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Mozi posted:Assuming we go over 4 degrees, where would be a good place in the world to live and watch civilization tear itself apart? Northern Canada? Well... There's always Norway. The main consequence we face over climate change is milder winters and lots more rain... in a country that's nearly 100% hydro-electric powered. Power is gonna be cheap, unless the right-wingers sell off the government power monopoly. What's not so great is that we're not self-reliant on foodstuffs, we produce about 50% of what we eat, and this percentage is going down due to hostile agricultural reforms. Nobody wants to be a farmer anymore, because they make crap money. And should food become really expensive or even become horded on the international markets for some reason, Norway might be poo poo out of luck.
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Nov 24, 2012 13:58
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ToxicSlurpee posted:It doesn't matter where you live there are lifestyle changes you can make. Yeah that person might not be able to bike or walk anywhere but there's other stuff they can do. Plant trees, recycle and reuse whenever possible, turn the lights off, avoid stuff that causes power leeching, switch to a more economical vehicle, eat less meat...list goes on. Yes some people situationally are incapable of certain things but absolutely everybody can make changes. Sure, and this proves that everyone can do a thing. Which is nice. Unfortunately, given the global scale of the problem, this won't be nearly enough and in the end might not even be a significant factor - which is what I think people here are saying. Society can't even stop people from speeding or smoking weed, and a lot of people are poorly educated and living under severe financial strain. These are the people you're expecting to make big changes to their lives, based on what? Your say-so? Their own ability to claw through the propaganda BS and read peer-reviewed scientific articles and form their own well-informed opinion? While simultaneously lacking both the means and the ability. Yeah. This isn't realistic, even if it were somehow effective. The climate change issue is very closely tied to issues of social equality and democracy; most of the voting public doesn't know about the issue, is misinformed about the issue, doesn't care about the issue compared to their daily challenges and can't afford to do anything about it even if the knew and cared. Compared to the other issues plaguing the majority of the world (not just the US!), global warming isn't even a distant tenth on the list of things people care about, and the reason for that is simple: To the vast majority of people in actually democratic societies, the issue isn't even visible - and won't be until it turns acute. The people in power consider global warming just one issue among many, and won't care to do anything about it so long as it doesn't have immediate benefit to them (let's not kid ourselves here, nobody takes the reins of a nation out of altruism and selflessness, those kinds of people don't come to power). The reason for climate pessimism is simply that the nature of humanity is working against us as a species and that things won't change until they have to - at which point it will already be too late. People will suffer and die en masse as a result. The only realistic thing that can happen to stop this is a complete revolution; not only must environmental policy become the foremost concern normally reserved national security and military power but society must change into one that can plan and act with forethought, so that a long-term view of industry, science and production prevails. This means that as a society, we would have to end corporate and human greed; consumerism and market liberalist capitalism has to become as disgusting a philosophy as social darwinism for this to happen. We would also have to have literal peace on earth; most of the resources spent on military might would have to be redirected towards environmental work and relief efforts to start the massive efforts needed to repair the current damage. And then, once industry is as green as possible (this can only happen with nuclear, but I'm probably preaching to the choir on that topic) and all nations are committing great resources and manpower towards restructuring our society to be sustainable; then it's reasonable to expect people to live lives as environmentally friendly as possible. In other words, we are - as a species - hosed. The worst case scenario will happen, no magic science will come along to save us from global thermal momentum (what the hell could even do that and who would pay for it?), the poor will get poorer, the rich will get richer until the breaking point where food/water riots erupt and society dissolves into resource-war and chaos. The end will be nukes launched from the first big destabilized nation to experience loss of control of the military to some madman. Bummer. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 16:19 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 26, 2015 16:17
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ToxicSlurpee posted:I'm pretty sure just throwing our hands up and going "welp we're hosed, might as well enjoy it as much as we can until we can't!" is exactly the wrong opinion. I also really don't think that total revolution is a requirement. The issues are becoming more apparent and people are being shown the mountains of mass produced trash. Awareness is spreading about the issue and more and more people are caring about it. Politicians will care about it when we do. That's kind of how democracy works; politicians do whatever it takes to get themselves reelected. If the voting public suddenly gives a poo poo about global warming and environmental science then politicians will too. That's not my opinion. I just have no illusions. There's a whole range of possibilities as to what might happen, and they range from highly unlikely (the sustainability revolution, magic science solution) to the more likely (environmental reforms, drought and famine, slow change but only hundreds of millions of lives lost) to the very probable (action comes too late, severe drought and famine, war, risk of nuclear war). Predicting the future is hard, but there's a lot of historical presedence for acting too late, and there's not a lot in current mainstream politics giving me much hope; we're well aware of the problem but nobody with any power is doing anything, there's no international cooperation and there's little hope of improvement on that part. Lastly, that's nice for Pennsylvania. Care to explain how your Pennsylvanian environmental awareness is going to change industrial Asia? What is your good old boy Republican going to do about China, India, Indonesia? Africa? South America? In a way, you're proving my point; even there nothing happened until the consequences became obvious. Combatting global warming will take global effort, and things are very, very different in the rest of the world; the developing world is not going to care about the environment until it is absolutely forced to, in the pursuit of western living standards. Just look at China, and the terrifying pollution problem they have. Not even slowing them down, and the alternative energy sources they are looking into may come too late or never pan out.
