Well, just on the cell phone nitpick. A personal automobile is a good exemplar of the impact of personal consumption on the planet…all that gas consumed, all that metal and glass and plastic, all the pavement needed to support the car, all the traffic jams that car is going to sit it, the garage the car is going to have around it, and so on.
But a cell phone? Cell phones are just going to get cheaper and cheaper, same with all other electronic devices, and they are going to use less power and fewer raw materials and have more functions. As exemplars of runaway materialism and greed cell phones just don’t make sense. Electronics are an example where expecting twice as much in the future doesn’t mean you’ll be using twice as much energy or emitting twice as much CO2 or cutting down twice as many rainforests. They aren’t like houses or cars that way. Rather the reverse…think of the resources it took to send a message from one continent to another 200 years ago. Now you can pick up your cell phone and talk to a coworker in Hyderabad and the ecological impact of that phone call is so close to zero that you’d be better off worrying about whether a walk around the block will make you burn extra calories which will mean you’ll eat another mouthful of potatoes which means putting more land under cultivation.
The thing is, there are plenty of things we can do that won’t have significant impacts on our lifestyles that will prevent significant impacts on the environment. Insulating your house is the single biggest thing you can do to save the Earth. Buying a fuel efficient car instead of an SUV is the second. And neither of those things is a horrible sacrifice, but both can cut your consumption of energy by half.
Take commuting to work. Suppose you got a car that got twice the gas mileage of your SUV. That’s a 50% savings. And suppose you worked from home one day a week. That’s a 20% savings. And suppose you carpooled with one other guy. That’s a 50% savings. You’re now using 80% less gas than you did before. You’ve cut your consumption to 1/5th of previous levels, but how much suffering do those changes cause?
Focusing on the big-ticket impacts is smart. Focusing on the little stuff like your cell phone usage is stupid. We can reduce our energy consumption DRASTICALLY just by changing our consumption patterns slightly.
I’ll try to live with your disappointment about the use of “fuck” though.
Well as it turns out, I was involved in the Y2K issue at a library on a major university and it turned out that it would have been a problem if nothing was done. Of course, the issue was in great part taken care of by business and people doing what was normal: to change to the latest computer equipment when the old one was not working. Then the small part was the realization that many solutions for Y2K were not as complicated as some hysterical sources reported.
While it is true that there is hysteria regarding AGW, the fact remains that this issue can not be wished away like Y2K virtually was.
What exactly is happening “right now” which is negatively affecting mankind, in your view? And by the way, I’m still interested in responding to your earlier challenge. I just would like a time frame for the denominator.
Forgive me Gore, for I have sinned. I’ve driven 20 unnecessary miles since my last confession. Fine, I’ll say 3 Obama’s next I want a taco.
Sorry they won’t stay exactly where you would like them to but that is never going to happen. Glaciers have moved back and forth throughout history. I was lucky enough to have survived the media blitz of a global ice age and I will survive global warming.
In the meantime I will drive my economy car that gets 38 mpg and use the money I saved (from buying a hybrid) and apply it to the next “real” car that gets even better fuel economy. When technology makes solar cells viable I will replace my shingles with a roof coated with paint that creates electricity. Until then I will forego the landfill monstrosity currently subsidized by taxpayer money. I would rather see my tax dollars going into research that advances technology to a more viable state where it will, by sheer economic force, take it’s place in our daily lives.
I can point to THIS thread of doom and gloom. That’s why I’m posting my disbelief of short-term disaster here.
If you think we can sort of voluntarily cajole the world into protecting its future, I’d be interested in seeing the math where the overall CO2 production of the world decreases, particularly given the 50% increase in the population (upon which we both agree) and the continued development of the underdeveloped world (for which we are both in favor). Keep in mind that we are already apparently producing too much CO2 to survive without severe consequence. I got it that nice people can work together and do green things. I saw that spirit of common interest in “Lost Horizon” (Living together…growing together… hey; I can still hum it). In the real world Pollyanna doesn’t seem to show up as often.
We gotta find enough Pollyannas in the developed world to cut our consumption of direct energy and our consumption of goods which require energy to be produced and at the same time make sure the underdeveloped folks don’t ever rise to anywhere near our levels of consumption and that will still not be enough b/c there’s so many of 'em and there are more coming! (Pun intended, given the reproductive proclivity of the developing world. My turn to be vulgar, I guess.)
