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Only last statement on my last journal which became a C-fuck
11 years ago
So that journal got to the point where that was just a ton of bickering, which is fine, I didn't expect that but I didn't not expect that. I would continue with it but my cat died and it put me in a bit of a funk and I just can't do it and I don't care to do it right now.
Once I got my web of science subscription and piggy back access to a university library archive years ago when I embarked on a nearly 3 year learning project about the subject of climate change, one of the ways as a skeptic I learn things is to argue with and fact check contrarian claims against the only real reliable source of information in a matter of science, the scientific body of literature. There got to a certain point when I debunked all their claims and just haven't really heard any new ones since, so I'm just not that interested in arguing about the subject that much, in part because I no longer have access to all the scientific journals like I used to and the people I argue with generally don't even know how you get that access. But also my desire for knowledge on the subject isn't really served by it anymore (I still read the popular denialist blogs though here and there.)
So, this is the only thing I'm gonna say and I probably won't reply to this either for the reasons I mentioned above. It will probably piss some of you off. I don't give a shit. I will TRY to keep this as short as possible.
To me it's pretty fucking depressing that this can be a contentious issue at all and frankly, it being one is a UNIQUELY American phenomenon in the developed world. It just is, and as an American I find the culture of anti intellectualism and extreme lack of science literacy extremely embarrassing. Some people accused me of ridicule and yes I get pretty dickish on this subject and I will ridicule people if I feel they're ridiculous, here's why it bothers me so much and for the record this was NOT my opinion or reaction before i spent 3 years educating myself from the only place one should ever learn about this subject or ANY subject of science. This is why I snap at people on this subject.
If you are adamantly against the scientific consensus of anthropogenic global warming and are convinced that every single person virtually who has devoted their life to studying the subject going back to 1861 when John Tyndall discovered the short wave infrared insulating properties of the carbon dioxide molecule, is wrong, quite simply, you don't know a fucking thing about the subject. You CAN'T know a fucking thing about the subject because the ONLY reliable source of information on any matter of science is the body of scientific literature and the instrumental record, and there is virtually ZERO support, I mean a fraction of a fraction of a percent in this almost two centuries of exhaustive accumulation of data and tireless study in all developed countries of the world that supports the denialist position (Project Consensus is the most concise of MANY meta analysis of the body of literature. The consensus is undeniable.....period).
This can mean the denialist can only be basing their opinion on one or more of a few things. A "gut feeling.", a smattering of outlying papers with poor citation indexes by scientists doing poor research who also have poor citation indexes often published in pay to publish or poor journals, or erroneous information from denialist blogs, mostly funded by petroleum industry funded "think tanks" who use the same tricks of cherry picking data points and misrepresenting good papers over and over again I can't fathom how people fall for it (Anthony Watts I'm looking at you.), and of course, politicians and pundits who don't know a fucking thing about the subject either.
Because I now know that the denialist position can only be arrived at by the aforementioned, combined with extreme credulity and the fact it's literally the most important challenge facing us as a species since we just barely made it out of Africa (Keep in mind climate change already drove us to the brink of extinction once before.) if you're a denialist (Yes. This is a pejorative term.) I hold your position beneath contempt. As beneath contempt as I can hold virtually any position and your position is so pervasive only in America because the media handles you with kid gloves for fear of alienating up to 35% of their audience and one particular media outlet has a complete conflict of interest as does the party they represent. THere are so many reasons I hold your position as far below contempt I couldn't even name them all but here's a good one.
What we have are us, dwellers of the first world living a comfortable life in a stable infrastructure that creates this problem as a byproduct and we're preventing action because of sheer ignorance or complacency due to our comparatively high level of comfort. The people who will suffer the most from this are not us. They're the third of the world living on the edge of perpetual starvation who have no infrastructure or safety net to fall back on. People who can only just hope that they can catch a fish or two out of the rising, acidifying ocean to eat and get enough water to make it through the next week and not get dysentery out of the drying up communal well fed by an aquifer that's about to be intruded on by saltwater from that rising ocean and will be undrinkable and useless for crop irrigation. The same sea level rise so many laughingly refer to as the pending explosion of new beach front properties will physically displace and ruin the drinking aquifers of millions of coastal residents all over the world. In north east Sudan you don't sit on your new beach front porch with the bottle of water you bought at 7-11. You die and your family dies because there is nowhere to go and you don't even have the resources to get there if there was somewhere for you. Our military is already making plans to deal with the explosion of 3rd world conflicts anticipated to break out due to massive coastal displacement and wars over simple drinking water. These are human beings who don't have the internet, who don't even know what's already happening, who won't see it coming, who don't have the resources to live past age 50 let alone uproot their entire families and set out for some strange land on foot that doesn't want them there anyways.
These people all over the world are not contributors to this very real problem, they're going to be crushed underneath it. This is going to happen because a minority percentage of one country of people who have comparatively everything, who per capita are contributing the most to this problem either don't want their utility bill to go up 25 dollars a month or don't believe the problem exists because they can't be bothered to look at it objectively. The rest of the world has been really clear that the United States has to lead the way because we contribute so much and have allowed this minority percentage to empower half our two party system to deadlock this issue for decades till the other day which was a tiny step. So that's why I don't treat you if you're one of that minority percentage with kid gloves, you need to be slapped and wake the fuck up because you're holding back our species as a whole by keeping this position politically viable in the one country that has to get the ball rolling but won't.
This truly is THE most daunting and serious challenge of our species, once again, in it's history and never have so few held so many back. If you're one of this few I don't even know what to say anymore. It's exasperating but I am, and rational people should be done with the bullshit neutrality bias nonsense that this issue has been treated with. Your position is RIDICULOUS, meaning deserving of ridicule. Anybody who thinks they should be entitled to their own facts on something this important is ridiculous. If you ridicule the last kid on the bus that still believes in Santa Clause, it's a safe bet he will probably look at that belief objectively sooner or later. Well 35% of the American population are officially the last kids on the bus who believe in Santa and I'm not going to act otherwise.
Once I got my web of science subscription and piggy back access to a university library archive years ago when I embarked on a nearly 3 year learning project about the subject of climate change, one of the ways as a skeptic I learn things is to argue with and fact check contrarian claims against the only real reliable source of information in a matter of science, the scientific body of literature. There got to a certain point when I debunked all their claims and just haven't really heard any new ones since, so I'm just not that interested in arguing about the subject that much, in part because I no longer have access to all the scientific journals like I used to and the people I argue with generally don't even know how you get that access. But also my desire for knowledge on the subject isn't really served by it anymore (I still read the popular denialist blogs though here and there.)
So, this is the only thing I'm gonna say and I probably won't reply to this either for the reasons I mentioned above. It will probably piss some of you off. I don't give a shit. I will TRY to keep this as short as possible.
