Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity

barros said:
I'm not sceptic about climate change but the only difference I don't buy we humans are the main cause. Anytime the governments wants to raise taxes for something they can't change but for decades scared people through the media, schools, etc. When we have a heatwave or even a very cold winter they say immediately that's caused by humans, billionaires getting richer with our tax money and the common man getting poorer. Any weather scientist that's against this idea loses any funding and their jobs but since you like most of the people who religious believes what the media and governments say just read this quote from Thomas Jefferson which he wrote in 1787:

“A change in our climate…is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep….The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now.”
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This is ridiculous. Are you seriously debating climate change with quotes from 1787?
 
barros said:
I'm not sceptic about climate change but the only difference I don't buy we humans are the main cause. Anytime the governments wants to raise taxes for something they can't change but for decades scared people through the media, schools, etc. When we have a heatwave or even a very cold winter they say immediately that's caused by humans, billionaires getting richer with our tax money and the common man getting poorer. Any weather scientist that's against this idea loses any funding and their jobs but since you like most of the people who religious believes what the media and governments say just read this quote from Thomas Jefferson which he wrote in 1787:

“A change in our climate…is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep….The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now.”
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They're not weather scientists, they're climate scientists. I'm not convinced you understand the difference.

Why the feck would I care about something Thomas Jefferson said about the weather in one part of the world 250 years ago? It's literally irrelevant.
 
barros said:
I'm not sceptic about climate change but the only difference I don't buy we humans are the main cause. Anytime the governments wants to raise taxes for something they can't change but for decades scared people through the media, schools, etc. When we have a heatwave or even a very cold winter they say immediately that's caused by humans, billionaires getting richer with our tax money and the common man getting poorer. Any weather scientist that's against this idea loses any funding and their jobs but since you like most of the people who religious believes what the media and governments say just read this quote from Thomas Jefferson which he wrote in 1787:

“A change in our climate…is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep….The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now.”
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So why are 99-100% or so of climate scientists in agreement that current climate change is caused by humans? All mistaken? Conspiracy? What's your explanation? Cause if you think humans aren't the main cause, you must have a reason to disagree with virtually all the subject-matter experts.

And yes, the precentage is that high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change.
 
barros said:
I'm not sceptic about climate change but the only difference I don't buy we humans are the main cause. Anytime the governments wants to raise taxes for something they can't change but for decades scared people through the media, schools, etc. When we have a heatwave or even a very cold winter they say immediately that's caused by humans, billionaires getting richer with our tax money and the common man getting poorer. Any weather scientist that's against this idea loses any funding and their jobs but since you like most of the people who religious believes what the media and governments say just read this quote from Thomas Jefferson which he wrote in 1787:

“A change in our climate…is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep….The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now.”
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The irony is that you seem to have bought into exactly what you claim others have: the propaganda of media (right-wing) and right-wing politicians that stump for the very companies that profit the most off of activities that lead to climate change.
 
Cheimoon said:
So why are 99-100% or so of climate scientists in agreement that current climate change is caused by humans? All mistaken? Conspiracy? What's your explanation? Cause if you think humans aren't the main cause, you must have a reason to disagree with virtually all the subject-matter experts.

And yes, the precentage is that high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change.
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Barros already said that they'll lose their funding if they don't agree with climate change. As we all know, scientists only work if they get funding, otherwise they're just long haired hippies.
 
RedTiger said:
Barros already said that they'll lose their funding if they don't agree with climate change. As we all know, scientists only work if they get funding, otherwise they're just long haired hippies.
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Yeah, that's conspiracy-lite. If a scientist can actually make a sound case (in a grant proposal) for why something is seriously off in climate data and analysis, they will be absolutely guaranteed to find funding from mainstream funding agencies, as that would be nothing short of spectacular.

I mean, if you ever read climate scientists on the subject, they don't actually like climate change on bit. Many, many, many of them would absolutely jump (in a positive sense) on any evidence that things are actually better than we think. And yes, it would be much better if current global warming was 'just' part of a natural cycle, cause then you know it'll go down again. (Even if we would still want to mitigate its effects, since the climate change is obviously going to wreak havoc on our civilization's current global equilibrium.)

