Topic: Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming? - page 4. (Read 30065 times)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4

Its not scientific proof or anything, but rather rational thinking and logic. And a little bit of humor 

Real scientists are always sceptics, but nor am I very sceptical that climate change exists.  The climate is always changing.  The part that is sceptical is the role of human activity in the matter.  Is humanity to blame for the catastrophy that has been known as the 'Medieval Warm Period'?  What about the 'Littile Ice Age'?  As a professional meterologist, certainly you studied these historic periods of relatively rapid changes in worldwide climate?  In either case, it took about a century to change at the inflection points.  We're beyond a century since the dawn of the Industrial Age (age of oil), and the most credible of negative 'worst case' models take another century to rise global temps to a point that the poles actually do melt.  The melting of said poles doesn't even necessarily imply a net negative impact upon humanity or life in general, since this also implies the associated expansion of agricultural land in the northern latitides, the increase in growing seasons in all lower latitudes and the productive increases that can be expected from increases in ambiant CO2 available to agricultural plantlife.  That's not even considering the vast energy savings in winter heating among the entire population beyond the 75th parrallel.  The official records concerning the MWP imply that we crossed the average global temps in 1990's, but last I checked wine vineyards are still not viable in Northern Britian like they were for 400 years during the MWP.  If anyone is growing wine grapes in Scotland without a glasshouse and we still have economicly viable fossil fuels left, I might have something to worry about, but I doubt it.  I've literally seen wealthy people buy lakefront property around the Great Lakes on the potential that global warming would make such areas more valuable for their grandchildren.  There are always things that real people can do to mitigate the risks of change.

Food shortages, as a result from climate change, isn't a credible threat.  Far more likely is the rapid expansion of agriculture for the above noted reasons.  Whoever tells you such things is trying to scare you, or are simply scared themselves.  As a trained meterologist, I think that you know this is so on some deep, rational level.  Food shortages in places where food is already difficult to grow, now that can get worse.  Fresh water sources could become a real issue with an expanding population and expanding agricultureal base, since is already is (but not as a consequence of climate change, but poor resource management with an expanding population).  This is, ironicly, one of the reasons that I choose to live in this city of Louisville, Kentucky.  I live 26 feet over the top of one of the largest replenishing known in the US.  I have both the legal, and pyisical, capability of driving a wellpoint in my own backyard if I choose to do so.

Define 'close enough'.  I live 8.5 miles form work.


ironicly, public transport isn't normally going to reduce your carbon footprint by any non-neglible degree in most US cities.  New York or LA, yes.  Cincinnati or Indianapolis, no.  The reason for this is because public transport must run whether or not you are using it, public transit's average ridership is too low to compete with a modern compact car.  Such public transit might make you feel good about it, but it exists as a transit subsidy for the poor; and no other reason is historicly or scientificly accurate.

Believe it or not but I was actually working in meteorology some 20 years ago. Back then we had rolling 3 week schedules that we refined each day. Obviously the predictions 3 weeks away was very rough, like saying that it would rain in the entire state of Connecticut, which obviously wasn't true, but we knew that it was going to rain around that time in that general area. I'm well aware of the assumptions that must be done and that things will change. That doesn't mean that we didn't have a model that was fairly good. The same applies to larger weather systems. The models aren't perfect but they aren't worthless either.
Magazines like Nature or New Scientist are fairly respected publications and neither of them are sceptical of climate change, even though the do publish cock-ups by scientists when they're found. Are you saying that they too have a political agenda, and goes against good science to push it?

Rising sea level isn't the biggest threat in itself. I'm sure people will have time to get out of the way when the water is coming. Flooded farmland leading to food shortage, ecosystems out of balance and other things are more of a concern I think. That's not something I'd like to leave behind when I go.

I wasn't talking about you specifically. But I'm happy to hear that you're doing your part. So am I. Sadly I don't work close enough to ride my bike to work, but I do commute with public transport, among other things that reduce my footprint. I'm still far above a sustainable level if you look at the web-tests you can do however.

This is pretty much what all the serious research and academic publications say, it's the media and the political class that turns these research papers into something that they are not.  There are very few academics (in the fields that are relevent to the topic) that will state that either the Earth is not warming as a whole or that necessarily means that such warming will continue in the future.  The exceptions are provablely biased by political ideologies.  Honest scientists can't reliablely predict the weather 20 days from now, and they will be the frist to say that the long term climate models (all of them) are based upon many assumptions about how certain varirables affect the outcome or even what those variables' values are with any precision.


