And what if it doesn't achieves those goals, no energy independence but instead energy poverty, forests cut down for biomass burning, unlivable cities like 1920 Manhattan, London, Paris or modern day Hong Kong because of density?
And clean water and healthy children have already been accomplished by countries getting rich and developed.
Then the human race has totally failed. If we can't find a way to get off fossil energy it will eventually run out and things will be far worse than under the scenario of failed green energy.
And what if it doesn't achieves those goals, no energy independence but instead energy poverty, forests cut down for biomass burning, unlivable cities like 1920 Manhattan, London, Paris or modern day Hong Kong because of density?
And clean water and healthy children have already been accomplished by countries getting rich and developed.
You really need to read the recent IPCC report and see what we are dealing with here.
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What about last year, when there were barely any fires in Canada, Western Canada only had a few hot days, and Canada had the largest field crop harvest on record? Climate has never been the exact same weather every year.
You mean the year we had the largest hail storm damage in Canadian history resulting in upwards of $1.5B in economic costs? Ya, sure wish he had a bunch of portable air conditioners to protect us from that storm!
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If the immediate concern is the elderly suffering due to heat, the easiest solution is AC.
Fascinating reading comprehension. Literally the exact opposite of what I said. Maybe you shouldn't read those IPCC reports, you'll come out thinking carbon is good for the climate.
And what if it doesn't achieves those goals, no energy independence but instead energy poverty, forests cut down for biomass burning, unlivable cities like 1920 Manhattan, London, Paris or modern day Hong Kong because of density?
And clean water and healthy children have already been accomplished by countries getting rich and developed.
You think Manhattan, London, Paris, or Hong Kong are ... unliveable?
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You think Manhattan, London, Paris, or Hong Kong are ... unliveable?
They were in 1920 for the vast majority of the population, when their population was 25-33% higher than today. Manhattan density looked like this in 1920:
vs 2010
The average person lived in slums and tenements because the cost of housing was so high, and mobility was so slow.
And now in Hong Kong, you have the most expensive housing in the world and likely the world's worst inequality. If you're not rich, quality of life isn't very high.
Last edited by accord1999; 08-25-2021 at 01:09 PM.
You mean the year we had the largest hail storm damage in Canadian history resulting in upwards of $1.5B in economic costs? Ya, sure wish he had a bunch of portable air conditioners to protect us from that storm!
Economics costs of disasters are always going to increase when population and wealth (and inflation) grows even if those disasters have not changed in frequency. 40 years ago, that same storm would have gone unnoticed because no one was living in the far NE.
An even better example of this is the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926:
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The 1926 Miami hurricane, commonly called the "Great Miami" hurricane,[1] was a large and intense tropical cyclone that devastated the Greater Miami area and caused extensive damage in the Bahamas and the U.S. Gulf Coast in September 1926, accruing a US$100 million damage toll. As a result of the destruction in Florida, the hurricane represented an early start to the Great Depression in the aftermath of the state's 1920s land boom. It has been estimated that a similar hurricane would cause about $235 billion in damage if it were to hit Miami in 2018.
Canadian field crop harvests have gone from 54 million tonnes in 2001 to 98 million tonnes in 2020. And seeded area only went from 28 million Ha to 31 million. Any impact from drought, flooding or storms completely overwhelmed by agriculture's ability to get higher and higher yields.
Last edited by accord1999; 08-25-2021 at 01:13 PM.
Canadian field crop harvests have gone from 54 million tonnes in 2001 to 98 million tonnes in 2020. And seeded area only went from 28 million Ha to 31 million. Any impact from drought, flooding or storms completely overwhelmed by agriculture's ability to get higher and higher yields.
I disagree with many of your posts but do compliment your use of graphs.
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Probably because their goal is not business-as-usual, a higher energy lifestyle for everyone, but de-industrialization and de-population.
Wrong. If anything, the ones with the depopulation agenda are the ones who are fine with making this planet uninhabitable for future generations of humans, as long as it means they get to keep their ####s-&-giggles lifestyle going uninterrupted right now.
If you are looking for a good faith dispassionate discussion, it's probably unwise to distort & misrepresent your opponents' position.
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Originally Posted by edslunch
What has been happening in the past ten years as far as the public is concerned is a series of increasingly unusual and destructive weather events that are not conclusively tied to climate change and are not shockingly, terrifyingly impactful to most individuals. They should be tied and should be terrifying already if someone is paying attention but I’m talking a complete collapse of a society or ecosystem or a massive death wave (sadly needs to be in a developed country), a season that doesn’t come, permanent water rationing... something biblical in scale. Something 70% people can’t deny or ignore.
The state of California is rapidly running out of groundwater... when the taps run dry, maybe that's when people will stop listening to the denialists and start listening to the scientists? Hopefully that's not what it will take.
Maybe because we've improved our firefighting tactics & strategies over time, and invested more resources into fighting fires? It doesn't look like you've taken that into account.
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Canadian field crop harvests have gone from 54 million tonnes in 2001 to 98 million tonnes in 2020. And seeded area only went from 28 million Ha to 31 million. Any impact from drought, flooding or storms completely overwhelmed by agriculture's ability to get higher and higher yields.
