Enjoy Earth While It Lasts: Atmospheric Carbon Levels Pass the Point of No Return

originally posted by: network dude

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: network dude
I choose to believe that AGW is not at all like the alarmists claim. I chose to believe that the Earth is much more resilient and our input, however ugly and disruptive it may be, could not effect the Earth on a planetary level as some would suggest. What do I base that on? A feeling. (I know, super credible right?) Knowing the alternative is to run around screaming and flailing, I'd prefer to just smile and go on with my world. Whatever the temperatures might be, I'll adjust as I do each season.

Translation: "AGW isn't real because it feels better to stick my head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist."

Translation, "I am too good to actually READ the words of the OP, I'll just skim the topic, make an idiotic post, tow the line to stay on political point, and generally look like a tool."

Tell me Oh wise one, what are we supposed to do if "it's past the point of no return"

LOL, and try reading the WHOLE OP before you open your pie hole.

Hehe, are you for real? There's no "official" point of no return. The climate is a complicated system, it's not an on/off thing. It doesn't snap one day and people go like: "oh crap guys, guess it's too late! All the animals gonna die!"

Some scientist somewhere may calculate that it's too late now to avoid X degrees of warming and he may even be correct but that doesn't mean anyone should give up. We can still take action to avoid things getting even worse. I guess the problem is that "eh, were #ed already so a little bit more won't hurt" kind of mentality is all too human. Well in the long run the little bits add up. That maybe the most dangerous thing about AGW; we just aren't programmed to be scared of these things because until very recently we had no power over them. Back then you would have been right. But times are a-changin'. Were growing up as a species but age is no guarantee for wisdom.

You know what the media likes to do though? Could it be that they like to... EXAGGERATE THINGS? (Sorry, not trying to yell at you, lol. Just to exemplify) Could it be that they simplify complicated things into black and white scenarios? Maybe some climate scientist is sitting around somewhere in his ivory tower, being just as fed up as you about exactly the same thing. How ironic it would be... who knows?

a reply to: Cutepants

See, and that brings up another point.

There is such a thing as just not being a tool. Green initiatives are good initiatives, I won't argue that. Reducing carbon footprints is also a good thing. Basically, these are tools to help you be a citizen of Earth without being...well, an ***.

That being said - I have encountered some people that have the following argument:
"You just bought a car, if you cared about the environment, why didn't you buy an electric car?"

Well - let's deconstruct a few things:

1. An electric version of the car I bought adds another $20,000 - and I don't make that kind of money.
   
2. Buying just a puddle hopping electric car doesn't work because I have to travel large distances.
   
3. The outlets around me that I could charge that battery are all coal powered. There are few steam powered access points in my area. Thus, it defeats the purpose of the rechargeable battery.
   
4. When I've exhausted the car, what about the footprint of the battery and the scrap from the vehicle?
   

Sometimes green isn't feasible. But when it is, it should at least be considered.

a reply to: Shugo

I don't know why anyone is worried at all.

If catastrophic global warming is real....then a catastrophe will happen. People will die. With less people on the earth, there will be less carbon being emitted ....and so on until the earth is in balance again.

OR - peak oil will happen (or did happen in the 90s, if a remember rightly and there will be no fossil fuels to burn. Problem solved.

See that was easy.

If I get a vote....then I vote its time to shut up about carbon and get on with cleaning real pollution.



Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
then I vote its time to shut up about carbon and get on with cleaning real pollution.

Perfectly said - and generally what I was saying. Sorry if I wasn't clear in my posts. I've been told in the past that I do tend to ramble from time to time.

a reply to: Shugo

your welcome!

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Shugo

I'm sorry someone complained about your car, that's rough man. Take it up with them I guess?

No, but I honestly understand and agree with you. The damage you cause to the environment is negligible compared to the benefit you gain. I don't think a lot about the environment, I don't own a car but I also don't feel I need one right now so it's no sacrifice for me and nothing to brag about. In this way I agree with OP too, although I don't think everyone has to change in order for it to work, half or a quarter would have a noticeable effect I'm sure, or even just 10 percent. But the point is that a single persons private CO2 emissions have very little effect, just like a single vote in an election is extremely unlikely to make a difference. However, I think it's distasteful to brag about it like OP. It's an invonvenient truth (hehe) and something we ought to solve maybe. Tragedy of the commons, the phenomenon is called that.

You could imagine a person who has to make a choice between risking the survival of his family and causing slow acting but non-negligible damage to the environment by making a living. It's hard to demand that he make such a sacrifice; what does he care about earth in the future if his children and their children aren't around to benefit from it? It's unreasonable to ask that, does he owe that to the rest of humanity? You could make a case for it, personally I don't think so.

