"The Great Global Warming Swindle" movie a swindle?

I know a little tiny bit about how complicated the world is, and have had my paradigm shifted a number of times in my 47 years, which makes me less likely to be shocked/unreceptive when potential paradigm shifting is happening.  

A friend of mine sent me the film which is the title of this thread to watch.  

I watched it and... I have some serious issues with some of the angles that they present their information from, but not enough for me to discount the entire film's gist... and I'm not a scientist or someone with tons of research time to verify all the data.

Problem is... I can't see a lot of problems with their basic premise; and I'd like to see some problems with it, if only because my brain and emotions have invested a lot of energy on anthropogenic climate change.  As such, I may have to re-organize my neurotransmitters, but I'm not prepared to fully do that until I put this out to the community, and get some secondary thoughts by valued people.

Please watch the film in it's entirety, if you intend to post.

I'm not planning to 'defend' the ideas in this film, but would like to discuss any that people have thoughts to discuss.



       

It seems at this point that the movie itself is a swindle. I researched the contributers and the creators of the film. The majority of the apparent pundits in the film have unreliable credentials or are definitely pushing a pro-industry agenda in their worlds, despite the titles which appear beside their names (some of which are not at all accurate).  The exception is the Ocean scientist Wunsch.  He's totally legit and has written a letter about how much he was taken out of context in the movie to 'prove' ideas that were being presented by the film makers.

Don't bother to watch this, unless you want to see it for your own reasons.    

I received another slice of pie, in this case for the second post, which I'm grateful for.  

I'm not sure if I have convinced my friend who sent me the link yet.  He's really into the solar/cosmic ray/ = weather patterns.  

The movie makes much of some skewed data which showed that the Earth's temperature actually dropped right after the post war industrial expansion, which made no sense to the carbon link to warming.  But I bought it when I watched it the first time.  Other websites proved the data inaccurate/skewed.  

There was this emotional trigger that they used about Africans not being able to develop and thus being kept in abject poverty because of the new carbon agenda.   I sort of bought this, although I was definitely under the impression that their view of development was industrialization, and their example of the impoverished village woman was a great example of post colonial impact, rather than what actual village life might be like with local indigenous knowledge, permaculture, or similar ideas... so it got me thinking that they were really missing the mark... and that made me really wonder what their agenda was.  Also it was notable on second watching that the only African (or any other person from the underdeveloped world) being interviewed was a pro-industry urban/intellectual type, not in a village.

I noticed pretty quick into it a strong pro-establishment/anti-activist vibe coming throughout, and it was masked as some kind of anti-communist rhetoric but seemed to deepen against the anti-globalization movement by saying that the protesters were against  development... which I believe is only partly true; appropriate development is appropriate after all.  

So this partial truth, and other skewed data made me start to go into each of the personalities being interviewed.  Quite a mix of guys with fairly right wing leanings with pseudo left wing titles (Example: cofounder of Greenpeace, but who Greenpeace says is now a right wing crack, or a professor of Climatology who is actually a Geography professor)  besides their names to give the impression that they were a balancing influence to the Climate Change swindlers.  The more I looked, the more the documentary was flawed and very biased and actively trying to manipulate emotions, facts, to that end.  

Roberto, you might want to check out
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
and
https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=taxonomy

Both of which do a good job of countering the denier arguments with actual science. Typically though what ends up happening with the denier is they wont actually address the science if you link to those pages, they will instead just ignore the science and try claiming the site is untrustworthy. Just shutting down the conversation by ignoring what contradicts their POV. Both sites do a great job of citing sources, and giving real science. So the denier's are really only left with the ignore the source as a way to argue against it or they will have to admit there is valid arguments in there. But if you want to actually get through, you might need to separate the site from the info so the info has time to seep into the person's thinking. Get them to actually read the info rather than just seeing the site and claiming it is not worth their time.

Another valuable resource is http://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm to actually understand the history and how long we have known about GW and CC.

Thanks Devin.  I'll check out those other links.  It was when I was researching the Ocean Scientist, Wunsch that I ended up at Real Climate's site, and I sent multiple page links to my friend from that site once I was there and read all of that.  There were a few other sites that I found, but Real Climate seemed to have the best written info.

