Re-freezing Arctic with a submarine

[golden_labels]

I hope this is just fake news, I really hope ;_;

NBC: This ice-making submarine would pop out bergs to help fight climate change


We need a Titanic-rebuilding submarine too, so the hexagonal icebergs would not feel lonely.

[ogden]

I hope this is just fake news, I really hope ;_;

Unfortunately it is not. Architects who came-up with this nonsense seems to believe that their dumb invention will not require any energy to operate.

[golden_labels]

Requiring energy is the lesser of problems: it’s mostly a financial issue. But that energy will turn into heat…

[ogden]

But that energy will turn into heat…

Congrats! Correct answer! Unfortunately we are out of prizes Those "inventors" most likely are cooling their houses by opening refrigerator doors 

[AndyC_772]

It looks like a unit from a strategy game. Your team has arrived on an alien planet, where you must compete against other players for land and resources. The iceberg-making unit costs 300 minerals, requires a shipyard unit to build it, and it can make 10 land every 3 turns...

[SiliconWizard]

Couldn't we just do that with some nuclear bomb blowing the whole thing up? 

Coppercone2 to the rescue...

[GromBeestje]

Requiring energy is the lesser of problems: it’s mostly a financial issue. But that energy will turn into heat…

So, the real question is, is the amount of heat generated in this process less then the amount of heat absorbed by the water versus ice. As-in, ice reflects sunlight, water absorbs it, turning it into heat.

[Lord of nothing]

Why not bring some some gigantic Sat into the higher Orbit and with Solar Cells to
a) Generate Electic Energy and
b) reflect Sunlight to cool down the Earth?

  I know its more fun to bring a Volcano to erupt to cover the Earth with dust and Ash to reflect Sunlight.

[dietert1]

Yes, another 5 or 10 years of discussion and invention don't really matter. But sooner or later we will be out of jokes.
I think deniers of human made climate change should be in court like deniers of the holocaust. The final result of climate change will be much worse than the holocaust, though it may take longer.
Maybe we should first have a drink and drink it fast, before the ice melts.

Regards, Dieter

[golden_labels]

You want the funny part? While the denialists put emphasis on lack of human role in the process⁽¹⁾, it is quite unimportant whether it is anthropogenic or not. There is no need for any link, between the theory about humanity causing the climate change and actions proposed, to opt for exactly those solutions. It may be useful to find one, because this way people would know there is other cause and a lot of useful data could be obtained, but knowing the cause is not a prerequisite for a reaction.

If you see a car being driven wrong way in your lane, you avoid the collision. You do not postpone reaction until you ask the driver if they’re there because they lost consciousness or because they were overtaking another vehicle. You don’t, depite that knowledge could increase your chances of survival⁽²⁾. Yet the denialists argue that the best option is to hit the other car, because of uncertainity about the other driver’s intentions.
____
⁽¹⁾ Completely denying climate change starts to insult even their thinking abilities. While still loud, the total denialism becomes a minority.
⁽²⁾ An unconscious driver will not change direction a lot, the other one may try to avoid collision.

[Bud]

Yes, another 5 or 10 years of discussion and invention don't really matter. But sooner or later we will be out of jokes.
I think deniers of human made climate change should be in court like deniers of the holocaust. The final result of climate change will be much worse than the holocaust, though it may take longer.
Maybe we should first have a drink and drink it fast, before the ice melts.

Regards, Dieter

Take a deep breath and read  the BS you just wrote.

[ogden]

Take a deep breath and read  the BS you just wrote.

Please explain why you think it is BS he wrote. Preferably in details.

[Cyberdragon]

I highly doubt Waterworld is gonna happen in the next decade.

[maginnovision]

I highly doubt Waterworld is gonna happen in the next decade.

You're right. I think the idea is half waterworld, half mad-max. Maybe you can live on the border and be ok.

[Rerouter]

While there may be "easy" solutions to solving climate change on the short term, a number of them require things that put war crimes to shame 

The more fun one I have heard of recently is deliberately triggering super-volcanoes via nuclear bombs to cover most of the planet in dust for a few years.

[coppice]

While there may be "easy" solutions to solving climate change on the short term, a number of them require things that put war crimes to shame 

The more fun one I have heard of recently is deliberately triggering super-volcanoes via nuclear bombs to cover most of the planet in dust for a few years.

From what I've read the historical records of years after major eruptions show the temperature falls a bit, but the reduced illumination causes serious crop failures.

[Marco]

I think deniers of human made climate change should be in court like deniers of the holocaust.

Could be worse, they could be promoting converting coal power plant to burn wood pellets.

[PlainName]

it is quite unimportant whether it is anthropogenic or not

On the contrary, I think that's one of the most important things to know. For instance, if it's actually the Sun being in one of it's (longer than 11 years) cycles then essentially there is nothing we can do except be along for the ride. And hope. We are screwed in that case, whatever we do. Or not if the Sun decides it's made a mistake and wants to swing the other way.

On the other hand, if it's us then reducing our footprint could be effective so worth trying.

I think the lack of wanting to know suggests reliance on religion rather than science. Imagine being really, almost fatally, ill and stuffing yourself with statins when, actually, you've got a snakebite.

[Fungus]

On the other hand, if it's us then reducing our footprint could be effective so worth trying.

Problem: There's a whole lobby out there producing stories about how "doing something" means a huge drop in standard of living (tiny little car, no more bacon or steaks, everything more expensive... etc.)

[PlainName]

No pain, no gain. Universal truth

[SiliconWizard]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-volcanoes-affect-w/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/10/can-volcanoes-tackle-climate-change-frankenstein-mount-tambora
 

I think most people may not have any idea of the creativity of all this "geoengineering" crowd. All kinds of bizarre and often nasty ideas.

[coppice]

You want the funny part? While the denialists put emphasis on lack of human role in the process⁽¹⁾, it is quite unimportant whether it is anthropogenic or not. There is no need for any link, between the theory about humanity causing the climate change and actions proposed, to opt for exactly those solutions. It may be useful to find one, because this way people would know there is other cause and a lot of useful data could be obtained, but knowing the cause is not a prerequisite for a reaction.

If you don't understand the cause you have no idea what might bring about a cure. The denialists who agree bad things are happening, but say we didn't cause it so we don't have to do anything are idiots. However, just as stupid is saying we don't know the cause, but we must put massive resources into a random response. Do that and when you have finally figured out the real picture you will be too impoverished to have the resources left to fix anything.

I think we are far from knowing the full picture. For 50 years Governments have oscillated between trying to clean up the air, and not caring about out it. Now we know that aerosols are helping to keep global temperatures down, it is fairly clear that a more aggressive air clean up program would have resulted in a greater temperature rise, and increased problems. We still have a weak understanding of the potential for mass methane release, the Atlantic conveyor weakening, and numerous other large scale possibilities.

[Marco]

We aren't exactly in a period of good global cooperation/coordination, so it's hard to make any real dent in emissions at the moment.

There's something to be said for keeping the powder dry. A lot of the money we're spending now is wasted or actually accelerates CO2 emissions. The EU for instance is doing worse than nothing by converting coal power plants to burn wood en masse.

[SiliconWizard]

We aren't exactly in a period of good global cooperation/coordination, so it's hard to make any real dent in emissions at the moment.

There's something to be said for keeping the powder dry. A lot of the money we're spending now is wasted or actually accelerates CO2 emissions.

Agree and agree.

I actually think that we have just been making things worse ever since this has become a hot political topic.
All we do is talk, talk, talk, then invest ridiculous amounts of money in ridiculous and dead-end solutions, that often have a negative global outcome (but that doesn't even matter much as that still concerns only a negligible fraction of all emissions.)

Meanwhile, the biggest contributors are absolutely doing nothing. Arguably though, nothing or ridiculous... not much of a difference.

[CatalinaWOW]

I have seen little or no meaningful discussion on the most efficient (hence lowest cost) way to deal with climate change.  It is always purely an attempt to put it back the way it was, never how do we best live with what might happen.  Which is silly because we can't put it back the way it was without something that looks much like genocide, which hopefully isn't going to happen.

Discussion of how to move ports and cities to the locations of the new coastlines.  Move croplands to match the new weather patterns.  Comparison of those costs with proposed plans to put it back the way it was.

There have been minor moves in this direction in the US, not associated with climate change.  Some localities along riverbanks have figured out that after major floods every few decades for 150 years it might be wise instead of rebuilding after the next flood in the same place to rebuild on high ground.  It costs virtually the same thing, but doesn't have to be repeated a couple of decades later.  It has been implemented in a few places, and in a couple another flood has happened.  And guess what?  There was little or no damage.

This approach makes the whole argument about what is causing climate change moot.  It only requires identification of locations that are vulnerable to such change and strategies to make them less vulnerable.  The climate change community seems to focus on storm dams and other expensive solutions, but there is always the Monty Python solution.  Run away.  Run away.

[dietert1]

I think there is no escape. The basic problem is that humans invent ever more cultivated and sophisticated ways to burn things. Examples are Formula 1 races, Apollo missions or cruise trips. Imagine 500 people meeting to burn 500 tons of diesel for their entertainment. Others just want a huge fire, like President Bolsonaro in Brasil. While humans feel like god doing these things, in reality they are no more than nasty firebugs with a lack of education. No animal ever started a fire intentionally.

We have to be happy about every single person who does not need a car and all the like but is satisfied with the little fire burning in his smartphone. Or some other electronics gadget...

Regards, Dieter

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I am happy I have a car and do not need to but drive it daily. It's a diesel. Love it.

[Marco]

Others just want a huge fire, like President Bolsonaro in Brasil.

He wants economic progress uber alles.

No animal ever started a fire intentionally.

They would if they could and it was selected for by evolution. They're trying to catch "fire hawks" spreading fire in Australia on film BTW.

Selfish genes don't care about suffering, only humans do.

[golden_labels]

If you don't understand the cause you have no idea what might bring about a cure. (…)

That is an interesting claim, considering that medicine successfully treats various diseases despite not knowing the exact mechanisms behind them. But, to prevent you from wasting your time on trying to counter that argument, let’s assume it is wrong — your claim still doesn’t hold. To affect the outcome you do not need to know the cause. There are multiple factors you can use and the cause is merely one of them.

There are many reasons for which people support proposed solutions and you may even disagree with many of them (I do!), but wrong reasoning doesn’t prove the statement to be wrong. Just because there are groups who cry “we must protect nature or it will dieeeee because of bad humans”, which is obvious bullshit given both historical data⁽¹⁾ and many philosophical stances, doesn’t mean reducing CO₂ emissions is not a factor that can help.

Unless there is some positive feedback that has permanently changed climate⁽²⁾, reducing emissions would be — in the worst case — a heuristical move towards the previous equilibrium. Just coming back to the point humans already know. And if the causes are external and will cease to exist, humans already know the method to warm things up.

What remains is the problem of social and economical harm caused by the attempts to fix the climate. One may argue, that changes will hurt many people. And I agree with that! My agreement is so strong, that… I support the changes. Because either people will act now, when relatively harmless solutions can be found if we do not let extremists take control over the process⁽³⁾, or after 10–20 years the fear will take over and we will face measures that you can’t imagine even in your worst dreams. Fear, especially at mass scale, is a horrible thing. People, who you think now are out of their mind, are nothing compared to what you may see in the future — and they will take away your freedom, your dignity, your creativity and your well-being without hesitation, and they will do that with support of society. That has happened multiple times already, at least twice in Europe alone in 20th century.

The other thing is that doing nothing is also harmful, so it’s not clear win. In developed civilization we stop seeing many parts of the complex machinery around us. Landfills are not located under your window ­— the garbage just “magically” disappears. Except… it doesn’t, it’s just moved under the windows of the less fortunate people. You may ignore CO₂, but coal for power plants is not appearing from nowhere: many miners lose their lives extracting it, and all of them are losing their health. Perhaps it’s their own choice, but they also choose to form powerful, influential trade unions which demand more and more money which are taken other citizens. And if you look at coal industry areas, they are terribly contaminated. It is easy to take coal energy for few cents, if it’s someone else that pays for that with their own life (and without even getting any compensation). There is much to consider, when making the decision.

Note that I am aware of possible problems, some not even mentioned in general discourse. Shrinking oil industry too fast may lead to rising prices of plastics. Ideas to replace everything with “natural things” are obvious appeal to nature fallacies, which blindly assume that e.g. growing things on fields is better than extracting it from earth — ignoring deforestation. But those are obstacles to overcome, not arguments against the general direction to take.

____
⁽¹⁾ Current times are not even close to the past extremes on Earth, during which “nature” flourished without problems. And no previous mass extinction has caused the end of life on Earth — on contrary, they ended up in new diversity and more advanced forms of life.
⁽²⁾ Which, as far as I know, is not known for Earth. Things like greenhouse effect runaway are not even expected to be possible here.
⁽³⁾ Not only because of possible harm, but also because people like that are not good at providing working solutions.

[hamster_nz]

Yes, another 5 or 10 years of discussion and invention don't really matter. But sooner or later we will be out of jokes.
I think deniers of human made climate change should be in court like deniers of the holocaust. The final result of climate change will be much worse than the holocaust, though it may take longer.
Maybe we should first have a drink and drink it fast, before the ice melts.

Regards, Dieter

Take a deep breath and read  the BS you just wrote.

I'm with dietert1 on this one - anyhow, if the warming doesn't get you, then population growth will, or the depletion of fossil fuels will. Endless uncontrolled growth can't go on in a constrained system with limited resources - petri dish or planet.

All the political solutions are crocks of shit - doublespeak at it's finest:

https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Climate%20Change/second-biennial-report.pdf

New Zealand’s target for the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012) was
a zero per cent increase of greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels

New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions (all five sectors including the LULUCF sector)
in 2013 were 54,200.53 kt CO2 eq. This represents an increase of 16,134.82 kt CO2 eq
(42.4 per cent) since 1990

Leading to such misleading releases as "New Zealand meets Kyoto climate target" https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-zealand-meets-kyoto-climate-target

And don't get me started on planting trees... that definitely isn't a solution. Forests reach steady state approximately a human lifetime, and nobody it proposing to bury the carbon to keep it out of the biosphere. They are a short term overdraft at best.

But back on topic. Why not just cover arid equatorial regions (and the Aussie outback) with whitewash and be done with it - reflect far more light/heat than an iceberg at a few degrees to the incoming sun....

[PlainName]

Why not just cover avid equatorial regions (and the Aussie outback) with whitewash

We'd need to chop down an awful lot of rain forest for that, which might be just a little bit counterproductive. But a large portion of the equator is over water, so if we could arrange that all our plastic waste accumulates there and ban any that isn't white... I think we're well on the way to that solution and deserve at least an aperitif

[hamster_nz]

Why not just cover avid equatorial regions (and the Aussie outback) with whitewash

We'd need to chop down an awful lot of rain forest for that, which might be just a little bit counterproductive. But a large portion of the equator is over water, so if we could arrange that all our plastic waste accumulates there and ban any that isn't white... I think we're well on the way to that solution and deserve at least an aperitif

Opps I meant "arid", typed "avid".. however....

Yes, bold thinking like this is what is needed - "Soupy Twist!" (and a clink of cocktail glasses).

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

White PVs is what we'd need !

[dietert1]

As far as i understand reducing CO2 emissions will not get you anywhere near what it was 200 years ago. Long-lived greenhouse gas already in the atmosphere causes a process that we can't stop. As long as there is ice, this process will be slow. Once ice will be largely gone, the process will accelerate. That's what this thread is all about.
I remember joining a public discussion/hearing in a nearby town 15 years ago about a new coal power plant. We had a guest from Brasil who wanted to sell shiploads of pellets made of farming surplus. So my question was whether the new plant could later be used to burn pellets produced in Brasil. The answer was general laughter, since everybody except me knew that there is nothing like planted wood in Brasil and there will never be any. I can't see any business model including a relevant reduction of greenhouse gas. For example: Using wood to build a house comes close, but the wood binds some tons of carbon and each of us is responsible for several 100 tons during his/her live.

Regards, Dieter

[coppice]

As far as i understand reducing CO2 emissions will not get you anywhere near what it was 200 years ago. Long-lived greenhouse gas already in the atmosphere causes a process that we can't stop. As long as there is ice, this process will be slow. Once ice will be largely gone, the process will accelerate. That's what this thread is all about.
I remember joining a public discussion/hearing in a nearby town 15 years ago about a new coal power plant. We had a guest from Brasil who wanted to sell shiploads of pellets made of farming surplus. So my question was whether the new plant could later be used to burn pellets produced in Brasil. The answer was general laughter, since everybody except me knew that there is nothing like planted wood in Brasil and there will never be any. I can't see any business model including a relevant reduction of greenhouse gas. For example: Using wood to build a house comes close, but the wood binds some tons of carbon and each of us is responsible for several 100 tons during his/her live.

Regards, Dieter

What most press reports of IPCC predictions tend to miss out is their best case predictions are based on large scale carbon capture, using technologies which right now are little more than conjectures, and which are not even being seriously worked on.

[Gregg]

The only humanly controllable parameter that will save the human race is to somehow reverse population growth.  It didn’t work in China.
Don’t look to politicians or religion to even suggest this; it is way too politically incorrect. 
The earth will be fine long after humans have become extinct by their own greed and false hopes. Life will go on without humans and after a few million years there won’t be many traces of human existence left. 

[coppice]

The only humanly controllable parameter that will save the human race is to somehow reverse population growth.  It didn’t work in China.
Don’t look to politicians or religion to even suggest this; it is way too politically incorrect. 
The earth will be fine long after humans have become extinct by their own greed and false hopes. Life will go on without humans and after a few million years there won’t be many traces of human existence left. 

