| Teeqoz said: I have never said that we would get a runaway greenhouse effect, that has never been the issue. And the issue hasn't been plants either - as you say, many plants thrive due to higher CO2 concentrations and temperatures. My biggest concern is the potential impact on people, states and the economy. |
Also doesn't necessarily have to be negative either, plants were just one example ...
There could also easily be more arable land to be had in places such as Canada, Russia, Greenland and the Antartic too ...
| Machiavellian said: I am not sure if CPP effects Natural gas as much as it effect coal. From what I have read the real impact of CPP has always been coal and probably why the Senator is in Kentucky preaching about this saving their jobs. Even still, this only just prolong their jobs as more companies look to move away from Coal to Natural Gas which has all the benefits and less of the issues coal has. Also way before the CPP and even the Obama Administration Coal was on the decline and jobs in that market was dropping as well. Now that most mines are looking for automation it will be like the Automotive industry where machines will take care of those manual jobs. The key issue here is if America isn't on the for front of renewable energy then we will still be in the same place buying our products from another country. I believe there is no empathy is because Coal is considered bad for the environment but also for the health of the people that do the work, for the people that breath in the air like children, drink the water that is contaminated with mercury or deal with the effect in the atmosphere. If the coal industry want to keep rolling then they need to put more effort in converting their plants to the many clean coal solutions but instead they do not want to put any money into it instead they want to continue business as usual. |
Prolonging the jobs for as much as 2 decades is a benefit to the younger generation of these vulnerable communities who are trying to reach higher educational standards to be able to compete ... (if we risk cutting coal out altogether then we also risk taking away the only option for social mobility for some families)
Not only are we sacrificing social mobility for some of these communities but we lose our only realistic potential to energy independence to the likes of Canada which can charge as high of an asking price they want ... (Renewables can't meet all of our demands. Hydro power is nearly tapped out and solar panel installations cost thousands of dollars per skilowatt which makes solar power inaccessable so the best bet is wind power or doubling down on nuclear power)
But there is empathy to be had for coal miner in being able provide for their family, right ? (giving all the money to Canada doesn't help them either since that just means less money for the coal miner's family)
| Errorist76 said: No need to be scared, I’m not threatening you. The opposite actually. You are threatening the vast majority of us. I don’t need to repeat arguments when the vast majority of scientist...those who are not financed by the oil and coal lobby of course, have being doing this for ages. It’s just that some don’t want to believe it, just as there are still people who believe the world is flat. Why?! I don’t know. Of course I’m being emotional cause it seems you selfishly don’t want to listen to reason and in the long run it will affect all of us. Forgive me for being so rude, I’m just sick of all that ignorance and wish you’d all for a year had to live in coastal regions or on small islands which are directly threatened by rising sea levels already. Or help ice bears and Inuit who are having trouble finding food or travel because huge areas of their habitat are disappearing. Even if there would only be a 50% chance that climate change is real, wouldn’t it still be worth fighting against?! We are exploiting this planet on the cost of our following generations. The technology is there already. Why not use it?! Germany, a country with a rather mediocre amount of sun hours, is already taking 35 % of its energy from renewable sources. Image what an impact it would make for the planet when the world’s biggest polluters like China and the US would do the same?! |
What argument from scientists ? Can you not think up of your own argument ? Are you emotional cause you feel the need to be so closed and hive minded ?
Science is not a concensus, it's about critical and independent studies. Do you not like the fact that I've done reputable research since that runs in contrast with everyone's doomsday scenario including yours ?
As far as sea level rise goes, even IPCC estimates put that under a meter so the vast majority of the areas in coastal cities remains good and two or three generations should enough for those people to migrate towards the inlands ...
Anthropogenic climate change is real, it's figuring out whether or not it poses as a instable long term threat. Three generations is enough time for humans to adapt ... (people forget the climate change is gradual rather than instantaneous)
As for why 35% of Germany's energy source are renewable that's because they have lower per capita power consumption than the likes of the Czech Republic or Estonia. I bet if germans consumed as much electricity as americans did the numbers wouldn't be so impressive than they currently are now, am I right ? 
| SpokenTruth said: That's your counter? That Earth will die off in 1 billion years anyway so why bother? There is so much wrong with this. |
It's not even meant to be a counter, it's just meant to point out the futility in even trying to stop industrialization. If the human race hasn't figured interstellar travel and interstellar colonization in the hundreds of millions of years available then our fate is to be cremated either way ...
Why shouldn't we use up our fossil fuel reserves if it provides a stable way to progress to a better human race ? We should we deny the usage of these resources when it could come in handy to drive our consumption for biotechnology which could dramatically improve the intelligence of human race so that we can progress faster ...
Think of it as a debt game where where we take out a loan from earth to invest in the human race where the hope lies in humans progressing civilization faster than earth's environment deteriorating so we can buy ourselves a new home or in this case a new planet before the inevitable end of our original planet ...
But even if our gamble doesn't play out the risk in the long term is mitigated since the CO2 gets reabsorbed again and are deposited into sediments ... (Which one sounds better to you ? Making a desperate attempt to prevent the invetable future of our boiling oceans or explore terraforming/interstellar colonization ?)