And my own nitpick: it occurs to me your energy calculations seem to occur after the item has produced. Don’t forget to calculate in the energy cost of its manufacture. Sure, once you build a house it’s better to insulate than not. But the energy cost to produce the house is enormous. And who on earth doesn’t deserve a nice home?
By all means keep your cellphone, though. I do agree they cannot by themselves possibly be significant.
Both books might make more interesting reading after the fact of whether or not their concerns are correct is determined.
I miss Ed; had a lotta fun online times with him in '99.
I’ve grown too mellow to fight the same duel with AGW believers that I did with the Y2K hysterics.
uh, the book on global warming is the history on how scientists after the fact concluded that GW is happening and the A part is supported by the evidence so far. It is important now to figure out what the results of that will be.
And just in case you did not notice, I was one of the voices telling everyone that Y2k could cause some problems , but I also said that there was no chance of it being a disaster. (Back on the 90’s banking and other organizations already were doing calculations with projections going already beyond 2000 with no issues)
Before you bother to look for it, our own **jshore **investigated and there was no scientific consensus on a coming global ice age in the 60’ or 70’s when that was talked about.
This is another misleading item from the deniers. (For some reason many deniers seem to come from the extreme right wing, but there are many on the right already accepting AGW to be able to conclude that AGW should not be a political issue, no matter how much some on the extreme right would like it to be.)
Looking at the OP it seems only to be concerned with coral, a worrisome thing for fisherman but I would not call that doom for all.
I don’t think any reasonable person doubts that earth temperatures are cyclical. That would mean at any given moment of time the earth is heating or cooling. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the book, but the gist of it’s core message seems to be the “A” part, with anthropogenic CO2 as the specific precipitant: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm . As to whether that is significant (doomsday-wise), there won’t be an “after the fact” until both doomsday shows up (however you want to define that), and anthropogenic CO2 is proven to be the cause.
I see no conceptual difference between this book and Time Bomb 2000 with the exception that Y2K has come and gone. They are both books establishing the basis for concern and predicting an outcome if no remedy is taken.
And I have no assumptions on how you approached Y2K. I apologize if I implied that you personally were an alarmist over Y2K. I did not mean to do so.
I think this is the problem here with your point, the evidence shows so far that there is AGW and it is happening right now. The book is a history of how scientists began to be convinced that this is the most likely explanation because other natural causes have found to be not good enough to explain what has taken place with the current warming observed.
Currently there is a lot of discussion on what will happen as the result of all this warming. My take is that calling it a doomsday is reaching straw man territory, very few serious researchers AFAIK are willing to claim we are on the way to a doomsday, so far I see that we are going to encounter wars and unrest as a result of this, but it will be mostly confined to the affected localities. It seems to me the doom talk is propped up with gusto by the deniers because it makes them feel so right, but that is why straw men are set up.
Me, I was alive when it happened. Not sure what part of “media” needs to be explained. It was the catastrophe dejour at the time just like the bird flu was recently. The current piece of falling sky has become so popular as to eliminate public funding for anyone who challenges the urgency with new data. This isn’t about lowering temperatures, its a religion obsessed with zero footprint ideology. Al Gore wants all coal power plants shut down in the next 10 years and people swallow this whole without any thought to the idea that climatology is far from a perfected science and therefore worthy of a full body of research. Obama said he would bankrupt coal-fired power plants, which will screw my state in the ass even though we tried to upgrade to nuclear power years ago. This eco-witch-hunt is going to divert money away from research and force inefficient technologies on us prematurely.
Looking at the op I don’t see it limited to coral at all. It’s a cry of doom with no hope of survival.
So what kind of car do you drive? Do you have a big screen TV? Do you car pool? Is your house equipped with solar cells?
This to me is why solutions need to be top down and penalty driven. I don’t know why exactly, but I find that I won’t voluntarily pay more for the green product unless I have to. On the other hand, I will and have voted for regulations that outlaw “non environmnetally friendly” practises, thereby making my products more expensive.
I guest that it easier when its an intellectual exercise to be green than when its an emotional exercise
Your little rant against Al Gore doesn’t make much sense. If you don’t like the man, then ignore him. If you think the media is sensationalist, ignore them too. But if you’re going to ignore the current state of the science according to every major science organization, international and domestic, that’s rather silly. Dudes at the EPA get paid regardless of whether there’s global warming or not. Dudes at NASA get paid whether there’s global warming or not. Dudes at the US Department of Energy get paid whether there’s global warming or not. Look them up and see what they have to say on the topic.
