Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity

BluesJr said:
The actual “real” world is dying and will die and none of these man made ideas or imaginary constructs we’ve created will matter.
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The actual "human world" is dying of poverty and stuff and anything to lift them out of that is the highest importance to them. If we werent and arent so many humans, less of the worlds non-humans inhabitans would have to die because of that. Just calculate how many animals have died to feed your mouth throughout your life.

I'm sure you've seen this docu by far-rightwinger Michael Moore

 
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nimic said:
What if it doesn't come, though? It's a dangerous game to play. We have to invest in tech, but we also have to take strong measures right now.
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What knid of measures? and against whom?
 
Shutting down football as it's just pointless entertainment that produces thousands and thousands hours of flights from stadium to stadium, fan travel, TV broadcasting, merchandising products and even fan pages like Redcafe that consume unnecessary energy with their server capacity, would be a start, I guess. Not to mention all those multi millionair teenagers that the whole concept enables who live lifestyles with private jets and 20 super sports cars in their garages.

Every bit counts, so quit Redcafe now and safe the world!
 
Gehrman said:
What knid of measures? and against whom?
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Any kind of measure that brings emissions down. If we try to make sure we only pick measures that don't hurt, we're going to fail. And in the long run that failure is going to hurt a lot more. I think some people still haven't accepted that global warming might be the greatest threat to human civilization ever. A full on nuclear winter might be worse, but short of that. This is about as good as life is going to get for the next hundred or so years (optimistically).

Cait Sith said:
Shutting down football as it's just pointless entertainment that produces thousands and thousands hours of flights from stadium to stadium, fan travel, TV broadcasting, merchandising products and even fan pages like Redcafe that consume unnecessary energy with their server capacity, would be a start, I guess. Not to mention all those multi millionair teenagers that the whole concept enables who live lifestyles with private jets and 20 super sports cars in their garages.

Every bit counts, so quit Redcafe now and safe the world!
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:rolleyes:
 
nimic said:
Any kind of measure that brings emissions down. If we try to make sure we only pick measures that don't hurt, we're going to fail. And in the long run that failure is going to hurt a lot more. I think some people still haven't accepted that global warming might be the greatest threat to human civilization ever. A full on nuclear winter might be worse, but short of that. This is about as good as life is going to get for the next hundred or so years (optimistically).
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You're norwegian right? or is that a mistake of mine?
 
Gehrman said:
What made norwegians fiflthy rich?
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I'm not sure what argument you think you're making here. The political party I'm a member of is against further exploration, and for rapidly reducing exploitation to meet some very ambitious climate targets. If "you're Norwegian so you can't have an opinion on climate change" is an argument you think is valid, then you're exactly the person I thought you were.

Also, since you asked, Norway had some of the highest standards of living in Europe before any oil was found. Did the oil make Norway the wealthiest? Sure.
 
Gehrman said:
What knid of measures? and against whom?
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If you’re thinking about who it’s against, it’s also worth thinking about who it’s for…then your argument about human suffering inevitably gets undermined very quickly
 
Haven't looked at the detail yet but if one of the statements in the BBC article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59253838

is correct, it doesn't feel like this agreement went far enough.

"The bad news is that if every government does everything it promises, the world will still face a catastrophic temperature rise of around 2C." (estimate of 2.4).

Unless certain countries get given a shit load of money (probably more than other countries) will give, it's not going to happen. If a chunk of your economy depends on coal production, you're basically being asked to make your country poorer for the benefit of the greater good and future generations. That's a tough ask.

Paris was a few years ago and countries are still chatting about clipping at the edges. Feels like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

The next 10-20 years needs a big jump in tech/replacements and sharing of that tech. I wouldn't bet my house on it.
 
Humans will eventually see the bigger picture, but only when it’s far too late. It already is.
 
Looks set to be a historic moment for all the wrong reasons; the overwhelming moment when we realised we can’t save ourselves.
 
Gehrman said:
The actual "human world" is dying of poverty and stuff and anything to lift them out of that is the highest importance to them. If we werent and arent so many humans, less of the worlds non-humans inhabitans would have to die because of that. Just calculate how many animals have died to feed your mouth throughout your life.

I'm sure you've seen this docu by far-rightwinger Michael Moore

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Not sure what's your point in posting this film, but just to note that it's been pretty much completely debunked by all relevant experts.
 
Brwned said:
Looks set to be a historic moment for all the wrong reasons; the overwhelming moment when we realised we can’t save ourselves.
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Not can't. But won't save ourselves.
Or more correctly, won't save our future generations.
 
