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Climate Change: What is to be Done? The old climate change thread long ago descended into people either succumbing to despair, or rehashing them same old arguments over and over. This thread (and first post) is an attempt to cover the basics of the old thread, and then point the new discussion more towards solutions and action. For that reason, especially if your post is “how do I argue with this dumbass?” or “oh god we’re all screwed gently caress gently caress gently caress”, please actually read the relevant sections in this big ‘ol dumb OP I’ve made before posting. That said, I know I’ve typed far too many words to expect anyone to actually read any of this, but here they are anyways: Index
1. Introduction Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know what climate change is. If you have been living under a rock, things like melting permafrost might have alerted you anyways. Essentially, as we add greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere, those gases trap more heat, and the world heats up. This leads to a change in climate all around the world, as well as a whole hosts of other problems. I’ve tried to summarize these problems (see section 2). Climate change is human caused, and if left unsolved as a problem, catastrophic. There is absolutely no question as to whether or not climate change is real and human caused. This thread has several purposes. The first is to act as a source of recent information on climate change. Feel free to post articles and discuss them. The second, more important role, is to discuss solutions to climate change. I’ve tried to summarize commonly discussed solutions and the basic arguments “for” and “against” them (see section 3). Hopefully, the focus on solutions will be therapeutic for those people who feel despair about the issue, which is quite common given its overwhelming nature. Finally and inevitably, this thread is a resource for helping people debate climate change with idiots. But, before you post, check section 4 (Resources). Most deniers are very poorly informed and are continuously rehashing decade-old arguments.  2. Problems Climate change (or global warming) has several obvious effects. For one, it causes the average global temperature goes up. Many places get hotter and drier, and we see heat waves and droughts. Duh. However, adding more energy to a system as complex as the Earth causes some less intuitive effects. It increases the intensity of storms and weather systems, meaning some places will see more devastating blizzards, and others, larger monsoons. We will also see more frequent tornadoes and more intense hurricanes. These, in turn, cause immense damage, flooding, and death. In places where there are higher temperatures, heat waves, and droughts, crops are going to be devastated. We’ve seen a preview of that already. Pretty much all of the staple crops the world are sensitive to climate, and would have a much harder time growing in a hotter climate. And, we can’t simply just move them to new more hospitable climate zones in, say, Canada or Russia; the crops also need good soil to be grown, and the inhospitable soil in those regions isn’t going to form overnight. Starvation and malnutrition, which already affect over 800 million people, are going to become much worse. The problems of flooding, damage, and food shortages will also be exacerbated by rising sea levels and increased ocean acidity. Higher sea levels will make storm surges more devastating, and given that 44% of the population lives near the coasts, this is a huge issue. It also means that many coastal cities will either require massive barricades or huge relocation efforts. More acidic oceans form as carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans from the atmosphere, which in turn hurts a lot of organisms like plankton, diatoms, and anything else with a shell. These organisms are the foundation of the food chain. Combined with problems like overfishing and pollution, devastating ocean ecosystems will create yet another shortage of food. We can already see examples of the changing ocean ecosystem. Melting ice around the world will exacerbate the above problems of droughts and flooding. Warmer temperatures will mean that water isn’t frozen in winter and gradually released as it melts throughout the year, meaning river levels will alternate between too high and too low. Retreating glaciers and mountain snowpack will mean that there is no natural reserve of water during droughts for many areas. As before, problems not caused by climate change make this problem even more difficult to deal with. We are depleting aquifers (underground water) far faster than they are replenishing. These reserves of water are finite. Draining them also causes land subsidence, which could make river and coastal flooding worse. The melting of major ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica will, obviously, raise sea levels. This flooding is already inevitable. Shifting and warming climates will also devastated species all over the world--species that are already suffering from habitat destruction and pollution. A new mass extinction has already begun, and the effects will only intensify as global warming progresses. In many areas, forests will become deserts. Desertification is a huge threat; if forests that are currently acting as carbon sinks are removed, burned, or die off, it will add to the climatic feedback. Another problem with the shifting climates will be diseases. Many tropical diseases like malaria will increase, possibly threatening some few hundred million more people with infection. Finally, the above problems will reverberate throughout society. Taking away shelter and food security is a great way to create conflict and war. As coastal cities are devastated by storms and flooding, the mass displacement of huge populations will cause crises, especially if there is no plan to deal with it. But if the above already seems like an overwhelming problem not even worth fighting since it’s so massive and intractable, keep this in mind: it can always get worse. Much worse. The longer we don’t act on climate change, the more extreme the damage and death will be. Time is of the essence, but even if we fail to act quickly (and we have), we still need to act. The point of this thread is not to make you despair. It simply emphasizes why discussing solutions is so important. This is a problem we must solve, because the potential death and devastation is too horrid to contemplate otherwise. Doing nothing is not a neutral position: it simply reinforces the status quo.  3. Solutions Most people aren’t going to argue for a single solution; for example, people who like to focus on individual effort also recognize that new laws are necessary. People who think revolution is the only solution also realize that there needs to be in-between steps in the meantime. People who think that technology will solve our problems realize there need to be adopters of those technology, be they individuals, governments, or corporations. Still, I think it’s useful to break down solutions into these overarching groups to make them more digestible, and to be better able to discuss each idea’s benefits and problems. These are the six most common ideas I see and hear discussed. If you think that a major or credible idea has been left out, please post it. If you think I’ve done a disservice to one of the arguments’ “for” or “against” section, please feel free to suggest changes or write your own, and I’ll try to integrate them into this post. Honestly, I know I’ve done something of a poo poo job with this section. The goal here is to give everyone a conceptual understanding of the various solutions in fair way, since in the previous thread people liked to argue past each other, or were more concerned about landing witty stabs against a strawman than actually debating policy or even understanding each other. In practice, the “for” and “against” sections are not necessarily diametrically opposed, but more there to give readers an idea of why someone is a proponent of an solution, and also what flaws that solution has. a. Individual Effort An extremely common idea, especially among liberals, is that individuals changing their buying habits, installing solar panels, and boycotting certain products will create a sustainable, green, society. Another proposal is to go buy a plot of rural land and grow/make everything you need. For: This is the easiest action anyone can take. Buying LED lightbulbs, insulting your water-heater (or buying a more energy-efficient one) or not eating beef are extremely easy changes to make, and take minimal effort. Even more expensive or difficult changes, such as getting an energy audit, upgrading household insulation, or installing solar panels can often bring long term savings to a household. Creating a demand for energy efficient housing could drastically reduce residential energy use. Biking to work instead of driving not only saves money and gas, but is good exercise. Because these changes are easy and relatively inexpensive, they can easily become popular simply by raising awareness. With social media and the internet, the information is more attainable than ever, and raising awareness is something anyone can do. Growing food in your garden is also easy, and saves money and prevents the CO2 needed to create and ship bulk crops and meats. The practice can be expanded in rural areas; individual, sustainable farming practices and sustainable lifestyles will shift society away from a carbon intensive one. Against: Buying “green,” installing solar panels, renovating your house (if you even own it; the average person doesn’t), getting an energy audit, replacing all your windows, or buying a farm somewhere to live off the land takes one extremely important resource: money. The upfront cost is simply unobtainable for most people. Give that income inequality is at a historic high in the US, this is a ridiculous proposition even for America. Billions of people all over the world are mired in poverty, and the prospect of them “going green” is utterly laughable. Besides that, the effects of individuals are limited. Even if residential energy was able to become completely carbon-free, that only accounts for about a fourth of all energy use in the US. Commercial and industrial carbon is still carbon, and no individual choice will affect the massive incentives these companies have to keep on cheap, carbon-intensive fossil fuels. Boycotting these companies is not a solution. Coca-Cola hired paramilitary thugs to murder unionists. Hershey’s gets their cocoa from huge amounts of child labor. BP wrecked the Gulf ecosystem with their spill. Walmart abuses its labor force and devastates towns across the country. None of these companies face any sort of meaningful threat to their finances through boycott; I cannot name a single effective boycott of any multinational corporation, no matter how horrendous their atrocities. Building your own farm is a meaningless gesture. For one, again, it’s out of reach of the average person. It also cannot deal with the effects of climate change. Droughts, floods, heat waves, and storms are going to affect all farms, no matter how organic they are. Besides, any solution to climate change needs to be one the seven billion people on this planet can participate in. Not everyone can go make an organic farm in north Canada, and any response that excludes the vast majority of the global population is a morally reprehensible position. Even the most hardcore individualist agrees that individual effort and mere awareness will never be enough, so let us