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Post by aquaduct on Nov 15, 2019 22:08:50 GMT -5
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Nov 15, 2019 23:25:36 GMT -5
nevermind (I just figured out where I had seen the meme pic before; way inappropriate...)
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Post by Marshall on Nov 16, 2019 0:52:59 GMT -5
I don't see where your "Good Riddance" comments comes from. From what I read in the article, both Thunberg & Mann are saying there is Climate Change. Just that Thuberg preaches individuals need to make changes to slow it down. Whereas the Mann thoughts say that only government has the power to make the changes necessary to slow it down. (More mass transit, fund research, set emission standards, build electric charging stations, etc). Personally I don't see any way out of it. I admire the commitment of the Thunbergs of the world. But that's not sustainable for all mankind. It means going back to the stone age. And that ain't gonna happen. Maybe the Mann approach says that society/government should wake up and invest more in technologies to mitigate more of the effects. Slow it down. But neither are denying it's happening. . . . , Oh, I get it. You think they are going to negate each other's course of action. Well actually, Thunberg may be the posterchild for the Climate Change movement. But I don't think any measurable percentage of the population is going to follow her example.
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Post by aquaduct on Nov 16, 2019 9:38:56 GMT -5
I don't see where your "Good Riddance" comments comes from. From what I read in the article, both Thunberg & Mann are saying there is Climate Change. Just that Thuberg preaches individuals need to make changes to slow it down. Whereas the Mann thoughts say that only government has the power to make the changes necessary to slow it down. (More mass transit, fund research, set emission standards, build electric charging stations, etc). Personally I don't see any way out of it. I admire the commitment of the Thunbergs of the world. But that's not sustainable for all mankind. It means going back to the stone age. And that ain't gonna happen. Maybe the Mann approach says that society/government should wake up and invest more in technologies to mitigate more of the effects. Slow it down. But neither are denying it's happening. . . . , Oh, I get it. You think they are going to negate each other's course of action. Well actually, Thunberg may be the posterchild for the Climate Change movement. But I don't think any measurable percentage of the population is going to follow her example. Thunberg (bless her sweet, little naivette) advocates self deprivation. Mann embraces totalitarianism. They're both fighting the fact that the moment of action passed a decade ago and it's impossible to generate serious enthusiasm any more from the bulk of the world's populace who know in the far reaches of thier consciousness that it's a useless argument. This is just the last act of a pathetic show.
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Post by Marshall on Nov 16, 2019 9:55:16 GMT -5
We're praying for a Hail Mary technology to save the climate.
(As we hit the drive-up window for our fillet of fish)
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Post by epaul on Nov 16, 2019 12:39:17 GMT -5
Eh...we abandon a few coastal cities with crumbling infrastructure they can't afford to re-build and gain a garden in the northern prairies.
All things fall and are built again.
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Post by millring on Nov 16, 2019 12:52:41 GMT -5
I have both chewed at the inside of my cheeks and bit my fingernails (though it's been years since I've done the latter). As such, I -- just like climate change activism -- have begun to eat myself.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,902
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Post by Dub on Nov 16, 2019 13:34:28 GMT -5
I think the climate crisis will sort itself out without (or in spite of) any effort from humans. The pollution crisis will also be solved at the same time.
The human passengers on Spaceship Earth are analogous to the yeast in a brewery. The yeast colony grows producing alcohol until it has consumed all the sugars or until the alcohol level becomes high enough to sterilize (exterminate) the yeast colony. In either case the living yeast colony is gone and ceases to affect its environment. I'm convinced it is in the nature of humankind to follow the same course as the brewer's yeast.
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Post by epaul on Nov 16, 2019 14:00:59 GMT -5
Maybe. However humans have a fact-based million-year history of cleverness, adaption, and survivability across every environment they have faced.
Projections of their doom and demise are that only. So far, every change has been opportunity. A million-year track record against what?