Buster15 said:
Not can't. But won't save ourselves.
Or more correctly, won't save our future generations.
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Yeah I couldn’t decide between can’t or won’t. I still think it’s can’t. It just seems like fundamentally we are unable to organise ourselves on that kind of scale for that kind of horizon, it doesn’t seem to fit with our innate psychology, with the boiling frog and all that.

I also have the sense that our moral and social development just aren’t far enough along in the journey to deal with something on this scale. Like the industrial revolution depleted the world’s resources unnaturally quickly and we lost that time we needed as a species to develop the social and moral infrastructure to deal with that problem.

At the end of the day the underlying attitude from @Gehrman that people living today have more moral worth than people living tomorrow is still too prevalent to make these kinds of changes.

No amount of harm to future generations is worth harming the current population, that’s always been the sticking point that I don’t think we did enough to progress the moral argument on. If enough people stopped believing that, the sacrifices would be seen as heroic rather than unfair, and it’d strengthen the underlying social connections needed for global alignment.
 
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Brwned said:
Yeah I couldn’t decide between can’t or won’t. I still think it’s can’t. It just seems like fundamentally we are unable to organise ourselves on that kind of scale for that kind of horizon, it doesn’t seem to fit with our innate psychology, with the boiling frog and all that.

I also have the sense that our moral and social development just aren’t far enough along in the journey to deal with something on this scale. Like the industrial revolution depleted the world’s resources unnaturally quickly and we lost that time we needed as a species to deal with that problem.

At the end of the day the underlying attitude from @Gehrman that people living today have more moral worth than people living tomorrow is still too prevalent to make these kinds of changes.

No amount of harm to future generations is worth harming the current population, that’s always been the sticking point that I don’t think we did enough to progress the moral argument on. If enough people stopped believing that, the sacrifices would be seen as heroic rather than unfair, and it’d strengthen the underlying social connections needed for global alignment.
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I don't disagree with any of this. And it is actions, not words that are meaningful.
The reason I said won't was that we can resolve this problem.
We know how and more importantly we know why. It is all perfectly possible and perfectly feasible.

But the harsh lesson from Glasgow is that, because of self interest, we won't. It is far too easy to pretend that it is up to someone else.
 
Brwned said:
Yeah I couldn’t decide between can’t or won’t. I still think it’s can’t. It just seems like fundamentally we are unable to organise ourselves on that kind of scale for that kind of horizon, it doesn’t seem to fit with our innate psychology, with the boiling frog and all that.

I also have the sense that our moral and social development just aren’t far enough along in the journey to deal with something on this scale. Like the industrial revolution depleted the world’s resources unnaturally quickly and we lost that time we needed as a species to develop the social and moral infrastructure to deal with that problem.

At the end of the day the underlying attitude from @Gehrman that people living today have more moral worth than people living tomorrow is still too prevalent to make these kinds of changes.

No amount of harm to future generations is worth harming the current population, that’s always been the sticking point that I don’t think we did enough to progress the moral argument on. If enough people stopped believing that, the sacrifices would be seen as heroic rather than unfair, and it’d strengthen the underlying social connections needed for global alignment.
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My attitude is just realism. 86% of the worlds energy consumption is from fossil fuels. Knowing that with almost certainty that net zero is a lost cause and the that progress can only be incremental it makes more sense to adjust to human caused climate change than expect that the goverments and populations of the earth to all dance to the same tune.
 
Gehrman said:
My attitude is just realism. 86% of the worlds energy consumption is from fossil fuels. Knowing that with almost certainty that net zero is a lost cause and the that progress can only be incremental it makes more sense to adjust to human caused climate change than expect that the goverments and populations of the earth to all dance to the same tune.
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Gehrman said:
Didnt say to be fair. Was making the point of the futility of expecting to get the whole world dancing to the same tune. The only thing poor countries care about is mainly being lifted out of poverty.
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Gehrman said:
I kind of mean in the grand scheme of things. I'm not an expert either. Essentially all of this requires everyone almost in the whole word dancing to the same tune in a complex world of energy, power and wealth and I don't see it happening.

