Stop flying. Stop driving. Move house if you have to. If not you're a fecking hypocrite.
Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity
- Thread starter Buster15
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Such a fecking idiotic argument.
Well let's start with flying. You don't need to fly for leisure purposes do you? or at best once every few years.
That is the kind of charge that we are going to have to implement.
However, I can envisage much bigger taxes on flying in order to push that change.
But such taxes would have to be ring-fenced to fund carbon offsets for example.
My vasectomy alone leaves me sitting fairly pretty.
Mind you, I reckon the prices airlines have been able to offer the public have been ludicrous. I’m fine with flying being less accessible.
It's true that having few or no children is the biggest step you can make to reduce your carbon footprint, but I'm not sure that absolves you from any further action, if you care about climate change that is. Thanks for taking part in the idiotic argument anyway.
I'm no saint, I'm positively hypocritical in fact, but I do agree with @Buster15 above, strong political action needs to be taken to save us from ourselves, and I would vote for swingeing taxes on flying, for example.
It's true that having few or no children is the biggest step you can make to reduce your carbon footprint, but I'm not sure that absolves you from any further action, if you care about climate change that is. Thanks for taking part in the idiotic argument anyway.
I'm no saint, I'm positively hypocritical in fact, but I do agree with @Buster15 above, strong political action needs to be taken to save us from ourselves, and I would vote for swingeing taxes on flying, for example.
I’ve also halved my meat intake, but truth be told the change required can’t happen at the individual level.
It's true that having few or no children is the biggest step you can make to reduce your carbon footprint, but I'm not sure that absolves you from any further action, if you care about climate change that is. Thanks for taking part in the idiotic argument anyway.
I'm no saint, I'm positively hypocritical in fact, but I do agree with @Buster15 above, strong political action needs to be taken to save us from ourselves, and I would vote for swingeing taxes on flying, for example.
Well said.
I do believe that once decisive action is put in place we will get used to the ways that we are going to have to adapt and because of the critical natural of the problems we all face people will become far more accepting and far more understanding of such changes.
We are indeed in a Climate Change emergency but don't be surprised that a number of people will choose to believe that non of this is man made.
Do you think that the fact that CC is now considered an Emergency will actually accelerate actions to attempt to reduce the rising levels of CO2 or do you see it as all talk but no significant actions.
Personally I would be all in favour of a fuel duty increase providing the revenue was ring fenced to be spent directly on CC initiatives.
I think we are going to need just a bit more than this.
Yes of course I agree with you.
I was only identifying one albeit important issue.
We use our cars far far too often and as much as anything that is due to laziness.
And as a result we are not just adding to the CO2 problem we are making atmospheric pollution almost unbearable in our major cities.
It should be easily possible for car and commercial vehicle manufacturers to provide a CO2 gauge to the vehicle which gives both an instantaneous reading of CO2 output as well as that for the distance covered.
At some point, people may have to get used to a CO2 ration which they have to live with per period.
more good news as the Liberals win the Aussie election
We are all going to die.
An article on the BBC website says that scientific research has now shown that global sea level rise is more likely to be double the 1m previously predicted by 2100.
We must all be aware now of the potentially catastrophic effects of Climate Change. But as normal, complacency is the biggest problem we have to overcome.
I wonder how many of us have actually made even the slightest change.
We must all be aware now of the potentially catastrophic effects of Climate Change. But as normal, complacency is the biggest problem we have to overcome.
I wonder how many of us have actually made even the slightest change.
Climate catastrophe isn't a pitch that will work for most* voters, because it won't affect them personally.
*woke kids excluded.
Say what? The Great Barrier Reef is already dying as a result. The evidence is all around you to see.
How exactly does increasing CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 ppm (pre-industrial era), to 405 ppm (today) kill the great barrier reef? Those sea creatures breath water, not air.
"Our oceans are an incredible carbon sink — they absorb about 25 percent of the carbon dioxide humans produce every year. But this is changing sea surface chemistry dramatically: when carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, it dissolves to form carbonic acid. The result, not surprisingly, is that the ocean becomes more acidic, upsetting the delicate pH balance that millions and millions of organisms rely on."
https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/global-warming-ocean-acidification
It increases global temperatures and the barrier reef simply can't cope with water temperature changes that quickly
I assumed i misread that, didn't think we had someone genuinely denying the impact of climate change.
Two main reasons. Firstly, corals are extremely sensitive to temperature changes. More carbon in the air makes for a warmer atmosphere and this obviously has a knock on effect on water temperature - especially in the pelagic zone (shallow waters) where coral thrives. As a creature a coral exists in really tenuous symbiosis with a kind of algae. It feeds the algae CO2 and then the algae in turn provides the coral with nutrients via photosynthesis . Unfortunately (for the coral) photosynthesis also produces oxygen as waste - something that poisons the coral if it takes in more than a certain amount. Because photosynthesis is a chemical process the rate at which it progresses is largely dependent on the energy it receives. Warming waters adds energy to the system and speeds up the process. This means that at a certain temperature the algae releases more oxygen than the coral can safely take in. Whatever safety mechanisms the coral has are overwhelmed. In response the coral expels the algae and in so doing deprives itself of its main source of food. It then slowly starves to death.