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May 26, 2015 19:30
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Listen, what's the essence of your point here? "Things aren't so bad"? I disagree. The absolute worst thing right now would be even more sugarcoating of the issue. Things are bad, and not improving. This means we need big changes, on a political level. "Some steps have been taking in the right direction"? Sure, some steps. Compared to what needs to happen, insignificant, but you're right that symbolic progress has been made. It's not enough, though, and the underlying issues - the reasons we're even in this mess and struggling to change things - are not addressed by merely setting a good example. The problem is bigger than anything you can observe or impact locally. "Change has to start somewhere"? Yeah, absolutely. By definition this is true, but on it's own it is nothing more than a basic platitude. Not just any change will do, and my personal opinion is that telling people that these small efforts make an impact on the bigger problem creates a false impression and a false hope that things will be better if we just recycle and get a prius. Yeah, those things need to happen, but they need to happen as part of a larger societal change and they need to be mandatory, not merely suggestions. Now, I may have misunderstood you. You may not be patting yourself on the back for all this amazing progress, and you may realize that a lot more needs to happen than just incentivizing some individuals into living a little greener. Your post still gives me a feeling of upbeat naiveté that as long as we're making a small effort, we're doing something and that something will matter. This just isn't the case, and in the end it's just another kind of sugarcoating - it leaves a false and dangerous impression that (specifically americans) living a bit greener is a meaningful effort in the grand scheme of things. It isn't. Again; I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done, or that it won't help in some small way: People should live greener regardless. But this is not the core of the issue and it's not where meaningful impact on the problem will be made. Please don't waste any more time pretending I ever said that we should give up, throw our hands in the air and nihilistically go quietly into the night. All I'm doing is not sugarcoating things, and presenting a realistic scenario for humanity if current trends continue. Let me put it to you this way: What do you think will happen if climate change is left to run its course? In fact, that's an open question to all of you. What's the worst case scenario, what's humanity likely to do (when) and what will that likely accomplish?