This is one of the most complicated topics of our age I think. I've seen this "documentary" about 4 years ago I believe. The reason for me to watch it was that I had difficulty understanding how climate change could be caused by only one factor: CO2, a gas that these days makes up only 0.04% of our atmosphere, and about 0.035% back then (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide). I think that  just presenting only this relatively tiny factor as 'absolute proof' for a theory that explains a huge phenomenon as our climate and how it changes is weird and incomplete.

So I went searching for explanations that included other factors. The activity of the sun comes to mind, because it obviously has a big influence on our weather and climate. So the sun has cycles, generally explained by the number of sunspots as an indication of the intensity and activity of our star. Looking there still not explained everything to me.

But I did figure out a couple of things:
- the sun explains most, if not all, of the energy involved in our climate.
- CO2 could be either an indicator of or the cause of climate change, but I was still impressed by clouds (water vapor, up to 20% of atmospheric conditions) which fluctuate with warming and cooling also and moderate both overheating and excessive cooling.
- I learned oceans are a big moderator of climate, so how did that fit in?
- weather forecast are notoriously wrong from time to time, so if weather is so complicated to predict, how can we build models of our climate with any accuracy?

I still could not get a clear picture. I did sense that our climate had become more erratic, temperatures were much higher where I live for years than what was normal before. Droughts would last longer. Storms were heavier. Climate clearly is changing.

Then I stumbled on another study. This one was looking at other undeniable factors that also influence climate, and these factors were all influenced by mankind. These all came down to how we modified our landscapes to huge extends. I published a review on it on permies: https://permies.com/t/56655/Water-Recovery-Climate-Water-Paradigm
If you'd rather have a summary, I wrote one for pur blog: https://permaculturesj.wordpress.com/articles/trees-water-and-climate/

Climate is a complex issue. I'm not sure if the main focus on CO2 came from a desire to simplify the issue so people could understand what is happening, or if it is another example of our flawed sciences where everything gets broken down into smaller and smaller bits so we can finally isolate one issue that we can properly measure instead of looking at the whole of things. CO2 could be a symptom or a part of the explanation, but climate is too complex to explain it with only one tiny factor. Most climate change deniers get their 'fuel' from this simple awareness. But as always, you can deny reality, but not the consequences of reality, and climate change or climate emergency is clearly happening.

On our blog I have tried to go deeper into some factors.
Energy in nature (compared to how civilization uses energy): https://permaculturesj.wordpress.com/articles/energy-in-nature/
Technology cannot save civilization (but nature can heal the earth): https://permaculturesj.wordpress.com/articles/technology-cannot-save-civilization/
What the heck is wrong with us? (Some thoughts on why we seem powerless, but we can actually be in control): https://permaculturesj.wordpress.com/articles/what-the-heck-is-wrong-with-us/

I hope this gives you some arguments to broaden the insight of your friend. Most things I wrote about are common Permaculture knowledge, nothing extreme or farfetched there.

Rene,

I appreciate your post. I have never felt appropriate to comment on this on here, because I am still a grasshopper, and probably less political than most on here.

I come into this from a sense that there are things I can control, and things I cannot. Politics are in the second. I have lived in enough places to surmise that politics are a game for the powerful. Conflict creates opportunity, opportunity creates profit. I do not involve myself in politics, with the possible exception of decreasing its' influence, especially to me. I do not involve myself in conflict, as it detracts from my aims.

There are several inputs to a chaotic system that have some dampening in systems. What input can I make to increase the system dampening? If I can decrease my input that is good, but dampening is better. If someone makes a political statement, causing division, can I redirect that into a trust builder? If I make an input that increases the division, I should diminish that also, but much more can I bring healing? We all cause harm and division, even inadvertently. This is to be human. To have humility brings trust, empathy and hormesis.

The same in climate: what have we done? We have burned carbon (which has a feedback loop) but have destroyed topsoil (which does not, desertification accelerates!) The dampening is through the more robust pathway- dampen the moisture and heat oscillations on your land.

Dampen oscillations and nature will largely repair itself.

It is so difficult! Even scientists can't understand all of it. I can't tell anymore what is true. But it is pretty safe to assume that each and every movement, political, environmental or social is hijacked in on way or the other by the big heads Soros et al. So I don't know but certainly it will be used in some way.
In reality it doesn't matter. Our lifestyle is unsustainable climate change or not.