Don't worry. Nature will cull all that needs to be culled. Humans are unlikely to be eliminated, but I suspect they will pass through a rather low minimum head count before things stabilise. Perhaps things will never truly recover. In a billion years there may be fresh concentrates of carbon compounds to feed a new industrial society's low tech energy needs, but we will leave the metals and other minerals so spread out across a million land fills that this might inhibit fresh development.

[SiliconWizard]

The only humanly controllable parameter that will save the human race is to somehow reverse population growth.  It didn’t work in China.

Well, they were not really trying to reverse it, but rather keep it under some control.
From what I got, the 1-child policy has mainly been abandoned because the population was aging, so this was going to be a real problem. But the chinese society has evolved as well, so I'm not even sure many still want to have more than 1 child now...

Population control is a VERY tricky thing. The sweet spot is hard to maintain, and it's very easy to go from exponential growth to aging, both having specific problems.

Don’t look to politicians or religion to even suggest this; it is way too politically incorrect.

Indeed, but again it IS difficult as well. Excessive birth control leads to aging population, with gigantic costs, while promising pure decline over time (and possibly uncontrollable decline as well...)
The other part of the control, not dealing with birth, is, well... not just politically incorrect.

Which all means that it all sounds more likely that nature will take care of that rather than humans.

The earth will be fine long after humans have become extinct by their own greed and false hopes. Life will go on without humans and after a few million years there won’t be many traces of human existence left. 

We don't know about that of course. What we know, though, is that Earth WOULD be fine without us.

[Bicurico]

1. The planet is and will remain just fine. It is man kind and many mammals that may go extinct.
2. The #1 measure to reduce pollution is to reduce our population to like 2.000.000.000 by not allowing couples to have more than 1-2 children, worldwide.
3. The only further required measure is to abolish any kind of interest rate.

Let that sink in.
Yes. The consequences would be huge - but that is the price.
No. Politicians are not interested - they prefer to continue their pyramid schemes on a finite planet.

Regards
Vitor

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

CO2 isn't "pollution"...

[Doom-the-Squirrel]

Wow.   

I take it the people that made this have no idea how sea levels rise.

Of course, they obviously don't know how thermodynamics work either. Or refrigeration.

[SiliconWizard]

But they know how to make a cute video. Isn't that what matters these days?

[Doom-the-Squirrel]

But they know how to make a cute video. Isn't that what matters these days?

Oh yes, quite right.

Perhaps this will be on their resume when they go to Hollywood.
Or the BBC

[Cyberdragon]

[meme in text cause too lazy to use Meme Generator]

"What can we do to improve our videos?"

"More buzzworthy nonsense!"

"Widen our audience to more gullible people!"

"Upgrade from an Octane 1..." *gets thrown out of window*

[dietert1]

Recently i read that every US woman alive will have caused 15400 tons of CO2 emissions when she will die. On average, don't ask me for the details of this statistics, should be possible to check online.
Now, as a physicist i know that the total weight of the atmosphere above 1 square meter of ground area is 10 tons. This weight is what causes barometric pressure. So this means that "she" will leave 1540 square meters of our planet "void", in a similar sense that the areas around Tschernobyl and Fukushima are "void".
When scientists tell us that humans consume by the end of Juli the resources that our planet can produce in one year, this more or less means that about three billion people will have to die before their time. That's the future version of the holocaust and it won't be fun for the others.

Regards, Dieter

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Recently i read that every US woman alive will have caused 15400 tons of CO2 emissions when she will die. On average, don't ask me for the details of this statistics, should be possible to check online.

Global emissions (*) CO2/year = 37.1e9 tons
Global population: 7.8e9
=> CO2 per capita per year: 4.75 tons
=> to produce 15400 tons, it takes 15400/4.75 ->  3242 years. That woman generates thousands more than the average.

(*) 2018: https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/12/new-global-co2-emissions-numbers-are-they-re-not-good

Now, as a physicist i know that the total weight of the atmosphere above 1 square meter of ground area is 10 tons.

Ergo the total mass of the atmosphere is the area of the earth in m2 * 10 tons= 5.11186e15 tons

If we add 37 gigatons per year, that's an increase of 7.26 ppm (**), 72.6 ppm per decade, but it's increasing at 20 ppm:



(**) 37.1e9/(5.11186e15/1e6)

[CatalinaWOW]

I love the last two posts.  Actual facts and numbers that can be evaluated.  The furthest thing possible from "let's take some submarines and make ice"

[dietert1]

It's not a thousand times more. The US average per capita is about 20 tons per year, about four times the world average. Times 80 years gives about 1600 tons. So probably that 15400 number should really be 1540 and "she" voids only 154 square meters. Concerning the concentration increase: Wikipedia tells me the surface of the earth is 5.1 E14 square meters. Times 10 tons/m² = 5.1 E15 tons = total weight of atmosphere. So yes, on average we should expect 7.26 ppm/year and 72.6 ppm per decade.

I can't tell why the Mauna Loa measurements show less, but it should be obvious that the CO2 we produce does not stay in our car or house or property, and that it distributes everywhere, even into the water of the ocean. As far as i understand its greenhouse effect happens in upper layers of the atmosphere.

Regards, Dieter

[golden_labels]

Carbon dioxide emissions from what sources? The CO₂ and H₂O you emit while breathing is of low importance short term and is harmless long-term. That is because it is in a relatively short cycle: it will be absorbed by plants in a period between days and a year. And it is also coming from those plants. Even if you are eating animal foods, the animals also eat plants and any carbon dioxide and water they emit are ultimately in the same cycle. What is a problem with animals is methane and, in some cases, deforestation and affecting local fauna. Similarly with fossil fuels the problem is not simply that they emit CO₂, but the fact that their cycle is counted in millions of years.

I remind you of that, because cummulative emissions figures are often obscuring the true image behind them and can be misleading. In both directions!

[dietert1]

About breath: Please calculate the amount of air passing through a car engine at low speed, e.g. 1000 rpm. Assume 2 ltrs per revolution, gives you 2000 ltrs per minute which is the breathing volume of four hundred people at the same time. Remember this when you turn on the engine the next time.

Regards, Dieter

[PlainName]

Assume 2 ltrs per revolution, gives you 2000 ltrs per minute

Is this another fact? Or are you perhaps neglecting that the inlet manifold maintains a partial vacuum? You might like to take a peek at this site:

Air flow calculation

[hamster_nz]

Assume 2 ltrs per revolution, gives you 2000 ltrs per minute

Is this another fact? Or are you perhaps neglecting that the inlet manifold maintains a partial vacuum? You might like to take a peek at this site:

Air flow calculation

(Attachment Link)

Come on, this is an electronics site - we all use first approximations all the time! 

Maybe he has a 4 litre engine?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Maybe he has a 4 liter engine?

Spot on. If it sucks 2 litres per revolution, it IS a 4 litres engine.

[SerieZ]

Yes, another 5 or 10 years of discussion and invention don't really matter. But sooner or later we will be out of jokes.
I think deniers of human made climate change should be in court like deniers of the holocaust. The final result of climate change will be much worse than the holocaust, though it may take longer.
Maybe we should first have a drink and drink it fast, before the ice melts.

Regards, Dieter

People have a right to be wrong and for a very good reason.
People were burned at stakes for having "wrong" Opinions by people who think like you.
We need open and free discussion to get REAL solutions, not put people in chains or a bullet in their brain.

EDIT for aditional thought:
To the rest of the people in this Thread advocating for Jailtime or worse for people who have bad/wrong opinions a Hypothetical question:
Turns out we found a solution to this Problem in 10 Years and we are on track to fixing the Problem, or even better, despite all the overwhelming Evidence we have today it turned out that there was another (completely or complimentary) cause.
Are you just going to say you did an oopsie?
Mind bogling to me how fast people throw their Morals and Reason overboard.

Think at least for 2 seconds before you open Pandoras Box. 

[coppice]

Recently i read that every US woman alive will have caused 15400 tons of CO2 emissions when she will die. On average, don't ask me for the details of this statistics, should be possible to check online.
Now, as a physicist i know that the total weight of the atmosphere above 1 square meter of ground area is 10 tons. This weight is what causes barometric pressure. So this means that "she" will leave 1540 square meters of our planet "void", in a similar sense that the areas around Tschernobyl and Fukushima are "void".
When scientists tell us that humans consume by the end of Juli the resources that our planet can produce in one year, this more or less means that about three billion people will have to die before their time. That's the future version of the holocaust and it won't be fun for the others.

You are no physicist. A physicist would have have cited something, because what you said is very vague, and a source needs to be referenced for clarification. Is your source claiming 15400 tons gross or net (i.e. the balance between her production and what nature can turn back into oxygen) CO2 output? Does it include all the industrial production which supports this woman's life style, or is it just the figure for her direct production of CO2. Without clarification you can quote any old random numbers, and they are all just as meaningless.

[golden_labels]

Think at least for 2 seconds before you open Pandoras Box. 

See a bit above: a response after my message, in which I described the complexity of the problem and possible inadequacy of using some cummulative values. It is ignoring the point I’ve made and does exactly what I’ve warned against. It is easy to express opinions, especially popular ones; and it is even easier to not “waste time” on thinking about details and let opinions go to extremes. The Holocaust has been mentioned in this thread. That way of thinking, which you have criticized above, is exactly what was a neccessary condition to let the Holocaust happen in the first place. :|

The even worse part of such suggestions is that they miss the goal. The opinion specifically mentioned human made climate change denialists. But whenever one believes it were humans or not, who caused the climate change, is quite irrelevant for solving the problem. Therefore someone here advocates for harming people for no gain at all.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Remember this when you turn on the engine the next time.

I like driving my two tons diesel every day to my favourite cafetería that happens to be 15 km away. I have an EV too, but I don't use it much because I don't want because I don't like it (*). When we the elders all die, you the youngsters can do with your lives whatever you want. No more cars, trucks, airplanes, ships, farm machinery, power plants, etc. It's up to you. Good luck with that.

(*) And, FYI, I've done the math, and the EV produces as much CO2 as my diesel, and even more than the diesel in winter.

[ciccio]

Yes, another 5 or 10 years of discussion and invention don't really matter. But sooner or later we will be out of jokes.
I think deniers of human made climate change should be in court like deniers of the holocaust. The final result of climate change will be much worse than the holocaust, though it may take longer.
Maybe we should first have a drink and drink it fast, before the ice melts.

Regards, Dieter

I quote this post, and there others that report the same point of view, or a similar opinion, and I disagree.
I'm too old, and I've seen too many times people (politicians) cry that the end is near and we must do something immediately.
Do you remember the 70s? Rome's club was publishing reports about the limits of growth: oil will end soon, we are using too much. Food will end soon, we are too many, etc.
30 years have passed, and oil is still there...
I agree: the climate is changing, but we do not know the actual reasons. The numbers I read seem many times wrong, or fakes.
We spend a lot of money to reduce emissions, at a considerable cost for us normal people and a considerable gain for some elite, without seeing some indicator that this is the right way.
I breath the air in Italy's old town centers, and it is cleaner than 30 years ago. So I admit that anti pollution measures have worked.
But the sun is about 1 kW per square meter: how much power we must use againt sun's instability?
Shouldn't we say: Yes, the climate is changing, we do not know why, but  can we something do to prevent or reduce the damages?
Now we see fires in California and Australia: 100 years ago there were no houses in the bush, so fires went their way, no damages.
Now we see floods in Italy, but we built houses and roads and bridges where water had is natural way,  and our ancestors knew it.
Earthquakes destroy old mountains towns, and we build them again, in the same place and with similar technology, waiting for next quake,

Best regards

[Doom-the-Squirrel]

Maybe he has a 4 liter engine?

Spot on. If it sucks 2 litres per revolution, it IS a 4 litres engine.

Suppose it is turbo charged?

[dietert1]

I hope everybody got the idea, and in the end it makes little difference whether a car engine has the air consumption of 200 or 400 people. Anyway, the 3 billion people i mentioned above won't probably die from a lack of oxygen, although - i remember recent images from India where they had to introduce driving restrictions on even/odd days because the air was so bad.

Also i understand that of the 72.6 ppm extra CO2 per decade only 20 ppm remain in the atmosphere after nature does her work. Anyway, what is already there is probably enough to make our planet into one huge Sahara. That won't happen on a certain day, it's a continuous process and we know it's happening right now. Obviously large amounts of ice are melting all over this planet.

Concerning my mention of the Holocaust: There is a movie about the process against Prof. Irving. At the end they decide the process is not about personal opinion nor free speech, but about corruption. They concluded he was promoting organized interests by knowingly selling wrong information as scientific fact. When somebody denies human made climate change, the same applies. We can't tolerate that because of the "untold human suffering" at stake. This was the message of a recent declaration of 11,263 scientists from 153 countries.

Regards, Dieter

[SL4P]

First year of high school...
You don’t create ‘cold’, you remove ‘heat’... which implies you have to put it somewhere else!

Maybe a really big heatsink, and solar powered fans to draw the heat off them ?!

[Doom-the-Squirrel]

First year of high school...
You don’t create ‘cold’, you remove ‘heat’... which implies you have to put it somewhere else!

Maybe a really big heatsink, and solar powered fans to draw the heat off them ?!

This assumes a high schooler student actually paid attention in any sort of physics class.

[Simon]

This approach makes the whole argument about what is causing climate change moot.  It only requires identification of locations that are vulnerable to such change and strategies to make them less vulnerable.  The climate change community seems to focus on storm dams and other expensive solutions, but there is always the Monty Python solution.  Run away.  Run away.

What do you do when you run out of land to run to? as you say unless we go around shooting every other person we need to all get through this. One idiot BBC presenter said that we would adapt like use air conditioning. This is a totally stupid response because air conditioning requires energy, more energy means more emissions....

[Domagoj T]

Years ago it was proposed that increasing the albedo of Earth could be done by generating clouds / making existing clouds more reflecting by spraying fine sea water mist. Autonomous ships would pump fine mist into the air which would be picked up by natural air currents and stay in the atmosphere for a while.
Since you can obviously deploy such ships at the equator, they seem like a more efficient way to reflect sunlight (albedo of ice is comparable to that of cloud) for the same surface. The question is just what  takes more energy to generate.

[Ice-Tea]

I have seen little or no meaningful discussion on the most efficient (hence lowest cost) way to deal with climate change. 

Be with less people.

[PlainName]

Towards the end of the solar system, with the sun going rather red, and as we put on another layer of woolies, we might regret throwing all the free energy back out into space

[Ice-Tea]

Accidently, those yelling that you don't make cold but pump heat are missing at least some of the point: they would desalinize the water so that it would freeze in the sub zero temps, possibly helped along a notch.

Still very stupid but marginally less so.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

If it's been ever increasing, the CO2 of the first Model T may be still floating around somewhere in the atmosphere?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I have seen little or no meaningful discussion on the most efficient (hence lowest cost) way to deal with climate change. 

Be with less people.

Who wants to be the first?

[Domagoj T]

Towards the end of the solar system, with the sun going rather red, and as we put on another layer of woolies, we might regret throwing all the free energy back out into space

It's going to get a lot hotter before it gets any colder.
Sun is (and has been since its birth) increasing in energy output. At its birth, 4+ billion years ago the energy output was at around 70% of what it is today. As the Sun gets older, the output will continue to increase (about 1% per 100 Myr), but the physical size of the Sun will increase as well, so by the time it consumes all of its fuel (in about 5 billion years), it will be significantly hotter than it is today.
Not that we will be around to see that. Ecosystem will collapse long before that.

[Ice-Tea]

I have seen little or no meaningful discussion on the most efficient (hence lowest cost) way to deal with climate change. 

Be with less people.

Who wants to be the first?

By getting no more than two children? Did that already.

[golden_labels]

If it's been ever increasing, the CO2 of the first Model T may be still floating around somewhere in the atmosphere?

I do not know what is the rate⁽¹⁾ at which CO₂ is converted by plants, but since the process always leaves some carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it may in fact still be there. Just like water exhaled by first humans. And you may still be breathing O₂ generated by first plants. But whatever the exact probability is, nearly certainly there are humans who had CO₂ emitted by first Ts either in their body or in their lungs.

By getting no more than two children? Did that already.

That is already happening automatically, without human intervention. A natural feedback loop. There is no need to consciously choose to keep the expected rate below 2 surviving children.⁽²⁾ In either case it may be not enough to solve the problem: people getting extremely wealthy (compared to the past) is the issue.
____
⁽¹⁾ The “decay” rate, not the mass/time rate.
⁽²⁾ Yes, the value is below 2, because the first derivative of life expectancy is positive. The values that put it a bit above 2 are skipping “surviving” and refer to children being born. Both are right, just describing a slightly different value.

[Simon]

That is already happening automatically, without human intervention. A natural feedback loop. There is no need to consciously choose to keep the expected rate below 2 surviving children.⁽²⁾ In either case it may be not enough to solve the problem: people getting extremely wealthy (compared to the past) is the issue.

It's not just wealth. It's our capability has increased. The richest person 200 years ago would have been putting our less carbon emissions than the current average/low paid person. in 1950 2 people in my grandfathers street owed a car. He was one and gave people lifts to work. I now drive to work as do colleagues about 1 mile away for a 6 mile journey. We use 3 cars instead of one.

[Ice-Tea]

That is already happening automatically, without human intervention.

Not fast enough.

There is no need to consciously choose to keep the expected rate below 2 surviving children.

You asked for a cheap way. That's one.

In either case it may be not enough to solve the problem

Disagree. Note how I didn't say two surviving children. I said two children. Period. So each generation would decrease by about 10%. At some point even the idiot race that is humanity would no longer be able to keep up with the polution.