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May 26, 2015 21:24
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Your Sledgehammer posted:I think it's high time that this thread made it an official policy to just ignore Arkane. We know his schtick, we know it's tired old bullshit, so let's move on. Responding or giving him any attention at all only encourages him to post more, so it's best that no one respond to him at all. Let him shout into the darkness while an honest discussion of climate change happens around him. Even the most science illiterate goon who wanders into the thread would be able to see through the lies, I'd hope, and it's not worth degrading the discourse in here just to poke holes in Arkane's fucktard balloon over and over. If he gets ignored for a few weeks on end, he'll give up and hopefully never come back. Having read this thread, I wholeheartedly agree - Arkane's personal opinion (which is all he's ever posted honestly about in this thread) is completely worthless. At the same time, though, Arkane and the other denialist posters are one of the big reasons why I'm such a goddamned pessimist when it comes to our future. I think they are a good representation of real-life efforts to stop environmentalism. Think about it; while obfuscating and confusing the issue, injecting false or incorrect data and generally disrupting the discussion on the issue is a legitimately effective tactic in a thread full of left leaning, presumably intelligent individuals with above average ability to do research and identify facts, imagine how well the "professionals" are doing at this in actual politics. For a realistic, fighting chance we need an actual paradigm shift in politics, industry and economy, power generation and consumerist attitude. This is being fought against tooth and nail by the people who are profiting the most from this current system. They also happen to be the ones with power. Transitioning society into a completely sustainable one requires sustainable power generation (or long-lasting nuclear baseline with renewables), sustainable transport and logistics, sustainable economic models (market liberalism has to go) and sustainable agriculture. These are actually obtainable goals, and the combined industrial output and research of the world could achieve this quickly enough to avoid the worst case scenarios - probably. However, this isn't going to happen. If a new sustainability paradigm comes, it's going to come too late because of the delayed reaction of our input on the closed - but massive - system earth is. The fundamental nature of humanity is working against us, both what's been previously said about hyperbolic discounting and the lack of education in most parts of the world combined with the misinformation coming from people with power and influence. People today will simply not be able to drastically change their lives to benefit people in 50-100 years, which is the time scale we're talking about. For all we know, global warming could be a great filter factor for civilizations that most don't survive as an advanced species. Oh, humanity won't go extinct from this, but we will most certainly revert to a much simpler life technologically and culturally adapting to what the world is going to be looking like. Society needs its current size and complexity for scientific and industrial progress. This simply will not be there after global warming. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 08:40 on May 29, 2015 |
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May 29, 2015 08:27
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I do like seeing the green parties of Europe gathering more votes these last years. Problem with them isn't so much the "too little too late" problem. but the fact that social reform isn't also on their agenda; currently the green parties are being supported by single-issue voters from all political creeds. I can see that creating problems if they pick up enough momentum to become a realistic option for government. Another thing I've been thinking about (obviously) is what people in general can do, not just to live more sustainably but how to prepare for potential food insecurity, increased costs for transportation etc. Personally I've been thinking about building a home that's more or less self-sustained, not too centralized but with good options for public transportation and a good amount of close by natural resources. I'm fortunate enough to live somewhere and have a profession where such an investment is possible. I think earthship-housing is an interesting - though flawed - idea, that I would love to see explored. It seems like a realistic option for the warmer third world countries to develop. I'm not saying that everyone needs to be a prepper nut, but I can't help but feel that most people would benefit to prepare for the things that will change within the next 30 years, particularly if they are planning to have a family. Petroleum will be gone, climate changes will be much more severe and some areas will experience significant drought. Things will start to get a lot more expensive, particularly food, and this will create a lot of unrest - our well-educated and peaceful society (some might say overly pacified) is built on easy access to food and utilities. Take that away, and some significant political changes will occur. Probably quite rapidly. And that introduces its own vulnerabilities in a democratic system.
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May 29, 2015 11:02
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Series DD Funding posted:What the gently caress are you talking about? Petroleum will not be gone in 30 years unless we restrict it as part of CC fighting efforts. You mean we have more than 30 years of oil and gas remaining at current and increasing consumption levels and pricing? Get the gently caress out of here. Honj Steak posted:Greens have governed Germany for 7 years and they were the most neoliberal of them all. As a minority in a coalition government. They are also the morons significantly responsible for shutting down the german nuclear power plants, ironically causing significant environmental damage due to shifting over to coal and gas power, while importing nuclear power from their neighbours. They are blathering idiots who don't deserve to be called "green" in any significant environmental capacity - a problem shared with many other so-called green parties. At least people are voting for something that sounds enviro-friendly.
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May 29, 2015 12:14
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Also that^^^Series DD Funding posted:We have plenty of natural gas and unconventional oil sources remaining, yes. Economics are an open question, but you've seen how shale caused the oil price collapse over the past year. Yeah. Alternatives to just pumping the stuff straight out of the ground are very expensive, questionable in their longevity and we use petroleum for one hell of a lot more than just transport and logistics. For one, farmers are going to get a double whammy of increased fuel AND increased fertilizer costs starting pretty soon. This will be a significant impact on food prices - even if those prices are already way too high due to distribution, refinement and sale overhead excess plus profit excess - unless corporations are willing to cut prices to the bone to make way way less money off of raw foodstuffs. And I think everyone knows the answer to that one. Then there's all the other stuff that runs on petroleum. Machine lubricants, industrial chemicals, asphalt and tar, aviation fuel, fertilizer, industrial plastics etc. The current oil price collapse will not last. The current glut will not last. We can't keep up today's levels of hydrocarbon production for 30 years without huge expenses, and even if we could - we're still running our in 40, 50 or 60 years. Of course, we're ignoring here what draining every least drop we can from the earth's crust actually means in terms of CO2 levels. If we don't leave that stuff in the ground starting pretty damned soon, then we are barreling at that worst-case scenario at comparatively breakneck speed. Spending energy to get more energy out then spending much more energy trying to scrub the effects of that energy from our closed system to sequester CO2; the single most energy effective thing we can do to stop global warming is leave all that poo poo in the ground, and that's the one thing we absolutely positively will not do. Paradigm shift, or start preparing. Middle ground is slight damage mitigation at best.
