[gurneyHaleck]

Sometimes I get the feeling that those who control industries that profit from climate-altering human behavior believe that it's okay to alter the climate, because whatever they have caused, they will assuredly be able to override, and undo, through similar force of will.

Too hot? Cooling something is easy! Block out the sun, somehow, until things cool off!

Too cold? Simple! Pump up those greenhouse gases again! Earth has a thermostat, and it's easy to mess with!

I think this is why there's so much willful ignorance and obfuscation, deliberately muddying the waters. They want control, and no one else must tamper or meddle with such grand designs.

Of course, the world is larger than they are. And what if they aren't around to help fix what they've ruined.

It seems their answer is:

  If *WE'RE* dead, who fucking cares about the rest?

[zaroth]

I think it's more likely they just don't believe anything they are doing is at a scale that could actually have any measurable effect.

The magnitude of the theoretically required changes in consumption to impact global climate, and therefore the extraordinary cost to humanity to make those changes in consumption, are so inconceivable that given our relatively pathetic understanding of the climate history of our planet, let alone the complex systems that result in said climate, skeptics simply aren't yet willing to commit massive resources to try to alter world climate with currently available tools.

There is also a strong belief that scientific progress will continue to reduce the cost of the "necessary changes" enough orders of magnitude so that we can get to the point where we don't have to start wars or injure billions of people in order to move the vanity metrics the specified amounts.

It's not really "who the fuck cares how the planet ends up, I'll be dead by then anyway" but rather, "in 100 years our science will be so advanced that we'll look back on early 21st century efforts to 'save the climate' and just laugh, and shake our heads at what a waste of resources it all was."

[kitsune_]

See, the thing is we don't have 100 years left, because despite what the skeptics might think, climate science is a mature science.

Fourier realized back in 1824, that solar radiation alone is not enough to warm earth to its temperature levels. The effective temperature of earth is around -20°C. Absorption and emission characteristics of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are also well understood, as is the makeup of the atmosphere.

The IPCC's carbon budget for having a 66% chance of staying below 2°C degrees of warming is 1000 billion tons of CO2 starting at 2011. We've already blown 20% of this budget by 2016. We currently emit around 40 billion tons of CO2 per year.

IF developing nations peaked their CO2 emissions in 2025 and then would ramp up mitigation to 10% of emission reduction per annum in 2035, the west would STILL need to start cutting emissions by 10% a year RIGHT NOW and be fully decarbonised in 2035.

You can't engineer your way out of this. The logical, painful and horrible conclusion is that we need to have massive reductions in consumption.

For instance, nuclear, it currently provides around 2% of total energy consumption of the world with 450 reactors. Imagine the amount of reactors we would need to build just to make a dent here... You can't build reactors fast enough. The same with wind, renewables and so on.

[zaroth]

Actually it's even easier to do nothing if you throw up your hands and say it won't work anyway.

The earth will warm more than 2°C from "baseline" no matter what. Now the 1 trillion ton additional CO2 is an interesting benchmark, but I would guess staying under it has very little to do with energy consumption, and almost everything to do with advances in carbon-neutral and carbon-negative power generation technologies to be invented and scaled over the next century.

But not generating the power in the first place just isn't a choice. If it's a hard-line ultimatum I think a billion people could die trying to fight/enforce it.

The takeaway from OP is that climate changes. It changes quite dramatically. And it changes with or without humans in the mix. Maybe we need to spend that $100 trillion getting more adaptable to changing climate rather than entertaining some fantasy that we can control Mother Nature within some sliver of a temperature range relative to her broad historical performance.

[mrottenkolber]

You're not being fair to the OP in saying "it's even easier to do nothing if you throw up your hands and say it won't work anyway."

He gave a very clear way out: massively reduce consumption.

[CJefferson]

Nothing like that has ever been tried before, what would "massively reducing consumption" even mean?

Locking people up who turn their heating up too high? Fines for those who eat too many cakes?