To me it's pretty fucking depressing that this can be a contentious issue at all and frankly, it being one is a UNIQUELY American phenomenon in the developed world. It just is, and as an American I find the culture of anti intellectualism and extreme lack of science literacy extremely embarrassing. Some people accused me of ridicule and yes I get pretty dickish on this subject and I will ridicule people if I feel they're ridiculous, here's why it bothers me so much and for the record this was NOT my opinion or reaction before i spent 3 years educating myself from the only place one should ever learn about this subject or ANY subject of science. This is why I snap at people on this subject.
If you are adamantly against the scientific consensus of anthropogenic global warming and are convinced that every single person virtually who has devoted their life to studying the subject going back to 1861 when John Tyndall discovered the short wave infrared insulating properties of the carbon dioxide molecule, is wrong, quite simply, you don't know a fucking thing about the subject. You CAN'T know a fucking thing about the subject because the ONLY reliable source of information on any matter of science is the body of scientific literature and the instrumental record, and there is virtually ZERO support, I mean a fraction of a fraction of a percent in this almost two centuries of exhaustive accumulation of data and tireless study in all developed countries of the world that supports the denialist position (Project Consensus is the most concise of MANY meta analysis of the body of literature. The consensus is undeniable.....period).
This can mean the denialist can only be basing their opinion on one or more of a few things. A "gut feeling.", a smattering of outlying papers with poor citation indexes by scientists doing poor research who also have poor citation indexes often published in pay to publish or poor journals, or erroneous information from denialist blogs, mostly funded by petroleum industry funded "think tanks" who use the same tricks of cherry picking data points and misrepresenting good papers over and over again I can't fathom how people fall for it (Anthony Watts I'm looking at you.), and of course, politicians and pundits who don't know a fucking thing about the subject either.
Because I now know that the denialist position can only be arrived at by the aforementioned, combined with extreme credulity and the fact it's literally the most important challenge facing us as a species since we just barely made it out of Africa (Keep in mind climate change already drove us to the brink of extinction once before.) if you're a denialist (Yes. This is a pejorative term.) I hold your position beneath contempt. As beneath contempt as I can hold virtually any position and your position is so pervasive only in America because the media handles you with kid gloves for fear of alienating up to 35% of their audience and one particular media outlet has a complete conflict of interest as does the party they represent. THere are so many reasons I hold your position as far below contempt I couldn't even name them all but here's a good one.
What we have are us, dwellers of the first world living a comfortable life in a stable infrastructure that creates this problem as a byproduct and we're preventing action because of sheer ignorance or complacency due to our comparatively high level of comfort. The people who will suffer the most from this are not us. They're the third of the world living on the edge of perpetual starvation who have no infrastructure or safety net to fall back on. People who can only just hope that they can catch a fish or two out of the rising, acidifying ocean to eat and get enough water to make it through the next week and not get dysentery out of the drying up communal well fed by an aquifer that's about to be intruded on by saltwater from that rising ocean and will be undrinkable and useless for crop irrigation. The same sea level rise so many laughingly refer to as the pending explosion of new beach front properties will physically displace and ruin the drinking aquifers of millions of coastal residents all over the world. In north east Sudan you don't sit on your new beach front porch with the bottle of water you bought at 7-11. You die and your family dies because there is nowhere to go and you don't even have the resources to get there if there was somewhere for you. Our military is already making plans to deal with the explosion of 3rd world conflicts anticipated to break out due to massive coastal displacement and wars over simple drinking water. These are human beings who don't have the internet, who don't even know what's already happening, who won't see it coming, who don't have the resources to live past age 50 let alone uproot their entire families and set out for some strange land on foot that doesn't want them there anyways.
These people all over the world are not contributors to this very real problem, they're going to be crushed underneath it. This is going to happen because a minority percentage of one country of people who have comparatively everything, who per capita are contributing the most to this problem either don't want their utility bill to go up 25 dollars a month or don't believe the problem exists because they can't be bothered to look at it objectively. The rest of the world has been really clear that the United States has to lead the way because we contribute so much and have allowed this minority percentage to empower half our two party system to deadlock this issue for decades till the other day which was a tiny step. So that's why I don't treat you if you're one of that minority percentage with kid gloves, you need to be slapped and wake the fuck up because you're holding back our species as a whole by keeping this position politically viable in the one country that has to get the ball rolling but won't.
This truly is THE most daunting and serious challenge of our species, once again, in it's history and never have so few held so many back. If you're one of this few I don't even know what to say anymore. It's exasperating but I am, and rational people should be done with the bullshit neutrality bias nonsense that this issue has been treated with. Your position is RIDICULOUS, meaning deserving of ridicule. Anybody who thinks they should be entitled to their own facts on something this important is ridiculous. If you ridicule the last kid on the bus that still believes in Santa Clause, it's a safe bet he will probably look at that belief objectively sooner or later. Well 35% of the American population are officially the last kids on the bus who believe in Santa and I'm not going to act otherwise.
Most times denialists play the weather card (strangely on the cold days), versus understanding the concept of climate.
Reading through the last journals replies was an "interesting" exercise.
The thing that scares me is the human respecting fellow human is in many cases a facade (just a veneer with no substance). People make insular decisions for a short term benefit at the issue of others(ie Not in my backyard) or future generations. The cost of energy may rise for alternate production means, so people don't want to pay it, even though the long term is having issues with finite resources and access to said resources (ie. fracking), will have a high cost monetarily and socially (poisoning water supplies etc).
I'll leave this commentry at a very high level, as the detail would be pages of reasoning behind simple statements.
They're:
1. Any mention of Al Gore whatsoever. I'm pretty sure most denialists think Al Gore invented the idea of climate change or has anything to do with it whatsoever, because he doesn't really. All he did was make a powerpoint presentation of the scientific consensus at the time, which has changed almost not at all other than been reinforced by other independent teams with their own data/proxies/models. THese not only don't know how science is done and who does it, they don't even know what science IS.
2. "But we can't even predict the weather!." We can to a certain extent. That has shit all to do with climate.
3. Climategate. This gets me the worst because theres nothing even the tiniest bit dishonest or deceptive about any of those emails, just nobody has bothered to read them. Classic case of quote mining for the gullible. A pdf with all 25,000 pages of the EAU emails is extremely easy to find and wordsearch to read the "smoking gun." emails in context. Ask them what a dendrochronological proxy and they're be like "A whut?". Heck, even if they were evidence of anything even slightly deceptive....that's one little university.
4. "You liberals changed the name to climate change from global warming!.". Ironically it was a republican strategist that popularized this in the general public. Fuck if they can be bothered to google that claim though. Also, he now not only believes in anthropogenic climate change he desperately wants his party to do something about it.
5. "Carbon dioxide is plant food!." Yes. So is cow shit. We don't want to dump millions of gigatons of cowshit into our atmosphere just like we don't want to dump millions of tons of it into our water...which we're doing btw. Nitrate poisoning and algae blooms ftw.
6. "A single volcano puts out more co2 then the entirety of human civilization put together!." This is the stupid that happens when you get your science information from a banker who makes a youtube video. A 5 second glance at the body that monitors volcanic emissions will show you that the biggest eruption since the instrumental record began by a large margin released about a 35th as much co2 as we produced in 2011 alone. It's double stupid because volcanoes actually lower global temperature, not raise it haha.