What frustrates me the most about the whole global warming/climate change narrative is that it has turned the conversation to much more muddled, big picture science, that is inherently open to the critique that it is based on hypotheses and bias interpretation of data. I feel like we have lost or moved away from the conversation of 'hey you can't put that stuff in the water or air because it is a known carcinogen/neurotoxin/endocrine disrupter/etc.' , now the conversation is all around how many trees does the coal company have to pay to have planted for their carbon emissions to be offset or how much carbon is x project going to produce in it's lifetime when, to me, we could much more effectively use the existing regulatory structure to eliminate acutely harmful chemicals. This would hopefully increase the cost of many of these carbon heavy projects to the point that market forces could be leveraged to accomplish the broader goals of the global warming folks.

I wasn't expecting this thread to wake up again.  cool.

Thanks for your great post, Rene. I really appreciate you writing what you did.  I check out the blog that you wrote.  Very nice stuff !  I totally agree with you that the climate is not only a very complex thing, but that there are many human caused situations that are prime factors in this situation.  We certainly can not take away the power of the Sun (and solar flares) from the equations. The global moisture situation and deforestation, and soil loss, are also all huge.  Another thing that should be considered is that the microbiome in the ocean is responsible for most of the carbon and oxygen exchange on the planet, and it is at extreme risk if the oceans get too warm.  One more thing to consider is that there has been a devastation of oceanic fauna (primarily fish), that were a massive amount of living carbon on the Earth.  Ecozones like the Great Barrier Reef, are at great risk too.  The same can be said for the millions of bison, the elephants, and other large mammals who have been or are being wiped out.  On my continent the almost total loss of the beavers due to the fur trade had catastrophic consequences on the landscapes ability to hold water and nutrients as well as stop forest fires, and trap carbon in long lived aquatic systems.  There are so many factors, that it is hard to calculate where we would be, if we had gone a different direction at the time that the Sahara, and the Tigris/Euphrates and others were primarily savanah forested/oasis/swamps.    

the conversation is all around how many trees does the coal company have to pay to have planted for their carbon emissions to be offset or how much carbon is x project going to produce in it's lifetime when, to me, we could much more effectively use the existing regulatory structure to eliminate acutely harmful chemicals. This would hopefully increase the cost of many of these carbon heavy projects to the point that market forces could be leveraged to accomplish the broader goals of the global warming folks.

 I totally agree, Stephen.  tossed you an apple.   I would much rather the conversation be back on the track of  "look at what we are doing to the Earth which is completely and utterly our support system... HELLO?!!!"  we need to think completely differently.  The market model of dealing with this is not helping.  It's like some cave man yelling to another, "look the hyenas!", and stealing the other guy's meat as he looks for the dangerous predator/scavenger.  It all seems like a diversion/distraction from what we are really supposed to be focused on.  

Stephen this is because the Global warming topic is hijacked too. It is not about what decisions you and me can make it is about global geoengineering, global government, rules and regulations. It pi##es me off when they meet grande every year and blow out tons and tons of CO2 only to meet produce hot air (talking) come back and do nothing. In Australia we get ripped off when putting solar panels on our roofs. IN fighting environmental degradation in general it is about everyone and not about the big boys making rules for the rest of up and supervising us.

I think your original headline says it all. The error you made was ending it with a question mark instead of a period.

Rene Nijstad wrote:
- weather forecast are notoriously wrong from time to time, so if weather is so complicated to predict, how can we build models of our climate with any accuracy?

Weather and climate are not the same thing. I can predict with probably 99.95% accuracy that it will get cold in December where I live - this is climate. I can predict if it is going to rain on April 15th with probably a 10% accuracy - this is weather. Just because weather forecasts are notoriously wrong does not mean climate models are equally wrong.

Matt Coston wrote:

Rene Nijstad wrote:
- weather forecast are notoriously wrong from time to time, so if weather is so complicated to predict, how can we build models of our climate with any accuracy?

Weather and climate are not the same thing. I can predict with probably 99.95% accuracy that it will get cold in December where I live - this is climate. I can predict if it is going to rain on April 15th with probably a 10% accuracy - this is weather. Just because weather forecasts are notoriously wrong does not mean climate models are equally wrong.