Al Gore isn’t a scientist. He doesn’t go out measuring thesealevel or any other thing he talks about. And he certainly does make money off of his books and speeches. But why would you care more about his plausibility at all when you can go and look up real science groups that have no plausible reason to care one way or the other what the real answer is? Why would you rather look up one-off websites that use truncated and anecdotal examples as evidence instead of groups that employ thousands of people to sift through and combine the results of all the various tests and data from different sources on different related things, into something that can be said to have real weight behind it? This doesn’t make sense.
That’s a fair point. I am trying to convey that without an endpoint at which one can say, “See; I told you there was a problem” along with evidence that the problem is caused by anthropogenic CO2 production, it’s not fair to declare AGW a done deal. The earth has been warmer in the past. There are putative explanations besides anthropogenic CO2 (and even if there were not, it doesn’t mean anthropogenic CO2 cannot be an incorrect explanation), and most importantly for me, anyway, we have a long history of being convinced some Current Cause is a potential disaster based on experts. Y2K is the most recent one. The fact that Y2K hysteria was badly mistaken is not, of course, a reason to suspect any and all concerns. It is, however, a nice case study of how badly wrong “everyone” can be. Read this THE TIMES: "The bug that never was" for an interesting reminiscence of Y2K and how hard it was for people to let go of the fact that they were just plain wrong (see the f/u postings).
It may be deniers have now switched to re-defining doomsday and to the futility of doing anything. I don’t really know. I think I’m hearing doomsday especially if I just continue to sit on my uninformed a$$ instead of ACTING RIGHT NOW. But maybe you are right and the current song and dance is just around the demise of the polar bears or something. In any case, I just can’t get excited. I smell hysteria and I smell Great Cause. I am confident that in 10 years or so AGW will be Last Year’s Hysteria and everyone will be saying they always had their doubts. If I am wrong may the Rising Waters rinse away my seaside home as just punishment for my calloused and indifferent attitude.
You’re right, Al Gore isn’t a scientist, but the next President is mirroring his call for the total removal of coal fired power plants. And your cite showing a rise and fall of ocean level of 1/2 inch over a period of 40 years is not a cry to carry out this non-scientist-nut-jobs proposal. We are not going down in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years or 100 years. Technology has, and will continue to make improvements in energy production on an environmental path. What is so hard to understand about this?
We do not need wind turbines placed in locations that won’t generate consistent amounts of power. I can’t arbitrarily stop living because it’s a nice day out. Solar cells are expensive, bulky and share the same fate of wind turbines. They are not useful without some form of battery storage. Battery technology isn’t where it needs to be. In 20 years we may be able to attach a shingle that protects the roof and generates useful amounts of energy that feed into cost effective batteries. Until then it is a waste of money to buy this technology. The short-term solution is to build nuclear power plants and coal plants with scrubbers. We already have the technology to build diesel cars and produce the fuel for them. Those are real solutions that will carry us to the next level of technology.
The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’, I already know that there was some talk of a coming ice age but as a previous investigation showed in the SDMB the few people talking about it were in the minority then as now.
You are wrong still.
:rolleyes:
Even if you only see hysteria, I only concentrate on more serious research to report that we will survive, but some people in several regions will be affected, how much? This is is still being debated.
The history on how the evidence for AGW was found begs to differ. Just by reading the book I cited one can see you are wrong on all counts.
If your house is currently a meter above the sea level, I would not worry, worry if your region is expected to gain more precipitation or if it is close to a country that will shed refugees because of the rising waters or droughts.
What part of [media blitz](global ice age, time magazine)do you not understand. Seriously, are you just trying to be dense about this? I didn’t say I believed it, I said it was the disaster dejour of it’s time.
THIS thread is about hysteria. The future President calling for the demise of coal plants falls under the same heading. Not that I believe he will do it but if he does it will cause a lot of damage to my state. We just got rid of EPA checks in Ohio because the state realized it was a waste of money. People were paying $10/year to make an extra trip to prove modern cars have computers that tune the engine multiple times a second. There was no cost/benefit to it. It’s not about throwing money at a solution, it’s about spending the money wisely. All that money could have been used for coal plant scrubbers, which nobody would bitch about if they had.
Good. I’m proud of you. You’ve put your money where your mouth is (or you’re frugal).