Also, there are many rich people who would pay for anyone who goes against the consensus. So there, too, would be guaranteed source of funding.

Yet none of that is happening. Again, why not?
 
barros said:
I'm not sceptic about climate change but the only difference I don't buy we humans are the main cause. Anytime the governments wants to raise taxes for something they can't change but for decades scared people through the media, schools, etc. When we have a heatwave or even a very cold winter they say immediately that's caused by humans, billionaires getting richer with our tax money and the common man getting poorer. Any weather scientist that's against this idea loses any funding and their jobs but since you like most of the people who religious believes what the media and governments say just read this quote from Thomas Jefferson which he wrote in 1787:

“A change in our climate…is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep….The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now.”
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Ok. There is a big difference between weather and climate change. Weather varies year to year and is perfectly normal.

But climate change is an unambiguous trend.
And another unambiguous trend is the amount of CO2 that has been added to our atmosphere. The very same atmosphere we all exist as a result of.
Both trends are pretty much identical.
And that CO2 trend is the result of carbon dioxide humanity has been and still in, at an ever increasing rate, responsible for, ever since the Industrial Revolution.
 
Cheimoon said:
Following up on the discussion, I just came across a study from seven years ago, which revealed that Exxon had know for decades that human CO2 emissions were causing global warming. Here it is:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

Again, I would challenge @barros to explain why his own conclusions fly in the face of such scientific consensus.
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It is similar to the tobacco industry, which had known since the 1950s that smoking causes various health problems.
 
frostbite said:
It is similar to the tobacco industry, which had known since the 1950s that smoking causes various health problems.
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Yeah, I've thought that before - it's been the exact same playbook!
 
frostbite said:
It is similar to the tobacco industry, which had known since the 1950s that smoking causes various health problems.
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Yes indeed. And despite attempts to hold them to account, the tobacco industry just got away with it.
And exactly the same thing will happen to the fossil fuel industry.
And of course China for the covid pandemic.
Quite obviously, mass murders by the millions don't count.
 
Cheimoon said:
Following up on the discussion, I just came across a study from seven years ago, which revealed that Exxon had know for decades that human CO2 emissions were causing global warming. Here it is:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

Again, I would challenge @barros to explain why his own conclusions fly in the face of such scientific consensus.
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frostbite said:
It is similar to the tobacco industry, which had known since the 1950s that smoking causes various health problems.
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7799004-merchants-of-doubt

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly—some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it.
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I cannot rate this book highly enough
 
How Chevron Polluted the Amazon and Fought Environmental Lawyer Steven Donziger
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Decades ago, the U.S.-based petroleum corporation Texaco devastated Lago Agrio in the Ecuadorian Amazon with pollution, in what came to be known as “the Amazon Chernobyl.” It resulted in roughly 1,000 carcinogenic waste pits and 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater dumped into pristine rivers. Among local people who drank and bathed in these waters, cancers and miscarriages skyrocketed. Represented by Steven Donziger, Indigenous peoples sued the company, which had been bought by Chevron in 2000, and won over $9 billion. Chevron, however, ignored the Ecuadorian courts and took its case to New York, where it found a friendly judge, amenable to its aim of not paying and of destroying Donziger. Contacted for comment, Chevron noted it paid roughly $40 million for environmental remediation and accused Donziger of being a disbarred racketeer convicted of criminal contempt. Details provided by Donziger, however, tell a different tale altogether. In this exclusive interview with Truthout, Donziger discusses the ongoing disaster in the Amazon, how he was targeted for his advocacy and why we must continue to confront corporate polluters.

Eve Ottenberg: What did Texaco do in Lago Agrio?

Steven Donziger: Texaco, now Chevron, deliberately made a series of decisions that led to what experts believe is the world’s worst oil contamination. They did three things that were completely out of line with normal operating procedure that resulted in massive pollution. Number one is when they drilled for oil, they did it improperly. The drilling muds come up from thousands of feet under the ground when you perforate a well, and these muds contain heavy metals as well as synthetic chemicals that are cancer-causing and extremely harmful to the environment, to animal life and to humans..