[maginnovision]

That is already happening automatically, without human intervention.

Not fast enough.

There is no need to consciously choose to keep the expected rate below 2 surviving children.

You asked for a cheap way. That's one.

In either case it may be not enough to solve the problem

Disagree. Note how I didn't say two surviving children. I said two children. Period. So each generation would decrease by about 10%. At some point even the idiot race that is humanity would no longer be able to keep up with the polution.

Even if you made sure that every single non producing(in terms of economy) person was murdered first you'd still end up having to murder enough producers to likely collapse economies everywhere which leads to more declines. So you'd actually want to start with non producers and people of advanced age who are more likely to age out of being a producer and become a liability.

It's really all pointless to think about. The only way it'd happen is a war the destroys everything anyway.

[Ice-Tea]

Murder? Who's talking about murder?

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

[SerieZ]

Murder? Who's talking about murder?

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

I fail to see the point when we do it here in Europe (without Migration most european nations already have declining Population) and then they go and talk about Demographic decline and start to Import foreigners.
Maybe take this subject to China, India, Africa, Latin America or maybe even North America. 
Doubt they are interested tho.

[Simon]

Murder? Who's talking about murder?

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

The more advanced countries tend to have less children. Where children survival is less guaranteed (and they are less used to contraception) they have more. In theory as a country advances people start to have less children.

But we do have to consume less. Even I am over weight and I can certainly eat less meat. Look at you inboxes, isn't it full of black friday deals emails ? why? how many people are goiung to consume more because they were encouraged to do so by so called limited time offers.

Yes technology advances but we change equipment far too often just to have the latest thing. I hate to think how many not very old 4K screen will be dumped as soo as 8K arrives when 4K is fine for the average consumer in fact 8K will only have niche applications but I am sure in less than 5 years everyone will want one even if we don't need it.

The relentless smartphone market and provider contracts that keep pushing new phones onto us to keep us locked to them. I just buy a phone for less than I can get the same one on contract and keep it as long as i can. We have to stop consuming.

The harm to the economy is a stupid argument. this is going to cost either way and lets face it, who is actually benefiting from economic growth?

[magic]

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

Because meaningfully reducing the problem of pollution with humans would necessitate genocidal action against a continent or two on a scale never seen before
Nobody wants to be the next Hitler and those do are looked at weird.

[Ice-Tea]

I honnestly don't get it. Genocide? I'm talking about birth rate control. For starters: introducing it in the debate might be a good begin. Now it seems to be the last big taboo.

It's quite simple. With regardless what pupulation growth, and with regarless what GW countermeasures you take, it is a mathematical certainty we will sooner or later surpass whatever limit you impose on total global warming impact. Likewise, it is a mathematical certainty that with a population decline we will sooner or later arrive in a position where we can all enjoy our current lifestyles without too many issues.

[SerieZ]

I honnestly don't get it. Genocide? I'm talking about birth rate control. For starters: introducing it in the debate might be a good begin. Now it seems to be the last big taboo.

It's quite simple. With regardless what pupulation growth, and with regarless what GW countermeasures you take, it is a mathematical certainty we will sooner or later surpass whatever limit you impose on total global warming impact. Likewise, it is a mathematical certainty that with a population decline we will sooner or later arrive in a position where we can all enjoy our current lifestyles without too many issues.

You make it sound so Trivial and easy... but hey you are right about the taboos, at least we should be talking about it!

If you ask for my humble Opinion Id rather let Nature take over this issue and we, the west, stop aiding those people who pop out Children like it is pre-industralization times. Let them learn by themselves and let nature be the educator.
Also Id like to chip in that People who "just know better" on such subjects have a weird historical tendency to make it worse for everyone involved.

There is a certain big Country in Asia that already tried Governmental enforced Birth Control with results which, arguably, were pretty bad overall and did not really help even mitigate the Issue at hand - too many Humans. (At least that was my notion of the Chinese 1 Child Program - I am not really educated enough on the subject)

Either we get there by implementing arguably dystopian government policies and force others to do the same or we let nature do its thing (by that I include the possibility smarter Humans figure out a better solution for everyone).
I know which one I prefer. 

[Simon]

The problem with Global warming is that for every person that has half an idea about it there are 10 to 1 hippies that will fall for anything with cool presentations and there 10 to 1 people who are clueless and need guidance but are not getting any.

[Simon]

Of course there is a massive market in taking advantage of both without actually doing anything.

[texaspyro]

Unfortunately it is not. Architects who came-up with this nonsense seems to believe that their dumb invention will not require any energy to operate.

No extra energy required plan: 
   1) collect all the ice cube remnants from restaurants and bars 
   2) load them up into SpaceX Starliners
   3) dump ice cubes into the ocean
   4) profit!!

[Doom-the-Squirrel]

Just be sure to follow the Rules of Acquisition. 


Meanwhile, that sounds like a plan! I'm glad to be a part of it! Let's do it!

[Nominal Animal]

If we were serious about reducing negative anthropogenic effects on Earth, we would simply use the humane solution we have: adding contraceptives into the food sold to third-world countries, and coupling contraceptives with government support.

We could also use a much more effective and faster solution -- neutron bombs -- but I for one would prefer to avoid mass murder.

Humankind is too antagonistic by its very nature, for a significant majority to ever voluntarily restrict or give up comforts for other people they never see, and look different than themselves.  This is not sociology, this is biology; a direct result of our evolution, that you cannot "program" out of humans. You can try, like Chinese did with their one-child policy, but the results of such attempts have thus far never been positive.

(Aside from mass murder, of course.  It is effective, even if monstrous.)

Even if a significant fraction managed to limit their birth rate and reduce their quality of living to reduce the amount of total pollution, a different faction would take advantage of that, and cause a rift that would nullify the efforts.  Consider the fairness tests done on primates: if you give one monkey grapes, and the other pieces of cucumber, the one getting the cucumber feels slighted and will be enraged even though they did get a nice treat for free.  Just because the other one got something they didn't, they feel they were wronged.  Understanding this is key.  Trying to change this will fail.

The hard truth is that to make significant changes to the "trajectory" mankind is on, we'd have to decimate our numbers.

However, looking backwards, this trajectory hasn't been nowhere nearly so apocalyptic as various proselytes have claimed it is.  We haven't drowned in horse dung, we haven't killed ourselves off with coal dust or coal-fire smokes, we have avoided the nuclear holocaust thus far, and we are even decreasing the fraction of humans living in abject poverty and dying of hunger and illnesses.  We are doing better than before.

There is no evidence supporting the death of humankind, or all life on Earth, within a decade or even a century.  The projected temperature increases and the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere might be deadly to current human societies, but life on the planet is not threatened, because at other epochs life has thrived in the conditions projected.  Certain places, like areas around the Arctic Circle, would become more, not less, hospitable to human life, so even human extinction is a ridiculous exaggeration, even if the worst projections were true.  (Such areas are also places where there is ample potable water.)

Just like with "humanitarian help" to third world countries, we aren't actually making much of a difference in the projected trajectories, only increasing the number of humans that the next catastrophe will kill.  It could be a huge tsunami due to underwater landslides (like the one that sunk Doggerland a few thousand years ago) or due to a large meteorite or space rock, a chain of volcanoes, a particularly virulent disease, or one of a dozen other things.

I find the shortsightedness of our species more dangerous and a bigger flaw, than even our propensity for near-ceaseless warfare.  Even for I myself it is very hard to look at the facts objectively, without coloring them with emotion, when future and survival of children, family, and kin is involved.

[PlainName]

adding contraceptives into the food sold to third-world countries

That highlights the main problem: NIMBY-ism. It's OK to do it to them so that we don't have to.

A much better solution would be to prematurely bump off the illiterate and those with below average intelligence once they get too old to be productive doing manual work. Those third-worlders just need decent education and a chance, and many of them would then make us first-worlders look simple.

Skipping back a paragraph, why do we still allow IVF? Surely we could say that's just Nature's lottery, but of course one has the God-given right to bear children, and that's the main issue with a growing population. Mustn't interfere with anyone's rights.

we are even decreasing the fraction of humans living in abject poverty

Really? For how much longer, if so? The gap between the (very very) few richest and poorest is getting bigger, so most people may not be in abject poverty but they are getting relatively poorer, and a couple or three are living like Croesus on steroids. It's not going to end up with everyone sharing wealth, you know!

[magic]

Sorry to be that guy, but neutron bombs are tactical weapons designed to penetrate thick armors at close distance; at farther distance the neutrons are stopped by air. You're better off harnessing them to fission uranium for more yield, which is indeed how the so-called hydrogen bomb works. For saving the planet we should consider strategic weapons; one 100 megaton Big Ivan would roast everybody within tens of km.

Those third-worlders just need decent education and a chance, and many of them would then make us first-worlders look simple.

Dude, they used to say the same about Europeans in the 19th century and look what happened. The most overcrowded continent and as full of stupidity as ever
But a few of them were smart enough to invent consumer electronics, advertisements and planned obsolescence, damnit, so impressive.

Skipping back a paragraph, why do we still allow IVF? Surely we could say that's just Nature's lottery, but of course one has the God-given right to bear children, and that's the main issue with a growing population. Mustn't interfere with anyone's rights.

It's condemned by every serious religion out there. But yeah, in that country which shall remain nameless everything that somebody wants somehow always is "God given" and "constitutional" even if it's not

[dietert1]

Apropos looking simple. I think for most humans free will and being resposible are categories not applicable. The overwhelming majority is determined by their habits. Humans are much more like animals than they may think. An example: Our dog (an eight year old german sheppard) goes shopping. She has a basic understanding where to get certain goodies and she will make sure that we pass by the shop when taking a walk. She also knows that once we go there, we will have several of the goodies and she roughly counts how many she already got and when it's time to go there again. Of course she doesn't talk like we do, but she certainly knows how to express herself.
Another idea that troubles me: Robbery is a business model that competes favorable with most others, except you may later find yourself in trouble. I think that's a valid description of what's going on. Humans are robbing the goodies of the planet to realize their ideas and to shut down competitors. And in the end they will find themselves in a prison. The day before yesterday the EU council declared a state of climate emergency. This is the beginning of a process that may finally terminate democracy. In the future governments all over the world may have to enforce drastic measures to keep basic conditions of human society intact. It will probably resemble more the Chinese than the Western model.

Regards, Dieter

[Simon]

The problem is that it is the west causing most of the emissions. Fortunately many of the growing economies are shifting faster to renewable's now that the tech is available.

No we can't live in the arctic circle it's err.... all water. South pole (antarctic) maybe but really are we planning on how to survive something we should be trying to stop? and simply moving there and carrying on won't help because if we don't try to do something things will still become un-survivable in the antarctic.

People don't like change, in the past the inability to adapt meant you died out. Problem here is there are so many that won't adapt that they will wipe the rest of us out. There are too many stupid people out there and sadly getting rid of them is not an option.

[Nominal Animal]

Sorry to be that guy, but neutron bombs are tactical weapons designed to penetrate thick armors at close distance; at farther distance the neutrons are stopped by air.

They're excellent at depopulating densely populated cities, and neutralizing deep bunkers where the leaders are.  Do not forget the psychological effects.  (Nobody seems to have taken notice of how oddly Russian males life expectancy evolved in the two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union.)

The problem with uranium and plutonium is their chemical toxicity.  I know most people fear radiation, but it's really not an issue compared to the heavy metal toxicity and DNA damage they cause, and accumulate in predator species, causing long-term fertility and reproductive issues.
(The LD₅₀ dose due to radiation is several times larger than due to chemical toxicity, even for the radioactive isotopes.  Chemical toxicity kills you way before you have to worry about the radiation.)

one 100 megaton Big Ivan would roast everybody within tens of km.

The downside is that the heavy metal particulates get thrown so high up in the atmosphere, that they essentially blanket the entire world.  It would be much better to use a large number of smaller, limited-yield nuclear devices to generate barriers and death zones.

Those third-worlders just need decent education and a chance

As long as their population growth is unchecked, that will not happen.  When their population growth is curbed, they can use the resources for education and family planning.

The problem is that it is the west causing most of the emissions.

EU accounted for 9.51% of fossil CO₂ emissions in 2017 with a drop of 19.5% from 1990; US 13.77% with basically no change from 1990, and Russia 4.76% with a 25.8% drop from 1990, so about 30% overall, and all except US dropping their emissions.

So, what the fuck is the "west causing most" that you are talking about?

Or are you saying that you feel like the west is responsible?

No we can't live in the arctic circle it's err.... all water.

Bullshit.  Look at the map.  Greenland, Siberia, northern Canada will all be prime estate land, with roughly current Central/Southern European climate.  Very good for agriculture.

However, there's people already there, and at least in Nordic countries, are getting very fed up with the EU/UN population replacement programs currently underway.

It will not be able to carry several billion humans, no; but perhaps a couple of hundred million, in excellent comfort, even if the rest of the world becomes a hot dry desert.  No risk of human extinction, or extinction of life in general, was my point.

[Simon]

EU accounted for 9.51% of fossil CO₂ emissions in 2017 with a drop of 19.5% from 1990; US 13.77% with basically no change from 1990, and Russia 4.76% with a 25.8% drop from 1990, so about 30% overall, and all except US dropping their emissions.

So, what the fuck is the "west causing most" that you are talking about?

Or are you saying that you feel like the west is responsible?

No we can't live in the arctic circle it's err.... all water.

Bullshit.  Look at the map.  Greenland, Siberia, northern Canada will all be prime estate land, with roughly current Central/Southern European climate.  Very good for agriculture.

However, there's people already there, and at least in Nordic countries, are getting very fed up with the EU/UN population replacement programs currently underway.

It will not be able to carry several billion humans, no; but perhaps a couple of hundred million, in excellent comfort, even if the rest of the world becomes a hot dry desert.  No risk of human extinction, or extinction of life in general, was my point.

Ok so I take that nothing made in china or shipped from china has anything to do with Europe or the US? Yes our emissions have droped. UK electricity consumption has stabilized and dropped a bit due to the better efficiency of our products.

If you look at the real picture: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Total_CO2_emissions_by_country_in_2017_vs_per_capita_emissions_%28top_40_countries%29.svg/1920px-Total_CO2_emissions_by_country_in_2017_vs_per_capita_emissions_%28top_40_countries%29.svg.png you see that apart from the oil rich arab states the west is up there per head. and china make all our stuff so don't blame it on them.

[coppice]

Bullshit.  Look at the map.  Greenland, Siberia, northern Canada will all be prime estate land, with roughly current Central/Southern European climate.  Very good for agriculture.

Unfortunately a lot of that land mass is permafrost, which won't remain frosty with a lot of global warming. How many people can farm and live on a bog?

[Nominal Animal]

Ok so I take that nothing made in china or shipped from china has anything to do with Europe or the US? Yes our emissions have droped. UK electricity consumption has stabilized and dropped a bit due to the better efficiency of our products.

Countries like Finland have invested a lot into scrubbing emissions from coal powered energy and heat plants.

I have this principle that if you have to construct complicated dependency chains to find the root who to blame, there is something wrong in the logic.

In your case, it seems like you believe Europe or the US has forced China to produce stuff and sell them to Europe.  That's not how it happened.  China chose to ignore pollution in order to gain a commercial advantage.  It's on them.  In fact, you probably don't even realize that China has restarted manufacturing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, i.e. freon) to use as a cheap refrigerant in their internal market, even though they claim they have forbidden their manufacture just as about every other country on this planet has.

If you consider a bit deeper, it is the Chinese who benefit from their pollution, not the Europeans.  Europeans spent a lot of resources into making manufacture less polluting, and because it increases the cost of manufacture, Chinese government chose to avoid those measures and gain a competitive advantage.  Sure, that pollution kills a lot of people in China, but it's not like their government actually cares much.

These are not complicated chains.

As to per capita calculations, I already explained that you cannot talk anyone else to reduce their quality of living.  It does not work on humans, it does not work on primates, and it does not work on monkeys.  Either you limit or reduce the number of humans, or you develop the technology to reduce the pollution.  For CO₂, the technology already exists and is used in the West; it's just that China et al. have considered their use too costly thus far (and the related death rates etc. acceptable), because they'd lose their manufacturing advantage.

Because it is always the less privileged who suffer the most, this same picture will repeat again if/when China decides to go the European route, and start dealing with the massive pollution problem.

Just think about the whole picture a bit before you spout the inane talking points media regurgitates for those who find critical thinking too hard.

[Nominal Animal]

Unfortunately a lot of that land mass is permafrost, which won't remain frosty with a lot of global warming. How many people can farm and live on a bog?

Did you know that when mixed with sand, and controlled for PH, peat makes for an excellent growth medium?
My family used to have a commercial (unheated) greenhouse well north of the Arctic Circle in the 1980s.  Using such a growth medium, many vegetables (cucumbers and tomatoes in particular) had enough time in the short growth season (three months or so) to grow to full size, and were much tastier, probably due to the 24h sunlight during the season.  The same applies to non-greenhouse vegetables; possibly a higher sugar content or something?

About 15% of the land area in Finland is bog, of which about half is in natural state.  In the southern Finland, most of the bogs have been dried and converted to arable land using drainage ditches a couple of hundred years ago.

Bog peat can be used for energy production also.  In Finland, the calculated energy capacity from peat only is about 13,000 terawatt-hours, equivalent to about 1,100 million metric tons of oil.  It is not a fossil energy source, although it renews at a relatively slow pace.

Personally, I kinda like bogs; it's just the gnats, mosquitoes, and other blood-sucking flying insects that thrive in bogs that bug me.

