The Environment

[FlareBlitz]

This is, I think, one of the most important topics of discussion in human society. However, it's also a very wide topic that covers everything from climatology to the policies of international governing bodies, so in an attempt to guide discussion somewhat, I'll focus my post on anthropogenic climate change.

Now, for those who are not familiar with this topic, anthropogenic climate change refers to the theory that human being are causing and will continue to cause significant changes in the general climate of the planet, through various means (use of fossil fuels, deforestation, etc). The current science on the matter overwhelmingly supports the notion that this concept is very real, and that the changes in climate will markedly and adversely affect the human population.

I believe that the only way to mitigate the impact of this phenomenon is through globally coordinated government intervention. The reduction of fossil fuels is the most important step, followed by investment in alternative energy, followed by reforestation efforts. I think solar power and nuclear power are the most practical and cost-effective alternative sources of energy, and I think the government should subsidizes these, with money gained from increased taxes on gasoline and related products. I can elaborate a lot on this, if anyone is interested, as this is something I've thought about quite a bit.

I realize that the political non-viability of these options, just as I realize that our children are more than likely going to face the full brunt of the consequences of our short-sightedness...but I'm hoping like hell otherwise.

Feel free to agree, disagree, and/or post about some topic (related to the environment) that you find interesting!

 

[Morm]

I actually have had the opportunity to talk with many ecologists and environmentalists in my work as a consultant (hell, most of my work is things like the oil sands or well pads/pipelines).

I wanna start you off by saying that if climate change is anthropogenic, the actual degree of our impact is immensely hard to predict. The best models can't even come close to incorporating all our actual data but there is, as always with modelling like this, a big issue with unknowns. It's no secret that there are also unpredictables in this as well- the Suns output, for example, fluctuates wildly.

The simple fact is that the climate has changed 100's of millions of times in the Earth's past. It's in a constant transition, in constant flux, from the short term (10 years) to the long long term (100+ million years). It's SO hard to say what, if anything, we may be responsible for. It's even harder to say what, if anything, we can do about it. Perhaps the damage is done already? Perhaps it was inevitably going this way anyways?

A big issue is objectivity. One thing, as always, that people seem to struggle with is the concept of 'Deep Time'. The vast length of billions of years is intense to think about in depth. I find it incredibly arrogant and ignorant when people honestly think what we are doing could destroy life or the planets habitability in the long term (or hell, even in the short term). We are, at worst, a strong selection factor.

So where do I stand after all my neutrality and judgement of the processes? Well, I personally think we ARE having an impact. What that impact is, as I've pointed out, is literally impossible to say.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Let me bit a bit preachy for a second.

I think a lot of people misunderstand the reason for environmental concern. There are a lot of idiots on the right who look down on tree hugging, but they've got it wrong. The point is not to love the trees for the trees-- but for us. Nature will survive and continue no matter how many species go extinct, or what happens to humanity.

Yes, it is us that is at stake here. The world we live in and the species that evolved around us have co-evolved with us, we depend on them for our own survival. Those who do not take up environmental efforts, have not learned yet how to become "truly selfish." We need to take better care of ourselves, which means taking care of our planet.

The current science on the matter overwhelmingly supports the notion that this concept is very real, and that the changes in climate will markedly and adversely affect the human population.

I believe that the only way to mitigate the impact of this phenomenon is through globally coordinated government intervention. The reduction of fossil fuels is the most important step, followed by investment in alternative energy, followed by reforestation efforts.

I would actually say investment in alternative energy has to come before reduction of fossil fuels. You aren't going to convince people to change without having a replacement for convenience. That's an unfortunate reality.

 

[whistle]

the most important part of the entire argument, in my opinion, is not whether the earth is warming or not, and not even whether any climate change (if it exists) is anthropogenic. it's how we can do something about it politically.

you brought up this point in the OP and unfortunately I have no ideas about how to solve this issue. there are tons of lobbies and interest groups who hate alternative energy, cap and trade, renewable portfolios, the whole works... and as long as our representatives depend on them for campaign funding, getting something done doesn't seem very viable. the public also doesn't care very much, because let's be honest -- the majority of america is really fucking dumb, and while I can't speak for the rest of the world, there's no way the general public in europe/asia/australia is somehow substantially more intelligent than the public in the u.s. completely incorrect arguments against agw like "this winter is cold" hold way more weight than they should. add to that the relatively long timeframe for most negative impacts of climate change... it's just not on anyone's radar. politicians either appeal to their constituencies or their funding, and if neither of those factors particularly care about taking steps to solving climate change...

