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

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by aerohead

The changes will be 'faster' than humans and wildlife can possibly adapt.
Costs will exceed the entire global GDP.
Presently, for some, merely going outside constitutes a death sentence.

Temperature has risen about 1 degree and seas about 1ft over the last 100 years, which is insanely rapid in geologic terms. It wasn't faster than we could adapt.

Temperature will rise about 1 degree and seas another foot in the next 100 years. Why would we be less capable of adapting given the technological advancements that will occur in the next 100 years? We're somehow going to get less proficient at adapting to various climates? That would only be true if we're cavemen relying on dumb animals to get too close to survive.

Costs exceeding global GDP is false on the face of it. Sure, setting the outdoor thermostat 1 degree cooler like it was 100 years ago might exceed GDP, but building structures in fire prone areas with fire resistance in mind doesn't increase the construction cost much. Not building in flood zones or in hurricane alley costs nothing. Building structures resilient to flooding and hurricanes costs more, but not double or more. Increasing crop yields aren't costing anything. We could tell primitive people to stop killing polar bears if we want a larger population of those useless things.

Where are the people who are going to die if they step foot outside? Seems like a good reason to move if being exposed to outdoor conditions momentarily poses an existential threat. They're obviously wealthy if they can afford 24/7 home care.

[freebeard]

This could go in the Scott Adams thread, but it's ontopic here. Episode 2742 at 1:18:32:

there's a clean energy breakthrough where they create these tiny copper Nano flowers that can
convert CO2 in the air uh into valuable
hydrocarbons with no pollution think about that they figured
out how to take the CO2 out of the air without without using a lot of energy I
I I think it might even be passive it might be just the CO2 that hits the flower yeah I think it is so they're not
they're not even sucking the CO2 out they're just putting this flour there now they're calling it a flow but it's
you know copper wires and stuff uh but it's a mimicking nature and they uh it mimics the
photosynthesis so it turns a carbon dioxide into a fuel source specifically
what kind of fuel uh into complex molecules such as uh ethane and ethylene
which are key components in fuels and plastic production now the question I ask if
this is real and uh University of California Berkeley and University of Cambridge say it is they say it's real
that it's not a theory they built it so they don't have to wonder if it works
they built it it works so what if we all got
one you know what what if it what if they just turn it into a I don't know a
desktop thing you can plug in and it just takes CO2 out of the air and turns it into something you could sell or
turns it into 3D printer material I always like that it could be it could be the end of
any problems about CO2 now may I jump in and say don't take my plant food stop
taking all my CO2 my plants are going to die well before that
happens at least we can get rid of the climate hysteria so when I talk about removing
CO2 from the air I'm usually talking about removing the climate hysteria from the air I'm not really talking about CO2
but if we had a way to get rid of it as scale we would know pretty quickly if it made any difference and I think we could

"when I talk about removing CO2 from the air I'm usually talking about removing the climate hysteria from the air"

He never gives his sources, where does he get his news? DDG: The Debrief one day ago? Phys.org four days ago?

thedebrief.org
Clean Energy Breakthrough: These Tiny Copper 'Nano-Flowers' Convert CO₂ ...
1 day agoScientists have developed small "nano-flowers" made of copper, attached to a solar cell "leaf" in a design mimicking how plants capture sunlight through photosynthesis. This breakthrough in solar power technology could support the energy demands of modern industries while reducing

phys.org
Tiny copper 'flowers' bloom on artificial leaves for clean fuel production

Tiny copper 'nano-flowers' have been attached to an artificial leaf to produce clean fuels and chemicals that are the backbone of modern energy and manufacturing.

I've always advocated for passive operation with the costs up front. Like electrochromic glass.

Smart glass
Glass with electrically switchable opacity
Smart glass, also known as switchable glass, dynamic glass, and smart-tinting glass, is a type of glass that can change its optical properties, becoming opaque or tinted, in response to electrical or thermal signals. This can be used to prevent sunlight and heat from entering a building during hot days, improving energy efficiency. It can also be used to conveniently provide privacy or visibility to a room. There are two primary classifications of smart glass: active or passive. Wikipedia

[redpoint5]

It's passive in that it doesn't emit EM, not in the sense that it requires no energy.

"Doing things" has never been the problem, it's supplying the expensive energy to do it.

If something could run on electricity and convert CO2 in the air back into fossil fuels with ~80% efficiency, we might have something useful.

[Isaac Zachary]

I'm sure humankind as a whole will survive the global warming that has been contributed by human activity (burning buried carbon) just as it has survived two pandemics, two world wars, the recent increase in crime, and the zombie apocalypse (aka, mass smartphone addiction).

But increased tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires and other new records in climate has and will cause more deaths. As many as those that died in WWII? I don't know, but it's still death, and that toll should be part of the total calculation for deaths and injuries caused by industry and there should be an open ear to alternatives that could possibly slow this thing down instead of just shrugging it off like lives don't matter.

[freebeard]

...just as it has survived two pandemics, two world wars, the recent increase in crime, and the zombie apocalypse (aka, mass smartphone addiction).

..so far

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

But increased tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires and other new records in climate has and will cause more deaths. As many as those that died in WWII? I don't know, but it's still death, and that toll should be part of the total calculation for deaths and injuries caused by industry and there should be an open ear to alternatives that could possibly slow this thing down instead of just shrugging it off like lives don't matter.

Agreed, and the calculation should include the tens of billions of people who existed due to fossil fuel exploitation and the ensuing massive increase in life expectancy.

