What's your solution for the city of Miami Beach today? They are trying walls and massive pumps right now.
I should have said, stop the level where it is. Not adding anymore. They have also said that even if we stopped all co2 emissions today, instantly, the warming would occur into the next century, at minimum. I cannot give you names, but I did read it from some legit site at some point, or heard it in a climate change discussion that involved co2. I doubt if anything we do, given the demand for energy and the fact that we get most of our energy from burning fossil fuels, will make much difference, as we address it. So prefer to think that this warming will be more beneficial than detrimental when all is said and done. I have my doubts that it will lead to cataclysm. I have greater worries than climate change. Like some EMP that takes down our power grid, with china being our supplier of transformers and the number we would need and the length of time it would take to get us back up and running. Another Carrington level event. Or a big space rock that we cannot stop. Nuclear war between russia or china and the US, even if by accident. I also have faith that this earth and her very complex system will keep her amiable to life for a long time.
stronger materials technologies can provide more options. we could be conserving greenspace by "going vertical".
I haven't seen evidence that it is that binary - stop in now, or reap the whirlwind. Everything we do will make a difference. As we fail to slow warming, we'll have more work to do to deal with the problems of agriculture, people movement, water, etc. Losing our power grid would certainly be catastrophic. But, failing agriculture would certainly be a massive national security issue, too. We can't ignore one problem simply because there is another problem. As for what Earth might do, Earth would be plenty "happy" wiith no humans - or life, for that matter. I'm not suggesting that outccome, but earth has gone through periods where human life wouldn't be practical. And, any change that would cause a drop in Earth's population would be catastrophic.
When you consider that because the Earth's atmosphere thins rapidly as you increase elevation (altitude), that part of it most useful to humans lies below 15,000 feet. This means the atmosphere on Earth is quite finite, and nicely compares to the thickness of a peeling on an apple. This thinness makes it small enough to be quite susceptible to pollutants dumped by Man over time. And, we've been dumping in vast quantities since the 1740s. So, Mankind has CERTAINLY had the time & the patterns of thoughtless behaviors necessary to accomplish precisely what climatologists assert--that WE ARE THE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING, and global warming is a massive threat to civilization, many species of animal life, and possibly life itself, if left unchecked. The cost of skepticism will be far worse than the cost of action.
Whether you like it or not, Mother Gaia is the only lifeboat we have in a universe filled with a very large void. Also, there are 7.5 billion of us on that life raft, & growing, while the world we're all riding is NOT growing, but finite in size & resources. We're continuing to poison the very air we breathe (along with all other life forms sharing the planet with us) without mercy or concern. On this world, as with any other, EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED, and eventually, those connections are going to take on a life of their own & overcome us, unless we wise up. You can't run a car in a garage, close the door, and continue acting as if nothing is wrong. The Earth's atmosphere is limited like the air within a closed garage, and the way we're treating it, will end up with the same results.
The planet will simply go on as always. Heck, for much of the history of the planet no life other than the simplest of single cell organisms was even possible. During the Huronian Glaciation, for over 300 million years the climate was what is now called "Snowball Earth", where the entire planet was covered with ice. In fact, 99% of all life became extinct as the waste product of the newly evolved cyanobacteria was poisonous to the already existing and thriving anaerobic bacteria. This of course was oxygen. But eventually it is believed vulcanism released enough CO2 that a greenhouse cycle started and most of the ice melted, starting the Cambrian Explosion. And this was the 4th or 5th such event based upon geologic evidence. And there seem to have been at least 2 others. One around 650 mya, and the latest at around 360-260 million years ago (Karoo Ice Age). Although the latest was less extensive, only covering about 1/2 of the surface of the planet. But life is resilient, Darwin showed us that. It will even strive to recreate a long dead creature if that is what is needed to fill a hole in the ecology.
Imagine what would happen to this argument if the right-wing of this country was as concerned about the environment. Would those right-wing people be pushing socialism too? In reality, socialism doesn't have to be connected with environmental policy and climate change, it just gets loosely associated because the same political groups that push for democratic socialism are also the ones who fight for the environment. What if the Republicans and the right-wing of this country started caring too, about the environment? Politically, that takes away a selling point for liberals and the left.
