Greta Thunberg - brave campaigner or deeply disturbed?

[The Great Zaganza]

How is human activity not natural trend? Are we aliens?

what difference does it make?

drowning in a swimming pool or natural lake is still drowning.

Humans need to deal with Climate Change regardless of cause.
Unless we can identify exactly the humans responsible, and send them the bill.

 

[BobTheCoward]

what difference does it make?

drowning in a swimming pool or natural lake is still drowning.

Humans need to deal with Climate Change regardless of cause.
Unless we can identify exactly the humans responsible, and send them the bill.

I don't follow. It didn't seem like my question was implying that it had implication for relevance.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I don't follow. It didn't seem like my question was implying that it had implication for relevance.

sorry.

But the non-human cause of Climate Change claim has long been used as the means to deny climate change altogether.

Didn't mean to imply that you are denying it.

 

[lomiller]

This thread is a wonderful example of the way someone who doesn't totally accept one point of a particular discussion and is then assumed to be arguing for the totally opposite side. If it's accidental, please try not to do it. If it's deliberate, stop it. Ta.

Climate change denial isn’t just one thing, it’s a mishmash of false claims who’s only unifying theme is that they object to taking actions that would reduce CO2 emissions or even slow down their growth. Even though there are many completely different arguments (all wrong) they are all pushed by the same people, websites and news outlets even though most of them are mutually contradictory.

The following arguments and more and more are all interchangeably promoted by the same usual suspects:
1) It's not warming
2) it's warming but it's not CO2
3) It's the CO2 but it's not our CO2
4) It's our CO2 but the warming is small
5) It's our CO2 but the warming is not unusual
6) It's our CO2 but warming is good!
7) It's our CO2 but we need to wait longer to know how much warming
8) It's already to late to reduce CO2
9) There is a magic fix that can remove the CO2

All these and more are circulated on the same web sites ad media outlets and people that stick to just one regularly ally with people who promote something completely contradictory

 

[lomiller]

Is this a hypothetical example, or an example of a real crisis we currently face or could face in the near future?

Would you suggest that if you fall off a 30-story building does it only become a crisis when you hit the ground?

The fact that you have yet to experience the full effects doesn’t mean it’s not a crisis. If it’s happening now and it ends badly it’s accurate to call it crisis.

 

[applecorped]

We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this ****. I’m tired of ****** Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a **** about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.....George Carlin

 

[theprestige]

Would you suggest that if you fall off a 30-story building does it only become a crisis when you hit the ground?

Knowing me, I'd suggest that falling off a 30-story building is not analogous to influencing and adapting to global climate change.

That said, if you're already falling off a 30-story building, it's way too late to be talking to people about your crisis and what needs to be done about it. It's not like you're going to shout to some autistic kid on the 28th floor as you fall past her, "quick! Tell your school chums to tell their parents to call the fire department before I hit the ground! Go to the building manager's office (but use the stairs, not the elevator, to save electricity!) and tell him to listen to the scientists about the physics of acceleration under gravity and the engineering of better guard rails!"

Your ship has already sailed. Your goose is already cooked. The crisis, whatever it was, is already a done deal. Your options after you start falling boil down to scream like a girl, or take it like a man. All this rigamarole about what should be done to avert or adapt to the crisis is completely moot, if you're already on your way down.

The fact that you have yet to experience the full effects doesn’t mean it’s not a crisis. If it’s happening now and it ends badly it’s accurate to call it crisis.

I'm not disputing that. GlennB suggested cities flooding and becoming uninhabitable. I don't care whether you call it a crisis, or call it Ah Pook the Destroyer.

What I'm asking is if it's a real-world problem that's really gonna happen, if we don't do something. You're wasting time trying to convince me to call it a 'crisis'. You should be trying to explain what it is we should be doing to avert it (or adapt to it, if you think it can't be averted).

So. It's a crisis. That was never in dispute. Good job answering that question anyway, though. Here's the questions I'm actually asking:

Is it a real-world crisis that we can (and should) do something about?

And if so, what exactly should we be doing about it?

What are you answers to those?

 

[3point14]

Knowing me, I'd suggest that falling off a 30-story building is not analogous to influencing and adapting to global climate change.

That said, if you're already falling off a 30-story building, it's way too late to be talking to people about your crisis and what needs to be done about it. It's not like you're going to shout to some autistic kid on the 28th floor as you fall past her, "quick! Tell your school chums to tell their parents to call the fire department before I hit the ground! Go to the building manager's office (but use the stairs, not the elevator, to save electricity!) and tell him to listen to the scientists about the physics of acceleration under gravity and the engineering of better guard rails!"

Your ship has already sailed. Your goose is already cooked. The crisis, whatever it was, is already a done deal. Your options after you start falling boil down to scream like a girl, or take it like a man. All this rigamarole about what should be done to avert or adapt to the crisis is completely moot, if you're already on your way down.

I'm not disputing that. GlennB suggested cities flooding and becoming uninhabitable. I don't care whether you call it a crisis, or call it Ah Pook the Destroyer.

What I'm asking is if it's a real-world problem that's really gonna happen, if we don't do something. You're wasting time trying to convince me to call it a 'crisis'. You should be trying to explain what it is we should be doing to avert it (or adapt to it, if you think it can't be averted).

So. It's a crisis. That was never in dispute. Good job answering that question anyway, though. Here's the questions I'm actually asking:

Is it a real-world crisis that we can (and should) do something about?

