Climate Change

[bundabergdevil]

Anorher round of the same discussion that's been going on since the discovery of how to start a fire? Great. Something to churn for a couple more centuries.

I like to yell at the squirrels, too.

[bundabergdevil]

Duke sent me this alumni engagement opportunity focused on climate change for anyone interested.

Toward Duke’s Second Century: Addressing Climate Change with President Price and Dean Steelman

As the Duke community begins to look toward a second century, President Price has described a bold vision for Duke: to become nothing less than the leading university of a changing world, to solve the most pressing challenges and advance humankind.

Join us for a leadership conversation with President Price and Todd Steelman Ph.D.’96, Stanback Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, to hear how Duke’s progress on climate change is vital to these goals. President Price and Dean Steelman will discuss how climate action is being institutionalized at Duke and how Duke is empowering the boldest thinkers and forging innovative partnerships to tackle the climate crisis.

This conversation will be part of a series focusing on President Price’s strategic framework, Toward our Second Century, which you can read more about here.
Moderated by: Mychal Harrison '01, President, Duke Alumni Board of Directors

Wednesday, January 19, 2022, 7PM ET

[dudog84]

I have studiously avoided this thread, knowing that it would probably get me more infractions than the election threads . I just skimmed the entire thread and this was confirmed. But PBS has a great 52-minute documentary that goes into an appropriate amount of depth for the casual fan on something that hasn't been discussed here.

The feedback loops. Must watch video if you care anything about the future.

https://video.wucftv.org/video/earth-emergency-6njifx/

A true understanding of science is beyond many, maybe most, people. So when I talk with deniers, I try to dumb it down to a few things.

It took literally hundreds of millions of years to create the petroleum, coal, and natural gas on the planet. We've released most of that stored carbon in just 200 years since the Industrial Revolution. For pete's sake, of course that has an effect.

The Earth is like a giant machine, or a giant ball rolling downhill. Once moving in a certain direction and accelerating, it takes increasing amounts of effort to change that motion. Think about the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, shouldn't that also be the hottest day? But no, the hottest part of the summer is 4 to 6 weeks later.

I'll absolutely agree with any denier that sea levels have been going up and down for millennia. But until about 100 years ago, we didn't have trillions of dollars of infrastructure, and hundreds of millions of people, living within 10 feet elevation of sea level. Take Florida alone: during the Industrial Revolution, there were less than 30,000 people in the State...there are now about 22 million, and guess where most of them live. So sea level rise is going to have a huge, costly, impact.

I'll admit I usually don't get through to them, so I always end with this. Their children and grandchildren will curse this generation for the mess we've left them. Honestly, I ended up not having kids so I don't even know why I care anymore.

[PackMan97]

Their children and grandchildren will curse this generation for the mess we've left them..

Not my kids. 200 ft of sea level rise, they should have a nice ocean front house! They'll thank my foresight!

[Lord Ash]

I have studiously avoided this thread, knowing that it would probably get me more infractions than the election threads . I just skimmed the entire thread and this was confirmed. But PBS has a great 52-minute documentary that goes into an appropriate amount of depth for the casual fan on something that hasn't been discussed here.

The feedback loops. Must watch video if you care anything about the future.

https://video.wucftv.org/video/earth-emergency-6njifx/

A true understanding of science is beyond many, maybe most, people. So when I talk with deniers, I try to dumb it down to a few things.

It took literally hundreds of millions of years to create the petroleum, coal, and natural gas on the planet. We've released most of that stored carbon in just 200 years since the Industrial Revolution. For pete's sake, of course that has an effect.

The Earth is like a giant machine, or a giant ball rolling downhill. Once moving in a certain direction and accelerating, it takes increasing amounts of effort to change that motion. Think about the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, shouldn't that also be the hottest day? But no, the hottest part of the summer is 4 to 6 weeks later.

I'll absolutely agree with any denier that sea levels have been going up and down for millennia. But until about 100 years ago, we didn't have trillions of dollars of infrastructure, and hundreds of millions of people, living within 10 feet elevation of sea level. Take Florida alone: during the Industrial Revolution, there were less than 30,000 people in the State...there are now about 22 million, and guess where most of them live. So sea level rise is going to have a huge, costly, impact.