Fortunately a lot of the damage we do today is just done out of laziness and convenience, I think. Which means we have room to reduce it relatively easily. Some of it is not even convenient but actually causes annoyance! I just sorted through all the trash commercials I've been sent over like three weeks and I ended up with an entire plastic bag of high-quality paper that I'm just going to throw away. So we can start with that and then come after your car if it's even necessary. Unfortunately even that requires societal change and there is systemic resistance from the inside and then we have a changing political map with power blocks competing against each other, not wanting to become disadvantaged by cutting back too much.


a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Well, it would be nice to minimize human suffering and try to preserve our western culture if we can, but I agree that GW wont end us. But just because it doesn't kill us doesn't mean it makes us stronger. It can weaken us and there will be other challenges coming at us. Maybe literally, like a giant space-rock.

But you two seem like reasonable folks. What irritates me is people who categorically deny that it's even possible for us to affect the climate. We are pumping up was amounts of stuff that used to be on the surface of the earth and then sunk down. Then we burn it. It takes ages for the oil to form; imagine millions (feels like a low enough estimate) of years worth of threes and animals, compressed into a black sludge. We then burn it over a period of say, two hundred years. That's like a million forest fires raging all at once. We just can't see it or understand it because we stole the fire from the gods and we put it into metal boxes in our cars and in big houses with smokestacks out of brick and mortar. It's still a force of nature. You other people in this thread, do think that kind of force could change the world perhaps?

a reply to: Cutepants

All unicorns and fairies here.

The scientists have agreed that its too late. Do you not get that?

Now is the time for those scientists to step back and allow humans to accept responsibility for their behavior (or not as the case may be).

Burning fossil fuels is a self limiting problem. We will either die of catastrophic (or not) or we will run out of oil (which the "scientists have already predicted to have happen in the 1990s"

You see...sometimes scientists are wrong. But taking our money will not solve the problem. If catastrophic warming doesn't occur, we will still be living in huts and freezing in the dark as our electricity grids fail.

Google what is happening in Ontario. Our leaders (liberals) drank the kool-aid and now people outside of the greater toronto area are choosing whether to pay the electric bill or eat. People are getting hydro cut-offs to the point where the hydro companies don't even want to talk about how many!

This while Ontario gives away 500 kwh to Quebec or the US for very low rates, just to avoid having the grid shut down. This is because the law insists that green energy resources must be used first, then nuclear from our two nuclear plants. The plants are becoming economically unfeasible. The generator of green energy must be paid regardless of whether we can use the electricity or not. And in the end, its highly questionable whether our carbon footprint has been reduced because of all the co-generation plants that had to be built to support the green resource energy. And even if it was, Ontario is responsible for less than 1 % of the carbon emissions of the world.

And don't be smug. Hilary Clinton is promising to bring the same type of "prosperity" to the US!

And no - I do not support catastropic anthropogenic warming. But I will still be stuck paying the price.

On top of that, we have a 5 cents a litre gas tax to absorb.

No! Enough talk. The "scientists" declared that it is too late. Can we now please use our money to actually deal with pollution.'

Tired of Control Freaks

Hate to break it to you but when dinosaurs roamed the Earth Carbon levels were much, much, much higher then they were today.

Also according to science there have been 5 ice ages all came and went with out industry. So how is it man is causing the world to warm?

Carbon dioxide does not cause global warming, methane gas might. Carbon dioxide is proportional to the amount of vegetation living on the planet. It is not an indicator of global warming. The earth is presently coming out of the last ice age for a brief warm period and will go back into one soon enough. The earth has been a relatively cold planet for eons. The only time it wasn't was when there was only one land mass and that was nearly a billion years ago or so, or more.

Didn't you read the article? It's too late to do anything now stupid...and you still deny it quoting 99%, but in a conscious-consumer fashion?

You're a moron.

The selfishness in this topic has weeded people out over the years also. The argument has always been an "Earth for our children, and children's children." And now that it's hit an irreversible state, fear is setting in it will effect YOUR lifetime and now you care?

I have good news for you buddy, you won't notice anything. Other than articles about how we could have avoided this, and the scope truly represents our future.

Like it or not we just gave Earth an expidited expiration date.

a reply to: JBRiddle

Using logic in reverse isn't logic.

5 ice ages without industry does not mean industry can't cause warming. It means it happened regardless, and so noticing this you just eliminate all evidence emissions can snowball it? That's a falacy with misdirection.

Man is causing the word to warm, that's a fact regardless of whatever unavoidable consequences there are, there is proof we are speeding it up.

originally posted by: tikbalang
a reply to: TheRedneck

Global Warming was always a hoax intended to separate people from their money.

So those with a degree and contributed their lives to a cause, are wrong and you are right?
What field are you specialized in? Conspiracy? PhD in Conspiracy theories?

