Meanwhile, on planet earth...

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High Spy
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by High Spy »

Some Schmo wrote:
Thu Aug 03, 2023 9:03 pm
Doctor Steuss wrote:
Thu Aug 03, 2023 8:58 pm
I have some family vacationing in in Alaska right now. Yesterday, they texted pictures from a Matanuska Glacier. Everyone had T-shirts and shorts on. Temperature was in the mid-70's.

Kind of surreal juxtaposition of the outfits and the landscape.
I wonder how much of a night time they're getting up there right now.
Maybe you can find out by asking Alexa to play Radio Free Palmer. :idea:

I’ve been doing that for months, but it never works and said ask action may be your little way of helping to save the world. 8-)

When it doesn’t work, Command Alexa to: Take Feedback.
msnobody
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by msnobody »

It is winter here and going to be in the teens one morning next week. Imagine that, cold in the wintertime.
"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” Jude 1:24
“the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7 ESV
huckelberry
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by huckelberry »

msnobody wrote:
Fri Jan 12, 2024 2:34 am
It is winter here and going to be in the teens one morning next week. Imagine that, cold in the wintertime.
msnobody, you are trying to make folks jealous. Spot I live is sometimes called banana belt, sort of a relative suggestion. Our temperature is dropping now below the teens headed toward negative numbers.

Previous page has link to local average winters now and ten years ago. I checked and there was no change for my location. Our winter weather is a jumble. I do not see that as any reason to doubt climate change though sometimes I get tired of news always mentioning climate change for everything. It might be overdoing it so that people get tired of the idea.
msnobody
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by msnobody »

huckelberry wrote:
Fri Jan 12, 2024 9:40 pm
msnobody wrote:
Fri Jan 12, 2024 2:34 am
It is winter here and going to be in the teens one morning next week. Imagine that, cold in the wintertime.
msnobody, you are trying to make folks jealous. Spot I live is sometimes called banana belt, sort of a relative suggestion. Our temperature is dropping now below the teens headed toward negative numbers.

Previous page has link to local average winters now and ten years ago. I checked and there was no change for my location. Our winter weather is a jumble. I do not see that as any reason to doubt climate change though sometimes I get tired of news always mentioning climate change for everything. It might be overdoing it so that people get tired of the idea.
I don’t doubt it is much colder where most everyone else is.

I do get tired of hearing climate change. It is something I don’t have to wring my hands over because God is sovereign.
"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” Jude 1:24
“the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7 ESV
Chap
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by Chap »

msnobody wrote:
Sat Jan 13, 2024 1:03 am
I do get tired of hearing climate change. It is something I don’t have to wring my hands over because God is sovereign.
I do get tired of hearing about making sure my house does not burn down in the middle of the night and kill my family in their beds. It is something I don’t have to wring my hands over because God is sovereign.

(Repeat with all possible causes of concern.)

Don't you remember what it says in Genesis? When God made himself a wonderful garden, he put human beings in it so they would look after it:

Genesis 2:8-15
8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
My bolding. So according to scripture, God put us into the world he had made, with the responsibility of caring for and preserving it. He did NOT say to his new human creation "Don't worry about your surroundings - it doesn't matter if you pull up all the plants or cut down all the trees and burn them. All that is my responsibility, and I'll fix any mess you make."
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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Res Ipsa
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by Res Ipsa »

msnobody wrote:
Sat Jan 13, 2024 1:03 am
huckelberry wrote:
Fri Jan 12, 2024 9:40 pm
msnobody, you are trying to make folks jealous. Spot I live is sometimes called banana belt, sort of a relative suggestion. Our temperature is dropping now below the teens headed toward negative numbers.

Previous page has link to local average winters now and ten years ago. I checked and there was no change for my location. Our winter weather is a jumble. I do not see that as any reason to doubt climate change though sometimes I get tired of news always mentioning climate change for everything. It might be overdoing it so that people get tired of the idea.
I don’t doubt it is much colder where most everyone else is.

I do get tired of hearing climate change. It is something I don’t have to wring my hands over because God is sovereign.
Katherine Hayhoe is a Christian who discusses climate change from a Christian perspective. As Chap quoted from the Bible, God charged Adam and Eve with stewardship over the earth. She approaches climate change through the lens of the stewardship that God charged people with. Here's her bio page: https://www.katharinehayhoe.com/biography/ I'd encourage you to read some of her writings.
he/him
When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig’d to call for the help of the Civil Power, ’tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by Gunnar »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sat Jan 13, 2024 6:53 pm
msnobody wrote:
Sat Jan 13, 2024 1:03 am
I don’t doubt it is much colder where most everyone else is.