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Post by Marshall on Nov 16, 2019 14:43:30 GMT -5
I think the climate crisis will sort itself out without (or in spite of) any effort from humans. The pollution crisis will also be solved at the same time. The human passengers on Spaceship Earth are analogous to the yeast in a brewery. The yeast colony grows producing alcohol until it has consumed all the sugars or until the alcohol level becomes high enough to sterilize (exterminate) the yeast colony. In either case the living yeast colony is gone and ceases to affect its environment. I'm convinced it is in the nature of humankind to follow the same course as the brewer's yeast. Whomever comes after us will have a lot of good beer, then?
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 16, 2019 17:20:20 GMT -5
I think the climate crisis will sort itself out without (or in spite of) any effort from humans. The pollution crisis will also be solved at the same time. The human passengers on Spaceship Earth are analogous to the yeast in a brewery. The yeast colony grows producing alcohol until it has consumed all the sugars or until the alcohol level becomes high enough to sterilize (exterminate) the yeast colony. In either case the living yeast colony is gone and ceases to affect its environment. I'm convinced it is in the nature of humankind to follow the same course as the brewer's yeast. Dub, if I understand the analogy, you're right. The extinction of our species would solve the problem. Why didn't I think of that?
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 16, 2019 17:21:14 GMT -5
"Whomever comes after us will have a lot of good beer, then?" Cockroaches know how to party!
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Post by brucemacneill on Nov 16, 2019 17:50:33 GMT -5
Cockroaches, spiders and mosquitoes will inherit the earth, as far as I can tell, and they're not even meek.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,902
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Post by Dub on Nov 16, 2019 19:01:41 GMT -5
I think the climate crisis will sort itself out without (or in spite of) any effort from humans. The pollution crisis will also be solved at the same time. The human passengers on Spaceship Earth are analogous to the yeast in a brewery. The yeast colony grows producing alcohol until it has consumed all the sugars or until the alcohol level becomes high enough to sterilize (exterminate) the yeast colony. In either case the living yeast colony is gone and ceases to affect its environment. I'm convinced it is in the nature of humankind to follow the same course as the brewer's yeast. Dub, if I understand the analogy, you're right. The extinction of our species would solve the problem. Why didn't I think of that? It isn’t that I think humankind should go extinct, only that I’m guessing it will. No reason to believe that our species will somehow escape that fate. We’ve labeled ourselves wise (sapien) but my guess is that, like other species, we can only act in ways that are natural for our species. In our nature lies the seed of our destruction.
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 16, 2019 19:19:42 GMT -5
"It isn’t that I think humankind should go extinct, only that I’m guessing it will. No reason to believe that our species will somehow escape that fate. We’ve labeled ourselves wise (sapien) but my guess is that, like other species, we can only act in ways that are natural for our species. In our nature lies the seed of our destruction."
We'll eventually reduce carbon emissions, if only because, if it gets that far, a lot of deaths will reduce the number of people using fossil fuels and probably the capacity for producing them. Whether that will occur at a point that permits our species to continue, nobody knows.
Meanwhile, I think we should do what we can do. There's no complete fix, partly for political reasons and partly because a lot of unpleasant change is already baked in. There are politically palatable steps we could take that would keep us from digging an ever deeper hole. The biggest problem is that a lot of countries need to take those steps and there are strong incentives in each of those to leave it up to everybody else and party on. I feel pessimistic but think that we ought to act optimistically, which is pretty much my outlook on many issues these days.
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Post by Village Idiot on Nov 16, 2019 21:05:27 GMT -5
I'm looking at Venice, right now, as a real-time example that we have a real problem here. It's sitting in our lap.
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Post by aquaduct on Nov 16, 2019 21:06:07 GMT -5
A Climate Change Parable
A disgraced warrior returned to his village and called a great meeting. “I have found tracks of a new beast that worry me greatly.” The disgraced warrior led the village to the track. The other warriors confirmed that this was surely a predator that they had never encountered before.
At their fire that night, the disgraced warrior offered to lead the preparations for a mighty battle with the terrible beast. An old warrior dissented, “But the print is small. It is surely but a small beast.”
“Oh, naive curmudgeon,” the disgraced warrior dismissed, “You underestimate the threat. I am sure that what we see is the print of a young pup. This predator will grow into the most fearsome foe we have ever faced.”
