What is Digg?46 Comments
- shirosamurai, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16That doesn't make any god damn sense at all. The right is notorious for ignoring climate change - Dubya and his cronies just keep bringing up the "its only a theory" line over and over. Not to mention Bush actually appointed a BIG OIL LOBBYIST as the head of Environmental Quality at the White House.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Cooney - etnu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Kyoto wasn't ratified because it didn't place the same restrictions on India and China as it did on the U.S., plain and simple.
I don't really know what the framers of Kyoto were thinking; "Destroying the environment is ok as long as you're catching up to the established industrial powers!" - bevanl, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14I have heard about this in the news, we definitely need to do something right now about climate change, even though we should of done something about it 10 or 20 years ago. We might end up being poor in the future.
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9This should not be a partisan issue. We are all in the same lifeboat, and we've all poked holes in it. Developmentally-stunted zealots want us to continue to bicker over whose fault it is, when what mature people should do is work together to save us all.
Environmental damage won't selectively hurt liberals, you fools. - simonbooth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10What's interesting about the American's decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol was that it was partly based on the argument that it would be bad for the US economy. What the Stern Review suggests is that it will actually be inaction on climate change that will be bad for the US economy.
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Actually, wintermd, nuclear power frequently comes up in discussion about dealing with the effects of human-caused climate change. Since you seem to deny reality in the first place, it is no surprise you aren't even minimally knowledgeable about the issues discussed.
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8You know, wintermd, there might conceivably be some actual argument against saving all of us from the effects of climate change, but you have yet to make one.
- simonbooth, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11This promises to be a hugely significant moment. The spurious "the economy vs the environment" argument has held back a lot of public opinion from supporting action now to tackle climate change.
I hope and expect that the Stern Review will knock some intellectual sense back into the debate by reminding us that our economic success is thoroughly linked to the successful (read, sustainable) management of our natural capital.
We live in a historically affluent time that could be drawing to a close unless we start putting into the insurance policy labeled "action to prevent climate change". - Amnesia10, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The problem for US politicians is that either way you look at it there is a massive downside. If they do something now and it will cost trillions of dollars, though it will create massive opportunities for some American businesses, some will do well others will fold. That is the nature of markets in flux.
If they do nothing now then the long term cost to the US economy will destroy it, and much of Florida sinks beneath the sea along with large swathes of Texas as a result of global warming. When large chunks of Manhattan disappear under water, that will seriously affect American businesses to raise money when Wall Street is flooded.
Then if the Mid west becomes a dust bowl again, then food prices will rocket and food riots will be the norm in US cities, which will mean taxes having to rise to pay for it.
In Europe and Japan we have very high energy prices so we should have much less trauma in adjusting to the new prices, though the US will suffer more than most. - Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4In some specific industries it would actually be benificial to our economy. Take our car manufacturers for example. They complain that if we were to put higher restrictions on fuel efficiency, it would hurt the American auto industry. WRONG, here's why: Ever wonder why you never see American cars in Japan or China, and why you see their cars all over the U.S.?
It's because 1. we make our cars very large, and 2. our fuel efficiency levels are actually ILLEGAL in those other countries. You literally can't legally sell a Hummer in Japan because the fuel efficiency is below a certain legal requirement put on their businesses. If our American car manufacturers would get on the ball and raise the efficiency, 1. more people in the states would buy them, and 2. other countries would start buying them. This is hugely benificial to our piece of the global auto industry. - RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10The only problem is that 3.68 trillion is a magical number. It’s one of those weirdly-specific estimates designed to make it appear that hard science and mathematics were behind its calculation. Even if I grant that a report submitted by a politician with a background in economics can make a %100 accurate prediction of two enormously complex chaotic systems (the earth and the economy), there is no way to account for human ingenuity in the development of new power sources. No one knows what humanity will be doing 100 years in the future--not scientists, futurists, politicians, scifi writers, or anyone else. Finally, no developing nation will ever sign up to a new Kyoto. In fact, they will gladly gobble up the manufacturing jobs we shed by making our industry more taxed, regulated, and socially reviled.
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Explain how not stopping global warming is preferable to stopping it, please.
- simonbooth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@radiantbeing
Of course you are right to identify the headline-friendly £3.68 trillion figure as being a "magic number" to some extent. What is more significant though is that the principle has been established that it will cost more to deal with climate change later than it would if we dealt with it now.