move to the next common proposition. b. Reform For: This is a problem we need to fix now, so any solutions need to be ones that can be done immediately. We can’t wait for social media to make self-installing solar panels a craze, nor can we wait for revolution to change the system before acting. Through elections, lobbying, and action, we need to push for carbon taxes, strict regulations on emissions, and other laws that will start fighting climate change. The best places to take action are in primaries, or working inside the Democratic party (the Republicans being rather hopeless). Environmentalist groups can act as a place for people to unify for dedicated campaigning and pressuring candidates. Against: Any attempt to reform our current system will largely be wasted fighting the system that caused this crisis in the first place. The decisions of politicians are driven almost exclusively by the economic elite, and in our post-Citizen’s United world of unlimited corporate donations, unrestrained lobbying, and the domination of government by two parties that both believe in private industry, markets, and unchecked capitalism, there are no meaningful reforms that are going to happen. Also, I hear other countries aren’t doing so great either. For example, Germany recently is decommissioning nuclear plants, and replacing it with coal. There is simply no political will for climate reforms--and by that, I mean politicians won’t do it. Things like taxing the rich and many regulations have overwhelming popular support in polls, but haven’t happened. And what have environmentalist groups done? Not much. As long as they pour their limited resources into reform, they have wasted their time bashing themselves against an indomitable wall of money. Many groups, then, have turned to the local level of politics. However, state legislatures and congress will often pass laws specifically to forbid local communities from regulating corporations or emissions. Trade agreements also mean that international bodies will strike down local laws that create regulations or green job programs, and upcoming trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership only look like they will further undermine the autonomy of countries, states, and local communities to act. Finally, what basis is there for a reform movement to grow? Most people are concerned with day-to-day problems, like making next month’s rent, having a job, and not being poor as hell. Carbon taxes do nothing to stop rising inequality in the United States, never mind the globe. A slow, steady reform policy will take more people, money, and organization than will ever occur under current governments and systems. Internationally, the non-binding emissions goals that governments give lip service to, but are free to ignore, are insufficient too. c. Revolution Pros: The root of climate change is in capitalism. Capitalism as a system demands unlimited growth, constant consumerism, and values profit over everything else, including human life and the environment. Climate change and all the environmentally destructive problems are a symptom of it, but as we all know, it causes plenty of other problems too, including global poverty. A capitalist system by definition ensures that profit and power continue to be in the hands a few, and we have seen the billionaires and elite class grind to a halt any and all meaningful change that could address global warming. Therefore, the only way to truly stop climate change is to overthrow the system that created it. This means creating mass movements that can challenge the systems of power, and fighting for small gains that can be used to grow. Movements to stop the Keystone XL, Fight for 15, Black Lives Matter, and countless local movements are emerging all around the United States (and others are emerging around the world). These movements are the seeds upon which a larger anti-capitalist movement can grow, as we can see capital strongly tied to racism (with for-profit prisons, police, the war on drugs, etc.), wage suppression (obviously), and environmental destruction (fossil fuel companies). Each small victory allows larger victories, and revolution can happen in a surprisingly small amount of time when a tipping point is reached (such as in Tunisia, or historically, Russia). This would allow the full force of the United States economy (and any other country that joined in) to fully focus on climate change, which at this point, is really the only thing that could make a meaningful difference. Cons: Obviously, changing the entire global economic system (or a large enough portion of it to matter) is an absurdly difficult task. This involves taking on all the billionaires, corporations, and governments of the world. The economic and political power of the current capitalist system is orders of magnitude greater than any current organization or movement, and even the most powerful mass movements of the past were defeated. Even successful socialist revolutions collapsed into totalitarianism or some hybrid of dictatorship and capitalism fairly quickly, as the USSR and China show. Any modern revolution would have to contest with US imperialism, as revolutions have in the past. Chili saw Allende assassinated by a CIA backed coup, and even mere industry nationalization efforts saw horrific retaliation, such as in Iran. In the past, the US has used COINTELPRO to derail movements through infiltration, spying, psychological warfare, legal harassment, illegal force, and even assassination. Any modern movement goes up against an even more powerful security apparatus, capable on spying on, well, pretty much everyone. Modern revolutions in Egypt and Syria haven’t gone too well. And that’s just the government. Corporations will fight with all their power to undermine any mass movement through any means, and socialism as a word has already been attacked for several decades. d. Technological For: The technologies of today were almost unimaginable a hundred years ago. We cannot predict where technology will advance, but given how it has solved past problems, we can be comfortable in knowing that something will solve our problems. For crops, GMOs can be created that are heat and drought resistant, and can do more with bad soil. Renewable energy continues to advance. Novel advances in chemistry could make fixing nitrogen a less energy intensive proposition, and advances in manufacturing efficiency could make our energy problems a thing of the past. Climate change is slow enough that we will have a solution for its problems before it becomes intractable. Against: Of course, if we could fuel the world through the magic of wishful thinking, we wouldn’t be facing the crisis in the first place. Technological advances may help supplement any of the other solutions, but thinking that technology alone can solve climate change is an infantile prayer at best. Hedging on fusion power is spinning a roulette wheel. Fission power in any form will need reforms to become viable. Solar, wind, and efficiency technologies are incremental. GMOs can only modify crops so much before the simple facts of no water and bad soil become impossible to deal with. e. Adaptation and Mitigation For: What can we do to stop climate change? In short, nothing. Climate change is already inevitable. We are locked into several degrees of warming already, and by the time we act, it may be several more. Therefore we should focus on mitigating its effects. Improving dikes, controlling rivers, upgrading storm barriers, and modifying agriculture are going to do more good than the expensive project that would be “stopping global warming.” Against: As with technology, adaptation and mitigation will no doubt be necessary; we’re already locked into about 2 degrees Celsius of warming, and our cities are insufficiently prepared for existing disasters, never mind future ones. As with other solutions, a mitigation only strategy with no other changes would be catastrophic. The Earth will continue to warm if we don’t eliminate our carbon emissions, and all of the problems we try to mitigate will continue to grow in scope and scale until mitigation is impossible. Mitigation under the current system also damns the poorest people and countries in the world--people, who, coincidentally, did the least to contribute to the problem and will be the hardest hit by it. There also is the problem, as with all of these solutions, of actually convincing politicians to act. If they haven’t done anything for our current disasters, why should we expect them to plan for future ones? f. Overpopulation For: The Earth has a finite carrying capacity. Each person consumes energy and resources, so the more people we have, the more energy and resources we use. Seven billion people and growing is too many, and only through population reduction can we stop climate change. Population control laws like China’s are rather draconian; there are better ways to stop growth. Empowering and educating women, as well as giving people the means to and choice to use birth control has proven to be extremely effective at lowering birth rates, and it has the side benefit of helping dismantle some of the horrendous sexism across the globe. Social programs that support families (like Social Security or welfare) also mean that families don’t need to have lots of kids for security or money. Through these social programs, we can encourage smaller families Against In practice, population control is bad. When people talk about reducing birth rates, they generally are talking about a third world country, not themselves, thus exposing any population control movement as racist and classist. We can see in the US and all over Europe racists waving signs and ranting about some immigrating group. Cries of ‘We’re full!’ accompany all sorts of other racial abuse. In previous incarnations, the idea of population control spurred on the eugenics movement. Setting aside that criticism, there’s a strong argument to be made that if everyone adopted the US’s consumption, we would indeed have too many people on the planet. First, a disproportionate amount of consumption in the US is done by the economic elites, which is a problem stemming from economic inequality, not population. Second, the consumerist aspect of the United States is not what gives it a high living standard. per capita energy usage is not necessarily coupled with living standard. Buying way too much poo poo at malls is a cultural idea, not an essential quality of life. There is enough food to feed everyone on the planet now; the problem is one of distribution, not production. There’s also plenty of ways to give people carbon-free energy for a high living standard, and if we focus on giving people necessities like housing, education, and good medical care, we have plenty for everyone there too. Meaningful social interactions, friends, autonomy, purpose, and a stress-free life make people happy, not infinitely purchasing crap. With that in mind, we should note Earth’s carrying capacity has changed in the past because of us; it can certainly do so again. We must also note that any humane population reduction would take too long to address climate change; we need to stop climate change now, not a few generations later. Our focus should not be on population, but on fighting a system based on infinite growth, consumption, oligarchy, and oppression. Note to idiots: Note that “oh no, we might accidentally wipe out the human species by not breeding!” is not part of the above argument because it’s really really really stupid and if you feel the need to post anything related to it, don’t.  (Hottest years and coldest years). 4. Resources a. Debating Basics One good thing to ask first is: Is there anything I can say to change your mind? If the answer is “no,” don’t bother engaging with the denier. If they claim to be open minded, you want to avoid reinforcing their false beliefs and avoid the backfire effect. An effective debunking should have:
