on the planet and they would be happy to see the human population cut by hundreds of millions if not billions. These types of radicals show the utmost concern about the potential extinction of a certain species of ant, but would not be moved if their policies caused human suffering on a mass scale and even deaths in the millions. In their more candid moments they might even say "yes, that is precisely the point". Humans are a scourge on the "pristine" natural environment, so they believe. I'll call these the "anti-human environmentalists".

And there are a third type of environmentalist, which can and frequently do overlap with the first two categories, who are political ideologues whose "Green" veneer is more-or-less a smokescreen to criticize Capitalism. Advocates for free market capitalism essentially won the great debate of the twentieth century. Sure, most people still say we need to have lingering elements of socialism in the form of a "social safety net" and regulations to curb the "excesses" of Capitalism, but hardly anyone in the mainstream would dare to suggest that we need the State to own the means of production and abolish all private property. The fall of the Soviet Union was an important teaching moment for the world, which demonstrated the inherent failure of central planning.

Most Marxist intellectuals didn't just admit the error of their ways and become proponents of laissez-faire. Far from it. A substantial number of them shifted their rhetorical attacks against Capitalism from arguments about how employers were exploiting workers, and workers need to own the means of production, to Capitalism is destroying the planet. Taking this position, it doesn't matter if free markets are more efficient, or provide greater generation of prosperity and higher living standards for everyone. If our actions are destroying the environment and there is an impending catastrophe lurking just a couple of decades into the future, we should voluntarily accept a lower standard of living now to save the planet, save endangered species, and so forth.

What I am saying is that if some people have an a priori suspicion about the environmentalist movement, it is not without it's justifications. I think it's extremely important to state which camp you fall into and what your primary motivations are for having concern about human-caused climate change.

Now let me share my perspective:

The most important question to ask regarding climate change is how has our industrial activity and CO2 emitting behavior impacted human welfare? Has our industrial activity made the climate more or less hospitable for humans? The most important single statistic in this regard is climate-caused human deaths. The data shows that since humanity began it's industrial activity with the corresponding CO2 emissions, climate-caused human deaths have been rapidly declining decade after decade.

Here is a useful graph to illustrate the point:

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/boden.png

Furthermore, we know that cheap and abundant energy and the corresponding industrial activity that it generates has improved human welfare unbelievably over the past century and a half and continues to do so. The average life-expectancy rose from 30 to 80, climate-related deaths plummeted, and a middle class with ever-rising standards of living came into existence for the first time in human history.

In the early 21st century, free markets are allowing previously third world nations to generate their own wealth and their own middle classes. In these formerly-poor nations, life expectancy is rising and quality of life is improving. To my mind, it seems utterly abhorrent to prevent poor nations from having access to cheap energy which they desperately need to save the lives of their citizens and allow them to live at a decent standard of living. We in the first world have benefited from more than a century of industrial progress which enabled an enormous productive capacity, generating wealth and providing us a comfortable living. Most people in the world have not been so fortunate. We need to be very conscious of the effects that reducing fossil fuel use has on the developing world. Without a viable and immediate substitute for cheap energy, reducing fossil fuel use to the extent advocated by climate change proponents would cause tremendous human suffering.

Let's suppose that all of the predicted effects of climate change are true and that climate models are generally accurate in predicting future global temperatures and weather pattern changes. Then the only relevant question we should be asking ourselves is whether or not the guaranteed harm to human welfare and survivability that will result from drastically limiting the use of fossil fuels is outweighed by the future benefit to human flourishing that would result from slightly lower sea levels, fewer natural disasters and things of that nature that environmentalists like to cite.

This is a cost-benefit analysis that is never acknowledged by believers in catastrophic climate change. And this is even granting the veracity of climate models and assuming accuracy in future predictions, both of which are very much in question.

I want to emphasize that there have been measurable and unambiguous polluting harm that has been caused by fossil fuel production. This is not acceptable and should be strictly curtailed by property rights protections. This, however, is quite different from CO2 emissions and worldwide climate change.

If we care about human life, then we must care about industrial progress which allows humans to avoid climate-related deaths, escape poverty and permits societies to grow prosperous. Of course, this doesn't mean we don't care about the pollution that a given energy source does emit, in so far as it causes demonstrable harm, but we shouldn't impugn the most effective and efficient energy sources for their imperfections given the overwhelming benefit cheap, scalable energy has to human flourishing.

I believe any artificial privileges States grant to oil companies should be removed and companies should bear full liability costs for the negative externalities of their energy production.

If laws are passed that limit worldwide CO2 emissions by as much as climate change activists say is necessary to avoid "catastrophe", that means that many millions of people around the world, particularly in poor and developing nations that desparately need cheap energy sources to grow into the first world, with a middle class and productive capacity, will be consigned to extreme poverty or death.

This could be avoided if there were an abundant, scalable, efficient alternative energy source that could be used as a viable replacement. It would have to be able to fully replace the fossil fuel energy that will be cut AND be able to greatly grow in the coming decades as developing nations increase their industrial production in a bid to become prosperous like us in the West.

Yet the alternative energy source we are told we must rely on, Wind and Solar, are wholly incapable of providing the reliable, cheap, abundant and scalable energy that is needed. There are many reasons this is so, but one is that these technologies are intermittent. They rely on particular weather patterns to generate their energy production. In almost every case, they need to be backed up by a fossil fuel based source which will kick in when the wind and solar source is not provided the needed energy. These are, now and in the near future, unreliable and unserious sources of energy which cannot replace fossil fuel based energy.

If Wind, Solar or some future energy source is invented which will be able to provide cheap, effective, scalable energy in abundance which improves upon fossil fuel technologies regarding pollution, I would be the first to stand up and cheer the development.

But the very fact that environmental activists require government subsidization of Wind and Solar and legislation which limits fossil fuel energy gives the game away. What we ought to do is cut ALL government subsidies and privileges to any form of energy and allow entrepreneurs to compete in the market. This is how we can determine the best source of energy.

The ONLY form of energy that is non-CO2 emitting which is scalable, reliable and efficient enough to fully compensate for fossil fuel sources is Nuclear energy. Yet there are virtually no climate change activists that I am aware of that are pushing Nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. Climate activists also tend to oppose hydro-electric power.

Why don't members of the Green movement eschew political activism, pool their resources and enter the market as entrepreneurs by developing alternative energy sources and convinces consumers to purchase a superior, cleaner form of energy?

Even if every single prediction of the most alarmist climate activist is true, it does not imply that political action is the best remedy. In fact, States are by their nature slow, lumbering, inefficient behemeths with perverse incentive structures. It is incredibly unlikely that politicians and politically-motivated special interest subsidization will actually solve the problem.

Worse, you're going to have to deal with Republican presidents and Congresses at least 50% of the time over the next several decades. What would make you think that political authorities that don't agree with you won't simply cut funding or sabatoge your carefully constructed political solutions to climate change which will, after all, take decades to reap tangible benefits?

When, ever, have politicians and government employees, insulated from the market feedback mechanism of profit and loss, had low time preferences needed to plan responsibly for decades into the future?

Privately funded efforts, on the other hand, can be managed by experts who truly believe in the effort that is being pursued without the threat of petty politics sabotaging the effort. You don't have to worry about either Green cronies or Oil cronies getting in bed with government to manipulate the economy and the law in their favor.

If alternative energy sources are "ready for primetime", as is being claimed, then go into the market and prove it. It is morally wrong to use force to prevent free people from producing and/or using the best, most reliable source of energy they have access to, as consumers on the market have chosen.

I loving hate how politics destroys civility. If you have a worthy cause, then invest your own time and money into a project, and use persuasion to convince other people to change their behavior. If an oil company, an individual or group of people are acting in a way which is causing demonstrable harm to the person or property of others, then you should take them to court and force them to stop. But you have to demonstrate clearly the harm an individual actor has caused before force can legitimately be used to provide just compensation to the victim and enforce an injunction to prevent him or her from continuing their rights-violating behavior.

However, "emitting CO2" does not, according to the data, seem to be an actionable offense. The data shows an inverse correlation between CO2 emissions and constantly lower and lower climate-related human deaths, longer lifespans, less disease, and higher standards of living all around.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the primary reason we are supposed to be alarmed about future climate change and continuing CO2 emissions because this change in climate will cause injury and suffering? Then why has the preponderance of data over the past century shown precisely the opposite?