It's more like a new-age religious cult.

originally posted by: Fromabove
Carbon dioxide does not cause global warming, methane gas might. Carbon dioxide is proportional to the amount of vegetation living on the planet. It is not an indicator of global warming. The earth is presently coming out of the last ice age for a brief warm period and will go back into one soon enough. The earth has been a relatively cold planet for eons. The only time it wasn't was when there was only one land mass and that was nearly a billion years ago or so, or more.

Wow. So the CO2 from burning fossil fuels magically disappears does it......

Yet another thread where I feel my brain is being sucked away by the abysmally low level of knowledge on ATS. What the hell has happened to this site.

a reply to: yorkshirelad

Doesn't matter if CO2 causes warming or if it doesn't. Its too late now. Nothing to do but suck it up

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: imjack
You're a moron.

And that's exactly part of my problem with much of the global warming community, is that when someone - anyone, disagrees with them, even if it's only a flavor of the same ideology that isn't totally centered on their belief structure of the topic, they resort to calling the other person names. Or they somehow think less of the other person, rather than trying to understand their way of thinking. Understanding does not mean agreeing. Perhaps if people did better to remember that, we may not be so polarized on this election.

Like it or not we just gave Earth an expedited expiration date.

According to what data is the Earth itself doomed by what humans are doing? I am still trying to understand the rhetoric that people are using that seriously believes that the Earth will die because of what we ourselves are doing. That being said, I totally acknowledge that we may bring the Earth to the edge of the abyss, even kill ourselves, but how pompous do you have to be to believe that something as powerful as the Earth could be brought down for good by mere humans? That's ridiculous.

Lastly, I hate to be that guy but - yes. It matters A LOT what the total climatological history of the Earth is/was. You can not just pick bits and pieces of that history to look at and ignore the rest. If historians of any other field did that, they'd be fired with haste. So while yes, there are statistics which do indeed point that there was initiation of accelerated global warming starting at the turn of the Industrial Revolution, all existing data that corresponds to such an increase points to rapid cooling, followed by eras of thriving foliage. If you want to argue about a subject, don't ignore the stuff that doesn't fit your present agenda.

We also know of times where deserts were vast marshlands. Lands that are cooler now used to have large amounts of vineyards and crop growth year round. We have writings and primary documentation stating these things, and all of these things are well before the advent of machinery that we know today.

I'd also like them to perfect that 4 day weather forecast before trying to tell me what next year is going to be. It seems to me that if we can say with certainty that we are going to have 140 days a year where the temp is over 100 F by 2070, we should be able to tell the temperature within 5 F, and whether or not it's going to rain this weekend.

(If it isn't clear btw, I am on the fence on the topic of global warming. I am of the camp that believes there is not enough data for or against.)

a reply to: Phage

That would seem to be a hyperbolic strawman argument. Congratulations. Two logical fallacies for the price of one.

Actually it was a purposely laughably ridiculous example included to show my extreme disdain for the normally ridiculous predictions that seem to come out of the Global Warming Advocacy Counsel (whoever that may be) periodically. It's called "hyperbole."

And before you get bent out of shape again, I do indeed realize there is no Global Warming Advocacy Council (unless one wishes to rename the IPCC)... that is another example of hyperbole.

But I can start using the acronym GWAC if it makes you feel better to have something to laugh at.

TheRedneck

a reply to: tikbalang

What field are you specialized in? Conspiracy? PhD in Conspiracy theories?

Bachelors in Engineering, working on my Masters.

So here's one guy with a degree that doesn't believe in Global Warming mythology. I'm sure there are many others.

TheRedneck

a reply to: yorkshirelad

Wow. So the CO2 from burning fossil fuels magically disappears does it......

No, no magic. It gets turned into carbon-based organic molecules and oxygen through photosynthesis. Then animals (which call those carbon-based organic molecules 'food') breathe the oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Fire oxidizes everything it burns, and since much of what it burns is primarily carbon-based, it produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct.

The planet has held that equilibrium for hundreds of millions of years, through life eruptions and extinctions, massive climate changes, asteroid impacts, and Lord knows what else. That's a pretty good control mechanism.

We are not going to break it by driving our cars. We never were. Hate to break it to you, but the planet and nature just isn't that fragile. WE are.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: yorkshirelad

Wow. So the CO2 from burning fossil fuels magically disappears does it......

No, no magic. It gets turned into carbon-based organic molecules and oxygen through photosynthesis.

Yet again, you don't know what you're talking about.

O2 released during photosynthesis comes from water molecules, not carbon dioxide.

That is part of the reason why this is a thing:

We have passed peak oil anyway, so there can be only less CO2 emissions from now on. Anyway it's good for plants, they will enjoy the increased levels & will grow faster.
It might get too hot for us humans though...prepare to sweat, lol.
More plants means more oxygen, more storms means more ozone, all good for us
Look on the bright side

ETA dark side; if the O2 drops by just 2% we will probably all suffocate, so it's a fine balance!