More leftist garbage, we see once again, the so-called science problem is solved by 'economic, social, and political systems' not science. A cheap money grab and attempt to usurp free peoples the world over, how sad that anyone would take this nonsense seriously...
Hard to take seriously a bunch of people who proclaim 'science' as their basis but NONE of their solutions involve science at all...
So, on thing you will find about me is that if you post data showing claims I find interesting I go back to the source material to find out where you got it. I know you probably pulled it off of one of the denier sites like WUWT who post charts and data that supposedly disproves the science of climate change so people like you will post them in forums like this to show how clueless all those stoopid climate scientists are compared to guys who hang out on the internet. So the first chart does not show who actually put the data together. It correctly references McEvedy and Jones as sources but leaves out that the primary author of the chart was Indar Goklany a policy analyst for the Dept. of the Interior. Goklany has no scientific background in climate science though he does have a degree in engineering. So first of all any data put out by government departmental bureaucrats has to be held up to some scrutiny as self-serving and ideologically driven as I am sure you would agree. Secondly, the chart does not state if these numbers are global or just in the US - something you may have mentioned to us if you were not trying to win a politically based argument rather than discuss genuine science. I went to the source material and found out his supposed data is global. Also, right in his synopsis, he explains that the results are because we have become so much better at getting to the scenes of disaster and providing aid, rescue and relief than we were in decades past not that these events are becoming rarer. That is an important fact don't you think? So it is not that disasters are becoming rarer, in fact the opposite is true. It is that we are just much better at getting help to the area and recovering from the damage but that is not always going to be true. Goklany has published opinion pieces on climate and much of his work has been published by the extreme right-wing, libertarian think tanks Cato Institute and the Heartland as well which have been active in promoting the work of climate deniers such as Lord Monckton among others. So, clearly there is an agenda at play here and so interesting that your chart didn't properly reference the real author of the graph data. Here is the properly accredited chart: Here is Goklaky's source material for the chart: "The second important factor is better disaster preparedness, and more rapid response and delivery of humanitarian aid when disaster strikes. Timely preparations and response are major factors that have contributed to the reduction in death and disease that traditionally were caused by or accompanied disasters from extreme weather events (Goklany 2007b). Their success hinges on the availability of fossil fuels to move people, food, medicine and critical humanitarian supplies before and after events strike." https://www.thegwpf.com/indur-m-goklany-global-death-toll-from-extreme-weather-events-declining/ Funny he even goes so far as to suggest that fossil fuels are responsible for the decrease in deaths for getting the help there by transport. No agenda there
If you can get Al Gore to donate all the Millions in profits he's made off of pushing this Inconvenient Global Warming books and movies, tear down his 20 room Mansion with it's Olympic size pool that consumes 22 times the Electricity and Gas as an average house in America and then get China, Russia, the Continent of Africa and the rest of the worlds worst Polluters to go completely Green, I might give this some thought. Oh! I also want that Hypocrite Leonardo Dicaprio to stop sailing around the world on his Giant Yacht and Fly Coach on Alaska Airlines instead of his Private Jet, which is creating a bigger Carbon Footprint then I'll ever create in 100 life times. Get these guys that make the most noise to actually walk the walk instead of just blowing smoke up our Arses and then I'll decide to get onboard, but until then I'm just going to keep driving around in my Gas Guzzling Ford Bronco that Smokes like a Smelter with a BIG SMILE on my face.
Great. Let's talk about some of those "science" facts. Some things you failed to consider include: Global population: In 1900, there were about 1.5 billion people on the planet. In 2019, it's closer to 7.5 billion. A five fold increase in global population. This means more people live in areas that aren't exactly safe to live in. Recording of data: Global tracking of disasters wasn't great until recently. Computers themselves have only been around since the 80's. People wouldn't have been living in some areas that are more disaster prone, such as areas with frequent flooding, so even if it DID flood, no one would have cared. No impact to humans; no documentation. Attributing increase in cost of disasters with "worse" disasters or "more" disasters: Here is a chart of disaster costs, to address, for example, your "ask the insurance people" statement. Here is the same data, adjusted for inflation and the size of the GDP This raises the question: what natural disasters ARE actually increasing. Answer: flooding. Reason: more people living in areas that flood. Pretty much every other area of natural disasters is basically static.
Don't know if we have the ability to end life on the planet. Life has an interesting ability to survive in the most extreme conditions. We do have the ability to wipe out more species than died out in the Permo/Triassic which, btw, took place over thousands of years compared to the extinction event we are currently living in which is accelerating at an alarming pace. Our onus to save it will be our legacy as a species. We certainly have the ability through habitat destruction, pollution and possibly even nuclear war which we have narrowly averted in the past but which we are now closer to than ever. All it takes is another global war and business as usual in terms of our destruction of ecosystems and we could rnder this planet uninhabitable for complex life-forms for thousands of years. Is that a legacy we want to leave our children? Or can we learn as a species to mitigate our damage to the planet and find ways to innovate our economy so it is not so destructive and leaves room for other species to live here too. I think we can adapt and innovate but as the UN report suggests, we are running out of time.