the science debate is extremely interesting, and I used to keep up with it pretty well but kind of lost interest / time a year or two ago. does anyone who still pays close attention to the literature care to summarize the current "consensus" (or lack thereof)?

on the alternative energy issue, i personally feel like the future of energy lies in nuclear power. it's compact, efficient, safe, and pretty cheap to operate.

morm, i agree with most of your post, but i don't think the belief that humans can have a large detrimental impact on earth is naive or ignorant. will anything we do, short of a global nuclear exchange, have the same impact as mass extinction events in the past e.g. asteroids, sea level fluctuations, general crazy shit happening with the oceans / under the oceans that kill 50% of life? probably not (not to mention that mass extinctions in the past provided the space for dinosaurs or mammals etc to grow to dominance, which is arguably a good thing). but i think there are enough doomsday scenarios that point to the death of hundreds of millions of humans, if not the majority of the population, to show that this isn't something that we should just ignore and accept as part of natural selection.

also, peak oil sucks. it faces basically the same political issues as global warming... but i think peak oil can be framed as an important issue for everyday joe because of oil price spikes, etc.

 

[Trax]

My take is thus; regardless of the possibility of any catastrophic changes (like sea levels rising, increased extreme weather conditions, etc) we should be looking to reduce the amount of chemicals we're releasing into the atmosphere if only to avoid further ozone depletion, speaking as someone in Australia: that hole in the ozone layer is pretty crappy.


Energy prices are going up one way or another, might as well try to get away from fossil fuels now before we pollute the planet any worse than it already is.

So where do I stand after all my neutrality and judgement of the processes? Well, I personally think we ARE having an impact. What that impact is, as I've pointed out, is literally impossible to say.

Would you agree that if we can't tell what impact we're having we should do what we can to either lower or remove said impact?

Personally if I have the opportunity to avoid putting myself in a situation where there's a 1% chance I'm going to die, I'm going to avoid putting myself there..

 

[Morm]

morm, i agree with most of your post, but i don't think the belief that humans can have a large detrimental impact on earth is naive or ignorant.....

I think, as I suggested people often do in my post, you missed the gravity of what I was saying when I said "in the long term". Remember, you're talking to someone that thinks 10 million years is a paltry blink of the eye. Of course we are having an immediate impact, a four year old could observe that with ZERO prompting and of course that impact, if we all disappeared right now, will echo for centuries. Maybe Millennia. That's so small of an impact that it hardly registers to me. What I was getting at is that people honestly think we have the power to change the climate forever and wipe out all life. I would think that if our planet can survive the Permian (95% of life going extinct) and the Cretaceous (the bulk of Dinosaurs ;_;) that our little game of extinction will be but a blip in the radar.

I alway struggle with this kind of thing, me thinking extremely long term and everyone else thinking more like "their grandkids might care".


Trax: Tough question. Most people would agree that keeping the climate comfortable or livable for all humanity should be our main concern. This means that if we were to stop what we are doing and suddently the Earth's average temperature cooled by 10 degrees (causing major glaciation, blah blah), then clearly we shoulda kept going or increased what we were up to. Unfortuately there is no right or wrong answer until hindsight kicks in.

Honestly, I'm more concerned about the recent potential link between cell phone use and increasing CCD in bees, from a humanity and politics perspective, but that's off topic. I just wanted to point out how little I am worried about our current climate change.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Good posts, guys. I don't feel like quoting all of you, so I'll address the general issues that are being brought up.

First, all the science that I've read on the matter more or less conclusively points to humans having a measurable impact on the climate. I believe the consensus percentage is around 97%, with respect to scientists who agree with the general statement that AGW is a real phenomenon. There is disagreement on the scope and extent of current and future climate change, obviously, but little disagreement on whether it actually exists. I think this is largely because AGW occurs due to a pretty well-understood phenomenon (greenhouse effect from measurable increases in atmospheric CO2) and because the main sources of climate variability (sun, volcanoes) are more or less controllable, at least as far as modeling goes. As I said, it may be difficult to calculate the full impact of what's going to happen, but I haven't heard anyone seriously claim that it'll be trivial or pleasant. Of course...this is only relevant to humanity. Even in the worst case scenarios, it will be as Carlin said: "The planet will be fine, but the people are fucked."

Regarding the order of action I posted...I emphasized the reduction of fossil fuel usage first and foremost because even a partial transition to alternative energy sources will take a decade, at the least. We're talking building tons of nuclear power plants, solar power stations, etc. If we curb our energy usage through higher MPG cars, higher efficiency appliances, corporate pollution regulation, etc. then we'll have an easier time transitioning to alternative energy sources.

