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The big issue with all of the dire climate warnings that come out is that the real causes for concern seem to be largely ignored. It's easier to call the general public in the western world stupid, and bash normal people for going on holiday and eating a ham sandwich than it is to say that ever escalating coal power production in China makes almost everything else pale into insignificance.
Also, I'll never tire of the absolute lack of awareness from people who have all flown longhaul (no doubt in first class) to attend a meeting, the outcome of which is to tell everyone else to conference call rather than flying for business.
Not to mention N+1+1+1... bikes in the name of fashion
Well the good news is that we will all soon be able to ride electric scooters and the like in the UK 🙂
Britain must give up its love affair with the car and move to electric scooters, battery-powered bikes and other “low-carbon” transport, the government’s climate watchdog has warned.
Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, said UK cities should have their streets “re-engineered” to replace cars with millions of “micro-vehicles”, perhaps even including electric skateboards, all powered by batteries.
“It takes a lot of energy to move a couple of tonnes of metal around cities, but small and tiny electric vehicles are a really interesting emerging technology,” said Stark. “I especially like the idea of scooters. They let people move around fast and then you can fold them up and carry them.”
tark believes the best emerging energy alternative is hydrogen, which could be generated by nuclear, wind or solar power and then pumped to homes via pipelines.
Such clean power would also recharge the scooters, electric skateboards and electric bikes — a change that Stark believes could be made to happen within a decade. “We have seen this type of change in London; the cycle lane system is expanding and works well. We need to be open to new ideas. That means a regulatory system that is flexible and open to managed disruption.”
The big issue with all of the dire climate warnings that come out is that the real causes for concern seem to be largely ignored. It’s easier to call the general public in the western world stupid, and bash normal people for going on holiday and eating a ham sandwich than it is to say that ever escalating coal power production in China makes almost everything else pale into insignificance
You do know who it is actually driving the economic expansion of China don't you? I assume that you also know who the biggest historical polluters are?
But yes, it's that evil yellow tide and nothing to do with us.
Sacrificing of virgins is something I’d suspect is far more characteristic of monotheistic religions developed since the advent of major civilisations, than the animist-type religions of hunter-gatherers that may be expected in the stone age
Do you know what Kuru disease is, and how people get it? Papua New Guinea ring a bell?
The Vikings were good at sacrificing women as well...
http://sciencenordic.com/vikings-abused-and-beheaded-their-slaves
The idea that hunter gatherers were playful, co-operative hippies as implied by the article you posted has been debunked.
Sure, but you said stone age, which is a period of a few million years within which humans were primarily hunter-gatherers. Metal sword and axe wielding Vikings have nothing to do with it.
Yes, Papua New Guinea rings a bell, I named my first pet (a guinea pig) Papua when I was about 7 years old. It's a more defensible example than the Vikings, I'll take that, but countless others could be given to defend a different point of view:
https://cas.uab.edu/peacefulsocieties/
I fail to see how increasing intelligence bears any relation to decreasing brutishness. Steven Pinker may argue otherwise, but I doubt that even his conclusions wouldn't suggest 'intelligence' is the driving force for lower violence.
To add to that, I didn't say all hunter gatherers are peaceful, playful and co-operative. I asked why you were characterising them all as brutes.
Many are peaceful, other's are perhaps better described as 'brutes'.
And then there are the handful of brutes living in the peaceful societies and the handful of pacifists in the brutish societies... So basically humans have always been a complicated bunch and probably always will be.
Because, as Jarred Diamond has rightly pointed out, nation states and modern warfare have replaced constant small scale violence with national conflict that has now become to risky with too little reward.
The prehistoric average for violent deaths globally, is around 15 percent.
That makes world war two look like a quaint paintballing match.
Let's not mention the fact that IQ or lack of, correlates pretty well with propensity to violence in modern humans as well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404054/
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Anyway - the hunter-gatherer world, was Idiocracy meets the walking dead with spears. Not something I really want to go back to
I'm going to opt-out of continuing to hijack the thread, and get is back on track to where we are in complete agreement
You do know who it is actually driving the economic expansion of China don’t you? I assume that you also know who the biggest historical polluters are?
That's spot on and I think it's where a (or the) major problem now lies with tackling climate change.
