Climate change: the longer we wait to act, the more severe the costs.

[Direckshun]

It's really time for the excuses to end. There are a hundred arguments you could make against climate change:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

There's no way human activity can alter the climate.

And even if it can, there's no way it can alter it by that much.

And even if it could, there's nothing alarming about it.

And even if there was, there's nothing we can do about it.

And even if there is, it wouldn't do much.

And even if it did, it would cause too much economic collateral damage / be ineffectually implemented / inexcusably rob us of freedom to pursue.

Therefore, I am opposed to climate change legislation.

The science has shot down every one of these arguments, save the last one which is a political argument.

To that political argument, ask yourself one question:

Do you think, in our current trajectory of global greenhouse gasses, that whether it be 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years, is unsustainable and damaging to our ability to exist on this planet as we currently do?

If you do, than you really have no choice. We must act now to stave off having to suffer drastic solutions later.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9010HU20130103

Cost of combating climate change surges as world delays: study
By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle
OSLO | Thu Jan 3, 2013 7:15am EST

An agreement by almost 200 nations to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 will be far more costly than taking action now to tackle climate change, according to research published on Wednesday.

Quick measures to cut emissions would give a far better chance of keeping global warming within an agreed U.N. limit of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times to avert more floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

"If you delay action by 10, 20 years you significantly reduce the chances of meeting the 2 degree target," said Keywan Riahi, one of the authors of the report at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

"It was generally known that costs increase when you delay action. It was not clear how quickly they change," he told Reuters of the findings in the science journal Nature based on 500 computer-generated scenarios.

It said the timing of cuts in greenhouse gases was more important than other uncertainties - about things like how the climate system works, future energy demand, carbon prices or new energy technologies.

The study indicated that an immediate global price of $30 a metric ton on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, would give a roughly 60 percent chance of limiting warming to below 2C.

Wait until 2020 and the carbon price would have to be around $100 a metric ton to retain that 60 percent chance, Riahi told Reuters of the study made with other experts in Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia and Germany.

And a delay of action until 2030 might put the 2C limit - which some of the more pessimistic scientists say is already unattainable - completely out of reach, whatever the carbon price.

"The window for effective action on climate change is closing quickly," wrote Steve Hatfield-Dodds of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia in a separate commentary in Nature.

Governments agreed to the 2C limit in 2010, viewing it as a threshold to avert dangerous climate change. Temperatures have already risen by 0.8 degree C (1.4F) since wide use of fossil fuels began 200 years ago.

ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN

After the failure of a 2009 summit in Copenhagen to agree a worldwide accord, almost 200 nations have given themselves until 2015 to work out a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions that will enter into force in 2020.

Amid an economic slowdown, many countries at the last U.N. meeting on climate change in Qatar in December expressed reluctance to make quick shifts away from fossil fuels towards cleaner energies such as wind or solar power.

Each U.S. citizen, for instance, emits about 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. There is no global price on carbon, only regional markets - in a European Union trading system, for instance, where industrial emitters must pay off they exceed their CO2 quotas, 2013 prices are about 6.7 euros ($8.83) a metric ton.

The report also showed that greener policies, such as more efficient public transport or better-insulated buildings, would raise the chances of meeting the 2C goal.

And fighting climate change would be easier with certain new technologies, such as capturing and burying carbon emissions from power plants and factories. In some scenarios, the 2C goal could not be met unless carbon capture was adopted.

($1 = 0.7585 euros)

(Scientist corrects carbon price to $30 a tonne from $20 in paragraph 6)

[KILLER_CLOWN]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I'm going to be dead in 40 years. The climate will not effect my life at all by the time I take a dirtnap. Therefore, I give zero f**ks about if the earth goes up 1 degree. Screw you Seals and Polar Bears. Better start learning how to swim better.

Polar Bears are increasing in number and can swim miles, methinks they'll be okie dokie.

[FD]

Revenue neutral carbon tax. Its one thing economists of the left and right agree on. Put a modest tax on carbon and use the revenue to reduce taxes on whatever you want more of, payrolls, dividends, capital gains, marginal rates on high earners, etc. You don't even have to believe in climate change to see how this would be a pro-growth tax reform.

