Is it time to finally move on from "Stopping Climate Change" and instead work on mitigating it?

[Toni]

We don't have the time to do this piecemeal, country by country.

Mealymouthed excuses don’t feed the donkey. You want to keep emitting twice as much as someone else, while demanding that THEY reduce their emissions, plain and simple.
That’s hypocrisy on steroids.

You’re both right: piecemeal is not and will never be very effective but it can’t stop everyone willing and able from doing their best. By everyone I mean as individuals, localities, countries, continents.

I’m making a concerted effort towards less consumption of..,everything. It can be disheartening. We ( the fam) recycle as much as possible but…, very little of what we recycle gets recycled in the larger sense.

Of course it helps that I’m not young and don’t need as much stuff…

 

[Elixir]

I’m making a concerted effort towards less consumption of..,everything.

+1
I agree that it's a rotten feeling to know that much or most of the effort is in vain, but doing what we can is what we can do.

 

[Toni]

I’m making a concerted effort towards less consumption of..,everything.

+1
I agree that it's a rotten feeling to know that much or most of the effort is in vain, but doing what we can is what we can do.

I don't really think that it's in vain. I think that individual efforts have an imperceptibly small effect on the bigger problem, but like drops of water or grains of sand, they all add up.

I think the other thing that people are far too prone to forget is that every single living organism, indeed, every single thing on earth and the surrounding atmosphere and the solar system and beyond changes the world, including the climate. I'm certain that gardeners among us are aware of microclimates near foundations or on the south side of a building or under a tree or shrub--usually created by the efforts of humans. But everything changes its climate, its environment in ways to make the environment more hospitable to itself and its offspring. And then it reaches limits where populations crash, etc. and ultimately, the microclimate/ecosystem is no longer hospitable to the species. Humans are just able to perceive this (some of us) and attempt to do something(fewer of us) to extend the lifespan of the ecosystem which sustains us.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I’m making a concerted effort towards less consumption of..,everything.

+1
I agree that it's a rotten feeling to know that much or most of the effort is in vain, but doing what we can is what we can do.

I don't really think that it's in vain. I think that individual efforts have an imperceptibly small effect on the bigger problem, but like drops of water or grains of sand, they all add up.

I think the other thing that people are far too prone to forget is that every single living organism, indeed, every single thing on earth and the surrounding atmosphere and the solar system and beyond changes the world, including the climate. I'm certain that gardeners among us are aware of microclimates near foundations or on the south side of a building or under a tree or shrub--usually created by the efforts of humans. But everything changes its climate, its environment in ways to make the environment more hospitable to itself and its offspring. And then it reaches limits where populations crash, etc. and ultimately, the microclimate/ecosystem is no longer hospitable to the species. Humans are just able to perceive this (some of us) and attempt to do something(fewer of us) to extend the lifespan of the ecosystem which sustains us.

Toni, we don't need to give people against managing climate change any other ideas so they can start saying "But the beaver floods its habitat and we don't hear you complaining about that!"

 

[Derec]

Toni, we don't need to give people against managing climate change any other ideas so they can start saying "But the beaver floods its habitat and we don't hear you complaining about that!"

Jimmy, the beavers are not responsible for almost third of carbon emissions.
Also, nobody in this thread is suggesting US should do nothing. But some are suggesting that China should go on merrily building new coal-fired power plants until US brings our per-capita emissions below Chinese. Maybe Elixir and JonT own stock in Australian coal mines? Or, at least for Elixir, he feels ideological kinship with the Chinese Communist Party.

 

[Derec]

I am a long way away; I can't be expected to know what level of problems Florida might currently have.

Poached fish - and swimmers - off Florida Keys would have been much bigger news - including down under.

 

[Derec]

We have a history of that. Slavery, Great War, WWII, Environmental considerations, Prog Rock. The US has a tendency of being fashionably late to current events.

Late compared to what? Many countries abolished slavery well after US. Some Arab counties only a century later.

And I recall reading scientists were pondering global warming in the second half of the 19th century as well.

They were also pondering luminiferous ether and phrenology.

 

[Toni]

I’m making a concerted effort towards less consumption of..,everything.

+1
I agree that it's a rotten feeling to know that much or most of the effort is in vain, but doing what we can is what we can do.

I don't really think that it's in vain. I think that individual efforts have an imperceptibly small effect on the bigger problem, but like drops of water or grains of sand, they all add up.

