TalkClimateChange

I agree 100% lets leave the science behind until they can come back with some real tangible new discoveries.

I think and have I stated it in the forum and previously that we should have a public referendum in every country on the issue and they should use only the IPCC data and the UNFCC strategies excluding the aid packages (which in my opinion are not relevant), especially the mitigation and adaptation portions.

No spin, no doomsday predictions economic or environmental, no puffed up politicians endoring positions, no talking heads on TV and sensation seeking journalists interviewing controversial figures on each side, no Al Gore preaching from the sidelines. No picketing, no demonstrating, no intimidation, no false promises.

Straight facts, the risks versus the costs, the costs versus the impact.
In big bold letters that everyone can look at and know what that means, pros and cons.

If everyone tells the “truth” ( or at least does not overly extrapolate and veil it) and does not spin the information, I will abide by any decision that comes from such a public participation. I will even actively pursue the path and course decided by my fellow humans.

I ask the pro-AGW crowd to do the same regardless of outcome.

how could the public have been misled so easily about bio-fuels?
i can see politicians and businessmen crunching stats to fit the profits into a green agenda; but people at the pump?

again reinforcing the theory of the importance of economy upon ecology.

someone has to clear land to plant biomass - pesticides and herbicides have to be made and transported - water must be diverted from human use to hydrate the thirsty bio-crops - machines must be fueled and maintained - mass must be transported and processed - more fuel then must be spent to distribute it = at best a negative for the consumer, and a handsome profit for the producers.

sum of it = nature loses again - carbon plus assorted toxicity. we have been served 3 quarters for our full dollar. and we leave the debt to progeny. how clever the blinders!

“how could the public have been misled so easily about bio-fuels?”

I think probably because it seemed like such an easy solution for all of us we wanted it to be a good thing..

“Is the world on the right track?”

10,000 children die every month from diarrheoa, an easily preventable and treatable disease.

Countless others die from lack of access to water due to a combination of greed, poor management and lack of insitutional stability.

Need I say more?!

“Both sides of the argument have successfully confounded each other with a series of false claims, which have weakened credibility to the point where most people just believe what they want to believe.”

Get off the net for a bit and you’ll realise that almost everyone agrees there’s a problem, and we’re the cause of it, they just don’t really know what to do about it.

I think your time spent on the internet, where idiots have a voice instead of being silenced as they are in general society, has warped your views of public opinion.

If you talk to people offline you find a general recognition that human activities are affecting the climate badly, and that our resources won’t last forever, and things have to change. Almost everyone agrees there’s a problem, where the differences are in what our response to it should be. Most just don’t have a clue; the level of disenfrachisement and apathy in public affairs is very high in the West.

I mean, climate change is a big problem. It’s like how Mark just told us of the 10,000 kids dying when they get the runs. What am I supposed to do about that, exactly?

Now, about the kids I don’t know, but about climate change I have some suggestions about what you and I can do. But usually those aren’t presented. It’s just “DOOM!” or “but Science! and The Market! will save us!” Thus, apathy. Helplessness. Fatalism.

The internet, by contrast, concentrates the people with strong opinions, including kooks, conmen and loonies who in earlier times had to just stand on street corners wearing placards “the end of the world is nigh!” or with a little table set up and “which of those three shells holds the pea? Make a bet.”

“If you talk to people offline you find a general recognition that human activities are affecting the climate badly…”

I beg your pardon?! What stuck up self-righteous left-wing socialist morons do you hang around with on a daily basis?!!

I’m sorry but that claim is the biggest load of nonsense I have ever heard.

I speak as someone who bangs on about these issues both on and off line all freakin day long, and I can promise you that most people could not give a MONKEYS about the climate or the environment. They are too busy trying to survive.

Also as someone who has studied the issues for ten years and is the director of a sustainability consultancy.

Sorry if I sound rude I’m just incredulous at your arrogance.

