I'm okay with scientists raising concerns about their findings and sure don't want to berate them for it; that's their job. Also, I believe Science should drive politics where it makes sense and climate change seems like a good candidate. What I don't like is being shut down when science is challenged. Without review and fact-checking you can't have good science.
As I said in the OP, I don't want to be the idiot that causes the end of life on the planet (possibly the universe), so I'm trying to keep an open mind. There are some things I think we have reasonably good evidence of:
- Global average temperatures are increasing
- Mankind is dumping 51 trillion tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere a year
- CO₂, CH4, N₂O, and CFCs are greenhouse gases and should all be considered in the energy equation.
There are a ton of debatable things, for example, the half-life of CO₂ being less than 100 years is probably debatable (depends on deforestation and ocean algae health).
I see posts every so often that it's hard to imagine mankind is even big enough to make a dent in the average planet temperature. To me it's all one big ecosystem, so everything affects everything. The real question to me is
are we tilting it enough to an inexorable landslide that wipes us out? How bad is bad? Mad Max type desolation where we survive, or like the surface of venus where it's hot enough to melt lead and zero chance of survival?
I see a lot of focus around CO₂, but seems like we ought to ask China to stop emitting CFCs (which are 23,000x worse than CO₂) like most other countries have done. As consumers, we should stop buying any products made with CFCs (which are primarily foam insulation and packing materials).
Most of the CH4 is indirectly man-made, basically, we raise cattle that belch/fart - seems like the scientist that comes up with
the "beano pill for cows" ought to get a Noble prize or something. Not a popular idea, but we could also cut back on beef. | View attachment 59162 |
Perhaps its a Zen thing leftover from the '60s, or the camping axiom to leave no trace that was once drilled into me, but it seems we shouldn't produce anything more than there is an appropriate sink for. So I'm on board with going carbon neutral or negative. I like the
DoE focus on reducing battery costs because once battery prices fall renewable energy will be the cheapest source of energy.
But mostly I want great climate science because after this climate crisis (imaginary crisis or not) is the for-sure global cooling crisis with the next impending ice age.
You know what's really frightening? Evolution.
Check out this timetable... 3.8 Billion years since life first appeared.
It took 2.6 Billion years of evolution to get to multi-cellular.
Simple mammals only appear 178 million years ago.
The first primates appeared only 65 millon years ago.
Homospaiens only 300,000 years ago.
Evolution isn't just speeding up, it's gone wild. | |
Two of the last 5 catastophic events (mass extinctions) have been due to global warming, the Permian and Triassic. You'd think we'd know more about global warming from that.
(Wow... that's a lot of rambling!)