Instead of disposing of it properly, Chevron just dumped it into the environment by gouging large pits out of the floor of the jungle, and putting these cancer-causing substances there for permanent waste disposal. They didn’t line the pits. They also built pipes into the sides of the pits to drain the contents into rivers and streams that Indigenous peoples and farmers relied on for drinking water, bathing and fishing. So, this one problem alone — that is, the construction of these pits at hundreds of drilling sites around the Amazon — caused a massive outbreak of cancer that, according to data, is still killing people and causing tremendous harm in a region that’s 1,500 square miles in size.

I read there were 900 of these pits, maybe more.

Roughly 1,000 pits. Various peer-reviewed health studies, done by respected academics, show extremely high incidences of cancers, including childhood leukemia, which you almost never see in the world, including ovarian cancer and all sorts of cancers related to the toxic substances that are in oil. Not to mention a huge number of miscarriages, much higher than the norm.

On top of that, Chevron did two other things that completely violated industry norms. Number two is they took production waters — which is the scalding hot wastewater that comes out of the ground with the oil, and contains benzene and other cancer-causing chemicals — and they separated it out and dumped it into waterways instead of reinjecting it deep into the ground, as is the norm. They just dumped it. They ran it off into rivers and streams that local communities relied on for their drinking water. And this happened on a daily basis, literally millions of gallons a day of these cancer-causing substances were being dumped into these beautiful Amazon rivers that the local communities relied on for their sustenance, with zero explanation or warning to the communities.


How long did they do this?

They did it for 25 years. Started in the 1960s and lasted until the 1990s when they left Ecuador. On a daily basis, seven days a week, 24-hours a day, for well over two decades. Four million gallons a day of cancer-causing oil waste dumped into waterways in the middle of Indigenous ancestral lands.

Then the final thing they did is they flared the natural gas that comes out of the wells into the air. This flared natural gas contains poisons, dioxins, and other toxins that also cause cancer. The flaring also produces a “black rain” phenomenon where the air gets so dark with pollution that when it rains, the rain comes down with soot in it. So even capturing rainwater as an alternative to the river water becomes futile. The irony is that in a few short years, because of these illegal practices, Chevron poisoned one of the most beautiful ecosystems on Earth. Thousands of people lost access to clean water and other materials, including food sources that they needed to sustain life and all the ecosystems. And Indigenous peoples and farmer communities in the area generally do not have money to buy bottled water. So, Chevron has determined, out of what I would argue is pure greed and focus on profit, that tens of thousands of people must suffer and die so it could elevate its already high profits to obscene levels, and it has refused to clean it up in light of court orders that it do so.


And what did Chevron do to you?

I worked with a team of lawyers in Ecuador and around the world to litigate a legal case in Ecuador over the pollution. The reason the case was in Ecuador was that Chevron wanted it there and accepted jurisdiction there. Once they started to lose the case and the evidence mounted against them, they came back to the United States where I live in New York, and began to sue me in a civil legal case. [Chevron] sued me for $60 billion. That’s far more money than any individual in U.S. history has ever been sued for, and I’m a human rights lawyer working at my kitchen table in a small two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan where I live with my wife and my son. So, this was an intimidation play to get me to stop, to try to intimidate others on our team or who might work on our team, and to win by corrupt means what they could never win on the merits.

Chevron engaged in these preposterous legal attacks, facilitated by a particular U.S. federal judge, who has investments in Chevron and is a pro-corporate ideologue, an activist named Louis Kaplan. When that didn’t work, when we continued to litigate the case, and won the case, Chevron stepped up its attacks on me. They worked with Judge Kaplan to get the court to order me to pay them literally millions of dollars to reimburse them for their legal fees for going after me in this bogus case. This essentially bankrupted me. I have no money. I’m dependent now on a defense fund to live.