What WILL absolutely cause human death and suffering is a lack of access to cheap, abundent energy that is required to produce food, build and maintain hospitals, heat homes and manufacture goods and services which makes human lives sustainable and, hopefully, comfortable.

So artificially limiting access to cheap energy will certainly cause massive human suffering. But speculated human suffering caused by rising CO2 emissions don't seem to be correlated by the data.

I am trying to look at this objectively, from a humanitarian perspective. If we can develop cleaner and more environmentally friendly energy sources that are cheap enough and scalable enough to take over from fossil fuels, I would be ecstatic. I certainly think this is possible, but it won't happen through politics. It will happen in the market, by entrepreneurs risking private capital and risking private losses. That is where your energy should be spent if you are passionate about this issue.

unfortunately i dont think loving a watermelon will stop climate change, fight me you coward

# ? May 16, 2016 17:58

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

"Look, I'm all for doing research into sustainable energy as long as it doesn't cost any money."

# ? May 16, 2016 18:05

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

He loving cited CATO and honestly made the argument that he was looking at it from the humanitarian environmentalist perspective. What the gently caress.

blowfish posted:

Nuclear power is a funny thing where ideologies and reality clash. Classical greens hate it because it's a big concrete middle finger to any notion that humans shall become part of the environment (as opposed to not loving around with the environment by leaving it alone) to conserve it. Classical conservatives love it because it's a big business and national pride item. Neolibs are meh about it because ~the market shall decide~. Reactionaries love it because it upsets greens.

Yeah, a lot of the Greens, especially the Sierra Club sorts, love to spout the return to nature ideology but are the same ones who generally love taking advantages of modern technology.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 18:14 on May 16, 2016

# ? May 16, 2016 18:12

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

CommieGIR posted:

He loving cited CATO and honestly made the argument that he was looking at it from the humanitarian environmentalist perspective. What the gently caress.

Actually, I've seen that chart before. It was in The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels:

http://www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com

It is on page 24.

quote:

You�ve heard that our addiction to fossil fuels is destroying our planet and our lives. Yet by every measure of human well-being life has been getting better and better. This book explains why humanity�s use of fossil fuels is actually a healthy, moral choice.

So yeah.....

# ? May 16, 2016 18:15

rivetz: Sep 22, 2000; Soiled Meat

jrodefeld posted:

I feel as though the environmentalist left has done an appalling job of addressing a number of important concerns and counter-arguments that people have.

The environmentalist left has largely been stuck on hold desperately recirculating the same answers to the loving idiotic objections of the skeptic right. I'm not talking about your points below; there are some good questions here that deserve an answer. But don't even try pinning inaction on the left. That's the one thing I find utterly, utterly unacceptable. We could have been so much further down the road if half the country wasn't too busy sucking skeptic cock for the last ten years. I completely reject attempts to put the blame on inactivity on the folks who have been clamoring for activity for the last decade. The rest of us listened to the scientists, saw through a bunch of bullshit that wasn't even that hard to see through, and knew that most skeptics were going to look like idiots. Now we're there. Wear it with pride, y'all. I'll agree to take the high road and not waste time castigating you for it, if you agree to take responsibility for your stupidity. It happens to everyone. Christ knows the left has drunk its share of KoolAid on stuff, it's not a crime. If admitting all this hard to do, maybe don't be loving morons next time. (edit: this is not particularly directed to you, but needs to be said regardless)

quote:

On the other hand, there are some environmentalists who believe that humans are essentially a cancer on the planet and they would be happy to see the human population cut by hundreds of millions if not billions. These types of radicals show the utmost concern about the potential extinction of a certain species of ant, but would not be moved if their policies caused human suffering on a mass scale and even deaths in the millions. In their more candid moments they might even say "yes, that is precisely the point". Humans are a scourge on the "pristine" natural environment, so they believe. I'll call these the "anti-human environmentalists".

I'd love some evidence that these extremists are in any way, shape or form a significant influence on climate debate or even modern environmentalism. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm saying there are comparatively few of them and it's misleading to position them as having any real political influence. The implication in your post that the second-most-significant faction of those who want to do something about climate change would be happy to see hundreds of millions dead would be offensive if it wasn't so ignorant.

There's obviously a ton of other stuff here and I don't consider myself particularly qualified to address a lot of it, but some observations:

I agree completely on nuclear and I'm already sick of hearing about it. It feels like the last coat peg the right has to push back on the climate change movement, and I understand why because it's rock-solid imo. Yes, nuclear represents the best path (right now) to maintaining current standard of living for much of the world. Yes, the resistance to nuclear from influential figures on the left is frustrating. This is not breaking news for a lot of us. Let's all work on it. Moving on.
I also agree with the human costs associated with drastic reduction in fossil fuel consumption. It's ugly and scary and probably inevitable for a host of factors that are being amplified to varying degrees by climate change. Millions will die, period. I'm sure we agree that it should be possible for me to acknowledge this horrible reality without endorsing it or celebrating it. Bottom line imo: If you live between 30� S - 30� N and are not above the poverty line, this century ends Badly for most of you.
A good place to start would be for the right to stop using China/Asia's short-term embrace of fossil fuels as a justification for Western inaction, which seems to be all I'm reading these days in the right-wing bubble. These countries acknowledge the severity of the risks associated with climate change and recognize that (in the simplest terms) they need coal to get to a place where they don't need coal. Painting their fossil fuel initiatives as ignorant makes zero sense and will look really really stupid in a decade or two when they're significantly further down the path to sustainable energy than the U.S.
That graph is such a fuckin sham in so many ways. At best it's just another attempt at "well, if you squint your eyes, hold the page x amount of feet from your face at a 28.3� angle, and only track five-year intervals...not so bad!" What's the definition of a climate-related death? How about steady temperature increases in sub-Saharan countries means there isn't enough grass to feed your three cows, so you have no choice but to migrate (or starve), which makes you more vulnerable to bandits prowling for families just like yours? Don't pretend this isn't happening right now. Climate change did not kill this family, but climate change did put this family in position to be killed. This whole "but hey, same amount of hurricanes with >X wind speed in the past decade, what's the problem?" schtick seems ridiculously naive to me. I won't pass judgment on the graph's intent (not easy, given that it's from Cato), but even if we assume it isn't driven by an agenda, I consider it largely useless.

Sorry kinda if I'm too salty, but here's what I saw to open my morning, in rough order:

NASA: April hottest month ever, records being broken all over the world
Right-wing media: More NASA deception and fraud, Obama Obama, look how much coal China's burning
Your post's first paragraph: You know, I'm really frustrated with the environmentalist left for not doing a better job of communication on this topic

I'm not even super passionate about seeing heads roll for the disinformation campaign that's kept this conversation on the sidelines for the last fifteen years, but you are loving high if you think the right has any case for passing the buck on this mess.

# ? May 16, 2016 18:57

Caros: May 14, 2008

And on the sixteenth hour of the sixteenth day of the fifth (poo poo) month, our poo poo poster did return to tell us all how we're stupid for believing in man made climate change.

jrodefeld posted:

I feel like discussing climate change because it's been on my mind in recent weeks, so I'm gonna hop on this thread and hopefully spark some discussion.

I suspect you aren't going to spark the discussion you want.

quote:

Unlike other topics I bring up, I am not dogmatically opposed to humans taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change if such action is warranted. I feel as though the environmentalist left has done an appalling job of addressing a number of important concerns and counter-arguments that people have. So I will now put forward a few of my thoughts and I am genuinely interested in hearing your response. I don't have the final answer on any of this, especially not something as complicated as climate science.

Hey cool! You admit to being dogmatically bound to refuse real practical solutions to human misery in fields such as economics. This admission really is progressive for you. Too bad you follow it up by making GBS threads yourself talking about the left and how you are genuinely interested in hearing a reply which we both know to be complete horseshit.

quote:

The first question I'd like to ask is: what is your reason for having concern about anthropogenic climate change? This may seem like a self-evident question, but I think it is one that bears serious consideration. On the one hand, your primary concern regarding the effects of climate change could be the welfare of humanity. In this case, you'll worry about rising sea levels because coastal towns could be flooded, displacing people. You'd worry about increased storm activity because it will cause needless human deaths in the future, property damage and so forth. You might even worry that unchecked human activity would result in the climate being unlivable for humanity in a century or so. I'll call this the humanitarian environmentalist perspective.

