The climate change movement: July 28, 1995 to August 14, 2020 RIP

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Here's my response to someone on another forum yesterday.


If I listened to a nuclear proliferation expert say that if we don't urgently intervene in Iran's uranium enrichment program, they will have a nuclear warhead in a decade, do I interpret that to be a doomsday observation?

If I listen to an expert epidemiologist say that infection is a more urgent matter than nuclear proliferation, do I believe them?

If I listen to an expert in artificial intelligence say that AI is the biggest threat to humanity, do I believe them?

If I listen to an expert in marine biology explain how dwindling fish populations is the biggest problem humanity faces, do I believe them?

If I listen to an astronomer explain that solar flares are the biggest threat to humanity, do I believe them?

What you're not understanding is that every expert makes their area of expertise into the most important topic, because they have to. Just because I'm not constantly running around with my hair on fire because humanity faces a near infinite number of threats doesn't mean I don't believe in the problems.

Rather, I think that reflects more on others susceptibility to be manipulated into believing any particular thing is the biggest problem. I don't begrudge people for their perception of what threats are most concerning to them. Just don't impose it on me. I'm not required to worry at any particular level about any particular threat.

We're not going to achieve any arbitrarily chosen level of drastic CO2 reduction globally in the next decade. Lots of solvable problems are still on the list though. We could probably do something meaningful about global starvation, for instance. There's a good argument to be made for massive investments from governments around the world to develop next-gen nuclear power generation. If we solve the cheap, abundant, and low polluting energy production problem, that positively impacts basically everything on the list of problems.



Peterson starts out by saying global temperature seems to be rising and that humans have some responsibility for that. You disagree with that?



You acknowledge increased growth in one breath, and then proceed to talk about decreased growth. Which is it? Somehow only weeds will grow better, but absolutely everything we value will suffer? What is the scientific explanation for only plants valued by humans suffering, but all other plants thriving? I haven't read that study yet.



Overfishing is not attributable to global warming.



We're not talking about an eviction notice requiring trees to vacate next month, we're talking about gradual temperature increase over hundreds of years. Trees can respond over hundreds of years.

Besides all that, we're not hunter/gatherers, we're agrarians. We put the food plants where we want them immediately.



I haven't seen that dystopian sci-fi yet. Doesn't sound like an interesting plot-line by itself.

* The climate problem challenge is associated with ' anthropogenic carbon' not 'some' of it. So, in that context I disagree with him.
* The idea that you could do anything meaningful about starvation, on a planet of increasing population, while food production is falling challenges logic.
* I thought you told us that you have libertarian leanings? The thought that you would accept any intrusion by big government into free market capitalism seems like an about-face.
* Increased atmospheric carbon isn't creating another 'green revolution' quite the contrary. The trees which would be sequestering carbon are being killed by insects of a warming world, and have become, any many cases, 'fuel'.
* Commercially produced 'plants' are being destroyed by climate-related events.
* I'm not saying that all other plants will thrive.
* A decline in the fisheries produces the same phenomena, by default , as overfishing.
* I recommend that you speak to a botanist that's researched extinction, and see how quickly a tree could possibly adapt to a geometrically-warming world. We're talking about 'rapid' warming, never experienced while humans have been on the planet.
* You can plant a plant wherever you choose, however it's not guaranteed to grow there anymore.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by aerohead

* The climate problem challenge is associated with ' anthropomorphic carbon' not 'some' of it. So, in that context I disagree with him.

The same mistake you make with regards to weeds vs crops is leading you to incorrect conclusions here, too.

That mistake is assuming everything Gaia provides is in perfect quantity, and that any alteration of that by 1 species (us) must be a change for the worse.

You believe (correct me if I'm wrong) plantlife will proliferate with increasing CO2, but only "weeds", as vegetation valued by humanity will diminish.

Now here (correct me if I'm wrong), you're assuming any amount of CO2 nature emits is the perfect amount, but any amount humans emit disrupts the perfect amount Gaia has provided for her world.

I just don't think many people have such faith in the perfect Gaia religion.

* The idea that you could do anything meaningful about starvation, on a planet of increasing population, while food production is falling challenges logic.

40,000 people escape abject poverty every day, so the evidence is contrary to your notion that things are getting worse. Preventing people from starvation is easy, because all you have to do is give them food. That's a lot easier to do than turning down the outdoor thermostat.

