Climate

The latest big meeting is on in Paris. Virtually every prediction I've seen even from those who support action to address climate change (except to the true believers whose cultic devotion can't imagine otherwise) predicts that the conference will result in a lot of political doublespeak that gives the appearance of promising climate change activists what they want but which actually promises nothing enforceable or that will actually happen.

Reasons I've seen

- The public doesn't care (other than the very loud true believers). Polls in the USA basically rank climate change as not of concern to the vast majority of voters. Voters care about the ECONOMY and ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS with everything else including climate change falling way behind. (Hillary and Bernie need to care during the primaries since the USA Green movement is part of the Democrats). I can't find polls but news reports from other countries seem to follow the same trend.

- Most of the proposed ideas would produce significant economic damage. With voters focused on the economy politicians who want to be re-elected won't go for those.

- The cultic true believers alarmists with and their colleagues in the news media have produced so many dramatic predictions which later have proven false that they are starting to get the same reputation as the Boy Who Cried Wolf. (At this point even the people on his own side want to beat Michael Mann with his own hockey stick).

- The US Senate will not ratify ANYTHING that comes out of Paris. The president can promise what he likes (knowing him he'll promise the moon) but without ratification there is no USA commitment. All of the other countries KNOW this.

- The negotiators don't want to risk losing face as those who negotiated the failed Kyoto agreement did.

- The technology to do what they organizers want isn't there yet. There needs to be significant improvements in solar, wind, energy storage, power grid technology etc.

A recent Article I saw on the BBC.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34900474

I found it kind of interesting.

T2M

Lies, damn lies and statistics. I could quote other international surveys that say the opposite to those quoted here regarding public support, but it wouldn't shift the true deniers so no point.

On actual verifiable data, here we have had a higher average maximum temperature every year for the past decade. This correlates exactly with the 50 kilometres a year southward move of hot climate creatures like crocodiles, irukandji and box jelly fish.
It is real, how much is down to humans, and how much some scientists have exaggerated to get grants is open to debate, but it would be reckless in the extreme to ignore it.
As to the economic costs many companies have made significant money from new technology developed to minimise carbon emissions. My wife's car has a top speed over 140 mph and at normal speeds does over 45mpg. Due to solar electricity panels I haven't had an electricity bill for 8 years. New technology companies I have invested in have provided me with better returns than others previously. We need something less destructive than war to push technology, or the Honorverse will never come about.

Daryl wrote:We need something less destructive than war to push technology, or the Honorverse will never come about.

Agreed. And the best way (long term) to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to reduce our dependence on oil in general. It'll take a long time to not be dependent on oil at all, but reducing our dependence on it now will make supplies last longer and reduce costs.

Daryl wrote:Lies, damn lies and statistics. I could quote other international surveys that say the opposite to those quoted here regarding public support, but it wouldn't shift the true deniers so no point.

Most of the surveys are about what are your biggest priorities. Climate change effects are a long long ways off and looking longer with each revision. Most people have a tendency to focus on the short term when setting priorities. Right now it's the lousy economy which has persisted for 8+ years, the jobless recovery, the decline in median household income etc that is their priority. The problems they have NOW. Problems in the distant future get put off when you're struggling with current reality.

Then there is the terrorism issue. People are afraid of being blown up in the NEAR future if these crazy Islamic extremists continue to proceed unchecked. The concern isn't so much that they are afraid that they will be attacked now but that the attacks will continue to escalate and become more frequent endangering them and their families lives SOON. The fuzzy ever changing predictions of far future dangers produced by climate change are overwhelmed with the clearcut death by gun/bomb/knife dangers that they are afraid will come soon.

On actual verifiable data, here we have had a higher average maximum temperature every year for the past decade. This correlates exactly with the 50 kilometres a year southward move of hot climate creatures like crocodiles, irukandji and box jelly fish.

Up here there is a great deal of talk about the climate pause. That the climate has [temporarily] ceased warming. The climate change supporters tend to see this pause as temporary and as a need to modify climate models to add in more natural variability as well as do a better job factoring in the effects of solar activity etc etc. The climate change skeptics see it as evidence that the climate is more complex than the models and that the models are completely worthless.

It is real, how much is down to humans, and how much some scientists have exaggerated to get grants is open to debate, but it would be reckless in the extreme to ignore it.