On the other hand, there are some environmentalists who believe that humans are essentially a cancer on the planet and they would be happy to see the human population cut by hundreds of millions if not billions. These types of radicals show the utmost concern about the potential extinction of a certain species of ant, but would not be moved if their policies caused human suffering on a mass scale and even deaths in the millions. In their more candid moments they might even say "yes, that is precisely the point". Humans are a scourge on the "pristine" natural environment, so they believe. I'll call these the "anti-human environmentalists".

As another poster pointed out, you are aware that the movie 'Kingsman' is not a documentary right? That is Samuel L Jackson playing a role, not some crazy billionaire who happens to share his likeness. I ask because the alternative is that you are acting as though the fact that there are a tiny number of wackjobs out there who might believe the latter point makes it a point equal in discussion to the first. Do you really think you are going to find anyone who subscribes to that belief outside of their own personal circle jerk in some dingy corner of the internet? Do you really think that someone on these loving forums is going to raise his hand and go "Well yeah I actually think we should put forward policies that result in brutal human misery for no reason?"

gently caress you Jrodefeld, you're four paragraphs in and you're already strawmanning your opponents and just generally being a lovely human being. This feels like a new record!

quote:

And there are a third type of environmentalist, which can and frequently do overlap with the first two categories, who are political ideologues whose "Green" veneer is more-or-less a smokescreen to criticize Capitalism. Advocates for free market capitalism essentially won the great debate of the twentieth century. Sure, most people still say we need to have lingering elements of socialism in the form of a "social safety net" and regulations to curb the "excesses" of Capitalism, but hardly anyone in the mainstream would dare to suggest that we need the State to own the means of production and abolish all private property. The fall of the Soviet Union was an important teaching moment for the world, which demonstrated the inherent failure of central planning.

Waaaaahhhh people are mean to my capitalism! Wahhhh! People are pointing out that capitalism often leads to horrible environmental effects only barely kept in check by the government. Wahhhhhhh. Also no, the failure of the Soviet Union taught us that a barely industrialized nation trying to compete with the 'west' will eventually lose in a massive arms race. You really need to do your research before you talk about the failures of socialism, because even though I certainly agree the soviet union was lovely, it isn't lovely for the reasons you think it is. You clod.

quote:

Most Marxist intellectuals didn't just admit the error of their ways and become proponents of laissez-faire. Far from it. A substantial number of them shifted their rhetorical attacks against Capitalism from arguments about how employers were exploiting workers, and workers need to own the means of production, to Capitalism is destroying the planet. Taking this position, it doesn't matter if free markets are more efficient, or provide greater generation of prosperity and higher living standards for everyone. If our actions are destroying the environment and there is an impending catastrophe lurking just a couple of decades into the future, we should voluntarily accept a lower standard of living now to save the planet, save endangered species, and so forth.

Actually a fair number of them became more moderate, just like the majority of laissez-faire proponents moderated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century after the gilded age showed us how loving abhorrent unrestricted capitalism was. Also I thought you were talking about environmentalism but, nope! Gotta cry and bitch about those marxist boogymen that only exist in your deranged mind. You know I really was hoping you'd started on the road to recovery while you were gone.

quote:

What I am saying is that if some people have an a priori suspicion about the environmentalist movement, it is not without it's justifications. I think it's extremely important to state which camp you fall into and what your primary motivations are for having concern about human-caused climate change.

Actually if they have an a priori thought about the environmentalist movement it would, by definition, be without justification because a priori is to work off a theoretical model without observation or experience. If they experienced that the enviornmentalist movement was full of Samuel L Jackson 'kill all humans' lunatics then that wouldn't be an a priori justification, it'd just be a justification. WORDS MEAN THINGS YOU loving MORON!

quote:

Now let me share my perspective:

quote:

The most important question to ask regarding climate change is how has our industrial activity and CO2 emitting behavior impacted human welfare? Has our industrial activity made the climate more or less hospitable for humans? The most important single statistic in this regard is climate-caused human deaths. The data shows that since humanity began it's industrial activity with the corresponding CO2 emissions, climate-caused human deaths have been rapidly declining decade after decade.

Here is a useful graph to illustrate the point:

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/boden.png

You probably know this, but the Cato institute is a libertarian think tank run originally founded by Charles Koch. Through it's long storied history it has consistently held positions that are backed not by fact, reason or science, but by what would simply be the best for businesses. As just one example, the Cato institute has for many years been opposed to tobacco legislation dealing with labeling, second hand smoke and other issues. As recently as 2005 Radley Balko, a Cato staffer, testified in D.C. where he claimed, and this is true, "The health risks associated with secondhand smoke are debateable."

I remind you that this wasn't argued in 1985, but in 2005. The idea that someone could still be that ignorant in 2005 yet be employed and speak for his organization this issue is frankly loving astounding.

More specifically regarding climate change, Cato has only a single speaker listed on its website regarding Climate change issues, Patrick Michaels. Patrick Michaels is an outspoken climate change denier. Now I bring up Patrick Michaels because the graph that you so helpfully provided appears to have been lifted from this article by one Patrick J. Michaels. Here is the punchline of that article:

quote:

Why? Because the dogma that man is ruining the planet rather than improving it is a religion, a source of prestige, and a career for too many people. But for the rest of us, the statistic climate catastrophists don�t want us to know is very, very good news.

Let me just bask in that a moment. Mmm... feels good.

Now I think you can understand why I might be skeptical of anything you say from this point forward. One of the primary sources you appear to be using is a man who thinks climate change isn't just dangerous, but is in fact good for the planet. This is a man who disagrees with the overwhelming preponderance of scientific data. And in true Jrodefeld fashion you appear to believe him rather than the overwhelming unbiased preponderance of human knowledge. Why? Near as I can tell you believe him because he is posted on Cato institute.

quote:

Furthermore, we know that cheap and abundant energy and the corresponding industrial activity that it generates has improved human welfare unbelievably over the past century and a half and continues to do so. The average life-expectancy rose from 30 to 80, climate-related deaths plummeted, and a middle class with ever-rising standards of living came into existence for the first time in human history.

You cannot use one graph to prove your argument, which is what you are doing here. You are going "Hey, deaths to climate events have gone down since the 1940's, so clearly climate change isn't a significant issue." :hurr:

There is a loving mountain of issues with this. The biggest one is that the negative effects of climate change are long term and have only really started picking up steam in the latter half of the 20th century. While humans were beginning to have a negative impact in the 1940's, climate change by its nature is a big loving deal that is slow and ponderous, which is part of the issue. If we saw temperatures go up two degrees year after year we'd be loving dead by now, but that doesn't mean that temperatures going up two degrees over the next fifty years is not a colossal loving problem.

quote:

In the early 21st century, free markets are allowing previously third world nations to generate their own wealth and their own middle classes. In these formerly-poor nations, life expectancy is rising and quality of life is improving. To my mind, it seems utterly abhorrent to prevent poor nations from having access to cheap energy which they desperately need to save the lives of their citizens and allow them to live at a decent standard of living. We in the first world have benefited from more than a century of industrial progress which enabled an enormous productive capacity, generating wealth and providing us a comfortable living. Most people in the world have not been so fortunate. We need to be very conscious of the effects that reducing fossil fuel use has on the developing world. Without a viable and immediate substitute for cheap energy, reducing fossil fuel use to the extent advocated by climate change proponents would cause tremendous human suffering.

We also need to be very conscious of the effects that not reducing fossil fuel use has on the developing world, namely, that it could absolutely gently caress those countries for decades, centuries or even permanently depending on whether you are going with merely bad, awful or catastrophic predictions.

quote:

Let's suppose that all of the predicted effects of climate change are true and that climate models are generally accurate in predicting future global temperatures and weather pattern changes. Then the only relevant question we should be asking ourselves is whether or not the guaranteed harm to human welfare and survivability that will result from drastically limiting the use of fossil fuels is outweighed by the future benefit to human flourishing that would result from slightly lower sea levels, fewer natural disasters and things of that nature that environmentalists like to cite.

