Global Warming

[Emi]

In fairness 6 is two opinions combined and hence is a trap.

[deoxys]

I technically CAN change the results, if you've changed your mind.

[Rangeet]

pls change it to 1 bby

[phoopes]

Same here. I feel much more "woke" these days as the kids say

[Doppleganger]

I hadn't voted in this poll before, but voted 6 right now.

You're craaaaazy with an emphasis on the "a" if you think we can halt/reverse climate change practically now. It was barely possible with the highly impractical policy wedges when I debated the issue in 2006 and how many gallons of hydrocarbons/methane/CO2 have we dumped into the atmosphere in the decade since?

It isn't just cars, it's oil refinery, it's agriculture, it's waste disposal and it's China. It is systemic to almost every industry. We're in a natural climate cycle brutally bloated by the most potent human steroids, and it's already too late. You just have to accept the inevitable, or pray for polar shift to correct the problem.

[Rangeet]

We might not be able to stop it or reverse it completely, but we are able, both theoretically and practically, to slow it down. And slowing it down will buy us the time we need to start slowing it down some more, and then perhaps stop it, and that will buy us time to look into reversing it.

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Rangeet

We might not be able to stop it or reverse it completely, but we are able, both theoretically and practically, to slow it down. And slowing it down will buy us the time we need to start slowing it down some more, and then perhaps stop it, and that will buy us time to look into reversing it.

Slowing it down is already too optimistic, because the Greenhouse effect is a compounding one. Even if the US magically went green on energy next year (solar powered cars) it would be little more than trying to hold back an avalanche with a flamethrower. All it does it make people feel better about their house being built in a floodplain.

[Rangeet]

It is, but human beings, if actually cooperating on important tasks, are frighteningly efficient.

We have defeated the Earth several times by going to the Moon and to Mars. We can defeat the Earth again by forcing it to let us live.

[Talon87]

You sorely underestimate humanity, Doppel. I'm not saying we've 100% got this beat, but realistically we're not even trying that hard right now to fix it. Once we "try hard" and put on our thinking caps and pour all of our money into it, there's no telling what we'll come up with. We got men into space using scraps of garbage. We sure as hell can come up with a novel sequestration or catalytic process to deal with excess greenhouse gases.

That confidence in humanity's ability to beat this is, unfortunately, a huge part of the problem. The reason you get half-assed responses from most of the world and backwards responses from Trump and the Alt-Right is in part because of a smug confidence in humanity's ability to figure shit out "once we really have to" and a belief that we don't "really have to" just yet.

But yeah ... no ... you are dooming and glooming way too strongly right now. We're fucked with available to us the technologies of the foreseeable future. We're not fucked with the unforeseeable. And the unforeseeable isn't denial or wishful thinking. The history of the 20th century proves time and time again how often mainstays in our lives were unthinkable, unforeseeable, twenty to thirty years before their arrival.

[deoxys]

We can mitigate the damage. It's not reversible, however, we DO have the ability to alter exactly how much damage we will do and how high the temperature will rise. Right now it's already going to kill off a lot of species (and currently is in terms of the background extinction rate, which is something like three species going extinct per hour or something like that - I forgot the actual numbers but it's right around there).

Coral reef is done for. It may come back in the distant future, as in not in our lifetimes or our great grandchildren's lifetimes, but coral as we know it is fucked. There's not avoiding it. Warmer oceans + acidification is stripping coral of the ability to form properly and resulting in bleaching.

We did manage to plateau emission rates for CO2 the last few years, but that's in large part due to the Earth and oceans absorbing much of that combined with climate change regulations helping stifle the amount we output. Of course, Trump is going to try to undo all of that, because he is a dumbfuck, but, you know, what else is new.

Anyway, climate change action now can meant he difference between a three degree temperature increase and a seven and a half degree increase (at which point humans pretty much can't adapt anymore, and that's more or less endgame for us). Right now I think we're guaranteed something like two degrees increase. I'm confident we won't get to the point where we reach the "endgame" for humanity, because that is still a while off, but we are going to see the deaths of a lot of species, many of them iconic, as they struggle to evolve quickly enough to adapt to a warmer environment while food chains collapse and go through rapid changes.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by deoxys

We can mitigate the damage. It's not reversible, however, we DO have the ability to alter exactly how much damage we will do and how high the temperature will rise.

Too declarative. I don't believe anyone in this thread is in much position to declare, "It's not reversible," as though the best we can do is to turn an exponential runaway into a logarithmic plateau. Maybe you're right to think that we won't be reversing things back to the way they were for much of recorded human history, but I sincerely believe that "where there's a will, there's a way" and that humans, with their remarkable ingenuity, will find a way to get us to wherever they want us to be. It's not a question of sufficient ability -- it's simply a question of sufficient will. Will will drive ability.

But hey -- if I'm wrong, at least we have this to look forward to. Gen tells me so!

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Rangeet

It is, but human beings, if actually cooperating on important tasks, are frighteningly efficient.

We have defeated the Earth several times by going to the Moon and to Mars. We can defeat the Earth again by forcing it to let us live.

Humans have never defeated climate change*; they adapted to it. Part of that is the same mindset of why I think people will be 'defeated' by it - they see climate change as bad and not merely change, where a change is a loss and no change is a win. The world can survive a flooded planet, but not with the current geopolitical makeup.

*Humans may have ended the Ice Age by killing off the megafauna; see Pleistocene Park

Originally Posted by Talon87

You sorely underestimate humanity, Doppel. I'm not saying we've 100% got this beat, but realistically we're not even trying that hard right now to fix it. Once we "try hard" and put on our thinking caps and pour all of our money into it, there's no telling what we'll come up with. We got men into space using scraps of garbage. We sure as hell can come up with a novel sequestration or catalytic process to deal with excess greenhouse gases.

What you're referring to is the policy wedge which highlights just how serious the problem is. Even if we "try hard", which amounts to complete world mobilization, it still might not be enough.

For example, when I studied this policy (2006), one of the wedges was increasing Brazilian and US ethanol production by 100 times...immediately. In the 11 years since that study, the US has gone from 3.908 million gallons to 13.908 million gallons. So a far cry from 100x...we've gone up 3.5X.

Originally Posted by Talon87

That confidence in humanity's ability to beat this is, unfortunately, a huge part of the problem. The reason you get half-assed responses from most of the world and backwards responses from Trump and the Alt-Right is in part because of a smug confidence in humanity's ability to figure shit out "once we really have to" and a belief that we don't "really have to" just yet.

I think it's a meme at this point. Not even the oil companies deny climate change. Remember how Trump was still believing in conspiracy theories despite being the president of the United States, vested the authority and ability to investigate whether those theories have any merit in classified US record?

Originally Posted by Talon87

But yeah ... no ... you are dooming and glooming way too strongly right now. We're fucked with available to us the technologies of the foreseeable future. We're not fucked with the unforeseeable. And the unforeseeable isn't denial or wishful thinking. The history of the 20th century proves time and time again how often mainstays in our lives were unthinkable, unforeseeable, twenty to thirty years before their arrival.

Betting on speculative technology is no better than wishing upon a shooting star. We should apply existing technology and supplement it with future tech, or phase out the old as the new provides improvement.