Global warming

[Frank]

I strongly disagree with that.

You don't need people holding stupid, idiotic viewpoints to have a diversity of views. If we could do away with the zombie lie that AGW science is unreliable, our world would be a far, far better place. The same is true if we could do away with a wide variety of other superstitious or anti-science views. This would absolutely not eliminate all disagreement: there are a wide variety of views that are simply not up to the evidence (such as whether pizza tastes better than hamburgers), and there are a large number of things where the evidence is not yet settled. Plus even if we could be transported to a magical world where everybody could be convinced based upon evidence (unlike Frank and corduroygt), people would still be routinely mistaken due to a lack of knowledge.

So no, idiocy does not serve a useful function at all. There will be diversity with or without idiocy. And if we got rid of the stupid viewpoints, we could have much better discussions between competing intelligent ones.

And who's ideas would prevail, hm? Yours? You want to be dictator for life and kill all disbelievers? Like, the Spanish Inquisition?

Most dictators try to kill all intellectuals, as they make things difficult to run. Differing opinions are punishable by death!

Here is a hint: become a Muslim, and emigrate to Saudi Arabia. You will never be irritated by disbelievers ever again, as they simply receive the death sentence without much hassle.

And remember to be faithful at all times, or the same might happen to you!

 

[Frank]

We can only hope you're one of the ones that die off.

-FUDie

Are you very democratic? Or only as long as there's just a single party, which you happen to support?

 

[3dilettante]

... and strangely enough, many new species and/or breeds will come into existence as well. That's how things happen.

The timeframes are not necessarily equivalent. For more complex life forms, the rate of speciation can be much lower than the rate of extinction.

So, no, I don't agree that we will be responsible for the extinction of many (or even most) species.

There is a significant number of higher-order animals and plants whose numbers seem to contradict this.

Because I don't think we have that power. And even if the global climate change (with or without human influence) would be responsible for extincting many species, we should rejoice in the knowledge and cataloguing of all the new ones that will emerge.

Darwin recorded a large variety of species in his research that spanned a few years. The full variety likely took thousands of years to come about.
It isn't a meaningful distinction from the point of view of mortal biologists that there will be a new species of gazelle 75,000 years from now.

The amount of biomass won't change to any significant degree, whatsoever, even if the main lifeforms turn out to be humans, yeast, fungi and cockroaches.

You have outlined a biosphere whose dominant biomass is composed of heterotrophs.
There is a fundamental problem with that.

 

[Frank]

How many times do I have to repeat mysel here, i your button doesn't work how can you tell people to uck o?

N prblm.

OT: Can anyone actually tell me i AGW is correctly orecasted, that alongside the increase in the overall population, that we can avert mass starvation, the collapse o sane governance and the decline o marginal populations in Arica and Asia?

Well, if Heaven actually existed and everyone would live happily there, the total destruction of the Earth might do it.

Otherwise, no. Many people will die of horrible diseases every day, rivers will overflow and flood houses, hurricanes and earthquakes will destroy lots of property every year. Children die all the time!!!

And even if you can circumvent all that, you still die! Where's the fulfilment in that? You lose, any way. All you have is an undefined amount of time, and how you spend it.

And even that is predefined! It's all in your genes and upbringing, there is no free will. The Laws of Nature will see to that. They're your ultimate jury, judge and executioner.

It's simply unfair!



Exactly. :smile:

 

[corduroygt]

Wouldn't the military force necessary for forcing 5.6+ billion people into reducing their carbon emissions require some pretty large tax increases?

Who cares about reducing our carbon emissions? The military's job is to secure new resources for us if (that's a huge IF) our current resources get threatened by the effects of AGW.

 

[Frank]

I think the main issue here is that we can mitigate how bad it gets. But it's going to get pretty bad no matter what we do. We can just hope that we don't manage to hit a tipping point that pushes the Earth into an entirely different climate.

And you would tell me that extreme consumption has been our downfall, right?

Hmmm, but you would tell us that anyway, no matter what happens, and even use the exact same arguments!

Ehhhhhh..... help?

 

[Frank]

What the fuck? This doesn't even make any sense. We hardly compete for resources against other life on this planet. Nearly all vertebrate life on land works for us!

Eh, it's like the more energy we have available individually, the higher our possibilities and enjoyment in life are. In that context, money equals energy/possibilities.

If you don't agree to that, I recommend going to an uninhabited island with a group of friends, and burn all your possessions when you get there.

 

[Frank]

ope his seteces are perfectly fie.
I do believe energy/resource use and amount of population are almost tangential issues.

we did use to support populations and large cities in pre industrial time, for instance France had half the current population in year 1800 and no or little fossil fuel use, ancient Rome was pretty huge.

old world stuff is actually damn unbeatably efficient! you feed your horse with some plants, then exploit it for mechanical work and travel, feed some other plants with horseshit and when you're done with it you eat the horse. you make paper from hemp - less resource use, good crop rotation or land use, no pollution and higher quality. you feed hen with grain and get eggs and shit back. then the hen itself.
"green fuels" and "bio-engineering" are laughable in comparison.

Exactly, electricity from a wall socket, a fridge, washing machine and dishwasher are far bigger boons than most people grok.

 

[Frank]

Just changing fuels in cars to keep things just as convenient won't cut it I'm afraid, because there's not enough resources to build one or more cars for every human being on the planet even if we could run the cars on plain untreated seawater, along with all the other stuff people expect in a convenient soceity. Simply the need for raw materials and the stress the processes of extracting and refining them into products puts on the biosphere will become prohibitive quite quickly.