One of the possible predicted effects of climate change is runaway climate change wherein the warming of the earth releases trapped methane which in turn accelerates global warming. This would create a runaway feedback loop that could ultimately render most of the planet uninhabitable. The absolute worst case scenario for this would be that we do such colossal damage to the planet that the runaway effect ends up leaving our planet functionally similar to venus, killing off all life as we know it.

So... yeah, I'm not even saying that is likely, but if you're saying we should weight our choices, I think possible human extinction should have at least some substantial weight opposite of economic progress in third world countries.

Also I have to stress that you drastically underestimate (or perhaps understand) the negative effects of climate change. A four degree global increase can be as much as a ten degree increase in somewhere such as africa, which would kill indiginous crops, leading to starvation. A raise of 24 mm (what is expected under conservative models) would have cities like Lagos underwater, displacing five million people in one city alone.

quote:

This is a cost-benefit analysis that is never acknowledged by believers in catastrophic climate change. And this is even granting the veracity of climate models and assuming accuracy in future predictions, both of which are very much in question.

No they are very much not in question you colossal watermelon fucker. While the scale of the damage is certainly up in the air, even the most conservative of real estimates (not cato bullshit) are stunningly bad for the very nations you are concern trolling about. Science isn't on your side anymore with this than it was on vaccines and you should really learn to shut the gently caress up about science when you are wrong about it.

quote:

I want to emphasize that there have been measurable and unambiguous polluting harm that has been caused by fossil fuel production. This is not acceptable and should be strictly curtailed by property rights protections. This, however, is quite different from CO2 emissions and worldwide climate change.

Fun fact rear end in a top hat it was never curtailed by property rights restrictions. It would be more or less fundamentally impossible to curtail something like the acid rains or L.A. Smogs of the 20th century by property rights because you can't point to the individuals who were involved or the individuals who were specifically harmed. When the entire city of L.A. is under a cloud of smog that is because the entire city of L.A. contributed to that cloud. Every factory and every automobile contributed to that poo poo show, and there is no mechanism by which nebulous property rights could rectify that. You have been asked numerous loving times on numerous loving posts to detail a solution by which you believe property rights could deal with something as obvious as acid rain and you have failed to do so. I have zero faith in your idiotic ideology in its attempts to tackle a problem like climate change.

quote:

If we care about human life, then we must care about industrial progress which allows humans to avoid climate-related deaths, escape poverty and permits societies to grow prosperous. Of course, this doesn't mean we don't care about the pollution that a given energy source does emit, in so far as it causes demonstrable harm, but we shouldn't impugn the most effective and efficient energy sources for their imperfections given the overwhelming benefit cheap, scalable energy has to human flourishing.

Climate change by its nature will never show demonstrable or specific harm you enormous fuckwit . Climate change is the combined negative effects of an entire loving species on our environment over a period of human lifetimes. The negative effects we are talking about for some of these places are effects that we expect in 2100, long after your sorry rear end is almost certainly going to be dead. Treating this as a property rights issue is to throw your hands up in the air and say "gently caress it, can't stand in the way of human progress. Too bad for the people of the future who are going to be utterly ruined by our shortsighted nature."

I don't even understand this train of thought except that you're stuck in this stupid dogmatic bubble where you know that this is an issue, that climate change is real, but that you simultaniously know that the only solution is collective action, something you are so opposed to that you would rather see the world burn while you pretend that we don't know the negative effects of burning billions of tons of coal.

quote:

I believe any artificial privileges States grant to oil companies should be removed and companies should bear full liability costs for the negative externalities of their energy production.

And how do you measure those negative externalities?

quote:

If laws are passed that limit worldwide CO2 emissions by as much as climate change activists say is necessary to avoid "catastrophe", that means that many millions of people around the world, particularly in poor and developing nations that desperately need cheap energy sources to grow into the first world, with a middle class and productive capacity, will be consigned to extreme poverty or death.

See, its poo poo like this. You claim at the start of your post to believe in anthropocentric climate change. But then you use loving scare quotes around the word catastrophe as if we don't have literal mountains of science telling us that the best case scenarios for this are merely overwhelmingly lovely instead of world endingly fatal. gently caress you and your concern trolling about the poor, we both know you don't give two shits about people in africa so stop using them as a cudgel to try and dodge your responsibility as a human being you fruit rapist.

quote:

But the very fact that environmental activists require government subsidization of Wind and Solar and legislation which limits fossil fuel energy gives the game away. What we ought to do is cut ALL government subsidies and privileges to any form of energy and allow entrepreneurs to compete in the market. This is how we can determine the best source of energy.

No it isn't you fucknugget. Coal by definition has massive advantages over green energy solely because they producers of coal are able to ignore its externalities. All that CO2 being dumped into the air is harmful to humanity as a whole, but you would treat it as the 'best' source of energy simply because you can't see the negative effects.

If I put a pack of sugary soft drinks in front of you and a bunch of kale smoothies and told you that you could have whatever you wanted, you might very well claim that the sugar drinks are the best! They don't taste like rear end, and you feel really hyper after you drink them. Of course if you did that for fifty years it will have loving crippled your body, which is why you probably know not to drink nothing but coke 24/7 even if you don't go all the way to the other side.

quote:

The ONLY form of energy that is non-CO2 emitting which is scalable, reliable and efficient enough to fully compensate for fossil fuel sources is Nuclear energy. Yet there are virtually no climate change activists that I am aware of that are pushing Nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. Climate activists also tend to oppose hydro-electric power.

Yes climate change activists are humans who are stupidly afraid of the atomz. News at 11. This is no excuse for you being willfully ignorent about climate change. Also hydro does have a number of serious environmental effects.

quote:

Why don't members of the Green movement eschew political activism, pool their resources and enter the market as entrepreneurs by developing alternative energy sources and convinces consumers to purchase a superior, cleaner form of energy?

Because reality doesn't work this way. Which you'd know if you ever had a business that wasn't selling bootleg blu-rays off of facebook. Incidentally almost all research on fusion technology is done by the government or by people who are afraid of climate change. Weird how that works.

quote:

Even if every single prediction of the most alarmist climate activist is true, it does not imply that political action is the best remedy. In fact, States are by their nature slow, lumbering, inefficient behemoths with perverse incentive structures. It is incredibly unlikely that politicians and politically-motivated special interest subsidization will actually solve the problem.

Worse, you're going to have to deal with Republican presidents and Congresses at least 50% of the time over the next several decades. What would make you think that political authorities that don't agree with you won't simply cut funding or sabatoge your carefully constructed political solutions to climate change which will, after all, take decades to reap tangible benefits?

You have not proposed a single loving workable solution in this post. Perfect is the enemy of the good. I'll admit that having idiot republicans (who are backed by idiot libertarians btw) in charge of climate issues isn't great. The alternative is to simply let The Markets somehow magically deal with it. Which won't happen. You clod.

quote:

When, ever, have politicians and government employees, insulated from the market feedback mechanism of profit and loss, had low time preferences needed to plan responsibly for decades into the future?

Because businesses are notoriously forward thinking as evidenced by the 2008 financial collapse. Also the government is actually remarkably good at planning into the future as evidenced by government programs such as social security that have to plan literally decades ahead to even function.

quote:

Privately funded efforts, on the other hand, can be managed by experts who truly believe in the effort that is being pursued without the threat of petty politics sabotaging the effort. You don't have to worry about either Green cronies or Oil cronies getting in bed with government to manipulate the economy and the law in their favor.

This would be great! Surely there are such solutions on the offer now. Oh wait, no, the free market doesn't give two shits about providing clean energy because they can't do it cheaper than coal because coal doesn't care about externalities. Weird.

quote:

If alternative energy sources are "ready for primetime", as is being claimed, then go into the market and prove it. It is morally wrong to use force to prevent free people from producing and/or using the best, most reliable source of energy they have access to, as consumers on the market have chosen.

