Global Warming Has Accelerated and Will Go On for Centuries

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hentropy

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You can't really blame people for being skeptical. There's been quite a few alarmist panics in the past, and articles like this only serve to push that narrative, that it's Chicken Little and it's really not going to be that bad. Storms aren't anything new to people so pointing out those aren't going to help prove the case. Until theses doomsday prophecies start happening, people aren't going to drastically change everything about their lives to try and fix it.

Pointing out the man-made global warming is happening is one thing, yelling that we need to change everything about everything right now and give us more money to research solutions and give more money to green energy companies is just going to make you look like an alarmist profiteer.
 

Deverfro

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So we're fucked, and the people in power won't change a damn thing, simply because it would cost them money. That's my take anyway
 

The_Darkness

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It's not unstoppable, it's just gonna be fairly hard to tackle.

Nuclear fusion *might* come sooner than we're expecting. Lockheed Martin has a project which is hoping to have a by 2017, commercial by 2022. I'd say that's ridiculously hopeful, except for the fact that it's Lockheed Martin, who are otherwise known as a ridiculously clever bunch of engineers - exactly the sort of people that you'd want to be solving fusion. It is, however, worth noting that they haven't said anything about this project since announcing it to the public this time last year.

CO2 scrubbers are theoretically possible, but they will eat energy. Plants do it by a form of solar power, but we need it on a scale much larger considering the backlog of CO2 that we've pumped out since the Industrial Revolution. So before we can start scrubbing the atmosphere, we need to get the Energy Industry off fossil fuels. In the short term, pumping stratospheric-aerosols into the atmosphere would reflect sunlight and help lower the global temperature, but we don't know the long term consequences.

Nuclear Fission is a good stopgap solution. We know that Fusion will get here sooner or later, at which point we can stop producing Nuclear Waste - and in any case, Nuclear Waste is a long term problem. CO2 is a much shorter term problem. However, Nuclear Fission is rather unpopular. (Because nobody likes the word Nuclear. Blame the Cold War and the A-Bomb.)

Renewables are also a good solution, which are much more popular than Nuclear Fission. However, Renewables are unpredictable. You can't tell the wind when to blow, and you can't the sun when to shine. So we need to be able to efficiently store energy, and we need smart grids to be able to manage the highly fluctuating supply and demand.

Overall, the world's problem is an over-reliance on fossil fuels. They're unhealthy and polluting even without the Global Warming problem - smog, oil spills, and some fairly nasty chemicals along for the ride. CO2 is the mouldy cherry on the rotten cake.

BUT there is, actually, a fairly bright future. Eventually. The day we get fusion working, and working well, the world will change. Energy becomes essentially free when your fuel is water, and your waste product is helium. Try to imagine a world where energy is free and available to all. It'll take us a while to get there, and even when we do, the world won't change overnight, but I can believe it will happen.

However, in the short term, yeah, we're screwed. Unpredictable weather, rising sea levels, potential food shortages, and probably an economic collapse if we run out of fossil fuels before we've changed the energy infrastructure. The next century might not be that pleasant...

The short term good news is that the growth of CO2 output year-on-year has finally started slowing. Which shows that we are making some progress, even if its not much.

PS: Since this is a video game website, and it's a related topic, I highly recommend Fate of the World as an educational game on Global Warming. It's essentially an Earth Sim from 2020 to 2220, with some pretty impressive work having been put into the simulator. It does, however, have a brutally difficult learning curve.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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hentropy said:
Pointing out the man-made global warming is happening is one thing, yelling that we need to change everything about everything right now and give us more money to research solutions and give more money to green energy companies is just going to make you look like an alarmist profiteer.
So you're saying that if people aren't educated about how severe the risk is, they'll be more inclined to invest in the steps needed to stave off disaster?

I find this kind of logic hilarious because it's not as if green energy is seeking rent any more than coal, gas and oil already do. The amount of government subsidies that go into polluting energy sources outstrips anything currently invested in renewables.
 

hentropy

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Shamanic Rhythm said:
hentropy said:
Pointing out the man-made global warming is happening is one thing, yelling that we need to change everything about everything right now and give us more money to research solutions and give more money to green energy companies is just going to make you look like an alarmist profiteer.
So you're saying that if people aren't educated about how severe the risk is, they'll be more inclined to invest in the steps needed to stave off disaster?