We're gonna have to make sacrifices, just accept and get used to the idea now and it won't be so bothersome for oyu when the day comes.

So, we need more raw materials and energy. If we can't find those on Earth, there's far more of all of that in outer space than we could possibly need, ever.

 

[3dilettante]

Who cares about reducing our carbon emissions? The military's job is to secure new resources for us if (that's a huge IF) our current resources get threatened by the effects of AGW.

The US military at the height of the Iraq surge was at an unsustainable deployment level.
The Afghan deployment must inescapably be drawn down for similar reasons.

How have the prices of crucial commodities fared in that time period, since that is the best that the military could muster?

If it were a matter of taking gold from tombs or slaves, the military could provide.
Materials that require advanced infrastructure and sustained supply lines do not yield well through military operations, not at the rate that a sedentary and massive modern economy would require.

It sort of worked for a few generations for empires forged by steppe nomads.
It worked for ever-shortening periods of time for modern industrialized nations.
Germany and Japan in the middle of last century are recent examples of active military procurement.

 

[Frank]

See above. You've just demonstrated how ignorant you are. Again.

Jesus! Can we stop the personal insults and religion here? I'm far more intelligent than you, but do you ever see me use that against you? I do try to respect you anyway.

 

[Frank]

The liberals will just continue to take more money away from the middle class to give it to the poor who are pumping out babies left and right and don't forget the lovely anchor babys .

Lets nto forget that as population grows there are less and less jobs to go around compared to the increase in people .

Ah, I had the distinct impression that was the Republicans doing so, but I'm probably wrong.

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[3dilettante]

So, we need more raw materials and energy. If we can't find those on Earth, there's far more of all of that in outer space than we could possibly need, ever.

Most of it is in places we will be fortunate to ever reach, much less return from.
In other situations, capture and transport would be over distances and volumes far greater than could be profitable (economically, or just in raw expense/return).

A society that can somehow survive from skimming from asteriods or the moon is one massively beyond the current energy problems humanity faces, and likely one much smaller.

 

[Frank]

The time has come for all manner of drastic action(s) and thats many times plural.
..

Seriously, drastic action??!?

Eh, why?

I mean, there's an endless list of things humanity has done over the millennia, for good or bad, depending on many criteria. What makes the amount of CO2 so special?

I'm really curious, as I could name many things I consider having a higher impact to any kind of artificially defined system.

Like, by increasing all that CO2, at the least we didn't turn the whole world into a Sahara desert by chopping down all the trees. Which is what we did before finding oil and burning all those hydrocarbons.

Or, in other words: burning oil was the best thing we did for the health of Mother Nature at the time we started doing so.

If you abhor it, at least come up with a good alternative!

 

[Frank]

Unfortunately, too many people in the US feel the way corduroygt feels. They simply won't accept or just flat out ignore the consequences of their actions.

Yes, and so do just about all people in India, China and Africa. And rightfully so! Better standards of living for everyone! Do we go in, guns blazing, to make sure they don't, or do we come up with a better alternative?

Like someone (I forgot who) said: it's like having a hundred slaves at your disposal by turning a switch. And we all do.

Would you want to give that up?

 

[Frank]

Indeed. The ignorant heartless bastard caucus is entirely too powerful and numerous in the US.

Ah, so that's why you live in Italy?

 

[Frank]

Um, nobody is asking you too.

Well, nobody is asking you, either, but you still give us your opinion.

 

[Frank]

Indeed, makes my skin crawl reading some of the comments in here.

Agreed. But we probably don't agree.

 

[Frank]

The timeframes are not necessarily equivalent. For more complex life forms, the rate of speciation can be much lower than the rate of extinction.

"Can be". You mean, the unsuccessful ones? As in: measured by the average time the species roamed the Earth, and/or the total amount of bionass amassed in that species for a period of time?

There is a significant number of higher-order animals and plants whose numbers seem to contradict this.

So, you are beyond doubt sure that we caused the effect? That will be an interesting discussion.

Darwin recorded a large variety of species in his research that spanned a few years. The full variety likely took thousands of years to come about.
It isn't a meaningful distinction from the point of view of mortal biologists that there will be a new species of gazelle 75,000 years from now.

So, you're saying that most species only exists for a short period of time, and if we don't make sure they keep on existing anyway, it's our fault they die out?

You have outlined a biosphere whose dominant biomass is composed of heterotrophs.
There is a fundamental problem with that.

Not really, as everything else can be many different kinds and species of plants, and most of the food consumed by humans can be engineered (and for that you would want the yeast and fungi). It won't exist for long, and won't grow naturally, but might make up the bulk of the biomass if we had really many people living on this planet we needed to feed.

 

[Frank]

Most of it is in places we will be fortunate to ever reach, much less return from.
In other situations, capture and transport would be over distances and volumes far greater than could be profitable (economically, or just in raw expense/return).

A society that can somehow survive from skimming from asteriods or the moon is one massively beyond the current energy problems humanity faces, and likely one much smaller.

Ah, I expect you're assuming all those transports are launched from Earth, and all the resources are returned there.

Why would we do so? The Earth is but a tiny speck, considering the vastness of the whole Universe. A simple asteroid could destroy all life on it! Let alone a sun going nova in the vicinity, or whatever cosmic cataclysm you desire.