(This is all taken from the Debunking Handbook, linked below) That’s all very general though. Below are some lines of thought you might consider. Topics “It’s fake.” The evidence for climate change is overwhelming, and even most deniers are shifting away from this stance. For the people that still adamantly refuse to agree with reality, try asking them why they think over 97% of climate scientists say global warming is happening. If they say it’s because there’s money in it, ask them why more scientists, then, aren’t taking the 6-figure salaries a lot of oil companies are paying their shills (denying climate change is a $[link] industry). It also might be a good time to explain how most climate scientists will openly talk about how they really want climate change to be fake, because they know exactly how awful it’s going to be, or to educate them on how grants and the scientific process works. You can also point out the recent trend of record setting global temperatures and extreme weather (the extreme weather we’ve been having is statistically more likely to happen in a warming world). Since that’s something they’ve probably directly observed and lived through, it may be more relatable and therefore effective. “Well, it’s real, but it’s not human caused (or) it’s not that bad.” These are the newer talking points, though they, like straight denial, are an excuse by deniers to maintain inaction. Deniers will focus heavily on the “hiatus” on increasing temperatures as evidence that climate change has either stopped or will be slow enough to be a non-issue. Here, it again may be useful to draw attention to recent extreme weather events; these are tangible things that have happened because of climate change (the amount and intensity of many events really just can’t be explained without it). You also can fall back on the opinions of experts: why aren’t climate scientists convinced it won’t be that bad? The “hiatus” (it’s not really a thing is essentially a combination of natural variation and a lot of heat getting trapped in the oceans; the climate models are, in fact, not wrong. Denier climate models, on the other hand, are extremely wrong. If a denier throws out a lot of jargon to confuse you, it might be helpful to ask them what it means. A lot of times, they don’t know either. “This respected expert at [fancy university] said…” Generally, there’s a select few “experts” on why climate change is totally fake/not a big deal that deniers will continually reference. Try asking them how they selected the expert they’re referencing, as opposed to say, anyone else. The answer? They cherry-picked someone who they already agree with. Second, the “expert” is often from a completely different scientific field, or has a doctorate that’s not even in science. Emphasizing the importance of evidence may be helpful here, since the narrative deniers will try to create is one of their dude being the Galileo underdog hero. While one can look back and see how, say, proponents of plate tectonics were laughed at right up until proven right, they were redeemed because the weight of evidence was in their favor. Today, the weight of evidence for anthropogenic climate change is utterly overwhelming; the scenarios are not comparable. Tactics Untested, people tend to assume they are experts on subjects they know nothing about. Being able to parrot inane talking points from denier sites likely only increases this delusion. Ask questions of deniers. Get them to explain, in detail, how the things they’re talking about work. Test their knowledge of facts and how climate scientists come to the conclusions they do. If they can’t explain how scientists come up with climate models, why so many of them believe in climate change and IPCC AR-5 says in no uncertain terms that climate change is real and will cause devastating problems if left unchecked, it might cause them to reassess their understanding, which might cause them to change their views. Being able to do this means you need to have a decent understanding of various facts, though, so make sure not to neglect your own education. While conservatives are both stereotypically and statistically deniers, one of the problems they have with climate change is that the solutions for it directly conflict with their world view. Appealing to their own self-interest and ideals might work. The effects of climate change will impact their family and their kids. The power of corporations negatively impacts their freedom, and the monopolies that oil and coal companies have on energy restrict their freedom of choice and any benefits markets may provide. The most common concern conservatives have is economic: they want good jobs. Renovating the infrastructure of the entire country would create millions of jobs, since there would be so much work to do. Liberals tend to have their own problems with global warming. Their focus on reform ignores the problems with our current system, leading them to tone down rhetoric and action to the point of utter ineffectiveness. This manifests itself in an embrace of politicians who admit climate change is real, even if they don’t actually do anything about it, half-hearted “reasonable” policies, and confining themselves to “serious people” who clearly don’t take the catastrophic effects of climate change seriously. In the economic realm, the fact that long lines of products are listed as “green” or “energy efficient” doesn’t actually mean they are, nor can rampant consumerism stop problems with overconsumption of resources and energy.  (Example: This .gif compares mainstream science predictions with the predictions of the "expert" deniers) b. Links Resources http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Includes all the scientific evidence you need. The Summary for Policymakers in each section is especially useful. Also a great source of visual aids like graphs and maps. http://www.withouthotair.com/ - Without Hot Air This is a free online book that sets aside rhetoric and actually talks about the numbers involved in different energy alternatives. This is a great reference for hard numbers and data. http://www.skepticalscience.com/ - Skeptical Science This site is great for covering common denier talking points and myths about climate change. Most of these arguments haven’t changed at all, so even if an argument is supposedly “new,” this site likely has a refutation. It also has its own links to follow, and it’s a great place to start if you don’t know a lot about climate science. An especially useful link they have is the Debunking Handbook, which goes over how to argue if you want to successfully change someone’s mind on a misconception. This is a great resource. http://www.carbontax.org/services/where-carbon-is-taxed/ - Carbon Tax Center As the site name implies, this is a pro-carbon tax site with information about carbon taxes and their effects. I’ve barely read it. Articles Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein tackles why conservatives are so adamant at denying climate change, and why the liberal response is insufficiently radical. Her book This Changes Everything has a broader scope and also has great information. 2015 is Earth's warmest year by widest margin on record 2015 shattered warming records, with December being an especially hot month. This also goes into detail. This, of course, will be largely ignored or hand-waved away by deniers and delayers who's pet ideology is threatened by the facts of climate change. Years later, it might be used as 1998 was--an anomalously hot year they can compare future years to in order to show the slow rise of global temperatures as an excuse for inaction. Paris climate deal offers flame of hope, says UN official This is just one of many articles on the Paris agreement, where 195 countries committed to keeping global warming below 2C. Is this agreement a good thing? Sure. It certainly doesn't go far enough. It's also way too late--we're probably past 2C of warming already with our current carbon levels--but it still gives people something to build off of. Google around to find plenty of commentary on it. NOAA and NASA Team Up to Investigate Strong El Niño Expect the usual effects of an El Niño. The good news is that scientists are well prepared to study the effects on a scope not previously done before. Over half the world’s population suffers from ‘severe’ water scarcity, scientists say (Scientific article: Four billion people facing severe water scarcity) A recent article highlighting the present state of water scarcity. Balancing agricultural demand with keeping ecosystems healthy and people fed will increasingly be a challenge, and it's important to know just how many people are vulnerable in this. (Thanks Hello Sailor). Australia Cuts 110 Climate Scientist Jobs - This loss will negatively affect our progress on understanding of the climate of the entire southern hemisphere. This is a prime example of how seriously most politicians are taking things right now. (Thanks Evil Greven) Giant holes found in Siberia could be signs of a ticking climate 'time bomb' Global Warming’s Terrifying New Chemistry (refers to this paper on CH4 emissions) Two articles on methane's effect on climate change. Methane hydrates in Siberia and other permafrost areas could cause a massive spike in atmospheric methane. Meanwhile, how much methane countries have been releasing has probably been drastically underestimated, and because methane is such a powerful greenhouse gas, we're probably a lot worse off than we thought. These are good articles for debunking the idea that natural gas/fracking is a good idea. (Thanks CheeseSpawn) Research Papers http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 - Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature - A paper analyzing the scientific consensus on climate change. If you ever need a source for "97% of scientists agree with climate change", here it is. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/media/erl460291datafile.txt - This is the papers analyzed by the above paper. If you ever wanted to look directly for the source of a claim, or are just interested in finding relevant climate research, this is a great resource. (Thanks totalnewbie and rivetz) c. Good Posts
Feel free to propose additional links and articles to add to this list. Also please propose pictures that you think would make the OP look nicer since right now it’s a big text wall. I’m going to continue to update the OP, and hopefully this new thread will have a little less rehashing and dumb bickering than the last (right). So what is to be done? As the above makes clear, no single idea is sufficient. In order to stop climate change, we need:
Those are the broad strokes, at least. Any solution we advocate for should contain these. And so, there is a place for all of the above solutions to various degrees. The thing we can do right now, is get active. Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 02:35 on May 10, 2016 |
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Nov 7, 2015 22:37