I know that all of Siberia has bogs under the permafrost, and a LOT of methane in clathrates (which is a powerful greenhouse gas, and a big unknown in the climate predictions), but I'm not exactly sure what lies beneath the ice in Greenland.

[PlainName]

China chose to ignore pollution in order to gain a commercial advantage.  It's on them.

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into. If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

This is the argument used against kiddy porn consumers and you wouldn't want to get involved in disputing that, I reckon.

[Simon]

Ok so I take that nothing made in china or shipped from china has anything to do with Europe or the US? Yes our emissions have droped. UK electricity consumption has stabilized and dropped a bit due to the better efficiency of our products.

Countries like Finland have invested a lot into scrubbing emissions from coal powered energy and heat plants.

I have this principle that if you have to construct complicated dependency chains to find the root who to blame, there is something wrong in the logic.

In your case, it seems like you believe Europe or the US has forced China to produce stuff and sell them to Europe.  That's not how it happened.  China chose to ignore pollution in order to gain a commercial advantage.  It's on them.  In fact, you probably don't even realize that China has restarted manufacturing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, i.e. freon) to use as a cheap refrigerant in their internal market, even though they claim they have forbidden their manufacture just as about every other country on this planet has.

If you consider a bit deeper, it is the Chinese who benefit from their pollution, not the Europeans.  Europeans spent a lot of resources into making manufacture less polluting, and because it increases the cost of manufacture, Chinese government chose to avoid those measures and gain a competitive advantage.  Sure, that pollution kills a lot of people in China, but it's not like their government actually cares much.

These are not complicated chains.

As to per capita calculations, I already explained that you cannot talk anyone else to reduce their quality of living.  It does not work on humans, it does not work on primates, and it does not work on monkeys.  Either you limit or reduce the number of humans, or you develop the technology to reduce the pollution.  For CO₂, the technology already exists and is used in the West; it's just that China et al. have considered their use too costly thus far (and the related death rates etc. acceptable), because they'd lose their manufacturing advantage.

Because it is always the less privileged who suffer the most, this same picture will repeat again if/when China decides to go the European route, and start dealing with the massive pollution problem.

Just think about the whole picture a bit before you spout the inane talking points media regurgitates for those who find critical thinking too hard.

Simple solution then. Slap huge tariffs on china! No we don't make them make stuff for us, but we happily keep asking them to. And I was not even talking about their methods. Just the fact that they make stuff for us which means that our emissions are not as low as they seem. So take everything china makes for the rest of the world and add the carbon that would have been produced if it were made locally. That is all i was saying but you had to insinuate and distort! Fact we consume a lot and not all of that consumption shows up in our local consumption.

[Nominal Animal]

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into.

If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

In the figure Simon showed, not "partly"; completely.  Those statistics are calculated as if the buyer caused all the pollution needed to manufacture the product.

We could discuss what factor between 0% and 100% we could use (I really don't have an opinion, except that it probably is somewhere in the middle and not at either end), but it would become politics really fast, as "free trade" is strictly regulated, and it is near impossible for any single country (except a large one like USA or Russia, or a union like EU) to impose tariffs for products simply because of pollution in manufacture.
Those large countries usually fail to impose such tariffs because of internal objections due to the "fairness" issues I already mentioned -- they are just not willing to forgo something just to help somebody they do not know or associate with.  (That includes future generations, BTW.)

Even if we reallocate 50% of China's CO₂ to western countries, we still arrive at less than 50% of all fossil CO₂ emissions, according to 2017 figures.

I do understand your viewpoint, I just vehemently disagree, because I see no way your viewpoint can affect any significant change.

We cannot control what people buy and sell.  We can only control what and how stuff is manufactured.  This applies to everything, from consumer products to illegal drugs to pedophile media to human slavery.  The only place you can make a real difference is at the root.

When you see others have to invest more into their manufacturing methods because the pollution is killing too much people, and decide to invest heavily in the polluting manufacturing methods because you see it as a market opportunity -- which is basically exactly what China has done in the last 30 years or so --, I'd say the blame is very much mostly on you.

As I already said, this is not China bashing, because if/when China finds it has to do what Europe did, and start dealing with the pollution, it will just be the next set of countries that will do the exact same thing.  That is, unless we do something significant about polluting manufacturing worldwide.

A viable option, in my opinion, would be to allow any country to block or tax/tariff incoming products manufactured using polluting methods, at the World Trade level.  Then we'd shift the responsibility to the buyers, at the national or state level, where changes might be possible.

This is the argument used against kiddy porn consumers and you wouldn't want to get involved in disputing that, I reckon.

Some "products" should not exist at all.  I include human slavery and primate and whale hunting and captivity in that set.

My arguments above are limited to the set of products necessary for current societies, obviously.  Most of the "products" that should not exist have little to no contribution to pollution, so I did not consider that sort of stuff at all.  (Plus, just because an argument can be misused in some topic, does not mean it is invalid in all topics.)

[Nominal Animal]

Simple solution then. Slap huge tariffs on china!

Well, no; but a sliding scale based on the pollution caused by its manufacture, yes!

Thing is, those tariffs would apply to China and USA.

So take everything china makes for the rest of the world and add the carbon that would have been produced if it were made locally.

You forget, at least in Europe manufacturers have invested A LOT into reducing the pollution, from CO₂ to particulates.  Manufacturing a ton of steel in Europe costs a lot more than manufacturing a ton of steel in China, but would also produce a lot less CO₂.

So, the proper comparison would be to subtract the amount of CO₂ China produces when producing stuff for westerners from China's figures, and add the amount of CO₂ that would have been produced if the same had been manufactured in the west.  Those two amounts are vastly different.

Furthermore, price is a substantial driver.  Since we know the manufacture in the west costs more, the prices would have been higher, and at least some buyers would have chosen different, possibly less polluting alternatives.  How do we account for that?

I was not even talking about their methods. Just the fact that they make stuff for us which means that our emissions are not as low as they seem.

No, you claimed that most of the emissions are caused by the west, and I pointed out it is not true.

That is all i was saying but you had to insinuate and distort!

Be angry at me, but do re-read my points.  I am not distorting, I am trying to get you and others to see that the true picture is wildly different than what everyone, especially media, tells you.  (I also do not insinuate: my English skills are not good enough to hide anything "between the lines".  If you read anything there, I am telling you it is not intended, and is most likely an error on my part.)

It is not difficult to find the underlying truth, and it is not that the west is to blame for pollution; and it is definitely not that the west can alone make a difference here.

In fact, because of US not reducing its emissions at all in the last three decades or so, I'd put them in the same class as China.  Possibly worse, because they certainly have the capital to invest; they have just chosen not to.

Fact we consume a lot and not all of that consumption shows up in our local consumption.

True, but that cannot be changed.  The fairness studies show that people cannot be satisfied when they see anyone else getting something they don't have.  No amount of education or government control will change that.  As long as there is a single human being swimming in opulence, the rest want that too.

(Yeah, you do have small hippie communes, and individuals who forgo the materialistic society, but we're talking about large-scale statistics at the level of countries and states here.)

There are only a few options.  We can decimate the human population.  We can control the manufacture, to limit the pollution generated by the stuff people can want.  We can tax/tariff products whose manufacture pollutes.  We can develop technologies that reduce the pollution generated by manufacture.
Thus far, the last one has happened in the western countries.  The third one was also used in many European countries before EU gained the ability to control import tariffs for the entire union.

We cannot push China and others to do the same as Europe did, because we have no leverage.  Currently, EU cannot even add taxes/tariffs without getting torn to shreds in the WTO (with equivalent counter-taxes/tariffs, negating any effect). 

USA is a big bully, too, having not reduced its emissions any, unlike basically all other western countries, so any push against China would apply to USA as well.  And that is currently politically untenable.

[Simon]

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into.

If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

In the figure Simon showed, not "partly"; completely.  Those statistics are calculated as if the buyer caused all the pollution needed to manufacture the product.

We could discuss what factor between 0% and 100% we could use (I really don't have an opinion, except that it probably is somewhere in the middle and not at either end), but it would become politics really fast, as "free trade" is strictly regulated, and it is near impossible for any single country (except a large one like USA or Russia, or a union like EU) to impose tariffs for products simply because of pollution in manufacture.

erm no, if i buy it i am responsible for all of the CO2 produced in it's manufacture. I really don't get why you want to spit hairs over this! If people did not buy these chinese products they would eventually stop manufacturing them... I dunno... maybe when they just happen to notice they have a warehouse full that is not going anywhere!

it's not a case of blame gaming or politics. It's the simple fact that my goods are not made in my home country therefore if you want to look at the impact that people make individually everything they consume is down to them no matter where it is made. i can't have a stupidly lavish lifestyle and blame all the emmissions on the countries that made my stuff.

[maginnovision]

I think part of the reason attributing CO2 to buyer rather than manufacturer is wrong is that eventually the manufacturer has many many items left over and sells them for whatever they can get. A manufacturer just creating X number of products because they only need to sell 1/8 of them to make a profit is wasteful and not on the buyers of any of them. Not to mention they could use better methods to manufacture and STILL beat european and american produced products costs because the human cost is still lower.

[coppice]

erm no, if i buy it i am responsible for all of the CO2 produced in it's manufacture. I really don't get why you want to spit hairs over this! If people did not buy these chinese products they would eventually stop manufacturing them... I dunno... maybe when they just happen to notice they have a warehouse full that is not going anywhere!

As a customer you can't be fully responsible for the CO2 used in manufacture, as you have no way to know how the goods were produced, and whether a more environmentally friendly method could have used. On the other hand letting your industrial base collapse, and importing all the things that use huge amounts of energy in their manufacture, does not allow you to claim huge improvements in your own CO2 output. Things are complex.

[coppice]

erm no, if i buy it i am responsible for all of the CO2 produced in it's manufacture. I really don't get why you want to spit hairs over this! If people did not buy these chinese products they would eventually stop manufacturing them... I dunno... maybe when they just happen to notice they have a warehouse full that is not going anywhere!

As a customer you can't be fully responsible for the CO2 used in manufacture, as you have no way to know how the goods were produced, and whether a more environmentally friendly method could have used. On the other hand letting your industrial base collapse, and importing all the things that use huge amounts of energy in their manufacture, does not allow you to claim huge improvements in your own CO2 output. Things are complex.

[Nominal Animal]

erm no, if i buy it i am responsible for all of the CO2 produced in it's manufacture. I really don't get why you want to spit hairs over this!

Because that attitude is simplistic, and will not lead to any statistically meaningful change.  It may make you feel better (as if you were carrying your weight), but it matters as much as retweeting or upvoting a social media post: changes nothing.  To you, it is splitting hairs; to me, it is trying to show you that you are concentrating on an irrelevant detail -- your personal behaviour, accepting personal responsibility over something you in fact have very little power over -- while the matter at hand requires an objective look at human behaviour and large-scale statistics.

The underlying issue you are completely missing is that each product can be manufactured in various ways.  The product itself is not the cause for the CO₂ emissions and other pollution; it varies based on the manufacture.  It is the manufacture that generates the pollution, and there are many ways to do it.  Typically, the less polluting ways are slightly more expensive.  Usually, it is the high up-front investment, and not the slightly increased per-product manufacturing costs, that makes it "hard" to justify the added cost.

Current international trade agreements do not allow individual markets to place taxes or tariffs based on the pollution generated when manufacturing the product.  This is a key problem.

You cannot convince people to reduce their standard of living, just to place pressure on manufacturers.  Let's say you get a religious following, and manage that.  Then, you run into politics, and will be quashed.  Just look at how many countries have made the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel illegal.  Whether you think that movement is right or wrong is not material here, the point is that they certainly believe they are morally and ethically right, and are trying to use individual-level pressure to change a state-level actor.

To reduce emissions, you cannot act on a scale smaller than a country or state.  You can blame individuals as much as you like, but fact is, an individual does not have much power over where a thing was manufactured and how -- even for foodstuffs, governments control how much information customers can demand: consider GMO.

Your plan seems to be to convince people to consume less.  That will not work, because it has never worked before, and the fairness tests on monkeys shows that it would not work even on monkeys; it is that deep in us, biological.  Nature, not nurture.  Disagree all you like, but these are the facts we have.

I am saying that the way you want others to interpret statistics -- either per capita, ignoring the fact that individuals cannot really choose whether they pay more for less-polluting manufacture or not, because they have no way to find out the true manufacturing chain and the pollution involved --, or by making assumptions about how much blame to shift, is useless, because it does not help bring about any kind of a solution.
Your argument only confuses the issue, and makes it easier for humans to forgo objective facts, and argue based on emotion.

Emotionally, making people accept responsibility or culpability is a powerful tool, but here, it misdirects people away from true, long-term solutions.

[Simon]

No you have conveniently forgotten this bit where you claimed that the EU emissions was only 9% so we have done our bit. I am pointing out that it is not that simple. the EU emissions are EU located only and do not take into account the manufacturing that takes place outside of the Eu like china. I'm sorry but you have to stop accusing me of "thinngs" that mean i am out of touch. If you in the EU purchase a product the polution created as a consequence of its manufacture is not attributed to the EU. Do you deny this? you have so far. Therefore there is no point in saying nothing we can do.

Why do we purchase mobile phone contracts that "give" us a new phone every year? why do we take those phones even when we don't need them? but it's OK it's all the fault of the country they were manufactured in........

[Nominal Animal]

No you have conveniently forgotten this bit where you claimed that the EU emissions was only 9% so we have done our bit.

No.  I pointed out that EU directly produces 9.57% of the worldwide total.  I haven't claimed that EU has done its bit.  I do believe EU countries having reduced carbon emissions by 19.2% from 1990 should be considered, though.

You claimed west was responsible for most of the emissions.  That is not true, and you seem to be unable to accept it is not true.

I am pointing out that it is not that simple. the EU emissions are EU located only and do not take into account the manufacturing that takes place outside of the Eu like china.

Because at this moment, EU cannot legally affect how China does that manufacturing, I do not believe EU is responsible for those emissions.  I already said I don't have an opinion what the correct factor is, but that it is probably somewhere in the middle.

Even if you use the 0.5 factor, i.e. half of the CO₂ is attributed to manufacturer, and half to the end customer -- the contribution of "the west" to CO₂ emissions is less than 50%.  Remember, China is perfectly capable of curbing the emissions as the technology exists, they just consider it too expensive.  The CO₂ scrubbers are already basically mandatory in Europe; it's just China and the US who consider them too expensive for their businesses.

I'm sorry but you have to stop accusing me of "thinngs" that mean i am out of touch.

Why, because you are a moderator here?  As long as you are wrong and refuse to acknowledge the facts, I will keep pointing them out in an open discussion.

If you in the EU purchase a product the polution created as a consequence of its manufacture is not attributed to the EU.

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions as of 2017 I've linked to at Wikipedia, only accounts for manufacture, not who buys the stuff.

You seem to claim that the manufacturer is never to blame, even if they choose not to use CO₂ scrubbers because they'd cut into their profit margins, and it is the customers who need to carry the burden.  That is what the statistics you linked to, do.  I think that is absolutely insane, because it does not reflect reality, and does not help finding any real-world solutions to the issue.

As I said earlier, if you wish to correctly attribute the CO₂ emissions, you need to split the emissions between the manufacturer and the end user, using a coefficient between 0 and 1.  You insist it is 1, because they buy the stuff, and I keep telling you that is simplistic and does not lead to any kind of solutions; it is an emotive argument that leads nowhere.

You claim I believe it should be 0, but I've already said that I don't know what the factor should be, only that I think it is likely closer to the middle (0.5) than any of the end points (0 or 1).

Even at the 0.5, "the west" accounts for less than half the world's fossil carbon emissions.

Therefore there is no point in saying nothing we can do.

But that's exactly the opposite what I am saying!

I am saying that an individual making "informed choices" about what to buy, is pissing in the wind; even if people do that in the hundreds of thousands, politics will intervene and defuse the little pressure they have.  I provided the BDS movement as an example.

I am saying that political action at the state/country level, say import tariffs based on the manufacture of the products, I believe would make a significant change; and is possible.
I am saying that thus far, advances in technology has saved us, and we haven't killed ourselves yet.
I am saying that humans will never voluntarily reduce their quality of living, to benefit future generations or other people they do not know.
I am saying that even if the worst climate change predictions are true, it will not be the end of mankind and life on Earth; it will just be a slow but thorough change, and probably affect every human being alive in profound ways.
I am saying that if we want to minimize the anthropogenic causes for climate change (CO₂, other greenhouse gases, pollution), we only need to decimate the human population (in the Roman sense, i.e. to somewhere under a short billion), but it would be monstrous.

why do we take those phones even when we don't need them?

I'm on my third cellphone since 1997.  I still have them all in working condition.

Look.  I understand you want westerners to feel guilty for causing most of the pollution and fossile carbon emissions.  I don't know why.  I also know that if you look at the statistics rationally, west directly or indirectly causes say about half, but definitely not most.
Europe has managed to cut almost a fifth of its carbon emissions in the last three decades or so, and now contributes less than one tenth of the total.  That should count for something.
US has the same carbon emissions as it had three decades ago, so they definitely have avoided pulling their weight.
China is growing at an amazing pace, but have thus far refused to seriously invest in cutting pollution.  They've apparently even allowed someone to start manufacturing freons again.  The only way to change this is through international politics.  BDS movements are useless, because before they have any measurable effect, politicians step in and defuse them.

Can't you see?  If you do not want to put all your eggs in one basket and hope that technology will save us, state/country level politics is the only thing where a meaningful change is possible.  Blaming "west", especially Europeans, makes that change less likely (especially considering the decades of emission-curbing investments and efforts), giving those who want to keep polluting to make better profits an easy way out.