You are also right to doubt the ability of anyone to predict the future of technology such as power sources. However we can look to history to show us two things about technology. Firstly, that any new technology is most likely to take decades to be developed and adopted widely; and secondly, that it is likely that new technology will have its own, at present unforeseen, downsides.
Where I think, and hope, you are wrong is about developing nations signing up to a new Kyoto. In my opinion developing nations will be the first to feel the negative economic impact of climate change as they have the least capability to protect themselves from it. They will recognize that it is in their interests as much as those of the developed world to have a global framework for reducing carbon emissions. - wintermd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7The only real answer to carbon emissions is Nuke Power. Why does that never come up in discussions?
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well of course what we have already done will effect the climate for a long time. But that's nothing compared to the effects of what we seem set to do in the future.
- etnu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3One of these future scenerios will come from this:
1. The burdeon on the working people will become very great, and they'll demand more pay from their employers. Their employers won't be able to afford it, so they'll begin looking for more ways to shift work overseas. American businesses will collapse, eroding the tax base and making the problem even worse.
2. Somebody will realize that the current system is unsustainable and wasteful, and it will be replaced by a nationalized health care and retirement fund similar to what you see in many European countries. Lots of people will complain about this, but it's a lot better that the first choice
3. People will accept that the system is broken, and will push the complete dissolution of social security, medicare, and medicaid, except for people who are severely disabled. The AARP (largest voting block in the country) will oppose this fiercely, causing a very heated 2020 election.
Personally, I'm hoping for #3, but our politicians are entirely TOO STUPID to make that choice. What's actually the most likely outcomes is probably this:
4. They just keep debt-financing more and more programs, since they can print money anyway. While this can certainly go on for at least 20 years, it devalues the dollar to the point where it loses it's status as the global currency in favor of the euro. The government loses it's ability to print "free" money, and the entire economy collapses in a fashion not unlike the soviet union.
Neither of the reasonable choices are going to be made, because the AARP won't allow one and the fiscal conservatives won't allow the others. Politicians are WAY more concerned with securing votes than they are with making smart decisions. We're ***** no matter how you look at it. - jacks0n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3however there is a threshold, where once we pass this limit, we cannot repair the atmosphere no matter what happens; apparently. Eventually, if this happens, we will run out of natural non-renewable resources and the human race will essentially die out. Now this won't happen, eventually world leaders (Bush, I'm looking at you and your denial of the existence of global warming) will come to their senses/be replaced... but essentially, the real price of climate change after say .. 300 years .. is the price of the human race, literally. But no, I know it'll never get to that.
- shirosamurai, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1518502994444380318
Just to preempt the neocons, watch this. If you have spare time, if you're bored, if you want to see how global warming is actually affecting and destroying people lives RIGHT NOW, watch what's going on in the world - not through the eyes of environmentalists, not through the eyes of right wingers, but through the eyes of people who are actually losing their home to global warming. - kilps, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I recently attended a talk by a lecturer of climate from the University of Cape Town (not as part of a course) - what struck me most was that according to every computer model which has been performed even if we were to completely stop carbon dioxide emissions tomorrow - the effects of what we have already done would be felt for the next 70 years...
Oh - and most of the models should the northern hemisphere and being pretty screwed ... - lettruthout, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Because nuclear technology is only a short term fix with long term pollution problems. It's a technology that would not exist is it weren't for huge insurance/financial support from our government. There is no magic bullet.
- insignificance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21. What is it? It's an influence by human activity on the global climate system, significant enough to change the climate significantly in a relatively short amount of time. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are now twice as high as the historical maximum, and increasing at an alarming rate.
2. it is bad, because a rapid shift in climate will displace millions of people, since societies have built up in the areas currently habitable and good for agriculture. (and currently not under water)
3. Yes, but not without great cost. To stop burning all fossil fuels would halt the rise in atmospheric CO2, but would stop human progress in its tracks. Replacing all our current and future energy needs in a non-polluting way is the real challenge.
4. Of course. If a huge climate shift isn't avoided, economic harm and human harm is going to be very very large.
5. I think this report tries to put a number on that. I think it's safely argued that the cost is _less_ than not acting, which is the whole point of the article. - RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6America could have ratified Kyoto in 1997 but the Senate, which must approve foreign treaties, rejected it 95-0. Maybe a partisan like shirosamurai can explain why not a single Democratic Senator supported it despite the urgings of Vice President Gore. Was the entire Senate in the pocket of "Dubya and his cronies" back in 1997?