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To kick things off and set the tone, I'll start with local stuff I've been part of. Up in Bellingham, the Cherry point coal terminal has been an object of contention. Environmental and activist groups have been rallying around the issue, and are slowly fighting back against it. It's also brought together these activists and the Lummi Nation, linking the struggle for environmental justice to justice for them. It's been a slow fight evolving over the course of several years now, but one that has brought together a lot of people and has potential to grow into something bigger. Another issue is the waterfront redevelopment, where labor and greens have been working to get a green jobs program, with a guarantee of all new jobs being at a living wage, and keeping it open to the community (instead of becoming a fenced off rich people resort, which is what some assholes want). The group I'm part of has been trying to build for more actions, and really pushing for a green jobs program, and other branches are have helped take actions down in Seattle with symbolic things like block the Shell rig or some of the oil and coal trains going north. What groups are other people a part of? What actions are you taking, or looking to take locally? Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Nov 7, 2015 |
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Nov 7, 2015 22:43
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Junkyard Poodle posted:What does the waterfront development have to do with climate change? It doesn't, not directly. It got left a polluted mess by Georga-Pacific, meaning a lot of the local environmental groups and community groups have been talking about it for some time. That, and the push for living wage jobs isn't directly about stopping carbon emissions. The point is it doesn't have to be--yet. It's an opportunity for a small but important victory to be achieved by uniting community, labor, and environmental groups. A success there would be empowering, and could lead to future successes. If we're all able to get a say on what happens at the waterfront (currently, the city council would rather people not), it could lead to a solar energy project, or a green jobs program that starts at the waterfront and moves to other parts of the city, or to new officials on the city or county council and a political shift that leads to elected officials who care more about sustainability, mass transit, stopping the coal trains, etc. The point is that stopping climate change doesn't have to start with international policy, or widespread federal action that comes from an environmentally focused congress (because good luck with that). You can start to fight climate change on a local level by helping labor groups, green groups, and other like-minded folks grow in number, influence, and power. Enough of that happening around the country can start to lead to larger movements, larger victories, and eventually start to lead to the massive change we do need to stop climate change. Edit: Colonel Cancer posted:I've insulted my water heater and so far it's just giving me silent treatment. Am I helping? Next, get your neighbors to start cussing out their water heaters. That's how it starts! Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 00:59
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For those of you not familiar, Arkane is a usual fixture in climate threads. He usually comes in, posts about how climate change really isn't all that bad (using either cherry-picked data, misrepresentations, or questionable sources), and then when called out, usually disappears into back into the shadowy aether from whence he sprang. This is a pretty common tactic among deniers; many have shifted away from actually saying that climate change isn't real, and instead attempt to point out that, fine, it's real, but it's not that bad so we don't have to do anything.Arkane posted:The OP is remarkably more alarmist than the IPCC,, and diverges significantly from the science on issues like drought, flooding, hurricanes, and tornadoes. You state things as certainties that may not happen. Here is AR5 on what we've observed on extreme weather: AR5 Page 15-16 posted:Until mid-century, projected climate change will impact human health mainly by exacerbating health problems that already exist (very high confidence). Throughout the 21st century, climate change is expected to lead to increases in ill-health in many regions and especially in developing countries with low income, as compared to a baseline without climate change (high confidence). By 2100 for RCP8.5, the combination of high temperature and humidity in some areas for parts of the year is expected to compromise common human activities, including growing food and working outdoors (high confidence). {2.3.2} Elsner 2008, Nature posted:Atlantic tropical cyclones are getting stronger on average, with a 30-year trend that has been related to an increase in ocean temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere... We find significant upward trends for wind speed quantiles above the 70th percentile, with trends as high as 0.3 +/- 0.09 m s-1 yr-1 (s.e.) for the strongest cyclones. We note separate upward trends in the estimated lifetime-maximum wind speeds of the very strongest tropical cyclones (99th percentile) over each ocean basin, with the largest increase at this quantile occurring over the North Atlantic, although not all basins show statistically significant increases. Our results are qualitatively consistent with the hypothesis that as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy to convert to tropical cyclone wind. Nature Geoscience review posted:...However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6–34%. Balanced against this, higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm centre As you can see, Arkane misrepresented the position I was taking, cherry-picked irrelevant quotes from a reputable source, and then snuck in a completely unsourced and untrue quote ("Finally, temperature is increasing far less than the climate models predicted") to top things off. If anyone wants clarification or a more detailed rebuttal on any of his other claims, let me know. --------------------------------------------------------- Base Camp Blanket posted:Thank you for making this thread. The links in the OP look helpful at first glance, and I'll be reviewing it more closely. I have experienced some existential despair in the past about the mounting climate change and sustainability problems that we face, and it is helpful to have a resource that makes action feel more feasible. I just wanted to express my appreciation for that. Bastard Tetris posted:This is an excellent OP. Climate change is a massive problem that requires complex and integrated solutions, and you did a great job at highlighting the complexity in solutions. Thanks for posting. blowfish posted:Yeah, but people who think ~unnatural~ is a meaningful criticism are a lost cause anyway. Nuclear power has an amazing potential to help solve this crisis, but as with all the solutions, there are political and economic barriers that mean people will have to fight to make it happen. Fortunately, it is possible to convince many environmentalists that nuclear is good, but it does take some doing. Junkyard Poodle posted:Makes sense, but is a solar project really one of the goals for the waterfront? I'm for the movement to renewables/sustainability, but Bellingham is one of the cloudiest places in the US.
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Nov 9, 2015 15:43
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Inglonias posted:If you don't mind me asking, what is the best we can hope for to come out of the summit in Paris? Obviously the worst case scenario is that nothing happens, but what is the best we can hope for? I undersrand you likely aren't a politician, but still... To be honest, I've sort of stopped paying attention to the various summits and meetings. Each one has been so lackluster in result, and I highly doubt this one will be any different. Besides the pledges not being enough (2.7 C is way too high to aim for), the current plan is that carbon emissions would still be growing by 2030--just not as fast. The point you make about them following through is important too. I'm pretty sure the Paris agreements are all non-binding. For a country like the US, that might mean a really heartfelt, honest try at a meaningful pledge by the Obama administration, but there is no way in hell a bill limiting carbon or funding fossil-fuel free energy is getting through congress right now. The same is going to be true for most countries. I would pay more attention to the protests around the summit as a place to grow real organizations and movements that will force politicians to act. cowofwar posted:I was thinking the other day that most people who lives in urban areas (most North Americans), are completely detached from the natural world so I can understand them being dubious of climate change. They live in a climate controlled box and spend thirty seconds a day outside between the office and car and home. They water their lawn regularly so weather has no effect on their yards. When their power bill goes up they blame politicians and don't investigate why. When they go to Mexico it's hot and the water is blue but they don't go diving. One of the big reasons climate change is an especially difficult issue has to do with how we respond to threats:  I think then that sometimes the best way to reach people in their bubbles is through other issues. Socialist Alternative, the organization I'm a part of, saw its biggest growth with the first Kshama Sawant Seattle city council election campaign. The Seattle branch of SA has gone since then from about a dozen people to over a hundred, and has been able to work more effectively with other activists and groups using the platform a Seattle city council position brings to make change. But the first thing they tackled wasn't climate change at all--it was the minimum wage. However, the huge amount of people and publicity the minimum wage fight in Seattle got, as well as the contacts it made, helped make the protests against the Shell rig and the oil and coal trains bigger and more effective. A lot of the people in bubbles aren't living a cozy suburban lifestyle, but are too busy stressing about lack of money, high rent, education, jobs, transit, police brutality, and other immediate, visceral issues. There's a ton of people in those situations who are fed up with the status quo, but need to see immediate improvement in their lives before they even can get days off to get active. That's why I think any and all environmentalists need to work closely with social justice, labor, and unions. People want jobs with a high wage? Pressure a city council or a state legislature to pass a bill employing folks to make homes more energy efficient, or build rail lines, or solar and wind projects. People can't afford rent? Build government housing that is highly energy efficient, so people have a decent place to live, get low heat bills and reduce net residential energy consumption. Traffic screwed up in [insert city here]? New rail lines or bus routes or bike lanes will employ people, reduce congestion, and reduce emissions. Even causes like racism that seem unrelated to the environment at first are related (minorities and disenfranchised people will be hit hardest by climate change), and actions on fighting racism will build active people who are good at organizing, can spread ideas, and are learning first hand about a lot of connected political and economic issues. Building a large enough force of those active, conscious people on this wide spectrum of issues will get the most people active, make the movement credible and meaningful (after all, it will have many small victories to point to), and lead to the kind of massive movement we need to actually make significant progress on fighting climate change.