* I thought you told us that you have libertarian leanings? The thought that you would accept any intrusion by big government into free market capitalism seems like an about-face.

Where am I advocating for an intrusion by government into the free market?

My default is liberty, but that doesn't mean I oppose all authority. It means that when there is sufficient doubt as to whether we're better off imposing on liberty or not, then don't. It's similar to my default in criminal law, that people are innocent until proven guilty.

* Increased atmospheric carbon isn't creating another 'green revolution' quite the contrary. The trees which would be sequestering carbon are being killed by insects of a warming world, and have become, any many cases, 'fuel'.

Do you have a reference for a global decline in tree growth?

* Commercially produced 'plants' are being destroyed by climate-related events.

Do you have a reference for a global decline in commercial plants?

* A decline in the fisheries produces the same phenomena, by default , as overfishing.

For the sake of argument, we accept that premise. Is it easier to solve the problem of declining fishery production by lowering the outdoor thermostat, or directly improving the habitats in which these fisheries operate?

* I recommend that you speak to a botanist that's researched extinction, and see how quickly a tree could possibly adapt to a geometrically-warming world. We're talking about 'rapid' warming, never experienced while humans have been on the planet.

Ah yeah, I should just talk to one of my many friends who are extinction botanists.

* You can plant a plant wherever you choose, however it's not guaranteed to grow there anymore.

That's why Gaia gave us our big brains, so we don't go planting things in stupid places.

[freebeard]

Do you have a reference for a global decline in tree growth?

Jordan Petersen says otherwise; so, therefore -- QED

Do you have a reference for a global decline in commercial plants?

Commercial as opposed to botanical? Latest was a plastic pot plant going up in smoke. But, like the train derailments, it's most likely to be the anti-fascist black block.

well, that and UK and Netherlands making food production illegal.

Vertical farms in urban areas would break a lot of dependencies that cripple the food delivery system.

[redpoint5]

We're coming into the Golden Age, where we use autonomous machines with lasers instead of chemical pesticides. The machine will tailor fertilizers to the exact needs of the individual plants, reducing runoff and boosting yields.

Cheap, abundant, high quality food is coming. Perhaps the increased rainfall will reduce the irrigation burden, too.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by aerohead

* The idea that you could do anything meaningful about starvation, on a planet of increasing population, while food production is falling challenges logic.

That's nihilism. Why even try.

Why even try permaculture, algae farms, transoceanic geodesic fish farms (that one's for redpoint5), de-desertification, vertical indoor farms? Things not even thought of?

Originally Posted by [I

ibid[/I]]
* I thought you told us that you have libertarian leanings? The thought that you would accept any intrusion by big government into free market capitalism seems like an about-face.

Moderation in all things, in moderation. Just as Right and Left must balance so must Libertarianism/Anarchism and Authoritarianism.

Some people need those free helicopter rides.

autonomous machines with lasers

They can just punch weed sprouts back into the ground and turn them into plant food.

[oil pan 4]

They're growing a lot more weed in Colorado.

[freebeard]

* The idea that you could do anything meaningful about starvation, on a planet of increasing population, while food production is falling challenges logic.

Scientists Reveal Saudi Arabia Desert Is NOT What We Thought

[title and thumbnail unrelated]

1/5th the size of the United States, with the World's largest desert. Yet they have gone from being a food importer to a food exporter in 50 years.

Mainly by leveraging the profits from their petroleum.

[oil pan 4]

Also covid mass hysteria plunged million in to poverty and starvation by people simply doing nothing.

[freebeard]

"Off The Charts" Fake News

He's talking about [snow/ice] gained, while they are talking about water lost.

Discuss.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The same mistake you make with regards to weeds vs crops is leading you to incorrect conclusions here, too.

That mistake is assuming everything Gaia provides is in perfect quantity, and that any alteration of that by 1 species (us) must be a change for the worse.

You believe (correct me if I'm wrong) plantlife will proliferate with increasing CO2, but only "weeds", as vegetation valued by humanity will diminish.

Now here (correct me if I'm wrong), you're assuming any amount of CO2 nature emits is the perfect amount, but any amount humans emit disrupts the perfect amount Gaia has provided for her world.

I just don't think many people have such faith in the perfect Gaia religion.


