Climate scientists see 'tipping point' ahead

Re: I can understand no argument against doing more research

Then you are a moron. Try this on for size:

You have $1 million available to invest. You have the following choices to spend it on:

1) El Run Hibbard Climatology FUD that claims we'll destroy the human race in 100 years for $250,000

2) El Run Hibbard Killer space asteroids from Mars FUD that will destroy the planet in 100 years for $250,000.

3) El Run Ponzi's Solar research that will generate affordable electricity FUD for $250,000

4) El Run Sagan's Mars astronaut scheme for $250,000 dollars

5) El Run Gadzooks commercial orbital station scheme for $250,000

6) Las Betty Cumin breast cancer cure research for $250,000

7) El Heffner's little blue pill replacement research for $250,000

8) Juan Quixhoatie's new improved plan for Middle East peace for $250,00

9) Mr. Freeze's cold fusion research for $250,000

10) Bonn Hovie's Aids research that will cure the beastie for $250,000

11) Improved medical care for British citizens for $1,000,000

12) Total email spam elimination for $500,000

13) An actual workable replacement for AV software for $500,000

14) Finally deliver the Year of the Linux Desktop for $1,000,000

What do you fund? Yeah, that's right you never have enough money to fund everybody's fantasy, so when it is public money being spent you damn well better make sure there is a real, near-term payoff for it. Personally I'd fund 2, 5, and 13 but YMMV.

Re: I like the sound of the homebrew...

"We live in a fine balance between ice age and global warming, either of which will have a devastating effect on our species. And we're definitely not in control of what happens in a geological time-scale sense, but maybe we have some ability to control it in the short term?"

Agreed. I like the idea of looking for ways to control it in the short term. Maybe it's time for the engineers of Earth to get the creative mental juices flowing about possible technological solutions to the potential problems. Maybe we can "have our cake and eat it, too" so to speak.

Before we can get the necessary conversations going to start this process on a global scale, we must build upon a foundation of respect for one another (as was previously suggested). This begins with understanding:

- The scientists are correct that we will hit an environmental tipping point at some time in the future (whether man-made, completely natural, or a bit of both) and the human species probably will be greatly impacted by it.

- On the other hand, the "skeptic" / "denier" (or whatever you want to label them) crowd has a good point that the solutions proposed thus far appear untenable and could very well cause more death, destruction, and general human misery than the environmental catastrophes they are intended to avert.

- The vast majority of both sides are honestly concerned and truly want what's best for themselves and for humanity in general.

- There are evil elements on both sides who are interested only in advancing an agenda that benefits themselves or something they care about at the expense of all others.

At the heart of this discussion will two essentially conflicting viewpoints: The anthropocentric philosophy and the Gaia philosophy. The anthropocentric philosophy holds that the advancement of humanity is the highest goal. To this philosophy all other things, including nature, are only important in so far as they help support and advance humanity. The Gaia philosophy holds that nature is the highest goal, and to most adherents it has a "holy" status that is defiled by human contact (hence the phrase "unspoiled nature"). To this philosophy humanity is only important in so far as it helps to support and protect nature.

Re: During the meanwhile ...

"The article was at least acknowledging their viewpoint,"

Er, no it wasn't. I've never met anyone who denies that the climate changes. I was learning about that in the 1970s, during geography lessons.

The term "Climate Change Deniers" means I have no useful label for myself. I'm quite happy to believe that climate change exists. What I disagree with is the whole politicisation of the science of anthropogenic climate change. There are facts buried deep inside a thick, dark layer of bullshit.

On both sides.

However, the article reported on by Rik Myslewski's piece proposes solutions that—contrary to Rik's assertion—are EXACTLY what I thought. Specifically:

* reducing world population,

* reducing per-capita resource use,

* reducing the role of fossil fuels,

* improving energy efficiency,

* increasing the efficiency of food production and distribution,

I've copied that first item in bold for a good reason: there are undeniably too many humans on this planet. That is the source of all our major problems. Cut back the population and the other items on that list will happen automatically: fewer humans = lower resource use, less use of fossil fuels and less energy used overall. Job done.

But humans are selfish, religions are dogmatic, and many adults want their own families, so that's a very, very difficult problem to solve. Much easier to just pretend to "solve" it.

My preference is to focus on space exploration before the shit hits the fan—assuming it actually does so; the jury's still out on exactly how and when it'll happen, let alone what fresh forms of hell it'll come in—and get seriously into colonisation. We used to be very good at that, and at least we'd have some insurance.

Bollocks to CO2 emissions and all that ignorant rot: it's just a kludge. A political bit of sticky tape and string wrapped around the "too hard" problem of telling our fellow members of this Homo Sapiens clan to fuck less.

Come back to me when you have a "scientific consensus" that actually agrees with the above, because anything else, barring massively disruptive new discoveries in science and technology, is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

"Uninterrupted exponential growth"? Bullshit!

Thick, eh? Well, we all do our humble best, don't we? Certainly you've got the 'humble' part down pat. Wipe the dribble off your face, tighten your helmet liner, and try again.

Re: uninterrupted exponential growth

For most of human history, world population has been flat. For those at the back who aren't paying attention, that's "flat" as in "Malthusian".

Just after the second world war, we had the green revolution which vastly increased the food supply. *So far*, the effects of this have been 3 generations of uninterrupted exponential growth. Big surprise, but no-one who has tracked world population back before, oooh, 1950 or so is expecting it to continue.

In fact, I'd recommend that anyone (who hasn't already done so) go away and find a respectable graph of world population against date for the past few thousand years and mark in the moments when food production technology (in any region of the planet) took a jump forwards. It's very instructive and slightly unnerving when you think there are people out there seriously advocating back-tracking on some of these innovations.

Re: we will never know whether it saved China

How can you be so sure? The traditional attitude that girl children are worth less will fade in the face of girls being highly desirable. The same technology that allows selection of a male child allows selection of a female one.

It's also possible that we'll see the evolutionary reason for male homosexuality in action. That's highly speculative, and not intended in any way as endorsing any moral viewpoint. Evolution doesn't appear to have a moral viewpoint, any more than the law of universal gravitation does.

Re: we will never know whether it saved China

And one other thought. If too many unsatisfied males causes wars, then the massive excess of females in the European population after ther carnage of WW1 should have prevented WW2.