[Simon]

I give up and refuse to read a huge wall of text. You don't need to say that much to explain.

[CatalinaWOW]

US is not pulling as hard as some others, but having the same emissions as three decades ago, while having significant economic and population growth is not the same as nothing.  Or maybe we should start whining that the  emissions from the roughly 25 million immigrants over those three decades should be counted against their countries of origin.

As with all big issues it gets really complicated when you look at the details.

[coppice]

US is not pulling as hard as some others, but having the same emissions as three decades ago, while having significant economic and population growth is not the same as nothing.  Or maybe we should start whining that the  emissions from the roughly 25 million immigrants over those three decades should be counted against their countries of origin.

As with all big issues it gets really complicated when you look at the details.

When you consider how much heavy industry has left the US for China, Mexico and elsewhere, and the significant improvements in vehicle consumption, no reduction in CO2 emissions doesn't seem very impressive, even with the population growth.

[hamster_nz]

US is not pulling as hard as some others, but having the same emissions as three decades ago, while having significant economic and population growth is not the same as nothing.  Or maybe we should start whining that the  emissions from the roughly 25 million immigrants over those three decades should be counted against their countries of origin.

As with all big issues it gets really complicated when you look at the details.

When you consider how much heavy industry has left the US for China, Mexico and elsewhere, and the significant improvements in vehicle consumption, no reduction in CO2 emissions doesn't seem very impressive, even with the population growth.

Apparently NZ is well on target to meet Kyoto agreements, which are "5 per cent reduction below 1990 gross emissions for the period 2013-2020"

From the Ministry for the Environment:

We report progress towards the 2020 target in the net position report. New Zealand is on track to meet this target.

Also from the Ministry for the Environment:

In 1990, New Zealand’s net emissions were 34,506.5 kt CO2-e. Between 1990 and 2017, net GHG emissions increased by 22,388.5 kt CO2-e (64.9 per cent) to 56,895.0 kt CO2-e.

Net emissions are after land use changes and other bits and bobs, actual emissions are significantly higher.

There is a lot of creative accounting to convert from the 173% of 1990 levels that it actually is, back to the 95% of 1990 levels that was promised, but if other developed countries do the same it explains the continuing trend in atmospheric CO2 levels even with all this proclaimed political action - at least to me.

The whole "meeting emissions targets" thing seems to be a sham!

[Simon]

US is not pulling as hard as some others, but having the same emissions as three decades ago, while having significant economic and population growth is not the same as nothing.  Or maybe we should start whining that the  emissions from the roughly 25 million immigrants over those three decades should be counted against their countries of origin.

As with all big issues it gets really complicated when you look at the details.

Which is what I am trying to say. As i said in the UK despite increase in population aur electricity consumption has flatlined but! we used to use more electric for heating and our device were not as efficient. As usage has grown so has efficiency. we have peaked and flatlined but we will continue to grow again.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

But don't worry guys, because 30 thousand people from all around the world meet today in Madrid and they're gonna fix it for ya. You pay the party, thank you very much.

Sadly, China and the US of A aren't coming.

[SerieZ]

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into.

If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

In the figure Simon showed, not "partly"; completely.  Those statistics are calculated as if the buyer caused all the pollution needed to manufacture the product.

We could discuss what factor between 0% and 100% we could use (I really don't have an opinion, except that it probably is somewhere in the middle and not at either end), but it would become politics really fast, as "free trade" is strictly regulated, and it is near impossible for any single country (except a large one like USA or Russia, or a union like EU) to impose tariffs for products simply because of pollution in manufacture.

erm no, if i buy it i am responsible for all of the CO2 produced in it's manufacture. I really don't get why you want to spit hairs over this! If people did not buy these chinese products they would eventually stop manufacturing them... I dunno... maybe when they just happen to notice they have a warehouse full that is not going anywhere!

it's not a case of blame gaming or politics. It's the simple fact that my goods are not made in my home country therefore if you want to look at the impact that people make individually everything they consume is down to them no matter where it is made. i can't have a stupidly lavish lifestyle and blame all the emmissions on the countries that made my stuff.

Do you blame the addict or the drug dealer? A question of ethics, maybe?
You seem fail to realize many people do not have a choice, are frugal or are plain Ignorant/Apathetic.

And while we heavily regulate all our Industries and lifestyles it is meaningless while the rest of the world Ignores it.

In my opinion you blame the ones putting the stuff in the Air and not regulating them to obtain an "Unfair" Market advantage not the Consumerist Drones.
Or do you expect you can stop people from buying stupid things?

Put a Climate tax on all Products produced in Countries who fail to meet Climate standards. No more cheap electronics for anyone.

And please stop with the masochism and moralism, thanks.

[BravoV]

What about the "parties" that had dumped CO2 for centuries since the beginning of industrialism era ? 

So just let go, live with it, and let us holding hand in hand, forget the past and sing together ... (rhyming)

Our past mistakes
It is now your responsibilities ...
Yes ..
YOU ...
New comers piss poor dirts from underdeveloped/developing countries ...

 

[SerieZ]

What about the "parties" that had dumped CO2 for centuries since the beginning of industrialism era ? 

So just let go, live with it, and let us holding hand in hand, forget the past and sing together ... (rhyming)

Our past mistakes
It is now your responsibilities ...
Yes ..
YOU ...
New comers piss poor dirts from underdeveloped/developing countries ...

 

PEANUTS compared to what we are shoving out right now.
And then again: You can look at good old US of A and MAYBE the UK.

  But Yeah blame the Europeans for everything while it is the rest of the world who sit in heaps of Garbage due to their Incompetent and Corrupt Government.

What do you suggest? Climate Colonialism and Europe cleans up the ass of the rest of the world? OR people starting to be responsible on their own? 

EDIT: New comers piss poor dirts from underdeveloped/developing countries ...
USA is not piss poor nor is it underdeveloped
China is not piss poor, nor is it underdeveloped
India is mostly piss poor but they also licked blood of the wellbeing

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Put a Climate tax on all Products produced in Countries who fail to meet Climate standards. No more cheap electronics for anyone.

Are you serious?

[SerieZ]

Put a Climate tax on all Products produced in Countries who fail to meet Climate standards. No more cheap electronics for anyone.

Are you serious?

I fail to see the purpose of the question.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Put a Climate tax on all Products produced in Countries who fail to meet Climate standards. No more cheap electronics for anyone.

Are you serious?

I fail to see the purpose of the question.

Easy: do you really believe that would be a good thing? If so, I think you're sick. May I ask how old are you?

[SerieZ]

Put a Climate tax on all Products produced in Countries who fail to meet Climate standards. No more cheap electronics for anyone.

Are you serious?

I fail to see the purpose of the question.

Easy: do you really believe that would be a good thing? If so, I think you're sick. May I ask how old are you?

My Age is absolutetly irrelevant to this oversimplified train of thought I put out.
I do not think a tax patch will be a solution to the Problem no.

Get a grip. 

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

My Age is absolutetly irrelevant to this oversimplified train of thought I put out.

I asked because I see many youngsters nowadays that want to forbid this and that and think that taxing this and that would be a good thing too.

I do not think a tax patch will be a solution to the Problem no.

 

[SerieZ]

My Age is absolutetly irrelevant to this oversimplified train of thought I put out.

I asked because I see many youngsters nowadays that want to forbid this and that and think that taxing this and that would be a good thing too.

I do not think a tax patch will be a solution to the Problem no.

 

What other "Youngsters" (my notion is it certain older demographic who incite this into youngsters) fail to see the absolute pointlessness in self flagelation and masochism over this.

Ok - We revert Europe back to the Darke Ages with 0 carbon Emissions. Now what?
We need to find real solutions, and hey, what if it can also help more people to be lifted out of Poverty at the same time?

I just abhore the Fatalists, the Hysterical Panic Makers (sorry Scientific Consensus is not reflecting a Michael Bay Movie Scenario), the Charlatans who see this very real issue as a backdoor to further their own Agenda... and also the Deniers (I dont think we should overthrow Democracy and Individualism because of those as suggested by some falling into one of the earlier Categories).


Id like to remind everyone that we already tackled a big enviromental Issue (Ozone layer) in the past, we can do it again - with Innovation and Research.
I wonder why the Hysteria was big about it in the 90s but the Celebration so few when the Problem seems solved. 

 

[Simon]

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into.

If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

In the figure Simon showed, not "partly"; completely.  Those statistics are calculated as if the buyer caused all the pollution needed to manufacture the product.

We could discuss what factor between 0% and 100% we could use (I really don't have an opinion, except that it probably is somewhere in the middle and not at either end), but it would become politics really fast, as "free trade" is strictly regulated, and it is near impossible for any single country (except a large one like USA or Russia, or a union like EU) to impose tariffs for products simply because of pollution in manufacture.

erm no, if i buy it i am responsible for all of the CO2 produced in it's manufacture. I really don't get why you want to spit hairs over this! If people did not buy these chinese products they would eventually stop manufacturing them... I dunno... maybe when they just happen to notice they have a warehouse full that is not going anywhere!

it's not a case of blame gaming or politics. It's the simple fact that my goods are not made in my home country therefore if you want to look at the impact that people make individually everything they consume is down to them no matter where it is made. i can't have a stupidly lavish lifestyle and blame all the emmissions on the countries that made my stuff.

Do you blame the addict or the drug dealer? A question of ethics, maybe?
You seem fail to realize many people do not have a choice, are frugal or are plain Ignorant/Apathetic.

And while we heavily regulate all our Industries and lifestyles it is meaningless while the rest of the world Ignores it.

In my opinion you blame the ones putting the stuff in the Air and not regulating them to obtain an "Unfair" Market advantage not the Consumerist Drones.
Or do you expect you can stop people from buying stupid things?

Put a Climate tax on all Products produced in Countries who fail to meet Climate standards. No more cheap electronics for anyone.

And please stop with the masochism and moralism, thanks.

It has nothing to do with masochism or moralism, perhaps you could stop trolling. It's a simple fact of mathematics! while we cannot break down into who did what when goods move between countries there is no point in putting our fingers in our ears and singing lalalalalalala the EU only produces 9.5% we are not ausing any of the other emmissions. If you want to be honest and factual instead of trolling you would admit that the 9.5% is not the whole story. But clearly you could not give a toss about the truth.

I am not blaming anyone or trying to be moral. Just pointing aut a FACT!!!

[Simon]

I just abhore the Fatalists, the Hysterical Panic Makers (sorry Scientific Consensus is not reflecting a Michael Bay Movie Scenario), the Charlatans who see this very real issue as a backdoor to further their own Agenda... and also the Deniers (I dont think we should overthrow Democracy and Individualism because of those as suggested by some falling into one of the earlier Categories).


 

I abhore people putting words in my mouth! i am no fan of the extreme demonstrators either. But I can face facts instead of call people hysteric because I don't agree with them!

[SerieZ]

What Fact? Europeans started Industralisation? Sure - But you know, these people can claim Ignorance as defence. Modern Age people cannot.
You want a real Fact? While European countries are having a down trend in carbon emissions, certain other countries do not, in fact quite the opposite.

Funny you call this Trolling, but I just dont believe in inherited guilt but in looking for Solutions. Maybe with the so called newcomers as well, ...but only when it is on eye level.

[Simon]

yes our emissions reduced as our manufacturing shifted abroad. You really are pulling all the stops out aren't you........

[Simon]

i am not talking about guilt, just statistics, you are the one that keeps attacking me and making me sound like some hippy lunatic.

[SerieZ]

Is it OUR Manufacturing when it is under foreign legislation?
We cannot make regulations abroad (or can we?).  So what do WE do?
Move all our manufacturing back to Europe? We force people to stop buying stuff from Companies who do not comply?
What do YOU suggest (except pretending not to play the pointless blame game)?

In all cases the big badie seems to be Europe, because that just seems the easy way to see things. 

[coppice]

Ok - We revert Europe back to the Dark Ages with 0 carbon Emissions. Now what?

We did not have zero net carbon emissions in the dark ages. The human race's way of life has been unsustainable since agriculture began. Look at historical descriptions of things like the Nile's fertile crescent. It has gone. Most of the ancient areas famed for amazing farming conditions were wrecked before the dark ages. Europe was mostly forest before the middle ages. There are descriptions from the Romans of oak being the great British weed. We cleared most of that, and overworked the resulting farm land. So, when things like guano were discovered they were a relief in the face of falling fertility. Now we rely on the Haber process so much to sustain crop production its estimated that half the nitrogen in your body has been through that process. Most descriptions of primitive people living in harmony with nature are fiction. Only the pure hunter gatherers live with a sustainability comparable to the wildlife around them. From James Watt on we have massively speeded up the crunch point, but if you want things to be genuinely sustainable some very radical things need to happen.

[SerieZ]

i am not talking about guilt, just statistics, you are the one that keeps attacking me and making me sound like some hippy lunatic.

No, you get that very wrong.
I just think you look at this from an wrong angle.

There is another guy in this thread who DID end up in my block list tho.

[Simon]

Is it OUR Manufacturing when it is under foreign legislation?
We cannot make regulations abroad (or can we?).  So what do WE do?
Move all our manufacturing back to Europe? We force people to stop buying stuff from Companies who do not comply?
What do YOU suggest (except pretending not to play the pointless blame game)?

In all cases the big badie seems to be Europe, because that just seems the easy way to see things. 

So you insist on continuing to tell lies. I never suggested any such thing. I simply pointed out that the net contribution of the EU is not consolidated in the EU figure and that emissions in other countries were created in manufacturing for the EU. That simple. i did not blame anyone, I did not propose a solution simply point out 2 pages back now that you can't simply quote the 9.5% officially attributed to the EU as all that the EU causes.

We can't calculate it accurately but we can say that the total amount of emissions caused by the EU is more than the 9.5% that is emitted from within the EU. It's not an opinion, ont an argument just a simple bit of logical deduction that many will agree with.

[SerieZ]

Is it OUR Manufacturing when it is under foreign legislation?
We cannot make regulations abroad (or can we?).  So what do WE do?
Move all our manufacturing back to Europe? We force people to stop buying stuff from Companies who do not comply?
What do YOU suggest (except pretending not to play the pointless blame game)?

In all cases the big badie seems to be Europe, because that just seems the easy way to see things. 

So you insist on continuing to tell lies. I never suggested any such thing. I simply pointed out that the net contribution of the EU is not consolidated in the EU figure and that emissions in other countries were created in manufacturing for the EU. That simple. i did not blame anyone, I did not propose a solution simply point out 2 pages back now that you can't simply quote the 9.5% officially attributed to the EU as all that the EU causes.

We can't calculate it accurately but we can say that the total amount of emissions caused by the EU is more than the 9.5% that is emitted from within the EU. It's not an opinion, ont an argument just a simple bit of logical deduction that many will agree with.

I dare you to point to a LIE I told. 

You are saying that Europeans are to blame that other countries manufacture products which end up for the European Market while conveniently ignoring that these people CAN very well regulate their Market. They do not, why?
I fail to see your point.

You are correct, exact numbers of Guilt are hard to pinpoint and in my opinion absolutely useless to tackle this Issue.

[Simon]

what do you mean they need to regulate their market? whatever you produce will have an impact, depending on how you do it more or less. but the fact remains that for us to have the things we have and WANT we ARE causing more than 9.5% of the emissions.

Tell me where all of your stuff was made, not switzerland I take it. But apparently you are not the direct cause of any of the emissions outside of switzerland that were a result of you "stuff" being manufactured regardless of how good the process was. It's not a case of blame or guilt just a fact that the statistics that you are now abusing cannot and were not meant to relate the information that you claim they do. And in that you are a liar! you are misusing a statistic to say something it is not!

within the EU we emit 9.5% but that is not all of the emissions the EU is a cause of. Simple. i can't figure out a simpler plainer, non emotive, factual way of trying to explain a simple number to you, because you are deliberately misinterpreting the figures.

I had an almost similar argument with a stupid woman on fare book yesterday because she could not get hear head around the fact i was simply sharing information not blaming, not guilt tripping, just explaining how it works. I thought the users of this forum were more intelligent than the average facebook users but apparently they can be less intelligent. She eventually had the sense to shut up so that she did not start to look more and more stupid! Take the hint!

[SerieZ]

what do you mean they need to regulate their market? whatever you produce will have an impact, depending on how you do it more or less. but the fact remains that for us to have the things we have and WANT we ARE causing more than 9.5% of the emissions.

Tell me where all of your stuff was made, not switzerland I take it. But apparently you are not the direct cause of any of the emissions outside of switzerland that were a result of you "stuff" being manufactured regardless of how good the process was. It's not a case of blame or guilt just a fact that the statistics that you are now abusing cannot and were not meant to relate the information that you claim they do. And in that you are a liar! you are misusing a statistic to say something it is not!

within the EU we emit 9.5% but that is not all of the emissions the EU is a cause of. Simple. i can't figure out a simpler plainer, non emotive, factual way of trying to explain a simple number to you, because you are deliberately misinterpreting the figures.

I had an almost similar argument with a stupid woman on fare book yesterday because she could not get hear head around the fact i was simply sharing information not blaming, not guilt tripping, just explaining how it works. I thought the users of this forum were more intelligent than the average facebook users but apparently they can be less intelligent. She eventually had the sense to shut up so that she did not start to look more and more stupid! Take the hint!

Lying and Trolling implies malicious Intent and I recommend you to check yourself before the name calling you have complained yourself about earlier on, especially considering your rather insulting personal anecdote.
(Or don't)

I know where (most) of my stuff comes from, if you believe one second I fail to understand the point you are making... I do not know what to tell you.
Yes, we could and should consume less and smarter, I agree.

