How Bad Is Global Warming?

[Elihu]

^^And you base that on what? Your gut feeling trumps the global scientific community?

In a battle of Wits? To tthe DEATH?!!!! Very well I accept. Pour the wine.

[Sounder]

Burnt Hill wrote....

My pov is bolstered by the fact that I have been moving toward homesteading for the last 20 years, and would be happy to go 100% with it. Those that are feeling powerless right now maybe ought to start making their own lifestyle changes, it is empowering.
Its easy to cry "the sky is falling" and lay blame.
The human experience deserves better.

My sentiments exactly Burnt Hill, although it is entertaining to see DOOM used as a dodge from SCAM.

Scam is the gorilla in the vid.

I was part of a fundamentalist church during my teen years. It left in me an abiding distaste for 'end of the world' scenarios.

Fundamentalism is built on fear porn and it seems that other folk have also found its benefits.

Oh yeah, an it's so fuckin boorishly representative of the western exceptionalist mentality that thinks their services are crucial for the 'saving of the world'.

This is where its at;

Those that are feeling powerless right now maybe ought to start making their own lifestyle changes, it is empowering.

Define yourself or be defined.

[Iamwhomiam]

No Jackell, I didn't think you meant evolving, but adaption is not possible for billions.

There will not be enough food for them to survive. Those who will attempt to adapt to changing conditions by migrating will be met and repelled by force. We will become stone age survivalists, as knowledge and technological know-how is lost. As it is it is only the wealthy who are immigrating to Europe from the middle east, not the poor. The are adapting to war and have been for 50 years and more and it's not going so well. See what has happened, how rejected these desperate by the people of the host countries? It's only going to become uglier and more dangerous. The '50s are long gone and surely those exploited good times have past, forever.

A nuclear war will much more rapidly bring about the same conditions (sans radiation) as anthropogenic climate change. The results will be the same. However, it the arctic warms enough to release its methane, it may happen just as quickly as it would with nuclear war.

Burnt Hill wrote,

It would have been more enjoyable for me had you argued the points I raised to show why adaption to climate change is not possible.

I thought I had explained myself satisfactorily. Perhaps this posting will serve you better.

You might want to edit your comment to show where you are quoting me apart from your own words.

[Burnt Hill]

No Jackell, I didn't think you meant evolving, but adaption is not possible for billions.

There will not be enough food for them to survive. Those who will attempt to adapt to changing conditions by migrating will be met and repelled by force. We will become stone age survivalists, as knowledge and technological know-how is lost. As it is it is only the wealthy who are immigrating to Europe from the middle east, not the poor. The are adapting to war and have been for 50 years and more and it's not going so well. See what has happened, how rejected these desperate by the people of the host countries? It's only going to become uglier and more dangerous. The '50s are long gone and surely those exploited good times have past, forever.

A nuclear war will much more rapidly bring about the same conditions (sans radiation) as anthropogenic climate change. The results will be the same. However, it the arctic warms enough to release its methane, it may happen just as quickly as it would with nuclear war.

Burnt Hill wrote,

It would have been more enjoyable for me had you argued the points I raised to show why adaption to climate change is not possible.

I thought I had explained myself satisfactorily. Perhaps this posting will serve you better.

You might want to edit your comment to show where you are quoting me apart from your own words.

I did not write that my friend, you did.
I quoted your entire post and responded to it in a different colored font, I see that it does not stand out enough for clarity,
I will remedy that.

[Nordic]

All scenarios in people's minds are based on hope, fear, ignorance, or at the very least pure speculation.

The earth could theoretically warm up to near-Venus-like temperatures, permanently, actually killing all life on earth.

It could.

Or maybe somehow the earth's ecology has more homeostasis mechanisms built into it than we realize and it will adjust in ways we haven't yet foreseen.

Or something in the middle.

It's literally nothing but guesswork at this point. But it is happening. While we argue about it.

Life on this planet is a beautiful gift from God or the creator of the Great Spirit or whatever you want to call it.

And we broke it. Like a child who breaks his best toy before Christmas Day is over.

I don't think that's gonna go over too well.

We are only here because of the plants. They were here first and they literally created us and the conditions for us to live here. We are all solar powered stardust thanks to the plants.

The plants may decide we don't deserve to stay around.

Maybe they'll leave just enough of us here to tell the story.

[zangtang]

I hope its not up to the fish !

[Sounder]

The plants may decide we don't deserve to stay around.

Yeah especially if we keep on dissing CO2, the greatest love of their lives!!!

[Iamwhomiam]

BH wrote,

"If you believe it is not possible to adapt to climate change that's fine.
Its going on in the natural world whether you feel that way or not."

Yes, animals and insects are trying to adapt, but after their forced migrations to new locales, they find no food and starve to death. This is the fate of like birds and sea mammals alike that are unable to adapt quickly enough to changing conditions.

Insects are moving northward as our climate continues warming, threatening our hardwood and softwood forests. Hemlocks, as abundant as they in NY, are dying off below and into the Catskills because the trees cannot adapt, develop resistance to, such infestations because the trees are unable to adapt quickly enough The Emerald Ash Borer has nearly reached Canada.

That's how well adaption is going on in the natural world. The coral don't seem to be adapting well, either. Shellfish shells are weakened by acidification of the waters they live in.

Perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell us about successful adaptions going on in the natural world as I know of none.