7. "Mars is warming! Are martians driving around hummers up there?!" Yes...all planets have their own climate systems.
8. "The climate changes all the time!." Yes. almost every single time thanks to carbon dioxide. It takes thousands of years, not 80 years. "Plagues used to happen all the time!." Good point. Fuck antibiotics!
9. "The scientists are all greedy and paid off!." Lol I have two in my family, one's a neuro scientist. A scientist is lucky if they can make 40k in a year. They're in their early 40's and still have to room with other scientists because they can't afford their own apartments. Shit, miss out on one decent grant and you're moving in with your mom for a few months. Would love to know what fucking organization somehow secretly got more money than the fossil fuel industry and what mechanism they use to super duper secretly funnel it to every single earth scientist on the planet.
10. "THe science isn't in on whether man is causing it!" When i was chronologically working my way up through the hallmark studies in the literature, I stopped seeing papers even debating what the cause is in like the early 80's late 70's and even then they weren't so much debating it but debating how much of it was us due to a poor understanding of the carbon budget. There's a debate whether man is the cause in science like theres a debate in biology whether things have "evolved" or not.
I realised there was not much money in science post my degree, and many of my colleagues went on post completion did not get extravagent high paying jobs(including PhD students). There is minimal romantacism when it comes to science, and if you choose to do it as your career you generally have to have a massive passion for it. I have met some rather inspirational people in the science sector, who I've had the honour of working with.
Debating denialists is like debating flat earthers at this point. There is no point, it's almost equally as absurd. If you want to debate this seriously, get your education and get published and by all means I would love to read your research and the peer response to it. I only humored the yahoos because at one time, I didn't know any better and I learned by investigating factual and non factual claims. I frankly haven't heard an original denialist claim in quite some time.
Can't wait to see no decrease in costs of power etc if(it doesn't seem like it will be passed the senate) the tax is lifted.
The point is to stop the pollution. How about, cut your fucking emissions, we'll give you reasonable leverage on time and method to achieve this so you can do it. If you DON'T, we shut your fucking power plant down and fine the living shit out of you.
Switching to a totally new infrastructure from one that is ancient and well established isn't going to be the easiest thing ever and I got nothing against mitigating through subsidization the issues that might arise out of it.
I had a cat who passed on a few years ago. He was 18, which was also very good for a cat. He survived two strokes, though the first one left him blind in one eye, and eventually in both. He was a bit of a special needs cat because he and his brother were rescued (among others) from a bag of kittens that were left to drown. His dummy antics only made him sweeter though.
What it comes down to is money, I think. We wont be motivated to do anything until we are so threatened that extinction is almost certain, because we are not willing to try to adjust the way we live. This is where a dictatorship is so lovely... a despot can say Thou Shalt Buy Electric Cars, and inform the car companies that they will no longer be producing fossil-fuel cars as of a certain date.
Our enlightened society is not very enlightened, sadly
Nu-hu
"Well sir you say falling off this cliff will kill me. I respect your opinion on this whole 'gravity' thing but I have my own. I will however see you at the bottom."
I doubt i am on this particular subject but it wouldn't be the first time.
I heard on NPR an interview with a mayor from somewhere in I think Ohio who was whining about how climate legislation would hurt the coal industry and I have zero fucking sympathy. They had decades where they could have been preparing for this and all they did was stall and lie and pretend like there wasn't a problem.
Or if we delayed vaccines because the crutch industry would be hurt by nobody getting polio anymore.
That argument seriously just doesn't gel with me.
As it stands, the top three coal companies are losing money hand over fist for the simple reason that they have run out of cheap coal to mine.
[1] Although they also have problems sticking with fossil fuels. Even if fracking was delivering the reserves its boosters were claiming[3], it would still be losing on long-term costs.
[2] Both coal mining and coal-fired generation have large amounts of externalities. These include things like the tens of thousands of people killed each year by coal plant emissions and how a large chunk of West Virginia may have to be abandoned because is it becoming uninhabitable, (no potable water).
[3] It's not even close.
It's not as if people in the US are strangers to using things that cost more then they are worth. We still stick ethanol in our gasoline even though it's cost exceeds it's worth.
How the top 4 US coal companies did in 2013:
Peabody: $286M loss for continuing operations, (discontinued operations had ongoing costs of another $226M).
Arch Coal: $641M loss
Alpha Natural Resources: >$1B loss
Cloud Peak: $52M profit
All four have shown a loss in 2014 Q1.
Remember that US mines aren't the only source. US mines increasing their price simply costs them market share.
And since he's a lawmaker from texas, I believe him!
I suppose tidal power will cause tsunamis (but oil spills don't affect coastlines At All), geothermal power will cause earthquakes (but fracking doesn't), solar power will actually reflect the sun's light into space, causing an ice age, and nuclear power will cause World War III, too?
Oh and how? The GOP managed to make this a political issue instead of a scientific one. Ironically the guy that pulled this off, a former GOP strategist now not only accepts anthropogenic climate change but he desperately wants his party to act to stop it.
And my contentious angry rant is that climate change denial is a little bit like Holocaust denial. The only reason anyone wants to deny the Holocaust happened is that it gives them a reason to hate and murder Jews. The only reason anyone wants to deny anthropogenic climate change is happening is that it gives them a reason to keep doing business as usual until things have been completely changed beyond any point of salvage. So why go through all the effort, why not skip the middleman in both cases and be honest about being a vicious jackass?
I guess it makes sense that the party and politics so ultimately caught up in denying science here would be the same party and politics which sets up their god as a cheap excuse for basically enriching the rich at the cost of everyone else (I actually can't think of a single major religion that doesn't condemn that one).
The weather aspect of it is that some of the biggest controllers of our weather are basically energy in the system, the el nino southern oscillation and the jet stream which is basically a bit band of wind currents that circles the globe.
The jet stream is probably the easiest to discuss. As predicted quite some time ago, , since so much sunlight hits the north pole which is the highest concentration of warming, due to thermodynamics that even i don't grasp THAT well, but the predictions from decades ago have come true and i read the predictions before i read the papers that confirmed them so I kinda glossed over the crazy technical stuff that explains this fluid dynamic. But basically the warming in the north pole and in the northern hemisphere is drawing the jetstream upwards, causing warmer dryer weather from the equator to basically spread upwards toward the north pole. This is actually slowly shifting the fertile areas of the world upwards along with it. I didn't delve TOO deep into the understanding of how thermodynamics predicted this would happen because I already knew our models had been predicting it and the prediction....like seemingly all model predictions was found to be absolutely accurate in this paper http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Je.....te-change-to-b
Can you fucking imagine what will happen to the US economy when the farm belt can no longer grow staple food crops? It will be like a permanent dust bowl.
