There is no Planet B

[thinwater]

It's an ugly situation, no question about it. But no matter what we try, my theory is that over time, we will mine every bit of fossil fuel and burn it. We can slow that down, but eventually we will get to all of it, or all of it for practical purposes. We can try to burn it cleanly, but that still gives CO2. Sequestration? Not happening until everyone in the world has as much money as they want, which won't happen in time.

So what we much consider is adapting. The world will not become uninhabitable, as in some disutopian science fiction. It will become warmer, sea level will rise, and rain distribution will change. The greatest challenge will be distribution of food and wealth required to get the food.

Humans are the dominant species because we can adapt. So let's continue the discussion of what we can do to slow or stop warming. But lets also have serious discussion about what we are actually going to do about the changes that are going to happen. Adapting is quite possibly cheaper, but more to the point, it is what we will end up doing. People will have to live different places, not just away from flooding, but in different regions. There will be migrations. Some governments will crumble. We will need to live smaller. Population growth must be curbed, though without effective social safety nets, that is hard to preach (your kids take care of you in poor countries).

I don't think buying overpriced green carbon zero products is any part of the answer. Living smaller and spending that money on a rational plan is.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Bingo...
And that is their goal in using the term Denier. Label anyone who disagrees with the MMGW Cult as akin to Denying the Holocost and you shut them up. But remember that thread about the Cult of Likability? Conforming to groupthink is powerfull, except I dont play that game.

Worse, using the Holocaust itself to score rhetorical points is a slimy tactic, and it is insulting to those who survived the Holocaust to raise petty disputes to the level of the worst crime in history.

Is the holocaust denial/climate change denial comparison apt? – denialism blog

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by thinwater

So what we much consider is adapting.

Well said. The world will get warmer, and then it will get colder. Then it will get warmer again, then colder. Wash, rinse, repeat. Supposedly, we are about to go into a cold period again. Regardless, we must adapt. As others have pointed out, technology will help us adapt and it will change. We've become a cleaner planet and we will continue to make improvements. That's the nature of human advancement in civilized societies.

[Southern Star]

Thank you, Jackdale. It is indeed a shame that Jonathon Swift's seminal essay 'A Modest Proposal' was often not taken seriously.

Brad

[Udacha]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

Actually, there is a lot of evidence that CO2 follows warming but does not cause it. The sun is the overwhelming factor, by orders of magnitude, in the heating and cooling of the earth. Additionally, CO2 is one of the least effective of the so-called greenhouse gases. It is however the easiest to tax. Methane is many times more effective as a warming gas and water vapour is thousands of times more effective, but again, it is well neigh impossible to tax those two.

Having said this, I am all for anything that is more efficient and thus cleaner.

As others have said, nothing will change. Most nations couldn't even meet their fiscal goals to get into the Euro Zone, so it will be almost impossible for them to meet the goals of this new taxing scheme.

Agreed.

I remember after the Al Gore movie came out there was a documentary with many of the same scientist that Gore was quoting that
actually did not agree and their findings were quite the opposite and their reports were taken out of context. A few of them were trying to sue, but didn't have the funds to fight. They had shown from core samples from the Arctic going back tens and hundreds of thousand of years that High co2 levels were the "Result of Global warming, not the Cause" and there were actually times in the past that there were Ice Ages with co2 levels of 1000 to
2000 ppm. Heck, if there is a major Volcano Eruption like Yellowstone we go into another Ice Age quickly. How about all of the Forest Fires that Mother Nature trows at us that we put out, the fires would burn and burn and burn.

Al Gore gets 350 K for each one of his lectures, flying around in his Boeing 707 and bought a beach front home after warning us about increased sea levels, Really??

And don't get me wrong, I'm all for a cleaner planet, just not from the way it is going now, it's all about the money and little to do with the environment.

Also, when I see graphs I ignore them, It is possible to make graphs to support anything you want


Mike

[bmz]

Originally Posted by Simonsays

hey now, i don't care about your anti-MMGWC ramblings but throwing fracking in the mix is a bit to much.

if you want your ground water messed up by whatever chemical waste wins
the lottery, feel free, but leave mine alone.

you almost sound like you are selling bottled water.

and the Manhattan Institute sure sounds like a scientific source...

"Most important among their findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that neither horizontal drilling nor hydraulic fracturing of shale deposits seems to have caused any of the natural gas contamination. This will not come as much of a surprise to those in the industry and mechanical engineers....

"The team’s hope isn’t misplaced. While the anti-fracking crowd can go home now, they probably won’t. There will be new players on the field soon; the trial lawyers will be after the well drilling contractors to pony up for the wells where natural gas is spoiling the water wells.

The story isn’t over, but the hydraulic fracking is not the problem, allowing most well location landowners, most of the natural gas industry, and all of us consumers a great sigh of relief. The problems will get worked out."

> True Cause Of Fracking Leaks Found – Industry Breathes A Sigh Of Relief | OilPrice.com

BTW, as a former trial lawyer, I don't necessarily endorse all the above ;-)

[Simonsays]

Originally Posted by bmz

> True Cause Of Fracking Leaks Found – Industry Breathes A Sigh Of Relief | OilPrice.com

holy *****, a study about the fracking wells ignoring the injection wells finds that the fracking wells are not at fault.
that sure is one piece of science, if only the psychatrick one.

