But we have seen big changes in climate well before humans existed. We've had several ice ages and several ice free periods. I just posted those graphs.
So again... Those temperature swings are over hundreds of thousands to millions of years. We have never seen the climate change as fast as we are now experiencing at any time in human history. The much smaller swings we have experienced resulted in massive loss of life and suffering. It's possible with our curt technology and ability to innovate, if we come together with massive social safety nets like we've never seen before, that we [/b]may[/b] be able to avoid some of that suffering and death. At a cost of hundreds of trillions of today's dollars. Or, we could just make the adjustments now to avoid as much of that as possible at a much lower cost. There is no need to outright ban anything tomorrow. But the sooner we can reduce as much manmade greenhouse gas emissions as possible (and really, as much pollution nas possible) the better off the future can be for our children and grandchildren.
Not like this. Not in hundreds of years. Those graphs are over hundreds of thousands or millions of years worth of changes. That's geological timescales We're talking about drastic change over hundreds of years. Biology doesn't adapt that fast. It's almost never had to. When it has had to we've seen mass extinction events. Below is a graph over much shorter human timescales. We've never seen anything like we've seen over the last hundred years. Chemists can test for man-made carbon. We know how much excess carbon is in the atmosphere and how much of it is man made. Earth Temperature Timeline
Temperatures were higher during the Medieval Warm period, and that was good for humans, crop yields were higher, and farming was possible at higher latitudes. Scientists used to think we were headed back to an ice age, that would be much worse than getting warmer. Perhaps the CO2 is in fact protecting us from that?
Without the excess carbon humans have released we WOULD be headed toward another ice age. In several thousand years. Nobody is saying biology cannot survive at higher temperatures. They are saying that we aren't prepared to do so, and biology doesn't change as fast as the greenhouse gases and other pollution we're releasing are causing our ecosystem to change. This will result in mass suffering and has already set in motion a mass extinction event like only seen a few times in the history of life on earth. Doing what we can now to mitigate that is far less expensive and far less complicated than waiting.
Thanks for posting that video. It's a bit sensationalist though... Nobody serious believes the global temperature will reach 1.5degrees gain by 2030. Nobody serious has made that claim. None of the people quoted in that video made that claim. Nobody in this thread has suggested sudden bans. Every year we aren't at net zero emissions or below we are making it harder and more expensive to mitigate in the future. That's just obvious. Having a plan to reduce carbon levels already in the atmosphere once we reach net zero is also a great thing, but it should not be developed as a way to get us to net zero, as corporations will simply increase emissions if that is the case. They must REDUCE greenhouse gas and other pollutant emissions to as close to net zero as possible. What those people are talking about are some models showing points (8, 10, 12 years I believe were mentioned in the video) beyond which (assuming current levels of emissions) we can no longer realistically prevent certain levels of temperature rise. Those temperatures have been agreed upon by experts in their fields to be levels at which humans can expect even greater increased difficulty due to the ability (or inability) of biology to adapt to the ecosystem. The video literally ends by saying it is a serious problem. That we need to accelerate reductions in emissions using sensible transitions that do not harm the economy. Which is exactly what I have been advocating for.
Who is arguing that the biology can't handle temperature change? Plants and animals survive at ranges much greater than what they are talking about with climate change. The doomsday predictions I've heard are about things like the jet stream stopping and the coasts flooding. Ironic that the same people pushing this don't hesitate to buy beach front properties.
