Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[ggies07]

This is science, it's not something to toy with...it's not something to say I choose not to believe E=mc2, you don't have that option.

 

[ggies07]

Another mark:

We Just Breached the 410 Parts Per Million Threshold

 

[ggies07]

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[ggies07]

Sigh.....

Koch Industries and Other Corporations Lobbied for Donald Trump’s Cabinet Picks, Filings Show

The firm’s latest disclosure form reports that its in-house corporate lobbying team spent $3.1 million to influence lawmakers over the first three months of the year on a variety of issues affecting its bottom line, including the EPA’s Clean Power Rule on carbon emissions, carbon pricing, the Clean Air Act and “nominations for various positions at the Department of Energy.”

The American Energy Alliance, an advocacy group founded by former Koch Industries lobbyist Tom Pyle, issued a letter in support of Pruitt along with other Koch-backed conservative nonprofits.

 

[mspohr]

Interesting perspective in the Guardian this morning.
Yes, I am a climate alarmist. Global warming is a crime against humanity

Yes, I am a climate alarmist. Global warming is a crime against humanity | Lawrence Torcello

"There can be no greater crime against humanity than the foreseeable, and methodical, destruction of conditions that make human life possible – hindsight isn’t necessary.

Scientists confirm, in overwhelming consensus, the fundamental facts that make anthropogenic global warming a clear and present threat to humanity and other species.

There is no amount of ideological deception capable of altering basic physics, chemistry and biology. It is ethically untenable for intelligent people to look the other way while elected officials deny reality, and our opportunity to avoid catastrophe slips away."

 

[Raffy.Roma]

Another mark:

We Just Breached the 410 Parts Per Million Threshold

THIS IS VERY BAD!

Hope that everybody understand the gravity of having a CO2 concentration in the atmosphere so high!

 

[mspohr]

India to move to all electric vehicles by 2030

India is going to replace all of its cars with electric ones by 2030

 

[ggies07]

A nice little article shedding light on the denial side:

How a Professional Climate Change Denier Discovered the Lies and Decided to Fight for Science

SL: How do you feel about the work you did in those years?

JT: I regret a lot of it. I wish I had taken more care and done more due diligence on the arguments I had been forwarding.

 

[SmartElectric]

Canada's increasing renewable electricity generation, and comparisons to China.
Two-thirds of electricity in Canada now comes from renewable energy

Canada is the seventh-largest producer of wind power in the world.

In 2015, China produced 29 per cent of the world’s hydroelectric power, followed by Canada at 10 per cent.

The portion of all electricity in Canada generated by renewables is now 66 per cent, up from 60 per cent a decade earlier.

 

[S'toon]

Canada's increasing renewable electricity generation, and comparisons to China.
Two-thirds of electricity in Canada now comes from renewable energy

It's embarrassing living in my province, where the government wants to go more into coal.

 

[ohmman]

It's embarrassing living in my province, where the government wants to go more into coal.

As a US citizen, let me just say: I understand.

 

[gene]

Trump appoints fossil-fuel apostle to head renewable energy office

In keeping with his habit of appointing people who want to destroy the agencies they head, the president appointed outspoken renewables critic Daniel Simmons to Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

 

[DragonWatch]

Here is the math & science you are challenging. They think one plus one equals three while you and I know one plus one equals two.

 

[DriverOne]

Well-written article from Rolling Stone, on Antarctica: The Doomsday Glacier

 

[mspohr]

Well-written article from Rolling Stone, on Antarctica: The Doomsday Glacier

Good article.
This quote is particularly relevant:
"
In any case, the threat is clear. In a rational world, awareness of these risks would lead to deep and rapid cuts in carbon pollution to slow the warming, as well as investment in more research in West Antarctica to get a clearer understanding of what is going on. Instead, Americans elected a president who thinks climate change is a hoax, who is hellbent on burning more fossil fuels, who installs the CEO of the world's largest oil company as secretary of state, who wants to slash climate-science funding and instead spend nearly $70 billion to build a wall at the Mexican border and another $54 billion to beef up the military.

After Kerry returned from Antarctica, we discussed the Trump administration's attacks on climate science, including the decision to strip every mention of climate change from the White House website. "Such a stunningly Luddite moment," Kerry says. "It just underscores the raw, shocking absence of fact from their process. As if to strip the website of something as important as that is somehow going to solve the problem or make it go away is so laughable; it's hard to find the words for it, really. I find that such a huge symbol of a new know-nothingism that is really dangerous for our country, and the world."

 

[ggies07]

Another great short vid from Neil:

 

[DragonWatch]

Neil is one of my heroes, as is MLK. I just ordered a blue ray version of Neil's Cosmos series for my grandchildren, another envestment in their future.