I don't disagree with you at all. This is not what I meant. I wrote "models of our climate" and I've been involved in building and working with scientific modelling earlier in my life. Models are not reality, but they are mostly used to extrapolate historical data into the future. They're a helpful tool, because they allow for quantifying expectations, and with those you can for example develop policies to influence the predicted/expected outcomes.

Models come with two unavoidable problems: first is that you have to choose which variables to use. With every added variable the model gets increasingly complex. So most models limit variables but that also means they do not allow for real life complexity all that well. The second is that predictions can influence behavior, so the predictions ever becoming reality are quite difficult to asses.

Weather forecast is modeling, as is predictions on our changing climate. That's the connection I tried to make. It was part of my main point that climate is complex, so only looking at greenhouse gasses could possibly not be the best way. I don't know that with certainty, but I would like to reason that cutting down as much forests as we did might have a bigger influence, because it undermines nature's ability to balance our climate.

Rene Nijstad wrote:


Models come with two unavoidable problems... ... The second is that predictions can influence behavior, so the predictions ever becoming reality are quite difficult to asses.

Exactly. Much of the climate models used by IPCC are preprogrammed with the assumption that for every doubling of CO2 the temp rises by 2C. The model says what the programmer tells it to say.

Matt Coston wrote:Just because weather forecasts are notoriously wrong does not mean climate models are equally wrong.

That's very true, but it's also very true that the climate models are more notoriously wrong than the weather forecasts.

Look at any past IPCC report and compare predictions with reality. We were all supposed to be dead by now if we didn't stop increasing CO2 by 1999, oh no, it was 2002, or was it 2009 and now I think they are saying 2020. But they really mean it this time.

Steve Farmer wrote:Look at any past IPCC report and compare predictions with reality. We were all supposed to be dead by now if we didn't stop increasing CO2 by 1999, oh no, it was 2002, or was it 2009 and now I think they are saying 2020. But they really mean it this time.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/01/ipcc-global-warming-projections-accurate

https://www.skepticalscience.com/contary-to-contrarians-ipcc-temp-projections-accurate.html

https://phys.org/news/2015-02-global-slowdown-systematic-errors-climate.html

Here's another group that I stumbled upon again when I was looking into this.  Union of Concerned Scientists  I got a lot of respect for these guys.

And if you are wondering if carbon taxing is a good idea or not, here's Elon Musk's take on it.  Geoff Lawton sent this to me today:

Musk says in the presentation that we've added all this extra carbon to the carbon cycle.

We've burned fossil fuel, which is dead animals and plants, which got their carbon from the carbon cycle.
Before those plants and animals existed, that carbon was in the atmosphere, and the planet didn't melt. In fact it cooled.

If there is some level of PPM for CO2 that represents a tipping point, an irreversible cycle of ever increasing temperature, then why didn't we tip billions of years ago, or on any of the other occasions when atmospheric CO2 was way higher than it is today?

- the sun explains most, if not all, of the energy involved in our climate.

 I doubt that anyone would question this.  I think it is quite well known and accepted for instance, that the rotation of the Earth, and the equatorial hot belts, along with the daily blast from the sun as the Earth rotates daily, and the seasonal tilt of the axis as the Earth revolves around the sun annually all play huge in how our climate is created.  Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun, and solar flares blasting outward toward us also have to play a major role.  There should be no denying that these things have a huge effect on our long term cycles, and when they are at their peaks they certainly should be considered major influences.  The difference is in saying that these are the cause of the issue that we are at present experiencing, and that carbon (and greenhouse gasses) have no relationship to it at all.  That's seems to be a big part of the modus operandi of the climate change deniers, including the folks who put this film out.

There are many possible influences that are not directly being discussed by the big media push on the topic, and first among these is the destruction of forest and other prime ecosystems and the resulting hydrological systems based on them.  Rene rightly points this out in her larger post (and linked blog) above.   It would be great if the carbon credits were put toward habitat restoration, maybe fifty fifty with the other half going to renewable energy projects.  

The only thing I did not think that Musk (in the above youtube video) was going in the right direction for was the idea that France might be a good place to have nuclear power.  I'm just not convinced that Nuclear power has a place in our system.  The waste is just too hazardous, and even in a country where there are few natural disasters human error is a constant that we should not ignore.  

