Global warming

[Lakesailor]

Hey. Not just me.

I'm cool. I won't be calling for appologies when the earth falls, frazzled to a crisp, into the sun and all the scientists say "Our calculations failed to take this into account"

 

[landaftaf]

there a many who remain unconvinced, 'dont knows' or are just sceptical about more

the end of the world is nigh

and - ppl who cant be arsed to keep arguing against the latest popularist fad /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
and as they dont argue others think they agree /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

and now I cant be arsed to argue anymore - but I can assure you I dont agree /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Twister_Ken]

I'm lost. What don't you agree with?

 

[landaftaf]

that mankind has had such a gross effect on our 'world .... biosphere'

or alternatively - we have an opportunity to reverse natures cyclical phenomina /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Sailfree]

No the problem is simply too many people.

If there was enough space between us there would be less competition for limited resources. eg less population.

I don't disagree about global warming but for tree huggers to suggest we go back to living as if in the stone age is stupid. The only green way of producing enough energy to support our lifestyle (that nearly all will refuse to give up) is nuclear energy. Yet half the world would not be able to use nuclear energy without producing weapons to kill the other half.

I am not taking it lying down but believe our need for religion and its refusal to accept any form of birth control makes us dinosaurs that are unable to adjust to the current environment.

I would be very happy to be proved wrong.

 

[Guest]

[ QUOTE ]
but for tree huggers to suggest we go back to living as if in the stone age is stupid. The only green way of producing enough energy to support our lifestyle (that nearly all will refuse to give up) is nuclear energy.

[/ QUOTE ]
I hadn't heard that any tree huggers were suggesting going back to the stone age, but there you go it takes all sorts I guess. More nuclear energy is also an option, weapons question aside. Compulsory population decrease is also an option, but quite an extreme one, and many countries (some of the worst polluters, like Russia) are suffering from population decrease anyway, which is causing problems but doesn't seem to help their environmental siytuation much.

Reducing energy consumption, and more efficient energy consumption is not very hard and has to be one relatively easy alternative. So is more 'green' use of waste - actually not hard to do if people can be bothered (as they can in countries like Germany).

 

[Robin]

[ QUOTE ]
Reducing energy consumption, and more efficient energy consumption is not very hard and has to be one relatively easy alternative. So is more 'green' use of waste - actually not hard to do if people can be bothered (as they can in countries like Germany).


[/ QUOTE ]

Energy consumption per capita is still increasing, every day brings some new widget we cannot do without and even without a new widget the existing ones need upgrading or replacing. The number of capitas is also increasing, plus the previously widgetless world want to join in and who can blame them. The overall result is that our energy needs are still rising and will continue to rise regardless.

The best that we can hope to do then is to slow down the rate of increase in energy use, unfortunately that will not make any difference except in preventing the timing of the eventual catastrophe being predicted from being any earlier than it is currently predicted to be.

Of course the doom merchants might be wrong and what they are currently seeing in their data is indeed just natural cyclical variations that occur in the life of this planet. That doesn't make it all any better but at least would allow us to look towards finding ways to learn to live with the changes as they occur. If I lived on a low-rise South Sea island I would be reassured more by someone planning for the worst rather than Canute like trying to stop the worst happening by asking people to turn off a few lights.

I'm not arguing against not wasting resources but exactly what IS that. Every tiny little thing that is made uses up materials and energy, even if it previously existed in a different form and was recycled. So should we buy ANYTHING at all in future? If the consumer stops consuming then jobs will vanish and we will have no money to spend on consumer goods and more jobs will go and so on until the problem vanishes. A quicker solution is to reduce the number of consumers, enforced birth control, pandemic bird flu or wars will help.

 

[Guest]

I think the biggest challenge is the argument put forward that "why should I change because X is a bigger polluter/consumer than me". It's the argument put forward by aviation industry, car industry, individuals etc. It's a disingenuous argument, the truth is that BOTH the motor industry AND the aviation industry needs to change. So do individual attitudes and habits. Saying that it's too hard (not that you're saying that) is defeatist and nonsense - countries like Germany or Sweden manage to start to start to take significant steps in changing habits, so can we. So can other countries. It's a bit like the anti-smoking lobby a few years ago - people thought that government anti-smoking advertising etc. wouldn't stop people smoking - but it has in fact worked and there has been a massive change in smoking culture in the country.

The biggest enemy IMHO is the defeatist attitude that can be seen in some of the posts on this forum. If you can defeat that, then you can crack the problem.

Population control? Maybe necessary eventually, but practically impossible at the moment. We'll see if it's needed in the long run. In the meantime, slow the problem down and give time to analyse it and develope more sophisticated ways of tackling it. If efficient use of energy etc. only buys time in the end, then that is an incredibly useful thing to have.

 

[Robin]

[ QUOTE ]
think the biggest challenge is the argument put forward that "why should I change because X is a bigger polluter/consumer than me". It's the argument put forward by aviation industry, car industry, individuals etc. It's a disingenuous argument, the truth is that BOTH the motor industry AND the aviation industry needs to change. So do individual attitudes and habits.

[/ QUOTE ]

The truth is that the motor industry and aviation industry HAVE changed and will doubtless continue to do so. Cars are much less polluting and fuel efficient now than they used to be as are the new aircraft and planes these days fly full not half empty.


[ QUOTE ]
The biggest enemy IMHO is the defeatist attitude that can be seen in some of the posts on this forum. If you can defeat that, then you can crack the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets differentiate between being defeatist and realistic. If the same scientists predicting the CO2 effect on global warming are to be believed then we need to start the emmissions dropping, not just to slow the rate of them increasing, the former would be a solution the latter no more than a delay. The realist says a reduction in emissions per capita is possible but that the total emissions will still continue to rise, simply because populations are rising and so are 3rd world expectations.

That is realistic not defeatist. Realistic says, hey climate change IS happening, so let's find a way of living with it. For example, if more extreme weather is predicted and higher fequencies of severe floods, then WHY do planners allow more and more building on flood plains? If populations are rising, (UK up from 50 to 60 million plus already) why has someone not realised that it will mean we need more reservoir capacity to cope, not just argue that global warming has produced droughts that left the reservoirs empty. That extra 10 million (20%) in our UK population needs housing, jobs, food, water, health services and so on but was it planned for? Apparently it wasn't planned for (even if anyone really knows how many REALLY live here) because all our resources are already at full stretch.