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May 29, 2015 21:52
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Well, what it really boils down to in the end is pure physics: Energy. Everything you own, everything you eat, everything you do takes energy of some kind. In the western world, we use all this energy as a matter of course; we don't think twice about having personal transport in the form of a car, living in big, temperature-controlled homes etc. All that takes orders of magnitudes more energy than is used by the average poor - and I do mean poor - third-worlder. Now, I'm going to disagree with the people ITT that think that the rest of the world can't use the same amount of energy for convenience and comfort like we do. What matters is where this energy is coming from. Right now, most of the energy fueling our existence comes from fossil fuels; inconceivable amounts of CO2 buried in the earth that we have released into the atmosphere in exchange for driving to to the store for a pack of gum. The energy economics of that is completely staggering, but we do have the ability to create inordinate amounts of energy to allow most of us to live a lifestyle at least close to what one would expect of a first-world country - without the enormous amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. A comparable lifestyle is possible, if energy were plentiful, cheap and didn't produce waste and waste gas. Basically, high tech modern feeder reactors transitioning into fusion, is what I'm talking about. That's the level of technology and energy I'm talking about that we are artificially living (in the western world) right now in exchange for screwing ourselves in the long run. For a more down to earth perspective on what I'm talking about, I suggest taking two months off work and going camping in the wilds with only what you can carry. Welcome to the poorest parts of the third world, this is how much energy they use to exist.
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May 31, 2015 18:47
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Attack! posted:This is insanity. I spent a ton of time last night and today reading this thread and a lot of the articles posted, and it's just disgusting how nobody in a position to do so has ever truly brought the hammer down on anything the fossil fuel industry is doing, and how absurdly little the media is covering climate change or ignoring urgency at all levels. poo poo, the news is already scaremongering, why not make it about something that actually matters? Is there an activism organization thread on the forums? I get what you're saying but as an IRL lawyer, the answer is no. I'm not going to bother with the long version. The court system is not the place for politics or political activism. Societal change has to come from the people, by the people and the most civilized way of doing so is through a legislative body like a parliament. Otherwise you're simply enabling a tyranny of the courts. Therein lies the problem and the reason I'm saying that only a paradigm shift politically, culturally, economically, industrially and environmentally can make the necessary changes to stop the worst to come. But you are right, a new deal where society finds a new way of distributing resources and stops the oligarchical and nobility-esque hoarding of wealth by the top 1% of the world's wealthy, and we use every resource to create a truly sustainable society, infrastructire and industry, would create a massive amount of work for everyone. At least short term. But you should probably ask yourself why everyone needs to have a job in the first place, because that's capitalism talking. Pauline Kael posted:If you buy solar panels (and I've done the calculation any number of times for my home in upstate NY) you are definitely doing something good for your consciousness, but probably not for your wallet, assuming of course you don't count the environmental cost of the production of the panels. It would cost me ~$30k (panels + battery pack as I had my house built 'stubbed in' for solar so wont need extensive wiring, which wasnt a big lift in cost when building and is probably a good idea for anyone building a new home) to go full solar. Of course, most people don't do full solar, they use it to augment the grid, and sell back power. That's going away, and the utilities won't be required to pay market rate for the electricity you produce. The deal being pushed on the public now is these companies that will put the cells on your roof for 'free' and they'll guarantee you a 30% reduction in your electric bill. They're the ones that make out in this, at least until the legislation changes and the utility only pays them a fraction of what they're paying today for the electricity produced on YOUR roof. Yeah. One major problem is small scale versus huge scale. The economy (and physics) of electricity gives significant efficiency gains over small scale energy production and takes a lot less resources and manpower to do the same job. It's pretty logical; one powerplant for ten thousand homes or ten thousand windmills/solar panels etc. with ten thousand windmills worth of maintenance, materials, wiring, power managment... And the gains from each individual house are likely to be wildly different based on their local and regional geography. I believe the energy generation megathread goes into this at length. Energy generation is absolutely the biggest most significant topic of the whole global warming debate: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3505076 My take on is that extremely energy-efficient houses combined with non-CO2 generating