Yes, it does.  If it takes three generations for the worst case scenario (+4 degrees C) that the models predict to occur, it can hardly be considered a catastrophe can it?  IT's not like humanity ats a whole won't have time to adapt to a (potential) 1.2 meter high rise in the ocean's median level.  Even the worst of the poor could walk away from such areas long before that.  Nearly every sandy beach in the world would be under low tide, but that's only a catastrophe to sunbathers and surfers.

And I don't own an SUV.  I've ridden a 21 speed bicycle to work 250+ days per year to work since May 2nd, 2008.  I'm doing my part, but for my health and my checkbook.  What are you doing?

Well Atlas, that certainly puts your opinions on the role of the state as part of a civilised society in context.  If your objective is elimination of life on Earth as we move to a "post scarcity situation in the starts," or Heaven as my old Grannie called it, then clearly anything that impedes that goal will be against your ideology.

I encourage destruction of this planet. I applaud the pollution of remaining potable water, breathable air and fertile terrain. That will only give us further incentive to leave this blue sphere and reach for the stars. Maybe, just maybe, it will be the ignition to get us to a post-scarcity situation. Humanity has already proven itself as a virus on a smaller scale. We might as well embrace the role to its fullest potential; to the rest of the universe and possibly beyond.

Yes. If it takes so long that our descendants can engineer their bodies by then, they might be glad we pulled out all the stops to allow them the chance to exist. Tolerating some pollution may enable some fantastic technological developments. Whether or not it's worth it is not my place to say.

The only references to this are publications that don't exactly have the highest academic credibility. Is there any serious research going into this? I have a feeling that most researchers are quite honest and if there was something going on we'd see more peer reviewed papers about it.

Does it really matter if it takes a century to materialize? You're not really that egocentric that you're willing to screw your children and grandchildren for the comfort of driving a SUV today, are you?

There is a clear indication that the climate is trending warmer, and has been since the end of the 'little ice age'.  There is also a clear indication that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.  There is not a clear connection between the two.  The environment is a very complex system and the concentration of CO2 a very small part of it.  Both the climate and the level of atmospheric CO2 are in constant flux over millienia, but the CO2 concentration tends to be a lagging indicator; implying that the increases of CO2 in the atmosphere are an effect of a warming global climate, not a cause.  Although it's certainly possible that CO2 is, itself, a feedback loop.  There is no indication, nor any logical reason to assume, that even a tripling of the amount of carbon in the air would result in a catastrophic degree of climate change.  Even a 4 degree global change would take at least a century to materialize.

From my understanding it's more like "We have a clear indication that ..." meaning that while they don't really know everything since they're dealing with complex systems their current understanding points to bad things. 
Then you have the politicians who have to cry wolf to get anything done.

That's funny, but not only do I have no corporate interest in the topic, I actually understand much of the underlying science.  At the politcal level, particularly surrounding the UN, understanding of the science and thus the real risks are lacking.  Of course, the real risks are beside the point, since the real goals of most of those political agents is to use the fear of an unknown (possible climate catastrophy) to consolidate political power at the UN level.

The best answer to what the real science says about the future of global climate is basicly "we don't really know yet".

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ToEH3NXrJ0M/Tt-_7stlmII/AAAAAAAABLI/kLCrIbOKLlU/w402/5Stages.jpg

 

I meant, generally, with regard to fossil fuels.  The drop from 7K in the Cambrian is likely due to the rise and spread of multicellular plantlife, which maintains a certain level of sequesterd carbon in the cycle of life.

That graph shows a peak of about 7000 ppm in the Cambrian, which was still a billion years after carbon sequestering began. How could the level of CO2 be higher in the Cambrian than before sequestering?

Assuming that chart is correct, and not just some made up bs, then that implies that the level of CO2 in the air before sequesteration was about 3K ppm, and that all of the fossil fuels were created during the Teritary.  So relatively recently.  Humanity might actually be able to notice 3K ppm directly, because we use the concentration of CO2 in our lungs and bloodstream to tell us when to exhale.  A level so high might trigger the sensation of suffocation in some people.  Regardless, if a CO2 feedback mechanism exists in nature, a level anywhere near 3K ppm would have destroyed all life; so obviously one cannot exist.

Sorry. This one has scales:

That's an interesting graph, but there are no scales to make comparisons.

It's not an example of an environment we can survive because nothing remotely close to humans were alive last time it was like that. I'm not proving that life would be impossible - I'm rejecting your hypothesis as to why life (beyond microscopic) MUST be possible.