The climate change thread

[child of Thor]

"For me, nature is where we live, our home. It provides us sustenence. So it's in our best interests to protect it, cuz we can't live withtout it." - Che

And at the momment were not close to having the luxery of a viable other planet to live on if we mess this one up, so maybe we should be more carefull? For the forseable future if we mess this one up so we cant live on it anymore, then we're just going to be a small footnote on this planets evolutionary journey.

but hey who cares? Lets just keep killing of species and habitiats untill our great-grand children inherit a lifeless+toxic dust bal, they will think of us fondly for leaving them that legacy

but then who cares what they will think about us, we'll be long dead?
while i think about it, in this frame of mind why care about anything - i just want to take what i want when i want and f**k everyone else. Heck i might even give up my job and become a thief - stealing other peoples stuff has got to be easier than working for it right? etc etc

If you cant care about our one planet, why care about anything else?(to no-one in particular, or everyone) Its all about your mental attitude if the human race is going to survive or not imho - which i dont care about one way or another as its going to be our choices that decide our fate.

But i kinda dont like the selfishness that goes with it when we will be taking every other living thing with us when we go. Its not like they are being given a choice over their eventual doom

[Immortal Wombat]

In a vague attempt to drag this topic back to a generalised climate change thread, I found this article a good opportunity to laugh at Michael Crighton.

Do you ever read that line on an early page of a novel: "Any connection between the characters and events herein portrayed, and real people, is purely coincidental."

In Michael Crichton's State of Fear, I'd say the connection was purely intentional. It's about the kind of hurricanes, floods, tsunamis and tornadoes we've been experiencing. Crichton's trade is to bring pleasurable terror to millions by spinning tales of science gone amok - as in Jurassic Park and the Andromeda Strain.

In this new bestseller those hurricanes etc aren't natural disasters at all. They are the creations of global warming activists - eco-maniacs desperate to publicise the case for controlling emissions of carbon dioxide. To make sure you get his point, Crichton adds a 32-page footnote documenting his own conviction that global warming is an unscientific scare.

[chequita guevara]

Crichton has claimed scientists are idiots since the Andromeda Strain. One has to wonder if Chrichton lives like Ted Kaszinski, or if he uses the fruits of the very scientists he dismisses.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Crichton has claimed scientists are idiots since the Andromeda Strain. One has to wonder if Chrichton lives like Ted Kaszinski, or if he uses the fruits of the very scientists he dismisses.

As I recall it, the only stupid scientist in the Andromeda Strain. was that one who forgot to tell about his disease and of course those that thinks the best cure for a problem is a nuke.

[chequita guevara]

That's because you are thinking about the characters, and not part of the story. There's a section where he describes a conference and and they show a slide that the researcher claims has 23 sets of genes on it. It doesn't, but everyone in the audience accepts it, where upon the character makes a point about the heard-like mentality of scientists.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by Odin





This world needs a LOT less people, I'm thinking as low as 500 million.

ok, do your bit and kill yourself, then the rest of us will have a think about it.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That's because you are thinking about the characters, and not part of the story. There's a section where he describes a conference and and they show a slide that the researcher claims has 23 sets of genes on it. It doesn't, but everyone in the audience accepts it, where upon the character makes a point about the heard-like mentality of scientists.

Well, it's a couple or more years since I last read it, so I don't have the details present.

Anyway, could it be related to

What about the contrary worldwide consensus of scientists that global warming is a man-made disaster in the making? Crichton's answer: "If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus." As I suppose in the old consensus that the earth is flat.

IW referred to ? That is, science is based on facts, not consus ?

[Odin]

Originally posted by C0ckney


ok, do your bit

I am, I ain't having kids.

[Sandman]

Ugh. That's why I hate using analogies to prove a point, it just turns into a useless argument about the finer points of the analogy. Can you explain why you think "scale doesn't matter" is wrong without analogies?

If you think big, you make big mistakes.

In reality these two views are not simple "if then" statements but have additional different assumptions. For example, you can make the "should" version consistent(or at least make the paradox harder to find ) by adding that the lives of aggressors are not sacred. You can do the same to the "should not" version by adding some sort of "turn the other cheek" philosophy.

The point is that the ethical systems are not identical, they only seem to be so because you simplified them to similar(and misleading) "if then" statements, and therefore it is not surprising that their conclusions are different too.

You could find somebody who agrees with every single tenet of your ethical system, and they'd still disagree about the best time to raze the rainforests to the ground. They could simply have a different interpretation of the science and economics of the situation, 'assumptions' yes, but not moral ones.

The first is that humans have value in themselves. So we should keep more humans than striving for 100% efficiency would allow, as long as it is not too hard.

The second is that while keeping the 6Bth human alive is harder than keeping the 5Bth, a world with 6B people offers more options for technological improvement than a world with 5B people.
In the same way that you cannot really have expert carpenters in a nomad hunter-gatherer tribe, you could not sustain, say, our electronics industry in Imperial Rome even if the technology was available.
As our science and technology improve, specialization increases and smaller worlds will suffer because of that.
Another good example would be a space program.

So while in a 6B people world it will still be harder to sustain the 6Bth person than the 5Bth person, it will be easier(or at least, not much harder) than to sustain the 5Bth person in a 5B people world.

The space program is a terrible example. It reached its height when the population of the world was what, three or four billion? Now, it's a shadow of its former self.

Spawning extra mouths to feed will entail an ever increasing burden on the human race, making a space program (and other technological innovations) ever more difficult to fund.

The idea that six billion people can sustain a technological base much higher than five billion holds no water. A good chunk of the world's people are subsistence farmers who make a scant contribution to science and technology, and it's they who are the main source of population growth.