power plants will have the most significant impact on global warming. This means solar power plants, massive high-efficiency windmill parks AND modern nuclear breeder reactors as a baseline. Pauline Kael posted:Right, that's exactly what I said. Climate change is real. The issue I have (and most normals, to say not the D&D in crowd) is that the prescription for curing the ills of climate change basically read like a laundry list of everything the left hates about America, while at the same time, the cultural leaders of the AGW movement are the biggest goddamned hypocrites on earth. Sorry if that's too difficult for you to grasp, most people really don't like someone telling them to live more simply while they go about living more lavishly. Not sure I can dumb that down any more for you, but there you have it. It's not wrong to point out the basic hypocrisy of global warming figureheads living the lavish lifestyles that ultimately is a threat to civilization. Absolutely agree. It sends a very bad message to everyone else. Personally, I will most definitely spend a great deal of personal resources on living sustainably; I've always done well with very little in terms of personal possessions, and my ideal lifestyle would be an earthship-like house that's semi-built by myself (up to code, obviously) with a big permaculture yard and some a carbon neutral vehicle. Sounds like paradise to me, at least. No telling if I'll ever be able to do it, though.
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Jun 4, 2015 15:58
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Re: The Pope. The Pope is not going to stop global warming and climate change, but I can't complain about him putting the weight of the catholic church and the papal office behind it. Both for the average joe and politicians, that holds a lot more weight than "evironmental organisation warning #3658". Honj Steak posted:The current mass extinction event is the fastest ever, even by conservative estimates. While this most certainly is exacerbated by global warming, we're only in the beginnings an extinction event in terms of biodiversity. This is as much due to humanity being like a disease vector for introducing new species into previously isolated environments (australia, madagascar, every island basically) and pollution as it is because of climate changes. As such it's more a "homogenization event" in terms of biodiversity than a loss of total biomass. The earth is not going fallow just yet. That being said, loss of biodiversity can and will be catastrophic for humanity. Loss of biodiversity makes the biosphere much more vulnerable to big environmental changes - like climate change - which again slows down the primary driver of adaptation, evolution. While nature can handle adapting to rapid climate change and warming, it's much less able to do so without significant biodiversity to choose from. The practical effects for humans we already know: Shortage of pollinators is going to hit agriculture hard within the next ten years, agricultural plants adapted to certain climate conditions may suffer massive crop losses within twenty years, and this is concurrent with fresh water loss killing off crops as well, which is concurrent with resource shortage of oil and artificial fertilizer. Monoculture farming is going to need to make some big adaptations, and those might be hit or miss. "Miss" in this case resulting in famine, which will be interesting to see in societies where a full stomach every day is a given fact. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jun 22, 2015 |
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Jun 22, 2015 16:01
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Blue Star posted:How do we reduce carbon emissions without reducing quality of life? More nuclear energy, solar energy, wind, etc.? The people on /r/collapse are convinced that nothing will work: not solar, not nuclear, nothing. Actually, that attitude is completely incorrect. Even given all the resource shortages we're facing there's a whole lot we can do to adapt into a completely sustainable, high-tech high quality of life society. There's a whole lot we can do. We're not lacking for honest to goodness solutions, we're lacking awareness, education and political will. The issue is that we won't do the things we need to do. It's a question of physics and technology. We have the long term non-sustainable and sustainable energy solutions that together will more than cover the energy needs of the entire world if we elevated every person on earth to first world quality of life, or close to it. Nuclear, hydro, solar and wind can absolutely do this with significant investments in infrastructure and research. We can find substitutes for most of our non-renewable resources, or at least find workarounds. And we can do it all with minimum greenhouse gas emissions, and possibly have energy in surplus to spend on carbon sequestration technology and efforts. It requires (this is total ballpark stuff) a massive change in industrial and societal thinking, the abolition of the capitalist/consumerist ideology, reducing the population of the earth by half (through contraception and family planning, education etc.), forcing heavy industry - shipping - logistics - transport to become carbon neutral/low emissions, creating sustainable living with a strong mindset of collectivism and solidarity, the abolition of warfare and militaries. So yeah, it won't ever be done because the people in power stand to lose way too much over this. It requires literal world peace and the death of capitalism, and strong international solidarity. Don't hold your breath.