Defeatist nihilism. Why can we not do anything about an economic system that is destroying the planet? Are we this stupid as a species that we can see a train-wreck coming but are powerless to do anything about it? What a terrible statement about homo sapiens.
So this thread wasn't specifically about climate change but I am glad you brought up all the problems you see with what you are being told about climate change. Here is the problem. Scientists are conservative by nature especially when under constant attack by political forces. They actually underestimated the pace that the world's climate is changing especially in the oceans and in the arctic. All the points you brought up are the major points you see on sites like WUWT but are the valid points? If you live in the Pacific Northwest then you know how much longer the summers are and how dry it is and how warm the ocean is off the coast. You know what the last two fire seasons have been like and this is not forest management. Get ready for another season of extreme fire and smoke, BTW. I hope not but it is dry out there.
Our planet has cooled and warmed for millions of years. Many species of plants and animals have gone extinct without mans help. The climate change conspiracy is just that, a conspiracy. Its no different than the flat earthers, the 911 conspiracy, or the moon landing conspiracy. There are thousands of scientists who profess its a hoax. So put on your aluminum foil hats and go to your safe rooms.
Yet you will blindly take fossil fuel funded propaganda from sites like WUWT and all the other blogs who are supported by Heartland and Cato Int. over the worlds climate scientists ( who are all colluding to mislead the public for grant money, btw) Amazing that .......
Yes Al Gore has a big house and Di Caprio flies in a plane which means there is no global warming. But yes, often celebrities are the worse people to listen to. I prefer what scientists say myself
You missed my whole point. My point was that the average person does not see what the scientist (and the media) are telling us. It does not matter if they are conservative or not. We are fed a bunch of "doom & gloom" that never seems to materialize....at least in our eyes. No, the PNW has not been getting "longer summers" nor is it getting "drier" and the oceans are not warmer......at least in our observation without using sensitive instruments of measurement. I still start my "spring cleaning" on the same day (May 1st), as that is when the rain starts to diminish. I always need to start mowing my lawn on the same day.....the day after Easter. I still start raking my leaves on the same day....the day after Halloween. I have been using these timetables for the past 35 years and they are still as reliable today as they were 35 years ago. The area water supply each year is still the same....some years we are in a drought situation....some years we are in a surplus situation. The spring at my house starts dropping in level at the same time each year (August 1st) and recovers at about the same time (after the first rain). This has been the same for the past 35 years. The ocean is cold....it will still shrivel a person's manhood. It feels no colder or warmer than it has been for any part of my long life. And NO.....the forest fires we are experiencing are 100% caused by lack of forest management. I worked in the field of forest management for a couple of decades and still know many people in the field. The moisture content of the ground debris is consistent to what we always expect at certain times of the year. What has changed is the amount of down tinder. Salvage harvests are not being conducted as they were even 20 years ago. Logging is not taking place. Controlled burns are not happening. I worked on a forest that was nicknamed "The Asbestos Forest". It was named such because we rarely had a forest fire of any size start from lightning strikes. However, this was in the days when forest management took place. Timber stands that were starting to deteriorate and cause tinder on the forest floor were harvested. Salvage harvests took place that removed large woody material. Environmentalist caused the stoppage of pretty much ALL harvest operations about 20 years ago. Much of The Asbestos Forest burnt last year.
Well sure, I'll buy your conclusion that more people are living in areas that flood but that does not mean that an increase in extreme rainfall events are not causing flooding: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/human-impact-extreme-weather-charts/ Or that billion dollar disasters that were one one in a hundred year events are now more common: https://www.popsci.com/hurricane-extreme-charts-climate-change Sorry some of these charts are a little dated but the tread is clear. I'm not sure what CC - ND did with the economic data but: The chart you show for inflation corrected costs only shows authors calculations beside the NOAA citation. Can you link to the page whete CC - NY shows the calcs? All the time I can speng today but clearly you have an interest in disproving or discrediting the world's climate scientists beyond all the usual lame mockery and reused meme's that make up the denialspere's expertise on the subject. Are you suggesting that the world is not warming or merely that we need not be concerned about it?
Remember this thread wasn't about climate change until you and a couple of others made it that way. Which is fine. What I am saying is that our economic system, which requires constant growth and consumption to keep it working, is not compatable with a planet that is a closed system in terms of land and resources. The current capitalist system we ate labouring under is simply exhausting the planet and making it uninhabitable for an increasing number of species. And don't forget that we are as dependent on stable ecosystems and healthy environment as any other species. That does not mean the global capitalist economy cannot be fixed or changed but going back to my original question in the op, is this even possible given the political will we display in the world?
Unlikely, since you brought up human emissions in your first post. Constant growth and consumption describes every species on the planet. Which countries pollute less: capitalist ones or socialist/other ones? What economy solves human (and all species) nature?