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Nov 11, 2015 06:10
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Colonel J posted:Do you guys have credible research on the impacts of meat consumption on global warming / the environment in general? There's so much contradicting information on the internet, and it's hard to separate good from bad as everywhere I look, people who report the information have a massive vested interest one way or another. Would it really help if a massive portion of the population embraced a vegan diet? The EPA says US agriculture is 9% of US greenhouse gas emissions, so the impact is fairly small in the grand scheme of things. Cows are particularly bad for the environment (producing almost 1/3 of agricultural greenhouse gases, so ~3% of emissions) because they emit lots of methane and it's a potent greenhouse gas, but reducing meat consumption is only a tiny part of any solution to climate change. It is, however, a relatively easy change compared to, say, replacing energy infrastructure or transportation infrastructure. (About 1/2 of agricultural emissions is due to the way we cultivate land and use fertilizer, which would be a much harder thing to change). 
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Nov 25, 2015 03:34
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BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:Nuclear power is uneconomical without public support. Public support is low. Support for nuclear power is surprisingly high given that pretty much no one is campaigning for it or pushing for it:  You're right, though, that relative to other power generation methods, it doesn't do so well:  Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/182180/support-nuclear-energy.aspx Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 05:00
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Shayu posted:Do I give up my nice things like car, phone, heat for climate changes to end? Don't want to do that. There's not one single solution to climate change, or one thing we have to do. There's not a list of things we have to give up or keep. What solutions are put into place will dictate what we lose and gain. Those solutions will likely either be put into place by: 1. Rich and powerful people, as is currently the case 2. A large popular movement If it's 1, sorry, if you're worth less than a few million dollars, you don't get a say in the matter. What you give up is not up to you or anyone you know. If it's 2, that's a decision we'll collectively make together. My guess? Most people aren't going to want to give up most modern conveniences. The good news is we don't have to. Changing how our electricity is generated, for example, would be a huge way to reduce CO2 emissions, and would not affect cellphones, heating, or cars. If you're looking for more details, I'd recommend reading the OP.
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Jan 1, 2016 17:22
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Another house design is the Passive house. It can reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a house by 75% to 95%. Essentially, it's just an extremely airtight well insulated house that uses the sun and ground to assist.   There's plenty of building designs that are better able to resist extreme weather or massively cut down on energy costs. As with most things that could solve major problems with energy use, the problem is that those designs aren't being used. I would guess that housing companies really don't give a poo poo about energy efficiency, nor do the people (or corporations) buying them. Given how many people rent (both houses and apartments) and how we've got an entire generation that simply can't afford to buy their own housing, this is yet another thing that probably won't change any time soon without some sort of political movement.
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Jan 1, 2016 23:14
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Shayu posted:Do like China and overthrow the western imperialisms and serfdom, become people republic. Improve life of all the poor and save the environment. The rich people no longer will destroy the planet and still we use the phone and heat because lords will not take them from us. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say with this word vomit, or where you got "Do like China" from what I posted. Did you have a question about some of the claims I made in that post, or would you like to post an argument?
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Jan 2, 2016 18:54
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Smilin Joe Fission posted:So there you have it. Tl; dr I know. This is a lot of words (probably too many even for D&D) to say that climate change deniers are in it for the *SPOILER ALERT* money and power. I simply don't believe that someone can be smart and informed enough to craft a convincing "scientific sounding" argument that includes enough bits of truth to be convincing to a reasonably intelligent person, without actually grasping the truth somewhere along the way even if one is actively trying to avoid it. I’ve been struggling to articulate this off and on for a long time now and finally got motivated to look at it in more depth and write this up. I think that many elite deniers know that climate change is real. However, I would say there are probably a good number who genuinely believe it's fake. There are several psychological phenomena that support this. 1. People tend to only look for flaws in evidence or arguments they don't believe. This means every time someone posts something about how climate change is real, they'll go seek out any source that tells them this is wrong. There's plenty of blogs and denier sites that will do this. As soon as they've read the thing that reassures them they're right, they stop. 2. People tend to seek out opinions they agree with. Deniers aren't going to hang out on skeptical science or forums that genuinely promote scientific debate, they're going to hang out at lovely forums or comments sections that all reinforce what they believe. Or, the people they hang out with mostly have the same general ideology. This will also lead to them simply not being exposed to information and facts that would refute their beliefs. 3. The various backfire effects can cause people to misremember facts, data, and refutations, or refuse to believe things because they contradict a strongly held ideology or worldview. 4. The manufactured "debate" in the media has certainly led to people using the availability heuristic to decide that climate change is fake; they can recall enough instances of climate change being challenged, denied, or "refuted" that they think that it must be a controversial issue, meaning they can safely take the side of the deniers. Or, they've encountered enough articles saying climate change isn't all that bad to think its safe to ignore. The "contradicts worldview" problem is an especially potent one, I think. People build their very identity around their ideology, and they believe strongly that they are a good person. Their schemas on how the world works are built on this foundation, and so anything that contradicts what they believe isn't just attacking information, it's attacking their very self. This is certainly the case for the non-elite climate deniers, but I don't think it's any less true for many elites. I'm sure most journalists think they're trying to be good, objective journalists when they report, that plenty of business people might be clever enough that they could know better, but don't. Another problem with "intelligent" people is that people (including themselves) tend to assume that because they are skilled or know a lot in one area, they must be skilled and know a lot about other areas. It's why people give a poo poo at all about how celebrities feel about, say, vaccines. Climate change is no exception. People who may be very skilled at finance or business no doubt believe this transfers to science, and hold erroneous beliefs because of it. This is probably especially potent for rich elites who only need to interact with people they choose, and can completely isolate themselves from anyone who holds views that contradict them.
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Jan 3, 2016 20:16
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Evil_Greven posted:That +1.5°C target out of Paris sure ain't looking good. I'd be the last to deny the old thread title was accurate, but the reason for the new title (and OP) was to try and move the thread's discussion away from how hosed we are (which pretty much everyone at this point knows) and towards what we can do about it. Because, unfortunately, no matter how hosed we already are, we can always be hosed worse. Even if the solutions we implement are too slow and too late to prevent lots of bad things, we still need to implement them because it will prevent even worse things. To put a spotlight on the political and a way to make real gains, for example, I think people should be looking at the presidential election. Looking for groups that are promoting or supporting Bernie Sanders I think has the potential to create a movement or third party that can depart from the absurd inaction of the current political and economic arena. If he wins the primary (unlikely) and election, you might have someone who can use governmental bodies like the EPA to make some pretty big changes and shake up the environmental regulatory agencies so that they're actually enforcing the laws we do have. If he loses the primary (likely), you're going to have a huge number of people who were looking to shake things up who are pissed at both parties and still see the need to address issues like inequality and climate. Linking those people together and running grassroots campaigns and movements could start an avalanche of changes that could actually affect something. The problem isn't that there isn't enough support for a lot of programs that could make a difference, the problem is that they're not organized and running against establishment candidates.
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Jan 22, 2016 02:47
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Brother Friendship posted:How does a local government fund something like that? Municipal bonds? If you took out XX million in bonds in Year 1 to fund renovations, focusing on the big items like insulation/draft repair/windows, could you attach an increase in property taxes for each person who participates in the program (say 50 per year per project) as well as another funding mechanism such as an increase in the tax when the property is sold? This program would also provide work for local contractors, not a bad thing, and add to the areas expertise. It seems like most local governments get most things through property taxes and bonds. I would say that passing a blanket property tax would be a better way to go about it, because non-mandatory participation and a "penalty" tax for those who do participate (that's how it would be viewed) is a great way to get no one to join the program.
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Jan 22, 2016 05:56
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Trabisnikof posted:But all of what you said has little impact on reality (I agree with a lot of it). Sure, we should be in a better place, but we're not. So when people declare that any policy action less than perfection isn't meaningful because of the scale of the problem, it isn't exactly a helpful comment and could even make further positive policy action less likely. The problem with only addressing climate change within our existing framework is that the framework is the reason we can't get anything done on climate change, and why climate change is a problem in the first place. The fact that corporations can externalize pollution and that our economic system values profit over people's livelihood, health, and the environment is why we have so many problems. That corporations and the rich have such hugely disproportional sway on politics and law prevents even moderate steps from being taken on every level of government. We need to address climate change within the existing framework as we work to change the framework. We need to make what changes we can now AND do "X"--and doing both will help make progress in combating climate change by making it easier to pass laws or change regulations or establish green programs. For example, passing a law that strictly regulates corporate lobbying will make it easier to pass environmental regulations. Building a strong movement fighting for labor rights and higher wages means you have a large, organized, now politically active body of people who can also put their efforts towards fighting for environmental regulations. The important part is to link all these struggles, and make sure that no important issue gets left behind. What is most effective, I think, is starting where people are already mobilized, and building that momentum into a broader struggle.
