Can We Stop Climate Change While Still Living Comfortably?

[the7ofswords]

The first world using this is not going to cut it, everyone needs to be on board. The so called first world only represents about a third of the population at most, once China and India fully joins us and the rest follow, it won't matter if we are eating raw granola in a frozen shack in the woods if they are doing things the way we were 20 years ago. Every climate summit I have seen is showing India and China basically saying "my turn." We want what you have and no rules to stop us. Politics is going to kill us, just as it always does. We have maybe 25 years before the oceans completely collapse and once that happens we are really gonna see some shit go down. I have seen no solution for this, it's pretty much inevitable I'm afraid.

4) Here's the hard one ... we need to reduce the number of humans on this planet. I'm not saying start killing people off, or anything like that, but we really need to reduce the rate of reproduction to the point that global population begins to decrease. My idea is to give every person credit for half a child. Any two people can marry or arrange in whatever fashion to have a single child. People who want no children or can't have children can sell their half-child credit on the market. In this way, people who want three kids can go buy credits from those who want none. The problem, of course, comes in how to enforce such a thing.

One crucial piece of context you both seem to miss is that developed countries have stable populations, without any kind of extreme population control program like China's. **Fry-squints at 7swords** People in poor countries tend to have alot of kids because of high child mortality rates. If someone doesn't want their legacy to die with them, they have to spam offspring to beat the odds. And they have to perpetrate child labor in order to feed them, which means scant education. The solution should be obvious enough.

1 - End the high rate of child mortality. Sane people don't want big families if given a choice.

2 - Improve wages. Seriously, does anyone earning a living wage anywhere put their kids to work and neglect their education? Speaking of which...

3 - Provide better access to reproductive education, health care, and contraceptives. When faced with the less "romantic" realities of parenthood in advance, nobody is in a hurry to have kids. Even the notorious "reality" show Teen Mom is credited with discouraging many kids from having kids of their own. So imagine the difference a real education can make.

If these basic humanitarian needs are met, the population problem will sort itself out. We're seeing population booms in developing countries because things have improved enough to reduce mortality rates, but not enough to change impoverished lifestyles.

I'm not missing that context at all. I just didn't want to turn my comment into a 20-page dissertation*. I mostly agree with you on all 3 of your points. Further, I think we need to implement world-wide healthcare and education systems. Unfortunately, the kind of push-back coming from the Ultra-Religious and Capitalistic (which, let's face it, has become a sort of religion) sectors will probably make all of that impossible. And yes, I'm fully aware that my suggestions were no better, in those terms.

The truth is, I don't see any of this getting fixed in time to save us from some pretty major devastation in the next hundred years or so?maybe even sooner. Not because we couldn't do it, but because too many entrenched interests won't allow it until it's too late.


(*That is to say, that is one of many other sub-topics that feed into my over-all ideas on this, but I didn't feel this was the space to address them all, so I went with a very brief summary.)

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Dont believe in climate change. When you get heavy snow....proof of climate change. Following year there is no snow....that proof of it also. Year after there is snow....thats proof. Science is based on facts and the science is not 100%. Im old enough to remember people going on about CFCs and green house effect. They took CFCs out of spray cans and fridges and cars got catalytic convertors (or whatever they are called) and the Ozone layers is bigger than ever. Should we change how we live and what we use? Yes. But because we should and not preaching the apocalypse.

Also when the pro climate change people send death threats to anti-climate change scientists then that makes me believe the anti group. Especially if the anti scientists have nothing to gain from their outcomes.

 

[EiMitch]

Dont believe in climate change. When you get heavy snow....proof of climate change. Following year there is no snow....that proof of it also. Year after there is snow....thats proof. Science is based on facts and the science is not 100%. Im old enough to remember people going on about CFCs and green house effect. They took CFCs out of spray cans and fridges and cars got catalytic convertors (or whatever they are called) and the Ozone layers is bigger than ever. Should we change how we live and what we use? Yes. But because we should and not preaching the apocalypse.

Also when the pro climate change people send death threats to anti-climate change scientists then that makes me believe the anti group. Especially if the anti scientists have nothing to gain from their outcomes.

First of all, the ozone layer is NOT "bigger than ever." Do your homework.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer

In a study organized by the American Geophysical Union, three satellites and three ground stations confirmed that the upper-atmosphere ozone-depletion rate has slowed down significantly during the past decade. Some breakdown can be expected to continue due to ODSs used by nations which have not banned them, and due to gases which are already in the stratosphere. Some ODSs, (Ozone Depleting Substances) including CFCs, have very long atmospheric lifetimes, ranging from 50 to over 100 years. It has been estimated that the ozone layer will recover to 1980 levels near the middle of the 21st Century.

Its going to be decades yet before the damage is repaired, if we're lucky.

Second, CFCs aren't the only ODS.

The ozone layer can be depleted by free radical catalysts, including nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydroxyl (OH), atomic chlorine (Cl), and atomic bromine (Br). While there are natural sources for all of these species, the concentrations of chlorine and bromine have increased markedly in recent years due to the release of large quantities of man-made organohalogen compounds, especially chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and bromofluorocarbons. These highly stable compounds are capable of surviving the rise to the stratosphere, where Cl and Br radicals are liberated by the action of ultraviolet light. Each radical is then free to initiate and catalyze a chain reaction capable of breaking down over 100,000 ozone molecules. ...snip...