The other way that the jet stream changes are fucking up our weather and regional climates (that's where the term climate change comes from for the most part.) is that adding more energy to the jet stream creates what are called rossby waves. Rossby waves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave are the result of the fluid dynamics of air that we see when there is a strong shift in temperature and pressure, which is what happens when you MELT THE FUCKING NORTH POLE. They're basically waves in the jet stream where super cold arctic air combines with super warm equatorial air at a more rapid rate.
As you can see it makes huge waves in the normally circular jet stream of alternating hot and cold air, so areas that didn't have polar air will get polar air suddenly and areas that didn't get warmer equatorial air will get that, that's how it fucks up regional weather patterns. We're experiencing enormous rossby waves and they're only going to get bigger and the jet stream is only going to shift more and more north, again, as predicted decades ago by our climate models.
This is just one of may ways that climate change plays havoc with regional weather conditions. The jet stream gets rossby waves and rotates, causing arcit air or equatorial air "dips" to pass over areas that simply never had one or the other before or had a healthy mix of both. This is why some colder areas will get colder, some hot areas will get hotter and why some temperate areas will get super cold or super hot.
The mere fact he's alive today is proof that he prefers life to death. To so callously cheer lead the deaths of possibly millions through drought and famine already just barely eking out an existence of what can best be described as misery is fucking disgusting especially when you're happy to assist it. It's double disgusting to be saying this from a comparative life of abundance where you've probably not gone a day without food and have the luxury of shopping around for furry porn with your expendable income.
That's ignoring the laughable stupidity and ignorance of the centuries of imperialism, religious indoctrination and corporate exploitation FROM THE FIRST WORLD, specifically the west that is largely responsible for africa being such a shithole.
1. China was in bad shape and dominated for centuries by one group or another, but look at them now. WHY isn't Africa in better shape? Was it a democratic paradise before imperialism? I believe all races are perfectly equal as race isn't a big enough difference factor to impact mental ability, but CULTURE is important and I think there are ineffective cultures that keep those in it down. Corruption is a very, very bad part of a culture and WAS one of the big negatives we didn't have in the U.S., at least at the corner cop level. We now have it at the congressional/giant corporation level. Are all of Africa's problems to blame on imperialism that ended 50 years ago?
2. ALL of our problems on this planet could be cured if the human population was reduced to 500 million maximum. That would solve the water, land and pollution problem. Hunger is a man-made problem now on this planet, so that may not go away regardless. If you don't think mother nature won't do something about seven billion humans about to become 27 billion humans in our lifetime, you haven't been paying attention to nature or history.
Also lol at you not knowing about the corporate predation on Africa. Jesus christ. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person that actually investigates things. Africa is the poorest area on the planet. Africa is also the most resource rich place on the planet. Those resources are continually being extracted, so logic would dictate that that money must be going elsewhere right? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w.....st-466824.html
The vast majority of the resource wealth in africa is owned by the US, UK, and china. So yes, you hilariously made my point with a mocking statement. Our television and auto driving culture is precisely what's doing it you dolt XD Electronics take mineral resources to make, cars take oil to run. Africa has tons of both, we make deals with corrupt warlord/military governments and buy them, dig them up, and profit off them in the west.
And specifically where is the United States in ownership of African mineral rights? Shell is Dutch/English and even they are getting tired of having all their equipment blown up and staff kidnapped and murdered.
Lovely continent you're defending there.
Newsflash: Some cultures simply do not work.
The dictators of a few of those countries have been butchered recently. Time will tell if the people can get their act together with them gone, or if they've become so accustomed to poverty and misery that they will not seize the opportunity for a better future and instead submit themselves to a new master.
IMO nothing short of massive, widespread revolutions in the Third World could pull them out of the toilet at this point. If they want freedom and wealth for themselves and their descendants they will have to put their lives on the line for it like so many have before.
The biggest laugh though is China and India complaining about Imperialism when they themselves did the same, albeit earlier. I guess only the latest empires count, eh? Is not what's good for the goose, also good for the gander? Regardless, it's all in the past. It is not to be dwelled upon, but remembered, so that past mistakes are not repeated. What matters is what we do in the here and now, and what we accomplish in the future. And there is much work to be done.
If everyone got their act together we could easily support our current population and probably a bit more, there's no need to murder 6.5+ billion people. Said population reduction wouldn't really help much anyway. The US population is less then that, and not only do we significantly contribute to global CO2 levels, we do a damn fine job of poisoning the ever-loving shit our of our land and water.
Africa is suffering such massive famines due to their idiotic agricultural practices over the past millennia causing massive and widespread desertification of once fertile areas. And the fact they drove off the Dutch farmers that actually had the know-how to make food in that hell. It's largely self-induced. Food is in such abundance hunger shouldn't even be a thing, but monetary greed assures it anyway.
And there's still tons of land. Nearly the entire world population lives on only 10% of the land. It all comes down to everyone getting their act together and doing things cleanly and efficiently. We CAN overcome this, if we try.
One of my favorite lines: "I've never believed in the End Times. We are mankind. Our footprints are on the moon. When the last trumpet sounds and the Beast rises from the pit — we will KILL it."
That pretty much by default makes it a political issue sadly. I guess when i talk to denialists, they pretty much ONLY view it as a political issue but I don't discuss it in that context at all because it's a bullshit context. I discuss it from a science POV but it does motivate much of my political decisions every 2 years.
I always find this bizarre idea that it's "liberal" science odd in part because some of the most prominent scientists in the field are staunch 80's style conservatives (they probably vote democrat but that's beside the point), including my absolute favorite Dr. Richard Alley who's very much a fiscal conservative.
And right? What the hell is "liberal science"? It's like denialists really think that there can be two kinds of science just the way there can be two (or more, if you have the subtlety) kinds of opinions.
One of my favorite things to do when i meet an ardent denialist is i tell them i educated myself from the scientific literature directly for the most part, and i spent years doing it. THey say they did the same and they reached a different conclusion, they almost always say this.
So i ask them how they accessed the literature. THey're always confused by this question and usually say "I read the journals, duh." or "I read it online!.". I ask them how they read the journals. They don't understand why I would ask this. THen i point out i KNOW they're fucking lying, and that if they had ever read a science journal they would know to get access to scientific journals, you either need to rent articles individually which is crazy expensive, have a web of science subscription or access to a good university library.
They not only don't read science, they dont' know what it even fucking is. They just pretend they do so they can pretend they came upon their position via reason and education like I did which as i illustrated in the journal is IMPOSSIBLE, because the body of literature doesn't even address really their position because it's nonsense and not taken seriously by anybody other than the fucking GOP.
I'm poor, so I usually do my best to get by on the abstracts and occasional free articles offered on PubMed, or reading them when they're new and often offered for free for a short time depending on the publication.
Time fucking magazine....