[Sannyasi]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I'm going to be dead in 40 years. The climate will not effect my life at all by the time I take a dirtnap. Therefore, I give zero f**ks about if the earth goes up 1 degree. Screw you Seals and Polar Bears. Better start learning how to swim better.

Its the same attitude your generation has taken toward the debt, so why stop now?

[frazod]

Originally Posted by Dayze

climate change is a fraud. at least in terms of 'we're causing it' Bullshit.

And of course, we're just one big ass volcanic eruption away from these same assholes screaming about the coming ice age.

[Bwana]

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

Do you think the costs associated with the Obama $16T debt is something we should worry about?

Huge dodge, and a different thread.

[mlyonsd]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Huge dodge, and a different thread.

This coming from the king of dodge is ironic.

I already answered your question but you refused to address mine. I'm used to it though, your mo is to try and change the discussion when being confronted by something that makes you look silly.

[Pin Head]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Really? Climatologists, scientists... have no idea?

The entire idea of a "climatologist" is an affront to science. They claim an expertise on a system (the global climate) that encompasses virtually every scientific discipline in existence.

Am I really supposed to believe that someone has "expertise" on physics, biology, chemistry, statistics, geology, hydrology, meteorology etc? Most universities don't even offer "Climatology" degrees. It's just a self-applied misnomer.

Am I really supposed to believe that these individuals are "experts" on something as vast and complex as the global climate system? Then, throw in the multiple incestous layers of non-linearity and feed back filled chaotic systems. And they think they can model it.

If they could demonstrate any competence by way of accurate and meaninful predictions I'm all eyes and ears but I haven't see hide nor hair of any such demonstration.

So, let them show some predictive power in their models and then I will accept their claims of "expertise," until then, they are just glorified weathermen.

[donkhater]

Originally Posted by Narrow Head

The entire idea of a "climatologist" is an affront to science. They claim an expertise on a system (the global climate) that encompasses virtually every scientific discipline in existence.

Am I really supposed to believe that someone has "expertise" on physics, biology, chemistry, statistics, geology, hydrology, meteorology etc? Most universities don't even offer "Climatology" degrees. It's just a self-applied misnomer.

Am I really supposed to believe that these individuals are "experts" on something as vast and complex as the global climate system? Then, throw in the multiple incestous layers of non-linearity and feed back filled chaotic systems. And they think they can model it.

If they could demonstrate any competence by way of accurate and meaninful predictions I'm all eyes and ears but I haven't see hide nor hair of any such demonstration.

So, let them show some predictive power in their models and then I will accept their claims of "expertise," until then, they are just glorified weathermen.

Boom. /discussion

[cdcox]

Geez, is there some kind of award being given posting the most uninformed viewpoints?

Some people apparently think weather and climate are the same thing. A fifth grader knows better.

Another poster thinks that scientists work in isolation such that all of the vast expertise needed to predict climate must be embodied in a single individual. Apparently the concept of collaborating and working in teams is unknown to this person. And then someone agrees with him, which makes me think that teamwork is unknown to this person as well.

When did conservatism become synonymous with taking delight in willful ignorance?

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Geez, is there some kind of award being given posting the most uninformed viewpoints?

Some people apparently think weather and climate are the same thing. A fifth grader knows better.

Another poster thinks that scientists work in isolation such that all of the vast expertise needed to predict climate must be embodied in a single individual. Apparently the concept of collaborating and working in teams is unknown to this person. And then someone agrees with him.

When did conservatism become synonymous with taking delight in willful ignorance?

There still is the sticky problem of no climate model EVER being historically accurate without changing the model to fit the data after the fact.

As long as it is non-predictive it isn't reliable science. Well, it may be, but we certainly have nothing solid to base that OPINION on.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

There still is the sticky problem of no climate model EVER being historically accurate without changing the model to fit the data after the fact.

