How do you deal with the fact of climate change/greenhouse effect?

This is a thread mostly for Democrats or people who have some knowledge and respect for climate science/NASA.

Republicans/Conservatives - I already know how you deal with it, you bury your head in the sand and pretend it's all fake, that talking about climate science is some kind of bizarre conspiracy to try and take your money and give to the blacks, gays and PC college students.

To people who realize it's over (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719), how do you deal with the fact that the prospects for decent human existence on this planet are basically finished, and that it's only a matter of time before the coming field of brutal consequences leave us in a devastated state?

I tend to think of it like a flower. It is a rare gift to see it at it's peak. The Earth produced a species that blossomed and now is in full bloom, covering the planet with billions of people. We couldn't last forever and lasting is not what made us beautiful. The human race crawled from the oceans and the muck to become something that was both destructive and wonderful. We created language and experienced consciousness. We spread into the stars beyond our planet. We were something special that existed for a cosmic blink of an eye and then disappeared.

It is true that the Earth will be an extremely hostile place for the people who manage to survive, and for thousands of future generations, but it was a high honour to have born witness to whatever it is we were. I believe it is ontologically sound to state that, in all the universe, as far as we know, there is no better or rarer arrangement of atoms than the arrangement that leads to beings who can love and know they love, that can deal in abstracts and subtleties. I am sad that the human race will be reduced and probably wiped out or, at best, forced to eke out some kind of existence in a dystopian nightmare, but we can still look back with some level of wonder and pride at our history. I am especially sad to know that we had the potential to spread life to other planets but will now fail to even seriously attempt to do so; consciousness is a wonderful component of the universe and to see it stamped out when it did not have to be is tragic - and yet tragedies are not altogether awful. If you take what someone like Harold Bloom says seriously, they're the highest form of art.

 

There's a segment of the right wing that accepts climate change as a real world phenomenon.

I think the best bipartisan approach to address climate change is through the carbon tax.

It's a market-friendly economic instrument that can reduce demand for carbon fuels and the revenue can be used to either offset the regressive nature of the tax or reduce the unsustainable federal deficit.

This website collects a wide variety of journals, public policy analyses, and research reports from various leading think tanks and political/scientific institutions that deal with this issue extensively-

http://www.carbontax.org/

 

Pursue a life of excellence, because the end is drawing near. Everything’s past the tipping point and nothing’s sustainable. It’s all about to come crashing down, so pursue a life of excellence.

Pursue a life of excellence. Make art and chase love. Stand in the spotlight and show everyone how beautiful you are. What have you got to lose? This will all be ashes soon. Kiss a girl and punch someone right in the nose.
Pursue a life of excellence. Walk barefoot through the dirty night streets and call out the names of the archangels into the echoing forest of Earth bones. And grow antlers. Why not? Grow antlers that can feel the sad songs of the whale ghosts from the pods of the Bloodship Massacres. Someday soon the sky will be on fire, and you’ll be sorry that you didn’t do these things.

There’s a fiery elephant god who lives in the base of an island volcano. It says “Pah” to all your excuses and casts them into the lava; “Pah!” Pursue a life of excellence and tell your parents they can suck it. Piss on the graves of your ancestors, because they were miserable and they did it all wrong.

“Excellence” doesn’t mean being the best at all the shitty things that got us here. It doesn’t mean having the best cars or the biggest house or the most esteemed slave-driving, world-mining job. It also doesn’t mean being the best at following the rules of that twisted mockery of a god they invented to sell gold crosses and oppression. The real is what is excellent. The throbbing-cellular leaping-off-the-edge, nerves-exposed ALIVE. Live a life that’s worthy of that first ancient fish ancestor to schlep itself out of the sea. Exceed grandmother fish’s wildest expectations. Paint the earth with mushroom spores and have a frivolous abortion.

Pursue a life of excellence, before it all goes away. There’ll be those who tell you you can’t, or that you shouldn’t, or that that isn’t how it’s done. Line them all up, get a running start, and slap them all in the face with one long Three-Stooges slap, and then shake them, SHAKE THEM, while screaming the following as loud as you can:
Do you have any idea how big this all is?
How old this all is?
How complex this all is?
Where were you when grandmother fish gasped her first breaths?
Where were you when somethingness first lurched out of the darkness?
Dozens of self-reinforcing global warming feedback loops while technological development hurtles toward the inevitability of an artificial superintelligence plugging itself into the internet, and have you ever once fucked like you were trying to save the world?
Have you ever gone fishing for long-forgotten nightmares?
Ever belched glowing egg pods into the air with the walrus slugs?
Ever let the tears of evolution’s tragedy fall uninhibited from your salty head?
Wake up you fools! Wake UP!