Chevron also leveraged Judge Kaplan’s various decisions against me based on a witness to whom they paid $2 million, who admitted he lied in court, to take away my law license, depriving me of an ability to earn a living. Ultimately, they convinced Judge Kaplan to order me to give them my computer and cellphone, which contain troves of confidential information. When I appealed that order, Judge Kaplan charged me with criminal contempt of court for appealing an unprecedented order that I turn over my confidential communications to my adversary. While this order was on appeal, Kaplan had me locked up in my home with an ankle bracelet. His contempt charges were rejected by the regular federal prosecutor. Kaplan then appointed a private Chevron law firm to prosecute me in the name of the U.S. government, which again is unprecedented. During the three years of my home detention, they sent me to federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, for 45 days. It was during the COVID outbreak and we were locked down in cells; I literally expected to die in there if I didn’t get out.

I got out of my detention on April 25 of this year, and since then, we’ve been trying to refocus our energy on the people of Ecuador to have the judgment enforced, so they can get the compensation they need to clean up their ancestral lands, so these Indigenous groups can survive and not become extinct, and can have clean water and have their health needs treated. There’s a massive humanitarian crisis in Ecuador. People are dying every day and not even the Ecuador government wants to acknowledge it. Attention needs to be paid to the people of Ecuador, and that’s what I’m going to try to do now going forward.
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full article here.

the donziger story is infamous. a human rights lawyer who successfully sued chevron in a jurisdiction which chevron decided they could manipulate only for chevron to target him and use thier contacts in the american judiciary to force him into bankruptcy, brief federal detention, and house arrest. he has no law license now. he was tried by a private law firm in the name of the government. one of the most authoritarian things i've ever seen.

you're talking about what the firms knew or didn't know, well this is a good example. they were knowingly killing thousands of people in the amazon through bad practices and then destroyed the life of an american lawyer who took the case on as part of a human rights remit.
 
neverdie said:
full article here.

the donziger story is infamous. a human rights lawyer who successfully sued chevron in a jurisdiction which chevron decided they could manipulate only for chevron to target him and use thier contacts in the american judiciary to force him into bankruptcy, brief federal detention, and house arrest. he has no law license now. he was tried by a private law firm in the name of the government. one of the most authoritarian things i've ever seen.

you're talking about what the firms knew or didn't know, well this is a good example. they were knowingly killing thousands of people in the amazon through bad practices and then destroyed the life of an american lawyer who took the case on as part of a human rights remit.
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That's fecking infuriating!

I watched The Pelican Brief last weekend (90s thriller based on a Grisham book), and thinking the plot's a bit unlikely overall (apart from other issues with the film). But this sort of news periodically reminds me that Grisham isn't actually all that unrealistic overall...
 
Cheimoon said:
That's fecking infuriating!

I watched The Pelican Brief last weekend (90s thriller based on a Grisham book), and thinking the plot's a bit unlikely overall (apart from other issues with the film). But this sort of news periodically reminds me that Grisham isn't actually all that unrealistic overall...
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also erin brockovich. each with julia roberts for whatever reason but what seems outlandish is actually routine in corporate law. we've had dozens of such stories since, not even including the likes of the catholic church which come under another kind of category of institutional cover up and abuse.
 
neverdie said:
also erin brockovich. each with julia roberts for whatever reason but what seems outlandish is actually routine in corporate law. we've had dozens of such stories since, not even including the likes of the catholic church which come under another kind of category of institutional cover up and abuse.
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Yeah I know. Dark Waters is a recent film on a similar topic.

It's hard to come to terms with the reality of it, but it's there all over the place.
 
Cheimoon said:
So why are 99-100% or so of climate scientists in agreement that current climate change is caused by humans? All mistaken? Conspiracy? What's your explanation? Cause if you think humans aren't the main cause, you must have a reason to disagree with virtually all the subject-matter experts.