I already explained that we're dealing with poor historical data as early as the 1970's. You see, there were no computers really to track any of that data. That means the data we have was stored in binders. Events which didn't impact humans in their 5 fold population increase over 100 years were probably not recorded at all. I already addressed your "billion dollar" events. Link is here: http://theconversation.com/are-catastrophic-disasters-striking-more-often-83599 What's a billion 1980 dollars adjusted for inflation? Over 3 billion. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ Global precipitation totals haven't been going up in any meaningful way, sorry. If the total precipitation is not up, then that means it's not raining "harder" to cause disasters. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jgrd.50212
When I was a kid in grade school back in the 70s, I had a hippy moonbeam teacher that was always harping about the environmental collapse disaster that was imminent. I remember one time she put up a map she had made herself that showed "the flooded Earth". It depicted the coastlines of the US underwater for hundreds of miles inland from their previous coastlines, and Hawaii had disappeared, sunken completely beneath the waves. A girl in the class started crying, because her grandmother lived in Hawaii. The dumb hippie teacher told us that the Earth was basically guaranteed to look like that by the year 2000 because of "industrial pollution". I hope that lady at least had the decency to feel shame and regret as she looked back on her teaching career of filling children's head with frightening bullcrap. Probably not. In the year 2000, she was probably showing the same map to her nurses in the retirement home, and warning them what was in store for them by the year 2012. Chicken Little asshats.
The average person does not see? Inuit in the north have been describing the changes in climate including loss of permafrost for decades. Perhaps you are just not paying attention or are buying into the fossil fuel industry propaganda over climate change. "If there's one thing the Northwest is known for – even more than coffee and Twin Peaks – it's water. Specifically, rain and in higher elevations, snow. But with the climate changing and temperatures rising, the snow on those white-capped mountains is melting quicker and sooner than ever before, with the potential to alter the water cycle throughout the region. With warmer days, snowpack in the Cascade Mountains, which range from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California, has decreased by about 20 percent since around 1950. In some areas, snowmelts are now beginning up to 30 days earlier than normal, which affects the timing of when and how streams flow -- and can increase competition for water downstream. The effects spill throughout the region. With less water running down mountain streams in summers, scientists expect less water will become available to power the region's hydroelectric dams. And because the Northwest generates 40 percent of the nation's hydropower, there could be real economic consequences in the region and beyond." Forests, which make up nearly 50 percent of the Northwest landscape, have experienced a surge in wildfires in recent years partly due to the climate crisis. Oregon and Washington had their most severe wildfire season in 2015 when more than 3,800 fires burned more than 1,600,000 acres. https://globalnews.ca/news/4406900/forest-fires-forest-management/ Why the jump in wildfires that year? The first six months of 2015 were the warmest Oregon and Washington witnessed since record keeping began. There was also less precipitation, which led to poor snowpack and reduced streamflow throughout the winter and spring seasons. These dry changes made it more likely for forests to catch fire when lightning struck – which it did, 51,019 times between June 1 and September 15, 2015. https://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/regional_information/ca-and-western-states.html Forest fires are caused 100% by lack of forest management? Nothing to do with longer warmer seasons? What about all that dead pine from beetles that are no longer killed off by the cold winters we used to get? Sure forest practices need to be rethought in a warming climate but to suggest that everything is normal and we just need to look at forest practices is just ignoring the science You are doing the same thing that so many people who ignore the science do. Find anything that discounts climate change from fossil fuel emissions and make that the cause rather than even contemplating what all the science is telling us which is dismissed out of hand.: "The phenomenon isn’t just in Western Canada, says Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at the University of Alberta. He points out fires around the world this year have been “head and shoulders above the previous record.” “There’s been deadly fires and historic fires in Chile, Portugal – twice – and California,” Flannigan said in an interview. “It’s been quite a devastating year globally and the California fires will be the most expensive … (with) tens of billions in losses.” “Hotter, drier weather means our fuels are drier, so it’s easier for fires to start and spread and burn more intensely,” said University of Alberta fire scientist Mike Flannigan. It’s simple, he said: “The warmer it is, the more fire we see.” Federal fire and weather data show higher air temperatures are turbocharging fire season. The five hottest Aprils to Septembers out West produced years that on average burned more than 13,500 square miles (35,000 square kilometres), according to data at the National Interagency Fire Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration." https://globalnews.ca/news/4397612/...ocharging-wildfires-in-western-united-states/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4406900/forest-fires-forest-management/ And while the Ocean may feel cold to you, in fact they are absorbing far more heat than even the early models predicted: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-oceans-are-heating-up-faster-than-expected/ Our subjective impressions that nothing has changed mean nothing. The science is telling us what is really happening for those who are willing to look past the corporate propaganda and look at the truth. Just because we had a cold spell last winter or you think the ocean is cold does not mean warming is not happening or it is not something we need to worry about.