Pursue a life of excellence. Throw a lasso around a sacred cow while weeping for the sins of the settlers. The elephant god in the heart of Fire Mountain will NOT disdain us, it will not! The streets and the buildings pop and crackle both in excitement for us and in eager anticipation of their impending incineration into the mysterious next-to-come. Checkmate isn't real; the board has been thrown across the room by a frustrated little brother, and now the gods are all murmuring that the cat's out of the bag. This is YOUR life my friend. This is your life, my friend.

~ Tim Foley

 

This carbon in the atmosphere is going to be fixed through technology, and not conservation technology. We are far past the point of saying were going to stop producing carbon.

Right now we are going to at some point experiment with what warming up the earth is going to do. We really don't know if the effects will be catastrophic or overblown. But if things get desperate technology will get us out of it. Taking Co2 out the atmosphere isn't a difficult thing in the slightest, there's just no economic advantage to doing now. When there is, like if we don't bad things will happen, we will.

 

In before "climate hoax" I'm slightly optimistic in our future. I think the robots will save us

 

you might be interested in checking these guys out- https://itif.org/

they're a think tank that propose technology-oriented public policy solutions for almost every national problem

 

Once we start feeling the squeeze economically and the govt and public are willing to realize the cause, there will be action. I hope we have the tech and the plans in place because there won't be tons of time to figure it iut once we are feeling the squeeze.

It is easier for people to connect the dots in some places than others- we are seeing fish move north and south in to water that used to be too cold for them and that kind of thing will have good and bad economic repercussions.

It won't be doomsday*, but areas that formerly support massive populations won't anymore and there will be mass movements of people. The infrastructure needs to be laid ahead of time to handle this smoothly. More of this is goin on already than one might realize, the DoD is already planning for Miami to be largely underwater within the next century.

*unless something unexpected/drastic happens, like warming triggering a Younger Dryas event.

 

I don't care about it. I literally never think about it at all.

 

I pretend it's not real.

 

stop boxing and losing all your brain cells then

 

Somewhere around the end of the Clinton administration, I was hopeful. But I'm starting to see the ugly horizon and we can't avoid what's in front of us. The hope is that the idiots get lucky, and new technologies somehow bail us out of this. But we aren't owed a miracle.

 

My friend, somewhere between climate alarmists, and climate skeptics lies the truth.

Efficiency is what we could change tomorrow with the political will needed, that would have the most impact.

Our political revolution must put efficiency at the for front, with a long term sustainable plan becoming more obtainable with a need for less energy driven by the efficiency.

 

I once was part of a team that calculated possible emission reductions for the steel industry, assuming we maximize all possible forms of CO2 reduction AND make use of CCS AND assuming electricity will have a way lower carbon footprint in the future. Ignoring economic rationality.

Even then, the 80% reduction target until 2050 is impossible to reach. I imagine that other industries face similar problems.

So we are faced with the reality that things will get really bad in some parts of the world. While fences may seem a viable solution today, I am not so sure about the future when hundreds of millions of people may have to move. Migration is and will be reinforced by climate change.

 

This. I believe that climate change is a possibility. I just question the extent of man's effect on it. And I'm even more skeptical when the alarmists don't lead by example.

 

If Obama would goto the UN to help fund the Operation, and use the Military to go out there with traulers to round up those huge trash patches out in the Ocean, I would stand in line to salute him.

Been meaning to write him about this very idea. Need to get to it.

 

I will marvel at the greening of deserts

 

Climate change term is now used because they aren't lying, the climate will change. Global warming term is gone because studies found the opposite.
Through history climate and seasons have changed. But man has very little to do with it.
1st there are fires around the world that have been burning for years. In Pennsylvania a coal mine has been on fire for decades. Spewing a lot of co2 and other chemicals in the air.
2nd it would take humans too long to make an impact. The time it would take humans to do damage, natural volcanoes produce more smoke and co2 then humans ever could. One volcano eruption can change the atmosphere in 1 shot.
So as countries like America bankrupt themselves with ridiculous epa standards. It's more likely a natural disaster will come and change things.

 

Can you explain what you mean by "through history climate and seasons have changed?"

Specifically, how have they changed, and why?

 

The problem with not accepting the science fact of climate change is that you don't act in way that can be truly impactful.

The mistake is to view acceptance of science fact as meaning that you have to shut off all fossil fuel combustion (or decrease). Rather, you can do things like,
- not develop in areas of extreme dryness and heat.
- Fortify structures/build shelters in hurricane/typhoon regions where storms are increasing in frequency and strength.
- Don't develop that 'at risk' edge of the water property.
- alter the types of crops and regions that are allocated to agriculture.

Personally, i won't live in a home that is in a low lying area threatened by flooding. Secondly, I'll avoid overly dry arid areas that will have lack of water or extended drought. Third, I try to avoid living in coastal areas that are threatened by big storms.