If Mort Divine ruled the world

[HamburgerBoy]

America is a larger polluter than China per capita. Americans are a bunch of degenerate entitled hyper-consuming fucks though so it's easier to look at air pollution in particular cities in the fastest developing country in the world, even though we're the ones buying China's stuff.

 

[Einherjar86]

I mean, you can show in a lab that chemicals we emit trap heat better than air (fill a fish tank with said chemicals and put a heat lamp over it, test its temperature vs a tank with a heat lamp and just air). So we can prove the greenhouse effect of man made chemicals. Sure there are also natural chemicals that cause a greenhouse effect but we are emitting them at faster and faster rates, why should we continue making a problem worse?

Even if you deny the provable greenhouse effect, do you want to be breathing in all the garbage emitted from factories and vehicles? Clean air is also directly beneficial to your lungs. Further we have a responsibility to future generations to keep it clean.

... I don't feel like going through all of this. The evidence is there with a couple of google searches.

And just to expand on this, the Keeling Curve reflects measurements taken on Mauna Loa, a volcano in Hawaii - far away from clogged industrial areas at lower elevations. The findings have demonstrated an increase in CO2 since the 1950s: from 310 parts per million to over 400 ppm in 2016.

We know that carbon has is a byproduct of industrial development, so it seems like a fairly uncontroversial leap to say that humans contribute to climate change.

Trump's team is currently talking about climate change as a "politicized science," and vows to return to "pure science" or "concrete science" or some bullshit like that. First of all, there is no such thing as non-politicized science; and second, climate change is based on decidedly non-political foundations. It's really just taking measurements and doing the math.

 

[Dak]

And just to expand on this, the Keeling Curve reflects measurements taken on Mauna Loa, a volcano in Hawaii - far away from clogged industrial areas at lower elevations. The findings have demonstrated an increase in CO2 since the 1950s: from 310 parts per million to over 400 ppm in 2016.

We know that carbon has is a byproduct of industrial development, so it seems like a fairly uncontroversial leap to say that humans contribute to climate change.

I think it'd be less controversial if it were merely stated that humans contribute to climate change patterns. But instead we get Al Gore and the Green Party.

First of all, there is no such thing as non-politicized science; and second, climate change is based on decidedly non-political foundations. It's really just taking measurements and doing the math.

But it isn't just that. Politics drives what research gets funded and what gets noticed and how it's interpreted.

 

[Einherjar86]

Now you sound like me.

 

[rms]

We know that carbon has is a byproduct of industrial development, so it seems like a fairly uncontroversial leap to say that humans contribute to climate change.

there's the problem, the left/dems have framed the issue as 'man made' not 'man influenced.' Out of ignorance and or financial/political interests, who knows.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well, that's a semantics argument, which everyone on the right apparently despises. "Man-made" or "man-influenced," what does it matter - we contribute to it and maybe some steps should be taken. Does it have any significant impact on the mentality of industrialists being asked to reduce carbon emissions whether we say "man-made" or "man-influenced"?

 

[rms]

I think being truthful is very important, if you say man made you are wrong. Then the discussion starts (and likely stops) there instead of "we are influencing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Should we stop? If so, what should we do?".

mentality of industrialists

it's not just industrialists, we as a society as to look at ourselves and our consumption. Especially those who live in S. California and ruin the world with their greedy choice of living (kidding about the especially)

 

[HamburgerBoy]

You don't need to be kidding about that part, people in SoCal waste a ridiculous amount of water trying to turn a desert into something else.

imo the most sensible and direct way to attack over-consumption is just to tax the shit out of consumption. Obviously it would drastically slow and change our economy, and I'm not a fan of introducing any new kinds of taxes (because once we have a VAT, that's never going away), but it's much more immediate solution than what we have now. Even Germany, one of the greenest developed nations in the world while also the most industrious and most expensive energy-wise, is well above average in terms of CO2 production. That's of course a result of them being an economic powerhouse, creating supplies that virtually all of Europe consumes, but the point is that our technology isn't yet at the point that makes really tackling the issue feasible, all we can do is slow things a little. You really want to stop it, you have to get back to the culture of the 70s and earlier where people actually had their goods (TVs, etc) fixed rather than replaced, and make it painful on your wallet to drive when not necessary.

And, of course, you need to reduce the supply of consumers as well. Bring back eugenics and work towards a one-child policy aside from a handful of genetically superior ubermensch.