It is morally wrong for you. For me it is morally wrong for someone to make tens of millions of dollars selling fuel that they know will cause irreparable damage to humanity's future while not paying a penny to attempt to alleviate or compensate for that future.

quote:

I loving hate how politics destroys civility. If you have a worthy cause, then invest your own time and money into a project, and use persuasion to convince other people to change their behavior. If an oil company, an individual or group of people are acting in a way which is causing demonstrable harm to the person or property of others, then you should take them to court and force them to stop. But you have to demonstrate clearly the harm an individual actor has caused before force can legitimately be used to provide just compensation to the victim and enforce an injunction to prevent him or her from continuing their rights-violating behavior.

We don't live in your goddamn libertarian fantasyland Jrodefeld. You aren't proposing solutions, you're wishing on the shooting star of the market to save you from bad people, and it is as childish as that sounds.

quote:

However, "emitting CO2" does not, according to the data, seem to be an actionable offense. The data shows an inverse correlation between CO2 emissions and constantly lower and lower climate-related human deaths, longer lifespans, less disease, and higher standards of living all around.

ONE loving DATA POINT IS NOT IN ANY WAY PROOF OF ANYTHING YOU NITWIT!

Seriously dude, you looked at one loving graph and went "Well I guess the climate hasn't killed us yet, so CO2 emissions aren't bad. Do you understand how loving wrongheaded that is? You have one study that looks at one period of human history and goes "Well it hasn't killed us yet" and treat that as more important that the scientific consensus of the entire rest of the field who are looking forward at the effects of climate change in the future, which is when everyone agrees is where the actual problem would be.

Are you really this loving ignorant Jrodefeld?

quote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the primary reason we are supposed to be alarmed about future climate change and continuing CO2 emissions because this change in climate will cause injury and suffering? Then why has the preponderance of data over the past century shown precisely the opposite?

ASDAUIOERIONKL;CVIODERIOEIO

How are you this loving stupid?!

quote:

So artificially limiting access to cheap energy will certainly cause massive human suffering. But speculated human suffering caused by rising CO2 emissions don't seem to be correlated by the data.

One single chart does not overwhelm every other bit of scientific research on this subject? How the gently caress do you not understand that?

quote:

I am trying to look at this objectively, from a humanitarian perspective. If we can develop cleaner and more environmentally friendly energy sources that are cheap enough and scalable enough to take over from fossil fuels, I would be ecstatic. I certainly think this is possible, but it won't happen through politics. It will happen in the market, by entrepreneurs risking private capital and risking private losses. That is where your energy should be spent if you are passionate about this issue.

I am looking at this from a humanitarian perspective. Science (actual science) has shown us that at best the damage from global warming will be very lovely. A rise of a foot in sea level, a four degree increase in global temperatures leading to mass starvation and forced migration. Millions if not billions will suffer and a large fraction of that will almost certainly die as a result. Simply ignoring these problems because of one misleading loving graph is idiotic and shows the kiddie pool depth of your ideology.

Caros fucked around with this message at 22:19 on May 16, 2016

# ? May 16, 2016 22:11

theshim: May 1, 2012; You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!

fakeedit: CAROS! :argh:

Ordinarily I would engage this more politely, but it's Jrod, so the hell with that :getin:

I'm gonna skip the opening mealy-mouthed nonsense; others have covered the one actual point in there.

jrodefeld posted:

Most Marxist intellectuals didn't just admit the error of their ways and become proponents of laissez-faire. Far from it. A substantial number of them shifted their rhetorical attacks against Capitalism from arguments about how employers were exploiting workers, and workers need to own the means of production, to Capitalism is destroying the planet. Taking this position, it doesn't matter if free markets are more efficient, or provide greater generation of prosperity and higher living standards for everyone. If our actions are destroying the environment and there is an impending catastrophe lurking just a couple of decades into the future, we should voluntarily accept a lower standard of living now to save the planet, save endangered species, and so forth.

Uhhh...yes??? Even if we accept your ongoing batshit unfounded claims about the efficacy of free markets, it is still the logical and correct thing to say "some inefficiency is probably better than the entire planet getting hosed sideways" you insipid gremlin.

quote:

What I am saying is that if some people have an a priori suspicion about the environmentalist movement, it is not without it's justifications. I think it's extremely important to state which camp you fall into and what your primary motivations are for having concern about human-caused climate change.

It is for you, because it's a giant flashing neon banner that says "IGNORE ME".

On that note, tell us about vaccines again! :allears:

quote:

Now let me share my perspective:

The most important question to ask regarding climate change is how has our industrial activity and CO2 emitting behavior impacted human welfare? Has our industrial activity made the climate more or less hospitable for humans? The most important single statistic in this regard is climate-caused human deaths. The data shows that since humanity began it's industrial activity with the corresponding CO2 emissions, climate-caused human deaths have been rapidly declining decade after decade.

Have you heard of something called motherfucking TOMORROW

Because your entire argument cheerfully dismisses any and all predictive sciences, models, and observation in favor of saying "see, I am at this moment okay, so everything is fine, and always will be". It's almost wholly divorced from reality.

quote:

Here is a useful graph to illustrate the point:

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/boden.png

God almighty are you even capable of quoting something that isn't mises.com, lewrockwell.com, or the loving Cato Institute?

quote:

Furthermore, we know that cheap and abundant energy and the corresponding industrial activity that it generates has improved human welfare unbelievably over the past century and a half and continues to do so. The average life-expectancy rose from 30 to 80, climate-related deaths plummeted, and a middle class with ever-rising standards of living came into existence for the first time in human history.

In the early 21st century, free markets are allowing previously third world nations to generate their own wealth and their own middle classes. In these formerly-poor nations, life expectancy is rising and quality of life is improving. To my mind, it seems utterly abhorrent to prevent poor nations from having access to cheap energy which they desperately need to save the lives of their citizens and allow them to live at a decent standard of living. We in the first world have benefited from more than a century of industrial progress which enabled an enormous productive capacity, generating wealth and providing us a comfortable living. Most people in the world have not been so fortunate. We need to be very conscious of the effects that reducing fossil fuel use has on the developing world. Without a viable and immediate substitute for cheap energy, reducing fossil fuel use to the extent advocated by climate change proponents would cause tremendous human suffering.

That last line is one of your rare broken clock moments. Yes, in order to effectively combat climate change we need to reorient our energy production and usage, and yes, it needs to be on a global scale, and yes, the larger and more prosperous countries can more easily roll with such a punch. It can seem like we're pulling the ladder of cheap energy up behind us, leaving those who didn't get on that train to try and scrabble up against the sheer cliff.

This is an argument for rethinking our economic systems, not for clinging blindly to the altar of capitalism until the oceans cover it.

quote:

Let's suppose that all of the predicted effects of climate change are true and that climate models are generally accurate in predicting future global temperatures and weather pattern changes. Then the only relevant question we should be asking ourselves is whether or not the guaranteed harm to human welfare and survivability that will result from drastically limiting the use of fossil fuels is outweighed by the future benefit to human flourishing that would result from slightly lower sea levels, fewer natural disasters and things of that nature that environmentalists like to cite.

Oh you disingenuous son of a bitch. That is the most pathetically transparent attempt at reframing the actual impact of climate change and it's insulting that you think you can get away with it. The impact of a few inches of sea level is staggering; read some of the poo poo in the OP for gently caress's sake.

quote:

This is a cost-benefit analysis that is never acknowledged by believers in catastrophic climate change. And this is even granting the veracity of climate models and assuming accuracy in future predictions, both of which are very much in question.

Again, I want to hammer this point home: It is not a difference between immediate drastic harm and future inconvenience. It is a difference between immediate inconvenience and future obliteration. We are setting everything up to completely loving wreck us.

quote:

I want to emphasize that there have been measurable and unambiguous polluting harm that has been caused by fossil fuel production. This is not acceptable and should be strictly curtailed by property rights protections. This, however, is quite different from CO2 emissions and worldwide climate change.

If we care about human life, then we must care about industrial progress which allows humans to avoid climate-related deaths, escape poverty and permits societies to grow prosperous. Of course, this doesn't mean we don't care about the pollution that a given energy source does emit, in so far as it causes demonstrable harm, but we shouldn't impugn the most effective and efficient energy sources for their imperfections given the overwhelming benefit cheap, scalable energy has to human flourishing.