There is only so much land that can be used for farming. Again, there are factors you're not taking into account here, such as increased droughts, heat waves, flooding to come in the coming decades, which will ravage farmers' fields across this country. Also, because we live in a relatively cold climate compared to most parts of the world, climate change is expected to negatively impact crop yields WAY harder in places like the US, Asia, Africa, South America, etc. Poor countries which rely on crop yields as the bulk of their economy, will be completely devastated.
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And what if it doesn't achieves those goals, no energy independence but instead energy poverty,
The entire point of the clean energy movement is to wane us off fossil fuel dependence and transition us to a dependable clean energy system where we generate our own power. That is pretty much energy independence by definition...
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forests cut down for biomass burning
The Micheal Moore documentary took one example of a company's malpractice and tried to spin it into there being some giant conspiracy to chop down the world's forests for biomass. Obviously the clean energy movement does not condone chopping down forests for biomass.
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unlivable cities like 1920 Manhattan, London, Paris or modern day Hong Kong because of density?
There's a ton of middle ground between that and what we are living in now. We need to move toward that middle ground. You're using extreme examples to create a bogus narrative. Just because we recognize that endless urban sprawl is horrible for the environment, doesn't mean we want people living in slums.
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And clean water and healthy children have already been accomplished by countries getting rich and developed.
The water sources were there to begin with. Along came endless growth and economic development, which began to deplete those sources and continued to do so over time at an accelerating pace. So while it may seem like economic growth "causes" clean water to "happen", the reality is these countries have exploited already existing sources of fresh water, and can only do so temporarily. Then factor in the effect that climate change has on groundwater levels, glacier depletion, and the effect that pollution in general has on water sources... it all adds up to one big mess that can only be temporarily dealt with. In the long term our only hope might be desalination of ocean water, but the viability of that is unclear.
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The water sources were there to begin with. Along came endless growth and economic development, which began to deplete those sources and continued to do so over time at an accelerating pace. So while it may seem like economic growth "causes" clean water to "happen", the reality is these countries have exploited already existing sources of fresh water, and can only do so temporarily. Then factor in the effect that climate change has on groundwater levels, glacier depletion, and the effect that pollution in general has on water sources... it all adds up to one big mess that can only be temporarily dealt with. In the long term our only hope might be desalination of ocean water, but the viability of that is unclear.
speaking of which, if any of you guys have 20 minutes, this is a great read.
"Today, this river system supplies 40 million people in seven western states and Mexico, and irrigates more than 5 million acres of farmland on its way into Mexico and the Gulf of California.
Las Vegas relies on the river for 90% of its water supply, Tucson for 82% and San Diego for around 66%. Large portions of the water used in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Denver also come from the river, and experts say these booming metropolises would not have been possible without its supply."
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Canadian field crop harvests have gone from 54 million tonnes in 2001 to 98 million tonnes in 2020. And seeded area only went from 28 million Ha to 31 million. Any impact from drought, flooding or storms completely overwhelmed by agriculture's ability to get higher and higher yields.
I feel we draw the exact opposite conclusion from the same data.
The development of technology is not a linear thing, advancement could suddenly stall for a generation for a number of reasons. there is already a huge for profit industry driving natural/non-GMO/organic food movements, that is actively working to undo these gains and market BS to the vaguely aware but underinformed masses. Something like this could completely stall or undermine some of the greatest gains we have made.
It's also very possible technology is resilient up to a certain point and then drops off a cliff. maybe the 1.1 degrees we are at now is helping drive some of the gains, and 1.7 degrees causes things to rapidly deteriorate (completely pulling numbers out of thin air here). We just don't really know and are better off not testing these limits.
It's actually a far more dangerous world, that needs much more careful and deliberate management when you have driven yields to such high levels of efficiency. A great economic boon that allows us to grow to a point that would be dangerous without the technology that facilitated that growth. So now you have to be very careful to stay within the limitations of the technology.
That is an exaggeration on your part. We are already seeing constituency-level majority support for climate mitigation based on the increasingly apparent consequences.
We had a heat wave here in BC that killed 800 people - how is that not a disaster by our current standards?
Good question. It should be considered a disaster, but what major policy or behaviour changes have occurred as a result? Are people frightened enough about that happening again that they are significantly changing their lifestyles? No they aren’t. They may talk about it but where is the action?
A thousand people could die from heat every year and it won’t move the needle.
We could cull the bottom 50% of the world’s consumers and we still have a problem. If we cull the top 20% the problem is solved. Be careful making it a numbers problem.
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Humans are screwed. I changed my behaviour based on this year's heat wave - I bought an A/C. Next year I will use even more energy and emit more carbon.
Green energy sources can only support 3-4 billion people, and I doubt any country is going to volunteer to be downsized.
I think it's probably a multipronged approach that is needed from the consumers. Do we need such big cars? Do we need such big houses? Do we need so many flights and vacations? Do we need to eat the way we do? Do we need to have so many new things?
What is the simplest, environmentally friendly, comfortable life we can live?
I know for me it is a balance but if we aren't weighing the environmental costs we are never going to get there.
Perhaps car manufacturers should be tasked with making ICE cars more efficient?
Even a 10% increase in mileage efficiency would make a big difference.
Perhaps car manufacturers should be tasked with making ICE cars more efficient?
Even a 10% increase in mileage efficiency would make a big difference.
It's not like they aren't trying. 10% is a pretty big challenge. The bigger issue is vehicle size. You want efficiency gains? Tackle that. Start taxing road behemoths.
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