I think the other thing that people are far too prone to forget is that every single living organism, indeed, every single thing on earth and the surrounding atmosphere and the solar system and beyond changes the world, including the climate. I'm certain that gardeners among us are aware of microclimates near foundations or on the south side of a building or under a tree or shrub--usually created by the efforts of humans. But everything changes its climate, its environment in ways to make the environment more hospitable to itself and its offspring. And then it reaches limits where populations crash, etc. and ultimately, the microclimate/ecosystem is no longer hospitable to the species. Humans are just able to perceive this (some of us) and attempt to do something(fewer of us) to extend the lifespan of the ecosystem which sustains us.

Toni, we don't need to give people against managing climate change any other ideas so they can start saying "But the beaver floods its habitat and we don't hear you complaining about that!"

We don’t need to convince people that the problem is so big that they can do nothing. Nihilism is not useful nor smart nor brave. Ultimately a lot of change comes down to individual choices in everyday lives.

 

[Derec]

It matters because if we produced that stuff, those emissions would be ours. We outsourced a lot of our pollution. So it isn't as easy to say Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, China are polluting and need to get their stuff in order, when their pollution is in part connected to our materialism!

I understand the point you are trying to make, but these emissions are still part of their economy and need to cleaned up there. The CO₂ is emitted by a Chinese coal-fired power plant, for example, and nothing US does affects that. Therefore, China, Indonesia etc. have a responsibility to reduce their emissions just like we do. For example, by not building new coal-fired power plants and phasing out existing ones.

When people stop being stupid and start thinking of pollution as a global phenomenon, then it becomes clear we all need to cut it back, substantially.

But people like Elixir don't. They are only focused on US emissions.

But that generally requires some levels of sacrifice, something humans suck at. In America, we are overly sprawled and that genie won't go back in the bottle. Mass transit is a four letter word in this country that demands more lanes that'll just fill up too.

As you said, US is more spread out than say Western Europe. I would welcome more public transit, but it should be done correctly. Main lines should be rail, not "rapid buses", even if the latter cost less initially. We need to rethink our whole approach to building transit in other ways too.
Why does it cost so much to build things in America?

China needs to reduce emissions, the United States needs to reduce emissions. We need to stop tearing down forests that could help us with the emissions! We need to do a lot, and we needed to start doing it 40 years ago. Whining about China emitting today, when the US has been emitting CO2 into the atmosphere for the last 160 years is ridiculous.

You are correct about the first part, but not the second part. China is increasing their per-capita emissions and building new dirty coal-fired power plants. Saying that they need to change that is not "whining". It's reality. CO₂ is a global problem, and bracketing out China and other non-western countries will do climate no favors.

 

[pood]

We don’t need to convince people that the problem is so big that they can do nothing. Nihilism is not useful nor smart nor brave. Ultimately a lot of change comes down to individual choices in everyday lives.

Report: Doing Your Part To Stop Climate Change Now Requires Planting 30,000 New Trees, Getting 40,000 Cars Off The Road, Reviving 20 Square Miles Of Coral Reef

 

[Derec]

Mealymouthed excuses don’t feed the donkey.

You are correct. Your mealy-mouthed excuses for Chinese government and their emissions do not "feed the donkey".

You want to keep emitting twice as much as someone else, while demanding that THEY reduce their emissions, plain and simple.

As a country they emit twice as much as we do, let's be honest. They affect the climate twice as much as we do.
And nobody here is saying that US should not reduce our emissions. But you are against Chinese reducing theirs, while they are building new coal-fired power plants that are known to pollute most, not just regarding carbon dioxide, but also other pollutants (sulfur dioxide, particulates, heavy metals).
US is not even top per-capita emitter. By your mealy-mothed "logic", US should not do anything until Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Australia etc. bring their per-capita emissions below ours.

That’s hypocrisy on steroids.

No. Your apologetics for China is what's hypocritical.

P.S.: Also, US is not responsible for the explosive Chinese population growth in the 20th century. They have about the same surface area as we do, and yet they added about a billion people over the last century. That is not our fault.

 

[pood]

Mealymouthed excuses don’t feed the donkey.

You are correct. Your mealy-mouthed excuses for Chinese government and their emissions do not "feed the donkey".

You want to keep emitting twice as much as someone else, while demanding that THEY reduce their emissions, plain and simple.