I'm being serious -- I can't imagine how such a thing could be enforced, and you certainly can't count on a significant majority of the world reducing their consumption just because it would be good for future generations.

[kitsune_]

There is actually a very simple solution to reduce consumption: The carbon tax.

Massively reducing consumption means, for instance: * Eating less meat * Frequent flyers massively reducing long haul flights across the world * Getting rid of energy inefficient appliances, such as old refrigerators

Seriously, the pareto principle applies here to, most of the emissions come from a small percentage of people.

If you think about these things from a carbon budget perspective: Whenever you take a flight you effectively rob the poorest of the world of the possibility to use fossil fuels as a way to increase their welfare.

A 2 degrees increase will kill a lot of people. And this will only get worse with a 4 degrees increase. And it will disproportionally effect the poorest of the world. An average warming of 4 degrees means massive warming of the land surface across the globe (Much more than 4 degrees, since most of the earth's surface is covered by water).

The heat wave of 2003 killed tens of thousands in developed Europe. Imagine the heat waves we will get in a 4 degrees world. Our infrastructure is not built for this. Our asphalt roads, train tracks, water pipes, emergency services will all struggle with this. A city like London has maybe food for 3 days.

[Scarblac]

In the war you could only get certain items by handing over a coupon, each family got a fixed number of them.

Should be done for fossil fuel.

[Gravityloss]

On the contrary, consumption changing both ways, growing and shrinking has happened quite often in history.

[svantana]

Pretty much everyone in the civilized world profit from or take part in climate-altering behavior. No need to call out a fictional "them" -- it's us doing it. Shaming the people with disproportionate control of the means of production can have some effect, but it's much more efficient and fair to correct everyone's behavior using laws and taxation (e.g. a carbon tax). If we can't get a majority of people behind such measures, which we probably can't until it gets much worse, then people are wilfully in denial.

[DennisP]

There are plenty of people who want a revenue-neutral carbon tax, including a majority of voters in the U.S. [1]. The fossil industry lobbies heavily against it, and is getting heavy representation in the new president's cabinet, so it's not likely to happen. They also pay for tobacco-style fake research to convince people that climate change isn't actually a problem. I think it's fair to lay the blame at their doors.

[1] https://thinkprogress.org/60-percent-of-americans-support-a-...

[riprowan]

I'm going to take a very unpopular position in the name of rational discussion in the hopes that this forum can hear the message.

For the record, I am of the opinion that anthropogenic warming is real. However, I think it's wise and even scientific to be skeptical of solutions implemented primarily because "we have to do something" in the absence of diligent logical and cost-benefit analysis, which I'm not sure has always been communicated to the public.

Here are the assumptions you must accept in order to go from "hey, it appears the Earth is warming and it looks like it's mankind's fault" (a statement I think most everyone can agree with) to "here is the plan for action."

Some of these assumptions are fairly solid, others maybe not so much. Some are quite controversial, intentionally, to stimulate discussion. I will reiterate my intent here is not to be a denialist but to present the argument of a stone-cold realist.

1. Assumption: we can accurately measure whether the earth is getting warmer or not.

This requires us to accept that the proxy data (ice core samples, tree rings, etc.) are sufficiently reliable to provide a good baseline for comparison on geologic scales, and that the timeline of climate change data that these sources provide is adequately large to be meaningful. (1,000 years versus 1 billion, for example)

I think most people here will agree that the proxy data are good.

Now that you’ve proven that the Earth is in fact getting warmer, we have to ask if

2. We can accurately assess the cost and benefit of global warming

Perhaps global warming produces net long term benefits to humankind. Humans tend to alwayss adopt a "change is bad" posture - however, with climate, "change is inevitable."