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Jul 16, 2015 23:29
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Placid Marmot posted:Ah, I see a small problem with your plan. My plan? You mean my total ballpark guesswork? I'd be surprised if there wasn't something to nitpick in an off-the-cuff brief summary of things that will never happen so long as rich people exist. Which is what I posted. As for what you're talking about; we could stop population growth quite quickly, but we can't halve the population of the globe quickly in any way short of genocide - which is obviously not happening and mustn't happen. Heck, if that was a thing anyone was seriously considering we might as well not do anything at all and let global warming do that for us. No, we need exactly what you described, a gradual lowering of the total population of earth through family planning, improved living standards and social policies. This will help offset environmental impacts on agriculture and reduce need for logistics and transportation. But I haven't thought my ideas through, you say: Fine. I didn't exactly post a thesis, but you seem to have missed my point in that my proposed solutions are, by my own admittance, completely unrealistic. The reason isn't practical ability; we have the practical scientific, engineering and resource ability to work around resource shortages, create plentiful energy without emissions and quickly become a sustainable world society. We can, but we won't. I'm not saying that we - if we turned the ship around on a dime tomorrow - wouldn't still feel the impacts of global warming, we would absolutely feel the effects and we would have to work around that and adapt as much as we could. But we wouldn't be looking and hundreds of millions of fatalities in 30-50 years time and potentially billions later. So, why won't we? People in power, both political and monetary, don't want a change in the status quo. The politicians don't because they are elected, and are influenced by money (the wealthy who don't want a change) and the democatic consensus (which is swayed by conservativism and associated propaganda propagated by the wealthy and uninformed selfish self interest). The wealthy don't, because they too are influenced by ideology, peer pressure and uninformed/selfish self interest. This is obviously an enormously complicated issue, and really goes to the root of democracy, capitalism, freedom of speech, consumerism and why all of these are now working against humanity as a whole. The cynic in me tells me that the momentum of society is unstoppable. And it's going to affect all of us, whether we want it to or not, because no man is an island and when enough people starve, society goes. And that's the real danger of global warming that most people aren't aware of; we're all one bad harvest away from not having a civilized society anymore.
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Jul 17, 2015 13:26
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Placid Marmot posted:There were so many claims in your post that were poorly-thought-out that I just picked one. You stated that we must "reduce the population of the earth by half (through contraception and family planning, education etc.)", but now you say "we can't halve the population of the globe quickly in any way short of genocide". Both. In case you're confused, those two sentences don't contradict eachother. Placid Marmot posted:Unfortunately, you are far too optimistic about our capacity to both "elevate every person on earth to first world quality of life" and to control or adapt to climate change, and I don't think you know enough about renewables such as hydroelectric, or even "physics and technology", to make the kind of claims that you do. Well, that sure is your opinion. Even if I were too optimistic, how is that unfortunate? What a strange choice of wording to someone telling you we're in terrible, unavoidable trouble. Also, I don't think you know enough about renewables such as hydroelectric, or even "physics and technology", to make the kind of claims that you do. Luckily we're only two nerds arguing on an internet forum, so it doesn't matter. I'd still like you to actually make your case for the thread though, if you're going to disagree with my opinion.