When I was completing my undergrad work, I worked quite a bit on paleoenvironments. Global warming and cooling are cyclical and we are arrogant if we believe we can do anything about it at our current level of technology. A single volcanic eruption puts out more CO2 than the whole human race over the span of a decade. Again, go figure. When it comes to environments, of course any steps we can take to reduce CO2 emissions is beneficial, but I tend to view water conservation / preservation as our most critical environmental issue. It's overlooked at the expense of CO2 activisim. Why? Green. And I ain't talking about plants, either.
Sorry about your cat.
The Denny's on Contra Costa has really good spaghetti.
Since i said i don't treat this with kid gloves.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about and you're not getting any of your information from a reliable source otherwise you wouldn't have these misconceptions and you would know that there is nothing natural or cyclical. Until you actually get educated on the subject you're holding humanity back, and the fallout from his will have an enormous cost in money but more importantly, human misery.
The arrogance, is frankly on the part of your crowd, in being convinced that you know more about the subject than every single person going back almost 2 centuries that has devoted their lives to it's study and gotten the proper education on it, yet you don't know even enough about it to know that you know nothing about it.
I mean seriously, what aspect of the fairly simple foundation of climate science do you specifically have a problem with?
Do you disagree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas which is the most responsible for keeping the earth warm enough to be inhabited?
Do you disagree that carbon dioxide specifically absorbs the short wave infrared spectrum that scatters due to the earths albedo thus trapping in more exiting infrared than entering infrared?
Do you disagree that burning fossil fuels adds more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?
You just say it's "arrogant" to think that we can't impact the climate. We know exactly how much carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere, we know exactly what percentage of that carbon dioxide is natural and man produced because they're different isotopes.
Are we arrogant to...know what the molecular properties of carbon dioxide are? I mean shit we have lots of technology that only functions due to those properties.
>ctrl-f 'China'
>nothing
The problem with liberals addressing this issue is it's almost always very stupidly done. Carbon offsets are basically just the same things as the old Catholic practice of paying for your sins. An electric car doesn't pollute any less than a normal one if the electricity for it comes from a coal plant. And for fuck's sake, no serious reduction of global greenhouse gases can be accomplished without addressing China.
Given a choice between two different kinds of delusions, one willfully ignorant and one thinking he's making a difference by doing nothing isn't much of a choice.
I mean shit, If I thought china was an issue (which it is), i'd ya know, google them to see if they're an issue. If i did that (which i did) I would know that china is far less of a producer of emissions than us per capita but i'd learn that they're DESTROYING us on long term emissions reduction goals. FFS they published thier national action plan on climate change a decade ago almost. They've done over a half dozen stringent and very aggressive reduction goals. Fuck they're taking SIX MILLION vehicles off the road, this was in the news like a week ago lol. What about china? We should be taking notes from them on dealing with this problem.
The other problem with you people is that since you don't know a fucking thing about this issue, you can't even make a single argument without some sort of strawman. I don't give a shit about carbon offsets, i don't advocate for them, I didn't mention them and I don't want them.
Reduction is the solution, that's what we're doing. That's what china is doing BETTER than us, that's what I advocate for. China is shifting their infrastructure away from fossil fuels, as has much of europe.
But hey, given the choice between not doing even a cursory examination into an issue and acting on it in my ignorance to the detriment of my species, and taking the time to research it from the only credible source so I can have an informed position and ACT ON IT AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE by what we call "voting" (I also gave up cars for a bicycle to do my own part thank you.), hey, it's not much of a choice for me.
Following China as an example on anything environmental is a horrible idea. If they're 'making progress' it's only because they're in such dire straits that their air has turned into a solid.
" Fuck they're taking SIX MILLION vehicles off the road, this was in the news like a week ago lol."
Very Chinese solution to brame the civirians. Industry there, and (needless) construction account for a huge portion of their pollution. Limiting quality of life first to curb GCC is the main reason why it's such a shitty sell here. The good news is though, when China finally can't afford to waste resources building ghost towns anymore the bulldozers will stop, and the world economy will collapse again. That'll keep some cars off the street, don't worry.
"I would know that china is far less of a producer of emissions than us per capita"
And I bet the Vatican is horrible per capita. China has like 4 times the population of the US, and about the same landmass. Per capita means jack shit. Do the greenhouse gases go 'oh, there's four tons of us up here, but look how many people made us, let's not trap any solar radiation'?
I also like how I become a 'conservative' when I don't agree 100% with a preset agenda. Gay rights and labor involvement? Fuck that, I'm a conservative. Fucking canvased neighborhoods for Obama in 2008 just as a clever ruse.
"I don't give a shit about carbon offsets, i don't advocate for them, I didn't mention them and I don't want them. "
It's still 'branding' though. Anything offered up as a solution to GCC is in turn a spokesperson for it, and it's a really really shitty one, even you know that. Ignoring that bullshit won't make it go away, and it's not doing anything for your brand. Actively work to remove it.
"Reduction is the solution, that's what we're doing. That's what china is doing BETTER than us, that's what I advocate for. China is shifting their infrastructure away from fossil fuels, as has much of europe."
'Shifting their infrastructure away from fossil fuels' sounds like one of those boardroomese terms like 'maximizing your proactive synergy'. To what? You know solar and wind plants are basically primarily natural gas plants right? Sun isn't shining or wind isn't blowing they burn fossil fuels to make electricity? I mean, you can argue for cleaner fossil fuels, natural gas is better than oil which is better than coal, but that's really not a solution per se, and it's all still future greenhouse gases.
Oh and you're fucking wrong about China anyway.
China and India alone account for 89 percent of the projected growth in coal-fired generation. In contrast, OECD nations reduce their reliance on coal-fired electricity generation, with environmental factors, particularly in OECD Europe, playing a sizable role in the reduction.
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/electricity.cfm
So eat a dick. Cleanest nation in Europe per kilowatt is France, by far. Their secret is they use nuclear like nobody's business. The same only real fossil fuel competitor anywhere, but that's been put waaaay back on the shelf here. Even maligned by prominent Democrats. Kerry, and I fucking voted for him too, killed the next-gen reactors which would have solved the 'nuclear waste' issue by just reusing it as fuel and reducing it's radioactivity. I've read enough of your comments to know you're not anti-nuclear but like the carbon offsets this is again a broader matter of branding. As a party, ideology, and even just as the people pointing out the problem, you have to offer a real solution.
Power reduction is not power generation, and we keep getting more and more stuff that needs more and more power. Reduction to levels needed to curb GCC without new generation would force Americans to live like Congolese, and that is something you'll never be able to sell. A company can't reduce spending to the point where they don't need revenue, and we can't reduce power consumption from coal without a makeup somewhere else.
But hey, given the choice between not doing even a cursory examination into an issue and acting on it in my ignorance to the detriment of my species, and taking the time to research it from the only credible source so I can have an informed position and ACT ON IT AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE by what we call "voting"
You're already sold. You getting out to vote is more important than what you think. Taking this really harsh, aggressive and do-or-die position doesn't help your cause. In a democracy more votes matter than just yours, even if it is doomsday. Which is why the only person with authority to use our most heinous weapons is an elected official rather than an appointed one. You still have to sell this, don't assume you don't just because it's 'important'. That's unbelievably arrogant.