The second reason has to do with the fact that CO2 is acidic and that our oceans are the planet's largest carbon sinks. Basically the more CO2 is in the atmosphere the more is drawn down into the oceans. This noticeably changes the water's chemistry and has a detrimental effect on coral's ability to grow its skeleton. This is because the building blocks of its skeleton are calcium carbonates, which are alkaline. At a certain level of acidity the bonds that tie these molecules together begin to dissolve and so the basis of the already extremely slow growth of corals is undermined.
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Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere increases the amount of heat that can be held in the atmosphere, which then has a knock on effect on our oceans as water retains heat longer.
Increased heat in the atmosphere then also enables an increased amount of water vapour to be held in the atmosphere, which again further increases the atmosphere’s ability to retain heat. The feedback loop is in a constant increase until the levels of CO2 are reduced, and even that might not be enough because once icecaps on Siberia (which covers vast deposits of methane, far more potent to heat retention than CO2), the Antarctic and Greenland have melted, there is more water in the system to further increase the amount of heat and water vapour available.
It’s actually sort of a misnomer that the prevention of climate change revolves solely on reduction of CO2, but it’s the easiest place to start. Once we’re into a run away greenhouse effect, there’s no turning back and the planet will end up like Venus where it is so hot that literally all the water on the planet is vapour.
To directly answer your question: increased sea temperatures cause corals to bleach, as their maximum tolerance is about 27C for short periods of time, they live in around 24-26C, and are very sensitive to temperature changes. Once a coral has begun to bleach, it is all but irreversible as they are expelling their zooxanthellate algae, with which they have a symbiotic relationship with, and starve to death/die.
In addition to this, CO2 makes our oceans more acidic, which again is harmful to corals.
When I get home and can have a reread through my textbooks, I could go into more scientific detail for you if you like?
I am surprised to find a climate change denier on a left wing forum.
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This is why basic climate science should be part of the school curriculum.
It is an ecosystem, where everything is connected to everything else, even if indirectly. At least, read up on why what happens in one part of the system eventually impacts other parts.
No. Climate science should definitely not be part of the school curriculum. Because the purpose of education should be to empower kids by teaching them how to get along in, and understand the world. How to make sense of it all and use what they learn. Most kids can't do Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Maths (including basic modeling). Without those 4, no one can do Climate Science.
Everything is not connected to everything else. Not in any meaningful way.
Arrrgghhh. Why did you post this before he had to read my post?
It really, really, absolutely, is. I have literally just explained the science behind the link between CO2 emissions and global warming/climate change, and you have ignored it completely.
Good God.
"Everything is not connected to everything else"
"Everything is not connected to everything else"
By it's very definition an ecosystem is connected to everything else within that system. That's what makes it a system.
Technically untrue. Earth's atmosphere does not act to store any significant heat. Our oceans do. Because:
1. The heat capacity, per kg, of water is 4 times that of air. Meaning: it takes 4 times more heat to raise 1 kg of water from 0 to 100C than it takes for air.
2. The mass of earth's oceans is 272 times the mass of our atmosphere.
3. Sunlight warms the oceans because it penetrates fairly deeply (up to 100 metres down)
4. Infrared does not warm the oceans because it all is absorbed in the first few micrometres. That means IR energy can only warm the surface skin of oceans. In theory. In practice no one ever measured significant ocean surface warming due to IR from CO2.
Those feedback loops are in your imagination, or should I say, only in your climate models. They have never been scientifically demonstrated. Not from observation, nor by experiment. In fact positive feedback loops are ridiculously rare in nature. Only climate catastrophists have them.
Methane is not a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, or water vapour. Methane is an insignificant greenhouse gas. Nearly all IR absorption done by methane overlaps that done by water vapour. Our atmosphere has anything from 100 times to 10,000 times more water in it than methane. Any absorption methane can do is already done by water. Water is outstandingly, the most important greenhouse gas. We know this from experience. A clear night cools quickly (like those in the Sahara). A moist, muggy, cloudy night cools far more slowly.
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Can we move this to the climate thread?
I didn't begin posting climate alarm propaganda here. I feel I can't let it stay unanswered; it offends my sense of fairness. If a mod want's to move it all, fine by me.
It was a general suggestion.
After stating "these creatures breathe water, not air", it's pretty difficult to take any of the scientific positions you subsequently take seriously. Literally no animals breathe water.
Good point. I meant breathe in water. They breathe gases dissolved in water; which don't have the same composition as air because carbon dioxide is more soluble in water than oxygen.
Corals actually get oxygen from zooxanthellae symbiotic algae growing inside of them which use CO2 dissolved in oceans for food and excrete oxygen, which the coral 'breathe'.
Yeah, and it has the habit of facilitating a thing called ocean acidification...