Durks said...

Ok lets face it, global warming is real despite the occasional quack who disagrees with it because humans can do no wrong or won't kite too far past the last marker in case they fall off the side of the earth.

Sure global warming appears to be real, it's just the human caused bit of it that seems hard to prove (unless you happen to have another 'control' Earth around...).

What is the % of human produced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere versus other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere? Is that level enough to cause a significant change to the environment than it otherwise would have gone through?

My question is; why don't people care? A tv poll not too long ago found that the majority of Australians were 'concerned' about it but few were prepared to give up even $1 a day to fix it.....Alright so floods, cyclones, firestorms and the end of life as we know it are bad....but I really want a plasma.

Why don't people care about it? It's because it costs money and most people aren't willing to give up something when they can't see any reason to do so.

I know this is a taboo subject. Most only raise it in private or in muted conversations with friends sipping latte discussing the recent heat wave, but why?
Why should it be a dirty word; cos its not cool, sexy or may even give some the guilts?

I feel dirty telling people that I am not convinced that it's human induced global warming! Man, it takes a bit of effort to go against popular opinion. You shouldn't feel worried about mentioning other people's attitude to it, but you would be better off trying to think of ways to help them or the environment by doing something, not just tell them to do something about it.

In my line of work I see a lot of people that pay lip service to the environment, but when it comes to the crunch its someone elses responsibility. They don't want solar cos the government's only paying 75%, they don't want CFL's cos they're not pretty enough, and they're not gonna change their behaviour cos at the end of the day they just can't be arsed. Does any of this sound like you?

Sure does sound like me (to an extent). Therefore instead of complaining about it, you need to target everyone, and the only real way to do this is through increasing the cost of wasting energy. People are changing to CFLs as they can see there might be some cost savings.

The rising cost of oil is a good thing from a macro scale, for the environment. When that goes up, more environmentally sustainable transport solutions become feasible. That's the only way to drive these things unless you suddenly hit a dooms-day event, at which point its too late.

I give a s#@t! I don't wanna have to swim to the shops, or do simulated dives of the great barrier reef or have to think about all those people that are buggered as a result of Australias demand for creature comforts. Does anyone else, and if so what have you done to reduce your own impact?

I live on a hill, but I guess the forecast is for much longer than a hundred years to make it waterfront, so maybe I should do something...

Why does everyone think that Australia never had floods, cyclones, and bushfires before? There is a reason it is a harsh country to live in, otherwise there would have been millions of people living here before English colorization.

Oh well, back on my bike...

japie said...

Have a look at this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

This is a phenomena actively growing in our oceans, something that we can see and is solely attributable to us. The Oceans are also supply our oxygen.

Well, I don't think the fisherman that are losing their line in the ocean would be too concerned about this if they are flat out earning enough money or finding enough food to survive. How would you go about solving this particular problem?

If we are not actively doing anything about this problem how do we believe that we can reverse a problem that in all likelihood is due also to ourselves, regardless of debate?

Our geneticists need to be locating the greed gene with a view to watering it down a bit!

My argument is that people will not try and solve a problem unless they can see a direct impact on themselves. You can not change this behavior in most people. Therefore, your way of resolving the problem needs to consider this.

Well, when you look at evolution, you could probably argue that greed was necessary to get humans to the point where they are now.

cwamit said...

i think everyone should drive a v8, the quicker we deplete the worlds oil the faster we will reduce our emissions.


even if we drove all around in 1.2 ltre cars the fact is it wouldn't be until fuel becomes too expensive by being too scare that emissions will be reduced because we will require a different energy source.

we need industrial change not conservation of fossil energy that just continues to add more co2 but over a longer time frame... if self righteousness was an energy source some of the posters here could run there own cars.

Alternatively we could tap some of tha hot air coming out of your spout or attempt to combust some of your verbal manure?

FormulaNova said...
My argument is that people will not try and solve a problem unless they can see a direct impact on themselves. You can not change this behavior in most people. Therefore, your way of resolving the problem needs to consider this.

Well, when you look at evolution, you could probably argue that greed was necessary to get humans to the point where they are now.

Alternatively if Governments make power/water/oil, too expensive to waste then people will look at thier behavior.

FormulaNova said...

Don't the Russians know that it just ain't trendy to offer suggestions that aren't with the majority!

I think at the end of the day even the worlds best scientists are guessing about which way the climate is going and what has caused it. Maybe this has replaced the fight against communism? The fight against climate change?

Interesting you compare the fight against climate change to the fight against Communism. I on the other hand liken the theory of human induced climate change to Communism. Both are based on theories that may or may not have a scientific basis.
Both believe humanity is the centre of existance, is incredible important, and the actions of a few can make and incredible difference.

Both have the potential to greatly affect the way our society and economy is based.

Both have the potential to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich in the name of helping the poor.

My major beef with the theory of human induced climate change is the fact that the Earth's climate has never been static. There is overwhelming evidence we are currently living in an interglacial period of time and that ice ages are the norm for the Earth. I personally would rather live in a warm climate where glaciers are shrinking and forests are expanding rather than having a huge ice sheet covering north America and most of Europe and Asia.

A warming climate will open up much of Asia and Canada that is currently frozen for three quarters of the year. Not much can live in ice. Much more can live where there is soil.

Human induced climate change is used by polticians and decision makers as a whipping boy for all the ills we face:

Drought - climate change
Floods - climate change
Pestilance - climate change
Bushfires - climate change
Storms - climate change

If pollies read their Bible or read a bit of history they would have seen that most of these events occured a few thousand years ago. The ancient Egyptians and Isrealites were not driving round in Hummers and watching Deal or No Deal on plasma TVs.