"(I also gave up cars for a bicycle to do my own part thank you.), hey, it's not much of a choice for me."
Want a fucking cookie for recognition you can give up something that didn't matter to you in the first place? See, this is the problem with the tumblr generation. You actually think people care about your 'sacrifice' while you still are a consumption-happy American. You're 'ashamed' of your country that gave you all the opportunities you enjoy, by posting it on a network that was American invented being constantly powered by the electricity you're sworn to reduce consumption of.
You don't know the first fucking thing about this issue. You make a smug post about "liberals" and then make one argument and use a country destroying us on solutions to this problem as your one example of the problem with liberals lol. Now that it's been pointed out that that country is literally almost a decade ahead of us on the issue, back paddle back paddle back paddle!
The rest of what you said is so fucking stupid it isn't even worth addressing. I mean, using india and china fossil fuel "growth rates"? Who the fuck cares. India is a small contributor to the problem compared to us, and if you weren't completely fucking stupid you would know that per capita matters because the vast vast vast majority of carbon currently IN the atmosphere is from a very small amount of people, the United states lol. Literally a tiny group of people have been contributing about 70% of this problem decade after decade after decade, and we're one of the ONLY groups who till recently has done NOTHING about it. You're so fucking stupid you can't even bother to look up why other countries haven't been acting as much as they'de like to. It's because WE'RE THE FUCKING PROBLEM and we haven't budged a fucking inch on it till the other day. Shit we wouldn't even enter the binding part of the kyoto protocol despite being the biggest part of the problem.
Also FUCK CHINA. We can't force china to do anything. We can take care of what's in our own back yard and again you're ignoring the fact that I discussed in the journal that THE WHOLE WORLD IS WAITING ON US AND HAS BEEN.
You're like a fucking toddler. "But Billy got to go to Disneyland!!". "Yeah well you're not billy and i'm not billy's parents and we're not going to Disneyland."
REAL action starts with us, action has been waiting on us for decades. If we listened to fucking morons like you and just did nothing, fucking a, people who have done an even cursory examination on this issue know how bad the consequences will be, they also know that we're going to enter a point soon where we can't even predict how bad the consequences will be because it will be an unprecedented chain of events in the even slightly recent history of our planet.
Great job doing damage control though. Not really.
You say that like it matters.
This caught them by surprise in both emissions and particulate pollution and unlike us they've been taking drastic steps to curb it for the last 7 years.
"Air quality very bad! Quick take drastic steps! Beat Tibetan monk! That'll help."
Particulate pollution, is a big concern over there and again, if you weren't the stereotypical conservative low information retard, you would have looked up why they took 6 million cars off the road.
I would have looked that up if it mattered. Protip: it doesn't. They've painted strip-mined mountains green, they dump all manner of industrial waste into milk and formula, repeatedly. They're going to build an artificial island miles off in the South China Sea for force projection with both a port and a landing strip. Tell me, which is more 'green' a destroyer, a bomber, a tank or the tiny ass cars they're taking off the road? They're building them all regardless.
The Chinese don't know their ass from a toxic hole in the ground and probably never will. Them 'doing something' is always laughable in this regard.
THey are an empirically large part of the problem and this also falls perfectly in line with their emission reduction goals which again THEY ARE KICKING OUR ASS ON.
Never bound by Kyoto, they set their own goals. China reporting that China is meeting China's goals is not news. It's propaganda, and it's still shitty over there and they still majorly pollute the planet.
You don't know the first fucking thing about this issue. You make a smug post about "liberals" and then make one argument and use a country destroying us on solutions to this problem as your one example of the problem with liberals lol.
I also used the example of France. They love nukes and have since before GCC became a hot issue. They're way ahead of anyone else because of this. The solution there is simple. Don't bitch. Don't restrict the average man. Shut the fuck up and build nukes. Very elegant solution.
back paddle back paddle back paddle!
[montoya]I don't think that word means what you think it means[/montoya]
The rest of what you said is so fucking stupid it isn't even worth addressing. I mean, using india and china fossil fuel "growth rates"? Who the fuck cares.
I would assume you did, because you mentioned the audacity of still using coal. First step in reducing our reliance upon coal would be to stop building new plants. Basic fucking logic.
India is a small contributor to the problem compared to us,
Then that means by that data your beloved China is even more of a problem no? Also notice you're quoting a lot of 'less thans' and percentages but provide no links to data. Comes from www.pulleditfrommyass.com right?
and if you weren't completely fucking stupid you would know that per capita matters because the vast vast vast majority of carbon currently IN the atmosphere is from a very small amount of people,
Irrelevant. Amount in the atmosphere matters, not where it comes from. If ten million Africans burn a tire each tonight it will do the same harm as one man in Norway burning ten million tires.
Literally a tiny group of people have been contributing about 70% of this problem decade after decade after decade, and we're one of the ONLY groups who till recently has done NOTHING about it. You're so fucking stupid you can't even bother to look up why other countries haven't been acting as much as they'de like to. It's because WE'RE THE FUCKING PROBLEM and we haven't budged a fucking inch on it till the other day. Shit we wouldn't even enter the binding part of the kyoto protocol despite being the biggest part of the problem.
There's a percentage with no data backing it up again. Really love that website, don't you? I also like how you paint it as the US is the big badguy for not signing on with Kyoto while you admit that China is a bigger contributor today and Kyoto never had any stipulations for China. How can the US be 70% of the problem if China makes more carbon pollution than us? Do they make like 80%? You do math worse than Fox News.
Also FUCK CHINA. We can't force china to do anything. We can take care of what's in our own back yard and again you're ignoring the fact that I discussed in the journal that THE WHOLE WORLD IS WAITING ON US AND HAS BEEN.
I thought this was a planetary issue. What happens in China matters because we share the planet with them and they're polluting the fuck out of it too. Them pretending like they're doing something when they're not isn't helping. Them being the #1 contributor to the problem isn't helping. Yes, real fucking international pressure is needed there. Why can't you see that.
REAL action starts with us, action has been waiting on us for decades. If we listened to fucking morons like you and just did nothing, fucking a, people who have done an even cursory examination on this issue know how bad the consequences will be, they also know that we're going to enter a point soon where we can't even predict how bad the consequences will be because it will be an unprecedented chain of events in the even slightly recent history of our planet.
See this is where hardcore supporters of GCC action start sounding like religious fanatics or gestapo. "Action needs to be taken now, damn everything else. We don't even know how bad the consequences will be!" Democracy remains intact. Unless you want like a police state confiscating everyone's car and matches or something, you have to sell this. Calling anyone who even marginally doesn't fall in step with your reasoning a moron 20 times is not selling this. You are being a shitty spokesperson.