Speaking of alternative energy, I think nuclear power is ultimately as unsustainable as fossil fuels. I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, but I think fissile materials are even rarer/harder to mine than oil, and while they have a much higher energy density, they also produce more waste, which is going to be very difficult to get rid of. However, I do recognize that nuclear power is much much better than fossil fuels, and it's also one of the most efficient alternative energy sources, so it's difficult to argue against. Solar power will probably be ideal though, especially for equatorial countries. Even in the US, we could probably repurpose the currently useless deserts in Utah/Nevada/California for solar power plants.

As far as the politics of the situation goes, I think the most realistic approach involves the taxation of gasoline and related products. Politicians like taxes, so at least it won't be as hard to sell as subsidies or environmental protection initiatives, and the added cost of gasoline would hopefully discourage people from using it and encourage them to seek out substitutes. People are ultimately selfish, greedy fuckers, so appealing to their sense of greed will likely be the best way to go about it. Of course, selling a tax increase is going to be difficult, especially on something as touchy as gasoline...the only way it'll happen is if the democrats grow some balls when they have a majority government again around half a decade from now. Hopefully it won't be too late by that point.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Whiste's post depresses me (humanity can be so sad).

 

[Toothache]

There's plenty we can do as individuals. For those who don't know, I work as a volunteer at the local Wildlife Trust, so I'm doing my bit to help the local environment. At home, I'm always conscious of what electricity and gas I use. It doesn't have to be national governments that necessarily need to do everything, it can be a few simple things at home, like turning off ovens when they are not in use, and so on.

The move towards more sustainable and renewable sources of energy is progressing, but pretty slowly. Wind farms need huge areas to get any decent amount of energy there, and there is resistance from people who think they are ugly. Solar energy isn't always the best option in more northern regions like the UK, Canada and places near the equator. Hybrid and fully electric cars are still very slow to come to the public, partly from the lack of infrastructure, but the lack of will from the manufacturers. Its too slow of a transition for my liking, but as the oil price increases, hopefully we'll see more and more companies give up on it and put more into these sustainable energy sources.

 

[Morm]

Toothache I'm sorry to be a dick, but being an individual on a planet of 6 billion means you are statistically worthless. Sure, you feel better about things, but it ultimately has ZERO impact. Sure, you can recruit dozens more, but ultimately it's all useless.

IF a change is necessary, I suggest that you do something akin to the whale wars morons- visible and loudly dying. That way, people will watch for moral reasons AND because they think you're hilariously stupid.

 

[whistle]

I think, as I suggested people often do in my post, you missed the gravity of what I was saying when I said "in the long term". Remember, you're talking to someone that thinks 10 million years is a paltry blink of the eye.

no i got that part, which is what i meant by the sentence stating that mass extinctions in the past have usually led to a new type of plant/animal emerging to dominance. now that i am actually explicitly expressing my point, it seems a bit trivial and self-evident... but it is that as humans, we should treat any sort of plausible existential threat as something that needs to be dealt with. so in that sense it is not crazy at all to think that we could be causing our own downfall, even if it'll be nothing more than a slight bump in the grand scheme of things. so i'm not really disagreeing with you... just adding a viewpoint.

 

[Morm]

However the issue remains of what to do. A change is happening, odds are we are having an impact, but should we even care? If we do care, what is to be done about it? ANYTHING is just a best guess based on little data and heavily naive and biased models and pretty much has the same chance of making things far worse for us as it does better. In my opinion, climate change just shows how infantile humanity is in its understanding of everything. That said, I suggest "staying the course" for humanity. Nothing drastic needed yet and if it ever is recognized it'll already be too late. If we do something drastic, on the other hand, the 10 year trend that was predicted by 99% of models to be a dramatic global warming turned out to be a global cooling trend (Source: A grad student at uofOttawa that told me what is what, sorry I can't do better with some writing). So IF there is an overall cooling trend, considering the past 'trends' (industrialism expecting to bring about warming but actually experiencing cooling, us being in a cycle [last 100 thousand years or so] of glaciation/thaw and being overdue for a glaciation), I'd suggest we need to warm this bitch the hell up! I'd say we are doing a decent job, but only hindsight can tell us if we are dipshits or not.

Pretty much every move humanity has made seemed like a good idea at the time. Doing nothing about our state of affairs is doing something productive.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Hindsight wont necessarily tell us anything more than what we know right now anyway.

