Thread for discussing climate change

[Res Ipsa]

Maybe we could get back on topic by Ceeboo, at last, telling us some reasonable ways to deal with climate change.

Don’t you think that horse is dead? You’ve made it clear your’re interested in Ceeboo’s opinion. I am too, as I think it would be substantive as opposed to all the trolling we’ve seen.

But it’s clear Ceeboo isn’t interested, for reasons I think he’s made pretty clear in other threads. I don’t think poorly of him for not wanting to elaborate on his earlier comments, even though I wish he’d change his mind.

Given that, might it not be time to move on?

[Res Ipsa]

I’m trying out “you need to take people where they are” as a mantra. I don’t claim any level of proficiency at it.

[Chap]

Maybe we could get back on topic by Ceeboo, at last, telling us some reasonable ways to deal with climate change.

Don’t you think that horse is dead? You’ve made it clear your’re interested in Ceeboo’s opinion. I am too, as I think it would be substantive as opposed to all the trolling we’ve seen.

But it’s clear Ceeboo isn’t interested, for reasons I think he’s made pretty clear in other threads. I don’t think poorly of him for not wanting to elaborate on his earlier comments, even though I wish he’d change his mind.

Given that, might it not be time to move on?

I started this thread because, on a thread entitled 'climate change', Ceeboo batted away all queries about climate change by saying that was not the topic of the thread.

So here we are, with a thread whose sole purpose is to discuss climate change - as many of us have done, to some effect, and I hope will continue to do.

However, here is Ceeboo again (and again, and again), giving us trite little doses of what he believes to be moral uplift and, simply saying nothing about climate change. However often he is asked.

Given that, I can see no reason for thinking that he has hidden 'substantive' pearls of wisdom on this topic that he might share with us. What is he here for, I wonder? Give me Atlanticmike any day.

[Res Ipsa]

What I've found interesting is comparing the climate crisis with the Limits to Growth, published in the 1970s. It was assigned reading during my freshman year at BYU. For those not familiar with the book, it was a very early, crude attempt to model what would happen in the world using variables such as population, consumption, resource extraction and pollution. In general, it predicted an overshoot and collapse of world population within 100 years.

The part that's interesting to me is how the model treated pollution. Basically, as consumption and population grew, pollution would also grow. But the countries of the world would have to spend increasing percentages of their GDP to fight the effects of pollution. Eventually those costs squeezed out the money needed to support a growing population. It hasn't happened that way, in large part, because we ended up taking steps to reduce pollution at its various sources, so we didn't have to keep spending the costs necessary to clean up or remedy the effects.

I see a parallel between the model's treatment of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. As the effects of climate change become more and more pronounced, the cost to address the effects grows larger and larger. Unlike the situation with pollution, however, we aren't taking action to keep greenhouse gases from getting into the air in the first place. Instead, we're just gradually incurring increasing costs caused by the damage. Why aren't we willing to take the kinds of steps we took with air pollution in the past -- reducing the amount of pollution instead of just cleaning up the mess? Politicization? More profits at stake? I dunno. But more and more I think of climate change as a big sucking money pit -- one that we seem willing to make bigger and bigger instead of working to keep it small.

[Atlanticmike]

What I've found interesting is comparing the climate crisis with the Limits to Growth, published in the 1970s. It was assigned reading during my freshman year at BYU. For those not familiar with the book, it was a very early, crude attempt to model what would happen in the world using variables such as population, consumption, resource extraction and pollution. In general, it predicted an overshoot and collapse of world population within 100 years.

The part that's interesting to me is how the model treated pollution. Basically, as consumption and population grew, pollution would also grow. But the countries of the world would have to spend increasing percentages of their GDP to fight the effects of pollution. Eventually those costs squeezed out the money needed to support a growing population. It hasn't happened that way, in large part, because we ended up taking steps to reduce pollution at its various sources, so we didn't have to keep spending the costs necessary to clean up or remedy the effects.

I see a parallel between the model's treatment of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. As the effects of climate change become more and more pronounced, the cost to address the effects grows larger and larger. Unlike the situation with pollution, however, we aren't taking action to keep greenhouse gases from getting into the air in the first place. Instead, we're just gradually incurring increasing costs caused by the damage. Why aren't we willing to take the kinds of steps we took with air pollution in the past -- reducing the amount of pollution instead of just cleaning up the mess? Politicization? More profits at stake? I dunno. But more and more I think of climate change as a big sucking money pit -- one that we seem willing to make bigger and bigger instead of working to keep it small.

