When were they discussed?
This is the “make fun of the AGW deniers” thread. The “Hillary Clinton” thread is down the hall.
What people fear isn’t that global warming is real; what they fear is what’s being proposed to do something about it.
[rant]Essentially, “ecosocialism”: the end of the presumption that people have the right to pursue economic activity to better their lives. That latter-day sumptuary laws will force global rationing on everyone.
Oh certainly it won’t be that blatant or obvious- it’ll take the form of indirectly passing along the cost of cutting carbon emission as increased prices and taxes. But it will be formulated and implemented by the mandarins of social policy. Those who hated the free market from the beginning, and who consider the quest for material wealth and comfort vulgar and unspiritual. Whose fundamental presumption is that humanity is a burden on the world, and that the only thing people can do to even halfway make up for it is to live lives of ascetic denial.[/rant]
OK, obviously the above is an exaggeration- but perhaps not by as much as we would like. One would hope that the overwhelming majority of people want to find a balance between preserving the environment and lifting the world’s billions out of poverty. Clean energy like fusion would be a godsend in that regard. But there are some very shrill outliers whose agenda isn’t that far off the mark from what I described above. And godsdammit, you can have my air conditioner when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
What is that CO2 “overdose” number? Is it still considered 0.000350 or is it 0.000400? aka parts per million.
Did you come here for the 5-minute intro or the full half-hour?
We are reaching now 400 PPM nowadays.
Interesting. You evidently have worse short-term memory capability than the average flatworm.
Just because a gas concentration is no higher than a few hundred parts per million doesn’t mean it’s too small to worry about. If you were breathing air that contained a mere 100 ppm of hydrogen sulfide, for example, you’d be at serious risk.
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations that have consistently remained below about 300 ppm for at least the last half-million years have suddenly shot up to 400 ppm in the space of a few decades. I don’t know why you would blithely take it for granted that that’s just no big deal.
Well, it’s always good to examine all available alternatives. What exactly are they proposing to “do something about it”?
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
But it will be formulated and implemented by the mandarins of social policy. Those who hated the free market from the beginning, and who consider the quest for material wealth and comfort vulgar and unspiritual. Whose fundamental presumption is that humanity is a burden on the world, and that the only thing people can do to even halfway make up for it is to live lives of ascetic denial.
[/quote]
Can you cite by name even one such hermit-hippie Savonarola type who is even marginally responsible for any of the tasks of “formulating and implementing” major economic policies?
IME people who actually hate the free market are not the ones involved with overseeing the workings of the free market.
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
One would hope that the overwhelming majority of people want to find a balance between preserving the environment and lifting the world’s billions out of poverty.
[/quote]
What makes you think that not preserving the environment would be a good thing in terms of poverty reduction? From everything I’ve read, the more severe the impacts of climate change become, the more the poor are likely to suffer (and the more likely it is that resource crises, competition for scarce resources, etc., will turn many previously non-poor people into poor ones).
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
But there are some very shrill outliers whose agenda isn’t that far off the mark from what I described above. And godsdammit, you can have my air conditioner when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
[/QUOTE]
Cite for a “shrill outlier” who is actually advocating taking away your air conditioner?
A search on ban air conditioning yields quite a few hits. In fact, it’s worse than I thought because I was thinking solely in terms of electricity usage, but apparently many (most? all?) common refrigerants are greenhouse gases.
I was thinking along the lines of Reagan still being elected, but in a different world. Say Howard Cosell had been going on for years about Exxon’s findings that CO2 emissions were changing the climate, with potentially disastrous consequences.
Fast forward to 1982. At press conferences, the reporters always ask, “You know about the Exxon report, Mr. President. What do you intend to do about it?” In that world, perhaps Reagan’s priorities would have been different than the mass incarceration of black people and selling arms to Iran. Even if not, public awareness would surely have had some effect.
It is hard to reconstruct an alternative history, but I think more things would have been different than just cafe standards.
As far back as 1973 the movie Soylent Green, set in the year 2022, featured the lines “Turn the air conditioning way up! Way up! We’ll make it as cold as winter used to be!”
For historical reference -
(post shortened)
Did you see the question marks in my post? What did you imagine I blithely took for granted? Was it your ability to answer the question? Rest assured, I never assumed you could. Feel better, now?
Soylent Green? Really? Do you consider the documentary Soylent Green to be as accurate as Al Gore’s An Incontinent Truth?
For historical reference -
For historical reference -
For historical reference -
You probably forgot what the exchange was about so I collected them in one post to help you out.
Is 0.000400 the “overdose” number, or is it 0.000550?
I’m sure that COP21 will be another huge success. Just like all of the preceeding COP’s. Isn’t that why there have been so many COP’s? Because the last 20 were so successful? This year it will be held in Le Bourget, France, starting Nov 30, 2015.
But where will the pro-man-made-CO2-is-evil demonstrators be allowed to demonstrate? In France? Can France afford to allow more zealots to disrupt French streets and businesses at this point in time?
*Paris Can’t Be Another Copenhagen
By KEVIN RUDD MAY 25, 2015
As a former prime minister of Australia, I understand something of the political costs leaders must bear in aiming to reconcile the long-term interests of the planet with short-term national interests.
After attending the 2009 Copenhagen summit on climate change, I was attacked back home for either doing too much or too little in trying to bring about a binding global agreement.
We all failed at Copenhagen, though not for want of effort from many of us. The United Nations conference in Paris this December is the next opportunity for leaders of the world’s biggest economies to show real leadership in the slow-motion drama that is anthropogenic climate change.*
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/opinion/kevin-rudd-paris-cant-be-another-copenhagen.html?_r=0
Former PM Rudd seems to understand that his opinion of global warming/climate change led to the political cost he must bear. That cost being losing his job as Australia’s PM.
You are not reading the article or the quote.
400 PPM is already too high, to reduce the risk to go over 2 degrees we have to limit the rise until 450 PPM and get it lower.
I was pointing out that people were aware of the CO2 greenhouse problem at least that far back. And this was when some people were worried we were slipping into a new ice age.
You are not understanding timelines either, the next in line PM was sacked recently for one that understands the issue. The former PM of Canada (denier too) also knows the feeling of being sacked, and by the people.
As for not allowing the pro-man-made-CO2-is-evil demonstrators you are not following news either, the deniers will have their counter groupies in France too, denier senator Inhofe has reported that he may go and as usual he and most deniers that have a big megaphone and will not reduce themselves to demonstrate on the streets like the common folk.