Texans beware

[Myopic Bookworm]

A member of our family died recently at the age of 94. He was a meteorologist and climate modeller, and was telling politicians about the risk of climate change decades ago before it was fashionable to do so.

No one has yet produced a credible scientific explanation of how the world's climate could remain stable, given the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into it by industry. Yes, climate change has happened many times before in the Earth's history, but never so fast. It causes ecological disruption and extinction, and Homo sapiens is not immune from its effects, nor are all the artificially adapted species on which it relies for food. The world's wildlife will bounce back, just as it has in the past, but organized agriculture could be screwed.

Nor has anyone provided a rationale for the world's governments to make up fake stories about climate change. All governments would prefer not have to take action on the topic, and part of the problem is that most governments have been diligently ignoring the problem for years.

[pelmut]

...Do you have any examples of actions that would "make things worse"?

Clean air zones in the UK forcing lorries and vans to make many extra miles of avoiding detours.
Government incentives to scrap and replace perfectly good vehicles.
Banning the most energy-efficient vehicles (diesels) and promoting energy-wasting battery technology.
Promoting wind turbines which cannot cover their environmental construction and maintenence costs during their entire working life.
Collecting garden waste, transporting it to a distant location and composting it, thereby releasing damaging methane into the atmosphere, where it eventually breaks down into CO2.
Planting millions of extra trees which will die in about 100 years, creating a huge disposal problem and releasing the CO2 they originally captured.
Closing down energy-intensive industries in countries where their products are used and then buying those products from the same industries in other countries, thereby adding the environmental cost of transport to the original industrial costs.

...all of the above purporting to reduce climate change whilst actually increasing it.

In addition...
Allowing housing and industrial developments with no rail connections.
Separating housing areas from industrial areas and grouping hospitals and schools into fewer, larger, units in the name of 'efficiency'; thereby creating extra transport demand.

[pelmut]

[...Yes, climate change has happened many times before in the Earth's history, but never so fast. It causes ecological disruption and extinction,...

Volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes are pretty fast events -- they generated very obvious effects and they did result in ecological disruption and extinction.  Man-made changes have been going on for over 100 years, comparatively slowly, and the effects have only recently been detected* by statistical methods.

[* If you discount the popular press reports that everything from the ravages of beetles on the Brocken to a mass outbreak of ingrowing toenails is proof of climate change.]

[Myopic Bookworm]

Man-made changes have been going on for over 100 years, comparatively slowly, and the effects have only recently been detected* by statistical methods.

The retreat of glaciers by distances measured in kilometers is hardly a statistical matter.

[crfriend]

The retreat of glaciers by distances measured in kilometers is hardly a statistical matter.

Indeed, and as in most things, I have a highly nuanced view of things, One, Climate Change is happening around us now, and those with long memories can quantify that by personal experience,. Two. We have ample geological records that state quite conclusively that the planet cycles between warm and cold periods over geological time. Three. he planet is still on the rebound from a cool period (the last Ice Age) and into a warm period (glaciers retreating and ocean levels rising). Four. Humans are especially prone to damage because of this due to the proximity of many of our large population centres being on coastlines, and our absolute reliance on agricultural methods that are "engineered" (and climate dependent) and quite non-sustainable. Five. Extinction on Earth is the rule and not the exception.

Is anthropomorphic activity accelerating the process? The likely answer at the moment is, "Yes." The second part of the question is, "By how much?", to which the answer tends to be, "We're not sure." However, we are the only species on this rock that has even the slightest shred of hope to actually do something about the problem. Does this mean that we should shrug our shoulders and hide our heads in the sand? The current "leadership" seems to be doing just that, and is trying to make a quick profit of the worry. The whole fiasco with electric cars is a beautiful example. If we're using fossil fuels to generate the electricity to charge all the electric cars then all we're doing is moving the tailpipe and making the process of converting heat into motion even more inefficient. Too, at least in the USA, the electric grid as it stands now is not going to be capable of standing up to the load of millions of car-battery chargers every day.

Are there answers? Very likely, but those will be found with diligent research into both near-past as well as long-past histories. They will not be found in the political system, nor will they be found in the notions of pop-science or public opinion. If humans go extinct, I do not believe the Earth will care one whit.

According to research done on the New England area, a mere 15,000 years ago the sea levels were 500 feet below where they are now. This leads to the interesting notion that with sea levels that low, the wreck of the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria (sunk off Nantucket Island in the 1950s) would be lying on the side of a hill 200 feet above sea level. That kind of puts things into perspective -- and also tends to puncture somewhat the notion that humans have significanty impacted things.

That said, I will restate that it's in our interest to do something, not hide, lest the rules overtake Homo Sapiens.

[STEVIE]

Sorry to interject but is Texas in particular danger and the Texan people at particular risk?
Just asking because maybe this is something else that they need a warning to be aware of.
Maybe not just that their sartorial choices are being restricted.
Steve.

[rode_kater]

Thank you for responding.

It feels a little like I'm arguing against strawmen. Climate change is a problem, but it's hardly the only one. It sometimes feels like people suggest we should only focus on one problem and ignore all the other ones. Sometimes different problems have conflicting solutions.

...Do you have any examples of actions that would "make things worse"?

Clean air zones in the UK forcing lorries and vans to make many extra miles of avoiding detours.

This for example. Air pollution also a serous problem, one that kills people right now. Yeah, they're making detours, but that reduces pollution in the problematic spots. And businesses switch to cleaner alternatives. The choice between fixing air pollution now and the possible extra CO2 is a valid political choice, and nothing to do with whether anthropomorphic climate is real or not. No-one said this was going to be easy.