Again, your framing devices give the game away. You casually acknowledge some "imperfections" as almost an afterthought. You clearly do not believe that climate change can or will result in a catastrophic paradigm shift.

You are ignorant at best and based on your history I'm not really willing to extend you the benefit of the doubt.

quote:

But the very fact that environmental activists require government subsidization of Wind and Solar and legislation which limits fossil fuel energy gives the game away. What we ought to do is cut ALL government subsidies and privileges to any form of energy and allow entrepreneurs to compete in the market. This is how we can determine the best source of energy.

Aaaaahhhhhhhh, there it is.

See, here's a problem for you, Jrod, and it's a tough one. You, we can assume, do not want the extinction of mankind to take place. But when we come to something along the lines of global climate change, we are not, are not, dealing with a problem that can be resolved by individual steps by scattered pockets of people. This is the sort of problem that requires agreement not just within small, like-minded groups, but across the entire planet; cooperation from elements literally all over the world. This is not an issue that goes away when government does. This is an issue that must be addressed in the most sweeping, overarching way possible.

Even the most minarchist would agree that the government serves certain purposes, among them the protection of the populace. It is only the fully anarcho-capitalist who would rather make the world an uninhabitable wreck than countenance a government doing anything at all. This is why people do not take you seriously.

quote:

The ONLY form of energy that is non-CO2 emitting which is scalable, reliable and efficient enough to fully compensate for fossil fuel sources is Nuclear energy. Yet there are virtually no climate change activists that I am aware of that are pushing Nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. Climate activists also tend to oppose hydro-electric power.

Why don't members of the Green movement eschew political activism, pool their resources and enter the market as entrepreneurs by developing alternative energy sources and convinces consumers to purchase a superior, cleaner form of energy?

Even if every single prediction of the most alarmist climate activist is true, it does not imply that political action is the best remedy. In fact, States are by their nature slow, lumbering, inefficient behemeths with perverse incentive structures. It is incredibly unlikely that politicians and politically-motivated special interest subsidization will actually solve the problem.

Worse, you're going to have to deal with Republican presidents and Congresses at least 50% of the time over the next several decades. What would make you think that political authorities that don't agree with you won't simply cut funding or sabatoge your carefully constructed political solutions to climate change which will, after all, take decades to reap tangible benefits?

You kinda answered your own question above right here. It's the same reason companies will discard forward planning in favor of amping this quarter's profits as high as possible, over and over. It's the same reason our infrastructure is crumbling all over the world.

Turns out people are really, really bad at the long term a lot of the time, and private profit does not incentivize anything besides making as much money as possible as fast as possible. Long-term investments take time and money to get anywhere and people want a quick buck.

quote:

When, ever, have politicians and government employees, insulated from the market feedback mechanism of profit and loss, had low time preferences needed to plan responsibly for decades into the future?

Have you ever heard of a tiny little thing called Social Security?

Just thought I'd ask.

And before you jump out screaming about how that's insolvent and doesn't represent a responsible plan, I'd say that might have to do with the fact that it was treated like a slush fund, instead of, that's right boys and girls, a long-term investment.

quote:

Privately funded efforts, on the other hand, can be managed by experts who truly believe in the effort that is being pursued without the threat of petty politics sabotaging the effort. You don't have to worry about either Green cronies or Oil cronies getting in bed with government to manipulate the economy and the law in their favor.

This is a joke, right?

quote:

If alternative energy sources are "ready for primetime", as is being claimed, then go into the market and prove it. It is morally wrong to use force to prevent free people from producing and/or using the best, most reliable source of energy they have access to, as consumers on the market have chosen.

That's a remarkably strong moral claim.

Let's say, just for argument's sake, that the best, most reliable source of energy they have access to, as consumers on the market have chosen, requires one virgin sacrifice per day. Is it still morally wrong to prevent people from producing and/or using it? :haw:

quote:

I loving hate how politics destroys civility. If you have a worthy cause, then invest your own time and money into a project, and use persuasion to convince other people to change their behavior. If an oil company, an individual or group of people are acting in a way which is causing demonstrable harm to the person or property of others, then you should take them to court and force them to stop. But you have to demonstrate clearly the harm an individual actor has caused before force can legitimately be used to provide just compensation to the victim and enforce an injunction to prevent him or her from continuing their rights-violating behavior.

Allow me to introduce you to an important term you seem unfamiliar with:

SCALE.

A single person's carbon emissions are not what we are talking about. It is the aggregate of billions of people, their lives, their machinery, their cars, and everything else. This simply is not a problem that can be solved on an individual level.

I just can't think of any other way to put it that would better get to you. This is not a problem that can be solved on an individual level.

quote:

However, "emitting CO2" does not, according to the data, seem to be an actionable offense. The data shows an inverse correlation between CO2 emissions and constantly lower and lower climate-related human deaths, longer lifespans, less disease, and higher standards of living all around.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the primary reason we are supposed to be alarmed about future climate change and continuing CO2 emissions because this change in climate will cause injury and suffering? Then why has the preponderance of data over the past century shown precisely the opposite?

What WILL absolutely cause human death and suffering is a lack of access to cheap, abundent energy that is required to produce food, build and maintain hospitals, heat homes and manufacture goods and services which makes human lives sustainable and, hopefully, comfortable.

So artificially limiting access to cheap energy will certainly cause massive human suffering. But speculated human suffering caused by rising CO2 emissions don't seem to be correlated by the data.

Well...

Dubstep Jesus posted:

Gee, it's almost like the past century isn't a good indicator of what will happen in the next century.

quote:

I am trying to look at this objectively, from a humanitarian perspective. If we can develop cleaner and more environmentally friendly energy sources that are cheap enough and scalable enough to take over from fossil fuels, I would be ecstatic. I certainly think this is possible, but it won't happen through politics. It will happen in the market, by entrepreneurs risking private capital and risking private losses. That is where your energy should be spent if you are passionate about this issue.

The market is a short-sighted and purely reactive force, insofar as it is one at all. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up an actual argument here, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortress...

# ? May 16, 2016 22:17

Lemming: Apr 21, 2008

I pulled a belt tight around my neck and I'm starting to feel really great. I think I'm going to keep this up forever. Nothing bad has happened yet, so nothing bad ever will.

# ? May 16, 2016 23:00

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

You know, that chart is the funniest damned thing I've seen in a loooooooong time.

"Climate-related deaths went down! Must be that climate change doesn't exist." Or, you know, medical care and emergency services are significantly better than they were 70 years ago. Nah, I'm sure that's unrelated.

# ? May 16, 2016 23:01

VectorSigma: Jan 20, 2004; Transform
and
Freak Out

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly constitutes a "climate-related death," given that any acute atmospheric effect capable of causing an immediately quantifiable harm is by definition weather.

# ? May 16, 2016 23:12

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

VectorSigma posted:

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly constitutes a "climate-related death," given that any acute atmospheric effect capable of causing an immediately quantifiable harm is by definition weather.

Here is what the chart maker has to say:

quote:

Sources: Met Office Hadley Centre HadCRUT4 dataset; Etheridge et al. (1998); Keeling et al. (2001); MacFarling Meure et al. (2006); Merged IceCore Record Data, Scripps Institution of OceanographySources: Met Office Hadley Centre HadCRUT4 dataset; Etheridge et al. (1998); Keeling et al. (2001); MacFarling Meure et al. (2006); Merged IceCore Record Data, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

But that�s not the graph that really matters. There is no intrinsically perfect global temperature and, if there was, we would expect it to be warmer. Until it became politically correct for temperature trends to warm, people around the world prayed for far more warming than we�ve experienced. There is no time in human history when it has been considered �too warm� for human beings.

What matters is: is the climate becoming more or less livable? The key statistic here, one that is unfortunately almost never mentioned, is �climate-related deaths.�

The best source I have found for this data is the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters International Disaster Database (OFDA/CRED EM-DAT), based in Brussels.1 It gathers data about disasters since 1900.

Here is a graph comparing CO2 emissions, the alleged climate danger, to the number of climate-related deaths, which reflects actual climate danger to humans. It�s striking�as CO2 emissions rise, climate-related deaths plunge.