I'll admit I usually don't get through to them, so I always end with this. Their children and grandchildren will curse this generation for the mess we've left them. Honestly, I ended up not having kids so I don't even know why I care anymore.

The idea that we are not having a massive impact not only flies in the face of every single iota of science, but also just in the face of what you can see, with your own eyes.

I look at all of the highways near my house... endless highways, in every direction. And every single one of them has cars filling it at all times of the day and night.

And if we sat in a garage for a few hours with a car running... dead.

It just seems so obvious and clear... I don't know how people don't get it.

I get so upset when I think about the world we are leaving for my two beautiful kids, and for their kids... but a lot of people are selfish and short sighted.

[CameronBlue]

I have studiously avoided this thread, kno...

I'll admit I usually don't get through to them, so I always end with this. Their children and grandchildren will curse this generation for the mess we've left them. Honestly, I ended up not having kids so I don't even know why I care anymore.

I try to reduce it to a simpler, existential argument. I've been known to pinch a denier or two and ask them "Do you feel that?" As their tiny brains attempt to deal with the ignominy of having their personal space invaded I respond, (purposefully leaving out the human-induced part) "because if you do, you know that global warming is real. If you believe in your own existence then you are living proof that global warming is real because the same mechanism that drives climate change, makes the Earth habitable." Then I tell them "if you've ever endured a hot August day in North Carolina (96 degrees, 96% humidity) you have all the proof that you need that global warming is real. Now think of a 6 months of them strung together in a row and you have effectively imagined what climate change is all about. Now go write a paper. I use my right hand with elongated finger nails because I play a LOT of acoustic guitar and give myself bonus points if I draw blood. I typically pick the slow and infirm climate denier who I usually can outrun.

Of course this leaves out QUITE a bit of scientific detail in favor of a breath-taking leap of logic--the pesky carbon cycle, the influence of tri-atomic molecules, the variation of climate change at latitude--but hey, one step at a time, one denier at a time.

[camion]

The idea that we are not having a massive impact not only flies in the face of every single iota of science, but also just in the face of what you can see, with your own eyes.

I look at all of the highways near my house... endless highways, in every direction. And every single one of them has cars filling it at all times of the day and night.

And if we sat in a garage for a few hours with a car running... dead.

It just seems so obvious and clear... I don't know how people don't get it.

I get so upset when I think about the world we are leaving for my two beautiful kids, and for their kids... but a lot of people are selfish and short sighted.

It has been said in many different ways:

When it is to your advantage NOT to see something, it is pretty easy not to see it.


"Advantage" can be emotional, financial, political...etc.

[PackMan97]

It just seems so obvious and clear... I don't know how people don't get it.

You should talk to them without judging them. That way you can understand their arguments and next time you encounter them you are prepared.

I think one of the more common arguments is that mother nature produces far more pollution than humans and thus any pollution we mortals generate is but a drop in the bucket.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...oes-or-humans/

[Skydog]

You should talk to them without judging them. That way you can understand their arguments and next time you encounter them you are prepared.

I think one of the more common arguments is that mother nature produces far more pollution than humans and thus any pollution we mortals generate is but a drop in the bucket.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...oes-or-humans/

Nice concise, to the point article.

[Lord Ash]

You should talk to them without judging them. That way you can understand their arguments and next time you encounter them you are prepared.

I think one of the more common arguments is that mother nature produces far more pollution than humans and thus any pollution we mortals generate is but a drop in the bucket.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...oes-or-humans/

Not entirely sure I placed a judgement on someone not understanding, other than that I didn't get it, which isn't really a judgement?

Not totally sure how the volcano argument fits in.

And at a certain point... we have to start judging. I mean, at its base level, it is human nature, to judge.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Not a surprise, but 2021 was record breaking, and 2022 likely won't be better.

2021 was another catastrophic and deadly year for weather and climate disasters in the USA, federal scientists announced Monday. There were 20 separate disasters that each cost at least $1 billion in damage, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.

Overall, the U.S. disaster cost for 2021 exceeded $145 billion, which is the third-highest cost on record.

