Is Global Warming real?

[tomBitonti]

Perhaps more reasonably:

* Not trusting other folks to do the right thing even though they are correctly describing the problem.

For example:

Using global warming to ask folks to reduce resources, but going ahead of using a lot of them yourself.

Going ahead with very untested proposals (carbon sequestration; seeding the ocean with iron, &etc).

My sense is this underlies a lot of folks reservations about global warming. They believe that something is happening, but very much distrust folks to address the issue fairly.

(Or, only half in jest:

* Having an uncomfortable sense that having the tools to understand global warming requires a civilization which uses resources to a degree to cause global warming. If you unwind all of that, vast resource use may be synonymous with modern civilization. Then any real solution would be of a scope to make most folks extremely uneasy.)

Thx!

TomB

 

[Janx]

Perhaps more reasonably:

* Not trusting other folks to do the right thing even though they are correctly describing the problem.

For example:

Using global warming to ask folks to reduce resources, but going ahead of using a lot of them yourself.

Going ahead with very untested proposals (carbon sequestration; seeding the ocean with iron, &etc).

My sense is this underlies a lot of folks reservations about global warming. They believe that something is happening, but very much distrust folks to address the issue fairly.

(Or, only half in jest:

* Having an uncomfortable sense that having the tools to understand global warming requires a civilization which uses resources to a degree to cause global warming. If you unwind all of that, vast resource use may be synonymous with modern civilization. Then any real solution would be of a scope to make most folks extremely uneasy.)

Thx!

TomB

Along this line, as I'm even further in the book of bad ideas State of Fear...

Crighton raises the point that environmentalists don't really know enough to do a good job protecting the environment anyway. He raises Yellowstone Park as his example from its founding, and how allegedly, a number of mistakes were made in killing this, or bringing that back, etc that drastically changed it from how it was. Again, no clue how correct that is (he also advocates DDT usage, which wikipedia says actually has diminished value now as the insects have grown more resistant).

But this concept that folks think they know how to handle the environment, but make just as bad a mess of it may play a part in the mindset.

Oddly enough, the native americans, he asserts, meddled with the environment, burning areas, exterminating species, and somehow that was OK.

Which seems contradictory. Surely we have white folk who have learned similar ideas that the natives had to not muck it up. People are all people.

 

[Umbran]

Perhaps more reasonably:

* Not trusting other folks to do the right thing even though they are correctly describing the problem.


* Having an uncomfortable sense that having the tools to understand global warming requires a civilization which uses resources to a degree to cause global warming. If you unwind all of that, vast resource use may be synonymous with modern civilization. Then any real solution would be of a scope to make most folks extremely uneasy.)

These are certainly issues to address once you start talking about solutions.

I don't think they are going to be common emotional reasons to deny the problem exists, though - these require you to first consider the solutions, and thus accept the problem, and then step back again and deny the problem exist.

That, as compared to the reasons I noted, which are more simple emotional drivers like fear and pride.

 

[Umbran]

Oddly enough, the native americans, he asserts, meddled with the environment, burning areas, exterminating species, and somehow that was OK.

Which seems contradictory.

It is. However, note that there is an issue of scale. The Native Americans were basically a stone-age civilization, with, by today's standards, low population densities. That limited (but did not eradicate) their ability to do things on a scale large enough to have major ecological impact. So, when they did it, it wasn't a big deal, because they didn't do it enough to really hammer on the ecology. If we take on the same practice, on our scale today, the results can be disastrous.

This is something we have to accept - anything done on the scale of modern human populations (providing food, power, clothing and housing and so on) *WILL* have a major impact, because our populations are large. It is *NOT* the case that the things we do to avert global warming will have no negative impacts - their negative impacts may simply be less disastrous for us and out current ecosphere. We are populous enough that we cannot do no harm - we only get to pick and choose what harm we do.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Crighton raises the point that environmentalists don't really know enough to do a good job protecting the environment anyway.

And scientists who were interviewed by Crighton while he was writing the book were sorely disappointed with his..."interpretation" of the facts.

In summary, I am disappointed, not least because while researching his book, Crichton visited our lab at the NASA Goddard Institute and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues. I suppose we didn’t do a very good job of explaining matters. Judging from his bibliography, the rather dry prose of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did not stir his senses quite like some of the racier contrarian texts. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Crichton picked fiction over fact.

http://grist.org/article/schmidt-fear/

See also:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It is. However, note that there is an issue of scale. The Native Americans were basically a stone-age civilization, with, by today's standards, low population densities. That limited (but did not eradicate) their ability to do things on a scale large enough to have major ecological impact. So, when they did it, it wasn't a big deal, because they didn't do it enough to really hammer on the ecology. If we take on the same practice, on our scale today, the results can be disastrous.

This is something we have to accept - anything done on the scale of modern human populations (providing food, power, clothing and housing and so on) *WILL* have a major impact, because our populations are large. It is *NOT* the case that the things we do to avert global warming will have no negative impacts - their negative impacts may simply be less disastrous for us and out current ecosphere. We are populous enough that we cannot do no harm - we only get to pick and choose what harm we do.

There is also the aspect of perspective.

As a nomadic, tribal society with Stone Age tech surrounded by seemingly boundless natural resources, they lacked the ability to see the full impact of their actions. "Extinction" is a concept beyond the grasp of most pre-industrial societies.

As a modern society with the ability to photograph license plates from space and measure particles in parts per millions, we don't have the luxury of willfully disregarding what we can so easily discern.

As a small child, you might have twisted a cat's tail or thrown rocks at frogs. As an adult, you recognize the cruelty of those acts. The child you most likely does not grasp what he does, the adult you can't ignore it.

 

[was]

These are certainly issues to address once you start talking about solutions.

I don't think they are going to be common emotional reasons to deny the problem exists, though - these require you to first consider the solutions, and thus accept the problem, and then step back again and deny the problem exist.

That, as compared to the reasons I noted, which are more simple emotional drivers like fear and pride.

...Unfortunately, I think that basic drives towards greed and sloth may prove to be bigger obstacles in forcing people to recognize the problem and take action.

 

[tuxgeo]

Skipping backward a couple of pages for this:

If you have an hour and want to get a good understanding of our current situation regarding fossil fuel use and carbon emissions due to transportation, I recommend this article: http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-life.html

It's the second part of a 4-part series about Elon Musk and his various efforts to improve the human condition and stave off really bad consequences.
. . . < snip >

Good site. Thanks for the link. Interesting read. Hmm.

Lithium-ion batteries for the masses. Free recharges at recently-built power stations, with more coming.
Lithium is the 25th-most-common element on earth, so that lightweight metal is an available resource, but much of it is scattered -- low concentrations in rocks and oceans.

 

[Umbran]

...Unfortunately, I think that basic drives towards greed and sloth may prove to be bigger obstacles in forcing people to recognize the problem and take action.

Yes, those are issues - but not the emotional blocks to acceptance of the facts in discussion.

I am quite sure the executives of the various oil companies actually know the score. They simply don't feel compelled to do anything other than make sure a small number of people live very comfortable lives before things to to heck in a handbasket.

Would that Elon Musk or Warren Buffet owned, say, Exxon/Mobil, and we might see a different scene indeed. Imagine the profits of a major oil company fully devoted to alternative energy production and research.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If we could get a Tesla into the hands of the Pope...