Sources: Boden, Marland, Andres (2013); Etheridge et al. (1998); Keeling et al. (2001); MacFarling Meure et al. (2006); Merged IceCore Record Data, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; EM-DAT International Disaster DatabaseSources: Boden, Marland, Andres (2013); Etheridge et al. (1998); Keeling et al. (2001); MacFarling Meure et al. (2006); Merged IceCore Record Data, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; EM-DAT International Disaster Database

To make matters better, in reality the trend is even more dramatically downward, as before the 1970s many disasters went unreported. One big reason for this was lack of satellite data�we can now see the whole world, enabling us to track icecaps and disaster areas with relative ease. In 1950, if there was a disaster in the middle of what is now Bangladesh, would information have been accurately collected? In general, we can expect in more recent years, more deaths were recorded and in earlier years, fewer deaths were recorded. For some countries there is simply no good data, because in underdeveloped places like Haiti or Ethiopia we do not even know exactly how many people lived in a particular place before a disaster struck. Today we have much better information�and because disaster statistics are tied to aid, there is incentive to overreport.

And the more we dig into the data, the stronger the correlations get.

# ? May 16, 2016 23:26

Caros: May 14, 2008

Lemming posted:

I pulled a belt tight around my neck and I'm starting to feel really great. I think I'm going to keep this up forever. Nothing bad has happened yet, so nothing bad ever will.

I just about died reading this.

# ? May 17, 2016 01:31

Placid Marmot: Apr 28, 2013

VectorSigma posted:

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly constitutes a "climate-related death," given that any acute atmospheric effect capable of causing an immediately quantifiable harm is by definition weather.

Various sources suggest very large mortality, both already and increasingly in the future, due to various climate-related causes, which include climate-change-exacerbated weather events, malnutrition (from reduced crop yields), malaria (from improved conditions over a wider area for mosquitos), diarrhoea (related to flooding), and of course directly temperature-related deaths such as heat stoke. One estimate puts the current figure for climate-change-related deaths at 400,000 per year, increasing to 600,000 per year by 2030, for example.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/
https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_157592.html

And a rebuttal to a rebuttal about climate-related deaths:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-the-times-claims-climate-related-deaths-estimate-is-exaggerated

Edit: If the actual current and recent number of "climate-related deaths" is 300,000 per year or higher, that will put the 30-year average from jrodefeld's chart above that of the entire antibiotics age, the start of which being where the line on his chart plunges (not by coincidence).

Placid Marmot fucked around with this message at 02:23 on May 17, 2016

# ? May 17, 2016 02:18

Caros: May 14, 2008

Placid Marmot posted:

Various sources suggest very large mortality, both already and increasingly in the future, due to various climate-related causes, which include climate-change-exacerbated weather events, malnutrition (from reduced crop yields), malaria (from improved conditions over a wider area for mosquitos), diarrhoea (related to flooding), and of course directly temperature-related deaths such as heat stoke. One estimate puts the current figure for climate-change-related deaths at 400,000 per year, increasing to 600,000 per year by 2030, for example.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/
https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_157592.html

And a rebuttal to a rebuttal about climate-related deaths:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-the-times-claims-climate-related-deaths-estimate-is-exaggerated

Edit: If the actual current and recent number of "climate-related deaths" is 300,000 per year or higher, that will put the 30-year average from jrodefeld's chart above that of the entire antibiotics age, the start of which being where the line on his chart plunges (not by coincidence).

B-but the chart said...

# ? May 17, 2016 02:35

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

Hey if people falling victim to desertification of previously habitable areas wanted better lives they'd have chosen to not be born in those areas. Obviously they should just work harder so they can afford to move or pay for college so they can emigrate.

What's that you say? It's currently almost impossible to immigrate to the U.S? Those areas of the world don't even have universal high school education let alone accessible colleges? Well that isn't my problem. They should just work harder to fix their own nations and not expect help from us.

Hey where did all of these desperate bands of guerrillas come from?

# ? May 17, 2016 03:59

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Reminder that current increases in global temperatures and this years scorching heat record leave the Middle East setup to be inhospitable to life by 2050

# ? May 17, 2016 04:04

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

CommieGIR posted:

Reminder that current increases in global temperatures and this years scorching heat record leave the Middle East setup to be inhospitable to life by 2050

I'd like to know more about this, and not just because my part of the world's seen record heat, coral bleaching, bushfires in places that aren't supposed to get bushfires, etc. Would people just... move away for the worst of summer and one year never come back? And anyone want to guess what happens when it's too hot for the Hajj?

# ? May 17, 2016 04:31

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

Tree Bucket posted:

I'd like to know more about this, and not just because my part of the world's seen record heat, coral bleaching, bushfires in places that aren't supposed to get bushfires, etc. Would people just... move away for the worst of summer and one year never come back? And anyone want to guess what happens when it's too hot for the Hajj?

It's a bit slower than that and, in the case of the Middle East, already happening. Part of the problems Syria is having stemmed from the fact that a poo poo load of people have been seeing dwindling harvests for several years now. The farmers had zero choice but leaving their home lands simply because they could no longer grow food there. It's getting continually worse and it's spreading.

This is why there's a refugee crisis but also why this right wing "gently caress everybody but us" attitude that has been growing in the western world just plain isn't helping. Climate refugees with nowhere else to go are falling in with some rather unsavory groups out of sheer desperation. Which is also why it's sickening to hear people say "well let's just arm them, send them home, and tell them to fix their own drat homes." They can't because those homes have become parched, barren hellscapes.

# ? May 17, 2016 04:57

ComradeCosmobot: Dec 4, 2004; USPOL July

Tree Bucket posted:

I'd like to know more about this, and not just because my part of the world's seen record heat, coral bleaching, bushfires in places that aren't supposed to get bushfires, etc. Would people just... move away for the worst of summer and one year never come back? And anyone want to guess what happens when it's too hot for the Hajj?

Here you go.

# ? May 17, 2016 05:11

Kthulhu5000: Jul 25, 2006; by R. Guyovich

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Hey if people falling victim to desertification of previously habitable areas wanted better lives they'd have chosen to not be born in those areas. Obviously they should just work harder so they can afford to move or pay for college so they can emigrate.

What's that you say? It's currently almost impossible to immigrate to the U.S? Those areas of the world don't even have universal high school education let alone accessible colleges? Well that isn't my problem. They should just work harder to fix their own nations and not expect help from us.

Hey where did all of these desperate bands of guerrillas come from?

CommieGIR posted:

Reminder that current increases in global temperatures and this years scorching heat record leave the Middle East setup to be inhospitable to life by 2050

Both of these highlight the crux of Jrod's failure. The current wealthy nations of the US and Europe might have enough resources, development, and clout to mitigate the effects of climate change somewhat, but that doesn't mean they'll be wholly immune to detrimental effects either (both climate-related and those related to politics and the economy). When the rest of the world is in strife, who do we sell our raw materials and goods to? Conversely, if there are overseas resources we depend on either out of necessity or convenience, overseas strife and climate change effects (including the creation of large inhospitable zones, such as in the Middle East) will affect the ability of wealthy states to access them. It could manifest as anything from restaurants serving various ethnic cuisines not having ready access to key ingredients to spikes in the price of oil with accompanying shocks through the rest of the economy.

And the guerrillas ToxicSlurpee mentions are another factor, due to the asymmetrical nature of guerrilla warfare. For all the millions and billions that the wealthy nations spend on their military capacities, it takes maybe $10,000 (or less) worth of explosives, AK-47s, and determined assailants to sneak in to an urban area and wreak havoc through mass shootings and bombings. More desperate and angry people means more of them to wind up and point our way.

Tree Bucket posted:

I'd like to know more about this, and not just because my part of the world's seen record heat, coral bleaching, bushfires in places that aren't supposed to get bushfires, etc. Would people just... move away for the worst of summer and one year never come back? And anyone want to guess what happens when it's too hot for the Hajj?

Beside's CommieGir's link, this might be of interest:

https://www.mpg.de/10481936/climate-change-middle-east-north-africa

# ? May 17, 2016 05:15

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

ComradeCosmobot posted:

Here you go.