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Jul 17, 2015 15:20
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gently caress it, I'll bite.Placid Marmot posted:They "don't contradict eachother" only because of the word "quickly" No, they just plain don't contradict eachother because I never said it would have to happen instantly. This is a position you decided I held, and are now attacking (this is commonly referred to as a "strawman" I'm told, which is pretty indicative of your entire little essay of a post). Placid Marmot posted:we don't have time for the world's population to fall to a sutainable level Sure we do. You don't know that statement is true anyway, and in any case we don't have the option of not waiting. C'est la vie. Placid Marmot posted:if we are even assuming that reducing the population on its own is sufficient to effect an adequate reduction of anthropogenic climate change in the first place. Are we? You certainly are assuming this, like this is the only or even the most significant factor in combatting climate change. Which it isn't. But by all means, keep pretending I said that. Placid Marmot posted:It is unfortunate that you make claims that are untenable, rather than putting forward realistic proposals to reduce the suffering that will occur in the short- and medium-term, You mean it's unfortunate that I'm saying something you don't agree with. This is the first time you've elected to expand on your scepticism with something concrete, and so far I don't see any succinct reasoning for why what I've talked about is -practically- "untenable". Which is remarkable, considering that I made the bare minimum of effort to propose ideas for combatting climate change. Placid Marmot posted:or even just remaining silent. What? It's unfortunate that I don't just remain silent? You're pretty staggeringly arrogant as well as rude. I don't particularly see why I should indulge you. Placid Marmot posted:If you could point out which of my prior claims You haven't made any that I can see. And unlike you, I'm disinclined to invent some for you. Placid Marmot posted:
Sure, if we accept all your assumptions:
I don't accept any of those because I don't know that any of them are true. I'm disinclined to take your word for it. I thought my own pessimism was rather pronounced and bleak, but you're really on a different level. Let me put it this way, and let's see if you're able to let this particular argument go; you're saying that we can not, I'm saying that we will not, and either way the result is the same. Tl; dr - we are so screwed. Placid Marmot posted:I know that there is not a linear relationship between energy usage and quality of life - I recall that same chart from earlier in the thread, in fact; I objected to the ridiculous claim that everyone can have a "high-tech high quality of life". And more strawmen. The definition of poverty might have to be changed without a predominantly capitalist market system, in fact "poverty" would probably have to increase if we're working off of current ideas of "wealth". But I don't particularly see where I said "solving poverty" is the same as a first world lifestyle. There are plenty of people in the US who live in poverty yet vastly better than a huge number of third-worlders; at least in the US/Europe they mostly have access to clean drinking water, basic public transportation, some health care and social services. If you think a "high quality of life" in the context of the entire world's population of humans is in any way linked to what a "high quality of life" is in the US, I can begin to see why you've fundamentally misunderstood what a sustainable society looks like. Placid Marmot posted:Yes, you can look at my post history if you want proof. We do not have the fuel supply to increase energy production based on current technology to the levels required by "Nice piece of fish", even if (or, especially if) thousands of commercial-scale reactors of proven design were given instant planning permission and the manufacturing capacity and expertise existed to put them into production, nor do we have proven designs for thorium, standing wave or other alternate-fuel designs at commercial scale, or the capacity to construct and run them, and this is a situation that will not change in the timescale that we have to eliminate CO2 emissions, as proposed by "Nice piece of fish". The timescale I've proposed? What, 30-50 years or more? This is literally impossible for the combined industrial output and scientific/engineering ability of the human race, or just the first world alone? In half a century. Assuming full political will and international cooperation, we couldn't begin massive changes tomorrow? Well, seeing as this is entirely hypothetical I say we could shut down every coal and gas power plant within - let's say - ten years, with suitable changes to society (assuming full effort and perfect coordination and cooperation - and why wouldn't we, since that is the hypothetical I'm talking about). And why not even sooner? Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 19:41
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Blue Star posted:See, here's my problem as a layperson: in this debate, there's a lot of people who are smug know-it-all douchebags and they completely dominate the conversation. I can't evaluate who's right and wrong so I feel like I learn nothing. I believe the climate is changing and that it will be bad over the next century, but that's about all I "know". Some people are saying nuclear is awesome and can power the world, others are saying No you dumbass. There are people saying solar will power everything and nuclear is terrible. And then there are people saying that we should all take up flintnapping. I get the sense that we can maintain some semblance of a modern world that has electricity, internet, medicine, etc. but will have to give up suburbs, personal automobiles, planned obsolescence, eating meat all the time, etc. Well, in a sense it pays to remember that none of us are "right", since all of us are speculating about the future (or even worse, possible futures). Very few people can say anything with certainty, so your view is very far from wrong. Beginning with the basic fact that global warming exists, we can reason that the most unsustainable parts of our society - the things you were talking about and some other things - would need to end (and will have to end at some point regardless), but that the core parts of modern society would remain out of necessity. This is common sense stuff, and if people are saying things that conflict with common sense then that person is probably speculating, talking about extremes of this and that, and it's entirely up to you how much you believe that hypothesis. But at its core, you look to me to understand the issue.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:27