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Jan 27, 2016 18:17
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Depending on the type of reactor, putting the reactor's energy output to different uses could help solve the problem of change loads. LFTRs, for example, run at high temperatures that are great for making fuel or desalinizing water. During peak hours, you drop fuel production. During low-use hours, put it to work doing the other things. There's a lot of interesting storage options that aren't using traditional portable battery technology that has obvious limitations. This talk shows a neat battery design that uses common (so, cheap) metals that could scale to grid level and deal with a lot of the problems that grid-level storage runs into. Beyond that, pumped storage is in use in other countries, molten salt stores thermal energy on solar plants, and other options like flywheels could work. Once again, the biggest problem for any of this is not the technological hurdle.
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Feb 8, 2016 00:20
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Despera posted:I'm in the dump iron in the ocean boat. This was covered briefly in the last thread, but a poster who was involved in research relating to that made a big post on why it was a bad idea. If I remember correctly, the summary is it doesn't do much for carbon uptake and it can screw up the ecosystem. Also, the effects of climate change on the ocean are already going to cause large problems due to changing ocean temperatures and acidity. The biggest problem with any geoengineering scheme is that it's going to introduce unforeseen side-effects, some of which may be catastrophic. Edit: Here's a nice article about iron fertilization effects Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Feb 8, 2016 |
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Feb 8, 2016 00:52
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Despera posted:Article says the scales have been a joke. The problem of not geo engineering is waiting centuries for the earth to fix itself. Geoengineering doesn't fix the fundamental problem of climate change, nor its source, it only delays some of the consequences. Do you have any evidence that shows iron fertilization is a good idea, with the benefits outweighing the costs?
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Feb 8, 2016 01:46
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Grouchio posted:Wouldn't that cause a greenhouse effect on the north pole, creating massively hosed up weather patterns and extreme seasons for the rest of the century? Like the east coast getting 10 inches of rain each season? I don't think it would increase the greenhouse effect (that's more gases reflecting heat radiated from the earth), but it would decrease the albedo of the planet, since water is obviously much darker and absorbs more energy than ice. The arctic ice decreasing is a positive feedback loop, since the more ice goes, the warmer things get, and the more ice goes. Climate change is going to screw with weather patterns and intensify seasons, yes. I don't know if models are good enough to predict something like the east coast specifically getting X amount of rain each season.
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Feb 27, 2016 07:44
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Captain Scandinaiva posted:We haven't seen any real eco terrorism yet, have we? I wonder if we ever will. Captain Scandinaiva posted:Also, since this thread is supposed to be about solutions, are there any studies on what a low-CO2 society could look like? The consensus here on SA and a lot of other places seem to be that energy consumption will keep rising no matter what and the alternative is everyone living in mud huts and doing subsistence farming. But since fission power is politically unfeasible for different reasons and fusion is not going to show up in time to save the day, would it really be impossible to have a society with low levels of energy consumption but with high life-expectancy, low infant mortality, etc? I don't think there's really a consensus on what a post-emission society would look like. Folks like to freak out about going back to the stone age, but I don't think that's as likely as they seem to think. The future is just too unpredictable, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something. That said, there are massive efficiency gains to be made in all sorts of areas. Some examples are moving from cars to mass transit and changing city layouts and changing the way we build houses and buildings so they don't constantly hemorrhage heat, or can only be cooled with massive amounts of AC. Another possibility is that solar and wind end up powering everything and the energy grid is revamped to accommodate this. Also, lots of surveys show support for nuclear power hovers between 48% and 61% (the 48% from Gallop coming at 2001, the 61% in 2010), meaning you already have majority support for it, and that's with essentially no one advocating for it and the general public largely unaware as to what nuclear energy is, how it works, or how safe it is. I don't think that going back a pre-electric world is going to happen, and I don't think you'll find any but fringe support for that since it would be a massive disaster for billions of people (I've got more about that in the OP). Ultimately, we have the resources, technology, labor force, and ability to shift our economy into any of the above choices. The problem remains an economic and political one, and so--to address posters like Overflight--the best course of action is to get politically active.
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Mar 20, 2016 16:29
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smoke sumthin bitch posted:The problem with such a system is that on top of creating even more wealth inequality it would have to imposed by force by an authoritarian goverment. Climate justice warriors rarely take into account the actual will and desires of the people. Who the hell wants to live the life of a poor subsistence farmer who cant even get out of the ten mile radius he was born in because transportation is only for the very rich. Its like that UN guy who said humans will have to get used to eating insects!?? Hellll no im not going Yeah, the narrative "we all need to cut back" ignores that an absurd amount of resources consumption is entirely because of the whims of the ultra-rich. It also confuses excessive consumerism that our economic system requires to function for necessities. Neither inequality nor consumerism are required for a high standard of living; quite the opposite, really. However, the people in power don't want to admit that capitalism and their lifestyle is the problem, so of course no one talks about that. It's the same kind of "we have to tighten our belts during this recession" that Obama, Boehner, and media talking heads were pushing a few years back. Of course, what they really mean is "poor and middle class people need to accept cuts to welfare, schools, services, increases in tuition and taxes, and accept lovely labor practices and job insecurity so we don't have to threaten the profits of corporations or millionaires." You get the same narrative from liberals who are pushing efficient light-bulbs and hybrid cars, and letting the rich and corporations--the actual biggest polluters--off the hook. Edit: khwarezm posted:Its pretty clear why this problem is not really going to be solved when poo poo like this still gets thrown around as if its actually what 'Climate Justice Warriors' (is this meant to hearken to SJWs?) want to do. You do hear people talking about it, and it's popped up over and over again in the climate threads. Most people diving into the thread the first time will ask some question related to it, like "are we all going to have to till soil and poop in ditches?" or "is there any hope or are my children going to be slaves working in the landfill mines of the grim hot future?" It indicates the prevalence of the narrative, which is why I think it's important to address those worries and point out that, no, that's not what needs to happen. Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 19:41
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Overflight posted:OK, so can someone please provide or point out to me a proper list of the kind of stuff that WOULD be necessary? I know answers might vary but I think it would put the minds of people like me at ease. My nightmare scenario, like I said, is one akin to Interstellar where everyone is pressured into becoming farmers and even technology and progress is a dirty word. One where everyone is forced to work 12 hours a day growing their own food until their backs give out and the rest of the community puts you down for being useless. As Trabisnikof says, there are many options. I run through a lot of those options in the OP. We could switch entirely to nuclear power and electric cars, and that would pretty much do the trick. We could revamp the world's grids and power the world with different renewables, move from cars to mostly electric trains and trams, and that would also work. We could broadly implement efficiency gains (doing things like what computer part's suggests above) and implement some nuclear power and some renewables. Cutting back on consumerism (as ToxicSlurpee talks about) would help all of those. Those are simplified answers, and if you want I can work on a megapost about a bunch of different attack paths on solving climate change, but the point is that there's plenty we can do. What I mean by "cutting back" is things like waste less resources on fancy packaging, stop buying plastic toys or toasters that break in a year then get landfilled, stop wasting huge amounts of food, or throwing out our cellphones every year to get a new one. There's no reason not to keep high quality healthcare, housing, transportation, time saving appliances, and entertainment. There's also no reason for people to work even longer hours:  Those productivity gains should be going to higher wages or shorter working days. They don't, because a few rich people running corporations want to hoard absurd amounts of money. That brings me to this: If there's all these things that we could be doing, why aren't we doing any of them, or why are they being done at such a slow rate that it will be too late to stop massive global temperature increases? Trabisnikof posted:The premise that we can't mitigate and adapt to climate change within the current global economic system is both wrong and would lead one to advocate for plans with worse climate outcomes. Capitalism concentrates wealth in the hands of a few elite, and those elite have such disproportional power that they can--and have--prevented meaningful climate action. Shifting to an economic system where workers and everyday people have more power will allow a more rapid, meaningful response to climate change. Therefore, empowering labor, taxing the rich, and building democratic movements are going to aid in the fight against climate change. It is probably possible to stop climate change under capitalism, but given that alarm bells have been ringing for many decades now and the problem is only worsening, there's no reason to think it will.