China's emission per-capita based on what they produce are now about the same as that in Europe. But on a consumption basis, they're much lower than ours or those in any developed country, except in some big affluent Chinese cities.
China’s emission per-capita based on what they produce are now about the same as that in Europe. But on a consumption basis, they’re much lower than ours or those in any developed country, except in some big affluent Chinese cities.
The advantage there is that they can be rapid adopters of technology during expansion as opposed to a very entrenched west.
There are far too many humans on this planet;
Agreed, but the farmed animal population is growing way faster than the human population, so theoretically, if the price of meat was artificially inflated the farmed animal population could be reduced................
The advantage there is that they can be rapid adopters of technology during expansion as opposed to a very entrenched west.
Except they don't think they should pay the cost of it, they think the west should - as essentially historic reparations.
Which I can understand. privileged westerners like to moan about overpopulation because it's a convenient get out of jail free card that fits their prejudiced world view.
They'd rather keep their iPhones and share the planet with more non-human mammals, than to have to give these things up and live with other non western humans that have the same standard of living as them
Also, I’ll never tire of the absolute lack of awareness from people who have all flown longhaul (no doubt in first class) to attend a meeting, the outcome of which is to tell everyone else to conference call rather than flying for business.
this comes up every time some celebrity recommends anything environmental, but if that one flight and the results from it convince a thousand others not to fly, I'd call that a great use of their carbon
<div class="bbp-reply-author">raybanwomble
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Except they don’t think they should pay the cost of it, they think the west should – as essentially historic reparations.
Which is fair enough really- we got to have a polluting industrial age, it's where so much of our advantage comes from, and we've used up that opportunity for everyone else so they'll not be able to take that shortcut.
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I can’t think of any more effective way to ensure buy-in than calling the people you want to join your cause ‘idiots’
I think the time for politeness has now passed: When a polite letter stops being effective due to being repeatedly ignored, you have to start using bricks.
A friend of mine has just returned from the states, and was shocked at the sheer lack of any nod towards going "green". He drove around in a huge gas guzzler, saw no attempt at recycling anything whatsoever, no led bulbs, nothing to make him think, "hmmm, well at least they are doing that". I've visited Russia and China in the last few years and got the same impression. These are big countries with big economies and a big impact on the world. It really does make you think why bother, its too late.
A friend of mine has just returned from the states, and was shocked at the sheer lack of any nod towards going “green”.
Which states? Some are some are not.
He drove around in a huge gas guzzler, saw no attempt at recycling anything whatsoever, no led bulbs, nothing to make him think, “hmmm, well at least they are doing that”.
I could get the same cars as europe out there,same fuel efficiency etc as hire cars
These are big countries with big economies and a big impact on the world. It really does make you think why bother, its too late.
When you decide that until everyone else does something we should not then it won't work.
Simple bit of logic and strategic planning, don't be the last one using a diminishing resource
Most people on here drive a diesel vehicle to a trail centre every weekend, fly 2 or three times a year on holiday and burn a woodburner for fun.
For the first time in roughly fifteen years I’m having to drive to work, 30 mile round-trip in a 16 yo diesel Skoda. Last holiday abroad I had where I flew was via EasyJet to Switzerland for a biking holiday in Chamonix, I think in ‘95. The only burning I do is hedge trimmings in my incinerator, ‘cos Leylandii and Pyrocanthus don’t compost very well. I lead a very extravagant lifestyle, very representative of the STW massive, me...
People are not going to change their ways to help with climate change. For 99% of the world's population there is no direct effect upon their day to day lives from our warming planet at the moment. You could tell them a million times whats happening, but all they are experiencing (especially here in Europe) are a spate of warmer summers, colder winters and a few scary storms.
They don't see, or are affected by, disappearing icecaps, shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels or expanding deserts. When they are being overwhelmed by migrants who have very gradually left uninhabitable parts of the globe it will be too late for all.
Governments need to act in unison and agree that the only realistic solution is a virtual stop to economic expansion and the ever growing demand for energy.
Sadly it's energy production for the economies of the world and food production for the people that are causing the problem (obvious, yes). And the best 'bang for your buck' is to burn fossil fuel.