As proof, his father, the witch doctor, cut open a chicken. He and his Assistant looked carefully at its entrails. “Yes,” the witch doctor announced, “My son is correct. This will be the greatest beast we have ever seen - more fearsome than any other we have fought. 40 times larger. With fangs of rock and breath of fire and tails of spears!”
The villagers gasped in horror.
The old warrior scoffed, “Chicken guts can’t tell the future!”
“You deny the proof!?,” the disgraced warrior cried. He marched them out again to where the track lay. The disgraced warrior cried out, “Who denies that this creature exists, for here is its very track lying in the mud!?”
The old warrior agreed the print was real and the warriors returned to the village sure that they faced a great threat.
That night the witch doctor consulted the smoke in the flames to see the future. “If we do not defeat this beast now, most of your friends and family around this fire will perish in its jaws!” This announcement troubled greatly the tribe.
“Where exactly in the smoke does it say that?” asked the old warrior.
“How feeble is he who denies what can be seen with his own eyes!,” the witch doctor thundered. “Perhaps it is his aged eyes that fail him! Who here can tell him what they saw with their eyes.”
And one by one each warrior described the paw print he had seen himself with his very own eyes. “
“Are any of you liars?” challenged the disgraced warrior. The warriors glowered at the old warrior, daring anyone in the circle who called them a liar to fight to the death.
With that settled, the witch doctor offered himself and his son to work day and night, collating all the information from the paw print, from the entrails, and from the smoke to devise a grand plan. Most of the tribe accepted their leadership, for they were the ones who had uncovered the beast’s diabolical plan.
After a fortnight, the witch doctor revealed the plan. “First, you must know that it is you who have created this beast.” The tribe looked at each other with shock, fear, and accusation. “Our overabundance of grain and livestock have themselves attracted and grown this beast!! We must sacrifice our fields and our livestock so that we are not unwittingly feeding this beast.”
“What!?” the old warrior exclaimed is surprise, forgetting the prior night’s threats. “Your plan is to starve us in order to save us?”
“Do you deny this very track that we all saw, so near our farmland, old man?” the disgraced warrior asked. All assembled agreed the track had been close. The old man could not deny this fact, and so was silenced again.
“We must transfer much grain and livestock to the witch doctor,” explained the witch doctor’s son, “He can use these to examine more entrails and to create more smoke.”
“And from your gifts,” the witch doctor added, “I will create a cadre of wise Assistants who will make sure we take every precaution against growing this beast.”
The tribe nodded at the wisdom of this practical plan.
After measuring the paw print in every direction, sacrificing chickens, gazing at smoke, and drawing possible beasts, the Assistants confirmed that even more drastic actions had to be taken. “From now on,” the witch doctor explained, “every action involving growing or hunting, must be approved by my Assistants, after paying special tribute, so that we can make sure that we do not feed the beast any more.
The old man tried one last time. “In all my seasons, I have been around many scares when smoke and entrails predicted other imminent attacks. Each time, our witch doctor receives more food, power, and Assistants, and we starve ourselves for months, yet we never suffer the attacks. Why is this any different?”
“Your own example proves that our methods work!” triumphed the witch doctor. “And we have important proof, even beyond the paw print in the woods!” The old warrior sat back down and the villagers leaned in to hear.
“I and all my Assistants have conferred; we are in total agreement: We now face the Largest Calamity Ever Known to our Village. Only through total trust in and submission to us can this village find its salvation.”
The Assistants all stamped their feet, nodding and grunting in unison. The villagers would later remark that not even one had disagreed.
The witch doctor’s son stood up, “Only a fool would deny the proof of his eyes and the word of every Assistant. The matter is settled. Let us do what needs to be done.”
The Assistants, who now outnumbered the warriors, marched down, fire in their hand, and burned the fields and killed the livestock, and thus protected the villagers from feeding the beast.
Many decades later, a new beast did arrive to the village. The beast was bigger than the paw print, and it was a sturdy foe, but it would not have caused the village much difficulty. Had they remained strong …
But the village had largely died out from starvation. The few remaining warriors were too weak to fight hard, and the many Assistants knew only entrails and smoke, not defense against predators.