"On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98)[28], which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol - kitchenni, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3it scares people. 2010 though first Fusion reactor should be coming online. Our energy problems will be solved. But since its "nuclear" in peoples mind people automatically think its dangerous. Even though Fusion has no radioactive waste, doesn't have the problem of meltdowns, and is fuel by the most common thing in the entire universe. It would solve the threat of the coming centurys possible energy wars. And mining for the fuel could become a huge industry. It would also spur the space industry as there are other planets and asteriods that have much larger amounts of fuel.
- arpad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You may have to look a little but there's quite a bit of activity on the nuclear power front.
China, Canada, the U.S., South Africa and Japan all have development programs for a newer, inherently safe nuclear reactor. I believe that a Japanese company installed the pilot reactor in Alaska to provide power for an isolated town that relies on trucked-in oil to power its generators.
The town is Galena and here's a good blog article http://tinyurl.com/yabher and here's a newspaper article http://www.adn.com/front/story/4214182p-4226215c.html - CkMaverick, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I wish they would make physics a mandatory class for all people.
- simonbooth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@timstevens
Good skeptical questions! I'll try and answer if I can.
[1] You are looking for proof, by which I take it you mean the presentation of evidence and the following of logic to a conclusion that we can take, in the balance of probability, to be true. This exists for climate change. Firstly, two pieces of evidence: number one, the clear causal link between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the average temperature of the planet; number two, the clear causal link between the burning of fossil fuels by humans and an increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Now apply the logic. If we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels (which we have) we will cause the average temperature to increase (which it is).
[2] A rapid change in climate is expected to lead to reduced food yields, reduced quantity of drinking water, increase in incidence of extreme weather events, and a rise in sea levels that would create between 100m and 200m refugees. On the up side, we might be able to grow some new crops in Greenland and Siberia.
[3] Yes, it does seem likely that, barring some unexpected technological breakthrough, energy will cost more in the future. We will need to adapt to that. Regardless, this kind of adaptation is still expected to cost less than paying (in terms of a drop in global GDP) for the consequences of not adapting. This is one of the main points of the Stern Report.
[4] This has been fairly well covered at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change. Climate change does occur and is occurring without human activity. What is occurring now though is well outside the historical norm and can be clearly linked to human behaviour (see [1] above).
[5] This is an understandable feeling. Like all humans you have been raised in a society with certain norms of behaviour. In your society, like mine, this includes an energy-intensive lifestyle that brings enormous benefit to you, your family and your friends. It is not pleasant to be told that this lifestyle is unsustainable and that it will have to change or it will be changed for you. This truth is made even more unpalatable when some people choose to hitch their own ideological or personal agenda to it. I would encourage you to see past others' agendas, maintain a healthy skepticism, but remain flexible and open to change when evidence and argument require it. - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It comes up all the time, the UK government's energy review is probably going to back it.
Personally as someone who is very worried about climate change, I think nuclear is going to be essential to buy us time. The good thing about nuclear is people are very aware of the environmental cost of the electricity they use. It has nice obviously scary by-products. By comparison CO2 is insufficiently scary, but potentially much more damaging in global terms. - gecko1969, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Eh, a drop in the bucket.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/10/empire200610?printable=true¤tPage=all
"For demographic reasons, Americans need to be saving
much more than this. According to the United Nations'
intermediate projections, male life expectancy in the
United States will rise from 75 to 80 between now and
2050. The share of the American population that is
aged 65 or over will rise from 12 percent to nearly 21
percent. By 2050 the elderly-dependency ratio (the
ratio of the population aged 65 years or over to the
population aged 15–64) could double. Only a minority
of Americans have made adequate private provision for
their retirement. That implies that most new retirees
in the years ahead will depend to some extent on
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Today, the
average retiree receives benefits totaling $21,000 a
year from these programs. Multiply that by 37 million
(the current number of elderly Americans) and you can
see why these programs already consume 42 percent of
federal outlays.
All this implies that the federal government has much
larger unfunded liabilities than official data imply.
If you compare the current value of all projected
future government expenditures—including debt-service
payments—with the current value of all projected
future government receipts, the gap is about $66
trillion, according to calculations by economists
Jagadeesh Gokhale, of the Cato Institute, and Kent
Smetters, professor at the Wharton School."
Try $66 Trillion. Numbers from groups not know for over statement. - magicjava, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I believe we should enact the recommendations of the Sir Nicholas Stern report.