Unlike most, I knew something was wrong with Mother Earth back in '78, the year our daughter was born. I was in the field artillery officer basic advanced course making calls for fire at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The temperatures were so hot, roughly 113 degrees a day, my wife with our son in tow left me for California to stay with her parents. These temperatures remained for it seems like five, maybe six weeks. I would come home at night exhausted, fall on the couch, then sleep, only to wake in a puddle of sweat. Maybe someone with the data banks can correct me on this, I might be half baked:-(

Leadership as a follower is buying alternative energy tools, cars and so on. We are about to buy our fourth generation electric lawnmower. I am talking now with my wife about our second generation solar panel/roof. We are now down to one car. People appear to be moving in that direction.

Looking back, I need trifocals now, I have made more positive impacts as a leader follower, as opposed to the leader in charge. Maybe Neil Armstrong was talking to us that our tiny footprint is one step for mankind and Mother Earth.

 

[DragonWatch]

Why?

I know Claude Shannon said this was the ultimate unit of information. I don't know if this helps but I've always been puzzled by this, especially as Gregory Bateson says in his Steps to an Ecology of Mind, that the importance of things is a difference which makes a difference. The way I like to understand this is meaning is an improvement on the basic unit of information. We attach meaning to those differences which make a difference. Meaning is about relationships. Unless I'm looking at it I cannot sense when at rest where my right index finger is, but if I press it against my thumb, I do.

At the same time as my conservative critics, not here, y'all too smart for that, say my tolerance is really a denial that there is objective truth. What science deals with are those observable relationships that can in principle be agreed to by anyone, anywhere and anywhen. (I know, not a word, but it should be.) That agreement can be falsified by new evidence. So if one blasphemes by talking about what God says few religions are truly open ended. Critics like Jaroslav Pelikon say "traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, whereas tradition is the living faith of the dead." Moral guidance for me comes from Kant's categorical imperative. As my first father-in-law, a professional expert on Kant used to say at Sunday dinners before we were both in our cups, something like this about Kant. "If you want to do the right thing when faced with a decision, try to act in accordance with a universal rule which anyone would follow when faced with this decision." Sounds like good advice and modeled on the goal of science, as above, in empirical matters.

Ever in search of diversion: I attended public events in the fifties at Harvard when Kissinger was a lowly associate professor and did not have an accent. He told a joke about Anatole France when asked if he knew Kant: "I don't know. I've read nine volumes, they tell me the verb is in the tenth." Speaking of relationships, it was quite amusing to watch Kissinger when William Yandell Elliott, who was a full professor, got up to speak, say, about accompanying Nixon when he had his "kitchen debate" with Khrushchev.

Thanks @intelprofessor. Our inner Why has always been an intriguing mystery to me. And of course why are we or more specifically why am I here and why now. Yes, I am like a bull in a china closet, let's be honest. However, here is some of my inner WHY.

Climate change/global warming is a fact of life. How you preceive that fact is the issue. As humans we can see the absolute factual truth as polar opposites, because we can rationalize or justify anything, anything. As I began this I visualized those of us here in the United States in a canoe, a long canoe. Pick your polar end, up or down, left or right and so on. Just for grins, each polar end has the same number; oh hell no, pack up the numbers in you favor Now that you have your paddles, your canoe is in the middle of the ocean, you picture the location. But no matter how hard you paddle or how big your polar side you will never make it to shore. Because I put three big holes in the bottom of the canoe, the facts. Good luck, have a nice day.

There have been numerous movies, plays and books over my years that have contributed to the shaping of my mind. Plus there was my parents, numerous girl friends, male friends, and since I was an army chaplains assistant my exposure of religion was like a sampler platter. Vietnam era, I enlisted ~ not drafted, track team pole vaulter graduated a year ahead of me was killed in Vietnam before I graduated. While I was in high school, I asked my mother if my father had ever hit her, she said "no" but that he had raised his hand to slap her once. Two years before I met my wife she became divorced, she used a scorched earth approach since she was held against her will ~ she was treated as property.

My wife to be and I met while backpacking in the Mammoth Lakes region in 1973. We were with a religious group she was a group counselor/leader, I was in another group, just a backpacker. The moment I laid eyes on her, I was in love ~ seriously. That afternoon I was resting next to a glacial lake when she and some of her folks came up on my location and she took a picture of me with her instmatic camera. I said, "I would like an 8x10 glossy" and you would have figured it was all down hill from there. Well to make a short story long, I scratched on all the trees, peed on all the bushes and half way through the trip I climbed to the top of a small waterfall to retrieve a wild yellow flower which produced my first kiss. The morning before loading on the bus for the long ride home to Los Angeles, I told her that "I did not love her and was not sure I liked her, but sure would like the chance to find out." A week and a half after we had gotten home, I begged ~ okay, I asked her to marry me, she said yes.