This is so completely false and biased politically, it is amazing. If one thing has been shown over the decades, it is that "Socialism" does not give a damned about the environment. Look no further than the ecological disaster zones left all through the Soviet Union once it collapsed. Or what China is doing even today in their own country. Myself, I hate and distrust almost all "environmentalists" because they drag their political bias into almost anything, and paint anybody who does not agree with them in everything as the enemy. And they scream at any commercial use of our resources, and think it should be controlled 100% by the government that has a history of leaving environmental disasters in their wake. Myself, I claim the title "Conservationist". And yes, I have a deep love for nature. I still go camping several times a year. And no, not by staying in some KOA with water, power, amenities in a 45' RV. As in going out in the middle of nowhere on my motorcycle with a small pop-up tent trailer (until 6 years ago it was with an old school 2 person pup tent). I believe strongly in trying to keep nature as pristine as possible, as well as exploiting it's resources so long as once the harvesting is done it is returned to as good or better a condition than it was prior. And living in a state where most of the income was based on farming, mining or forestry that is a major part of my belief. Because if you "use up" the environment, then you can never use it again. That is what Socialists often do. Use up a resource, and simply move on with no care about restoration because they have no further use for it. To them it does not matter, the government is the one who does this, and does not care because nobody can tell them otherwise. And I believe strongly in regulation and oversight, but here it has gotten out of control. Case in point, Paradise was destroyed last year in a massive fire. And now all reconstruction has largely been stopped because there might be a frog in the area. Never mind that they were likely all killed in the fire, that is stopping people from rebuilding their homes. Farmers in Washington are loosing huge chunks of their fields because of river erosion, and the Governor removed a provision to allow part of that river to be modified to stop it (even though fish experts said it would actually benefit the fish population). Fining a rancher hundreds of thousands of dollars because they build a pond to water their livestock and then forbidding it from being used for that purpose or filling it in because it is now automatically a "wetland". Oh, I agree 100% with regulations to protect the environment. In fact, I even go to the extreme that companies and individuals who purposefully damage it with no intent on restoration should not only be fined and penalized, it should be to the point of dissolving the company and jail time for those involved. But the regulations now are byzantine and almost nonsensical. My wife and I (and other members of the family) are amateur prospectors. We go out with a shovel, a battery powered high backer, and in a day might move a whopping 2-3 cubic yards of soil through it. But in some areas this is getting huge fines by "environmentalists". There is a long running battle between gold dredgers (who use suction devices to remove soil from the bottom of a river) and state and local agencies (specifically the forest service), even though they have won many court battles saying the practice is legal. They even throw in nonsensical things like it releases mercury (nobody uses mercury in mining anymore, and it actually removes it from the waterways). In fact, many dredgers recover things like mercury, lead, and trash and then recycle it so the water is left better than when they started. As well as leaving behind the kind of ground conditions that fish find perfect for spawning in. But you are chasing this entirely with a political bias, and probably do not give a damn about the environment itself. To me, most of my experience with "Environmentalists" are those who drive by the hundreds in their SUVs to a place they have never been before, then chain themselves to trees screaming they must be preserved. Then when it is all over get back in their SUVs and go home, never again to return. "Roughing it" is doing without cable and WiFi for a weekend from the comforts of a Thousand Trails campground. Where everything is provided for them, and the trash goes into a can at the entrance. They never experienced what I was taught when I was young, to leave it as it was or better, and pack everything out with you. Those are the kinds that leave soda cans and beer bottles on the side of a river, where as I return with the cargo area of my trailer full of 2 or 3 bags of such trash. maybe 1/2 of a bag mine, the rest all left behind by others.
That is all meaningless if you don't support strong laws. Do you support limits on CO2 emission or do you believe you are more knowledgeable than the world's scientists, like most righties?
You post total nonsense. Do you know that? I'm a scientist by degree. I was Republican for half of my adult life. And I've been Independent since. This isn't about socialism. It is about preserving human life. You have been brainwashed to the point where you just babble.
Really? The Dinosaurs lived millions of years with brains the size of a pea and you think human face an existential threat if the globe warms a couple of degrees? What kind of scientist are you? You don't think we survive if the temperature goes up? Are you unaware that we are in an ice age that is 2.5 million years old? We are currently in an interglacial period. Normally, North America is encased in ice a mile thick. When the interglacial period comes to an end as it does after 12 to 15 thousand years, then we'll be in another glacial period lasting about 100,000 years. Climate change has always happened. We went from horse and buggy in 1700, to locomotive travel in 1800, to planes in 1900 and space ship by 2000. We will be exponentially more technologically advanced by 2100 than we can even imagine. I think the 22nd Century will look back on the 21st Century global warming alarmists like we look back on the Salem Witch trials.
