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View Poll Results: What role do humans play in contributing to climate change?
Humans are the primary contributor to climate change 392 62.92%
Humans contribute to climate change, but not the main cause 163 26.16%
Not sure 37 5.94%
Climate change is a hoax 31 4.98%
Voters: 623. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 08-12-2021, 05:25 PM   #2261
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Up until 100 years ago every child faced far far worse issues of food security, disease, poverty, war, etc... than any child is likely to face in the near future. Not having children because they might not grow up in the baby boomer world of excess seems a little extreme to me. As it currently stands, the quality of life in the Western world continues to improve over time. Everything points to indicators like life expectancy continuing to improve.
FWIW I don't agree with it, but I understand it.
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Old 08-12-2021, 05:32 PM   #2262
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The whole "what about them" argument is so bad faith, especially in regards to Greta who actually does try to follow what she preaches.

The problem is that we all still live in the world in 2021. There arn't a lot of carbon friendly options available and we need to make due with what we have. There is a lot of finger pointing at the advocates to practice what you preach, and you know what, who cares? Does it change the message? Greta isn't saying "you" the individual isn't doing enough, she is saying "you" the collective isn't doing enough.

We all have to drive internal combustion engines still, get our energy from burning fossil fuels and use products made with processes that release carbon. It is our current way of life, and it has to change. You need to use what's available now to further change in the future.

Does Greta own oil company stocks and makes her money while jet setting around? No? Because that would be hypocritical. Using the transportation methods at her disposal in our current world isn't being a hypocrite as much as you want it to be.

Its just a deflection from the real issues and attacking the messenger instead of listening to the message. We as a collective need to change, I don't feel shame for driving an ICE car, because an electric is unaffordable to me. Greta wants the countrys, the governments, the companies with the money and power to enact change, to do it, and its our job to put pressure on them to do it.

No one is saying you are a bad person for owning an iphone, or driving a car, or eating a burger. That's just people putting up a strawman to deflect from a message they don't want to hear. What is being said is that the world is tipping, we are in some deep ####, and the people causing the problem are the ones going to be hurt the least from it.

I'm not worried about food scarcity in Canada, but there are billions of others that will be seriously affected. While we sit with the highest carbon footprint per capita in the G7 and do nothing but offer platitudes, millions of people will die from the changing climate we are causing.

Greta is using her carbon footprint to get out there, to put pressure on changing the status quo, so that they are better options and she won't need to use the carbon she is now. If you take it as personal shame, fine thats your choice. But that's not the message. Force change in governments, make them act, stop buying high carbon intensive goods. If we all used what carbon footprint we have to force the issue like Greta does, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
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Old 08-12-2021, 07:11 PM   #2263
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It was only 100 years ago people were saying to themselves: "I live in extreme poverty on a poor farm, better have 14 kids, hopefully most of them survive."
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Old 08-12-2021, 08:25 PM   #2264
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Really? You think people who died from dehydration, extreme violence, etc., were just happy to go for the ride?
It is part of the human condition to be hopeful and to fight against despair. That is the thread upon which humanity has survived to this point.

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I think if you told a prospective parent that there was a high-probability that their child would from starvation or dehydration, I think most people would have second thoughts.

I'm not saying that that's what's going to happen in the future, just that it's not crazy to be reluctant based on those thoughts.
You have moved the goal posts a hundred miles here. Now it's 'high probability that their child would die of starvation or dehydration'. It's far from any kind of certainty that that is what the future holds.

Even still, here's the thing: a significant portion of the children born into this world did in fact face a fate of being at risk of dying from starvation. And I would argue that even in this extreme example, the majority would still choose that over the alternative of not existing. It is - again - the bature of the human condition.

It is incredibly arrogant to think you can decide that someone else doesn't want to live. Who among us is truly qualified to make that decision?
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Old 08-12-2021, 08:28 PM   #2265
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"Better than 100 years ago" /= good.
By your standards.
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Old 08-12-2021, 08:43 PM   #2266
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"Better than 100 years ago" /= good.
The human existence has never been as good as it is today. Despite people’s pessimistic outlook and thinking the worst, we have made enormous global progress. There could have been a newspaper headline today that said “yesterday 137,000 people were lifted from extreme poverty” and not only is that true, but they could have run that headline every day for the past 25 years! We’ve made astounding progress. We live better, have more stable lives, more food security and are healthier than at anytime in human history.

So, you can look at things cynically and say how bad things are and that we have all these problems. But the statistical reality is that there have been incredible improvements in nearly every department, and across the continents.
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Old 08-12-2021, 08:43 PM   #2267
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In theory you could argue that if you passionately care about climate change and finding a solution, knowing the carbon impact of one person, it’s actually morally wrong NOT to bring a child into this world. That’s one potential person you could teach about the importance of fighting climate change, and one potential person that could be driven enough to develop a scientific solution that no one has thought of, or at least one potential person that could tip the scale towards society actually doing something about it.