Our extreme wealth compared to prior ages have allowed gluttony and sloth to take hold.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Agreed, and the calculation should include the tens of billions of people who existed due to fossil fuel exploitation and the ensuing massive increase in life expectancy.

Medicine has increased life expectancy, and you can say it is part of industrialization. Could we have gotten as far as we have with medicine without the rest, or most of the rest of industrialization? I don't know, perhaps not.

But as for "billions of people who existed due to fossil fuel exploitation" is completely false. The industrial revolution did not increase population growth and in fact countries that are industrialized tend to have lower birth rates. If we hadn't gone into an industrial revolution there would be more people than there are now. And as more countries become more and more industrialized the worlds population will stop growing and start shrinking. So no, you can't attribute the existence of tens of billions of people to the exploitation of fossil fuels.

But in the end, having fewer people but that live longer isn't necessarily a bad thing either. So yes, in some ways some people live longer due to technology and an industrialized world, and others die younger. I wonder what the total life expectancy would be if you included all the people who have died that can be attributed to industrialization, such as people who died in modern warfare or in third world countries affected by things like pollution.

[freebeard]

Well reasoned argumentation, but 'what ifs..' are inherently risky. What if life expectancy increases but so do waistlines?

Medicine without industrialization is older than with. And here we are today.

And "billions of people who existed due to fossil fuel exploitation" have been ground up in it's gears. (B-17s over Polesti)

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Medicine has increased life expectancy, and you can say it is part of industrialization. Could we have gotten as far as we have with medicine without the rest, or most of the rest of industrialization? I don't know, perhaps not.

But as for "billions of people who existed due to fossil fuel exploitation" is completely false. The industrial revolution did not increase population growth and in fact countries that are industrialized tend to have lower birth rates. If we hadn't gone into an industrial revolution there would be more people than there are now. And as more countries become more and more industrialized the worlds population will stop growing and start shrinking. So no, you can't attribute the existence of tens of billions of people to the exploitation of fossil fuels.

But in the end, having fewer people but that live longer isn't necessarily a bad thing either. So yes, in some ways some people live longer due to technology and an industrialized world, and others die younger. I wonder what the total life expectancy would be if you included all the people who have died that can be attributed to industrialization, such as people who died in modern warfare or in third world countries affected by things like pollution.

What do you assume explains this chart of global population? Do you think a graph of energy consumption per capita would follow the population trend?


Pre-industrialization, life was nasty, brutish, and short. Children were necessary because human/animal labor was all there was, and modern contraception didn't exist. In the months with fairer weather, the young men would go off to war since taking stuff has more profit potential than toiling in the mud. Slaves were taken, because again, a person is a machine that can do work.

Did the civilized world become civilized because they sat around, thought real hard, and came up with the idea that slavery is wrong? There is more slavery in the world now than any other point in history, and it all exists in impoverished places where people don't have affordable, abundant energy and machines to labor for them.

If we massively reduced energy consumption, we'd simply revert back to tribalism and slavery. We're not better behaved because our DNA is superior, we're better behaved because relative wealth has made us docile.

The information age has made us uninterested in sacrificing to pursue and maintain a relationship with the opposite sex because we've all become unappealing not only in our gluttony, but given idealized portrayals of other people in our media. When Adam met Eve, he knew he had the most beautiful woman in the world. Now with 7 billion people, we're pretty confident our mates aren't the best, plus children are expensive hassles. Much easier and less costly ways to get a dopamine hit.

Seems to me both causes are true, that industrialization (abundant energy) made us wealthy and populous, and then made us distracted and unappealing.

The only folks still reproducing like crazy don't have access to distractions. They don't even know man has landed on the moon. Give them Sex and the City and porn, and they'd stop reproducing as well.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Pre-industrialization, life was nasty, brutish, and short. Children were necessary because human/animal labor was all there was, and modern contraception didn't exist. In the months with fairer weather, the young men would go off to war since taking stuff has more profit potential than toiling in the mud. Slaves were taken, because again, a person is a machine that can do work.

Did the civilized world become civilized because they sat around, thought real hard, and came up with the idea that slavery is wrong? There is more slavery in the world now than any other point in history, and it all exists in impoverished places where people don't have affordable, abundant energy and machines to labor for them.

This wasn't universal, as it depended on the moral values of each culture. There were cultures where altruism abounded, and war and slavery were either non-existent or not at all how you're depicting them.

Technology and industry have tried to limit our crimes and vices by offering us many more that do less harm to others, yet we also have fewer altruistic cultures as a result.

Also, thinking that everyone suffered before the industrial revolution is just wrong. Most families did not have slaves. The world wasn't in a constant state of war either. There were many benefits to such a life style. One was child-parent relationships since children spent time with their parents learning how to make a living and how the world works. This wasn't a bad thing, it was a good thing. It only became bad when greed caused parents to exploit their own children. But separating children and adults into two worlds, the working world and the school world, hasn't helped people stick to moral values and to respect others more, but rather has caused them only to get worse causing more disrespect.

Also, the industrial revolution hasn't fixed the problem of war. There are more wars and a higher death rate in those wars than previous ones. There is also a higher crime rate than ever before.

I suspect that as those who have more power find more ways to keep channeling more of the world's wealth into their pockets then the rest of the world will continue to make less and less until we're back to slavery once again.

And besides, getting back to the point of climate change, even if the only downside to industrialization were climate change due to tons of CO2 being spewed into the atmosphere, there's no reason why we can't look for and try out alternatives that lower or eliminate that. It's like cars. They have a problem, you get in a wreck and you can die. But seat belts, air bags, ABS and now auto stopping systems are saving more lives, and we still are able to drive around our tons of steel vehicles.