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Author Topic: Extreme weather  (Read 111637 times)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #760 on: September 11, 2019, 06:47:06 pm »

Looks like the fight against global warming is over when the liberal New Yorker Magazine comes out against it.  The world must be coming to an end, for sure.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending

Quite the opposite, Alan. They are clamoring for draconian measures in order to minimize the effects of global warming, as I posted in the other climate thread:


(Emphasis mine)

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The first condition is that every one of the world’s major polluting countries institute draconian conservation measures, shut down much of its energy and transportation infrastructure, and completely retool its economy...

... Finally, overwhelming numbers of human beings, including millions of government-hating Americans, need to accept high taxes and severe curtailment of their familiar life styles without revolting. They must accept the reality of climate change and have faith in the extreme measures taken to combat it. They can’t dismiss news they dislike as fake. They have to set aside nationalism and class and racial resentments. They have to make sacrifices for distant threatened nations and distant future generations. They have to be permanently terrified by hotter summers and more frequent natural disasters, rather than just getting used to them. Every day, instead of thinking about breakfast, they have to think about death....

... any movement toward a more just and civil society can now be considered a meaningful climate action. Securing fair elections is a climate action. Combating extreme wealth inequality is a climate action. Shutting down the hate machines on social media is a climate action. Instituting humane immigration policy, advocating for racial and gender equality, promoting respect for laws and their enforcement, supporting a free and independent press, ridding the country of assault weapons—these are all meaningful climate actions.

Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #761 on: September 11, 2019, 06:52:56 pm »

The Demoncrats are recommending that.  Not the New Yorker Magazine.  Its article says we should spend our money elsewhere such as on relief and other related help caused by the warning and only a little on getting to change the climate as that's impossible to do.   

LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #762 on: September 11, 2019, 09:15:23 pm »

Looks like the fight against global warming is over when the liberal New Yorker Magazine comes out against it.  The world must be coming to an end, for sure.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending

Not to an end, but to not so nice scenario. Below are some quotations from the mentioned article. Thanks for the link, Alan.

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If you’re younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it.

We’ve emitted as much atmospheric carbon in the past thirty years as we did in the previous two centuries of industrialization.

Our atmosphere and oceans can absorb only so much heat before climate change, intensified by various feedback loops, spins completely out of control. The consensus among scientists and policy-makers is that we’ll pass this point of no return if the global mean temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius (maybe a little more, but also maybe a little less). The I.P.C.C.—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—tells us that, to limit the rise to less than two degrees, we not only need to reverse the trend of the past three decades. We need to approach zero net emissions, globally, in the next three decades.

When a scientist predicts a rise of two degrees Celsius, she’s merely naming a number about which she’s very confident: the rise will be at least two degrees. The rise might, in fact, be far higher. (the author refers to a female scientist, but it could well be also a man).

First of all, even if we can no longer hope to be saved from two degrees of warming, there’s still a strong practical and ethical case for reducing carbon emissions. In the long run, it probably makes no difference how badly we overshoot two degrees; once the point of no return is passed, the world will become self-transforming. In the shorter term, however, half measures are better than no measures. Halfway cutting our emissions would make the immediate effects of warming somewhat less severe, and it would somewhat postpone the point of no return. The most terrifying thing about climate change is the speed at which it’s advancing, the almost monthly shattering of temperature records. If collective action resulted in just one fewer devastating hurricane, just a few extra years of relative stability, it would be a goal worth pursuing.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #763 on: September 11, 2019, 10:52:15 pm »

The point of the article though is  "At what cost?"  Toi spend so much money trying to change the climate may be more hurtful than setting aside that money to compensate for the change in climate.  Remediation of damage, building of nuclear power plants, etc.  Also, what isn't mentioned in the article is that money spent on either reducing carbon or remediation won;t be spent for other things, like feeding people, research to reduce diseases, housing the homeless, etc.  These too should have been included in the article.  It would have made an even stronger case for not spending money on carbon reduction. 

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #764 on: September 12, 2019, 04:07:53 am »

The point of the article though is  "At what cost?"  Toi spend so much money trying to change the climate may be more hurtful than setting aside that money to compensate for the change in climate.

It is 'cheaper' to prevent than attempting to cure when the damage has been done.

I put quotes around 'cheaper' because we are also talking about the loss of health and life for many people, not only economic turmoil or loss of property.

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Remediation of damage, building of nuclear power plants, etc.  Also, what isn't mentioned in the article is that money spent on either reducing carbon or remediation won;t be spent for other things, like feeding people, research to reduce diseases, housing the homeless, etc.

There will be even less money for that if it is needed to repair the avoidable disruption of society, and loss of property/livelihoods.

Cheers,
Bart
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #765 on: September 12, 2019, 08:37:29 am »

It is 'cheaper' to prevent than attempting to cure when the damage has been done.

I put quotes around 'cheaper' because we are also talking about the loss of health and life for many people, not only economic turmoil or loss of property.

There will be even less money for that if it is needed to repair the avoidable disruption of society, and loss of property/livelihoods.