Perhaps the wooly mammoths lost their hair and went back to Africa to join the Elephant cousins. Its pretty unlikely that climate change alone killed the mammoths. Much more likely the crafty and nasty predator homo sapien wiped them out, just like it did to most of the mega fauna on every continent except Africa where the mega fauna there learned that an upright primate carrying a stick of some sort was very bad news.

I look forward to the day that I have to pay an extra $10000 a year to help fight the war against global warming. Its an unwinable war. The perfect war. I'll go to the grave feeling happy that my contribution to the good fight has permitted the emission traders and dealers to fund their whores, drugs, luxury cars and holidays. Isn't that what life is about? The majority slaving away to help the clever people enjoy the good life?

An amusing alliance is forming. Ultra greenies who want to destroy industry and put us back into some sort of pre industrial environmentally sensistive society. They are aligning with government and traders who see trading in carbon credits the next get rich scheme. Why trade in derivities of stinky mortgages that are worth bugger all when you can trade in something as intangeable as a gas emitted from your mouth and a cow's backside and consumed by the weeds growing by the side of the road?

the climate changes everyday

Did anyone watch the video.....
Science is empirical agreed, we don't know for certain if anthropogenic greenhouses will have the catastrophic effects many scientists predict. But we do know the costs of abating it.

So two choices act or not act.
1)-We act there, global warming's disproved; big economic waste, maybe depression, corporate corruption (yeah cos that doesn't already exist), etc.
-Or we act and global warming is real, we manage to balance the ecological system and we're all happy, money well spent.

2)- We don't act, global warmings disproved, business as usual.
- Or global warmings real....War over scarce resource, droughts, severe weather storms, economic collapse, blablabla ie. Its bad.!!!

Which one would you chose.

Don't pretend to be an expert on these things because at the end of the day this is an unknown. But if you believe something 100% because it supports your lifestyle, and screw the opinions of others than that's just dumb. And if you believe, but still do nothing because someone else isn't, how is that constructive? Or is that just laziness? Sit ontop of your ivory tower and past judgement on those people trying to make a difference. All of those greenhouse 'industry' types driving around in SUV's smoking cigars, I sure as hell don't, more to the point I don't know many in the 'industry' that do, and I reckon most of the people that replied on this thread that they did do something don't either - minus the Forester:)

The earth is the centre of the universe because I am the most important species in it....different age, same paradigm.

........?????????

vested interests could be argued from both sides of the fence komrad.

but to quote you.
"don't pretend to be an expert on these things because at the end of the day this is an unknown"

talk about shooting yourself in the foot

The whole arguement about climate change is fundamentally flawed in that it uses the Assumption that the Life (human) has to be some how protected.
To us it would be a great tradgedy for humans to cease but in fact the earth or universe really doesn't give a ****. in galactic scale we not even a blink.

Ultimately it really doesnt matter.

The real irony is that humans try to protect the earth for future generations but the simple act of having kids greatly increases the damage your doing :)

So frankly as long as the wind keeps blowing and I have some where to go windsurf for the next 20 years or so I dont give a damn.

elbeau said...

Mobydisc..(strange Avatar) and Evil Panda (Even worse) have some very sage things to say.
They may hide it with discretion (not always) but it is refreshing to read their views
The us . and .............china thing is brilliant

Do you think all of India, Brazil and Russia etc are driving around in eco cars, and have eco factories, recycling or whatever? Ha ha ha ha ha! Australia could double its un-econess, and there'd be no discernable difference.

Over the last 10,000 years have we even begun to stop wars, poverty, all of this conflict in general? We've had all these prophets, religions, philosophies, political and social structures, with little discernable difference. Technologically we've advanced a lot, psychologically nil.

If global warming is real, there's no stopping it (us). Get used to it.



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http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_2.htm

Have a look.
I know it's a bit technical but you can always just look at the pictures.

"So when you and I voluntarily cut back our emissions we don't reduce the nation's total emissions, we just make more room for other, industrial polluters - say, the aluminium, steel or cement industries - to increase their emissions."

www.smh.com.au/business/emission-impossible-the-sad-truth-20090224-8gsv.html

What s#%ts me is that as soon as anyone mentions the environment everyone starts rabbiting on about global warming. Yes it is going to stuff a fair number of us (call me mr cynical) but there are plenty of other enviro problems running around which now get ignored because they aren't global warming.

Take the amount of rubbish people create - off it goes to landfill and sits there for eternity. I've had the dubious pleasure of drilling through them when they start leaking, only to find that I'm able to read a newspaper from 1971 which is still in pristine condition, abeit a bit smelly. That waste isn't going anywhere and it costs a stack to manage. The short term costs of recycling may be high but the long term...

Then take things like service stations. They all leak to one extent or another. It doesn't make much difference in a lot of places but in oz people need the groundwater that the fuel leaks into and it doesn' take much to make it unuseable and it's a right pain in the ass to clean up. Then you end up needing an extra desal plant to make up for it

I could go on about the problems that people no longer get up in arms about but I won't. The point is that most people have just got the blinkers unless somebody mentions the magic phrase 'global warming' or something really major comes up like esperance and lead.

Rant over for now

An interesting perspective raised the other day is that it doesn't matter what individual Aussies do to reduce their carbon emissions. Turning off aircons, riding bikes etc. Australia's emissions will be set by the emissions target. 20% by 2020 or whatever it turns out to be set at. If there is a cultural change to low emissions amongst individuals it will just allow the industries to be dirtier, or vice versa.

To make a difference all you can do is vote for the greener party.