As a country they emit twice as much as we do, let's be honest. They affect the climate twice as much as we do.
And nobody here is saying that US should not reduce our emissions. But you are against Chinese reducing theirs, while they are building new coal-fired power plants that are known to pollute most, not just regarding carbon dioxide, but also other pollutants (sulfur dioxide, particulates, heavy metals).
US is not even top per-capita emitter. By your mealy-mothed "logic", US should not do anything until Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Australia etc. bring their per-capita emissions below ours.

That’s hypocrisy on steroids.

No. Your apologetics for China is what's hypocritical.

P.S.: Also, US is not responsible for the explosive Chinese population growth in the 20th century. They have about the same surface area as we do, and yet they added about a billion people over the last century. That is not our fault.

Sorry, no, the U.S. bears by far most of the blame.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We have a history of that. Slavery, Great War, WWII, Environmental considerations, Prog Rock. The US has a tendency of being fashionably late to current events.

Late compared to what?

The First World.

And I recall reading scientists were pondering global warming in the second half of the 19th century as well.

They were also pondering luminiferous ether and phrenology.

And subatomic models.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Toni, we don't need to give people against managing climate change any other ideas so they can start saying "But the beaver floods its habitat and we don't hear you complaining about that!"

Jimmy, the beavers are not responsible for almost third of carbon emissions.

Have you seen the area they flood to create their own habitat, relative to their own size? Each beaver destroys habitats for hundreds of adorable woodland animals! And don't give me shit about how swamps are good for turtles and frogs and other completely useless animals. In fact, beavers are more responsible for habitat destruction than humans have ever been.*

* - that isn't true

Also, nobody in this thread is suggesting US should do nothing.

That's great.

But some are suggesting that China should go on merrily building new coal-fired power plants until US brings our per-capita emissions below Chinese.

No person has made that suggestion either. The point raised is how much of a finger can the US point at nations like China... when a good deal of their emissions is to produce shit Americans demand.

Maybe Elixir and JonT (TomC?) own stock in Australian coal mines? Or, at least for Elixir, he feels ideological kinship with the Chinese Communist Party.

Or maybe you are reading too damn much into Elixir's and TomC's posts and are extrapolating some ridiculous positions.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Toni, we don't need to give people against managing climate change any other ideas so they can start saying "But the beaver floods its habitat and we don't hear you complaining about that!"

We don’t need to convince people that the problem is so big that they can do nothing. Nihilism is not useful nor smart nor brave. Ultimately a lot of change comes down to individual choices in everyday lives.

I'm no longer in the business to convince people about the worries of climate change. I'm more interested in trying to make awareness that it has already changed and we need to address those issues. I mean some people love having pools, but not quite in their basement (or first floor).

 

[Elixir]

Or maybe you are reading too damn much into Elixir's and TomC's posts and are extrapolating some ridiculous positions.

That’s SOP for right wingers. Just for the sake of argument of course. Hyperbolic misrepresentation makes identifying the “wrong” people easy. I would not be surprised if many of the same people actually make at least nominal efforts to curb their own emissions even while decrying others.

 

[bilby]

And I recall reading scientists were pondering global warming in the second half of the 19th century as well.

They were also pondering luminiferous ether and phrenology.

And subatomic models.

I thought the "size zero" thing was a new phenomenon.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And I recall reading scientists were pondering global warming in the second half of the 19th century as well.

They were also pondering luminiferous ether and phrenology.

And subatomic models.

I thought the "size zero" thing was a new phenomenon.

*drops anvil on bilby*

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Or maybe you are reading too damn much into Elixir's and TomC's posts and are extrapolating some ridiculous positions.

That’s SOP for right wingers. Just for the sake of argument of course. Hyperbolic misrepresentation makes identifying the “wrong” people easy. I would not be surprised if many of the same people actually make at least nominal efforts to curb their own emissions even while decrying others.

Stop defending China!

 

[bilby]

Or maybe you are reading too damn much into Elixir's and TomC's posts and are extrapolating some ridiculous positions.

That’s SOP for right wingers. Just for the sake of argument of course. Hyperbolic misrepresentation makes identifying the “wrong” people easy. I would not be surprised if many of the same people actually make at least nominal efforts to curb their own emissions even while decrying others.

Stop defending China!

Woah! You can't go around accusing people of "defending China".






You're supposed to say "defending the Chinese Communist Party"