40,000 people escape abject poverty every day, so the evidence is contrary to your notion that things are getting worse. Preventing people from starvation is easy, because all you have to do is give them food. That's a lot easier to do than turning down the outdoor thermostat.



Where am I advocating for an intrusion by government into the free market?

My default is liberty, but that doesn't mean I oppose all authority. It means that when there is sufficient doubt as to whether we're better off imposing on liberty or not, then don't. It's similar to my default in criminal law, that people are innocent until proven guilty.



Do you have a reference for a global decline in tree growth?



Do you have a reference for a global decline in commercial plants?



For the sake of argument, we accept that premise. Is it easier to solve the problem of declining fishery production by lowering the outdoor thermostat, or directly improving the habitats in which these fisheries operate?



Ah yeah, I should just talk to one of my many friends who are extinction botanists.



That's why Gaia gave us our big brains, so we don't go planting things in stupid places.

1) according to my information I've made no mistake, and my conclusions would constitute cognitive continuity. Your welcome to provide scientific countervailing evidence.
2) you'd be challenged to find any evidence where I've EVER, and at ANYTIME made such an unscientific characterization as ' perfect' in association to 'nature.'
3) I'll take your wording associating me to anything to Gaia as an ad hominem attack, which is banned at EcoModder. Stop it! Right here and now!
4) Anthropogenic greenhouse gases reducing global food production is a scientific fact, for which I'll provide specific bona fides elsewhere.
5) No where have I ever claimed that 'plantlife' (sic) will 'proliferate with increasing carbon dioxide.'
6) Global warming and it's attendant climate change, associated with anthropogenic greenhouse gases, as a fact, is introducing invasive 'weeds' to commercial farming operations, as 'warmer' conditions now allow species to thrive in locals where, formerly, it was 'too cool' for them to survive. The emergence of these new, unwanted plants add an additional burden and cost to the farmer, whom now must deal with a problem they never had before climate effects started to arrive in their 'backyard.' ( this isn't rocket science )
7) 'Commercially-produced' agricultural products are already in decline, globally, because of man. I'll provide the scientific bona fides elsewhere.
8)I don't know anything about a 'perfect Gaia religion,' and if you think you can associate me with it I'll do everything in my power to get you thrown off of EcoModder. Knock it off ! Or suffer the consequences.
9) I'm uncertain how to incorporate the notion of 'abject poverty' into a discussion of climate change.' Something like the 13,000,000 American citizens who are food-insecure right now would be germane. Un-insured Americans who've lost everything they owned to hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, dam bursts, flooding, mud-slides, tropical disease, heatwaves, 'heat-stretches', drowned livestock, crop failure, asthma, glacier extinction, saltwater intrusion, shellfish poisoning, malnutrition, etc.. Between 2011 and 2018, more than 100,000 USA farms were lost. By 2018 there was $ 416-billion in USA farm debt. 50% of USA farmers had lost money every year since 2013. In 2019, 29,687-square miles of cropland was never planted due to flooding. In 2022, America farmers were killing their own crops and selling off the livestock in response to extreme drought. 37% of field crops were plowed under. Farmers committing suicide at an alarming rate.
Production is declining, food is becoming less nutritious, and some food will literally become poisonous in the near future, with a world population heading north of 9,000,000,000, the arithmetic is pretty simple. There will starvation on a scale which is unimaginable. Malthusian. It's baked into climate change.
11) I DO have scientific evidence for declining global tree growth, from the very plant physiologists whom conducted the research.
12) I DO have scientific evidence for a global decline in commercial food production, from those who are watching it unfold as I type.
13) Asking for 'Big Government' to do 'ANYTHING' about advancing Nuclear Fusion power is 'socialist,' and a direct violation of Adam Smith's 'free hand of capitalism.' Very anti-libertarian.
14) As to the world's fisheries, unless one understands the marine food chain, there's no way to a solution. Those who understand the marine food chain already know that we're doomed. There isn't going to be any 'habitat' for marine organisms. And it begins with both polar ice caps, ocean warming, and ocean acidification. A flue stack and tailpipe issue, and all the infrastructure which supports it.
15) Those who plant things have found that it wasn't the wrong plant they planted, it was the place they planted it. While we 'slept' the place changed. And it's changing at a pace never seen in the knowable history of Earth.
Hence the existential threat.