I had difficulty understanding how climate change could be caused by only one factor: CO2, a gas that these days makes up only 0.04% of our atmosphere, and about 0.035% back then (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide). I think that  just presenting only this relatively tiny factor as 'absolute proof' for a theory that explains a huge phenomenon as our climate and how it changes is weird and incomplete.  

 This might clear up how significant those percentages are:

I think its really instructive to look how the arguments for and against climate change mirror the arguments regarding tobacco causing cancer.  The tobacco companies spent millions trying to show smoking did not cause cancer , failed totally so spent many years casting doubt . Paid shills, confusion and plain old lies were there stock in trade. People for get that it was the Nazis who first discovered the cause of the increase in lung cancer in about 1940 unfortunately they were also complete bastards so everyone ignored their correct conclusion   in this case .

I have found the truth typically lies somewhere in the middle.

Take a husband and wife getting a divorce, both put a spin on things so that children, finances and property are shifted in their favor. Sure in my own divorce I could paint the same picture, my first wife was wrong because she was unfaithful...social I joking call it...but she would say she was because I emotionally left her when I worked out of state for months on end. See what I mean, the truth is somewhere in the middle...my "other love" was my job after all, and yet she violated her marital vows because never waited for me to come back?

So it is with Climate Change. Without question the climate is changing and I can refer to a document that has never been discredited. Yet those rallying against the proposals have a strong point...and one I lean towards because the cost just does not justify the results in my opinion. They want world wide investments of billions of dollars PER YEAR to net a result of what amounts to 1/2 a degree of temperature reduction by the year 2100. That is it...billions of billions of dollars for 1/2 a degree after decades of heeding the global warming remediation plan?

So to me the question must be changed, not whether or not climate is changing...it is...but a better way for us to get a return on investment. Half a degree of change in 82 years is not enough for the cost.

As I often tell people, "sure that may be one way to do it, but I am not sure it is the best way."

.......

As for my ex-wife, I have long forgiven her, at the time, and even now. For those that have endured such hardships, of being hurt, or accidentally doing the hurting to another, send me a private message because bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting another person t perish...it only hurts you, and guilt has no place in life. As a Divorce Care leader I take the pain of separation and divorce VERY seriously).

Personally I am old enough to have seen difference in climate manifest themselves around me . The bird species in the UK have changed ,birds I once considered tropical or from the mediterainian at least have now become common in the UK even breed! Same with insects .
Why ? well that's pretty obvious to me too . There is only one suspect. Other folks seem to try to spread confusion and doubt but never offer any proof any other cause . Talk of carbon trading etc are only another part of what I think of as the confusopoly we are being conned I believe . In the Bible it says the love of money is the root of all evil it looks like it may cost us the earth . There is mo makers guarantee we cannot take the earth back if it brakes .

Musk says in the presentation that we've added all this extra carbon to the carbon cycle.

We've burned fossil fuel, which is dead animals and plants, which got their carbon from the carbon cycle.
Before those plants and animals existed, that carbon was in the atmosphere, and the planet didn't melt. In fact it cooled.

Hi Steve.  I'm sure that this point was not lost on Musk.  And several things come to mind when looking at your post.  I can see the logic from which you are basing your thoughts, but I think that it might be flawed logic for a few reasons.  The thing about the 'extra' carbon is that it's more easily explained by looking at the time frame of it being sequestered, in direct ratio to the extremely rapid rate at which it is being extracted and burned, off-gassing it as CO2 into the atmosphere-->Millions of years of sequestered carbon up in smoke in a couple hundred years.  That is significant, I think, and so I'd say that Musk is quite accurate in saying that this is 'added' to the carbon cycle.

In addition to this, when those plants and animals were sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and dying in the swamps of time, the ecosystem was primeval and intact, the rate of sequestering was at balance with the rate of CO2 off-gassing.  The cycle existed where vast deserts were not common, where soil was deep and rich, where water was cycling through the terrain and biosphere properly, where flora and fauna were not being dominated and pushed into the margins by out of control epidemic human greed and ignorance.  The fact that so much carbon was laid down in that period proves that the cycle itself was stable for an extended period of time and the ecosystem was flourishing.  People say, "bring on the CO2, the plants love the CO2, boy will the Jungles thrive now"... but the plants can only sequester so much carbon on a daily basis, and really even if they could we are now experiencing an extreme floral low compared to that which existed in the time period that these were sequestered reserves were laid down, so even there if we look at this as part of some twisted long term pattern, it's way out of whack.  