…in theory…
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Old 08-13-2021, 09:22 AM   #2268
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Re: Greta Thunberg discussion. It should be noted that during the 2019 UN Conference, she decided to take a boat instead of flying, as an example of lowering her footprint.

I think this discussion is silly. The actual math of lowering your footprint is practically 0% towards reducing carbon emissions, but it’s rather a form of communication; your action can lead to others joining the action, allowing a real form of change.
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Old 08-13-2021, 01:53 PM   #2269
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The human existence has never been as good as it is today. Despite people’s pessimistic outlook and thinking the worst, we have made enormous global progress. There could have been a newspaper headline today that said “yesterday 137,000 people were lifted from extreme poverty” and not only is that true, but they could have run that headline every day for the past 25 years! We’ve made astounding progress. We live better, have more stable lives, more food security and are healthier than at anytime in human history.

So, you can look at things cynically and say how bad things are and that we have all these problems. But the statistical reality is that there have been incredible improvements in nearly every department, and across the continents.
Yeah, we lifted tons of people out of extreme poverty, leading to not only an explosion in the world population, but also a rapid increase in the average consumption of resources per person, and pollution per person. As a result, we're in the process of turning our one and only home into an uninhabitable wasteland. On a geological timescale, we're doing this in a blink of an eye. You can't, and I mean you just can't explain this away by waving in front of our faces how bad people had it 100 years ago.

Sure, people all over the world live much better today than their counterparts from 100 years ago did. But this ignores two very important points: 1) there are still egregious injustices that continue to persist into modern times, and 2) this relatively good state that we're living in will slip away from us soon, due to the unavoidable climate catastrophe that has already begun, and will only get worse from here.

The irony here should not be lost on you... it's largely because of our consumerist society and modern lifestyles that we've created the situation that will likely do us in. Does this mean that humanity is completely doomed? Not necessarily. While major calamity is already baked into our near future, outright extinction is not. We can avoid the worst case scenario by taking major steps now to move away from fossil fuels and toward green energy.
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Old 08-13-2021, 02:54 PM   #2270
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Yeah, we lifted tons of people out of extreme poverty, leading to not only an explosion in the world population, but also a rapid increase in the average consumption of resources per person, and pollution per person. As a result, we're in the process of turning our one and only home into an uninhabitable wasteland. On a geological timescale, we're doing this in a blink of an eye. You can't, and I mean you just can't explain this away by waving in front of our faces how bad people had it 100 years ago.

Sure, people all over the world live much better today than their counterparts from 100 years ago did. But this ignores two very important points: 1) there are still egregious injustices that continue to persist into modern times, and 2) this relatively good state that we're living in will slip away from us soon, due to the unavoidable climate catastrophe that has already begun, and will only get worse from here.

The irony here should not be lost on you... it's largely because of our consumerist society and modern lifestyles that we've created the situation that will likely do us in. Does this mean that humanity is completely doomed? Not necessarily. While major calamity is already baked into our near future, outright extinction is not. We can avoid the worst case scenario by taking major steps now to move away from fossil fuels and toward green energy.
I agree with some of your points - but I don't think there is much correlation between wealth and population growth.

Its not like China and the US are seeing huge population growth.
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Old 08-13-2021, 04:49 PM   #2271
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Over consumption is the problem!

Away with the fossil fuels!

Stop driving 3 cars!

Stop eating steak!

And we wonder why nothing changes.

In this thread and countless others, 100s of examples have been shared where we could make massive change in a short period of time, without necessarily affecting how people live.

As long as we continue to bicker around over how much stuff everyone has, nothing will ever change.

And I say that as someone who is just as disgusted with people who always want the latest, greatest and best thing to come out. I just think there are better ways to fix the problem.

Like, moving to CLT construction in a big way. But, lets continue talking about how much steak our neighbors are eating.
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Old 08-13-2021, 05:52 PM   #2272
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I agree with above. The one thing that I always think about it is, where is the line for over consumption vs consumption? I assume that line is different for each one of us
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Old 08-13-2021, 07:44 PM   #2273
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I think the COVID pandemic has pretty conclusively proven that we as a society can't be trusted to behave in a responsible manner that protects our collective interests and survival. There's going to need to be a major re-ordering of social and economic priorities/ideologies if we're to actually have any hope of getting out of this crisis.
Really? I think people have behaved a lot better than I would have expected. Back in the spring of 2020 when countries were imposing strict social distancing measures, analysts and pundits said we had to get that lockdown right, because the public in Western democracies would not tolerate a second round of restrictions. Well, we’ve had three now, and may well have a fourth. Where’s the looting, the mobs? At no point have I felt unsafe walking the streets or that civil society would break down.