The new predator hunted for a while around the village, but when it exhausted the food source, it moved on.
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Post by epaul on Nov 16, 2019 22:37:43 GMT -5
I don't need to agree, or disagree, with something to 'like' it. I can 'like' it just because I like it. And I did like it. Parables are cool beans.
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Post by epaul on Nov 17, 2019 0:16:34 GMT -5
What I would do if I knew no more than I know now and if I had any authority to do it.
Here is where I would want the country to be in fifty years: In fifty years, there is no more energy grid. Done and gone. No need. No high maintenance ugly poles and wires strung up between everything everywhere. Buildings would contain/produce their own energy. Most of this energy would be produced by solar panels integrated into the building or placed on the roof. Not the clunky troublesome things we have now, rather they would be simple light-weight things not all that different than an asphalt shingle or a thick coat of rubbery paint. Where applicable, organic byproducts and waste would be fermented to good use, but the key will be key is solar and the key twice over is that solar would be used to power discrete entities, not an intertwined mess of a vulnerable high maintenance grid.
[Building big-ass solar farms to power the existing labyrinthnic mess of a grid is an absolute waste of solar’s potential, not to mention an expensive journey down a tangled dead end knot of an archaic road.]
I am counting on “a solar miracle”, the kind of miracle advanced technology delivers. Given the logarithmic advances of science and technology, I am more than willing to bet that computing power, nano tech, and bio-engineering will come up with what is needed to make what I envision not only doable but eminently sensible. As I won’t be around to pay off the bet, I feel doubly safe in making it. So, a thousand bucks says we will have inexpensive, durable, lightweight roof-top solar panels and organic batteries that can store the power they generate powering a grid-free America within 50 years.
But, what till then?
Wind and solar. I expect wind power will be reach a point of “too stupid to continue expanding” within a few years. I believe solar will grow slowly and then quickly. But, the two combined will have a hell of time getting past the 50% of what we need level until the nanosolar/organic battery miracle occurs. So, other energy sources will be needed.
And, as North America and Europe combined will at some soon to be reached point only be responsible for thirty percent of the human-derived CO2 released into the atmosphere, we need to think about investing ‘clean’ energy research and technology that China and India (and others) will be willing and able to adopt and adapt (and pay for). If China and India are not on board, we are just spinning our ‘CO2-abatement wheels’ as far as the planet is concerned. To that end, I believe there are two very obvious energy sources that fit the bill and need to be invested in: Nuclear and Coal. (gasp! r u nuts?)
I will discuss each in separate posts.
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Post by epaul on Nov 17, 2019 0:48:57 GMT -5
[North Dakota coal country bias is present, but I believe, accounted for. Ok, maybe not fully. But somewhat.]
Coal has been given up on in this country. But, that is not the case in either China or India. Bottom line, coal is what China and India got a lot off and they are not going to turn their backs on their most readily available source of energy. They can’t afford to. For both countries, it isn’t a matter of doing with a little less luxury, it is a matter of staying alive. The U.S. leads the world by leaps and bounds in clean coal technology and the technics and practice of sequestering the CO2 produced by burning and gasification of coal (coal can beat the pants off of corn or sugar cane for gasification/ethanol) ((we also lead the world in the sequestration of the CO2 produced at biofuel plants)).
Coal may be dead, or thought dead, here, but that is far from the case in China and India. The CO2 released through the combustion of fossil fuels does not have to leave the plant and be shot into the atmosphere. What is currently doable in CO2 abatement isn’t currently economical in most cases (it is in some), but continued advances and development could mitigate the current gap between doing and not doing. It is more likely that India and China will decide it is worthwhile to pay more for their coal energy than they will decide to abandon it entirely.
We need to recognize that there will always be the temptation and need to use an energy source that is plentiful and accessible and work on technologies that make it planet friendly.
And we need to look at energy and CO2 abatement through eyes other than our own. If we can develop, and sell, technologies that work for others it will also work for us.
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