Scientific Discussion (No Politics) regarding validity of climate change


  • Good post IL. Let’s solve global warming everyone. The sun is getting hot and melting the polar ice caps. Great Tax the developed nations to death under the auspice of a carbon tax and when we get the money lets throw up in the air at the sun and hope the problem goes away. Ask yourself if that makes sense.

  • '20 '18 '16 '13 '12

    At what point did this thread get hijacked by people who not only spew arbitrary, incorrect statistics that they pull out of their ass but don’t even read the previous posts.

    It was halfway enlightening before people started belching their own uninformed opinion without even following the topic…

    sigh

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @Canuck12:

    At what point did this thread get hijacked by people who not only spew arbitrary, incorrect statistics that they pull out of their ass but don’t even read the previous posts.

    It was halfway enlightening before people started belching their own uninformed opinion without even following the topic…

    sigh

    While I disagree with Canuck’s general position on this issue, I do support him here. This thread was supposed to be about scientific fact and opinions related to that, not simply unsubstantiated assertions or a litany of why you like or don’t like aspects of climate change. It is fine to state your beliefs, but it would help your case to do so intelligently and with some semblance of evidence.


  • @Canuck12:

    Please explain what you mean by “scheme” and why carbon credits make us equal.

    I don’t understand this smoke and mirrors concept. What evidence do you have for this?

    I don’t think anyone has yet confused  a carbon tax and climate change. Of course they are different. A carbon tax is a climate change mitigation strategy.

    I thought this was supposed to be scientific, no politics. What’s all this conspiracy theory stuff?

    All the conspiracy stuff is because climate change is a reason to do everything one side wants to do anyway. Paradigm shifts are hard.

    I covered this earlier in the thread and provided a link to an interesting article talking about that.

    @frimmel:

    @LHoffman:

    If the science can be separated from politics, I am at least more willing to consider implications and empirical evidence. But unfortunately, climate change has become a predominantly political (and increasingly social) tool. It is one thing to be clean and responsible, both of which I agree with, but when we as humans voluntarily dismantle our productive sources of energy, without having viable substitutes, we have severely misplaced our priorities.

    The science is settled. It is as settled as science gets. The only thing in doubt is how bad and how fast. The argument is over what to do about the science. And those who don’t want to do what the science says is necessary either have to deny or obfuscate the science. If the science isn’t ‘true’ then Exxon can keep selling you oil and all of their assets are not suddenly made essentially worthless. This is the politics. Accepting the science leads down only one road – http://www.alternet.org/story/153230/to_conservatives%2C_climate_change_is_trojan_horse_to_abolish_capitalism

    The money quote I whole-heartedly agree with:

    The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to their free market belief system. As British blogger and Heartland regular James Delingpole has pointed out, Modern environmentalism successfully advances many of the causes dear to the left: redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, greater government intervention, regulation. Heartland’s Bast puts it even more bluntly: For the left, Climate change is the perfect thing. It’s the reason why we should do everything [the left] wanted to do anyway.

    The science is separate from the politics. What to do about it is the politics. And what to do about is nothing that one side of the politics would prefer to do and the other side seems to think it can still make some kind of go along to get something done concessions. And we’ve dithered about making the changes for 30 plus years and are facing a need to quit fossil fuels cold-turkey and re-making the entire economic system and it’s underlying paradigm essentially overnight in political and social inertia terms.

  • '20 '18 '16 '13 '12

    See, I have to disagree with both Garg and Frimm now.

    Mitigating and curbing climate change doesn’t have to be the panacea for the left. In fact I believe the only answer to the climate change problem is more effective and efficient free markets. More government control would be profoundly bad for the environment and for people in general.

    You guys are both making this fundamental assumption that legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is going to change the foundations of our society as we know it. It certainly doesn’t have to and I sure hope it doesn’t.

    I hate to harp on it, but the carbon tax in BC is a great example, we reduced greenhouse gas emissions, lowered income taxes and taxes on small businesses and no-one even really noticed. (Garg included). This is the model we should follow.