I do get tired of hearing climate change. It is something I don’t have to wring my hands over because God is sovereign.
Katherine Hayhoe is a Christian who discusses climate change from a Christian perspective. As Chap quoted from the Bible, God charged Adam and Eve with stewardship over the earth. She approaches climate change through the lens of the stewardship that God charged people with. Here's her bio page: https://www.katharinehayhoe.com/biography/ I'd encourage you to read some of her writings.
Yes. Katherine Hayhoe is my favorite climate scientist. I have posted about her and her website myself several times. I think she demonstrates better than anyone I know that there is zero justification for concluding that the overwhelming scientific consensus about the reality and danger of global warming and climate change necessarily conflicts with sincere religious faith.

I fondly remember the confrontation she reported with a top ranking petroleum geologist working for a big oil corporation who angrily accused her, during one of her lectures, that she was "just in it for the money", despite the fact that his own salary was many times greater than her income as a university professor and climate scientist.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by huckelberry »

Thinking of msnobodies comment, I think it is possible to take some comfort in God's oversite and power and still realize one has to take responsibility for care of the world, your community, friends, and neighbors.

But solving climate change is more easily said than done. Change to electricity? A large majority of electric power comes from burning various carbon sources. A law can be passed saying "use other sources" but reality can be a problem as well as conflicts of interest. In Washington, hydroelectric power has been important but people do not wish to increase that. In fact, there is a continuing effort to eliminate dams on the Snake river to protect salmon in Idaho. It is always said there are other ways to get the electric power the dams provide (burning carbon unless people are willing to return to more nuclear power).

Article heads with a picture of one of the the electric sources in conflict:

https://www.capitalpress.com/climate_ch ... c43c5.html
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Res Ipsa
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by Res Ipsa »

huckelberry wrote:
Mon Jan 15, 2024 11:38 pm
Thinking of msnobodies comment, I think it is possible to take some comfort in God's oversite and power and still realize one has to take responsibility for care of the world, your community, friends, and neighbors.

But solving climate change is more easily said than done. Change to electricity? A large majority of electric power comes from burning various carbon sources. A law can be passed saying "use other sources" but reality can be a problem as well as conflicts of interest. In Washington, hydroelectric power has been important but people do not wish to increase that. In fact, there is a continuing effort to eliminate dams on the Snake river to protect salmon in Idaho. It is always said there are other ways to get the electric power the dams provide (burning carbon unless people are willing to return to more nuclear power).

Article heads with a picture of one of the the electric sources in conflict:

https://www.capitalpress.com/climate_ch ... c43c5.html
The transition is not simple -- we waited way too long for any simple solution to exist. In the case of the Snake River dams, it sounds like the plans to breach them take into account the loss of hydropower that would result.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/ ... wer-produ/

The problem with nuclear power is not the willingness of people to use them. The problem is economics. The nuclear power industry has been unable to deliver new plants on time and on budget for decades. It consistently underestimates the price of electricity that will have to be charged to pay for the plants. My utility finished paying its share of nuclear plants that never got built in the 1970s in the last few years. Private markets won't touch them. And that doesn't address the fact that the U.S. has never been able to develop a site to dispose of the waste.

Unfortunately, it seems that nuclear power works best in countries that aren't scared to death of socialism. It takes government mandating a uniform design, at a minimum.

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/06/nu ... ompatible/
he/him
When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig’d to call for the help of the Civil Power, ’tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

Benjamin Franklin
Chap
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Re: Meanwhile, on planet earth...

Post by Chap »

More positive views are available, to help avoid the notion that there is nothing out there but the binary choice between:

(a) Climate collapse is a hoax and is not happening. So do nothing.

(b) Climate collapse is real and is happening now at an accelerating pace, and it is too hard to stop it now. So do nothing.

‘Cheaper to save the world than destroy it’: why capitalism is going green
Akshat Rathi argues that around the world economies are switching to clean technology as prices drop

The root of the climate crisis is “not capitalism but the corruption of capitalism”, according to the author of a new book on how people, policy and technology are working to stop the planet from heating.