I find this kind of logic hilarious because it's not as if green energy is seeking rent any more than coal, gas and oil already do. The amount of government subsidies that go into polluting energy sources outstrips anything currently invested in renewables.
It's not about reality, it's about perception. Americans in particular have been lied to again and again by "reputable" sources that the sky is falling, whether it be thanks to commies or terrorists or whatever, and it's all ended up being overblown nonsense. I believe in man-made climate change and that it's a bad thing, but you need to present your case the best you can as to why things should be different, not use hyperbole and fear-mongering to scare people into doing what you want. As muted as something like "An Inconvenient Truth" may have seemed, it still used fear as its main weapon, showing the Earth flooding and everyone dying unless we fulfill some policy goal, and that's the perception of people in the US, that climate change is like WMDs in Iraq and we'll only find out that it was all a sham after the scientists laugh all the way to the bank. It's a sort of cultural cynicism that you can't blame people for having.

Oil and gas companies aren't exactly the most popular companies around, but we sorta do rely on them for much of our modern livelihoods. The worst thing climate scientists and action groups can do is use overblown rhetoric like the oil companies do when trying to win the PR war.
 
Sep 24, 2008
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Vivi22 said:
I'm going to assume you didn't read my post clearly. Especially when I pointed out that no one actually died from the Japanese Meltdown. And you didn't realize the sarcasm I was putting in my words. That's ok. It was really mild.
 

Shaidz

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What i find funny is that if Global Warming has all been made up, which it hasn't, what are all these people scared of? The worst that will happen is we would of cleaned up the air, invented better, more efficient means of power, preserving wild life and generally increasing the health of this planet...Global warning or not, HOW IS THIS A BAD THING?
 

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inu-kun said:
I don't really believe global warming, not because of idealogy, but rather I don't trust scientists who only stand to gain from panic, with research grants and publicity, with pretty much every bizzare weather being claimed as global warming.
and no one has yet to explain all the other previous crazy weather before the 1970s. i mean it's almost like they found out how to scare people with it.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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hentropy said:
It's not about reality, it's about perception. Americans in particular have been lied to again and again by "reputable" sources that the sky is falling, whether it be thanks to commies or terrorists or whatever, and it's all ended up being overblown nonsense. I believe in man-made climate change and that it's a bad thing, but you need to present your case the best you can as to why things should be different, not use hyperbole and fear-mongering to scare people into doing what you want. As muted as something like "An Inconvenient Truth" may have seemed, it still used fear as its main weapon, showing the Earth flooding and everyone dying unless we fulfill some policy goal, and that's the perception of people in the US, that climate change is like WMDs in Iraq and we'll only find out that it was all a sham after the scientists laugh all the way to the bank. It's a sort of cultural cynicism that you can't blame people for having.

Oil and gas companies aren't exactly the most popular companies around, but we sorta do rely on them for much of our modern livelihoods. The worst thing climate scientists and action groups can do is use overblown rhetoric like the oil companies do when trying to win the PR war.
Mate, I know you're on my side here, but if fear won't motivate people to reduce their carbon footprint I don't know what will. No one seems to care that it could reduce our reliance on nonrenewable fuel sources that are often located in the most politically volatile regions, for instance. Or that investing in home-grown green energy technologies could generate thousands of new jobs that can't be so easily off-shored. Or that green energy sources like wind and solar could actually make money for you when installed on your property by letting you sell excess power to the grid.
 

wulfy42

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There are many sides to this problem. You can argue deforestation is augmenting the problem as well, the fact that the higher Co2 levels can take decades to cause a direct climate change (meaning the changes we are seeing now, are based on the much lower increases from many years ago), and you can even go apocalyptic and say that once the process starts, the end result could be something similar to venus (not with as high a Co2 percentage in the atmosphere, but a average temperature much higher then life could survive with just the same).

Some have even argued that it's too late, and that we are eventually doomed based on what we have already done (unless a method is created to reverse the damage).

The truth is pretty simple though. The solutions that need to be made, are being worked on. If they do not come to fuition, we are in serious trouble eventually anyway, due to running out of resources needed to maintain such a large population of humans on this earth. Downsizing our population drastically in a short time period....is not going to be pleasant.

So, to me at least, global warming, while a real threat, is secondary to what will happen if we don't come up with a viable alternative energy source (fusion basically) anyway. That has to happen, or we are in serious trouble no matter what.

What can we do right now to help? I think we are already mostly doing it, and cutting back on using the energy sources we have right now any more would probably cause more problems then it would fix.

So in the end, it's just causing panic for no reason right now. The average person can't do jack about global warming. Heck I don't know if as a race we can do anything other then try and work towards getting the technology needed to reverse the damage we have already done. Anyway, I'm older, have no kids, and just can't find it in me to care anymore.
 