Cheers,
Bart
The thrust of the article is that it is too late to make much of a difference trying to reduce carbon.  There's too many people, growing even larger, needing more and more carbon to live.   That it's better to spend the money on other things. You have a different analysis, but maybe an incorrect view.  So that's the debate.  How should the limited resources be allocated?   It's not something that you hear people discussing much and it should be.

faberryman

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #766 on: September 12, 2019, 08:42:51 am »

The thrust of the article is that it is too late to make much of a difference trying to reduce carbon.  There's too many people, growing even larger, needing more and more carbon to live.   That it's better to spend the money on other things. You have a different analysis, but maybe an incorrect view.  So that's the debate.  How should the limited resources be allocated?   It's not something that you hear people discussing much and it should be.
it is amazing to me that you could read that article and come away with that conclusion. No point even debating it.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #767 on: September 12, 2019, 09:10:54 am »

it is amazing to me that you could read that article and come away with that conclusion. No point even debating it.
Forget the article.  Debate me.  I've been saying in this whole thread, over and over, that we have to consider where to spend limited resources.  How much can be allocated without hurting other important things we have to take care of.   We can't do everything. 

It's like running your household.  Your kids need new clothes, health care, solid food, and you have to save money for college.  So you and your wife sit down to figure out how much to allocate to each area.  You don;t say let's take all the money and put it away for college and leave little for everything else.  Well, that's what I'm saying.  How are we going to divvy up resources to pay for all these things.  You don't pull an amount out of your hat like the Democrat candidates for president are doing.  There won't be anything left for anything else. No one's talking about these things.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #768 on: September 12, 2019, 11:45:27 am »

it is amazing to me that you could read that article and come away with that conclusion. No point even debating it.

Then what's the point of your post? If you think the conclusion is erroneous, state your case. Righteous indignation is not a valid argument.

The article is long, and covers a lot. But the central premise, even in the title, is that it might already be too late to stop and reverse climate change and better to concentrate on tackling its consequences. You may disagree with it, but that's what the gist of the article is.

faberryman

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #769 on: September 12, 2019, 11:55:07 am »

Then what's the point of your post? If you think the conclusion is erroneous, state your case. Righteous indignation is not a valid argument.

The article is long, and covers a lot. But the central premise, even in the title, is that it might already be too late to stop and reverse climate change and better to concentrate on tackling its consequences. You may disagree with it, but that's what the gist of the article is.
As I indicated, it is not worth it to go down that rabbit hole with Alan, or you.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #770 on: September 12, 2019, 11:56:40 am »

As I indicated, it is not worth it to go down that rabbit hole with Alan, or you.

Fantastic contribution to the discussion.

Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #771 on: September 12, 2019, 12:21:09 pm »

Unfortunately the left debates that way. If you don't believe what they have to say you don't have a right for a different viewpoint. They want to shut down all debate, all discussion. Just believe what they believe. 

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #772 on: September 12, 2019, 12:28:11 pm »

Then what's the point of your post? If you think the conclusion is erroneous, state your case. Righteous indignation is not a valid argument.

The article is long, and covers a lot. But the central premise, even in the title, is that it might already be too late to stop and reverse climate change and better to concentrate on tackling its consequences. You may disagree with it, but that's what the gist of the article is.

The article in the NewYorker starts with:
Quote
[...] The goal has been clear for thirty years, and despite earnest efforts we’ve made essentially no progress toward reaching it. Today, the scientific evidence verges on irrefutable.

Some are beginning to make earnest efforts, others not:
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-06/trump-warns-california-violating-law-auto-emissions
Quote
Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board, who negotiated the agreement with the four automakers, chided the administration for seeking to overturn the deal.

“The U.S. Department of Justice brings its weight to bear against auto companies in an attempt to frighten them out of voluntarily making cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks than EPA wants. Consumers might ask, who is Andy Wheeler protecting?” she said in a statement, referring to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.

Is one of many examples.

Cheers,
Bart
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #773 on: September 12, 2019, 12:33:23 pm »

Bart,  what's that got to do with Slobodan's point or mine?

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #774 on: September 12, 2019, 01:14:26 pm »

Bart,  what's that got to do with Slobodan's point or mine?

To spell it out, the article seems to say contradictory/untrue things. So your conclusion is based on that?

To spell it out even clearer, it's not a scientific paper about Extreme Weather (the topic of this thread).
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #775 on: September 12, 2019, 01:56:12 pm »

I've been recommending that we spend money on other things long before this article recommended the same thing. Maybe he's been reading my posts here. 🤨 

Recommending what to do about extreme weather is exactly on off the things what this topic is all about.

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #776 on: September 12, 2019, 01:58:15 pm »

I've been recommending that we spend money on other things long before this article recommended the same thing. Maybe he's been reading my posts here. 🤨 

Recommending what to do about extreme weather is exactly on off the things what this topic is all about.

Recommending to do nothing is ill-advised.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #777 on: September 12, 2019, 02:03:18 pm »

Recommending to do nothing is ill-advised.
How much should be spent of the budget on preventing climate change? How much of the budget should be spent on remediation of Damages due to climate change? How much of the budget should be sent on cancer research? How much of the budget should be used to develop new cars? How much should the economy change based upon climate change? Should we eliminate carbon producing cars? Should we build more levees to prevent flooding is you do when your country? These things are not being discussed. All we're arguing about is it whether it's real or not? Can't we change the subject?

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #778 on: September 12, 2019, 02:52:07 pm »

How much should be spent of the budget on preventing climate change?

Wrong question. Slowing down anthropogenic climate change is hard enough.

Not spending/investing now will cost more in the end.

It's about changing behavior, perhaps even more than spending money.
Stopping the denial is a start. Getting off one's butt is a start.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #779 on: September 12, 2019, 04:15:05 pm »

You're still stuck. Oh well.
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