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Placid Marmot posted:"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Whatever. I don't feel like giving you any more attention and the rest of the thread has answered you well enough. Blue Star posted:But nobody in this thread is seriously saying "Oh, it'll be fine; we'll just terraform Mars with nanobots if worst came to worst". People are suggesting what sound like perfectly reasonable and feasible changes that we can make as a society and are being blown off with "Ch'yeah, right, like technology will save us with no extra effort on our part, right? Well, to be fair it's very very hard to predict the future so most people don't do too well at it. This is partly why it's a good idea to keep predictions non-specific and with loads and loads of historical precedent, though even then things may turn out very differently from what's been imagined. What we can assert with confidence is that not only are human beings one of the most adaptable species on the planet and probably the most capable of surviving, but we aren't limited to just trying to reduce/negate or reverse the effects of climate change and global warming. We can adapt our entire societies, agriculture and industry to the changes - in fact these are a few of the things I am very confident will happen regardless. While we can't depend or guarantee new technologies that will magically save us, we have enough in the works and we know enough about general physics that there are a multitude of options and possibilites out there. As pessimistic as I am about international cooperative action and changing our societies, even I can't deny that there's a chance I'm completely wrong; maybe adversity and resource shortage will breed international solidarity on a previously unheard of scale, resulting in widespread democratic reform, abolishing consumerism and making eco-living a top priority for the world. It's impossible to predict anything with accuracy, only the possibilites and options remain. We do know that the more delayed action is, the worse the damage will be, though. This is probably the biggest cause for concern right this minute.
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Jul 20, 2015 23:11
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Un-l337-Pork posted:Hillary Clinton's "ambitious" plan is to have 33% of American energy originate from clean and renewable sources by 2027. Yeah... yeah.  But I guess we can talk about good ol'fashioned prepping? Anyone got any cool plans for living off the grid or as self-sufficient as possible? I've always wanted a small plot of land to try out some permaculture ideas of mine, make like a low-maintenance personal farm of sorts filled with productive plants that are likely to last through climate change for me and potential family. It's a pretty huge investment of effort, money and takes an absolute ton of knowledge and experience I just don't have yet. It's pretty much my ideal way of living regardless, as I love growing stuff, so it's not out of my way or crazy for me to plan on something like that. I just wonder what the rest of you might like to do if you consider just your own needs and your family's needs going forward the next half a century.
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Jul 28, 2015 00:18
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enraged_camel posted:Well, yeah. The first world will be mostly OK. Even those in coastal areas will have the personal resources and the state's support to relocate inland. Yeah... no. No it won't. I mean yes, the first world will probably retain some semblance of modern living and with our resources we will probably be able to adapt better to climate change than pretty much all of the third world, but globalisation has an absolutely massive impact on national economies. The first world was basically built on the backs of exploiting the third world, and without a global economy things there will be a massive slowdown in local economies. But that's just the money side, which isn't really the big problem. The big problem is food and water. These are two things on the short list of things that will cause absolutey catastrophic destabilisation in the third world. If you think the refugee crisis is bad now, imagine what it's going to look like when 3-4 billion humans are either forced to flee their country for lack of food and water or stay and die. How well do you think the first world is going to handle billions of starving, desperate refugees - that are going to be blaming the entire crisis on the west, by the way. War, crime and terrorist groups grow from lack of resources, poverty and desperation. The regions with the highest risk have got some of the highest population densities, lowest levels of income and education and next to no ability to adapt, mitigate damage and avoid disasters. This is a really big problem that the first world will most definitiely feel.
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Jul 30, 2015 20:39
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Trabisnikof posted:Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. Yeah, Malthus was wrong, haha. Yes, 18th century guesswork was wrong in the face of abundant natural resources, a benign climate and human ingenuity and greed. Let's scratch off two of those and see how well we do.
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Jul 30, 2015 20:46
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Found this thing on imgur. Thought I'd share it, just to beat a dead horse some more, quite like the presentation of it." What's Really Warming the World posted:
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Nov 12, 2015 22:54
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