 

[Mort Divine]

 

[Onder]

Nice.

 

[Einherjar86]

it's not just industrialists, we as a society as to look at ourselves and our consumption. Especially those who live in S. California and ruin the world with their greedy choice of living (kidding about the especially)

Of course, and I recognize that; but my point was that the political resistance toward climate change is coming primarily from the big money in fossil fuels who mainline funds to lobbyists, not from Southern Californians.

Altering the semantics of our political rhetoric probably won't make those industrialists feel differently about the proposals themselves.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Industrialists only exist because of willing customers. It's not like every person against green initiatives does it because they've been lied to by Exxon; many are well aware that increased regulations will affect their own bottom line. Americans would be pissed if suddenly our gas prices tripled to European levels.

 

[Einherjar86]

Sure, they probably would.

But those customers aren't willingly giving their money to lobbyists who start a political firestorm over climate change, often by throwing facts to the wind and calling climate change a left-wing hoax.

People can desire their gas prices to be low and for some initiatives to be pursued that counteract climate change. This might be a difficult duality to maintain, but at least it isn't entirely counterfactual.

Ultimately, fuel companies are aiming to provide an effective product that they can make a profit on. That's what businesses do, and we can't hold it against them for doing that. This is why governmental regulations are a necessary aspect of a complex market-based state.

 

[The Butt]

Anyone hear about the festival in Montreal that was cancelled because of protests about Graveland? http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/pr...-black-metal-band-with-alleged-neo-nazi-ties/

Yup. gotta love fighting fascism with authoritarianism, censorship, threats and violence. #NoToAntifa

 

[rms]

imo the most sensible and direct way to attack over-consumption is just to tax the shit out of consumption.

I think most of the energy problems (burning coal over natty) is from home based electrical decisions but I hate VAT's --- corporations never bite the bullet. Little man can't win.

 

[Dak]

Nuclear is the cleanest, most efficient energy source available. Unfortunately there's still a downside (one relatively easily remedied, and it isn't the one that gets the majority of press).

 

[CiG]

Thanks for contributing.

 

[Dak]

Thanks for contributing.

That's the level of his contribution to the board in general, other than a launching pad for reactionary actual contribution.

 

[CiG]

Maybe if we attracted more female tween users.

 

[Einherjar86]

Worth referencing, from John Gray's Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007):

Realist thinking cannot avoid the threats posed by environmental crisis. Peaking oil reserves and global warming are the other face of globalization - the worldwide spread of the mode of industrial production based on fossil fuels that has enabled the economic and population growth of the past two centuries. This process is not far from reaching its limits, which are not so much political as ecological. Industrial expansion has triggered a shift in global climate that is larger, faster and more irreversible than anyone imagined, while the non-renewable fuels that power industry are becoming scarcer as demand for them continues to rise [footnote to sources on climate change, listed below]. These facts have implications for war and peace, some of which I have touched on in earlier chapters. Yet the military-strategic implications of ecological crisis have rarely been examined, and the subject remains taboo. When a Pentagon group issued a report on 'An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for US National Security' in October 2003, its analysis and proposals were uncongenial to the Bush administration and it was shelved.

The report considered the geo-political consequences of abrupt climate change, and identified food shortages due to increases in net global agricultural production, decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions and disrupted access to energy supplies. The overall effect of these changes would be 'a significant drop in the human carrying capacity of the Earth's environment' - in other words, a reduction in the human population the planet can support.

[...]

The Pentagon report was pioneering in accepting that abrupt climate change could lead to a drop in the planet's capacity to support human life. Its account of the types of conflict that could follow is plausible, though it may have underestimated their intensity. The analysis assumed they would be regional-strategic conflicts with religion playing no part in them, but much of the planet's remaining patrimony of oil lies in Muslim lands, and conflict over resources could be intensified by antagonisms surrounding the 'war on terror'. The risk is that resource war will be mixed with wars of religion and the otherwise far-fetched theory of clashing civilizations become self-fulfilling.

Also, this a few lines on:

It has become conventional wisdom that the basic environmental problem is not human numbers but their per capita resource uses - in other words, the way humans live. In fact, humanity has probably already overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. Current human numbers depend on petroleum-based agriculture, which hastens global warming. Population growth is not always highest in developing countries - it is around twice as fast in the United States as in China, for example - but it is much too high overall for a worldwide switch to alternative technologies to be practicable. A mix of solar power, wind farms and organic farming cannot support six to nine billion people.