Death by mugginess is my nightmare scenario.

Kthulhu5000 posted:

Beside's CommieGir's link, this might be of interest:

https://www.mpg.de/10481936/climate-change-middle-east-north-africa

Wow, that's horrifying. Night temperatures never falling below 30C at the warmest time of the year, sandstorms... that's got to mess with your mental health, to say nothing of agriculture...

# ? May 17, 2016 08:19

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Tree Bucket posted:

Death by mugginess is my nightmare scenario.

Wow, that's horrifying. Night temperatures never falling below 30C at the warmest time of the year, sandstorms... that's got to mess with your mental health, to say nothing of agriculture...

Counterpoint: muh freedoms.

# ? May 17, 2016 08:25

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

If cigarettes caused cancer the free market would have eliminated them from the stores by now.

Here's some research from some very wealthy cigarette companies showing no link between tobacco and cancer, if their research weren't accurate they wouldn't be making so much money because rational consumers wouldn't buy products that poison them.

Here's a graph showing huge increases in health and life expectancy in the first half of the 20th century, which correlates with rising cigarette usage, if cigarettes were as bad as the leftist so-called scientists say then why are we living longer now in 1950 than ever before?

# ? May 17, 2016 10:04

smoke sumthin bitch: Dec 14, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

wether you believe the effects of global warming would cause more harm to the human race than ending energetic freedom, i think we can all agree that carbon taxes and similar measures are a scam and a huge wealth transfer from the poorest and most vulnerable elements of our society towards mega corporations. I find it funny when people compare climate realism to cigarette companies denying the harmful effects of their products. I mean if you follow the money you would see that it is very much on the green side of things. ie: ontario privatising its hydro electrical network, jacking up its prices 6x and forbidding the use of natural gaz, all in the name of the glorious agenda 21.

smoke sumthin bitch fucked around with this message at 12:46 on May 17, 2016

# ? May 17, 2016 12:43

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

smoke sumthin bitch posted:

And this great username/post combo is why big companies are squaling like pigs over the possible introduction of carbon taxes, kids :pseudo:

# ? May 17, 2016 12:52

Bates: Jun 15, 2006

The poor use less carbon than the non-poor. Carbon taxes would mainly hit the suburbs and create an incentive for industries to do things differently.

# ? May 17, 2016 12:57

VectorSigma: Jan 20, 2004; Transform
and
Freak Out

Placid Marmot posted:

Various sources suggest very large mortality, both already and increasingly in the future, [...]

Oh I get all that. It's just that when someone tries to tie a direct causal relationship to a specific number of deaths per year to a concept like climate that is defined by a very large temporal sample, all sorts tenuous links can be invented or ignored by people with an agenda.

On top of that, "climate-related" is a different from "climate change-related." The maker of the chart seems to be mistaking our technological adaptations to our environment in the last century for a reduction in the harshness of said environment. It's either that, or they're trying to imply that we've gotten better at protecting ourselves from nature so it's no biggie if it gets worse, which is pretty loving nutty.

# ? May 17, 2016 13:41

smoke sumthin bitch: Dec 14, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

Anos posted:

The poor use less carbon than the non-poor. Carbon taxes would mainly hit the suburbs and create an incentive for industries to do things differently.

Carbon taxes are regressive and would cost a much larger % of a poor persons income than of a rich individal. Also they are a litteral death sentence for the third world. They also encourage monopolies and crony dealings.

# ? May 17, 2016 15:17

Inglonias: Mar 7, 2013; I WILL PUT THIS FLAG ON FREAKING EVERYTHING BECAUSE IT IS SYMBOLIC AS HELL SOMEHOW

smoke sumthin bitch posted:

Carbon taxes are regressive and would cost a much larger % of a poor persons income than of a rich individal. Also they are a litteral death sentence for the third world. They also encourage monopolies and crony dealings.

When you make a claim like that (and don't bother to spell check) the onus is on you to provide evidence. But I'm going to be nice here and link my own sources:

quote:

Impact on Gasoline Prices
The EIA study of Lieberman-Warner found that the bill would add 42 cents per gallon to gas prices in 2030 as compared to BAU (a 12% increase). Analyses of Waxman-Markey found that it would increase gas prices 22 to 35 cents per gallon by 2030 (6 to 9%). The Peterson Institute analysis of Kerry-Lieberman found it would increase gas prices by approximately 10 cents per gallon (3%) by 2030.

Impact on Utility Bills
Analyses of Waxman-Markey found that its impacts on monthly utility bills by 2030 ranged from a $5.60 decrease to a $2.80 increase. The Peterson Institute analysis of Kerry-Lieberman found that by 2030, monthly utility bills would range between a $0.67 decrease and a $2.62 increase.

The potential decrease in monthly electric bills is due to the energy efficiency programs established through the bill's provisions. Though energy prices are expected to increase modestly, energy consumption is expected to counteract these increases as households take advantage of these energy efficiency programs.

The Google.org study found that through electric car breakthroughs as a result of investment in green tech and carbon pricing, household energy bills (electric plus transportation fuel) would decrease 53% by 2050, by approximately $950 per year.

Impact on Household Costs
The analyses of Waxman-Markey concluded that the bill would cost the average American household between $84 and $160 per year by 2020, which corresponds to $0.67 to $1.28 per person per week. The majority of the increase comes through increased gasoline costs. The studies also concluded that the costs would be lower for lower income families. For example, the CBO analysis of Waxman-Markey concluded that families in the lowest income quintile would see a net decrease in average annual costs of about $125 in 2020 due to low-income assistance provisions (CBPP 2009).

Over the entire span of the Waxman-Markey bill (to 2050), EPA found the average annual cost would be $80 to $110 per household in current dollars (64 to 88 cents per person per week).

Cost-Benefit Analysis
Although most economic analyses of these policy proposals only estimated the costs, a study by the New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) also evaluated the benefits of Waxman-Markey by using a range of possible values for the social cost of carbon (SCC). SCC is effectively an estimate of the direct effects of carbon emissions on the economy, and takes into consideration such factors as net agricultural productivity loss, human health effects, property damages from sea level rise, and changes in ecosystem services. It is a difficult number to estimate, but is key to any cost-benefit analysis of climate legislation. Figure 2 from the IPI study illustrates how the direct benefits of Waxman-Markey compare to the costs for two economic models (ADAGE and IGEM) in relation to SCC in Figure 1.

# ? May 17, 2016 15:29

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

Where you guys are getting the will to even respond, I have no clue.

All I can do here is sit in stunned wonderment and :eyepop:

that loving post.

# ? May 17, 2016 16:43

smoke sumthin bitch: Dec 14, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

quote:

The Google.org study found that through electric car breakthroughs as a result of investment in green tech and carbon pricing, household energy bills (electric plus transportation fuel) would decrease 53% by 2050, by approximately $950 per year.

Now thats exactly what im talking about. google stands to profit immensely from electric car subsidies and carbon taxes as they are about to start selling electric self driving vehicles. dont be fooled

# ? May 17, 2016 17:58

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

smoke sumthin bitch posted:

Now thats exactly what im talking about. google stands to profit immensely from electric car subsidies and carbon taxes as they are about to start selling electric self driving vehicles. dont be fooled

yeah so what

"company adapts to new market conditions, makes profit" isn't news

# ? May 17, 2016 19:10

Wanderer: Nov 5, 2006; our every move is the new tradition

http://www.businessinsider.com/ethiopia-is-experiencing-one-of-the-worst-droughts-in-50-years-2016-5?r=UK&IR=T

Interesting article about a low-tech way of helping to deal with Ethopia's drought.

# ? May 17, 2016 23:03

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

electric cars aren't goin to do poo poo with the environment while china poisons everywhere

this is not hte thread i thought i was posting in

# ? May 17, 2016 23:09

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Jose posted:

electric cars aren't goin to do poo poo with the environment while china poisons everywhere

this is not hte thread i thought i was posting in

China is actually doing more than we are with nuclear.

# ? May 17, 2016 23:21

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# ? May 14, 2024 14:53

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

Are there any good sources on climate change in relation to the middle east around?

# ? May 18, 2016 00:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

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