Climate Change Is Here To Stay

More disturbing than any horror movie, Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously, a nine-part series about climate change that premiered last night, is essential viewing. The series documents the far-reaching consequences of climate change, and nothing, we’re shown—no person, no industry, no institution; no job, no religion, no nation—is exempt from the effects of climate change.

Living Dangerously is the latest environmental klaxon, bringing together star power (The premiere episode opens with Harrison Ford flying a reconfigured-for-science fighter plane to gather pollution data), money (James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Weintraub are executive producers), and smarts (The Guardian calls the series’s experts “the best science team you could imagine”). Like Showtime’s last serial documentary, Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States, in which historical revelations practically guaranteed that viewers would emerge boiling mad about how the twentieth century unfolded, Living Dangerously will make you boiling mad about the climate calamity that awaits us in the twenty-first.

But that’s sort of the point. This is must-see TV, and in just the first ten minutes, you’ll hear enough pessimistic quotables to fill this entire post. It’s hard to ignore that pessimism. “The world is going to be suffering in a lot of ways from this physical reality for a long time to come,” NASA scientist Laura Iraci tells Ford. Note that there’s no conditional in her warning. Our environmental crisis has progressed beyond “might” and “probably” to “is” and “will.” Dahr Jamail outlined this awful inevitability here in December. Ford, while looking at frightening data and satellite imagery at a NASA lab in Northern California, asks, “This is actual data, not a projection?” The devastating answer, courtesy of Dr. Rama Nemani, is a simple “Yes.”

As Don Cheadle, another participant, points out in the episode, climate change is engendering yet another “Two Americas” situation—namely, those (primarily coastal) who are genuinely concerned about the crisis, and those who aren’t, despite the very real effects climate change is having on their communities (representatives of whom Cheadle finds in Texas). Living Dangerously is a necessary tool to address this disconnect, to make plain the connections between deforestation in Indonesia and job losses in American agriculture, between record heat and mothballed factories. The days of resignation, of chalking things up to acts of god, to “how it’s always been,” are over, the series explains; we, as citizens of the planet, need to act.



Yet despite the doomsday scenarios described, the series is itself an article of hope. It’s easy to look at the numbers, read the analyses and draw the conclusion that, in fact, all is lost, that there’s no point in even making an effort. (“Imagine, Harrison, that Fargo, North Dakota, is like Phoenix,” says Google Earth’s Rebecca Moore while looking at a map of projected high temperatures in the United States in 2100.) But there’s Ford, headed to Indonesia to investigate the palm oil industry; there’s Cheadle, investigating parched ranches in New Mexico and a company town in Texas that’s lost its company. Thomas Friedman appears to connect the dots between the worst drought in modern Syrian history and the nation’s descent into civil war.

As the series progresses, a team of actors, activists and journalists will lead viewers through a series of reports and dispatches from around the world. In two episodes, for example, Nation contributing editor and former Washington editor Chris Hayes files reports about Superstorm Sandy and rising ocean levels. On his show on MSNBC, Hayes noted the necessary immediacy of the series: climate change, he says, “is not some future thing. This is it 2014. It is here now. You can go to these places and see it.”

We need this kind of visible activism. Denial, resignation and despair are not options. By bringing together actors, scientists, journalists and philanthropists, Living Dangerously provides a necessary spark, not just to get a conversation going, but also to put a fire underneath those who have it in their power to make changes commensurate to the scale of the crisis.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179346/climate-change-here-its-too-late-pessimism

Climate Change is the biggest threat to human civilization. We are masters of our planet, and we need to treat it with understanding that it needs to support all of us. Hopefully this series will open the eyes to those who chose to stay blind.

 

Imagine if the Earth's climate wouldn't change anymore. That would mean this would have become a dead planet.

The idea that humans somehow control the climate is of course ludicrous hubris.

 

there you go.... noone is denying climate change.... we deny that humans have that big of an effect beyond our local environment (ie - air pollution, water pollution... etc)

 

Harrison Ford and Don Cheadle to the rescue !

 

How ignorant are the libs at Showtime if they really believe that climate was always the same before the evil oil companies came long.

 

it is a documented fact that people thrive in cold climates and suffer in warmer ones. That is why so many more people live in the polar regions than in the temperate and tropical areas.

 

Figures...arrogant humans. This planet has been here long before and will be here long after us humans are shrugged off.

Not arguing we shouldn't and need to be good stewards of the Earth, but...sheesh.

 

I am waiting for someone to post a graph that starts in the mid 1800's to show that the planet is recovering from the little ice age immediately prior to the1800's. Immediate in Earth perspective being 400 years or so

 

The Warmers could make some progress if they did a few things:

1. Clean house. Get rid of all the people who got caught a few years back cooking data. The whitewash of them only increases suspicion.
2. Drop the idea of increased taxation.
3. Ditch any talk of increased regulations.
4. Jettison the UN.
5. Embrace nuclear power in the US to the degree the French did.
6. Electrify US freight railroad mainlines and truck lanes on the Interstates. By themselves, items 5 and 6 meet the US 40%.
7. Get the rest of the world enforceably onboard. No more futile solo acts like the Ozone Hole regs (40 CFR 82)
8. Emphasize adaptation to natural climate change rather than attempting terraforming.