Nobody. In fact, I've already confirmed exactly that. Biology has handled these temperatures before, and will do it again. They are arguing (and the evidence supports the position) that human biology isn't equipped to deal with the RATE of global temperature change and the unlivable local environmental and weather conditions that will increasingly bring with it. Many of the coasts will flood. The wealthy won't have to worry about it much. They'll just chalk that property up as a loss and move someplace else. But by 2050 about 800 million people who aren't wealthy will live in coastal cities around the world which are vulnerable to the over .5 meter sea level rise. And the sea level is expected to rise by at least that much, possible twice that much by 2100 if we fail to curb emissions soon. Again, no matter what we do, there will be a long tail on the impacts of our excess emissions. And we're increasingly finding that our models have UNDER estimated the impacts of our emissions. There will be water scarcity like that which likely started the civil war in Syria after thousands of farmers were forced from their farms and had to migrate to urban centers. We can expect that all over the world without DRASTIC action. You think the homeless problem in Portland is bad now? That's nothing... But yeah, the rich people you see on TV don't have to personally worry about it. They will likely be fine, in fact, they'll probably be dead before we see the impacts of our actions today. But I have kids. And I want them to be able to have kids (if they want). I want as little suffering as possible for our future generations. I'd like to leave the world better than we found it. Unfortunately that is already impossible for my generation. Some parts of the world WILL become inhabitable, regardless of any realistic action we take. Like, if you live there and your A/C breaks, you'll die. But it would be nice to get it on a path toward recovery.
She says a lot about what NASA has found. But NASA has actually released tools that show what they expect depending on our emissions... https://sealevel.nasa.gov/ipcc-ar6-sea-level-projection-tool
The effect of CO2 on climate is a fine thing to study. It stands to reason that it could be affecting our climate, but there are clearly a lot of other factors, and the doomsday predictions don't have a very good track record so far. It's not clear right now what the net affect is. There are some clear benefits to both CO2 and warming, and CO2 is a very natural part of the natural cycle. It's not like some toxic exotic chemical we're putting into the air. Another issue is that the "hockey stick" that shows the dramatic upward swing starting in the 20s(when we were putting out 1/10th the carbon as now) is dubious. Where is the medival warm period? The IPCC graph in 1990 showed the medieval warm period till they shifted over to the global warming narrative. It was warmer during the Medieval warm period that it is today. Greenland was much more hospitable and they were able to grow grapes at higher latitudes. The IPCC flattened that out in order to push this "human caused global warming" scare.
No, this is all pretty well understood. We know exactly what is in the atmosphere now compared to what was in the atmosphere pre-industrial revolution. Since industrial carbon has a different atomic signature than naturally occuring carbon we know exactly how much is man-made. You keep trying to change the argument to something nobody is saying.
I'm changing the argument? We were talking about temperature, now you're talking about CO2 levels, which are supposedly going to trigger run away heating. We're at 420ppm now, and yes, humans have caused that but the question is how concerning is this and what should we do about it? The optimal level for plants is 3x the current amount, humans the OSHA limit for constant exposure during an 8 hour work day is 5,000ppm, which is half the amount that a few people start to become drowsy. I don't think we should run the experiment of seeing what happens when CO2 levels reach that high, but we not in a danger zone right now. Humans will need a new source of energy at some point, and it won't come from solar panels and wind farms.
You are just ignoring what I'm saying. We've already covered this ground. However, clean energy is definitely the best solution. That will happen faster with my proposed pollution tax and dividend. That will make dirty forms of energy far more expensive and give the poor and middle class more money to support cleaner forms of energy. Thereby changing the market forces to encourage more of the least harmful energy sources.
If we put a more taxes on the life blood of civilization, it'll make everything more expensive. But we could save money as in nation in all kinds of way sand get solar panels on every roof. That would be good, but still not solve the issue. Especially with China building multiple coal plants per week. What we really need is a new source of energy.
No. You simply don't understand this, as you don't understand climate change. This gives the poor and middle class more money than the increased taxes would cost them. That's written in. If Chinese products built with dirty energy cost more for Americans to buy then China would have less incentive to build coal plants and more incentive to convert the coal plants they have built to geothermal. As would everyone else. Same with natural gas plants. China is also building out more clean energy than any other nation.
If only we could harness the power of being wrong, we'd have a consistent and plentiful source of energy. barfo
You have a lefty view of taxes. But the reality view is that taxing commodities raises the price for the consumer. You tax things to discourage their use, which might work for things like cigarettes, but what not for something everyone needs. Rather than tax everyone more, why don't we figure out what is causing so much chronic disease? We could put that money toward solar panels. Solar panels still wouldn't get us off carbon. And I don't believe we need to be in a panic to get off carbon right now, but we should be investing in discovering new technology.