The exaggerations have been what has been presented to the public. All along the majority of climate scientists were much more nuanced and careful. However there are a few showboating types that predict extreme effects which get publicized widely. These types are popular with the news media and the Green politicians. Basically the climate equivalent of "if it bleeds it leads". Short term this caused a great deal of public concern but long term it significantly damaged the cause of the climate change activists when the wild predictions failed to come true. The careful nuanced scientists are as ignored now [by the news media and Green politicians] as they were then.

As to the economic costs many companies have made significant money from new technology developed to minimise carbon emissions. My wife's car has a top speed over 140 mph and at normal speeds does over 45mpg. Due to solar electricity panels I haven't had an electricity bill for 8 years. New technology companies I have invested in have provided me with better returns than others previously. We need something less destructive than war to push technology, or the Honorverse will never come about.

The reputation of the Green companies in the USA has suffered significant harm from their inability to make a profit without government subsidies. Those subsidies have resulted in significant costs to the public particularly in the area of increased power costs in states with significant Green programs.


One key thing to keep in mind (the negotiators certainly are.) No matter what Obama promises, those promises are worthless unless the Senate ratifies the treaty. The Republican Senate will not do so. Will Australia abide by climate restrictions that the USA and others have opted out of?

biochem wrote:The latest big meeting is on in Paris. Virtually every prediction I've seen even from those who support action to address climate change (except to the true believers whose cultic devotion can't imagine otherwise) predicts that the conference will result in a lot of political doublespeak that gives the appearance of promising climate change activists what they want but which actually promises nothing enforceable or that will actually happen.

Reasons I've seen

- The public doesn't care (other than the very loud true believers). Polls in the USA basically rank climate change as not of concern to the vast majority of voters.

Which is a demonstration of one thing primarily, how scientifically indifferent/illiterate the American electorate is. But then we are talking about the group that has ~40% levels of belief in Creationism so what can we really expect...

The majority of voters in the US give climate change low priority because the majority of voters in the US don't have a fucking clue how serious the problem is. It's happening slowly and gradually, and their inability to consider long term consequences causes them to think that's the same thing as "not serious" or "we have plenty of time to deal with it".

Neither of which are remotely true.

We are already screwed. We are well into the phase of "how screwed are we" now now matter what action is taken. Taking little to no action makes the answer to that "extremely screwed".

Is the world going to end? No.

Are a LOT of people going to die? Yes.

Politicians only give lip service to any problem they can't "solve" before the next election. Even when they propose "solutions", they're mostly grandstand plays that treat symptoms, not root causes.

I've read an article suggesting that climate change is at least partly responsible for what's happening in Syria now. IIRC, they had a drought lasting four years and this destroyed rural communities, forcing too many people into the cities. People started to protest about the conditions and lack of assistance from the government. Assad came down hard upon them and disintegrated his mandate to rule in the eyes of many of his citizens/subjects.

The various groups and factions offer protection and access to scarce supplies. With sufficent forces, they can secure their sources and effectively assert local monopolies. They also attack their competitors, further reducing the amount of supplies available to the population as a whole.

IMO, one solution is to air drop them water, food and medical supplies. Drown them in the stuff - as that old saying goes, civilisation is three meals away from disaster - and pamphlets apologising and imploring them to stop fighting. One month of this will make more difference than all the bombs have.

The mid-term solution is to repair and improve Syria's infrastructure, particularly in agriculture. New canals and desalination factories? Some political reform is certainly needed, if only for sake of appearances.

The long term solution is toughest of all. A real, internationally coordinated effort to tackle climate change. Good luck with that.

munroburton wrote:I've read an article suggesting that climate change is at least partly responsible for what's happening in Syria now. IIRC, they had a drought lasting four years and this destroyed rural communities, forcing too many people into the cities. People started to protest about the conditions and lack of assistance from the government. Assad came down hard upon them and disintegrated his mandate to rule in the eyes of many of his citizens/subjects.

While it's possible climate change was a driving factor isolating any individual local transient climate phenomena to climate change is tricky... in the aggregate climate fluctuations will get more extreme as more heat energy is stored up in the atmosphere but going from there to "that storm or that drought right there, that's climate change!" is a bit more complicated.


You get higher confidence conclusions when you look at the sum total effects world wide over time rather than trying to attribute specific causes to individual incidents.


So... yeah, maybe it could be pinned on climate change, but I wouldn't want to base an argument on it.

The current Australian government is firmly in the clime change deniers due to the MASSIVE political donations from the mining industry.
Which is kind of scary as the government is a coalition with what is essentually the farmers party, and I would have thought the farmers would be concerned about climate regardless.

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