Well, that's bad. A small world misses out a lot of the fun.

A large world is too fat to reach for the stars.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Sandman

A large world is too fat to reach for the stars.

Yep, I read that it would take 3 to 4 whole earths to give all the world's poulation a standard of living equivalent to Americans and Western Europeans. That is why we must reduce our population numbers before we wreck the planet.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Sandman

A large world is too fat to reach for the stars.

Quite right. Humans has just acted naturally multiplying just as any other species would have done. We are just too damn effective and adaptive because of our power to use technology and resources.

As long as we aren't capable to go beyond this planet we are far too many people - 2-3 bill would be reasonable.

I think that we should keep all nonessential areas as wilderness just as they are now as long as possible - even return cultivated areas to wilderness if applicable.

I know that this may seem to be contraditionary to what I have earlier stated, but it isn't.

What I previously stated was that humans is a natural specimen with one main purpose - survival and multiplying (ouch - sounds religious, but I can guarntee that it isn't - I think religion is the worst thing that has happend to humanity ). As such an entity, it's quite normal that humans settles and destroys whatever they meet. Though, beeing sentinent, it is also obvious that such an settle and destroy strategy isn't what serves humans best.

There are lots of reasons to keep rainforests etc both for its planetary benefits, but also for it's medicla/chemical benefits.

Whats important is that we maintain these areas for these reasons, and not for reasons such as "we hurt the ecology of the planet" - humans are a natural part of this planets ecology - we may be a catastrophe to it, but that doesn't change a bit - nature is totally ignorant to what survives and what gets extinct.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Sandman
If you think big, you make big mistakes.

That's a reason to think carefully, not to think small.

You could find somebody who agrees with every single tenet of your ethical system, and they'd still disagree about the best time to raze the rainforests to the ground. They could simply have a different interpretation of the science and economics of the situation, 'assumptions' yes, but not moral ones.

How is that unique to "my" system?
Every ideology, moral system and type of government has it's own internal disagreements and it's own methods to solve them.

The space program is a terrible example. It reached its height when the population of the world was what, three or four billion? Now, it's a shadow of its former self.

I never said that population size is the only factor. Of course you could take a world of geniuses where everyone have PHds in various subjects and they'll end up with much better technology than a world that has thrice as many people but all of them are illiterate peasants.

In the space program example other factors came into play.
But look what nations can get humans to space, one modern superpower, one ex-superpower(both have or had large population bases) and one gigantic future superpower. In the less complex unmanned launches field, the vast majority of players are large, rich nations. IIRC Israel is the only small country with independent launch capability and we have very unique circumstances.

Spawning extra mouths to feed will entail an ever increasing burden on the human race, making a space program (and other technological innovations) ever more difficult to fund.

That's just repeating what you said in the previous post.

The idea that six billion people can sustain a technological base much higher than five billion holds no water. A good chunk of the world's people are subsistence farmers who make a scant contribution to science and technology, and it's they who are the main source of population growth.

The situation does not have to be this way and I never said that it should be this way.

I can use the same argument against you: We're losing population in the most productive, advanced areas, therefore a small world will be less advanced.
That's a fallacious argument since you didnt claim the more advanced areas are those that need to lose population and you might be unhappy about the present situation.

A large world is too fat to reach for the stars.

A large world is the only world that can reach the stars.

Odin:

Yep, I read that it would take 3 to 4 whole earths to give all the world's poulation a standard of living equivalent to Americans and Western Europeans. That is why we must reduce our population numbers before we wreck the planet.

Would you mind reading the whole thread? You keep making points which were already answered and I even had a question directed at you somewhere in the depths of the first pages.

And it would be more exact to say that "it would take 3 to 4 whole earths to give all the world's poulation a standard of waste equivalent to Americans and Western Europeans".

We can maintain the same(or at least only slightly lower) standard of living with a much lower ecological footprint. There is no doubt that having another 2 billion people living as wastefully as us westerners will do more damage than good.
But the solution is to live more efficiently and thus both avoid the perils of environmental damage and enjoy the benefits of a large civilization.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by C0ckney
ok, do your bit and kill yourself, then the rest of us will have a think about it.

Dying is not a radical act - everyone does it eventually.

[child of Thor]

So what is with this weird weather pattern were getting in the uk? Last week it was bitterly cold, everyone was saying "winters here" and now its a balmy 20 degrees and sticky at night. In that cold 'snap' the other week i was at home and witnessed a wierd weather event i'd never seen in my previous 30 years of noticing the weather

It was fine one momment, then in about 20 seconds(the time it took me to get off Dagerfall, rush to my bedroom window to close it, then rush to the second bedroom to close that and then to get into the living room to close the patio door) i was in a white out watching the trees outside blowing nearly horizontal.

After closing the patio door, i was left looking in bemusement at the heap of large(about the size of a marble(10mm across?)) hailstones that had collected in the corner of my living room before i had had a chance to close that door. Just 20 odd seconds. And as i watched the show outside, i saw birds zipping by across the sky like jet planes - blown horizontal out of control. This mad weather lasted for about 2 minutes in total, and after it it was still again, just the sound of all the car alarms going off - i guess being triggerd either by the batering of the hail or from being shaken by the winds?

I've never seen anything like it in the uk before, and i've lived in some wild and windy costal places. Could it have been a small tornado or something like it?

[child of Thor]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4362760.stm

So when are the people responsible for these kind of actions around the world, going to realise all the money in the world will mean sh*t when you got no world left to spend it in?

Do you think i can place a bet down the bookies that it will be "too late"?