What if the CO2 in the air is causing climate change?

The naysayers will suffer and die along with all those who tried to prevent it from happening.

It’s like telling your kids not to run with a stick in their hand. They are probably going to do it anyway. Unfortunately, what we’re talking about is a stick with lots of branches that stick everybody when they fall.

This is a very .. primal.. failure on the part of human beings. It’s the same with candy, happy meals, and alcohol. That short term apathy leads to long term suffering. If you came up with a way to stop that sort of thing from happening – you’d be nominated for a bloody-stupendous-hero-of-the-planet award.

It really feels like a lose lose scenario and, unfortunately, I believe it’s an inevitable loss.

Relevant.

@JLeslie The climate change is considered a “tipping point”, where once you reach the point like on a a see-saw, where it is all “down hill” once you reach it and go past the point. The naysayers will be on the the down hill slope of the see-saw too. They will be looking for someone to save them. Some say it has been changing since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution about two hundred years ago, reversal may take the same amount of time.

The naysayers will all be gone, if that is the scenerio.

Everything is a cost/benefit scenario. I don’t know anyone that isn’t receptive to reasonable concessions to environmental issues. The question is what do you want us to do? If the solution is to eliminate our technology and return to the middle ages, I need a bit more proof. So far the climate change predictions don’t have a very good track record.

I can’t help but go back to the pivotal question, What do you want to do? We do not have a solution. Electric cars don’t cut it and it’s hard to find an alternative to our coal powered plants. Nuclear doesn’t sit well with the greenies. Natural gas is only cheap because of Fracking and guess what, they hate that as well. Everyone is screaming for a return of our manufacturing base but guess what, manufacturing consumes power and emits carbon.

Rather than screaming about who believes in global warming and who doesn’t, it would seem more appropriate to come up with a solution. A plan to solve or at least impact the problem would provide a better decision. Stop using oil is not a plan nor a solution.

I think you’ll find few skeptics would actually argue against creating a better world. Imagine for a min that under the guise of climate change we band together and let the politicians and pundits run away with whatever it is they think the solution should be. What would be the outcome? THAT is what the “skeptics” are really worried about. It would be a free for all for pet projects, taxes and god knows what else with little positive impact on our climate.
There is this all or nothing approach that so many seem to take that is actually dangerous, especially on the pro warming side. There are facts and there is circumstantial evidence in our role in warming. The facts are that we are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and that it should be stopped. If it is actually causing warming is conjecture,hard to prove scientifically but not unlikely. There is denial of this and there is alarm. The truth lies between somewhere. Politically this is very complicated and public opinion is being manipulated heavily. Honestly, change needs to happen but I can’t scream loud enough how cautious we need to be about what actually gets done. We can’t just let the politicians have their way with it, we won’t like the outcome. I personally think it is happening but to a small degree than many believe. I think we should take steps to reverse it but not forget about the other environmental issues that need our attention.

You would have to wait until the problem becomes at a tipping point.

@Jaxk Here’s your problem. You’re referring to WUWT as some sort of remotely credible source.

Right off the bat, the list doesn’t even follow what the introduction states they’re meant to be.

Here’s what it reads in the intro: “what was predicted by scientists and activists 25 years ago that would be a result of global warming”

Yet, the list cites (badly—no links to the references, and they’re hard to find and even verify) supposed predictions all from the last decade or two! Most of them are predictions for things yet to happen—so how the fuck can they possibly be “failed”?

Not only are most of them predictions for future events (I suppose anthropogenic climate change deniers have a time machine) but some of them are references to articles describing things already happening, and aren’t predictions at all.

The poor track record here is the utter lack of intellectual honesty by anthropogenic climate change deniers.

Jaxk is right about one thing. There’s no apparent solution. Know why? Because they can’t imagine them, or seemingly don’t hear them.

They’re as unimaginative and as obtuse as they’re intellectually dishonest. When ecologists and environmentalists propose technological solutions—things that would technologically advance our civilisation and make life better for everyone—they hear “live in mud huts and reduce the world’s population to mere millions”, or some other similar cretinous absurdity.

When the shit hits the fan, half of these dolts will be dead, and the other half will probably still deny it’s happening.

@Jaxk, most environmentalists really are not proposing a return to the middle ages, but that we have a problem and that if we continue on this path, we’re ALL in trouble. So we better find ways to reduce CO2 emissions. As you point out, each possible solution has trouble and is not a complete solution (there is no single fix). More use of electric cars for short commutes, cleaner electric power (might need to be nuclear as well as wind, solar, etc.), conservation and more efficient use of fossil fuels. All of them will be needed, as well as new research for ways we don’t imagine yet.

Unfortunately the political sides of these issue try to make it into a “all or nothing” scenario.

It really doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not. We have to come up with alternative energy sources because we’re running out of non-renewable sources.