    A carbon tax is, at it’s core, an extremely free-market oriented solution because greenhouse gas emissions represent a market failure where agents are allowed to impose negative externalities on other members of society without cost. We have laws in markets and in domestic society to prevent this from happening elsewhere but because greenhouse gasses and their negative effects are new, we haven’t come up with legislation yet to correct this market failure.

    It’s not a leftist conspiracy, as much as Garg and Frimm seem to want it to be, (for opposite reasons of course). Or at least it doesn’t have to be.

    The truth is, anyone with a genuine commitment to free market capitalism should support a carbon tax wholeheartedly.


  • It isn’t a leftist conspiracy. It is just seen as one because mitigation calls for a lot of things that the left is in favor of like more environmental regulation.

    I certainly support any sort of mitigation strategy. I just don’t think the carbon tax is going to be sufficient since we are seriously behind schedule on avoiding really bad impacts. If that’s what we can get, that’s what we can get but really the entire planet has to get together on some sort of sustainability/planning ahead program.

    The thing with free markets is they are built on a mantra of growth and we’re running out of room and running out of things to extract. We need some thinking unlike what got us into this mess and while a carbon tax would be a start it doesn’t address even longer term problems other than the climate that climate science should be bringing into focus.

  • '20 '18 '16 '13 '12

    @frimmel:

    The thing with free markets is they are built on a mantra of growth and we’re running out of room and running out of things to extract.

    I will have to disagree. I think this is the root where out opinions diverge: We are not running out of room and we’re not running out of things to extract. Hubbard’s peak was supposed to happen 13 years ago and the peak-oil crowd has insisted every year since that “this is the one!” It’s simply not going to happen. Why? 1 word: growth. Technological growth to be precise. What is the primary driver of technological growth? 1 word: capitalism. You know how far a gallon of gas took you in the 70’s? Not very far. Now you can get 63mpg in the city! What got us there? High oil prices drives demand for more fuel efficient cars, markets respond and capitalists invest in more fuel efficient technology. This is the one areas where Garg is right. Technology is the main driver behind us reducing out impact on the environment. Think about LED lighting, solar power, lithium batteries etc. etc. All of these things have helped to reduce the magnitude of our environmental footprint. And if we had a properly functioning free market (ie: one where the cost of GHG emissions is internalised into the cost of production, by say: a carbon tax) we would get there all the faster.

    No leftist conspiracy, no reshaping society as we know it.


  • Technological growth to be precise. What is the primary driver of technological growth? 1 word: capitalism.

    I would say its actually the desire to kill others.  War/the need to kill other human beings is the driver for technology…money/greed just has shotgun…

  • '12

    A agree with Canuck on this one.  I was about to quote you frimmel but was beat to it!

    The thing with free markets is they are built on a mantra of growth

    I would posit that the free market is built/based on the most efficient utilization of ‘capital’.  Growth can be a metric for this and since it’s not a zero-sum game the ‘system’ will also grow.  But growth for growth sake is not on the ‘agenda’ for the free market.

    Some rules are good.  You can’t increase your factories capital utilization metric by dumping poison down the sewers.  Anything you do can cause damage so it’s fair to pay for ‘acceptable’ damage in some way.  The European fuel tax and to a lessor extent the delta in fuel taxes between Canada and the US benefits Canada more than the US.  The Canadian auto fleet gets better fuel economy on average than the US fleet, albeit for a variety of reasons including old cars in Canada rust out and must be replaced.

    There may be hope for humanity after all……

    US climate-change skeptics LOSING SUPPORT

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/20/most_americans_believe_global_warming_is_caused_by_human_activity/


  • A couple observations, and then I will promise to myself that I’ll avoid this silly thread.

    1. Time scale. Some people have no ability to appreciate it.

    2. Pragmatism. If things are changing at a rapid rate… if that change causes undesirable economic, agricultural, and human consequences (we’ll ignore the childish nihilists and eugenicists for a moment)… if you have only one lever to push back against the change… then that is what you do.