I still fail to see how Europeans are responsible for emission caused by other Countries, no one forces them to manufacture for us.
They do because it benefits them.

As a question to you: Do you think the Tobacco Industry should be regulated? Yes or no, and why?

What I would also like to point out is the Trend we are having. Talking about consciousness.
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:CHE:SWE:DEU&hl=de&dl=de#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHE:SWE:DEU:RUS:GBR:CHN:MYS:THA:BRA:IND:USA&ifdim=region&tstart=-286592400000&tend=1417474800000&hl=de&dl=de&ind=false

Btw I have yet to hear about Climate Protest in China, id be delighted.

[Simon]

i give up, so you admit you agreed all along and go back to saying that we are not responsible for the manufacture of our goods because they happen in another country. Which one is it?

No I never said that we are responsible for all of china's emissions. But a proportion of their emissions and in fact the emissions of any other country we buy from are partly attributable to the people they trade with.

In the same way if we sell to china and we do, it may be services but that still means emissions then the impact of what we produce to supply them is attributable to them.

It's really simple. Regardless of where our stuff is made we cause those emissions. Having per country statistics on their own is actually a pointless statistic that is hardly worth making available.

[SerieZ]

i give up, so you admit you agreed all along and go back to saying that we are not responsible for the manufacture of our goods because they happen in another country. Which one is it?

No I never said that we are responsible for all of china's emissions. But a proportion of their emissions and in fact the emissions of any other country we buy from are partly attributable to the people they trade with.

In the same way if we sell to china and we do, it may be services but that still means emissions then the impact of what we produce to supply them is attributable to them.

It's really simple. Regardless of where our stuff is made we cause those emissions. Having per country statistics on their own is actually a pointless statistic that is hardly worth making available.

I do not agree all along, I see where you are coming from (something you refuse to aknowledge and resort to name calling) and I agree we can touch our own noses but emissions are done by certain people/countries and they have the control over how polluting their own Industry is. Fact of the matter, they do not seem to care quite much.
That is also the reason I asked you the question you did not respond to about the Tobacco Industry.

I find it amusing - we take your Money, produce the useless crap you buy from us AND blame you for the CO2 Emissions. Just great Mental Gymnastics all around.
(Kind of an hilarious sort of Geopolitical Gas Lightning).  (US, China and India laughing their asses of till its to late)

We are running in circles here indeed tho...

Edit: I felt the need to add a Disclaimer to the bad joke/analogy - Europe is not a Victim. 

[Simon]

I find it amusing - we take your Money, produce the useless crap you buy from us AND blame you for the CO2 Emissions. Just great Mental Gymnastics all around.

Really, pray please elaborate, why the great mental gymnastics. They don't take our money without us having a choice. Again you are trying to turn something on it's head without reason. by and large someone chooses where to manufacture. If someone came to you and asked you to make something and export it to them would you do it knowing that you are now responsible for the emissions from their stuff being made, would you be happy with it being framed that way? Would you be happy to be blamed for their consumption. things only work one way for you eh? It's completely pathetic and telling that you view is so heavily skewed that if the boot were on the other foot I bet you would change your mind......

(Kind of an hilarious sort of Geopolitical Gas Lightning).  (US, China and India laughing their asses of till its to late)

We are running in circles here indeed tho...

But we still choose to use these countries knowing that their manufacturing processes are not as they would be if made locally. So we know they do this and we don't care. And we still want to blame them fore our emissions.

You obviously want to have your cake and eat it, or have a drunk wife but still a full barrel of wine. I am afraid that you have no valid points to make. You want the benefit but to blame someone else for them. And you are misusing statistics just like a politician......

[Marco]

Individuals don't act environmentally consciously and collectively we are limited by WTO and trade agreements. We can cut our own throats by voting to go faster than Paris agreements, but all that does is ship more manufacturing to Asia. We can not force them to cut emissions faster within the framework of multilateralism.

[CatalinaWOW]

Individuals can act responsibly.  And it would be a far better solution than the coercive power of government.  I guarantee that no one will be happy with the coercive solutions.

There is even evidence that individual action will become common with younger generations.  The actions are simple and easy.  Use less.  Refuse to buy non-repairable items.  Recycle (which includes all the nasty sorting and cleaning which is non economic to do at industrial scale.) Have fewer children.

In spite of that evidence I don't really see us (anyone, the US, Europe, the world) doing this the easy way.  Coercive methods are coming.  Whether it is the governments or the environments that are doing the coercion.

[Simon]

Individuals can do litle on their own, but all idividuals changing their behaviour will make a difference. I repeat my example above. Many people are on fixed cost phone contracts and no sooner have you paid for your phone your provider offers a "free" upgrade or slightly before you have paid it off to make sure you stay locked in with them. Who really needs to change their phones this quickly? why do they take the contracts and upgrades. I use my phone as a phone and for limited web activity. I don't need a new phone ever 18 months. I buy the phone outright, use it as long as I can and shop for the best sim deal i can get. My current one is a very good deal. So in that respect i have made a difference. If everyone did that it would be significant and the same with everything else.

I think carefully before buying anything. I buy the best I can get with a view to it lasting and keep it as long as i can.

[Marco]

Have fewer children.

This is dangerous with replacement migration from underprivileged cultures. The replacements consume just as much, but they won't contribute to innovation any time soon and it will take a while for consumerism to wear thin for them too. Which first world culture does best at recycling? The most homogenous and xenophobic one ...

Individuals can do litle on their own, but all idividuals changing their behaviour will make a difference.

Most won't absent the kind of social pressure modern liberal societies are increasingly unable to impose.

Without some kind of NWO to force the world, we aren't going to move much faster than Paris. The US will probably get back to Paris once there is a democratic majority/president. A couple European nations will cut their own throat, but that will just displace manufacturing and accomplish little. Other than that, not much will happen. In theory a hard left United States could unilaterally force an advanced schedule, they are still the most important market in the world after all. I don't think any democrats really have the balls though.

[Simon]

Most won't absent the kind of social pressure modern liberal societies are increasingly unable to impose.

I know, it's called the me, me, me culture. Have to keep up with the joneses and keep up appearances. I just don't see the need for waste. I don't miss having a new phone every year. I prefer to keep the one i have as long as possible and save me having to keep setting up new phones.

[SerieZ]

I find it amusing - we take your Money, produce the useless crap you buy from us AND blame you for the CO2 Emissions. Just great Mental Gymnastics all around.

Really, pray please elaborate, why the great mental gymnastics. They don't take our money without us having a choice. Again you are trying to turn something on it's head without reason. by and large someone chooses where to manufacture. If someone came to you and asked you to make something and export it to them would you do it knowing that you are now responsible for the emissions from their stuff being made, would you be happy with it being framed that way? Would you be happy to be blamed for their consumption. things only work one way for you eh? It's completely pathetic and telling that you view is so heavily skewed that if the boot were on the other foot I bet you would change your mind......

(Kind of an hilarious sort of Geopolitical Gas Lightning).  (US, China and India laughing their asses of till its to late)

We are running in circles here indeed tho...

But we still choose to use these countries knowing that their manufacturing processes are not as they would be if made locally. So we know they do this and we don't care. And we still want to blame them fore our emissions.

You obviously want to have your cake and eat it, or have a drunk wife but still a full barrel of wine. I am afraid that you have no valid points to make. You want the benefit but to blame someone else for them. And you are misusing statistics just like a politician......

So far you have called me:

• Troll
• Liar
• Emotional
• Facebook Idiot
• Dishonest

All the while circling what I am trying to convey.
I think the conversation is over as you are not even trying but to insult me.

I am amazed you are a global Moderator here.

[Simon]

You are free to believe what you like. And this is the problem. it is all about belief not fact. You just won't accept anything but what you want to believe. When I present sensible arguments you just twist my words. Anyone else doing this to anyone else would have been banned for trolling! As it's off topic I let it go, do this in another thread and you will get banned anyway. You run out of arguments and call me a bully. Good luck.

[SerieZ]

You are free to believe what you like. And this is the problem. it is all about belief not fact. You just won't accept anything but what you want to believe. When I present sensible arguments you just twist my words. Anyone else doing this to anyone else would have been banned for trolling! As it's off topic I let it go, do this in another thread and you will get banned anyway. You run out of arguments and call me a bully. Good luck.

I understand your point and I account for the facts and I do NOT twist your words, you just claim so without a shred of evidence.
You do not engage my argument and then You retort to insults because you lack comprehension and believe yourself smarter than you actually are.

Good Luck to you as well.

[dietert1]

Yesterday i watched a youtube interview with Stefan Rahmstorf, who is a scientist in climate studies for 30 years. He seems to be a friendly person, who does not talk very much about himself or other people.

He talks about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and that it contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 3 meters. He says that ice may be lost already. The loss is a progressive process that nobody can stop once it has passed a certain "trip point". He also talks about Greenland and its ice, enough to raise sea levels another 7 meters. He mentions that in the past they estimated cost of protection measures and found that any rise more than 1 m will force people to leave certain coastal areas. He also explains how ridiculous is the idea to build farms of snow cannons to produce more ice there. You'd also require lots of wind generators to feed the snow cannons. That's all nonsense, it can't be done. He also says that getting the 10 m sea level rise may take several hundred years.

The link is (sorry, in german)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wprwhgg8SO4&feature=youtu.be&t=3193

Now - just to illustrate the problem - the US approach seems to be: Let's wait. When it really happens we can build a 20 m high wall around New York. Yes, true. New York will then be under sea level. Now remember what happened in Fukushima. Such ideas are extremely risky. Others would say stupid.

Regards, Dieter

[Simon]

David Atenborough explained it in an interview the other day. Politicians will not do anything that will make a difference after their term in office. The effect has to be felt tomorrow.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Yesterday i watched a youtube interview

I also watched a video, 20 years ago, by an IPCC climate change scientist, that said that all that ice would be melted by now. But it isn't.

[coppice]

David Atenborough explained it in an interview the other day. Politicians will not do anything that will make a difference after their term in office. The effect has to be felt tomorrow.

This is a key reason why Hong Kong grew so well under British rule from the 1960s until the British left in 1997. The Hong Kong government were long term people, with long term goals, but behind it was a democratic government in London that couldn't allow the Hong Kong government to do anything too outrageous. It worked for them, but its not a reproducible structure. The only long term plans you get under 4 or 5 year term governments are grandiose unfunded fluff, like "We will return to the moon", or "We will go to Mars". Everything else has to produce material returns by the time the next election comes around. So, you see things becoming shorter and shorter term even as those 4/5 year cycles progress.

[Simon]

Yesterday i watched a youtube interview

I also watched a video, 20 years ago, by an IPCC climate change scientist, that said that all that ice would be melt by now. But it isn't.

But the ice is melting, the general projection was correct but he misjudged the time scale.

Weather prediction is exactly the same but I don't hear anyone calling weather predictions junk science because they often don't nail it to the second. As a balloonist colleague tells us, you can predict reliably what will happen but when is harder as a change in wind speed will change the time the rain arrives at. You know for certain it will rain come, but when is less certain.

So you don't mind that predictions about what will happen in a week are not accurate but you call a prediction bullshit because it was over a 30 year time scale and they did not nail it exactly?

[PlainName]

I don't hear anyone calling weather predictions junk science because they often don't nail it to the second

BBC/Met Office predictions usually failed to nail it to several days not so long back. Seems to be better now they (the BBC) have changed supplier. Actually, thinking about it, they've been pretty spot on the last month or so. Nevertheless, their rep needs a serious boost.

You know for certain it will rain come, but when is less certain.

Yep, that bit's easy. Is it warm and dry? I predict it will turn cold and wet. Sometime. Or is it raining? Soon, it will be sunny.

Easy peasy, no science involved

[dietert1]

Sorry, the claim that scientists did not predict there are limits of growth is complete nonsense. Predictions that all ice will have melted by now were made by whom? References please, Mr. GeorgeOfTheJungle.

And yes, it's difficult to predict the future. Much easier for an animal who doesn't think too much as long as the sun shines. All my respect is  with those who face the facts we know without fear and i think control will be taken by those who at least try to understand and moderate the future.

Regards, Dieter

[Marco]

He also says that getting the 10 m sea level rise may take several hundred years.

African population doubles every 30 years ...  the kind of changes man kind goes through on those timescales makes sea level rise in isolation almost irrelevant.

[golden_labels]

African population doubles every 30 years ...  the kind of changes man kind goes through on those timescales makes sea level rise in isolation almost irrelevant.

And soon it will reach quadrillion people, 10000 persons per square meter! Just like general human population growth was predicted by some isolated folks who made exponential curve fitting on poor data and reached media.

Except it is not. African population exponential growth with the doubling period of 30 years has been observed for… 60 years in mid 20th century. The exponential trend was broken in Q4 of 20th century and, while it still experiences higher growth than developed countries, it is falling. As expected! It’s nothing new: the very same phenomenon has been observed in currently developed countries earlier and seems to be merely an artifact of changing shape of age structure and decreased child mortality — not by some constant phenomenon that will remain for unspecified time. Yes, an artifact; its source lies in how measurements are taken and misinterpretation of their meaning. The population count is not taken at some specific age, but is a total of all ages. Which means that if population members suddenly start to live longer, they will greatly inflate the count without any actual change to the number of members at young age.⁽¹⁾ As it happened to every country in history. Africa and SE Asia are just late compared to Europe or North America, and because those regions receive all the benefits of progress in shorter time, the effect is much more compressed in time than it was for currently developed countries — taking decades instead of a century or two. But it’s demise is also quicker. And… it is already observed! You think that Africa’s population is getting bigger outside the effect of people living longer? Surprise! The fertility rate is falling for over 3 decades now. The negative feedback is kicking in, exactly as predicted.

So do not panic. Just avoid listening to people, who did curve fitting in Excel without any consideration of reality, went with this “research” results to media and got promoted by ignorant journalists, who are always hoping to attract readers with sensational news. Or published a “truth revealing” book etc.
____
⁽¹⁾ Note: the current numbers are not caused only by that. But this is the factor responsible for making the growth look so extreme.

[Simon]

sadly all it takes is the slimest of a fact to make a news story. Now they have retracted the advice about meat being bad for you. I think this was a case of the scientific community trying to correct the mess the media made when they trumpeted that meat gave you cancer when all the research said that of the tiny chance you had of getting cancer that tiny percent was 20% greater when you eat meat.

[dietert1]

This thread is about global melting of ice, that's not "the slimest of a fact". Now you may consider ice as "weak". Next "weak" are thousands of species of animals. Next "weak" are humans in Africa and SE Asia. They are/will be victims in all this.

The characteristics of the Holocaust was industrial extinction. It was invented in Germany in Europe. Climate change is caused by industries and their consumers. For example industrial meat production. If you look up the numbers they are just unbelievable.

Regards, Dieter

[Simon]

I was simply explaining that we have a problem with how facts are conveyed and twisted.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Twisted yes, by pseudo scientists. For example, even if all the CO2 in the atmosphere were black particles that could absorb and retain every joule coming from the sun, it would take 6.5 years to raise the atmosphere's T by one degree C.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

The characteristics of the Holocaust was industrial extinction.

Currently there isn't any holocaust on going, JFYI, but it's the second or third time you spew "holocaust" gratuitously in this thread. Are you a jew with a fixation or you think that's cool or you perhaps feel somehow guilty of being a german or what's the problem? Please stop it. David Irving has nothing to do with global warming either. What's wrong with you?

[Simon]

Twisted yes, by pseudo scientists. For example, even if all the CO2 in the atmosphere were black particles that could absorb and retain every joule coming from the sun, it would take 6.5 years to raise the atmosphere's T by one degree C.

1C per 6.5 years? so you admit it is going up? you even know by how much. Shall we wait 6.5 years and then call bullshit on you if it's only 0.95C?

[Marco]

And soon it will reach quadrillion people, 10000 persons per square meter! Just like general human population growth was predicted by some isolated folks who made exponential curve fitting on poor data and reached media.

My point wasn't to paint population explosion as a more likely doom scenario. My point was that over the course of 100 years human population and its distribution changes so fundamentally that anguishing about coastline change on that timescale is kinda silly. It's a drop in the pond.

[Simon]

Coastline "change" will not be the problem. We will have less land unless we start to dam everywhere which has huge risks in itself.

[Nominal Animal]

I have been replying to this,

The problem is that it is the west causing most of the emissions.

with a "No, even if you account half of China's emissions to the west, for manufacturing products west buys, the west is accountable for less than half of the worldwide emissions".

Next, Simon claims

I simply pointed out that the net contribution of the EU is not consolidated in the EU figure and that emissions in other countries were created in manufacturing for the EU. That simple. i did not blame anyone, I did not propose a solution simply point out 2 pages back now that you can't simply quote the 9.5% officially attributed to the EU as all that the EU causes.

Stop lying.  You claimed "most of the emissions are caused by the west".  It is not, and you don't want to admit you are wrong; instead, you're now twisting your words as if you had claimed something completely different.

I did show that according to the Wikipedia List of countries by CO₂ emissions, EU countries emitted 9.57% of total worldwide fossil CO₂ emissions in 2017, as part of showing that the sum of EU+Russia+US≃28% of the total, counting only the local production, not accounting for trade.

In a later post, the one that was too long (too devastating to Simon's lies, rather), I explained that even if you shift half of China's emissions to the west, the total (for western countries) would be less than 50% of worldwide total.  So, I am not claiming that that EU countries only account for 9.57%, I am saying that that is the base figure, with 19.5% reduction since 1990.

There is no way to "massage" the statistics to support Simon's unfounded claim that the west causes most of the emissions on this planet, he just refuses to acknowledge this, because it hurts his self image as a person who "does his part" for saving the world.