In other words, ignore anything I said and essentially give a political attack. The moment you decided that your enemy was "Republicans" and "Righties", you lost all credibility to me. You are likely like the vast majority of others and could not care less. It is all political with you. And want to know something? I do not blame the "CO2 rise" on emissions! Yep, that's right. As far as I am concerned, pump out all the damned CO2 you want, literally it is nothing but plant food. Want to know what bothers the hell out of me, and I think should be addressed immediately? The vast deforestation of our rainforests. Which is continuing to the extent of over 3,000 square miles per year in the Amazon Basin alone! Once considered the "lungs of the planet", this region is now absorbing 1/3 less CO2 from the environment than it did just 50 years ago. This is what I see as the real problem. All of nature has checks and balances. Pump out more CO2, then nature should respond by an explosion in plant growth to use the plentiful CO2. That has happened every other time in history, that is what the Cambrian Explosion was all about after all. Believed to be the highest CO2 records in the history of the planet, plants and animals thrived and huge areas of the planet were covered in dense rainforests. But that is not happening, we are actively cutting them at an ever increasing rate, and at the same time we are seeing CO2 levels rise. I do not believe it is because of man pumping more out, it is because we are destroying the very thing that keeps it in balance. Even if we cut our CO2 emissions by 75%, I bet they would continue to rise. Because we are actively destroying the system our planet evolved to solve that very issue.
I asked a simple question. You SURE are defensive. blah blah blah Translation, you know more than the world's scientists. Got it! That explains your obvious defensive posture when I asked if you know more than the world's scientists. Like most of the right wing, we have another Holiday Inn expert. So do you think we landed on the moon?
Wouldn't all the warming required for all that melting evaporate a lot of water? We are talking significant changes but only one tiny aspect is mentioned at all here. I suppose the hoax never stands up to complex scrutiny...
*yawn* Rather predictable actually. So you think destroying over 3,000 square miles in a single rainforest is good for the planet? That in the last 15 years enough of the Amazon has been destroyed to consume half of the annual production of CO2? And you do not see the issue? I do not believe the "scientists" because they are chasing political issues. It is like finding a patient with a fever and trying to only deal with the fever itself, meanwhile ignoring what is causing it in the first place. They are completely consumed with "CO2 emissions", and not doing a damned think about the loss of the natural CO2 sequestering system that we are destroying. They are all about bandaids and looking good, while ignoring the real issue. Oh yes, plant a few hundred trees on the roofs of New York. Yea! We care about the environment! Meanwhile another 200 miles of rainforest is cut and burned and nobody gives a damn. You are far more interested in making political attacks instead of actually addressing the issues. Like most political animals I meet.
Historically (geologically speaking), times of no ice caps have been the eras in which life on this planet thrived the most. There is more water on the surface, oceans are higher, and more water vapor is free in the atmosphere. In ages past those were the times of continent sized rainforests, and massive explosions in both life and evolution. Now we only have theories of what the transitions between glaciations is like, the geological record is nowhere near precise enough to really know. Does it get more moist as the ice caps melt? Does it get dry for a while until the environment adapts to the new free water? We really do not know. It could be either, or neither, or both. But in the history of the planet, no more ice caps generally means a more mild climate, but one much more humid and with a lot more free water (both fresh and salt). It is ice ages when things get dry. Hence the most arid continent on the entire planet is Antarctica, which averages about 6 inches of precipitation over the entire Continent. To compare, the driest state in the US is Nevada. It is in the shadow of the Sierra mountains, and averages just over 9 inches per year. As dry as Nevada is, it gets over 30% more precipitation per year than Antarctica.
When I asked if you know more than the world's scientists, a simply "yes" would have sufficed. Paragraphs of rationalizations really wasn't needed. No one cares HOW you justify your crackpottery.
It's going to be like the days of Noe. There's less than twelve years left. Al Gore ejackulated prematurely.
OK, so I can only assume you agree with the massive deforestation of rainforests. That you do not care at all. And typical of the modern generation, you do not give a damn about cause and effect. You are happiest when you get 2 or 3 sentences that agree with you and do not make you think. Continue not thinking if that makes you happy. Just do not expect others to not think also. Have a good day.