I know this is a very controversial hypothesis - most people wouldn't dare to ask the question - but we must. Why should we assume that the current global temperature is optimal for life on Earth or even human habitability? We might find that a warmer planet is quite beneficial. If so, we need not bother with solutions, as there is no problem. It's my opinion that the science to date seems content with "any change is bad" but in my opinion that is weak science.

But that's not my axe to grind. Let's assume the analysis is correct, and that global warming produces a net cost to society in general. Now, we need to determine if

3. We can accurately assess man’s contributions to global warming

Here is a significant problem for science to solve. It is likely that at least some of the warming we are experiencing is due to non-anthropogenic forces. Should policies be put into place that try to offset these as well as the anthropogenic sources of warming? We ought to have at least some good idea by how much is mankind warming the planet before we put in place policies to offset it.

I'm not sure we really understand that, but let's say we do. Now the question becomes how well...

4. We can accurately model and predict how changes to man’s behavior will affect the warming trend

Many changes have been proposed with obvious economic and social consequences. How will those changes affect global warming? Is it conceivable that we might overshoot? Or perhaps the combined effect of available changes is completely negligible. If we don’t know the impact of a particular change, then we’re really just shooting in the dark.

Let’s assume we can, in fact, measure the impact of particular changes on the climate. Now, we must presume

5. That we can meaningfully lower man’s impact on the climate through a coordinated global effort

Perhaps we discover a few changes that, if made, would reduce or eliminate man’s effect on the climate. Could these changes be implemented globally? It is unlikely that a few local changes would have significant impact, and global changes are very hard to implement.

Let’s assume #1 through #5 are demonstrable. We have now demonstrated that global warming is real, that it is bad, that man is causing it, that there are a set of changes which will result in a meaningful solution, and that these changes are globally feasible. I don't think we know all of those things, and that's a problem, but let's say we do know them.

Now we need to demonstrate to some degree of satisfaction:

6. That the global efforts at combating anthropogenic global warming have a net quality of life and economic benefit around the globe. In other words, the costs of remediation are outweighed by the benefits.

It is entirely possible that humanity could embark on a set of policy changes that would have very bad consequences for humanity while having negligible consequences on climate change. This possibility is greatly increased by a "we have to do something!" mentality.

Again - my argument is not intended to present a denialist story. I actually think that anthropogenic warming is real, I personally support some of the policies to combat it, and I personally try to minimize my impact on the planet in my own small way. My argument is only intended to provoke discussion about the difficulty in responsibly getting from "we have a problem" to "here is the solution."

[jessaustin]

You're on to something here! Very few humans will choose to make their own lives worse for uncertain benefit to humanity as a whole. Thus the climate effort eventually becomes an effort to make the lives of certain other humans worse. Fortunately only a few people have that power to any great degree. They either work out what you have above for themselves or have it explained to them. Sometimes the explanation comes from climate scientists horrified by the prospect of their work being used to make people miserable! The end result is what we see, that nothing ever seems to get done about climate change, other than normal technological advances that would have happened anyway.

[lg]

> Perhaps global warming produces net long term benefits to humankind.

we know the costs of sea level rise: mass displacement of hundreds of millions of people and the destruction of the world's most productive economic centers. there is already a drying trend in the central plains and other large areas of arable land; more warming will lead to mass starvation. The overall consequence is the destruction of most of the world's wealth. but sure, maybe after all that, everything will be better. by the same token maybe a nuclear war will improve things?

[riprowan]

It's entirely possible that everything you say is true, however, the jeering tone and sweeping generalizations are the opposite of the sort of polite, rational discourse that seems to be constantly missing in these discussions.

[lg]

i don't see what's irrational about it. as for polite, excuse me, whether we're warming the earth is an issue that has been discussed quietly and politely for 30 years and evidence for disaster piles up and up. when polio was raging we did not need polite discussion of whether the germ theory of disease is true, the evidence is in and let's get on with it. but mysteriously on this issue where there are powerful economic interests invested in denial, people just want to discuss and discuss and (by the way) do nothing until discussion is over.