The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[sendler]

Originally Posted by aerohead

I recommend a minimum B.S. in mechanical engineering,then see if you can say that twice.

I too have noticed that engineer types are more adept at understanding the scale of our energy consumption and the possibilty of replacing it with rebuildables than economists or politicians. Your growing disdain for Hagens is very surprising to me. But then again he walked away from a $500,000/ year career on Wall Street 20 years ago when he realized big money was ruining the planet. And went back to school only to get a doctorate in environmental science from a custom program at U of Vermont, and was lead editor at The Oil Drum for years and has since dedicated his life to trying to help us understand all of this. So what does he know.
.
You might like these physicists better.
.
David MacKay
.
https://youtu.be/E0W1ZZYIV8o
.
https://www.withouthotair.com/
.
And Tom Murphy
.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/
.

[oil pan 4]

Looks like Europe is jealous of the United States and is catching up fast.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by jakobnev

Why would reducing the population not be appealing?

If the population is declining due to war, disease, or hunger, it's not good for obvious reasons. If the population is declining by choice, like in Japan, it poses challenges such as an aging workforce, overburdened retirement/entitlement services, and crowded assisted living and medical facilities.

Social services were conceived with unlimited population growth in mind, and that's the only way it works.

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Would you blame us for polluting 50% LESS than you do?

More than half of our energy bill consists of taxes.
We spend about the same amount of money on energy as you do, but we pollute only half - because we get only half the carbon for that money.
We don't spend more, we burn less. I have not seen a single F150 this year, but over a 1000 Teslas, easy.
Tax money flows to the government to spend on roads, welfare and reducing the deficit. And subsidies for green projects.

You're not pulling your weight. Not like we do.

I don't like to blame anyone for what they're doing, but rather discuss the rationality behind those actions, and consider them in context with everything else.

For instance, the US gives 3x more away in percentage of income than the UK. When you don't have the mindset that the government needs to solve everyone's problems, you take the suffering of others as a personal responsibility.

As I've said before, the proper way to reduce CO2 emissions is to very slowly increase taxes on those activities which produce it. Before that though, problems have to be precisely defined, and actions to address those problems have to consider the cost to implement, the expected benefit, and the opportunity cost. This is entry level economics here; something which politicians have no interest or expertise in.

Global warming doesn't even make the top 25 list of most pressing concerns for the wellbeing of humanity. In other words, money spent in this area is wasted when considering the greater good that could be done by doing things like improving access to contraceptives, or fighting diseases such as TB and malaria.

As I've said above, to which nobody has argued against, the 2 biggest contributors to CO2 is population and wealth. At least contraceptives addresses the population front. We might be on track to solve the wealth problem if communist ideas continue to gain popularity with people like Bernie gaining support.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I don't like to blame anyone for what they're doing, but rather discuss the rationality behind those actions, and consider them in context with everything else.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

For instance, the US gives 3x more away in percentage of income than the UK. When you don't have the mindset that the government needs to solve everyone's problems, you take the suffering of others as a personal responsibility.

There goes rationality. Give away what to whom? and why? Compensation for what the UK pays in social security?
There's a difference between what people want and what people can't do without.
If for whatever reason you cannot feed your family, if you cannot pay the rent, if you cannot afford to go to the doctor, if you have to beg to survive - that's devastating. Individuals helping out is nice - but it isn't security.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

As I've said before, the proper way to reduce CO2 emissions is to very slowly increase taxes on those activities which produce it. Before that though, problems have to be precisely defined, and actions to address those problems have to consider the cost to implement, the expected benefit, and the opportunity cost. This is entry level economics here; something which politicians have no interest or expertise in.

Or you look over the borders at what other countries are doing, and align with that. Doing more or less the same as everybody else makes a global approach easier to achieve.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Global warming doesn't even make the top 25 list of most pressing concerns for the wellbeing of humanity. In other words, money spent in this area is wasted when considering the greater good that could be done by doing things like improving access to contraceptives, or fighting diseases such as TB and malaria.

That is not MY list of most pressing concerns!
Global warming will disrupt economies and force mass migration, which will aggravate all other problems on that list.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

As I've said above, to which nobody has argued against, the 2 biggest contributors to CO2 is population and wealth. At least contraceptives addresses the population front. We might be on track to solve the wealth problem if communist ideas continue to gain popularity with people like Bernie gaining support.

Then you missed what I wrote before. Population increases due to poverty, not wealth. Pollution goes hand in hand with wealth, but only because of lack of guidance. The wealthy can afford to spend some on pollution reducing measures, and the government can greatly enhance that by well measured subsidies. Building dams, windmills and solar farms takes effort and money but will contribute to a cleaner environment. The economics may not work out in favor of green technology yet, but careful funding can tip the balance.

[NeilBlanchard]

This crazy weather we have been having, is what we can expect from climate change.

More heat = more evaporation

More water vapor = more precipitation

The melting Arctic ice = weakened and wobbly jet stream = cold Arctic air "spilling" out of the Arctic

20" of snow in North Carolina in December, is one sort of thing that is a direct result from global warming. Saudi Arabia getting SIX YEAR'S worth of rain in TWO DAYS, is another.

[All Darc]

We must think not just in who polutes more (by factories) but also in who consumes more. China polutes a lot, but a lot of countries buy many products from China, products that generates polution in the manufacturing process.

[RedDevil]

I found this funny:

Until I realized there is no such thing as a life boat.

[All Darc]

I would like to see if in a ship sinking situation modern feminists would refuse the old traditional pratiarchal quote : "Ship is sinking... Women and childs first (to the lifeboats)."

Originally Posted by RedDevil

I found this funny:

Until I realized there is no such thing as a life boat.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

This crazy weather we have been having, is what we can expect from climate change.

When you inject [increased] energy into a system, it increases Chaos.

Originally Posted by Red Devil

Record drought too. It rains, but the deficit is half a meter in some places, causing the ground to collapse and several hundred thousand houses over here are either damaged or in immediate threat of damage. Watering fields is still banned in some places, due to continuous low river volumes, and have been for over half a year now.
Just a week ago several gas stations were sold out as boats cannot bring it in.

That's an interesting set of problems. This ground that collapses if it dries out is already below sea level?

Originally Posted by aerostealth

Why would anyone be attached to living in a world with seven billion people or 9, or 11 billion or more? What possible benefit would you accrue from having so many humans on the planet and so little room left for anything else? .... How long can all we love and hold dear prosper in a world with an increasingly unstable climate, a diminished environmental support system, and the collapse of the biosphere? Are we so self absorbed as a species that nothing else matters....

I pointed to the Population Pyramid in Permalink #3974 but no one took notice. You don't want that to go upside down.

Livingry, in direct contrast to weaponry or “killingry,” are artifacts that support and enhance life, ideas and objects that enrich and advance human existence. The creation of livingry is the essence and enactment of Bucky’s challenge “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone” (from World Game literature), one of the clearest calls to action for social and economic justice in U.S. cultural history.

Buckminster Fuller also implored us not to attempt to change people, but to change their built environment, the artifacts with which they interact: “Don’t attempt to reform man. An adequately organized environment will permit humanity’s original, innate capabilities to become successful” (Utopia Or Oblivion).

https://fullerfuturefest.com/buckys-...s-of-livingry/

[All Darc]

Some people say Rosevelt was a nice guy who, after the war end, planned to help poor countries to get industrilized. But he died before the war end.
Let's just supose it was true and supose what would be if he lived 25 years more, and the poor countries had got industry.
It would be a ecological disater to today, since emissions, polution, resources vanishing, all these problems would rise much faster.