But my thoughts are, it is unlikely, even if people are causing warming, that we will be able to stop the trend. However it doesnt seem smart to think that because there will be warming, we should just continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere and cut down rainforests and not worry about it.

Oil dependency is rubbish for lots of reasons, deforestation is rubbish for lots of reasons. There will be a lot of positive side effects to emission reductions, as far as what extent we should attempt to decrease this, I wouldnt go overboard, but really the current response is just pathetic.

Have a nice day.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Agreeing with Hipmonlee. Just because proving Global Warming or humanity's causation can be deemed shaky, doesn't change the fact that:

Planting trees, reforestation, finding alternative energy and reducing fossil fuels could hardly be bad for the outlook of mankind-- it can probably only be good.

 

[internet]

shoot all the people below a certain measure of intelligence/usefullness/something else and then replace all the infrastructure that is no longer needed with forests and other helpfull things.
that probably would solve a lot of problems, but there would be a serious lack of stupid people to do shitty jobs.
edit: PLUS think about all the bio-fuel you could make with the corpses

 

[Morm]

Planting trees, reforestation, finding alternative energy and reducing fossil fuels could hardly be bad for the outlook of mankind-- it can probably only be good.

If you don't know where we are headed or what the trend actually is, how can doing things to reduce CO2 be deemed good or bad?

 

[Brain]

I alway struggle with this kind of thing, me thinking extremely long term and everyone else thinking more like "their grandkids might care".

Dude, why would anyone care about your idea of "long term"? What matters to us is our own survival and well-being. If we are going to hurt ourselves, that the Earth will be fine is not any consolation. And if we can find a way to mine every drop of our planet's resources to such an extent that it would massacre it permanently, yet manage to do so while guaranteeing our own sustained survival, then by any means, let's scorch this bitch. I mean, I can appreciate long term thinking, but you are thinking on a scale so big that it's completely irrelevant. If what we are doing is enough to pose a threat to coastal cities, as far as the planet is concerned, that's really tame, but it's still a catastrophe for us.

Toothache I'm sorry to be a dick, but being an individual on a planet of 6 billion means you are statistically worthless. Sure, you feel better about things, but it ultimately has ZERO impact. Sure, you can recruit dozens more, but ultimately it's all useless.

Technically, that's true, but voting in an election is useless for the same reason. Ultimately, this is the kind of truth that you don't want anyone to actually act upon, for social engineering purposes. If you manage to convince everyone that their individual action has an impact, even if it is ultimately through fallacious arguments, you can roll up sufficient mass to have an actual impact. While it is rational for anyone to drop out, you don't want anyone to realize it, and you want to apply enough peer pressure that it becomes a justification in itself.

ANYTHING is just a best guess based on little data and heavily naive and biased models and pretty much has the same chance of making things far worse for us as it does better.

At any point in time, the climate is more likely to stay roughly constant than to fluctuate wildly. That is, if we can't tell in what direction the climate is naturally going, it's probably going nowhere. If we suspect that we might have enough influence to throw the current balance out of whack, trying to reduce this impact is a good idea. It's a safe bet.

If we do something drastic, on the other hand, the 10 year trend that was predicted by 99% of models to be a dramatic global warming turned out to be a global cooling trend (Source: A grad student at uofOttawa that told me what is what, sorry I can't do better with some writing).

Can you please find another source? Like, something peer reviewed?

Pretty much every move humanity has made seemed like a good idea at the time. Doing nothing about our state of affairs is doing something productive.

So if the green movement picks up enough steam to be truly influential, which seems like a good idea right now, then doing that move should be productive?

I mean, a while ago, we were complaining about acid rain. Then we did something about it. And lo and behold! it worked! Sounds like doing something is a good idea sometimes.

 

[Morm]

I said I struggle to NOT think about deep time, it doesn't matter if anyone cares or not.

Acid rain is a lot less common and a lot more harmful than a commonplace climate shift and the cause was nailed down. It's not really a great analogy.

Secondly, sorry I don't have a better source. It's no secret though that in the industrialization period glaciers that we'd expect to retreat with dramatic CO2 emissions actually advanced; Source, so why don't we just use that to fly in the face of expected climate shifts to make the same point?

I agree, I think the climate is either roughly stable OR perhaps the change is happening exceedingly gradual (by our standards) which is why deep time starts playing a role. The 1000 year outlook is certainly different than the 10 year one, after all, and if we want to promote long term survivability of our species we may want to start thinking about more than just our grandkids.

