Esoteric Nixon wrote: It saddens me that science has become so politicized, but there you have it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to opening car-related threads. So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Has become? Always has been. Just ask Galileo.
alfadriver wrote:Esoteric Nixon wrote: It saddens me that science has become so politicized, but there you have it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to opening car-related threads. So long, and thanks for all the fish!Has become? Always has been. Just ask Galileo.
Or Copernicus, or Darwin...
But climate change is one of just a few times in recorded history that science has told us that we all need to do something different in our everyday lives, one of the previous notable examples being the discovery of germs. And there were people opposed to hand-washing. They were most offended at science's insinuations about the cleanliness of their hands, especially doctors who just came back from being elbow-deep in a corpse and were now about to deliver a baby. They'd just wiped their arms off with a handkerchief you know. Perfectly clean.
Also people used to see no problem with E36 M3ting into their drinking water, and separating sewage from the clean water to keep everyone from E36 M3ting themselves to old-timey death must've been a difficult transition. Doing it in separate places took so much more effort, you know? Ugh.
In reply to GameboyRMH:
Nobody has told me I need to do anything different in my daily life. WTF you on about?
Switching off of fossil fuels would affect my daily life. Like hand-washing, in a mostly positive way if you look at the big picture instead of focusing narrowly on the new costs...but there's some change involved.
Seems to me we'd have a lot of our problems solved (environmental, socio-economic, etc...) if every parental couple on earth agreed to have only one kid for a few generations. But you bring that idea into polite discussion and suddenly everyone gets mad at you...
1 is too little as China is finding out. 2 would do the job. But I don't think it would be much of a cure-all, certainly not for any near-term problems.
Nick (LUCAS) Comstock wrote: In reply to GameboyRMH: Nobody has told me I need to do anything different in my daily life. WTF you on about?
On a more serious note, what the "average person" can do that I think has the best chance to benefit is just to consume less. I'm not talking just "use less gasoline", but more things like make a real effort to buy local (especially foods), don't upgrade your TV / iphone / PC every eight months and consign their perfectly good predecessors to e-waste, don't buy pointless gadgets that will sit on a shelf forever after one use, take reusable bags to the shops, buy second-hand stuff, etc. The common philosophy on this board is pretty great in that respect.
Any time something new is produced, that isn't needed, we all suffer a little bit. We have a situation right now where 'production' is greatly outstripping 'need', so companies are going out of their way to create completely artificial demand, and we're all paying for the consequences of that. Karl Marx and Adam Smith would both look at what's going on right now and go WTF.
I'm actually hoping that virtual reality and online communities like Second Life take off in a big way, and funnel people's consumer-gadget-mania into buying artificial widgets instead of real ones, but that's the '90s cyberpunk in me talking. 
It's an interesting idea though.
GameboyRMH wrote: 1 is too little as China is finding out. 2 would do the job. But I don't think it would be much of a cure-all, certainly not for any near-term problems.
Nah, I really do think 1 per. We could halve or quarter (or more!) the global population in a few generations and be a lot better off. There would be economic upheaval but we're so near post-scarcity in a lot of areas we're going to need to rethink the whole system soon anyway. May as well build some future-proofing into it.
Mechanics used to wash their hands in buckets of leaded gasoline. How many died from lead poisoning ?
Are PCBs really a carcinogen ?
Least snowy year ? 103 years ago.
And the song goes on.
iceracer wrote: Lowest high on record today. 29F. It's coming.
Earth warms up ( for whatever reason) gooey bit in middle also warms up a bit.
Gooey bit in middle squirts out and fills atmosphere with ash.
Planet cools down.
For a civilization striving to live in the nano-second, the time constant will suck, but it will all work out just fine.
In reply to Jay:
I completely agree with stopping the population growth. I have no moral or ethical issues with it. It makes sense.
Also, being financially limited does curtail my ability to consume needlessly.
On to the topic of fossil fuels, I have no control over that. Personally, I use on average a little over 2 gallons of gasoline per week. I would love to get an electric bike but can't justify going in debt to eliminate using roughly 125 gallons per year. Household, those numbers would go up, I have no idea how much gas swmbo goes through. The house is all electric. I also have no control over where that electricity comes from (I don't know how we get our power here, don't really care enough to look it up).
Plate tectonics wouldn't DARE affect sea levels...
WildScotsRacing wrote: Plate tectonics wouldn't DARE affect sea levels...
Interesting thought...If the planet warms up,it will expand and its surface area will increase. If the surface area increases, it will need more water to maintain the current coastlines. This water could come from the melting icecaps for a net coastline change of zero.
There, I just fixed global warming for you.
WildScotsRacing wrote: Plate tectonics wouldn't DARE affect sea levels...
STOP PLATE TECTONICS!
When the west coast crashes into the sea there will be lots of room for more water.
Jay wrote:GameboyRMH wrote: 1 is too little as China is finding out. 2 would do the job. But I don't think it would be much of a cure-all, certainly not for any near-term problems.Nah, I really do think 1 per.
The problem is, we're already approaching that point... in the developed world. Making it consistent across the entire world is where the real problem lies.
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