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/
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Gehrman said:
I think not everyone is convinced that the world is coming to an end if we don't meet targets and at the same time it's a near impossible task to get 7 billion people and various goverments dancing to the same tune. There is also the idea of adapting to climate change. Like if the sea levels are rising then build some damns and stuff like that. I'm not turned off by her, I just think its all massively complicated. Growth and CO2 emissions(and pillaging the earth's rescorces) go hand in hand. So yes the like most people I'd want some the countries with the most CO2 emissions pr. capita to transition as much as is realisticaly possible, but when you have growth in the developing countries as well such as India a lot of it frankly seems like a lost cause where adapting rather putting all bets on net zero seems like a more viable option. I live by the ocean in a flat country so it will be an egg on my face when i'm drowned by rising sea levels.
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This tune in particular is getting very old.
 
Gehrman said:
My attitude is just realism. 86% of the worlds energy consumption is from fossil fuels. Knowing that with almost certainty that net zero is a lost cause and the that progress can only be incremental it makes more sense to adjust to human caused climate change than expect that the goverments and populations of the earth to all dance to the same tune.
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Sure, but that's as far as you're willing to think about it. This thing people are asking for isn't practical, so let's just focus on the alternatives. You choose not to ask the question: what happens if all alternatives are insufficient? You're "not convinced" the fatalism is justified, but you don't have any evidence that refutes it, the problem just seems "near impossible" to solve so let's just not go there. Of course that's not really a good way to deal with a problem that comes with such risks, clearly established by the experts of our day. You would need to firmly rule out the end-worlding scenario before you give up on the only solution we're aware of that can tackle it. You choose not to because realistically, worst comes to worst, it's just future generations that will disappear into oblivion. They don't matter as much as these people that are currently being "lifted out of poverty". As a society we've failed to prove to people like you why that argument is a bad one, it's immoral, and it will undermine your stated interest in human well-being.
 
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Gehrman said:
This is not how the real world works. The chinese are finally being lifted out of poverty and they are rightly not giving it up to meet net zero.
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Rightly you say....
I would hardly call being the worlds biggest emittor of greenhouse gases rightly. But if that is what you think then words fail me.
 
Buster15 said:
Rightly you say....
I would hardly call being the worlds biggest emittor of greenhouse gases rightly. But if that is what you think then words fail me.
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It's not a black and white situation. If you feel the chinese should just plunge back into poverty, then words fail me. It's such a binary way of thinking. If they can asap transition to cost effective renewables, I think they should, I think everyone should, but if that was as easy as some people would like to think it is, I think things would going ahead a lot more pronto.
 
nimic said:
What if it doesn't come, though? It's a dangerous game to play. We have to invest in tech, but we also have to take strong measures right now.
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Very good point.
No doubt human ingenuity and technology will have a role to play. But remember. The target is to reduce the output of greenhouse gases by 2030. And it is almost 2023. That means that the technology is largely that which is in development now.

The very simple fact is that humanity is increasing the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere by just over 2PPM annually.
Now that doesn't seem like much. But in a decade, that adds up to over 20PPM. Set that against the current concentration of just over 400PPM.
And by most countries net zero timeframe of 2050, amounts to an eye watering 70+PPM. So 2PPM is a significant amount.
 
Gehrman said:
It's not a black and white situation. If you feel the chinese should just plunge back into poverty, then words fail me. It's such a binary way of thinking. If they can asap transition to cost effective renewables, I think they should, I think everyone should, but if that was as easy as some people would like to think it is, I think things would going ahead a lot more pronto.
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Now it is you who are taking a binary view.
It doesn't have to be either or does it. And China transitioning to a lower emittor is not going to plunge them back to poverty.

The world is potentially on the cusp of a new industrial revolution. One of renewable and sustainability. And the rewards for those who grasp this and take the lead will be huge.
It is all about how you get there.
 
nimic said:
I'm not sure what argument you think you're making here. The political party I'm a member of is against further exploration, and for rapidly reducing exploitation to meet some very ambitious climate targets. If "you're Norwegian so you can't have an opinion on climate change" is an argument you think is valid, then you're exactly the person I thought you were.

Also, since you asked, Norway had some of the highest standards of living in Europe before any oil was found. Did the oil make Norway the wealthiest? Sure.
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If you would apply measures that hurt, who would enforce them? And would you apply them only to developed nations or to developing nations as well? I don't know what what kind person you think I'm am, but you can go ahead and daydream about that as much as you'd like.
 
Lot of ordinary people seem to be shrugging this off with the hope that technology will be the answer and we'll think of something. Risky!
 
Irwin99 said:
Lot of ordinary people seem to be shrugging this off with the hope that technology will be the answer and we'll think of something. Risky!
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Germany is shutting down its nuclear power stations placed in the mountains because of the tsunami in Japan.
 
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