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Mar 20, 2016 21:14
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CheeseSpawn posted:Here's some recent articles recent talking carbon emissions need to move over, because hello methane. Enjoy your holiday weekend. I've been updating the OP with articles like these here and there, so thanks for these. Looking into the top one, apparently the study McKibben is primarily referring to was published in late 2013: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/50/20018.abstract (and accompanying article). So the good news is that we've known about this for 3 years. The bad news, of course, is that fracking is still on the rise. Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Mar 26, 2016 |
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Mar 26, 2016 01:06
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Rime posted:It's kind of disturbing how common the refrain of "well, Some humans will survive, somehow, maybe" is becoming, as if this somehow excuses the complete destruction of our biosphere and extinction of most species on earth. I think most people are largely ignorant of how bad climate change will make things, and spend next to no time thinking about it. Likely, they are distracted by more immediate things, like problems at work, paying the bills, or escaping into entertainment. The true consequences of climate change are too far delayed, and the status quo has a great deal of inertia in keeping things the way they are. Many people will quickly either dismiss the problem or the consequences because that's mentally much easier to do. Many conservatives will simply disbelieve climate change, while others will say it won't be that bad, while many liberals will place the problem on a back-burner while they push for things they see as more urgent. And, for the people who do realize how bad things will get, they are largely powerless to stop it, and are often dismissed by the former. Trabisnikof posted:You mistake people making excuses with people have long ago accepted what "mitigation and adaptation" really meant. We need to work hard to mitigate the suffering and adapt to our now more ruined world.
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Apr 8, 2016 02:01
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Grouchio posted:So there's literally no good news to be had anymore? Isn't the US making progress in cutting carbon emissions, for example? And the rise of electric cars? There's always good news. The Paris Summit was good news. The anti-fracking movement developing in many parts of the country is good news. Up in Washington, the Lummi Nation and local activists have put the breaks on a large coal terminal, and will likely defeat it. Awareness on climate change is slowly building back from the deficit caused by corporate campaign to deny reality. It's not much, but it's there. The bad news does vastly outweighs the good news, currently. For example, emissions in the US dropped a bit starting with the recession, but have risen again in 2013 and 2014, and the methane studies linked earlier make it likely that we've been underestimating emissions on top of that. Electric cars are also useless as long as our electricity still comes mostly from fossil fuels. Personally, I think the magnitude of the bad news should be a powerful call to action, one that should inspire us to get more involved in activism and politics. Mostly because, if we despair and give up, it can always get worse.
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Apr 8, 2016 03:22
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Trabisnikof posted:Ah yes, the final stage of climate denialism: "it's too late, better just watch the world burn" I don't think we should conflate hopelessness with denialism. You can criticize someone who feels hopeless for inaction, but I think many of the people who are feeling hopeless still do things, they just realize how inadequate their individual actions are.
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Apr 8, 2016 07:20
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Wanderer posted:Incidentally, on the do something front, let's talk about that for a second. If possible, in response, leave your "that can't possibly help at all given the sheer scale of the problem" and "that won't matter unless we do [your pet cause/technology] immediately and completely" at the door. Honestly, I think the best tactic is still to get involved in local politics. Folks in Renton, WA just defeated a methanol plant, the Lummi Nation (up near Bellingham) has slammed the breaks on a massive coal export terminal project, and there's been protests and civil disobedience over Shell's arctic drilling, coal trains, and the trains transporting that unstable oil all along Washington and even in places like Montana. As you've said, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't help given the sheer scale of the problem, but that's the basis for expanding actions to address the problem at scale. Just like $15/hour started with a few fast food workers, then the Tacoma Airport, then Seattle and spread around the country and is now getting passed in places like LA and NY (and, incidentally, celebrated by politicians who had literally nothing to do with it), other activist movements have the potential to take off too. All over the country, there's communities opposing fracking, pipelines, coal, and other local issues. One of the biggest things, I think, is to not just encourage the opposition to fossil fuels, but encourage local governments subsidizing things like home or apartment insulation, and hiring people to build projects like local trams, renewable energy plants, and that sort of thing. It directly connects to issues of poverty and jobs, which is one of the things people need in order to be secure enough to do any of the lifestyle change things you're talking about. Also, thanks for bringing the discussion towards solutions again. Things like the ocean cleanup project are really cool.
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Apr 24, 2016 20:53
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Paradoxish posted:Meanwhile, everyone else is complaining about how dire the situation is while just outright ruling out a clean and largely effective component of the solution. I'm honestly very sympathetic to the views of people like Naomi Klein who see climate change as the perfect opportunity to push for social change, but sooner or later we're going to have to acknowledge how dishonest it is to scream about saving the world at any cost while shutting down effective options that we're ideologically opposed to. Radbot posted:There is absolutely no way to reconcile capitalist America with a world where you "have less", aka, a world that has stopped experiencing economic growth. I also think that it is possible to "have less" without really impacting quality of life, and important things like healthcare, education, transit, and necessities like housing, food, and even energy. Since all of our energy feasibly can come from nuclear and renewable, we don't need to use less of it. We will need to cut back on consumerism, but consumerism is not the same as quality of life (though plenty of people have confused the two). Happiness doesn't have to come from an endless supply of lovely plastic toys at a mega Wal-Mart, or electronics you toss after a year. Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 01:32
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Arkane posted:Pretty cool, the Earth is greening far more than we expected: How could it be a large, long-term impact? As the one of the authors of the study says, quote:"Second, studies have shown that plants acclimatise to rising CO2 concentration and the fertilisation effect diminishes over time." Future growth is also limited by other factors, such as lack of water or nutrients.
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Apr 28, 2016 01:27
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Fasdar posted:I'll drink some more wine later and post again, then, if people are digging it. Especially since, oddly enough, I actually do think there is some hope to be found when looking at the social side of things. Please do. I've updated the OP with links to the posts since they're interesting and informative reads. As always, people should feel free to suggest articles (I've added a handful folks linked), posts, and other additions to the OP.
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May 10, 2016 02:44
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BattleMoose posted:The developing world is going to develop and aspire to the awesome quality of life that we enjoy in the first world. The only real hope we have is for us in the first world to live a lifestyle that the planet could sustain, assuming the whole population lived the same lifestyles as we do and hope the developing world follows that lead. I mean, I know how naive and completely unrealistic this is. But it beats the hypocrisy of effectively telling the developing world, you can't develop and be happy! Only we can do that. On the other hand, it's much easier to yell at other people that they aren't doing enough than it is to fix your own problems.
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Jul 19, 2016 14:43
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eightpole posted:Get help you whiny goon kolby posted:Who the gently caress wants to marry you anyway? Is there a reason you both felt the need to quote a month-old post just to attack someone who, at the end of the very conversation you're quoting the beginning of, said he would rethink his views? If you'd like to positively contribute to this thread or say anything at all related to climate change, feel free to post here. Otherwise, gently caress off. computer parts posted:Show your work. Just a cursory search finds abstracts like this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508007428 posted:While the evidence in favour of ‘Jevons Paradox’ is far from conclusive, it does suggest that economy-wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed Edit: Found a book on the subject that is partially online. Page 147 posted:As shown previously, examples of the Jevons Paradox are numerous. However, the increase in demand for a resource is not strictly confined to products that use that resource more effieciently; it can also involve other end-uses because they compete for the same overall budget. Therefore, not only does a direct micro rebound effect exist, but there is also an indirect macro rebound... Thus the rebound effects are economy-wide, not specific to just one sector, product, or end-use... Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Jul 21, 2016 |
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Jul 21, 2016 14:18
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computer parts posted:There's honestly nothing left to discuss. Virtually everyone agrees that yes climate change exists and yes it's a big deal and yes severe changes have to happen in order to at least attempt to live with climate change. So for example: Fluffy Chainsaw posted:There's only one answer to the question "What is to be done?" The solution is two simple words, and it isn't anything as elaborate as the total destruction of an economic system. I think every community has something they can work on. These are the kinds of questions I think also are productive: Hand Knit posted:Hi, I've come to this thread after being spooked by an article that's making the rounds on twitter. Ultimately, though, I can only provide a short list of suggestions. There's tons of activist groups out there doing great work that I've never heard of, but I think a thread dedicated to pooling collective knowledge, tactics, and talking about what's going on in their communities, cities, and states would be a more interesting and useful thread to read.
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Jul 29, 2016 05:55
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Trabisnikof posted:You need individuals leading the way by example to get those policy-shifts you want. The second problem is that energy and consumption are such integral parts to profit. Agriculture, for as much as it gets harmed by warming, also makes money on fertilizer (largely produced by fossil fuels) and relies on fossil fuels for the transportation of its product. And consumerism is absolutely critical to every market--you need people to be buying things. Mostly, this is a product that requires energy to create. As already discussed earlier in the thread, efficiency can lower the amount of energy needed to make the product, but there's a rebound effect that mitigates even that. In the long run, these corporations will absolutely suffer, but they cannot deviate from their short term paths. I recall a fossil fuel CEO talking about how, yeah, climate change is real, but he was legally obligated to make money for his shareholders, and they'd toss him out on his rear end if he ever suggested not exploiting their oil reserves. We can imagine a similar fate for anyone who suggests their company stop using energy and raw material to make goods that they can sell. This means that while, yes, individuals need to lead the charge, the corporate world will be opposing them inherently. People have to contend with billions of dollars of marketing and social pressure telling them to constantly buy things, and a society that is structured in such a way that its really difficult not to be involved in that. Additionally, poor folks are usually not in a position to make the kind of changes they need to on an individual level to make a difference. It doesn't matter if a CEO here or a company there recognizes climate change is a disaster and we need mitigation policies; as institutions, corporations need people to consume, and the pressure is on them to continue to produce and minimize allocating resources to anything they can pass off as an externality. I think its important to recognize the contradiction between the needs of everyday people and corporations because that tells us the importance of fighting corporate power in parallel with working on environmental action.