FWIW, I live in one of the most polluted areas in Europe, so I have little sympathy for people proclaiming their right drive dirty cars.

Government incentives to scrap and replace perfectly good vehicles.
Banning the most energy-efficient vehicles (diesels) and promoting energy-wasting battery technology.

Diesels are banned for the air pollution problem as well. "Most efficient" is relative, they're maybe be 30% efficient. Burning things for energy is a ridiculously inefficient process. Meanwhile, as more of the grid becomes renewables EVs become even better than they already are. The reduced noise and air pollution from EVs makes it worth it already.

Promoting wind turbines which cannot cover their environmental construction and maintenence costs during their entire working life.

Eh? Wind turbines produce the cheapest form of power around and are built without subsidies and still make a profit for the investors. The reason it's taking off is because people see it as a way to make money. Even offshore wind is cheaper. If they didn't cover their own costs they wouldn't get built. Interconnectors are an issue which is simply a question of investment, no new technologies required.

Collecting garden waste, transporting it to a distant location and composting it, thereby releasing damaging methane into the atmosphere, where it eventually breaks down into CO2.

The carbon in garden waste is not a problem, it came from the air in the first place so is not adding anything that wasn't there already. Not everybody has a garden to compost themselves. If you're smart you put it in bioreactors and use the resulting gases in industrial processes. In any case, composting elsewhere at least helps with the air pollution problem.

Planting millions of extra trees which will die in about 100 years, creating a huge disposal problem and releasing the CO2 they originally captured.

The Amazon rainforest has had trees for a lot longer than 100 years and I haven't seen anything about a disposal problem. At the moment though we're still chopping down more trees than we're planting (around 10 million hectares per year). I think you'll agree that a million trees is a drop in the bucket (one tree planted for every 10 hectares chopped down).

Closing down energy-intensive industries in countries where their products are used and then buying those products from the same industries in other countries, thereby adding the environmental cost of transport to the original industrial costs.

Yes, that's dumb. It's mostly done for economic reasons by individual business though, not as official government policy. They have belatedly realised that preventing it costs taxpayer money, which make liberals feel uncomfortable.

In addition...
Allowing housing and industrial developments with no rail connections.
Separating housing areas from industrial areas and grouping hospitals and schools into fewer, larger, units in the name of 'efficiency'; thereby creating extra transport demand.

Yes, double dumb. We don't do that here fortunately. American city planning is frankly horrible.

Note: I'm not going to change your mind on any of these. I hope we can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Not so fun fact I learned recently: the total mass of all the concrete, metal & plastic we've made now exceeds the total mass of all living things on the planet. That's just mind boggling.

[Myopic Bookworm]

Sometimes different problems have conflicting solutions.

Air pollution also a serous problem, one that kills people right now. ... No-one said this was going to be easy.
Burning things for energy is a ridiculously inefficient process.
Wind turbines produce the cheapest form of power around and are built without subsidies and still make a profit for the investors.
The carbon in garden waste is not a problem, it came from the air in the first place so is not adding anything that wasn't there already.
The Amazon rainforest has had trees for a lot longer than 100 years and I haven't seen anything about a disposal problem.

Thanks for setting this out so clearly.

Disposing of trees is amazingly easy: you just build things out of them (or turn them into books)!

Closing down energy-intensive industries in countries where their products are used and then buying those products from the same industries in other countries, thereby adding the environmental cost of transport to the original industrial costs.

Yes, that's dumb. It's mostly done for economic reasons by individual business though, not as official government policy. They have belatedly realised that preventing it costs taxpayer money, which make liberals feel uncomfortable.

I didn't quite follow that: surely it's not political "liberals" that are uncomfortable with spending tax money, it's economic "neoliberals", i.e. conservatives.

Allowing housing and industrial developments with no rail connections.
Separating housing areas from industrial areas and grouping hospitals and schools into fewer, larger, units in the name of 'efficiency'; thereby creating extra transport demand.

Yes, double dumb. We don't do that here fortunately. American city planning is frankly horrible.

Unfortunately, we do do that here quite a lot, though not quite on an American scale. The tide is turning, but new housing developments which require car-dependence for services are still common, and the twin idiocy of centralizing hospitals while cutting public transport continues.

[ScotL]

Nor has anyone provided a rationale for the world's governments to make up fake stories about climate change. All governments would prefer not have to take action on the topic, and part of the problem is that most governments have been diligently ignoring the problem for years.

This. When in doubt follow the money. Which is cheaper in the short term (since that’s how gov’t works); to continue the status quo or to completely revamp the energy grid for something that will likely occur after I’m no longer in office.

On a different note, will global warming be the end of pants for many places except for work functions that require coverage?

[pelmut]

Thank you for responding.

It feels a little like I'm arguing against strawmen. Climate change is a problem, but it's hardly the only one. It sometimes feels like people suggest we should only focus on one problem and ignore all the other ones. Sometimes different problems have conflicting solutions.
[...]

Most of your replies demonstrate exactly what I was trying to explain, we have lots of problems and in most cases, when it comes to a balance between the problem and CO2 generation, the problem wins at the expense of wasted energy and increased CO2. If man-made climate change is real and if it is the biggest single threat facing the human race, let's find other ways of solving these relatively minor problems that doesn't involve throwing energy at them.

[ScotL]

If man-made climate change is real and if it is the biggest single threat facing the human race, let's find other ways of solving these relatively minor problems that doesn't involve throwing energy at them.

If man-made climate change is real?

Relatively minor problem?

We should stick to discussing men wearing skirts.