Well 2 things are crystal clear. The first is that things cannot continue as they are. The next is that our our collective capacity regarding long range considerations is not only severely limited, but declining exponentially. And at the heart of it all is the great locomotive pulling our societal train along at breakneck speed. It’s a railroad designed with the prime directive that: ANY shift away from short term profitability will be ruthlessly resisted REGARDLESS of the consequences. Sure anyone who bothers to look can see the defective tracks atop the rickety trestle ahead, but we can “cross that bridge when we come to it”.

There is no “if” about it. It is a fact that human-produced CO2 is contributing to climate change.
What needs to happen now is a massive build of nuclear, wind, tidal, hydroelectric, and solar plants, a decommissioning of coal, gas, and oil plants, a massive electrical infrastructure build, millions in R&D in battery and rapid charging technology, a decommissioning of our gasoline powered automobile fleet, a conversion to an affordable, competitive electric car fleet, an improvement in the jet technology, massive energy savings by consumers, a decrease in meat consumption leading to decreased production of cattle, and negative population growth.

Otherwise we’re fucked.

If Co2 wasn’t causing climate change, it would be something else. I have no doubt Co2 in the atmosphere in as large a number as man causes is not good, but to what effect I say the jury is still out. Climate change means what, that some places get warmer but others get cooler, it comes to more like ”climate polarizing”, those places that are hot will get hotter and others will get colder. In some instances the places that is hot will get warmer and vice versa.

Is it worth the risk not to err on the side of caution?
I just have to find that very curious, people are willing to err on avoiding disaster they believe is coming (which may not even happen the way thought of) but bash people who take the same stance with spiritual matters; just a curious observation, given the possible outcomes when on leaves this planet to the hereafter.

Climate change is nothing but “ifs” there are no certainties. The only certainty is that change will happen regardless if it’s our fault or not. The science is so new that before the controversy there actually was no such thing as a “climatologist” Almost nobody was looking at things on a global scale. We still don’t really know how to even do it. Right now we are just fumbling through it as we try to make sense of the damage we have done. Anyone who says it’s certain does not understand actual science. I find the idea that we can measure the average temperature of the earth to even half a degree C laughable if not hilarious. I spent the first six years of my career doing temperature studies in rivers and that we can do very well, the globe….forget it. Most of the sensing and proxy data that is used to predict climate simply does not have the resolution,precision or accuracy to predict within a couple of degrees. So all of you “this will happen..we are fucked” bandwagon simply need to STFU. You are not helping because you give the total denier crowd credibility with your ignorance of science, the scientific method and the current state of technology. All of our actions must now be carefully considered since we are a population of billions. The decisions we make now will be critical so an abundance of caution is what we need to adopt and endorse. We simply cannot run with change without carefully considering what the ramifications of that change will be. That said, we can’t sit and do nothing either.

@osoraro You forgot diminishing the source: people. The overabundance of people on this rock isn’t helping one bit. Reducing the population to a maximum of 500 million would help do the job of curing this “plague of people” that is adding to the climate change problem dilemma.

Well, I sorta screwed up with 2.5 kids, didn’t I.

@Dutchess_III It’s okay, your 2.5 kids. I suppose my mother and father didn’t help either – 8 kids!!! But I don’t have any so you can feel a little better about yours, I hope.

@kritiper didn’t forget. Said that we needed negative population growth.

What did you do Dutchess. Saw one of your kids in half?

Ha ha! Naw @osoraro. Adopted the one from my hubs previous marriage. But I usually forget she’s adopted because 1) she acts just like me (for example, she was dancing all silly in the headlights of the car a year ago or so, for no reason, and Rick said, “Well, there’s Val Jr.” I was like, “Do I act like that???” That’s a firm.) and 2) she’s the only one of my kids who looks like me.

@osoraro Not just negative growth but a reduction ratio of 14:1 at present.

So far I see a couple of pretty extreme solutions.
1) Kill every tenth person.
2) Everyone must drive an electric car.
OK maybe killing every tenth person isn’t so extreme but I think we can all agree that making everyone drive an electric car IS. I’ve been married 3 times and I’ve had one child. I think I’ve done my part. Driving an electric car is a ‘bridge too far’.

Think about this. In the 3 plus billions years the earth has been around we’ve had periods of warmth and cold. The warm periods are marked with immense growth both plant and animal. Those are periods of expansion , new species, abundance of food and water. The garden of Eden. On the other hand, there have been periods of cold, the Ice Ages. These are marked by periods of death and destruction followed by extinction. It would seem that if you want to worry, worry about the next Ice Age.

Transitioning “office” jobs to work at home would cut down greatly on city traffic. Reducing trucking and bringing back rail lines would help. Going partially off grid for subdivisions makes sense in some areas. Ditch the big wasteful power grid for residential and build small, local power generation using the cleanest tech that makes the most sense for that area. There are many little bridges that are practical, painless and cheap that we can use to help fend this off. We don’t want to do stupid shit like drive fully electric cars when most of the power is still derived from combustion.