It was also a deadly year: At least 688 Americans died in disasters. That's the most disaster-related fatalities for the contiguous USA since 2011 and more than double last year’s number of 262.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/2021-dead...195007949.html

[elvis14]

I find this to be kinda clear: https://www.climatecentral.org/news/...=pocket_mylist

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Not entirely sure I placed a judgement on someone not understanding, other than that I didn't get it, which isn't really a judgement?

Not totally sure how the volcano argument fits in.

And at a certain point... we have to start judging. I mean, at its base level, it is human nature, to judge.

Agreed. You were not placing judgement. He was just jumping to what has become the default response amongst the "America is a free country. Don't tell me what to do" crowd.

Every little bit can help. Should we be driving ourselves absolutely nuts to do activities that have a truly trivial impact? No. But should we just be putting our head in the sand (or worse yet, denying the whole thing) because our individual actions don't make a huge difference? No.

It is so sad that the concept of collective responsibility and making minor sacrifices for the greater good seems to be getting trashed by significant portion of our country's population.

[bundabergdevil]

The idea that we are not having a massive impact not only flies in the face of every single iota of science, but also just in the face of what you can see, with your own eyes.

I look at all of the highways near my house... endless highways, in every direction. And every single one of them has cars filling it at all times of the day and night.

And if we sat in a garage for a few hours with a car running... dead.

It just seems so obvious and clear... I don't know how people don't get it.

I get so upset when I think about the world we are leaving for my two beautiful kids, and for their kids... but a lot of people are selfish and short sighted.

I actually think climate change is one of the more difficult environmental science issues to communicate. Its causes dispersed on both the source emission and sink destruction side and, perhaps more significantly, it's extremely difficult to attribute a single event or even set of events to climate change but that is what often happens by members of the media and politicians. I think this undercuts the big picture climate argument. It's a little bit of the "boy who cried wolf" tangled with the "forest for the trees".

Plastic waste, the hole in the o-zone, deforestation, an oil spill, the Cuyahoga catching fire, fisheries collapsing, extinction --- most environmental calamities have pretty visceral imagery that make the issue abundantly clear. Rising PPM concentration in the atmosphere doesn't have a great PR hook and, as I said above, you can throw up all the pictures of fires and hurricanes you want, but people disinclined to believe in climate science to begin with aren't going to be moved by things that have always happened. On average more severe and more frequent is a tough story to sell

We also speak of the urgency of the climate calamity but every single government and corporate commitment to hit net zero and limit the worst impacts of the 1.5 degree+ scenario are decades long and in many cases don't have clear pathways to achievement. It's tough for your average Joe to wrap his head around a 30-year commitment when the urgency of finances and health and death and life may all be within that window. Intergenerational morality is a pretty new concept.

Finally, there has been A LOT of money poured into undercutting the climate science for the past 40 years. I worked for a corporation that has been one of many pushing the US Chamber of Commerce to change its position on climate change, which it has ONLY done in the last 3-4 years. Many of the US oil supermajors have JUST started to acknowledge and develop climate plans, at times because they are losing investor battles (See Exxon).

All that is to say, it's a tough issue to communicate with lots of well-seeded resistance.

[budwom]

anyone else read or reading Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock, a pretty entertaining look at the dystopian future...?

[dudog84]

The destruction won't just be of the rainforest.

"Brazil stops tracking savanna deforestation despite rising destruction"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/br...Lxp?li=BBnb7Kz

[dudog84]

As most of you probably know, we're also wiping out species at an astonishing rate. So shameful. The latest news:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...YpC?li=BBnbfcL

[dudog84]

I don't care how rich Musk is, he's an idiot. The only threat "population collapse" poses is to how much money he can accumulate.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news...0Mx?li=BBnb7Kz

[ClemmonsDevil]

I don't care how rich Musk is, he's an idiot. The only threat "population collapse" poses is to how much money he can accumulate.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news...0Mx?li=BBnb7Kz

This is not based in reality. The drop in population should improve the plight of workers and lead to a diminishing of the wealth gap. And screw him if he is fighting against that.

[Phredd3]

I don't care how rich Musk is, he's an idiot. The only threat "population collapse" poses is to how much money he can accumulate.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news...0Mx?li=BBnb7Kz

I read the first paragraph. It's all I could stomach coming across this: “If there aren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars,” Musk noted. There is just so much wrong with that, I couldn't continue.