As long as it is non-predictive it isn't reliable science. Well, it may be, but we certainly have nothing solid to base that OPINION on.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/...sen_etal_1.pdf

Readers digest version:

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/meteo469/node/141

Note these predictions were made in 1988 and model sophistication and computational power have increased several fold since then. This isn't the last word on climate model validation but to claim that the models don't have any predictive skill is not congruent with peer reviewed literature.

[donkhater]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Geez, is there some kind of award being given posting the most uninformed viewpoints?

Some people apparently think weather and climate are the same thing. A fifth grader knows better.

Another poster thinks that scientists work in isolation such that all of the vast expertise needed to predict climate must be embodied in a single individual. Apparently the concept of collaborating and working in teams is unknown to this person. And then someone agrees with him, which makes me think that teamwork is unknown to this person as well.

When did conservatism become synonymous with taking delight in willful ignorance?

Some people think that all scientists collaborate among all disciplines to develop an all encompassing explanation for why the sky is blue and the wind blows. These same people think that those explanations have been roundly debated in peer reviewed journals and hypotheses revised and reformed as a result.

Those people would be wrong. They are called cdcox.

[Pin Head]

I'm saying collectively or not they are content calling theory fact. The question is rather, where in the balance of certainty and risk are we comfortable. And that's a pertinent question. It's honest and doesn't try and claim fact with theories.

My point is that we aren't in a position to know definitively as some claim. We can think it is...and maybe it is, but there's a lot more we would need to know to definitively say so.

For example, what is the maximum limit on our sinks? How far over or under are we...if at all? What should the climate be? How do we know we aren't simply seeing natural cycles? We have theories, but no concrete answers.

In order for it to be fact, we'd have to have the numbers as to what the ceiling is for our natural sinks and I've never seen such numbers documented. Simply noting that some temps have risen, and using it as documentations that our actions are the cause is a big waitaminute for me.

If we can take steps to eliminate pollution, and create more natural sinks, I'm all for it.

What I am not for is crying wolf, calling theory fact and mandating that people spend more to do the same stuff they're doing now. Case in point...carbon credits.

This approach is a farce. No one is going to pollute less, they're simply going to kick in more dollars. Dollars aren't going to cure this "problem'' and is a reason many people see this as a money generating scare tactic.

If we're going to allow China for instance to keep doing what it's doing so long as it pays more, we aren't proposing any solution...and in turn belittles the belief that there is an actual problem here.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Narrow Head

I'm saying collectively or not they are content calling theory fact. The question is rather, where in the balance of certainty and risk are we comfortable. And that's a pertinent question. It's honest and doesn't try and claim fact with theories.

My point is that we aren't in a position to know definitively as some claim. We can think it is...and maybe it is, but there's a lot more we would need to know to definitively say so.

For example, what is the maximum limit on our sinks? How far over or under are we...if at all? What should the climate be? How do we know we aren't simply seeing natural cycles? We have theories, but no concrete answers.

In order for it to be fact, we'd have to have the numbers as to what the ceiling is for our natural sinks and I've never seen such numbers documented. Simply noting that some temps have risen, and using it as documentations that our actions are the cause is a big waitaminute for me.

If we can take steps to eliminate pollution, and create more natural sinks, I'm all for it.

What I am not for is crying wolf, calling theory fact and mandating that people spend more to do the same stuff they're doing now. Case in point...carbon credits.

This approach is a farce. No one is going to pollute less, they're simply going to kick in more dollars. Dollars aren't going to cure this "problem'' and is a reason many people see this as a money generating scare tactic.

If we're going to allow China for instance to keep doing what it's doing so long as it pays more, we aren't proposing any solution...and in turn belittles the belief that there is an actual problem here.

Sure, we need a global solution. Dollars can fix the issue. For example, for around $0.02 a kilowatt hour, you could capture all carbon emissions from an electrical power plant. The technology still needs to be developed more, but to suggest we would have to stop driving or that it would crash our economy are ridiculous scare tactics. If all countries adopted this technology it wouldn't be that big of a hardship. But rather than working toward a meaningful global solution over the next 5 to 10 years, we are letting politicians drive the agenda by casting illegitimate doubts on the science when there is plenty of evidence that human-caused climate change is real.