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Old 02-20-2019, 02:47 AM   #5031 (permalink)
RedDevil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor95 View Post
I can't believe how many posts are on this topic. I'm all for being more efficient, though more for the economic sense of it and to better utilize our resources. Has anyone considered here that efforts to curb CO2 production are futile? Supposedly there has been 6 mass extinctions in earth's history, and multiple cycles of heating and cooling. I theorize that nothing humans do will change what the climate will ultimately do. According to one source, we are in an interglacial warm period. After some thousands of years, the earth will cool off again, which will cause many of its own problems for us.
You can theorize based on your knowledge and insight. But you are not an expert.
Climate scientists are the experts, and they overwhelmingly agree we are ruining the planet by burning excess amounts of fossil fuel.
You don't have to agree with them, but that means you believe you know better than the specialists.

The specialists calculate the speed at which the sea level will rise based upon the speed at which the large bodies of ice are melting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise


We've doubled the CO2 content in the atmosphere over the last 150 years.
So we doubled the amount of heat that gets reflected back to the earth, hence the raising global average temperature, hence the melting ice and raising seas.
We need to reduce CO2 output as much as possible, even if the effects of that won't be felt immediately nor prevent a massive climate change. It will just be slightly less bad.

Futile? Depends on who you ask.
Check out the historic CO2 emissions per capita per country.
You can see big differences between countries, also many developed countries actively reducing carbon emissions.
Even the United States, though the per capita emissions are still very high compared to European countries.

Earths history spans almost 5 billion years. I'm not too concerned about what is going to happen in a billion years from now. Or in a thousand for that matter.

But what we are doing now impacts the world right now. By the time my kids are old we already may have lost large parts of our country to the rising seas. Carbon emissions will have impact on their life. And no doubt they'd worry about the future for the kids they may get.

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For confirmation go to people just like you.
For education go to people unlike yourself.

Last edited by RedDevil; 02-20-2019 at 03:00 AM..
 
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