 

[TheValkyries]

If you don't know where we are headed or what the trend actually is, how can doing things to reduce CO2 be deemed good or bad?

If it's pitch black in a forest and you hear something growling and feel it begin to bit into your leg, you don't know exactly what kind of animal it is. It could be a wolf, a bear, or an extremely adventurous skunk. But either way, trying to stop this bite from continuing is pretty much the only possible solution regardless of whether you can actually beat off whatever it is that is biting you. Do you see why at least trying to reduce CO2 could only be a good thing?

 

[Morm]

You analogy is poor because we don't have a "growling animal" biting at our legs. We have a century of piss poor data. In your example, there is a problem present. We don't even know one way or the other if there is a problem to worry about in the first place. You also know the appropriate response, to run, but we don't know what, if anything, should or can be done.

 

[Brain]

Acid rain is a lot less common and a lot more harmful than a commonplace climate shift and the cause was nailed down. It's not really a great analogy.

I'm just saying that if we actually do something about climate change, that will probably be because it's a problem that's big enough for us to tackle. We might be saying the same thing, but your formulation was weird.

Secondly, sorry I don't have a better source. It's no secret though that in the industrialization period glaciers that we'd expect to retreat with dramatic CO2 emissions actually advanced; Source, so why don't we just use that to fly in the face of expected climate shifts to make the same point?

Well, from the Wikipedia article you linked: "Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries..."

That is, neither the MWP nor the LIA seem to be global phenomena. As for "dramatic CO2 emissions", I doubt the industrialization period dumped CO2 on the same order of magnitude as we did. The period of climate change coincides with the explosion of these emissions, which only started in the middle of the 1900s. Before then, our emissions were negligible.

I agree, I think the climate is either roughly stable OR perhaps the change is happening exceedingly gradual (by our standards) which is why deep time starts playing a role. The 1000 year outlook is certainly different than the 10 year one, after all, and if we want to promote long term survivability of our species we may want to start thinking about more than just our grandkids.

On the other hand, due to the large time scale, we have a LOT of time to think about it.

 

[TheValkyries]

You analogy is poor because we don't have a "growling animal" biting at our legs. We have a century of piss poor data. In your example, there is a problem present. We don't even know one way or the other if there is a problem to worry about in the first place. You also know the appropriate response, to run, but we don't know what, if anything, should or can be done.

It's cute how you say exactly what I said and then said I'm wrong.

If it were an extremely adventurous skunk, beating the skunk and running away does good, even though it was never really a problem to begin with. If it were a wolf, beating it and running away does good, as it would probably let you escape. If it were a bear, beating it and running away is your best bet, but most likely won't do enough to stop it.

In all three situations, trying to fix the problem, be it perceived or real, "does good." Whether or not it's effective has nothing to do with the act.

I apologize for making the symbolism less obvious in the original analogy.

 

[Morm]

I don't see how I said exactly what you said. Your analogy is bad and you should feel bad.

If we are in a long term cooling trend (as the Pleistocene isn't exactly far away in global cycling) then CO2 emissions are actually helping keep things stable and comfy for humans. Either way, not enough data to say we should do anything. Doing something blindly has the same odds at this point of doing nothing but with the added downside of being a huge pain in the ass politically and economically.

Brain: I just remembered some analogical evidence supporting the 10 year outlooks. About 10 years ago, every model was calling for warming hence the term "Global Warming". It wasn't until that didn't happen and more biased and incomplete models made more biased outcomes that it was renamed "Global Climate Change". Just a nitpick, not really that useful...if it meets your fancy then great.

 

[TheValkyries]

I don't see how I said exactly what you said. Your analogy is bad and you should feel bad.

You said we don't know if what we're doing has any impact. And that was my point. We have no idea what the problems is, or if our attempts to fix it will have any impact.

But no matter what, the fix can only do good. There is never a time when trying to reduce CO2 gases, is ever a bad idea. I mean what's the worst that could happen? A situation where our planet stabilizes back to normal from something we didn't cause and our efforts to reduce CO2 combine into Global Cooling? I'm fairly certain we're better at producing CO2 rather than completely removing it, so any impact we have can be reversed. The only things reducing CO2 emissions could ever be labeled as is either doing good or doing nothing. There is literally no noticeable drawback of attempting such a solution.

 

[Morm]

There is never a time when trying to reduce CO2 gases, is ever a bad idea.

If we are in a long term cooling trend (as the Pleistocene isn't exactly far away in global cycling) then CO2 emissions are actually helping keep things stable and comfy for humans.