My wall of text tries to show how irrelevant such gestures are, and change nothing in the long term.  Something completely different is needed to make an actual impact.  However, even if we fail to make a difference, it is likely that developments in tech will save the planet.  But it will then be tech, not self-aggrandizing people like Simon, who are willing to lie to keep their sanctimonious self-image.

You should really be ashamed of yourself, Simon.  As a moderator, you should hold yourself to a higher standard than others; instead, you lie, and for what?  For an argument that has no basis in any facts.  And calling others liars!  You should apologise to them.
(I don't matter; in my estimation, based on your behaviour in this thread and elsewhere, you're a self-centered idiot.  I initially liked you a lot, and it took a while for your true nature to show itself.)

The west simply does not cause most of the worlds emissions; more like "somewhat less than half", with the exact amount of "somewhat" being up to discussion.

[golden_labels]

My point wasn't to paint population explosion as a more likely doom scenario. My point was that over the course of 100 years human population and its distribution changes so fundamentally that anguishing about coastline change on that timescale is kinda silly. It's a drop in the pond.

But there is no population explosion and there is no reason to think there will be one in any foreseeable future, while changes to coastline are expected and are likely. In fact they may be of not high concern, they are a portion of a larger problem. One can’t deny the whole issue just because it consists of many smaller parts, each of them being relatively unimportant when considered separately. By extending that faulty logic any genocide should be considered unimportant, because each time it was merely between one and a dozen people dying if considered separately. And if a Kickstarter swindle-startup is going underwater, will you claim there is no problem as long as they send notifications about that to each supporter separately, because it is only one person losing their money in a scam?

[Marco]

There has been one for the past half century. Though the second derivative on global population might be down again the first is still much higher than pre-WW2. Absent some huge meteor striking the earth, I don't think climate change will ever cause the same rate of per capita land/water resource reductions as population growth has done in that time.

[coppice]

But there is no population explosion and there is no reason to think there will be one in any foreseeable future

The world's population has doubled in my lifetime. What is your threshold for declaring population growth an explosion? There are signs that world's population will stabilise over the next few decades, but its definitely going to grow quite a bit from its present level, just based on the effects of the large decreases we have seen in severe poverty.

[golden_labels]

The world's population has doubled in my lifetime. What is your threshold for declaring population growth an explosion? There are signs that world's population will stabilise over the next few decades, but its definitely going to grow quite a bit from its present level, just based on the effects of the large decreases we have seen in severe poverty.

The answer is in the post to which Marco was responding. Plus what are you describing is referring to the past growth, while the discussion is about possible future growth.

Though the second derivative on global population might be down again the first is still much higher than pre-WW2.

Have you even read my response? What would fuel positive second derivative in your opinion, given it was a one-time event that caused it temporarily to go high (and then go down, which has already happened)? And how could it stay positive… which would imply unbounded, accelerating growth despite all the negative feedback, including missing resources? Over-unity device somewhere?

[Marco]

Lets just say the second derivative holds for a while, then population decline will increase per capitate land/water resources far faster than climate change can on the same timescales ... still a drop on the pond.

[golden_labels]

I can’t see any explanation of what will cause that second derivative to go considerably positive again, not to mention staying positive. That was a single event that has kicked it up for a moment, after which it was countered by negative feedback as expected. It’s not something that can simply happen again, as the phenomenon is non-repetitive in its nature. So what is going to cause that and why would that something happen?

[SiliconWizard]

Although the growth rate of the world population shows signs of future decline, and seems itself not sustainable anyway, this is still relatively hard to predict accurately, mainly because many factors can influence it, and some of those are simply unknown for the future.

The current estimations that look reasonable tend to show that we're going to reach at least 10 billion people between 2050 and 2100. After that, they show it's going to slowly settle, but this is just based on assumptions that may not hold true in 2100.

Anyway, is 10 billion already problematic or not?

If I take a look at what seems real figures for oceans level rise, it doesn't seem possible that any major city will get underwater by 2100. This is still a pretty low rising rate, not a spectacular one.

So which of the two is going to cause the most problems by 2100 - I don't frigging know. Probably the world's population though. Again assuming that 10 billion will cause major issues, which I don't know (but it's certainly not going to help our global consumption of limited resources, unless we drastically reduce them, something that sounds cute for the die-hard greenies, but that is just not realistic: the majority of people that will represent those 10 billion will be people that already consume a lot less than the others, and they're just not going to accept consuming even less. Let's get real.)

[PlainName]

Probably the world's population though

Unlikely - it is self-limiting. And climate change will do for it too. OTOH, the chance that we'll all work together to deal with climate change is zero. At least, until it's too late.

[coppice]

The world's population has doubled in my lifetime. What is your threshold for declaring population growth an explosion? There are signs that world's population will stabilise over the next few decades, but its definitely going to grow quite a bit from its present level, just based on the effects of the large decreases we have seen in severe poverty.

The answer is in the post to which Marco was responding.

No it isn't.

Plus what are you describing is referring to the past growth, while the discussion is about possible future growth.

Past growth programs in a lot of future growth, unless some disaster wipes out a lot of people. We seem to be programmed for a peak of at least 10 to 11 billion people, even if birth rate trends continue down. We will probably be able to feed that number, by massive increases in fertiliser production. However, that will consume a lot of fossil fuels, just making the CO2 issues worse.

[coppice]

If I take a look at what seems real figures for oceans level rise, it doesn't seem possible that any major city will get underwater by 2100. This is still a pretty low rising rate, not a spectacular one.

There is a lot of nonsense written about sea level rises. The rise to date has been quite small. Anyone who simply listens to extreme rhetoric about how the sea is rising, and looks at the rising to date, may get the impression they are being lied to. However, most of the ice which has melted so far has been ice that was floating on the sea. If Antarctica starts to seriously melt, and dump new water into the ocean, that is when we would see a serious rise in ocean levels.

[dietert1]

Permanent ice in European Alps is largely gone and the permanent frost in the stone became a seasonal frost that puts structural stability at risk. And as far as i remember the first glacier on Greenland was declared dead this year. The temperature rise in Siberia is melting enormous areas of permafrost soil, liberating additional Methane. Methane is very strong greenhouse gas. So we are already in a chain reaction.

I think it isn't up to people on the street to decide whether enough global ice has melted. If you want to wait for a majority in the western countries to feel hurt by climate change, it will be much to late. Scientists say: If our generation is unable solve the problem of stopping industrial CO2 emission by mid or end of this century, future generations will already be so weak and suffer so much that they will rather commit suicide, e.g. by starting wars over planetary resources. Human civilization will not decay after all ice melted, which will result in an estimated see level rise of 165 m by the way.

Regards, Dieter

[CatalinaWOW]

Permanent ice in European Alps is largely gone and the permanent frost in the stone became a seasonal frost that puts structural stability at risk. And as far as i remember the first glacier on Greenland was declared dead this year. The temperature rise in Siberia is melting enormous areas of permafrost soil, liberating additional Methane. Methane is very strong greenhouse gas. So we are already in a chain reaction.

I think it isn't up to people on the street to decide whether enough global ice has melted. If you want to wait for a majority in the western countries to feel hurt by climate change, it will be much to late. Scientists say: If our generation is unable solve the problem of stopping industrial CO2 emission by mid or end of this century, future generations will already be so weak and suffer so much that they will rather commit suicide, e.g. by starting wars over planetary resources. Human civilization will not decay after all ice melted, which will result in an estimated see level rise of 165 m by the way.

Regards, Dieter

It is up to people to decide how to respond to this.  There is some scientific uncertainty about whether the scenario you describe has already gone beyond the point of no return or not.  If it has, it is foolish to spend money trying to put the genie back in the bottle.  The money is better spent figuring out how to most gracefully deal with the results.  In either case I find the idea of defending current coastlines foolish.  Bangladesh may have to be abandoned.  Horrible, and horribly expensive.  But better than spending huge sums on dams, scrubbers and the like and then abandoning it anyway.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

And yes, it's difficult to predict the future. Much easier for an animal who doesn't think too much as long as the sun shines. All my respect is  with those who face the facts we know without fear and i think control will be taken by those who at least try to understand and moderate the future.

[dietert1]

Yes, i think i have my house in order. Ten years ago we spent about 50K in photovoltaic generators instead of buying a new car. The monthly return roughly compensates all we spend on electricity, natural gas, water and gasoline, so i think there is a rough balance. At least we tried. We also had to buy two air conditioning units recently for the office and lab to be productive during summer. This summer both units have been running continuously for about six or seven weeks. 2018 it was more like three months. So that balance may change rapidly.

I find that comment about becoming prime minister by "improving the personal career" very stupid, since nowadays prime ministers can do little about industrial CO2 emissions. What will happen if somebody decides to block all imports of fossil fuels and all its derivatives like plastic? The fate of Greta Thunberg and her followers is decided during the next 10 or 20 years. All those aged 50 and above should think very carefully. They will sooner or later find themselves in the hands of those angry young people. They won't just take away your car. It can turn into a real mess.

Regards, Dieter

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

The fate of Greta Thunberg and her followers is decided during the next 10 or 20 years.

There's no way to prove that => it's a theory (or a belief?). Do not state it as fact.



The facts are: 1) thanks to FF we all now live much better than ever 2) We can't stop burning FF because we need the energy 3) Nobody knows what to do when we run out of FF 4) it isn't a political problem because we don't know yet what the solution is going to be, and 5) None of the hundreds of thousands of very well paid public money sucker employees that pretend to be working the problem, e.g. the +30 thousand attending the UN climate summit in Madrid this week, is going to fix a thing, just see what they did in Paris:

All those aged 50 and above should think very carefully. They will sooner or later find themselves in the hands of those angry young people. They won't just take away your car. It can turn into a real mess.

The true disaster will be when we finally begin to run out of FF if we've not yet found a proper substitute, not the AGW.

[Marco]

It is a political problem.

Resource wise going full electric with either PV+wind turbines+PHES OR tons of nuclear is feasible. It will take obscene amounts of labour and natural resources to begin with, but we have enough of both. The problem is redirecting it without triggering economic collapse and WW3 in the process.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

But that's already happening, look, Dieter for example has put PVs on his roof because he has his own roof to put them in and could pay for them, but it's not as easy everywhere for everybody, it's expensive and you can't double or triple the price of the energy, and you can't force everybody to buy a new (EV) car, and also not everything can run off electricity. To be optimistic: it's already happening albeit slowly.

[SiliconWizard]

We also just need to look at realistic figures as to how going fully electric for everything really lowers CO2 emissions (and additionally, doesn't emit other nasty stuff and/or consume scare resources). Because for the time being, a few studies seem to show otherwise.

[dietert1]

Yes, i believe in science and engineering more than in anything else. If anybody stands up and says the complete scientific community is wrong in climate studies, that's very silly.

I remember well when they stopped the breeder reactor project in Kalkar in Germany in 1991 after spending more than seven billion Deutsche Mark. Almost thirty years ago and for me it marks a turning point. Until then everybody thought humans can do what they want - e.g. go to the moon - and technology will solve all problems of mankind, like nutrition, energy etc. Nowadays we know better and we have to be very careful.

Regards, Dieter

[Marco]

you can't double or triple the price of the energy

If we were obedient peons and we just needed to be fed, sheltered and transported to our jobs and we had some AI direct resources optimally and globally you could increase it by far far more.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Yes, i believe in science and engineering more than in anything else. If anybody stands up and says the complete scientific community is wrong in climate studies, that's very silly.

[dietert1]

Today i understood something about climate change. If we want to reduce CO2 emissions during the next 20 or 30 years, we can do something now. If we continue to sell cars that run on gasoline, the owners will drive them and burn fossils for another 10 or 15 years. If we sell heating installations for houses based on natural gas or diesel, their owners will use them and burn fossils for another 30 years.
This consideration demonstrates the importance of shutting down sales of technical equipment based on burning fossils. Introducing the electric car would be a good beginning. Shutting down sales of fossil based equipment will take time, too. So, as long as that won't even start, we know that our governments are unable/unwilling to take care.

Regards, Dieter

[coppice]

Today i understood something about climate change. If we want to reduce CO2 emissions during the next 20 or 30 years, we can do something now. If we continue to sell cars that run on gasoline, the owners will drive them and burn fossils for another 10 or 15 years. If we sell heating installations for houses based on natural gas or diesel, their owners will use them and burn fossils for another 30 years.
This consideration demonstrates the importance of shutting down sales of technical equipment based on burning fossils. Introducing the electric car would be a good beginning. Shutting down sales of fossil based equipment will take time, too. So, as long as that won't even start, we know that our governments are unable/unwilling to take care.

Regards, Dieter

Some people like to complain that industry isn't moving fast enough, without thinking through the reasons things change at a certain pace. If you tried to equip the whole planet with the kinds of electric cars being built in the last 10 years, you would quickly run out of some key raw materials. When industry talks about the reducing costs of batteries, and the need for them to get even cheaper to become a mass market, what lies behind that is an unsustainable demand for key materials in the existing designs. Tesla has changed its batteries quite a lot in the last 10 years, mostly reducing the scale of the materials problem, but what is usually reported is just that their batteries are getting cheaper. There is equivalence here.

[Marco]

Today i understood something about climate change. If we want to reduce CO2 emissions during the next 20 or 30 years, we can do something now. If we continue to sell cars that run on gasoline, the owners will drive them and burn fossils for another 10 or 15 years. If we sell heating installations for houses based on natural gas or diesel, their owners will use them and burn fossils for another 30 years.
This consideration demonstrates the importance of shutting down sales of technical equipment based on burning fossils. Introducing the electric car would be a good beginning. Shutting down sales of fossil based equipment will take time, too. So, as long as that won't even start, we know that our governments are unable/unwilling to take care.

I've seen environmentalists make this argument about replacing polluting coal power plants with less polluting ones and they do have a point. Once you have a spiffy "clean" coal powered plant, you're going to use it till the end of its working life. We have plenty of old equipment we can patch up for decades, it might be slightly dirtier than the newest fossil fueled equipment ... but just patching them up is cleaner than building new.

Gas turbines could conceivably be converted to run on hydrogen from power to gas storage though ... so the equation is foggier there, if that's where we are going then starting to move now is helpful.

[dietert1]

Yes, i wrote that shutting down sales of fossil fuel using equipment will take time, too. Anyway that's the action to start with.

With regard to the slow introduction of electric cars: In Germany a senior scientist (Prof. Schuh) in Aachen founded a factory for small electric cars (e.Go mobile). They were meant to be delivered at the end of 2018. Then Volkswagen entered into the project to "help" and nothing happened. This year Volkswagen presented their own concept of an electric car, but i haven't seen a single one on the streets. I guess, as long as they are allowed to sell fossil based cars, they won't sell electric cars.

And it's not only about cars, it's about ships, airplanes whatsoever. For example the latest "action" of the German government did not even mention trucks. A real shame. Maybe being forced to buy an electric car will keep existing cars in operation some extra years, which will also be a good thing to reduce CO2 emissions. Maybe some people won't be able to afford an electric car and use public transportation instead. I noticed that for new private homes in Germany the majority now have electrical heat pumps instead of burning natural gas.

About patching existing equipment: I think that sooner or later gas stations will disappear and owning a fossil burning car will be something like a special hobby. Like owning a cathode ray based scope.

Regards, Dieter

[PlainName]

With regard to the slow introduction of electric cars

They've only recently become viable, and even now aren't suitable for many purposes. You can't expect things to swap over in 6 months, so it will always be a slow start and gather momentum over time. Once technology improves them some more and/or people make allowances or figure the pluses outweigh the practical disadvantages, more of them will be shifted. Once we hit the long tail (which could be a long way off) it then becomes feasible for the governments to start making it disadvantageous to use fossil-fuel vehicles.

[coppice]

This year Volkswagen presented their own concept of an electric car, but i haven't seen a single one on the streets.

What VW presented this year is the ID3, which is supposed to be in pilot production now, but won't be on sale until Spring or Summer 2020 when they say they will have their supply lines operating in volume. If you haven't seen any VW electric cars on the streets, perhaps you haven't been looking. They don't sell in huge numbers, but the e-Golf and the e-Up and been in production for some time now. I think they were mostly developed as compliance cars for California, but they do sell in Europe.

[m12lrpv]

LOL this thread is insane.

Thunderf00t did a couple of great videos recently about the true numbers regarding climate change, man's contribution to it, what true impact there is and what can really be done about it.

It should be mandatory viewing because it ignores the political, "religious" and fantasy based hysteria of climate change and deals with the facts particularly in regards to meaningful action to "reverse" it.

[PlainName]

It should be mandatory viewing

If it's anything like his normal videos, only in penal institutions as non-marking punishment.

[coppice]

It should be mandatory viewing

If it's anything like his normal videos, only in penal institutions as non-marking punishment.

Isn't that cruel and unusual punishment?

[coppercone2]

can they refreeze by launching their missiles to cause nuclear winter? the method presented is convoluted for no reason. The technology appears to already be on the shelf

classic case of not knowing the market

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Thunderf00t did a couple of great videos recently [...] It should be mandatory viewing because it ignores the political, "religious" and fantasy based hysteria of climate change and deals with the facts particularly in regards to meaningful action to "reverse" it.

I've watched this one:



He claims 1W/m² of warming due to CO2/AGW, but with those numbers, it would take only 1.4 years (*) to increase the atmosphere temp by 1ºC. Shirley shumthing is wrong because that's clearly not happening. And the not happening part is the problem, because what the data we have tells us is that the problems the models predict don't exist, and that's been being the norm since the 90's, year after year and model after model of bogus theories from the IPCC.