And yes, the precentage is that high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change.
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You sure is 99-100% of climate scientists? Do a research and see the pool of "scientists" they used to come out with the 97%
 
barros said:
You sure is 99-100% of climate scientists? Do a research and see the pool of "scientists" they used to come out with the 97%
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Could you point me to that exact pool you're taking issue with? And reference your source for your information? Cause to use the Wikipedia summary, that 99-100% is based on this:
Nearly all actively publishing climate scientists say humans are causing climate change.Surveys of the scientific literature are another way to measure scientific consensus. A 2019 review of scientific papers found the consensus on the cause of climate change to be at 100%, and a 2021 study concluded that over 99% of scientific papers agree on the human cause of climate change. The small percentage of papers that disagreed with the consensus either cannot be replicated or contain errors.
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What's your specific issue with that, and why did you write 'scientists' with quotation marks?
 
barros said:
You sure is 99-100% of climate scientists? Do a research and see the pool of "scientists" they used to come out with the 97%
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Checkmate, fellas. The consensus might be slightly less!

Any response to Exxon being part of the establishment and fecking up their own profitability with their admissions?
 
This is interesting news:
Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says. The report said it was wrong and pessimistic to claim that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive. Gas prices have soared on mounting concerns over energy supplies. But the researchers say that going green now makes economic sense because of the falling cost of renewables. "Even if you're a climate denier, you should be on board with what we're advocating," Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News. "Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it's going to save us money," he said.
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From here: Switching to renewable energy could save trillions - study - BBC News

The main argument against doing all this is always that it's too expensive. Well, apparently, it's anything but. Let's go people!
 
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Eriku said:
Checkmate, fellas. The consensus might be slightly less!

Any response to Exxon being part of the establishment and fecking up their own profitability with their admissions?
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He actually thinks he won that argument, since he's saying "scientists", implying that they weren't really scientists. Which is ironic, since the list of "scientists" who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change is full of engineers who probably don't know even the difference between climate and weather.

It's obviously incredibly intellectually dishonest of him, since no matter what your argument is it's at least clearly true that the majority of experts affirm that it's real. Whatever else bullshit he wants to pack on top of that, conspiracy or false data or solar wind or whatever, that much has to be true.
 
nimic said:
He actually thinks he won that argument, since he's saying "scientists", implying that they weren't really scientists. Which is ironic, since the list of "scientists" who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change is full of engineers who probably don't know even the difference between climate and weather.

It's obviously incredibly intellectually dishonest of him, since no matter what your argument is it's at least clearly true that the majority of experts affirm that it's real. Whatever else bullshit he wants to pack on top of that, conspiracy or false data or solar wind or whatever, that much has to be true.
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Very well said.
 
neverdie said:
he's right to change rhetoric. don't make it an environmental argument but an economic one. which is what it becomes when you explain it properly. even a climate denier would take a well paying job installing solar panels.
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Aye, and it's an extremely strong economic argument, too!
 
Buster15 said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63089348

So called renewable energy company cuts down thousands of acres of primary forests in Canada.
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This is also in Canadian news:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/wood-pellets-bc-forests-green-energy-1.6606921

The keys bit that shows why this is insane:
The industry says it is renewable because trees grow back while fossil fuels do not. Scientists say that forests take decades, even centuries, to regenerate, and that burning wood produces more emissions than coal.
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So: nothing 'green' about this, it's bad for old-grow forests (i.e., not tree plantations that exist for the purpose of forestry) and bad for climate change.
 
nothing renewable about that plant. just burns wood. no plant which runs according to standard combustion principles is "green".
 
Cheimoon said:
This is also in Canadian news:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/wood-pellets-bc-forests-green-energy-1.6606921

The keys bit that shows why this is insane:

So: nothing 'green' about this, it's bad for old-grow forests (i.e., not tree plantations that exist for the purpose of forestry) and bad for climate change.
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The real scandal is that this Drax Power Station in England which burns these wood pellets which have been produced from trees cut down from what are termed Primary Forests in Canada actually count towards the UK Green Energy. And these will count amongst the Net Zero legislation.

And I find that appalling.
 
Buster15 said:
The real scandal is that this Drax Power Station in England which burns these wood pellets which have been produced from trees cut down from what are termed Primary Forests in Canada actually count towards the UK Green Energy. And these will count amongst the Net Zero legislation.

And I find that appalling.
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Yeah, it's disgusting!
 
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