[Southern Star]

I am not sure that we, as sailors, can take pride in our 'green' lifestyles. Whereas in the great age of sail, ships were made almost exclusively of renewable resources - wooden hulls, spars, cotton sails, hemp lines, etc., our boats are made almost exlusively out of petroleum based products. Indeed, I suspect that the construction of the average liveaboard sailboat uses more non-rewable resources than the average house made out wood, brick, concrete, drywall, ceramic tile, etc.

We must also keep in mind that when offshore we discharge untreated black and grey water and that we continue to rely upon the services of those living 'less green' lives ashore while producing and maintaining most of the services and products that we rely upon in order to cruise.

Brad

[MarkSF]

The good news :

Sailors are amongst the lowest carbon emitters, and

are amongst the best prepared for sea level rise.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

Supposedly, we are about to go into a cold period again.

Nope.

The sun's activity is in free fall, according to a leading space physicist. But don't expect a little ice age. "Solar activity is declining very fast at the moment," Mike Lockwood, professor of space environmental physics at Reading University, UK, told New Scientist. "We estimate faster than at any time in the last 9300 years."
Lockwood and his colleagues are reassessing the chances of this decline continuing over decades to become the first "grand solar minimum" for four centuries. During a grand minimum the normal 11-year solar cycle is suppressed and the sun has virtually no sunspots for several decades. This summer should have seen a peak in the number of sunspots, but it didn't happen.
But Lockwood says we should not expect a new grand minimum to bring on a new little ice age.Human-induced global warming, he says, is already a more important force in global temperatures than even major solar cycles. "

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Udacha

Al Gore gets 350 K for each one of his lectures, flying around in his Boeing 707 and bought a beach front home after warning us about increased sea levels, Really??

Gore's ocean front property. ROTFLMAO. I love that joke. I laugh every time I hear it.
It is 500 feet above above sea level and 2 miles from the beach.

Al Gore's house in Montecito, CA (Google Maps) (#3) - Virtual Globetrotting

Boeing 707 - really? He buys carbon offsets when he travel by plane.

Surely he could make a start by flying less? "Beginning two years ago, I made a decision to live a carbon-neutral life," he says, explaining that his family and businesses now do all they can to reduce their emissions and to "offset" the rest by giving money to carbon-reduction schemes in India and eastern Europe.

Interview: Al Gore on his mission to save the planet | Film | The Guardian

[senormechanico]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Those who accept the science are attacked as “alarmists” or “warmistas”.
➥ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/sc...in-a-name.html

I prefer to think of them as "warming enthusiasts".

[Mahayana]

[QUOTE=Morgan Sailor;1986644]Wow, this one is likely to get ugly fast, so here are my 2 cents.

Don't hold your breath, nothing will change. This agreement is nothing but a smoke show. (pun intended). The agreement excludes the three biggest polluting industries; air traffic, transportation, and agriculture.

Go ahead and change your shower heads, and toilets; turn off your lights, and buy a Prius. Even if everyone on the planet did this, nothing would change. Until those three industries are required to change, nothing we do will have much of an impact. The language used is purposely vague, and "soft", so that every country can find a way to wiggle out of doing anything meaningful.

Oh, and the best part is that the timeline for reaching their rather pathetic goals is between the years 2050 and 2100. Does anyone really believe that a politician will implement unfriendly policy today, that will cost him/ her votes, so that a goal can be reached long after they are dead.

Dream on, it will never happen. Diesels are here to stay, enjoy your boat.

Before I get set upon, I just want you all to know that I'm not some sort of hardcore environmentalist, quite the opposite actually.

Let the fireworks begin....

------------

Amen, brother. No matter what happens in these meetings the end result is our children and their children, etc. will pay the price for our sins. Namely, our greed and selfishness. Because we don't want to modify our way of life to insure that our children have a life - they are screwed. And to those who don't buy it, I curse you with extra long life (and arthritis) so you can be around to explain yourselves to our grandchildren.

[SV THIRD DAY]

Carbon Offsets/credits
Otherwise known as Indulgences from the Church.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Carbon Offsets/credits
Otherwise known as Indulgences from the Church.

We agree on that. I am opposed to cap and trade and support a carbon tax

From the American Enterprise Institute - Wednesday, April 22, 2015

"Momentum is building on both sides of the aisle for action on climate change through a market-based mechanism. A carbon tax could be one such mechanism, be nested within broader fiscal reform, and send a global signal in advance of the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris late this year."

A carbon tax is simply a means of putting a cost on excess CO2. Any company that has waste products in a liquid or solid form has to pay to have it properly disposed. Are invisible gases exempt just because we cannot see them in the air?

A carbon tax is collected from fossil-fuel companies upon the first sale at the mine, wellhead or port of entry.

The money collected via this fee would be distributed to the public as a monthly “dividend” or “green check.” Distributing all of the revenue equitably to households will ensure that families can afford the energy they need during the transition to a clean energy future, and it should help win public support for a rising carbon fee.

There is no government revenue and no corporate profit.

There is just such a system in place in British Columbia.