I think one should go nuclear, like France has mostly done. It is stupid to be buying gas from Russia (who is our enemy) and buying everything else from China (who is also our enemy). This sort of thing should be done anyway, regardless of any climate change issues.
Oil is needed for lots of stuff anyway (plastics, etc).
gallois wrote:
there is one thing I can be pretty sure of and that is that the politicians will agree with A_A whilst doing little or nothing as the LeSving and Archer-181 camp would have them do.
I’m afraid you are right.
LeSving wrote:
The above graph (and corresponding explanation) is straight from the lions mouth. From climate scientists themselves doing climate research.
I don’t doubt that your graph is correct. Neither was my other example – that of global temperatures decreasing from 1997 – factually incorrect. They did. The thing is that in both cases you look at tiny pieces of fact and take it to be the whole truth, while overlooking all other facts. That is the essence of cherry picking.
Regarding the discussion about the reason for climate change I’d like to point out what really is the definition of an Ice Age:
From Wikipedia
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth’s surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth’s climate alternates between ice ages and greenhouse periods, during which there are no glaciers on the planet. Earth is currently in the Quaternary glaciation. Individual pulses of cold climate within an ice age are termed glacial periods (or, alternatively, glacials, glaciations, glacial stages, stadials, stades, or colloquially, ice ages), and intermittent warm periods within an ice age are called interglacials or interstadials.
In glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. By this definition, Earth is currently in an interglacial period—the Holocene. The amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted into Earth’s oceans and atmosphere is predicted to prevent the next glacial period for the next 500,000 years, which otherwise would begin in around 50,000 years, and likely more glacial cycles after.
In other words, we still are in an Ice Age and will be as long as there are glaciers on the planet. We do not have the measurement capabilities to obtain the velocity of reduction of amount of ice on the Earth’s poles after (one of the last) ice age(s). It is not there anymore, and obtaining this information from other sources (like land elevation, sea salinity or main sea level) is next to impossible. So we cannot know whether the current rise in temperature is “normal”, in terms of earth climate.
What we can do is estimate the influence on man-released energy and gasses on the atmosphere. And put this in relation with, well, anything the earth does, like a vulcanic eruption, and much more important, the amount of solar energy entering earth’s atmosphere.
And then, after reading and studying all these figures I conclude myself that there persists a man-made influence on earth’s climate. However the estimate whether it is significant or insignificant, that depends a lot on what you take into account.
Peter wrote:
Oil is needed for lots of stuff anyway (plastics, etc).
Absolutely. The climate issue aside, it’s insane to waste a limited resource on energy production where it can be replaced when it is necessary for other things where it can not be replaced.
I’m a bit tired of this “I have studied the issue” reasoning. Would you accept laymen without any understanding on flight operations to decide on airline SOPs or make policies on aviation safety? No? Why then do you think that people who are not climate scientists are in a position to decide whether antropogenic climate change is real or not?
That’s by the way the essence of Greta Thunberg’s message. “Listen to the scientists.” I do.
(Yes, I know that there are scientists with an opposing view. Most are not climate scientists, but some are. They are a tiny minority, though.)
Airborne_Again wrote:
Absolutely. The climate issue aside, it’s insane to waste a limited resource on energy production where in can be replaced when it is necessary for other things where it can not be replaced.
That’s another topic much more important than climate debate, I think. We really have to limit polluting the earth and all this overproduction, because the impact on nature and plurality of life is huge. I don’t want to have the earth like a dirtbag for the next generations, that would not be fair.
I would argue that Greta Thunberg has totally undermined any scientific argument.
Peter wrote:
I would argue that Greta Thunberg has totally undermined any scientific argument.
And how might that be?
If you travel countries such as India you will see mountains of bales of plastic bottles.
Many of these come from wealthy western nations.
That’s quite apart from what is washed ashore on India’s beaches every day.
Technology needs to find useful ways of using this waste plastic without producing CO2 or other forms of greenhouse or toxic gases.
That is one major challenge which needs to be addressed IMO before attacking air travel. And we could see the results.
A second place we could see results is air quality, especially in large cities. Improved air quality in such cities could drastically reduce asthma in children and lead to a better lifestyle.
Again we could see for ourselves whether or not our actions were matched by results and a byproduct, so to speak would be reduced CO and CO2 emissions. IMO this would have a far quicker and greater effect both on quality of life and on the planet than trying to turn everyone Vegan. At the same time it wouldn’t really cost the economy of.various countries anywhere near what closing airlines would cost.
For me extinction rebellion and many other environmental groups are some of the biggest contributors to this toxicity.