 

I wonder how quickly fossil fuels would be outdated if they invested the money they are wasting on wind and solar into researching a cost effective catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells

 

"Climate Change is Here to Stay"

No S**t. Sorry, but I don't need to watch a nine part hysteria promoting propaganda series to figure that out, thank you very much. But hey, grab the popcorn, knock yourself out. Have fun.

 

Taxcutter says:
Nearly every element and compound known to man has been tested. The problem is not the fuel cell. It's the hydrogen.
a. Hydrogen is an incredible fire hazard.
b. Hydrogen embrittles everything it touches.
c. Hydrogen diffuses through everything - even U-238. A steel cylinder full of hydrogen bubbles vigorously if soaped.
d. Hydrogen though very light is very bulky. Storage tanks would have to be vast.
e. Hydrogen requires a lot of energy to separate it out of water.


Until somebody comes up with viable storage, any talk of intermittent alternatives like wind and solar is fatuous.

 

It's the lie they can't stop telling. Saying it long enough their minds are convinced it's true. Many liberals are stupid humans believing they can control the earth's climate, and when they realize they can't, they will use the excuse, "we were just too late".

 

I worked with electrolytic oxygen generators for over many years, hydrogen is not as difficult as you make it out to be and unless you know of some cheap and plentiful source of platinum the catalyst is the only thing standing in the way of cost efficient fuel cells

an article as of yesterday on Mercedes and their latest prototype

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/zero-emission-engine-almost-ready-prime-time-n81786

We’re very sure we can achieve a product cost level which is competitive [with today's hybrid cars]," he says. “But to get there, we still need to work very intensively on the business side.”

The selling points for consumers are strong.

Unlike hybrids, hydrogen-fueled cars are truly “zero emission” vehicles, powered by a chemical reaction with water as its only by-product. And unlike plug-in electrics, hydrogen-powered cars have the same range as those running on gasoline or diesel — and can be refueled just as quickly.

That doesn’t mean the going will be easy.

Expensive platinum components hydrogen cars require mean it will be challenging to bring their cost below $100,000.

 

1. Is a conspiracy theory.
2. Taxes are a good tool to push markets.
3. Same as number 2.
4. Same as number 1.
5. There is not enough nuclear fuel for power plants.
6. I don't know enough about this to have an opinion. Perhaps a maglev train system?
7. The world is somewhat onboard. But is hard to lead when the US wouldn't ratify Kyoto.
8. I am not sure what that means.

 

Does the liberal propaganda on this subject never end? The fact that "Global Warming" became "Climate Change" shows people stopped buying into the warming BS. I notice that Gore, Obama, et al have massive carbon footprints. If I had Showtime I would cancel.

 

I think left handed progressive communists need to come up with something new to retard the economy further.

an alien invasion perhaps?

 

Pathetic. Volcanic activity has much more impact on the weather than man ever could. We're not heading into a greenhouse scenario. In fact, we're heading into a minnie ice age of cooler temps because of an established trend in reducted solar activity. Next up? Another real ice age in NOT LESS than 50,00 years. But it IS coming; that we know.

Climate change scientists? Buffoons for the grant money.

 

Plus on top of that, they are incredible ignoramuses when it comes to science. They only like the 'science' which promotes their agenda and whine like little (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)es when it doesn't.

 

Taxcutter says:
Anything this big needs to be driven by absolutely unimpeachable information. Failure to clean house leaves all the information tarnished.

Taxcutter says;
Using taxes for any reason other than raising revenue for government operations is just abuse of the taxpayers.

Taxcutter says:
America is at a breaking point now on regulations.

Taxcutter says:
The UN's corruption was on full display in the early part of the last decade.

Taxcutter says:
There is the greatest of plenty if the US would:
a. Recycle spent fuel rods
b. Use fast breeder technology to make fissile Plutonium-239 out of common Uranium-238. Plutonium is very acceptable fuel for reactors.
c. Embrace the Thorium-232 to Uranium-233 technology. There is enough thorium in Pike's Peak to run America for centuries.
Generation of electric power consumes about 35% of the energy in the US and emits about 40% of the carbon dioxide. Converting to all-nuclear would give you dispatchable power to eliminate coal and use natural gas for transportation.

Taxcutter says:
Not useless passenger service but simply converting a substantial part of the transportation system to overhead catenary electrification to utilize nuclear power to run a substantial chunk of the transportation system. Long-haul movement of freight uses about 35% of the fuel used for transportation in the US.

Taxcutter says:
China (the biggest emitter) has bluntly told the Warmers to pound sand. India wants no part of it. Russia refuses to put gaskets in the flange joints of their natural gas transmission system - spewing methane into the atmosphere like mad. Europe is buying US coal as fast as US railroads can move the coal to the ports. Nobody that has any ambition about economic growth is going to foreclose economic growth for something they don't believe in.

Taxcutter says;
The US led on the Ozone Hole. The American consumer was burned to a frazzle and got nothing to show for it. Let someone else lead on AGW.

Taxcutter says:
If there is indeed any warming, it is all natural and humanity cannot do anything about it. Rather than crushing the US consumers and taxpayers, it would be better for everyone to start moving to higher ground, and preparing to move food production north into Siberia and Canada. Seaside cities have been abandoned in the past and can be abandoned in the future.

"Terraforming" is the science of forcing natural environments. It's mostly in the minds of science fiction writers.