Yes 100% politicization. Here's a great video. You ever heard of dr. John Christy? He makes a lot of sense without all the political hubbub found in what I call the ""Progressive cult of climate change"".
https://youtu.be/ULpGDnuz308

[Res Ipsa]

What I've found interesting is comparing the climate crisis with the Limits to Growth, published in the 1970s. It was assigned reading during my freshman year at BYU. For those not familiar with the book, it was a very early, crude attempt to model what would happen in the world using variables such as population, consumption, resource extraction and pollution. In general, it predicted an overshoot and collapse of world population within 100 years.

The part that's interesting to me is how the model treated pollution. Basically, as consumption and population grew, pollution would also grow. But the countries of the world would have to spend increasing percentages of their GDP to fight the effects of pollution. Eventually those costs squeezed out the money needed to support a growing population. It hasn't happened that way, in large part, because we ended up taking steps to reduce pollution at its various sources, so we didn't have to keep spending the costs necessary to clean up or remedy the effects.

I see a parallel between the model's treatment of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. As the effects of climate change become more and more pronounced, the cost to address the effects grows larger and larger. Unlike the situation with pollution, however, we aren't taking action to keep greenhouse gases from getting into the air in the first place. Instead, we're just gradually incurring increasing costs caused by the damage. Why aren't we willing to take the kinds of steps we took with air pollution in the past -- reducing the amount of pollution instead of just cleaning up the mess? Politicization? More profits at stake? I dunno. But more and more I think of climate change as a big sucking money pit -- one that we seem willing to make bigger and bigger instead of working to keep it small.

Yes 100% politicization. Here's a great video. You ever heard of dr. John Christy? He makes a lot of sense without all the political hubbub found in what I call the ""Progressive cult of climate change"".
https://youtu.be/ULpGDnuz308

Of course I've heard of John Christy. He is driven by political hubbub. It just happens to be political hubbub you agree with. He's done some nice work with satellite measurement of atmospheric temperatures, but when it comes to climate science, he's way way out on the fringes. His reputation for accuracy and honesty on the existence of global warming has been, let's say, less than stellar. He has presented graphs that are outright dishonest.

If you're going to engage in serious discussion of climate change, you're going to have to get down in the weeds as to who you can rely on to give you the straight dope. "Makes a lot of sense" as a way to decide who to believe just means you're going to pick people that agree with your politics.

[Res Ipsa]

If you're going to engage in serious discussion of climate change, you're going to have to get down in the weeds as to who you can rely on to give you the straight dope. "Makes a lot of sense" as a way to decide who to believe just means you're going to pick people that agree with your politics.

This is kinda B.S., Res. I mean, I decided who to believe because they agreed with my girlfriend at the time. Had nothing to do with politics whatsoever. I probably wouldn't decide to believe that same person today but it had nothing to do with politics, per se.

Might be, Cultellus. A better way to put it may have been "confirmation bias" rather than "politics." In MA's case, I think it's fair, because, based on his posts here, his views on climate change are, in my opinion, pretty grounded in politics.

[canpakes]

Maybe we could get back on topic by Ceeboo, at last, telling us some reasonable ways to deal with climate change.

Don’t you think that horse is dead? You’ve made it clear your’re interested in Ceeboo’s opinion. I am too, as I think it would be substantive as opposed to all the trolling we’ve seen.

But it’s clear Ceeboo isn’t interested, for reasons I think he’s made pretty clear in other threads. I don’t think poorly of him for not wanting to elaborate on his earlier comments, even though I wish he’d change his mind.

Given that, might it not be time to move on?

I’m done asking, but I still hope that Ceebs will answer. It would be nice to find common ground to discuss.

[Chap]

Not good news. How are we supposed to dowse the fire of global heating if governments pour financial fuel on the flames? This definitely counts as an 'insane' response to the problem.