Here's how it works. You're RIGHT in that GCC is very much a backburner issue in the US. The reason why has less to do with 'idiots' and more to do with you lot selling bad solutions (reduction in quality of life, rationing, etc.) and not offering up decent ones enough (nukes). You're a 'sold' voter. Vote your heart out, but you don't matter. You're just a good soldier. Swing voters, ones who the issue is still 'sellable' to like me are the hot commodity. Bullying will only push the swing voters into the other camp, 'sold' to the other side. Then you get jack shit. I don't get why this is such a completely incomprehensible concept to you. You need me if you want change.
Some of the worst legislative atrocities in this nation came about from a bunch of assholes screaming "Won't somebody doooooo something?! ANYTHING!". The applied solution was always simple, drastic and very wrong. Put real solutions on the table, hell you don't even have to mention GCC for some of them. I'll leap at the chance to a good solution. Offer nothing and you're as important to me as the next guy walking the streets with 'The End is Nigh' written on a sign. Sorry, that angle is overplayed as fuck. For your own sake, stop using it.
We don't have as many enemies as the right-wingers think, but we don't have as many friends as you/liberals think we have. At some point, you have to choose a side (nation/culture) and defend it.
I'm more concerned about the the constant oil and chemical spills that are destroying millions of acres of land and sea, killing thousands of indigenous lifeforms, ruining ecosystems forever, poisoning our water, particulate pollution causing cancer rates to skyrocket and human fertility to plummet 60% in only 70 years, and the unrepentant destruction of forest. All of these pose immediate threats and greatly exacerbate global warming by being responsible for the destruction of the natural carbon sinks that help keep CO2 in check. Forests play a huge role in controlling the planetary climate and we've been destroying them more and more with each passing year for centuries. Industrial runoff causes hypoxia in water, creating hundreds of dead zones in the sea where no life can exist, killing carbon-storing ocean vegetation and the phytoplankton that constitute the other half of oxygen-creating life.
Trees mitigate the heating effects of urban development, and pine trees in particular maintain their preferred climate by emitting aerosols that promote cloud formation and reflect sunlight back out into space. Careful management and harvesting of trees can also remove CO2 from the atmosphere; trees absorb the most while growing, and slow when they mature, so by harvesting and properly treating lumber before replanting, we can near-permanently store the trees absorbed carbon in consumer goods. A wooden spoon, for instance, produces less then 1/40th the CO2 in it's manufacture as stainless steel and can store the carbon it's created from nearly indefinitely.
It's all part of a cycle; production of the energy we need to live results in the release of it's stored carbon as CO2, humanity cultivates trees that store that carbon and release oxygen, humanity then takes those trees and permanently locks the absorbed carbon away in consumer goods, akin to how it was at the beginning of the cycle. Mass cultivation in this respect has the side benefit of drastically reducing the price of wooden consumer goods due to increased availability, making them a more attractive substitute for the generally cheaper plastic and steel versions of the same. Trees are by no means a panacea for the problem, but certainly can play a key role in the combined arms assault on global warming.
'Renewable' energy is also obviously part of the solution, but also has it's caveats. Hydro-electric power in general, no matter what form, is ecologically destructive. Dams in particular devastate river ecosystems, but tidal-energy also disrupts and butchers migrating ocean-life, can disrupt ocean currents, waterflow and turbulence, and is extremely unappealing to tourist areas and beach-goers which are a huge part of the economy in many areas and keep many people employed who would otherwise be in poverty. There is a notable exception to this, however: Water Utility Pipe energy. There's a company investing in installing turbines in large water utility pipes that experience a loss in elevation; a single 40-ft section of pipe could house 4 turbines generating enough power for 100-150 homes; roughly 1,000MW/hrs a year, with no impact on water delivery.
Most other forms of renewable energy are intermittent and unreliable, like wind and solar. This is compounded by the fact that energy storage(batteries) is no where near advanced enough to maintain critical infrastructure during times of little wind or sun, or even over night.
Solar, by nature, is highly location dependent and highly space-inefficient; it requires large tracts of flat, clear land(often cleared by deforestation, which is something we don't want) and takes vastly more surface area to create the same amount of energy as other sources(esp. compared to a 40ft section of pipe powering 150 homes), in addition to being made of toxic materials. It is more suited to providing local power to individual homes and businesses(installed on roofs) than in large farms, IMO. And in truth, if every home and businesses roofs were outfitted with solar, we could probably shut down half of our current power plants.
Wind power holds great promise, but it too is intermittent, and requires a lot of work. At present, wind turbines in the US butcher 600k-2 million birds annually, which causes wide-spread ecological disruption, as well as being noisy, uglying up the skyline. This is inevitable; the places and heights most suitable for wind power intersect with avian flight paths and migratory patterns. The industry is trying to come up with ways to mitigate bird/bat deaths, but most... arn't that effective. They center on slowing or turning off the blades, when most of the animals Arn't sliced in half by the blades; they impact the structure itself or the guylines.
IMO the solutions that hold the most promise, are the ultra-sonic boombox that disrupts bat sonar and make them steer clear, and alternate paint schemes. Different color paints can discourage the insects bats feed on from going near the structure, and UV-reflective paint in particular could save birds. Birds see into the ultraviolet, and predatory birds in particular hunt prey by following the glowing uv-reflective trails of urine back to the source(a mouse), so UV-reflective paint could make them steer clear of the gigantic, glowing tower of doom or at least make them more aware of it. Hell, such tech might help prevent birds from suiciding on office windows, too.
Due to the unreliable, intermittent nature of most renewables, any future energy solution is going to have to include natural gas, nuclear, or both to succeed, and we will STILL need gasoline for transportation for the foreseeable future. We will need Something to provide power when there's no light or wind. On the nuclear front, existing nuclear solutions could benefit from breeder reactors. These reprocess spent fuel into more usable fissile material and less radioactive by products who's half-lives are measured in years and decades, not centuries, and thus become objectively 'safe' far quicker then what they are derived from.
Another option, is Thorium. Cleaner and safer then regular nuclear power and with no potential for weaponization, combined with massive stores of the usable mineral on earth make it ideal as a long-term continuous power source to supplement or supplant existing nuclear power. A single ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 3.5 million tons of coal, and there is 3.5 trillion tons of coal worth in a single county in idaho alone.
Of course, the easiest thing to do to date is to simply reduce our power consumption through smart conservation and the relentless pursuit of efficiency. In the past decade alone we've seen immense drops in required power across the board in nearly everything.
Of course all of these solutions are damn near useless to the Third World, who have neither the knowhow, funding or infrastructure to implement any of them when they're barely able to maintain coal. You are not going to sell expensive renewables to countries drowning in poverty and famine who can barely afford cheap coal, the First World is too broke to subsidize them, and the growth-rate of these populations far outstrips our own. These places will continue to use polluting coal for the foreseeable future as it is really the only option on their table.
Global warming is a global threat requiring a combined effort to combat it, and no one single solution will stop it; it will take a combined-arms approach from all parties, attacking it from every conceivable angle, but fools rush in; we must carefully consider and weigh the pros and cons of each course of action, as indeed some can even worsen the situation in the long run. Many potential solutions have a host of problems we need to address first and will take some time to enact, and as always we need to keep in mind the Human impacts of the solutions; anything that negatively impacts human well-being and quality of life is a non-starter.