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Jul 29, 2016 22:09
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Fansy posted:I have a friend who is depressed about the environment to the point of being a doomsdayer, and can't go 20 minutes without mentioning what the end will be like. It's to the point where she is no longer saving for retirement, as she believes the economy will collapse from climate disaster relatively soon. She's also been giving away her money to close friends, which I don't feel comfortable taking. I'll agree with what blowfish said and add to it. 1. A lot of despair comes from a perceived lack of autonomy. People really don't like feeling powerless, but climate change is really good at getting people to feel powerless when they understand the magnitude of that. One fix for that is activism. If she can get involved with a group making a difference, she'll feel more in control and less existential dread. 2. The economy isn't going to collapse to the point where giving away money/not saving for retirement is a good idea--at least, not any time soon (read: multiple decades). There might be another recession in the next few years, but that's not likely to be because of climate change; it's more likely going to be because of the systemic economic problems that caused the last one. Again, giving away money doesn't logically help her (and if she thinks its not going to help her, why does she think it'll help others?) One cannot predict years, never-mind decades into the future. You simply can't. So there is no "being realistic." We can guess that things will get really bad, mostly in climatically vulnerable places in the next few decades, but only if things keep going the way they're going. That's why acting to change the way things are going right now is so important.
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Aug 27, 2016 23:09
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Forever_Peace posted:My point was that we, the liberal-skewing members of SA and followers of the No it's not. Even in the US, in Democratic Party strongholds, the kind of changes we need to see are not happening at the rate we need to see them. As a notable example, Obama just approved two fossil fuel pipelines. But then, even if we can blame Republican denialism for the lack of meaningful progress on climate change, that has no explanatory power for why the rest of the world is largely twirling its thumbs uselessly--or even reversing progress, as Germany has done by shuttering nuclear power in favor of coal. The Republican party is a huge problem, but if we just blame them, we miss the point that this is a global problem and all the implications that has on how we arrive at a solution.
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Sep 23, 2016 14:55
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Potato Salad posted:A few people in the last page had it right, I think. This discussion has been had and had and had so many times, the consensus on climate change asserted with such force that we may as well accept it as elementary principle if the next generation of atmospheric satellite studies don't find any revelatory, unexpected "anthro climate change is not true!" results..... Forever_Peace posted:While I appreciate your newfound care for the importance of discussing climate change (I noticed this was your first post in the thread), there are a lot of folks doing more than "fiddling". I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of folks in this very thread have taken part in climate marches or divest protests (I certainly have), or alternatively have talked to their friends, family, and local and national representatives about the importance of transitioning to a post carbon economy. A few people have come in and asked what they can do, but few people have good answers. Most organizations that seem to be doing stuff are not always easy to find. The more people sharing organizations, local movements, and things people can do, the more the thread might become active in a productive, interesting sense, rather than continuing to linger on page 2 unless a slapfight erupts or new especially depressing article surfaces.
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Sep 23, 2016 15:11
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GlyphGryph posted:Yeah but it seems like we are already at the limits of what we can actually accomplish mitigation wise, especially politically, and while some of those trends are positive its a small consolation. Any time you see solar or wind energy being installed and coal taken offline, or a carbon tax implemented, or a fracking site blocked, or even insulation installed in a house to save on energy, that's mitigation. Right now, mitigation is small scale, but there's a ton it can do to grow. And we absolutely have to pursue mitigation (which is to say, reducing current and future emissions) because as another posted earlier, there's a huge difference between "bad" with 600ppm and "oh gently caress" with 1200ppm CO2.
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Oct 4, 2016 15:08
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Potato Salad posted:Venus is cool and good. This is simply not true.
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Oct 14, 2016 00:42
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Trabisnikof posted:Because the treaty wasn't meant to be a solution to climate change and no one involved thinks it is. Instead it is just one of many treaties we will need. But the fact we got together and did this so quickly after Paris went into effect is a good sign. I think what's happening is a bunch of people talking past each other because they disagree on what emotion to react with after the agreement. It seems there's two reactions: 1. The agreement is good because it makes a small difference, and we need to do more things to stop climate change 2. The agreement is bad because it makes a small difference, and we need to do more things to stop climate change This small difference in reaction is almost completely irrelevant, since both are calling for further action and acknowledge that, obviously, this single agreement-- like literally any single action--will not solve climate change. People are far too quick to attack each other and assume the worst.
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Oct 16, 2016 19:51
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Placid Marmot posted:No, don't produce unnecessary environmental degradation. Just because your indivudual action will not "save the planet from climate change or save humans from extinction" does not mean that it is ethical to ignore the negative consequences that your decadent actions will generate. I know this is from a while back in the conversation, but I think it has an important message. People do what other people around them do. If people see a culture around them of personal responsibility, environmental awareness, and a dedication to doing their part to solve this crisis, they will join into that culture to fit in. If that becomes the overwhelming norm, it will be much easier to demand (or force) action from politicians. The other thing I think people keep missing is this: Yes, we are probably locked in to a certain amount of temperature rise. There's basically no way we go under 2 degrees C. However, it can always get worse. There is no point where giving up is a good choice, because the longer we take to solve this problem, the worse it gets. The question is not "how do we stop climate change" but "how do we minimize the damage of climate change and prevent it from getting worse." As always, then, the most productive conversation is one on specific actions--how do we build a culture and movement that will begin to address the problem? Just like how people set goals for their personal lives, topics should be specific, relevant, attainable, and in a reasonable timeframe. The people who go "my new year's resolution is to lose weight and exercise more because I want look good" fail pretty much every time. A goal of "I will lose 10 pounds over 5 months by jogging 3 times a week and eliminating soda from my diet" is going to see a lot more success. That same concept is transferable to political action. There's a reason I didn't start the thread with "and so we should end capitalism and build 7000 liquid thorium nuclear reactors," even though that would do a bang-up job solving most things. Ain't gonna happen that way, though. I started the thread with "here's how a bunch of local groups are trying to stop a coal export terminal." And, though it took several years, coal terminals proposed all across Washington state were halted one by one by local groups and actions. Set a goal, like, "I'm going to spend 2 hours a week looking for environmentalist or left organizations until I find one I want to join." Then you can join something a group is doing, which will hold you accountable and magnify how much you can achieve, which might be something like "We're going to organize a protest, petition city council, and threaten to run candidates against incumbents who don't vote to stop this new coal mine from opening." You personal role might be "I will design and print 100 flyers and start an online event for one of the protests," while another person's role might be "I will organize a door-knocking campaign on X weekend and we will knock on 500 doors to talk about this issue with people." That is concrete, specific action. Then you can report to the thread, and maybe inspire some other folks to take action in their community. What won't work? Attacking each other as idealists because you're too hopeful/too depressed/slightly disagree on some minutia. Posting about what you would do if you controlled international policy discussions. Posting about how many kids other people should have. So for example, another poster was involved in the fossil fuel divestment campaign at a local college. It scared the heck out of some people who weren't used to public scrutiny and got some stuff done. Is climate change over? Heck no. But it got some like-minded people working together to achieve a small but attainable goal that might lead to larger changes or another successful action in the future. That is how poo poo gets done. Is there a divestment campaign at your college? Maybe! If there isn't, you could start one. The one at the college I went to started with like 6 people who then reached out to my group, and started. Did it work? Nope! But it did get a bunch of activists to link up and work with each other on other issues as well, and that did achieve some small goals. It won't happen tomorrow. Yes, it's a big problem, no poo poo. But focus on the concrete, small actions that you personally can take. If enough people do that, it can make a difference. I think this is a point most people broadly agree on; most of the heated arguments seem to focus more on the abstract and big picture, which it is much easier to find contradictory opinions on because of how much uncertainty surrounds the future. Edit: I typed this up before catching up on the last bunch of posts. I think people with similar ideas are talking past each other again.
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Oct 18, 2016 07:51
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