I am a climate change researcher.
I specifically look at the Arctic where warming is over twice that of the global average. People there are dealing with the effects first hand now. Permafrost melting & coastal erosion are forcing whole communities to consider moving. Food security is another major issue, where susistence hunting is still a huge part of the life and culture.
The current change induced by warming isn’t felt so strongly by Europe...yet. Most models predict the Arctic will be seasonally free of ice by 2050, that isn’t very far off. An ice free Arctic cause a slowdown/shutdown gulf stream, so there is potential for winters to get considerably more extreme.
Sea level rise through the melting of ice sheets will increasingly come into play. Given how close has the Thames barrier come to flooding during storm surges, it isn’t going to take much. What happens if London floods? And this is just a token example.
This report should be taken very seriously.
But I believe the necessary change (at the government level) won’t happen and if they eventually do it will be too late. (Ironically said by the researcher who will be close to 20 flights this year to conduct climate research and attend conferences).
Personally think it would be beyond idealistic to think that, having gone in to the 'red' so punishingly to get to this point, we can expect anything other than a catastrophic crash.
Also hope that we are on the verge of another kind of technological revolution that would make us all Malthusian.
Fusion Without Borders would go some way, but there are still rather a lot of us.
'Fusion Without Profit Motive' would be more to the point.
A friend of mine has just returned from the states, and was shocked at the sheer lack of any nod towards going “green”. He drove around in a huge gas guzzler,
Indeed, sounds awesome 🤠
The US has (at 2014 figures) 36.4billion barrels of oil in reserve, and that doesn’t include the strategic petroleum reserve either.
Highest since 72, and a 90% increase since 08..
Makes you wonder why they are stockpiling doesn’t it??
And it’s untapped stock (in the ground) is estimated to be 198billion barrels.
Don't honestly know what you lot are on about, plenty to go round before we get flooded or the sun burns itself out..
VroomVroom..
Governments need to act
Based on his recent track record we need Michael Gove as PM 🙂
Humans don't live long enough to appreciate the impact of their actions, and politics is conducted on too short a cycle for any one to pursue long term policies. If people were going to live to 200 they might be taking a keener interest in the latest report.
I think human society inevitably involves consumption of finite resources and environmental damage, and that's probably unavoidable. However, I think we need to move to an economy that minimises consumption and growth (in the traditional economic sense) and reflects the true costs of our lifestyle, instead of deferring that cost for someone else to pay later.
We don't need a politicians to do something, we all need to do something ourselves! Hey but that's all a bit hard.
We don’t need a politicians to do something, we all need to do something ourselves!
Individual action, whilst important from an empowerment perspective, is completely ineffective. What is required is a macro-economic systemic solution across the entire globe. Whilst GDP growth remains the central goal of world economies, this problem will never be solved. In fact any mitigation in the form of individual action or technology such as electric cars etc simply becomes a stymulus for more fossil fuel use. We need to leave coal and oil in the ground, that requires consuming less, travelling less and working less.
Governments need to act
with the penchant for modern neo-liberal western governments to tax consumption there will be nothing but lip service. The best thing about these kind of threads is that it shows, for all the "so called" left wing bias among the STW massive for every left leaning liberal with socialist ideals theres a middle class "my money entitles me to" tory voting blairite range rover driving right wing libertarian nin "whatabout the hiatus" fan "third world" blaming selfish **** itching to get out. 😉
We need to leave coal and oil in the ground, that requires consuming less, travelling less and working less.
This x 7.5 billion. One of the many pluses of working less is that you get to ride your bike more 🙂
This x 7.5 billion
Well mainly just those of us in the west, however many that is.
I am in rural Colorado just now. While I was thinking about the new climate change report, I watched a fat man in a cowboy shirt fall out of his pickup truck with a Donald Trump MAGA sticker while speaking to the teller at a drive thru bank. I was 3rd in a queue of pickup trucks waiting to use the ATM. Just walking. They don't have walk-up ATMs here.
There is no ****ing way we're sticking to +1.5c.
Lucky for me it won't be too bad in Scotland. These folks in Colorado are ****ed though. Already ran out of water this year and all spent a month inside due to air pollution from brush fires.