Ipsen

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Agayek 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.
But adaptation isn't some 'tool of survival'. It's more of an observation on how survival works. 'Adaptation', as we have come to understand it, largely happens in hindsight, you know, after a bunch of organisms die. Also remember that reproduction is a large part of 'survival' and 'adaptation' process. None of the billions of species that have lived and died out over time had the choice to adapt to their surroundings (or the changes in them), and neither do surviving species. Both just live as best they can.

....Except humans. Or at least, we're the closest to being able (as far as this human is able to see). We can at least percieve the problem in a way that can be communicated to others in species, which can multiply the focused effort to stem it. I could call that 'adaptation' (so yea, no real argument from me) too, but my point is that's kind of different from how it's been happening on this rock for its time.

The most broad problem is that civilization (and survival efforts within it) gets in the way of seeing this as an issue that effects us all. So yea, there's something to worry about, specifically because there's a chance we CAN do something about it, but the issue's not even being seen by people needed to make a worthwhile effort.

Shaidz said:
What i find funny is that if Global Warming has all been made up, which it hasn't, what are all these people scared of? The worst that will happen is we would of cleaned up the air, invented better, more efficient means of power, preserving wild life and generally increasing the health of this planet...Global warning or not, HOW IS THIS A BAD THING?
Less money in said scared people's pockets.
 

MrHide-Patten

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So not investing in a long life with a family was a smart decision. Short life full of hookers for the win. I will regret nothing, except being fat, that shit does not go well with hot climates.
 

Shaidz

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Ipsen said:
Shaidz said:
What i find funny is that if Global Warming has all been made up, which it hasn't, what are all these people scared of? The worst that will happen is we would of cleaned up the air, invented better, more efficient means of power, preserving wild life and generally increasing the health of this planet...Global warning or not, HOW IS THIS A BAD THING?
Less money in said scared people's pockets.
Sigh, sad but true. The more you think about it, the sadder it becomes actually.
 

thewatergamer

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Agayek 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.
Pretty much my sentiments, you can call me an ignorant idiot, but im sorry their is no science to the Global Warming thing anymore, its just a political thing now (as much as idiots like to pretend otherwise)(also this is the UN which to me is a joke right now seriously don't take anything they say seriously)

It's a natural thing we aren't really doing anything to affect and we will either adapt to a naturally changing world, or we will die, end of story, welcome to how nature works, also can we please shut up with the "blame the oil" thing people,


Even if it is "man caused" what do you want us to do about it? fund more corrupt people like al-gore and David Suzuki? give me a break those 2 dumbasses fly around in jets to preach about their new cult, im all for cleaning up the environment and all around cleaner air, but banning oil and stuff and demanding more money for clearly broken and corrupt "solutions" is just dumb,

Oh yes also remember about 30 years ago when everyone was panicking about "the next ice age is coming run for your lives" yeah im sorry but with all this alarmist shit, global warming just looks like another scam to get money
Yeesh, I find it hilarious that people complain about global warming (which only happens because NATURE CAUSES IT)but no one seems to care that thousands of animals are dying due to deforestation and overfishing

Third why do I give a shit again? I'll probably be dead with in the next 60 years and I don't really intend to raise a family so yeah sorry guys I really could care less about what happens to earth 100 years from now
 

Bara_no_Hime

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Jupiter065 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.
This.

For those who don't know, those nuclear power plants you see in TV shows that produce barrels and barrels of nuclear waste? Those were the kind of nuclear plants being built in the 1950s. Modern nuclear power plants (that is, any built in the last 10 years or so) produce only a few table spoons of nuclear waste per year. TABLESPOONS. They're also a ton safer than the old style ones (meltdowns are pretty much a non-issue).

Seriously, check it out on Wikipedia. I believe the king of nuclear power I'm describing is the kind they use in France now. Hardly any waste - they're amazing. America should build them by the dozens. And, before anyone asks, I would have no problem living next to one of them (they are insanely clean).
 

RA92

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inu-kun said:
I don't really believe global warming, not because of idealogy, but rather I don't trust scientists who only stand to gain from panic, with research grants and publicity, with pretty much every bizzare weather being claimed as global warming.
Here's the thing: if any scientist is falsifying results for grants and publicity, they'll outed through peer review by other scientists who don't stand to gain anything.
 

kael013

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Jun 12, 2010
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Still on the fence about global warming, but I don't understand the skeptics. If it's not real, we're fine. If it is, we're screwed. So why not just act like it's real and take preventative steps just in case? Every conversation I've ever had with skeptics has ended with them looking very thoughtful and worried when I ask "but what if you're wrong?"