And if so, what exactly should we be doing about it?

What are you answers to those?

What are your answers to those?

 

[theprestige]

What are your answers to those?

Business as usual. Keep working to reduce pollution, conserve resources, and improve efficiency. Encourage developing nations to keep developing, and keep bootstrapping themselves into a less-polluting, more efficient industrial base. Help them to get there without the excesses of resource exploitation and pollution characteristic of the Industrial Revolution (and the later economic development in places like communist Europe and mainland China).

Adapt to and mitigate the actual effects of the changing global climate as it changes and as the practical problems of those effects become more apparent and well-understood.

 

[3point14]

Business as usual. Keep working to reduce pollution, conserve resources, and improve efficiency. Encourage developing nations to keep developing, and keep bootstrapping themselves into a less-polluting, more efficient industrial base. Help them to get there without the excesses of resource exploitation and pollution characteristic of the Industrial Revolution (and the later economic development in places like communist Europe and mainland China).

Adapt to and mitigate the actual effects of the changing global climate as it changes and as the practical problems of those effects become more apparent and well-understood.

You understand that the IPCC and other organisations suggest that your solution isn't actually a solution don't you?

Why do you think they're either wrong or lying to you?

 

[Darat]

One of

Darat kept hassling me to give a scientists name of which I listen to. I gave two of them.

For what it is worth I do believe that not believing in AGW would be pretty blimmin dim

I just question the level of what is natural compared to man.

And I certainly question the CRISIS!!!!!

Then you haven't actually been reading or listening to Cox.

 

[theprestige]

You understand that the IPCC and other organisations suggest that your solution isn't actually a solution don't you?

Why do you think they're either wrong or lying to you?

I don't think they're wrong or lying, necessarily. But I haven't seen any details about what exactly they predict to happen, and what steps exactly we can take to prevent it.

A moment ago, you suggested that you haven't seen anything like that, either, from them. Has anyone?

lomiller's answer was an analogy implying that the problem is unavoidable, the worst outcome is guaranteed, and there's literally nothing we can possibly do at this point to change that.

Thunberg's answer is, apparently, "listen to the scientists!".

So what's the scientists' answer? How are we supposed to prevent our cities from flooding and becoming uninhabitable?

---

And, regardless of what the IPCC thinks, how is "move out of coastal cities as they grow increasingly expensive and impractical to safeguard against flooding and storm surge" not actually a solution? Human history is a history of economic and climate migration.

 

[lomiller]

Is it a real-world crisis that we can (and should) do something about?

And if so, what exactly should we be doing about it?

Yes, it’s something we can and should do something about. Under the “we don’t do anything at all” IPCC scenario RPC 8.5 warming (starting from 1900) can exceed 6 deg C by 2100 and 9 deg C by 2200. This is well into the range of temperature change associated with the largest mass extinctions in the history of the planet. The fossil evidence from these events suggest that no animal over 50 lbs survives, and most under that still do not survive.
All lower scenarios factor in some amount of action to limit CO2 levels, some more than others.
I guess some people may not consider this a crisis “because they won’t be around in 2100 anyway”, but hopefully this is a very very fringe viewpoint.

And if so, what exactly should we be doing about it?

We should reduce CO2 emissions

 

[BobTheCoward]

Yes, it’s something we can and should do something about. Under the “we don’t do anything at all” IPCC scenario RPC 8.5 warming (starting from 1900) can exceed 6 deg C by 2100 and 9 deg C by 2200. This is well into the range of temperature change associated with the largest mass extinctions in the history of the planet. The fossil evidence from these events suggest that no animal over 50 lbs survives, and most under that still do not survive.
All lower scenarios factor in some amount of action to limit CO2 levels, some more than others.
I guess some people may not consider this a crisis “because they won’t be around in 2100 anyway”, but hopefully this is a very very fringe viewpoint.



We should reduce CO2 emissions

Why stop a natural phenomenon?

 

[theprestige]

We should reduce CO2 emissions

By how much over what period to avoid or mitigate what effects?

By what means? At what cost?

 

[dann]

Why stop a natural phenomenon?

Why not? Pain, for instance, is a natural phenomenon.

 

[theprestige]

Why not? Pain, for instance, is a natural phenomenon.

Not feeling pain can have some pretty serious negative consequences.

 

[GlennB]

lomiller's answer was an analogy implying that the problem is unavoidable, the worst outcome is guaranteed, and there's literally nothing we can possibly do at this point to change that.

No.

In lomiller's analogy you'd pull the cord on your parachute. You might well get hurt - possibly even die - but it's positive action to mitigate certain catastrophe.

theprestige - what you're presenting here is not skepticism, it's presenting plausible statements that appear to be designed to just plain irritate others who are trying to discuss a subject seriously.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Why not? Pain, for instance, is a natural phenomenon.

I have no opinion why or why not.

 

[Cavemonster]

By how much over what period to avoid or mitigate what effects?

By what means? At what cost?

Before I answer that, I need to know what kind of answer you're expecting?

How long? And should we measure the length in words, characters, pages or separate posts? Why?

And what sort of experts should be cited? The answers you're looking for span the science, ethics, and economics of the situation. So what particular qualifications in each field will you accept. Which schools do they need to have graduated from or be teaching at? Why? Which publications do they need to have contributed to? Why? What facts about them may disqualify their predictions? Why?

What percentage of the argument would you like within the posts here vs. linked to in other articles? Why?

That's just for starters. Answer those and we'll really get going.