Most people on here drive a diesel vehicle to a trail centre every weekend, fly 2 or three times a year on holiday and burn a woodburner for fun.
That’s one massive exaggeration.
at least now we have the answer to the Fermi Paradox, which is nice.
I don’t have any solutions to this quandary, my feelings have already been made clear.
I do however have a point, that point is the change in attitude to Climate Change.
Currently the message is one of doom and repression. It’s a “don’t drive your car to work, catch the bus” or “stop eating meat because cows produce more harmful gas than you do” and so on.
Humans, most of them, only act when crisis occurs. Drip feed messsages that have barely any meaning or impact on them simply get ignored.
So, let’s create a crisis.
Start with the Northern Wastlands, where there is minimal impact on the tax generating South, and turn the lights off.. stop sending fuel up there and stop delivering food.
Then hit them over the head with the Climate Change message and impacts, and treat it as a sort of “if you don’t change, this is what the world will look like for your benefit scrounging children’s children”
🤣💪💩
HTHs
Currently the message is one of doom and repression.
Hardly. It's one of 'live within your means'. I don't see any capitalist types howling about the infringement of the human rights of the poor because they can't spend money they don't have. The problem is a fairly simple one in that we place no intrinsic value on the natural world. Resources are only of value once they are extracted, and 'owned'. Until we start charging Oil and Mining companies for taking stuff out of the ground, nothing will happen.
Personally I think the only short term solution is nuclear war, but I doubt people will go for that.
Personally I think the only short term solution is nuclear war, but I doubt people will go for that.
What's the latest thinking in terms of global warming? Is it, that we are going to get a bit warmer and the deserts are going to expand - plus some coastal cities are going to get reclaimed by the sea.
Or is it, KT extinction event bad?
Because if it's the former, isn't it rather misanthropic to hope 3 billion die in a nuclear exchange to save the fluffy bunnies and butterflies? Why is natures suffering more important than ours? Surely we and our ancestors have been natures bitch for millions of years. Why, if we can find alternative means to survive climate change - is it so important to stop it?
"One would like to see mankind spend the balance of the century in a total effort to clean up and groom the surface of the globe — wipe out the jungles, turn deserts and swamps into arable land, terrace barren mountains, regulate rivers, eradicate all pests, control the weather, and make the whole land mass a fit habitation for Man. The globe should be our and not nature's home, and we are no longer nature's guests." - Hoffer
The above is a bit extreme, but you get my drift.
And if it's the latter, there's no point in a climate changing nuclear holocaust that wipes out mankind - because nature will do that for us.
“One would like to see mankind spend the balance of the century in a total effort to clean up and groom the surface of the globe — wipe out the jungles, turn deserts and swamps into arable land, terrace barren mountains, regulate rivers, eradicate all pests, control the weather, and make the whole land mass a fit habitation for Man. The globe should be our and not nature’s home, and we are no longer nature’s guests.” – Hoffer
The phrase "a fate worse than death" comes to mind
Why is natures suffering more important than ours? Surely we and our ancestors have been natures bitch for millions of years.
The hubris and arrogance of the modern human race summed up in two sentences 🙂
Seriously though. Do you really think of ourselves as apart from nature? Last time I looked we needed the planet more than it needs us. Any solutions to climate change are to save us, not the planet. The planet will be just fine without us, however it happens.
And the nuclear war solution was a bit of a joke. Although I can see many positives in it.
This is quite interesting reading:
It got me thinking.. What if we banned office working unless absolutely necessary. For a lot of offices, broadband, skype etc makes it irrelevant. Say we cut out 75% of daily commuter traffic. How much CO2 would we save? How much better would many peoples lives be if they werent sitting for 1-2hrs in a traffic jam and instead spending that time with friends and families?
Can Uber save the world? Everybody ditches their cars and just uses electric self driven Ubers??
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45786690
Can Uber save the world?
More frilling round the edges. Does it stop the fossil fuel industry extracting oil, gas and coal from the ground? If not then no. This is the only question that needs answering IMO. The only actions worth taking are those that prevent the extraction of fossil fuels.
Does it stop the fossil fuel industry extracting oil, gas and coal from the ground?
Could help to reduce it though...................