The reason why TF is a believer is that as everybody knows very well, in every university around the world, if you want your piece of the Climate Change budget pie, to keep getting funds for your projects you better be a believer.

(*) Warming power 1.13e14 Watts, mass of the atmosphere 5.11e15 tons, specific heat 1.012 J/ºk/g =>

5.11e15*1e3*1e3*1.012/1.13e14/60/60/24/365.25 = 1.4 years.

[BravoV]

can they refreeze by launching their missiles to cause nuclear winter? the method presented is convoluted for no reason. The technology appears to already be on the shelf

classic case of not knowing the market

You mean like your president that want to nuke a hurricane to stop it ? 

[coppercone2]

can they refreeze by launching their missiles to cause nuclear winter? the method presented is convoluted for no reason. The technology appears to already be on the shelf

classic case of not knowing the market

You mean like your president that want to nuke a hurricane to stop it ? 

would you prefer america wastes money on a contract to put fly swatters on submarines instead? its efficient to use nukes in this case

[coppice]

Thunderf00t did a couple of great videos recently [...] It should be mandatory viewing because it ignores the political, "religious" and fantasy based hysteria of climate change and deals with the facts particularly in regards to meaningful action to "reverse" it.

I've watched this one:



He claims 1W/m² of warming due to CO2/AGW, but with those numbers, it would take only 1.4 years (*) to increase the atmosphere temp by 1ºC. Shirley shumthing is wrong because that's clearly not happening. And the not happening part is the problem, because what the data we have tells us is that the problems the models predict don't exist, and that's been being the norm since the 90's, year after year and model after model of bogus theories from the IPCC.

The reason why TF is a believer is that as everybody knows very well, in every university around the world, if you want your piece of the AGW budget pie, to keep getting funds for your projects you better be a believer.

(*) Warming power 1.13e14 Watts, mass of the atmosphere 5.11e15 tons, specific heat 1.012 J/ºk/g =>

5.11e15*1e3*1e3*1.012/1.13e14/60/60/24/365.25 = 1.4 years.

The extra heat doesn't just heat the atmosphere. Most of the heat seems to be going into the ocean right now, although the land of obviously heating up too.

[dietert1]

Yes, and Superman will protect the USA, Australia and Brazil from global heating. Thunderf00t must be his uncle and this afternoon he will explain to the President what it's all about. Holy ...

Regards, Dieter

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

(*) Warming power 1.13e14 Watts, mass of the atmosphere 5.11e15 tons, specific heat 1.012 J/ºk/g =>

5.11e15*1e3*1e3*1.012/1.13e14/60/60/24/365.25 = 1.4 years.

The extra heat doesn't just heat the atmosphere. Most of the heat seems to be going into the ocean right now, although the land of obviously heating up too.

With that power it would take 1536 years to elevate the oceans' temp by 1ºC: Oceans volume 1332000000 km³, specific heat 4 J/ºk/g, density 1028 kg/m³ =>

(1332000000*1e3*1e3*1e3*1028*1e3*4)/1.13e14/60/60/24/365.25= 1536 years.

[Kilrah]

Maybe being forced to buy an electric car will keep existing cars in operation some extra years, which will also be a good thing to reduce CO2 emissions. Maybe some people won't be able to afford an electric car and use public transportation instead.

You're suggesting people would somehow just accept not being able to afford personal transportation as if it was nothing. No way in hell, you'd be starting a revolution and the government who led to that would end up in jail or shot down...

Something like this will never work unless it's smooth. The smooth transition is on the way and has been for a decade, but it'll take another 2 before it can really happen without public outcry.
People don't want change, so people who will bring it are those who were bathed into the whole matter since they were kids. When those kids are 30 and can start pushing things the way that's been hammered into their head since they were born then you'll get some change. By then the old farts who've had it their way for their whole life and would not change a thing ever will be retired and not have a say anymore, and those in the middle who aren't so partial to any will follow the change as long as it's smooth enough.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

We old farts understand unlike millenials and all sorts of snowflakes and cry babies that fossil fuels are what makes the world go round, but are finite and won't last forever. Millenials instead are focusing on problems they imagine that don't exist and only know to scream "How dare you!!". It isn't climate change what's going to kill you idiots, it's the lack of energy when you run out of FF.

[SiliconWizard]

Well, at least they keep advocating using electricity for EVERYTHING, but as I repeatedly say, we don't have reasonable means of generating that much electricity worldwide to replace all fossil fuels, and again since we're generally tending towards less nuclear than more, we have a serious issue. Are they seriously considering covering the whole Earth with PVs (kindly ignoring the cost AND associated pollution to manufacture) or are they waiting for the miracle generator that never seems to come? Or are they just screaming in the wind?

[Marco]

I propose rolling out flexible thin film PV across entire deserts, we don't need the whole world, with an angled cushion behind it filled with PU foam on installation. All panels having Integrated inverters using planar transformers and going straight up to medium voltage to minimize copper use.

This should keep required natural resources to a minimum, still requires staggering amounts ... but we use staggering amounts of natural resources to begin with. The resource use is on scale with our current civilization. First generation probably won't be made from renewable resources, but with enough energy and enough time we can fix that.

PS. this obviously won't solve storage problems.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

IIRC, at less than 100W/m², you'd "only" need an area of PVs equivalent to Saudi Arabia to generate enough energy for the whole world. The maths are somewhere here in another thread. But that's not the best solution. Nuclear power is cheaper and only requires an infinitesimal of that area, and works 24/7 (at night too). You're also going to need synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, because airplanes can't fly on batteries.

[coppice]

IIRC, at less than 100W/m², you'd "only" need an area of PVs equivalent to Saudi Arabia to generate enough energy for the whole world. The maths are somewhere here in another thread. But that's not the best solution. Nuclear power is cheaper and only requires an infinitesimal of that area, and works 24/7 (at night too). You're also going to need synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, because airplanes can't fly on batteries.

You know, the Arab countries don't just have the most oil, they have the most sunlight too. If they put enough effort into the project, they might be able to get PV power in such quantities that it could run inefficient CO2 + H20 -> liquid fuel processes at a scale where it powered the whole world, while being carbon neutral.

[PlainName]

where it powered the whole world

There is no way, even with imminent heat death approaching, that The World would allow the Saudis to hold it to ransom. For any single country, there will be a significantly powerful other country that would literally do anything to prevent such a scenario. The only way this could be pulled off if is the target country was taken over by a world conglomeration, and that's never going to get traction either

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

You know, the Arab countries don't just have the most oil, they have the most sunlight too. If they put enough effort into the project, they might be able to get PV power in such quantities that it could run inefficient CO2 + H20 -> liquid fuel processes at a scale where it powered the whole world, while being carbon neutral.

  Imagine!

There is no way, even with imminent heat death approaching

Much sooner than that you're going to be in much more serious trouble, running out of FF.

[dietert1]

The claim that we have an urgent problem with supplies of fossil fuels instead of global warming is nonsense. On the contrary: Melting arctic ice will yield access to more fossil fuels. Global enterprises are already starting projects to get there. Russia has also been much more present in the northern seas than the years before. I think Russia is the one sole country on this planet that may eventually profit from a little global warming ("geo forming"). They have really huge areas that may become a little more friendly to humans with global warming. This year we have already seen large areas in Siberia burning, which may be a first indication of exploration by humans. The problem is that you can't have "a little global warming".

The idea that fossil fuels keep the world moving is a sad mistake, too. The collateral damages of burning fossil fuels are so bad that it needs to be stopped as soon as possible. CO2 is similar to water: It won't go away for millions of years - with one exception: Enough green plants are left to recycle CO2 into oxygen binding the carbon. Which has not been the case for decades now.

By the way: Norway bought more electric cars in 2018 than cars burning carbon fuel. About 30 % electric-only, about another 20 % with hybrid technology. The money comes from? Stealing fossil fuels in the northern seas and selling them to others.

Regards, Dieter

[coppercone2]

BP, Shell and Exxon are 'building better world(s)'

some people really want more bikini babes

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

The idea that fossil fuels keep the world moving is a sad mistake, too.

What's very sad is that clearly you have no idea what you're talking about.

The collateral damages of burning fossil fuels are so bad that it needs to be stopped as soon as possible

Only in your imagination. E.g., it takes an idiot or an ignorant or a brainwashed alarmist to believe that the sea levels have to be what you'd like them to be. You know it's been changing all the time, but you think you can stop it now when only 12 thousand years ago it was 120 metres lower and one could go walking in a straight line across the English channel, or the Baltic sea from Poland to Sweden. Newsflash! It's going to keep rising no matter what you do. And then there will be another glaciation and... Newsflash! It's going to descend again hundreds of meters. Sorry but that's what mother nature has got for you.

[coppice]

The idea that fossil fuels keep the world moving is a sad mistake, too. The collateral damages of burning fossil fuels are so bad that it needs to be stopped as soon as possible. CO2 is similar to water: It won't go away for millions of years - with one exception: Enough green plants are left to recycle CO2 into oxygen binding the carbon. Which has not been the case for decades now.

A world with 8 billion people is the collateral damage of burning fossil fuels. Take away the fossil fuels, without sufficient renewables or nuclear to replace them, and we'll soon be back to the kind of world population we had before 1769 (when Watt patented the practical steam engine).

By the way: Norway bought more electric cars in 2018 than cars burning carbon fuel. About 30 % electric-only, about another 20 % with hybrid technology. The money comes from? Stealing fossil fuels in the northern seas and selling them to others.

The Norwegians financed those electric cars by selling huge amounts of oil. Its not a coincidence than a country with huge government revenues from fossil fuels is the one place that has enough spare cash to drive an electric car revolution at a time when those cars are still very expensive.

[dietert1]

It's nonsense to believe that the "rapid" changes seen during the last 100 years can be attributed to natural processes. Those processes are a factor 1000 slower (at least). Those are the lies of 20 years ago. Nowadays, everybody who wants to know can learn about these things.

We had that discussion before: In this case, when the lives of 3 billion people are at risk, this kind of confusion cannot be tolerated. Just two days ago we heard that currently there are roughly 70 million refugees in the world, people who had to give up their previous lives. This is roughly twice the head count of humans killed during WW II (including the Holocaust). I am not saying that all this mess is caused by global warming, but a large part is. Just look up where whose refugees dwell.

Anyway, if fossil fuels are a scarce resource, another reason to stop using it for fun. There will be new rules.

Regards, Dieter

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

It's nonsense to believe that the "rapid" changes seen during the last 100 years can be attributed to natural processes. Those processes are a factor 1000 slower (at least). Those are the lies of 20 years ago. Nowadays, everybody who wants to know can learn about these things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect#Earth

Earth
See also: Runaway climate change
Early investigations on the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on the runaway greenhouse limit found that it would take orders of magnitude higher amounts of carbon dioxide to take the Earth to a runaway greenhouse state.[7] This is because carbon dioxide is not anywhere near as effective at blocking outgoing longwave radiation as water is.[4] Within current models of the runaway greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide (especially anthropogenic carbon dioxide) does not seem capable of providing the necessary insulation for Earth to reach the Simpson-Nakajima limit
[...]
A re-evaluation in 2013 of the effect of water vapor in the climate models showed that James Hansen's outcome would require ten times the amount of CO2 we could release from burning all the oil, coal, and natural gas in Earth's crust

[thinkfat]

You should not quote Wikipedia out of context. Yes, a runaway greenhouse effect LIKE ON VENUS is unlikely to be caused by burning of fossil fuels. That doesn't mean that it will be business as usual for humankind if we just keep going.

[Marco]

The problem is the world is unstable as hell to begin with. Paris handed out unlimited carbon usage to the third world as a roundabout redistribution scheme because it was the preferable alternative to war.

Real politiks drive slow peddled carbon reduction, but in between all the lies around those political decisions corruption festers. It would be better if we could all just be honest ... so we could divide unsavory decisions taking for stability, such as letting the third world use carbon emission as competitive advantage, from the truly unnecessary corrupt stuff like western harvested bio-fuel. Also we could examine whether pacifying China with wealth is really working or whether another cold war would be preferable at this point.

Instead we get denials from the right and mostly empty or even counterproductive value signalling from the left. Peons shouldn't be bothered with the truth it seems ... but unfortunately when you present them with only lies they won't necessarily pick the lies you want at the ballot box.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

You should not quote Wikipedia out of context. Yes, a runaway greenhouse effect LIKE ON VENUS is unlikely to be caused by burning of fossil fuels. That doesn't mean that it will be business as usual for humankind if we just keep going.

Say peoplekind, suits you best.

Sigh. "We only have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe" and runaway greenhouse effect is out of context? You guys can't stop moving the goalposts?

[Kilrah]

Just becasue a runaway is unlikely doesn't mean there are no other detrimental effects we'd better avoid.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Just becasue a runaway is unlikely doesn't mean there are no other detrimental effects we'd better avoid.

June 30, 1989
"U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked"
https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control

[Bud]

that currently there are roughly 70 million refugees in the world, people who had to give up their previous lives. This is roughly twice the head count of humans killed during WW II (including the Holocaust).

And i thought the refugee crisis was triggered by frau Merkel saying something stupid.

[Marco]

I am not saying that all this mess is caused by global warming, but a large part is. Just look up where whose refugees dwell.

Population growth where those refugees dwell has had orders of magnitude bigger impact on local resources than climate change ... as I said, the world is unstable to begin with. Climate change is a problem with potentially large moment, but as far as magnitude goes it's so far behind the comma pretending it's relevant is naive or dishonest.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Climate change is a tall tale to steal your money. And they're doing it very well.

[hamster_nz]

Climate change Christmas is a tall tale to steal your money. And they're doing it very well.

FTFY

[PlainName]

It would be sensible not to attribute made-up quotes to someone like that. If you're going to modify it, at least highlight your changes. Better would be to remove his name from the quote.

[hamster_nz]

It would be sensible not to attribute made-up quotes to someone like that. If you're going to modify it, at least highlight your changes. Better would be to remove his name from the quote.

Yes, correct, sorry, done.

[PlainName]

Good man 

[dietert1]

Slow as it is coming, human made climate change is still to rapid for many. Sometimes even scientists appear to be surprised how it develops. Like they were surprised by the Fukushima accident. Maybe those were engineers, not scientists. Or managers without any knowledge in nuclear energy.
Looks like the Australian government was recently caught by surprise, too. Just saw a photo showing wildfires raging close to Sydneys water supply installations.

Regards, Dieter

[coppice]

Like they were surprised by the Fukushima accident. Maybe those were engineers, not scientists. Or managers without any knowledge in nuclear energy.

I think you may be confusing public statements with actual human emotional responses. Nobody building these half baked nuclear systems is ever actually surprised when a blantantly dumb design decision they had no veto over leads to tragedy. Any genuine surprise will be that it took so long for a problem to really bite them.

[dietert1]

That's what i meant: Stupid decisions taken by people who should not be in a position to take decisions, nor to influence other people at all. I know that many engineers and scientists are confronted with this problem and i think not being part of something is better than being part of something catastrophic killing hundreds or thousands of people.
I was told that all civil engineers involved in the Brumadinho dam disaster (which killed about 300 people) are out now, most of them unable to continue their previous lives, even with medical help, due to journalists in front of the sites. They were well trained professionals who relied on promises made by Vale managers, which were never fulfilled.

Regards, Dieter

[donotdespisethesnake]

Only in your imagination. E.g., it takes an idiot or an ignorant or a brainwashed alarmist to believe that the sea levels have to be what you'd like them to be. You know it's been changing all the time, but you think you can stop it now when only 12 thousand years ago it was 120 metres lower and one could go walking in a straight line across the English channel, or the Baltic sea from Poland to Sweden. Newsflash! It's going to keep rising no matter what you do. And then there will be another glaciation and... Newsflash! It's going to descend again hundreds of meters. Sorry but that's what mother nature has got for you.

Much as I hate to concede anything to deniers, you have a point. If we can't cope with 1-2m of sea level change, how would we cope with 120m? It's notable that many cultures have "flooding myths", but they probably are based on real flooding events that took place since the last glaciation. But the good news there is that humans have broken the Ice Age; there won't be another glacial period for several million years. Phew!

Of course, Global Warning is far from the only or biggest threat humans face, whether artificial or natural. In order to survive longer than a few thousand years, humans will have to become an intentional species. It is no longer enough just to "let things happen" because the consequences of our combined actions are too great. In the long term, we would need to manage the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere to achieve a stable climate. There are thousands of other pollutants to manage as well. Can you imagine the international cooperation to achieve that? No, nor can I.

We need to have a much more redundant civilization to survive serious disasters. When something like Yellowstone pops, that is going to cause a global disaster. Our attitude to that? That probably won't happen so we don't need to worry about it. After a lorry drivers strike in the UK which lasted only a few weeks, we were close to collapse. "Three meals from anarchy"  is probably not far off the mark.

I think advanced human civilization has probably peaked. We'll probably muddle on for a few hundred years or so, but the collective wisdom required to address the issues will always be lacking. The fundamental issue is that we are exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth ecosystem, which is obviously not sustainable. The only two options are fewer people or a lower standard of living, both of which are anathema bordering on taboo subjects. Technology will not save us. We will get to find out what a post-apocalypse world will look like.

While the world literally burns, the world's superpowers are squabbling over domestic politics.

I suspect we also have an answer to the Fermi paradox. For any advanced civilization, there will be an extended period with a high risk of self-extinction before that civilization becomes wise and motivated enough to exercise proper self-control. Once the easy to access mineral resources are gone, there is no second chance. You can't travel through space with windmills.

tldlr; we are doomed anyway, so don't worry.