Specifically, we should follow his recommendation to fund projects chaired by Sir Nicholas Stern (see last page of the report). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Everyone needs to look up and fundamentally understand what the term "entropy" means. The world cannot as a whole reverse climate change, it can only slow it and not even at a significant rate in our lifetime.
- timstevens, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Ok, now that we have agreed on what we mean by "global warming" and how it is "bad":
[1] There is no causal evidence that anything human civilization has done has caused or will cause an increase in mean world temperature levels leading to the various "end of world" scenarios. There is data which has been interpreted about certain correlations between human activity and temperature changes, but no causal evidence, no proof, nothing.
[2] "A rapid change in climate" sounds dire but really means nothing. It might be a good thing if temperatures rose. Wasn't Greenland green some time ago?
[3] Fossil fuels are the cheapest source of energy. Alternatives all cost more per usable-energy supplied. If people want to discuss the costs to the world for using fossil fuels, then lets agree upon what me mean by costs.
[4] Huge climate shifts have been inferred to have occured long before human civilization learned to use fire.Why did they occur? Could they still be occuring independent of human activity? If not, why not?
[5] When people, groups or governments insist that my lifestyle is the cause of much suffering in the world or that I am selfish because I enjoy the high American standard of living that our productivity has provided or that the complainers are the solution to some perceived problem, I suspect they really want to dictate how I will live my life and how they will spend my money.
TS - insignificance, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Um... "entropy" has absolutely nothing to do with it?
If we had the ability not only to reduce our output of carbon dioxide into the atmostphere, but REMOVE CO2 that's already there, we could to a large extent control the "thermostat" of the global climate.
The problem is how vast our energy needs are, and how expensive it will be to change from the huge amount of fossil fuel use we have now.
I don't get what you mean by "entropy". - argoff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0The government tries to be proactive about lots of things. Being proactive about crime, being proactive about education, being proactive about retirement security, being proactive about drugs, land management, being proactive about the economy and business and even war, and now today the government MUST be proactive about global warming OR ELSE. Well, please, anybody, name one time since the birth of human history where a government being "proactive" about anything has made things better. Ever. At all. At any time. Anywhere. Please, name it! Please! I'm dying to hear it. I'm begging, I'm pleading, I'm cringing in desperation. Really.
Ya know, there's a reason for those failures! - Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1That would lead to less jobs for us people who actually like and want to continue on physics.
- tempest, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Don't worry, once ManBearPig is captured, Al Gore can focus all his attention to saving us from nature's fury.
- wildjohn999, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1How much of the £3.68 trillion is Manbearpig? I'm guessing at least 2 trillion.
- RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Nobody knows what will happen when nuclear power fear mongering meets global warming fear mongering. My theory is that the same people are responsible for both. There is clearly a lot of overlap between them anyway.
- oskite, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2World-wide flood? Oh no, someone better build an ark!
- timstevens, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0Some questions for the global warming chicken littles:
[1] Show us your scientific ignorance: what is global warming, really?
[2] Whatever it is, is it necessarily bad?
[3] Can humanity change it?
[4] Should hummanity change it?
[5] What is the real cost in changing it?
I personally believe this global warming stuff is cr@p for the simple reason nobody can answer question 1 let alone 2-5.
TS - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2That's odd I pulled 50 trillion dollars out of my ass, I figured since we both used science to get our damage estimate we should get similar results.
- arpad, on 10/12/2007, -8/+01) Because global warming is nonsense.
2) Because all the money that would be dumped into global warming could be used for other, better things.
3) Because the results of global warming are presented as uniformly horrendous.
4) Because the global warming proponents, not having anything approaching a scientific basis for their demands, like to present *anthropogenic* global warming as a done deal.
5) Because the issue is presented in terms of an imminent, global catastrophe which must be acted upon THIS SECOND!!! - wintermd, on 10/12/2007, -15/+6a 1 degree change is that expensive? Wow, when it swings back by -2 degrees, do we get all that money back?
Well if you are making money off global warming (AL Gore inventor of the internet) please use his figures. - wintermd, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3I thought Kyoto was the biggest failure ever?
- cbasst, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4I personally think that acting to fix "global warming" is going to 'eff up the world even more in the long run.
We need to stop this malarkey. - wintermd, on 10/12/2007, -26/+4Yes but 20 years ago, the Dem's were in control, thus this was not an issue. If the Dem's ever get control back, the issue will just fade away.
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