In 2009, nitrous oxide (N2O) was the largest ozone-depleting substance (ODS) emitted through human activities.

Third, death threats? Seriously? Is this your first day on the internet or something? On any side of any hot-button topic, there are always subversive a-holes looking to ruin someone's day. Do you honestly believe climate change deniers have never made threats? Unless the subject is human nature, or whether lawmakers and/or law enforcement are dragging their feet regarding non-monetary cyber-crime, the existence of someone making death threats doesn't prove squat one way or the other.

And finally, how is winter becoming less stable and more chaotic not proof of climate change? Yearly rain and snow patters people once planned around for their water and agriculture are now gambles that are more frequently turning-up snake eyes. But these changes are somehow proof that nothing is changing? Yeah, sure. Whatever. You clearly know more about this than I, who am also old enough to remember the (well justified) panic over CFCs. And the dumbed-down talking points about greenhouse gases, which are still being talked about. CO2 anyone?

 

[EiMitch]

I'm not missing that context at all. I just didn't want to turn my comment into a 20-page dissertation*. I mostly agree with you on all 3 of your points. Further, I think we need to implement world-wide healthcare and education systems. Unfortunately, the kind of push-back coming from the Ultra-Religious and Capitalistic (which, let's face it, has become a sort of religion) sectors will probably make all of that impossible. And yes, I'm fully aware that my suggestions were no better, in those terms.

The truth is, I don't see any of this getting fixed in time to save us from some pretty major devastation in the next hundred years or so?maybe even sooner. Not because we couldn't do it, but because too many entrenched interests won't allow it until it's too late.


(*That is to say, that is one of many other sub-topics that feed into my over-all ideas on this, but I didn't feel this was the space to address them all, so I went with a very brief summary.)

Thats why, over & over throughout this thread, I've been pushing the point that renewable energy is now very cost efficient, whereas coal and oil are being heavily subsidized. These two simple truths demolish so many "capitalistic" talking points on their terms, its not even funny. On second thought, its actually hilarious. The remaining excuses to oppose solar and wind power are nakedly desperate appeals to willful ignorance, just like the opposition to net neutrality.

Fossil fuels aren't cheap anymore. Extraction and refinement are becoming increasingly expensive.

Renewable energy isn't a pipe-dream for the far future. Its ready, proven, and cost-effective now.

 

[cdemares]

I've been saying this for years (IRL), but consumption is everything. No energy source is going to keep up with us forever if we don't stop consuming increasingly more per-person and making more people and drifting apart to need individual servings of housing and heavy machines to go with them. The math doesn't look good. Efficiency can only increase so fast and most of the fuel we use is limited. You can say that X-fuel will last hundreds of years, but that number will look different after exponentially growing demand starts burning that candle at both ends.

I believe in climate change, but you don't really have to. There is no reason not to decrease consumption and pursue cleaner energies. The advantages are economic, health-related and even social and political. Being connected to the old energy industries is the only reason to oppose change. Everyone is better off, as long as you didn't have to lose a massive fortune in the transition.

We have to stop the squeezing at both ends, or one end will burn us eventually. Even if we went totally wind-solar-nuke tomorrow, we are still voracious for energy and we'd catch up. You still have to keep building-out the energy infrastructure for more energy.

I'm not saying we can't be comfortable, but we must eventually become different. Things like individual cars are probably not going to last forever. Living spaces are also going to change drastically. Not tomorrow, of course. But "Tomorrow" in the sci-fi sense.

 

[the7ofswords]

I'm not missing that context at all. I just didn't want to turn my comment into a 20-page dissertation*. I mostly agree with you on all 3 of your points. Further, I think we need to implement world-wide healthcare and education systems. Unfortunately, the kind of push-back coming from the Ultra-Religious and Capitalistic (which, let's face it, has become a sort of religion) sectors will probably make all of that impossible. And yes, I'm fully aware that my suggestions were no better, in those terms.

The truth is, I don't see any of this getting fixed in time to save us from some pretty major devastation in the next hundred years or so?maybe even sooner. Not because we couldn't do it, but because too many entrenched interests won't allow it until it's too late.


(*That is to say, that is one of many other sub-topics that feed into my over-all ideas on this, but I didn't feel this was the space to address them all, so I went with a very brief summary.)

Thats why, over & over throughout this thread, I've been pushing the point that renewable energy is now very cost efficient, whereas coal and oil are being heavily subsidized. These two simple truths demolish so many "capitalistic" talking points on their terms, its not even funny. On second thought, its actually hilarious. The remaining excuses to oppose solar and wind power are nakedly desperate appeals to willful ignorance, just like the opposition to net neutrality.

Fossil fuels aren't cheap anymore. Extraction and refinement are becoming increasingly expensive.

Renewable energy isn't a pipe-dream for the far future. Its ready, proven, and cost-effective now.

Couldn't agree more. Thanks to subsidies, people don't get a "feel" for the real direct costs of fossil fuels, much less the bigger-picture costs, like environmental degradation, health-care needs, etc. Simple, short-sighted greed is the root of the problem.