In fact what am I saying, I just read your post again and you manage to contradict yourself within a single sentence. That is impressive:

“…the level of disenfrachisement and apathy in public affairs is very high in the West.”

“It’s like how Mark just told us of the 10,000 kids dying when they get the runs. What am I supposed to do about that, exactly?”

Actually that was me. The point I was trying to make is that despite there being some easy solutions available to us, they rarely get implemented due to the greed and arrogance of mankind - I’m alright, Jack, keep your hands off my stack.

And there are things you can do: stop buying cheap imported goods for one. In the bigger picture, this will help solve many ills.

In addition, you could commit a few pennies each week to sending oral rehydration treatmeant.

http://rehydrate.org/ors/index.html

This will do the world more good than all the savings from all the CO2 you will make in your lifetime - that are probably offset by the launch of one military fighter jet.

Mark, there’s a thought - can you get a good blog up here on military CO2 emissions? And what militaries around the world are up to with respect to climate change? I don’t believe they’re just sitting back and waiting to see what’ll happen.

Metyu #7

I have been trying to get military CO2 numbers and the best I can find is estimates of fossil fuel consumption then conversion to CO2 using basic ratios, since fuel consumption and reserves are strategic in nature accurate accounting is hard to locate.

I am trying to get all the information I need to do a human impact from ice-breaking operations in the arctic on sea ice extent. The military info is hard to find.

If Mark starts a post I will toss in what I know. There has been some annoucements regarding proposed CO2 reductions in the military, but not many.

Metyu you and I agree about most things, especially the world’s poor. I hear people like Kiashu here all the time, they are so out of touch from reality it is sad. I have even done a door-to-door survey in my neighbourhood at the request of someone like that. Something they would never do. I posted my electrical bills on my web site in answer to charges about bad lifestyle, no takers on my challenge.

I cannot understand this group that are lifestyle advocates only, why come to climate change discussions? hey say nothing helpful, or even true most of the time, go hang out on the pilates forum.

They care about nothing other than their narrow view of how others should live while turning a blind eye to reality.

These people could not be farther from reality. The send billions to WWF to save the spotted pygmy tree whale bear and nothing to SOS Children’s Villages ( my favorite charity ) or many other organizations that are saving and improving the lives of HUMAN CHILDREN each day.

There I said it, they value the views that western lifestyle and society allows them, about that same society, much higher than any real effort to save the people who die everyday from simple preventable disease and malnutrition.

Hi All,

Thanks for all your comments today, much appreciated. I’m planning a post in the next couple of days called ‘What I have learnt from my readers’ - which is quite a lot!

Military Co2 emissions post is a good idea. I’ll see what I can find, although it’s probably not a lot. Just in case you are interested, I wrote something enviro-military ish a short while ago on eco-worldly: http://ecoworldly.com/2008/01/24/environmental-concerns-lead-swiss-to-vote-on-military-flights-ban/

I’m also planning another post suggested by Metu on buildings in the next couple of days (so many posts in the pipeline, but never enough time to write them).

But just to you let you know - if anybody else wants to write a post then I’m happy to publish it here if it fits within the general theme of this blog.

Sorry no fresh post today. Stay tuned,

Mark.

Metyu, I generally hang out with very working class, relatively poorly-educated people. I used to be in the Army as an infantry soldier, and now I’m a chef.

It’s not a contradiction to say that people are aware of a problem, but are apathetic about it. To know is not necessarily to care.

It’s like saying that in some country where heaps of people smoke, that almost everyone knows it causes lung cancer. Knowledge of a problem and an effective response to a problem are different things.

So the issue isn’t that people aren’t agreed that there’s a climate problem, but that they don’t know what we can do about it.

Now, fossil fuel and other resource depletion, we can honestly say that people are generally unaware of that as a problem. We’re accustomed to thinking that the fossil fuels will always be there for us, like some 30 year old still mooching off his parents.