First of all, a solar farm isn't like a giant parking lot. A 'dense' farm generally has less than 50% coverage, with the rest being open ground. You also wouldn't need the massive area you seem to think, converting all the residential roof space in the US to solar panels would provide between 25 and 50% of the electricity used _on the planet_, (never mind all the schools, malls, factories, etc.).
Now, while wind turbines do deliver variable power[1], true. This is only a minor problem when supplying a regional grid for two reasons: First, you do build based on the expected output and not the nameplate output Second, you don't put all your turbines in one place.
The bird death count is simply a lie, if you go to people like the US Fish and Wildlife Service or the US Forest Service you will find that it is actually about 30,000 per year, a number which drops precipitously if you remove one 30 year old wind farm that is a poster child of what not to do. Meanwhile, pet cats kill about 39 million birds each year... in rural Wisconsin.
Wind turbines are also not noisy: You, right now, are probably putting up with more noise from your fridge than you ever would from a wind turbine. Appearance is a matter of opinion, but they're certainly no worse than a set of high-tension lines.
[1] All power sources are intermittent, which means that sometimes they deliver no power at all. In fact wind is actually one of the more reliable with less than half the downtime of coal or nuclear, (nuclear power plants actually spend about 10% of the time offline, not counting refueling shutdowns). Further, the way that wind power drops out is much less disruptive than a large power plant suddenly going offline.
It's very simple. The vast majority of emissions come from energy and industry.
We already have everything we need to shift our energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels, other countries have been doing it for decades with great success. Of the two biggest polluters, one is way ahead of the game in long term reduction goals (china) one refused to admit the problem even existed and they were the biggest part of the problem (america). People took baby steps because they didn't think it was fair we would do nothing when we're the biggest offender. We just had our first reduction legislation goals imposed, so now the two countries that are the biggest contributors are finally appearing to be willing to do something.
The carbon budget of the earth is constantly recycling atmospheric carbon and it's recycling it at a faster rate than it should and we don't know why.
The less emissions we put out, the lower the atmospheric carbon concentration will be over time.
That will trap less heat.
That will lower the global temperature, that will get our north pole freezing again which will reflect more heat into space. It's a negative feedback loop.
We have to reduce emissions, big time, and we CAN do it. The only thing standing in the way is politics and the political tide is turning. A large majority of americans now poll that they want action, they want it now and they're willing to take a small hit to get it. THe moment climate denial isn't a politically viable position, we'll get even stronger action and it might already NOT be a very politically viable position based on polling.
We have to reduce emissions. It's the ONLY real solution. What you're advocating is like drinking poison to help get over your poisoning. We do NOT need to include fossil fuels in our solution, and the idea that small oil spills are a greater problem than raising the entire temperature of the fricking planet is just insane. Temperature rises have caused two mass extinction events in our past that virtually wiped out every species on the planet.
My area doesn't get much in the way of wind so there's no turbines anywhere near here that I could stand by and listen to, and they seemed to emit a somewhat annoying noise on the vids i've seen, but they could have just been filming old turbines or ones that were having mechanical problems; the one vid showing one with broken breaks sounded like a tornado from hundreds of feet off, but that one was obviously failing. So, i'll defer judgement to you on noise, and in regards to appearance, while no worse, they arn't better then high tension lines either(which are a blight on the landscape, as necessary as they are. I much prefer areas with underground lines.)
In regards to hydro power, its disruptive effects are well known and blatantly obvious in regards to dams. And the UK even stated it needed to do a lot of preliminary research on tidal energy and it's potential/predicted disruption of nearby marine habitat, from sealife getting sucked into the turbines to the turbines altering nearby currents, before it gives the OK or makes changes. Not that we should use tidal energy At All, it's just we need to figure out all the cons and work to mitigate/remove them before we go all in.
In regards to bird fatalities, a number of people call BS on the statistics from the federal agencies. American Bird Conservancy lists it as over a million, supported by Wildlife Society Bulletin reports of nearly 1.5 million bat and avian deaths in 2012.
Again, i'm not saying it's a cause for Not using wind power. Merely that's it's a Problem with it that needs to be addressed, along with possible solutions(UV paint, ultrasonics, ect)
Also, are you sure of that figure for solar?(providing most of the worlds energy) Last time I looked into it you still needed practically the entire roof just to power your average suburban/rural home. Hell, place I used to work at turned down an offer for solar energy on their roof because: 1.) The price was ridiculous. and 2.) They'd still have an electric bill afterwards. And the building was 50k square feet, with a flat metal, gravel-filled roof(that was prone to leaking). Let alone all the power-sucking refineries/mills/factories that don't really Have a roof per se to install panels on. I can see them powering every small community in the country, and probably most everything else, but half the worlds energy? Come on now, that sounds about as far-fetched as you can get.
And as I said: The appearance of a wind farm is a matter of taste, (I happen to like them). You also can't really bury high-tension lines, as they are at voltages where you can draw metre-plus arcs off of them.
The Smallwood paper is, by far, the high outlier and does rely heavily on the Altamont Pass Wind Farm for key parts of its analysis. Even if it were correct, it would still mean that the wind turbines kill two orders of magnitude fewer birds than the power lines do.
And yes, I'm pretty sure of that figure for solar, but note that it is only electrical consumption not energy consumption in total[2]. World electrical consumption is on the order of 2-3TW, which would require 50-60,000km^2 of current solar panels. Estimates of US residential roof space are on the order of 10-20,000km^2. Figures for a typical US household: ~10,000kWh/a, or about 1.1kW. Using 18.5% efficient panels and the standard 200W of sun estimate[3] means ~30m^2 of panels. Something that fits on a typical suburban or rural house with space to spare.
As for the cost of installing solar, it's gotten really cheap. Some of the companies have even switched over to charging no up front capital costs, instead making their money by charging you for the power used at a rate that undercuts the cost of drawing from the grid.
[0] A couple examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI06Cvf8D-8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eILJj4mpSDs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/en.....wind-farm.html
[1] Some of the older designs are somewhat noisy.
[2] It's also a rather crude figure that assumes things like being able to actually use all that roof space. Given that it was intended to get across space availability however, that's not that big of a deal.
[3] Yes, this is a full day average.
And i can say something positive about where our country is headed on this issue. For the first time ever i can..
A good sized majority now of americans in polls not only accept the science of climate change and not only agree with the statement that it is an "urgent concern." but after the Obama executive order, a good sized majority polled that they agree with the statement that urgent action is needed even if it will cost us money.
That is an enormous shift from just 10 years ago. The majority except climate change, urgently want action, and are willing to be inconvenienced to get it. These people vote. The moment science illiteracy is no longer a politically viable position, the sky is the limit for action.
Baby steps but you gotta take that first step, and we just did and public consciousness is shifting big time on the subject. Hopefully it's not too late. I don't think it is.