    3. Common sense. The pee in the pool analogy is apt. With how much of our own filth are we willing to live? Pollution okay with you? So, how much? Is there any point at which you might find it unbearable? If not, then you might be a millenarian and the rest of us should not take you seriously.

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @frimmel:

    The thing with free markets is they are built on a mantra of growth and we’re running out of room and running out of things to extract.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRGsN2piqJg

    Skip to time 1:26 to hear Frimm’s point better articulated.

  • '20 '18 '16 '13 '12

    I usually prefer my political points without dubstep, but thanks none the less.

    The thermodynamics argument is silly. By that logic everything is unsustainable. The sun is unsustainable, the moon’s orbit is unsustainable, the universe is unsustainable. These are facts according to the laws of thermodynamics but who gives a shit about 200 billion years from now? Yes, on an infinite time-series a growth economy will break down. But so will everything else!

    That just flows from the fact that (Growth Economy) is a subset of (Everything in Existence) the latter of which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics and, therefore, so is the former.

    Redking just said it best:
    @Redking:

    1. Time scale. Some people have no ability to appreciate it.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    Growth economies work - so long as large swath’s of the population die here and there…

    Not agreeing - just saying… :P

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    Red-King your comment about FILTH is a great one.

    I agree, how much pollution am I willing to live with is a great question to ask!

    Of course, what if my neighbours are dirty, and tell me to F-OFF when I attempt to talk to them about it, and thier stink gets so bad I can barely live…?. does that give me the right to end their lives?  Probabaly not?

    Unless of course, the pollution is so bad, that my life is at risk?  Then it’s self defense - or isn’t it?

    Global-enviromental-wars are coming soon…

    Also, I fail to see how us playing a social game over pieces of colored paper we’re told are worth something even when they’re not are somehow suppose to fix the climate more to our liking?

    Why don’t we play football instead.  Football has as much to do with Climate Change as Taxation and monetary reshuffling does.

  • '20 '18 '16 '13 '12

    @Gargantua:

    Also, I fail to see how us playing a social game over pieces of colored paper we’re told are worth something even when they’re not are somehow suppose to fix the climate more to our liking?

    Why don’t we play football instead.  Football has as much to do with Climate Change as Taxation and monetary reshuffling does.

    Really? You fail to see how taxation of a certain behavour might influence how often they are willing to do said behaviour?

    I think I’m about done with this thread.

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @Canuck12:

    I usually prefer my political points without dubstep, but thanks none the less.

    I wasn’t referencing the whole song, I was just throwing it out there as nicer to listen to than reading Frimm’s comment.

    I love the album, not saying I endorse the message… or intended it to be applied here for that matter.

    So no, by your own admission the thermodynamics and increasing entropy argument is not silly. So why call it that? Perhaps it is too large a scale to apply to our discussion, but in and of itself it is true.


  • Really? You fail to see how taxation of a certain behavour might influence how often they are willing to do said behaviour?

    At what point did this thread get hijacked by people who spew these Carbon Tax arguments in a thread about the validity of climate change?

    It was halfway enlightening before people started belching their own uninformed opinion without even following the topic…

    sigh

  • '20 '18 '16 '13 '12

    Yep. Done.

  • '12

    The trolls rule the day, pity.


  • The trolls rule the day, pity.

    On You Tube no less, Mr. Shirtless fat dude wearing $10 sunglasses writes:

    “You may not jeer and clown, but you mispell and misdiagnose like a true pro… I guess spelling and English were not required courses of study in your school.”

    misspell not mispell…And don’t tell me where you are from they spell that way.

    “Kruggerr… You’re a F** like all canadiens. You actually had bls enough to respond to a random bash on Canada. But it will gain you nothing more than another bash (a little less random) on all canadien d*bags. It’s like a big trailer park”

    Too easy…

    Yes Trolls rule…on You Tube at least. How sophisticated of you…

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