Fortunately, global companies are stepping uo to the plate where governments fail, as the last sentence of the article shows:

"More than 600 global companies in the We Mean Business coalition, including Unilever, Ikea, Aviva, Siemens and Volvo Cars, recently urged G20 leaders to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025"

A world ravaged by drought, fires and floods is, they recognise, bad for business. Who knew?

Ideas welcome ...

Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds
Trillions of dollars a year are ‘adding fuel to the fire’ of the climate crisis, experts say

The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed.

Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of the total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) and for the heatwaves and other impacts of global heating (29%).

Setting fossil fuel prices that reflect their true cost would cut global CO2 emissions by over a third, the IMF analysts said. This would be a big step towards meeting the internationally agreed 1.5C target. Keeping this target within reach is a key goal of the UN Cop26 climate summit in November.

Agreeing rules for carbon markets, which enable the proper pricing of pollution, is another Cop26 goal. “Fossil fuel price reform could not be timelier,” the IMF researchers said. The ending of fossil fuel subsidies would also prevent nearly a million deaths a year from dirty air and raise trillions of dollars for governments, they said.


“There would be enormous benefits from reform, so there’s an enormous amount at stake,” said Ian Parry, the lead author of the IMF report. “Some countries are reluctant to raise energy prices because they think it will harm the poor. But holding down fossil fuel prices is a highly inefficient way to help the poor, because most of the benefits accrue to wealthier households. It would be better to target resources towards helping poor and vulnerable people directly.”

With 50 countries committed to net zero emissions by mid-century and more than 60 carbon pricing schemes around the world, there are some encouraging signs, Parry said: “But we’re still just scratching the surface really, and there’s an awful long way to go.”

The G20 agreed in 2009 to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies and in 2016, the G7 set a deadline of 2025, but little progress has been made. In July, a report showed that the G20 countries had subsidised fossil fuels by trillions of dollars since 2015, the year the Paris climate deal was reached.

“To stabilise global temperatures we must urgently move away from fossil fuels instead of adding fuel to the fire,” said Mike Coffin, senior analyst at the thinktank Carbon Tracker. “It’s critical that governments stop propping up an industry that is in decline, and look to accelerate the low-carbon energy transition, and our future, instead.

“As host of Cop26, the UK government could play an important global leadership role by ending all subsidies for fossil fuels, as well as halting new North Sea licensing rounds,” he said. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in May that the development of new oil and gas fields must stop this year to meet climate goals.

The comprehensive IMF report found that prices were at least 50% below their true costs for 99% of coal, 52% of diesel and 47% of natural gas in 2020. Five countries were responsible for two-thirds of the subsidies: China, the US, Russia, India and Japan. Without action, subsidies will rise to $6.4tn in 2025, the IMF said.

Proper pricing for fossil fuels would cut emissions by, for example, encouraging electricity generators to switch from coal to renewable energy and making electric cars an even cheaper option for motorists. International cooperation is important, Parry said, to allay fears that countries could lose competitiveness if their fossil fuel prices were higher.

“The IMF report is a sobering reading, pointing to one of the major defects of the global economy,” said Maria Pastukhova, at the thinktank e3g. “The IEA’s net-zero roadmap projects that $5tn is necessary by 2030 to put the world on the pathway to a climate-safe world. It is maddening to realise the much-needed change could start happening now, if not for governments’ entanglement with the fossil fuels industry in so many major economies.”

“Fossil fuel subsidies have been a major stumbling block in the G20 process for years,” she said. “Now all eyes are on the G20 leaders’ summit in late October.”

Ipek Gençsü, at the Overseas Development Institute, said: “[Subsidy reform] requires support for vulnerable consumers who will be impacted by rising costs, as well for workers in industries which simply have to shut down. It also requires information campaigns, showing how the savings will be redistributed to society in the form of healthcare, education and other social services. Many people oppose subsidy reform because they see it solely as governments taking something away, and not giving back.”

The G20 countries emit almost 80% of global greenhouse gases. More than 600 global companies in the We Mean Business coalition, including Unilever, Ikea, Aviva, Siemens and Volvo Cars, recently urged G20 leaders to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.

[Gunnar]

Might be, Cultellus. A better way to put it may have been "confirmation bias" rather than "politics." In MA's case, I think it's fair, because, based on his posts here, his views on climate change are, in my opinion, pretty grounded in politics.

Who is MA? Did you mean Atlanticmike?