And then Fox News will do a segment where they forgo any scientific or peer-reviewed research and instead point at some snow and go "See?! Global warming doesn't exist because it's cold right now!"
Global Warming Has Accelerated and Will Go On for Centuries
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Ah. In that case they've got it backwards; volcanoes usually cause temporary pauses in warming because their plumes tend to be better at reflecting solar radiation into space than trapping heat in the atmosphere. The trend is usually reestablished within a few years as if nothing happened though.The White Hunter said:
Electricity production causes 1/3 of the greenhouse gas production, with Coal being the biggest offender and Natural Gas being a fairly close second (especially if you factor in methane leaks). If we switched every coal and natural gas plant to nuclear (as France did, in the same time frame as France did) this problem would be solved.
And if you think nuclear is worse in any metric than coal or natural gas (other than being slightly more expensive overall), then you've been fed some bad information.
And if you think nuclear is worse in any metric than coal or natural gas (other than being slightly more expensive overall), then you've been fed some bad information.
And that's the point where it's too late. Of course people's feet are already getting wet. But that's in places like Bangladesh and who cares about poor people? I'd guess that once places like New York and London start to feel damp, they'll take some half-assed preventative measures (and paint anyone who wants to do more as a hippy-communist)rather than implement structural changes. Apart from the political shenanigans, it's going to take more than Europe and the US to get aboard (no pun intended), you'll need places like Russia, China and India too, and they're even less concerned with the environment than we are.Nimcha said:
I'm really not seeing the problem with large climate change/global warming. Well, to be more accurate, I really can't see why people keep kicking up a fuss over it. We'll either adapt to it like everything else on Earth will, or we'll die. Once that's done, the Earth will normalize and something vaguely like us may evolve once more, or something will evolve to take our place as the apex species in the warmer and wetter climate (woo, dinosaurs making a comeback!).
It's really not something to be overly worried about.
It's really not something to be overly worried about.
There needs to be some kind of government subsidy that helps cover the cost for people who want to buy solar and wind based electrical generators to help power their homes in order to reduce individual carbon footprint. Hell, if that happened I'd go out and buy as many as I could. Make my house self-sufficient as hell.
Alternative power supplies will go a long way towards mitigating this, but as it has already been said they've been a long time coming and will continue to be a long time coming.
Alternative power supplies will go a long way towards mitigating this, but as it has already been said they've been a long time coming and will continue to be a long time coming.
So...Futurama was right. What we need is nuclear winter to cancel out global warming.
But seriously...
But seriously...
This pretty much sums up my thinking as well. People are so afraid of change even though we have no idea how this change will affect things. In the long run, humanity really isn't any more or less important than the millions of other species that have come before, during and after.Agayek said:
A friend of mine made a remark about the old GW. She said that it should no longer be called Global Warming, but Global Pittsburghization. This is due to the fact that the actual weather at large is becoming fairly bi-polar (no pun intended) and unpredictable...which means that there has been pretty much no significant change in my town at all. We get all the weird weather as is, and no amount of climate change has altered this fact. So, who's with me? Change the title to Global Pittsburghization?
And yet environmentalists continue to drive cars, fly in planes, use computers, eat animal products, build with lumber, use gas-powered heaters, and channel utilities from conglomerate sources with the rest of us ignorant plebs.
Lead the way, Sergeant.
Lead the way, Sergeant.
Climate change denial is ridiculous. I notice climate change every day I walk from the city into the nearby park, and the air gets colder. Cities are noticeably warmer than natural surroundings. Now, look at those night time images of Earth from orbit. See all those lights? What you see it human urban development, visible from SPACE.
You think all those hundreds of millions of ovens, stoves, air conditioners, motors in civilization are not going to make a difference? As I said, I can feel the difference by walking 200 meters.
And all of this doesn't even take the burning fuel and accumulating greenhouse gases into account, which according to scientists are the much bigger factor.
You think all those hundreds of millions of ovens, stoves, air conditioners, motors in civilization are not going to make a difference? As I said, I can feel the difference by walking 200 meters.
And all of this doesn't even take the burning fuel and accumulating greenhouse gases into account, which according to scientists are the much bigger factor.
No. They've been fed This [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster]. It doesn't matter that the only fatalities were due to the earthquake and the tsunami. The idea[/i] is scary and we could all be radioactive!Jupiter065 said:
Or Terrorists [http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/indian-point-vulnerable-terror-attack-report-article-1.1428120]! They'll have a nuclear bomb that we can never get rid of.
For real.
Funny thing about nuclear power: coal and gas kill more people every year than nuclear power has ever. Fracking appears to be dealing as much or more long-term ecological damage than Chernobyl, especially considering the onset of water scarcity in the upper midwest. Three-Mile Island is actually a case of "oh look, the systems worked."
I wouldn't go so far as saying global warming is increasing the rate of natural disasters right now, but then again, I'm no meteorologist. I can see the rate increasing considerably in maybe 20 years, but not at this moment. Anyway, probably a good idea to move away from the coast.
I love how people think there's ways for us to slow down global warming. As doomsday as it sounds, there's no way the first world will stop driving cars and eating meat. Plus the whole "we damaged the world beyond repair" thing. We can try and delay the inevitable, but it is much easier saying fuck it.
I love how people think there's ways for us to slow down global warming. As doomsday as it sounds, there's no way the first world will stop driving cars and eating meat. Plus the whole "we damaged the world beyond repair" thing. We can try and delay the inevitable, but it is much easier saying fuck it.
The thing they also miss is that even if they were right and global warming is largely a result of natural causes, we're still royally fucked if we don't do anything about it, and there's a good possibility that a lot of people will die before things settle down. Smart people would want to do something about that regardless of the cause.Adam Jensen said:
ObsidianJones said:
No, you've still been fed some bad information.
Here's the thing about nuclear: the reactors being used in places like Fukushima, even without getting into things like the gross negligence which occurred to allow that happen (or how impressive it is that despite gross negligence and government rubber stamping the reactors safety the damn thing had to get hit by a massive earthquake and tidal wave for things to go as wrong as they did), were never meant to be used for 50+ years. Those reactor designs were a stop gap. An easy way to get into nuclear power until newer designs which were safer and produced almost no actual waste were ready to be implemented.
Current reactor designs are so safe that you can literally turn off the sort of redundant and automatic safety measures they put in place to make sure human error doesn't occur and the thing will still shut itself down automatically rather than melt down. These reactors are basically incapable of reaching melt down unless humans intervene to deliberately cause one, and even then I'm not sure it's a possibility.
We also have reactor designs which utilize/produce little to no weapons grade material. Hell, nuclear power has actually done quite a bit to decommission nuclear weapons as companies have bought quite a bit of fuel that was in old Soviet nukes since the cold war ended. Which is good because old Soviet nukes should have had people more worried than the idea that terrorists could just break into power plants and steal weapons grade material. If we were to actually keep up with reactor advancements instead of giving into to public fears that were based on ignorance and little else, we'd have even less to worry about.
Fact is nuclear is one of the safest forms of power available. Even taking into account the rather not worthy accidents of the past which aren't an actual possibility with modern designs, it's historically been less dangerous than pretty much any form of power generation aside from wind. Even solar is more problematic because an ungodly amount of toxic materials is used to create the panels.
Nuclear is safe, it is effective, and we have enough fuel to generate all of the power the world needs for a few centuries at least. More than enough time for us to figure out things like Fusion so we can keep chugging along.
OK, cool, so nothing that we can do will stop it so we can stop worrying about it and just deal with it.
Coulda told you that years ago and saved some pontificating.
Coulda told you that years ago and saved some pontificating.