Adaption for humans means eating GMO foods.

I won't live long enough to need to worry about my food source. But I will die knowing I have made a positive, though limited, impact on the health of those who will live on beyond my time.

Other news about fighting climate change:

Over the past week or so, two proposed pipelines have been defeated in NYS, the Northeast Energy Direct developer decided to withdraw their applications because they couldn't secure enough customers in the northeast US to make it profitable and on Earth Day, our DEC denied a permit to build the Constitution Pipeline.

Within One Week, Plans For Two Major Proposed Natural Gas Pipelines Are Scrapped
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/25/3772344/two-natural-gas-pipelines-scrapped/

[PufPuf93]

PufPuf, thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I'll have more to offer regarding your posting later today or tonight, particularly about biodigestion of wastes to turn them into a profit. I believe within the past few years a huge biomass (incinerator) energy plant was built in the Klamath Falls area. A poor way, an unhealthy way to create energy in this day and age, imo. However, a great way to avoid waste disposal costs by marketing wastes for profit.

.

IAWHIA

That Klamath Falls cogeneration plant does not burn wood waste at all but burns natural gas. To quote. "Combined-cycle (two natural gas-fired combustion turbines, one steam turbine)". It is much larger than a wood waste plant at 606 MW. Wood waste plants tend to be between 10 MW and 30 MW otherwise the waste from co-sited manufacturing plants generating waste and haul to obtain sufficient waste fuel is too costly. The largest wood plants in the USA were a 54 MW single boiler white elephant in Burlington VT and a 54 MW in Anderson CA but with 3 boilers. There may be others as large now but not any bigger because of fuel procurement cost. What makes the K Falls project cogeneration is that the steam and heat are sold to the Collins wood product manufacturing plant.

At one time I knew much specific about the K Falls industry and about biomass energy throughout the USA and parts of Canada. I would disagree with your conclusion of blanket bad.

To some of you: I mixed the doom for humanity with my own sense of personal doom as noted. It could happen that the planet gets in a trend where the effects of the increase of green house gases apparently goes away for some time just as the planet goes in and out of warming and ice ages and so on. The planet could well get on a trend and global climate change get less immediate but that would not mean that the trend did not exist, just that there was some happenstance breathing room. One thing is certain, populations are going to be reduced. The other thing that is certain is the extinction event.

[Sounder]

Sounder wrote...

The only 'thing' that will do anything about our 'problems' is to heal the split in our psyches that justifies coercive manipulation in the name of what is 'good' and necessary. Our acquisitive mentality got us into this mess and an acquisitive mentality can be no cure for an acquisitive mentality.

Dr.Evil wrote...
Sure, but that's not going to work. Human nature is human nature, and we will continue to fuck things up like we've been doing since forever. There will always be assholes, psychopaths, narcissists and people who believe completely different things than you.

This illustrates a basic fault line in our different ways of thinking. While it may be true that we will continue to ‘fuck things up’, and that there will always be assholes, etc. , the issue at hand is a matter of scale.

The problem with current cultural iterations is we do not seem to learn much from our mistakes.

Carnegie and other oligarchs from that time switched from Calvinism to Social Darwinism when they realized how well it rationalized and justified their activities.

The result has been that something that is a cultural overlay (human habit), gets taken and accepted as being human nature.

Of course there will be more psychopaths around if they keep getting validated by our basic modeling of reality.

If we model reality around relationships rather than objects, for instance, the available space for corrupt actors may be greatly diminished.

[jakell]

BH wrote,

"If you believe it is not possible to adapt to climate change that's fine.
Its going on in the natural world whether you feel that way or not."

Yes, animals and insects are trying to adapt, but after their forced migrations to new locales, they find no food and starve to death. This is the fate of like birds and sea mammals alike that are unable to adapt quickly enough to changing conditions.

Insects are moving northward as our climate continues warming, threatening our hardwood and softwood forests. Hemlocks, as abundant as they in NY, are dying off below and into the Catskills because the trees cannot adapt, develop resistance to, such infestations because the trees are unable to adapt quickly enough The Emerald Ash Borer has nearly reached Canada.

That's how well adaption is going on in the natural world. The coral don't seem to be adapting well, either. Shellfish shells are weakened by acidification of the waters they live in.

Perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell us about successful adaptions going on in the natural world as I know of none.

A basic misunderstanding of what I was talking about concerning adaptation.

Only we are supremely adapatable as individuals and as a species, the rest of the animal kingdom is not, adaptability is our strength.

Animals will only adapt via natural selection, and that involves dying. Hopefully a species will have enough variation within it so that cousins can move into the niche vacated by its less successful individuals. If the species does not have enough variation it will die off and another species will move into that niche.
It's tough, it's not pretty but it has worked for millions of years.

[Luther Blissett]

A 36" pipeline run by Spectra Energy exploded in rural Westmoreland County yesterday. If it had happened in a suburban or urban area, the death and destruction would have been insane. It sounds like it destroyed enough woodland, wildlife and roadways as it is. Eyewitnesses said it was "like looking into hell".

[zangtang]

any 'looking into hell' porn?

[smoking since 1879]

is google not working at your end?

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/westmoreland/2016/04/29/Emergency-crews-respond-to-gas-well-explosion-in-Westmoreland-County-pennsylvania/stories/201604290161

[zangtang]

string's broken an i cut myself on the tin....