Akshat Rathi, a climate reporter with financial news outlet Bloomberg, argues that smart policies can harness capitalism to cut carbon pollution without killing markets or competition. “It is now cheaper to save the world than destroy it,” he writes, adding that this holds true even when viewed through a narrow capitalist lens.

“Capitalism cannot be the solution to climate change,” Rathi told the Guardian. “But there can be a form of capitalism that we have seen working – in many different parts of the world, in big and small ways – that if we can use and deploy in other parts of the world, we really can use this tool to the advantage it provides us.”

In Climate Capitalism, Rathi runs through stories of success and failure that have helped people invent clean technologies, develop them into profitable products and build them at scale. His search takes him from an industrial park in Fujian, China’s electric battery capital, to a vast solar plant on former farmland in Pavagada, a drought-stricken region in India, to drill-scarred fields that may soon store carbon in Texas, the heart of the oil and gas industry in the US.

In each case, he says, capitalist systems are being moulded to push money and people away from pollution.

In the US, the government passed the Inflation Reduction Act to throw money at clean technologies. In Europe, where support for climate action is broader, the EU has been able to punish polluters as well as subsidise clean alternatives – though with less money and more bureaucracy than in the US.

In China, which has become the world’s electric vehicle and battery factory, the Communist party has pumped money into national companies while attracting private investment and empowering entrepreneurs. “The Chinese form of capitalism is very jingoistic,” said Rathi. “It’s aimed at creating national champions that can serve Chinese demand first and foremost, but then go out and satisfy global demand.”

But it is India, where Rathi was born, that provides the most relevant example. “India has a much different form of capitalism because it’s a much less developed economy. It comes from socialist roots, it’s trying to bring in global investors. But it has corruption, it has weak governance, its infrastructure is not quite up to scratch. So it’s unable to absorb as much capital as it would like from the capitalistic economy.”

When Rathi thought about sticking solar panels on his parents’ home in Nashik in 2019, he found it was easy to buy and install them, and that they would pay back quickly. But the distribution company took months to connect the system to the grid. What’s more, he found, renewable energy suppliers were forced to hold big reserves of cash because the distributors – hamstrung by government rules and held back by issues like stolen power – often delayed their payments by two to three months.

Such problems may seem small but are common headaches for households and businesses across Asia, Africa and South America. The price of solar panels has plummeted to make them the cheapest source of electricity in the world but the upfront costs are still too high in many countries, particularly where banks are reluctant to help out with loans. The cost of capital for a big solar farm is typically two or three times higher in emerging economies than in advanced economies or China, according to the International Energy Agency, and similar problems plague other green industries.

“When I was writing this book, it was absolutely crucial to try and bring the stories of scaling solutions in developing countries,” said Rathi. “Historically, they’re not the largest emitters, but we know that the climate problem is a global problem that will either succeed or fail depending on what India and China do ... if we can show that clean energy technologies can scale in India and China, which they are doing, and learn from those lessons, we may be able to apply them in South Africa and Kenya and Nigeria.”

Rathi, who has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, said he was aware of the progress that had occurred within his lifetime. He cited his grandparents, who he says could never have gone to university, and his father, who had, and so was able to give him a better life. “That generational progress came partly because of fossil fuels, partly because of capitalism – again, not evenly distributed, but distributed enough that it pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.”

But he warned against complacency and stressed that some indicators of progress have started to reverse. “Hunger has started to go up. Pre-pandemic, poverty started to go up ... Life expectancy declined during the pandemic and is increasing again, but there’s no guarantee – given the kind of climate impacts we’re going to face, the kind of climate migration that’s coming our way – that we will continue to improve life expectancy in the future.”

In the book, Rathi profiles a range of actors using their power to reshape capitalism in ways that speed up the energy transition. They include Chinese bureaucrat Wan Gang, who may have done more for electric cars than Elon Musk, and Farhana Yamin, a lawyer who helped craft some of the biggest pieces of environmental law in the world and glued herself to the floor outside the offices of an oil giant.

Rathi said the experiences show a middle path between anti-capitalism and unfettered markets that can be reached faster than the former and pollute less than the latter. “It’s not an idealistic place, it is a practical place that we can get to – that countries have shown [lies] within their political constraints.”
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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