Books offer great insight to life. Animal Farm, even though I did not actually read it until I was in my late fifties or early sixties was believed to have been written about communism. Do not read it today, it will scare the *sugar* out of you. Of two interesting movies like the Wizard of Ozz and The Dark Chrystal; The Dark Chrystal had the most impact ~ it was a kids movie in the '80s, and our kids watched until the cows came home okay, a lot. Before attacking me, take the good and evil out of the story. Just look at it as two different poles in your canoe.

I know, for gods sake get to the point please

Present day, most humans refer to our planet, as Mother Earth, Gaia or some female term. Yes, there are other words, but most not male and not derogatory. Here in lies the flaw, most of us refer to her as a female; you know the one that nurtures, feeds and shelters us. What's wrong you say, well for starters men over the last two hundred thousand years have claimed women as property ~ so help them god That is why a man can cut down a forest for money, block a river for a dam, or you name the topic raping Mother Earth. Hell, we even use atomic bombs against her. All man has to do is own her. Going back to my introduction of my wife into my life; following my proposal, she filled me in on the facts leading up to her divorce. The only detail I will share is that a gun was present and it was not hers. After her story, I told her that if at any time in her life she wished to call it a day, she was free to walk away and take all our money as well. That means the MX today, so now I have to be careful Oh, and we do not have guns in the house and I have never raised my hand in anger against my wife, and we treat Mother Earth the same way. I figure two things, a. I've scared people enough with my looks and who I am, and b. My God did not issue me a left or right hand as a gun, a weapon yes, but as of today I have not raised it in anger Oh, and I am only 5'-5 1/2" at best or maybe wet

Going back to The Dark Chrystal, all they had to do was put the missing shard back into place and save their world.

Humm, sadly there is no chrystal shards or silver bullets to save us nor can Humpty Dumpty be put back together. That is the science. Hey, a little cheating hint, if the two poles in the canoe could agree to go in one direction there is a chance because as the they agree the three holes will seal and therefore not sink the canoe.

If we do not ever agree on a positive solution to global warming/climate change; as someone put it ~ if you think you can hold your breath until things right themselves again, think again.

 

[AZ Desert Driver]

I developed new ways to extract petroleum from the earth - and was paid handsomely for those efforts. Later, I developed a method of separating CO2 and N2 from methane, and could now make low BTU gas wells profitable. I choose to not deploy this tool, leaving billions of cubic feet of gas still in the ground. The separated CO2 would have been released into the atmosphere. I walked away from perhaps a billion dollars into my personal account - so that I would not contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere. The siren song of becoming very, very rich was powerful. But I believed that those actions, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, were legal, and profitable and would not adversely affect my current lifestyle. But they were just morally wrong. I bought fields of low BTU gas, did not develop them, took them off the market so some other fellow wound not develop. I still own them, and they remain shut in. I wonder if I could have used that power to make a difference in todays anti-climate change discussions. What I get now is satisfaction of a deed done, instead of a lecture made.
As I watch glaciers melt, I am glad I did what I did. Not many people know what did NOT happen. My electric car is just a drop compared to pervious efforts. But ALL efforts are needed.

 

[DragonWatch]

Interesting perspective in the Guardian this morning.
Yes, I am a climate alarmist. Global warming is a crime against humanity

Yes, I am a climate alarmist. Global warming is a crime against humanity | Lawrence Torcello

"There can be no greater crime against humanity than the foreseeable, and methodical, destruction of conditions that make human life possible – hindsight isn’t necessary.

Scientists confirm, in overwhelming consensus, the fundamental facts that make anthropogenic global warming a clear and present threat to humanity and other species.

There is no amount of ideological deception capable of altering basic physics, chemistry and biology. It is ethically untenable for intelligent people to look the other way while elected officials deny reality, and our opportunity to avoid catastrophe slips away."

Okay, what is the best educated end date? What are the milestones we need to look for as things go forward?

We are already seeing the devastating effects of wars forcing mass migration into countries unable and in some cases unwilling to accept migration. What happens as the realities of temperature rising in some areas and falling in others? Ice meltings are increasing at alarming rates. When will immigration really begin to raise its ugly head due to global warming/climate change? Has it already?

I have thirty years left on a good day.

What do you tell the character that has all the money in the world that is building a subterranean fortress expecting to wait out the storm (global warming/climate change) so to say. How long will his family have to wait until CO2 levels rebalance. How long do they have to hold their breath? How long will it take for all the life forms that go extinct between now and then to return in bountiful numbers to begin shooting and harvesting again? Think that is a stupid question?

Leader Followers ~ we need to get to work. Find one more thing you can do or buy to help transform the spiral down

As for paid leaders, it is late, but time to get out in front of this beast ~ otherwise take full credit for the consequences