Anyone who regards the last 18 months as humans failing to uphold civilization lacks imagination or hasn’t read much history.
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Old 08-13-2021, 09:47 PM   #2274
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I agree with above. The one thing that I always think about it is, where is the line for over consumption vs consumption? I assume that line is different for each one of us
Consumption is what I can afford. Over-consumption is what people with more money than me can afford.

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Old 08-14-2021, 12:48 PM   #2275
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Over consumption is the problem!

Away with the fossil fuels!

Stop driving 3 cars!

Stop eating steak!

And we wonder why nothing changes.

In this thread and countless others, 100s of examples have been shared where we could make massive change in a short period of time, without necessarily affecting how people live.

As long as we continue to bicker around over how much stuff everyone has, nothing will ever change.

And I say that as someone who is just as disgusted with people who always want the latest, greatest and best thing to come out. I just think there are better ways to fix the problem.

Like, moving to CLT construction in a big way. But, lets continue talking about how much steak our neighbors are eating.
I'm not talking about changes on the individual level, I'm talking about changes on the government policy level. Things like carbon pricing, ending fossil fuel subsidies, and making larger investments into clean energy are no brainers, yet governments keep dragging their heels on those things. That's where my frustration comes from.
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I agree with some of your points - but I don't think there is much correlation between wealth and population growth.

Its not like China and the US are seeing huge population growth.
Humanity has taken hundreds of thousands of years to reach a population of 1B, 100 years after that to reach 2B, 35 years after that to reach 3B, and has ballooned to 7.9B in the 60 years since then, was my point.

Last edited by Mathgod; 08-14-2021 at 03:42 PM.
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Old 08-14-2021, 01:07 PM   #2276
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Humanity has taken hundreds of thousands of years to reach a population of 1B, 100 years after that to reach 2B, 35 years after that to reach 3B, and has ballooned to 7.5B in the 60 years since then, was my point.
It's weird to think that 6.5% of the human beings that ever existed on this planet are alive today. Using 50,000 BCE as the date of around when our ancestors would be biologically the same as us.
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Old 08-14-2021, 10:30 PM   #2277
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And what if this climate disaster some are predicting to happen doesn't happen.
It will. Start listening to the scientists and quit pretending that you know better than them.

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What if issues like food security, disease, life expectancy, only continue to improve. Even the most alarmist credible views on climate change don't have the standard of living in places like Canada plunging dramatically.

IMO the decision not to have children is a very drastic one people are making in the face of a relatively remote possibility. In 80 years Canada will be an inhospitable wasteland? I'm curious as to what the specific events people think will occur in 80 years that will make life so unbearable for their potential children is. Even 50 years ago there was a significant chance of a nuclear war.
Consequences of climate change to happen this century (already happening to some extent):



I also don't think you're taking into account the size & scale of the political upheaval that will be caused by hundreds of millions (possibly billions) of climate refugees moving from flood, drought, or heat ravaged parts of the world to more habitable countries.

Last edited by Mathgod; 08-14-2021 at 10:32 PM.
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Old 08-14-2021, 10:32 PM   #2278
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Consumption is what I can afford. Over-consumption is what people with more money than me can afford.

- everyone
Exactly. The solutions will not come from willpower. It will come from policy, and there are a very many people who hate when policy is used to shift behaviour.
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Old 08-14-2021, 10:42 PM   #2279
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Why aren’t we injecting particulate in the stratosphere yet.

The reluctance to apply the cheapest and fastest mitigation to warming because of its moral hazard is ridiculous. Yes it doesn’t solve ocean acidification and has risk of unintended consequences. Right now it’s the only practical option to prevent 1.5C of warming.

It’s maddening that each country laying lip service to emmissions is where we are at right now. Geo-Engineering can give us the 10-20 years required for the tech to propagate out and reduce CO2 emmissions because it’s cheaper.
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Old 08-14-2021, 10:48 PM   #2280
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I think the biggest problem when it comes to reducing per capita carbon footprints is that trying to manage it at an international or national level doesn't work. It puts pressure on industry, which just passes the cost on to the consumers. It's not really fair to make consumers pay more, who are already paying out the nose, so that the billionaires on top can keep raking in the profits.

For it to work, it has to be a collaborated effort at the community level. Instead of trying to force people into reducing their carbon output by making it economically unviable, they need to be persuasive by making cities more logistical to reduce the need for energy. Promote producing and buying local products, better city planning, better public transport, that sort of thing.

It will require a complete cultural shift to change "car culture" in North America, to convince people that they don't need avocados from Mexico or a TV in every room of the house. That's the tricky part.
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