That's the way I see it, and interpret Musk's point.  As far as the planet cooling with lots of CO2 in the atmosphere, I'm not sure that I have seen verification of that.

As far as your other point:

If there is some level of PPM for CO2 that represents a tipping point, an irreversible cycle of ever increasing temperature, then why didn't we tip billions of years ago, or on any of the other occasions when atmospheric CO2 was way higher than it is today?

It is nearly impossible to say what happened billions of years ago on the planet in response to high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.  It might have caused a lot of ecological problems for thousands or millions of years.  We have no way of knowing exactly what happened, or how long the Earth took to gain ecological equilibrium in a holistic sense with it's carbon.  The fact that it did recover is good news, but the fact is that we know far too little about what happened during those time periods and how the planet regained balance with it's carbon.  I would guess that there was mass desertification due to a nearly planet wide forest fire type hell scenario, followed by in increase in temperature, followed by oceanic temperature rise, followed by large scale oceanic evaporation,, and a total planet cloud cover which further heated the planet while giving it the blessing of rain, and this was followed by a floral response which cooled then planet.  But that is just my guess.

Planting trees and restoring ecosystems are the solution, and in the long term the real solution is to let them be, so that the planetary biome reaches equilibrium with it's atmosphere again, via the influence that plants (and trees in particular) have on the water cycles in the atmosphere, the soil, and the deep fossil reserves.  Although we can not make up for many of those millions of years of carbon, we can likely speed up the process with advanced permaculture techniques.  I'm thinking here of rapid biomass and soil building with plants like hemp and poplar trees, followed by massive hugulkultur projects with fungal inoculations.  I am also very hopeful that the deserts can be rapidly greened through claying the sands, the planting of resilient local trees, and using FMNR (Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration) techniques (essentially coppicing and then making a shady overstory).  Glaciers could be helped to grow using man made ice stupas to shade the melting crevices and sink holes in their surfaces.  

There are thousands of solutions to this problem to help cool the planet and get that carbon back down on the planet surface, but we need a planetary permaculture design or a lot of small local projects to create a tipping point to kick it into gear so that we can hope to approach some form of equilibrium.  While it would be nice to say "no more burning fossil fuels", how likely is that to happen when we have more than 80% of the global economy wrapped up in it?  We need to create a system which gives the industries in question the incentive to phase out, as rapidly as possible, and I believe that Musk rightly points out that the best way to do that is through a increasing carbon taxation schedule while subsidizing renewable energy initiatives.  I personally think that ecosystem restoration needs to be subsidized as well.      

So I ask you:  What are you proposing that we do?

And this question immediately brings to my mind Chip Sanft's post earlier in this thread.

Hi Travis,

They want world wide investments of billions of dollars PER YEAR to net a result of what amounts to 1/2 a degree of temperature reduction by the year 2100. That is it...billions of billions of dollars for 1/2 a degree after decades of heeding the global warming remediation plan?

So to me the question must be changed, not whether or not climate is changing...it is...but a better way for us to get a return on investment. Half a degree of change in 82 years is not enough for the cost.

As I often tell people, "sure that may be one way to do it, but I am not sure it is the best way."  

   I personally think we can do much better than that with the money if we were putting it in the right places, but I'm curious...

... I wonder what the best way might be, then?  Do you have any ideas, Travis?  I'd really like to see some other ways coming up out of this.

As far as the global budget is concerned, to put it into some kind of perspective on another controversial topic:  The global expenditure on weapons was 1.686 Trillion in 2016.  What is the true cost of that?  If half of that weapons budget was instead spent on true peace initiatives (like stabilizing ecosystems, water systems, and school programs in troubled areas), what kind of difference would there then be?  :::  Probably population reduction (because unstressed people, who are educated tend to have fewer children), local village economic production, increased rural stabilization over urbanization, increase in village based employment/finances so people do not have to migrate for work....    I don't think the investment in that case, or in the original would be a waste.  .....Besides, once that 1/2 degree has been gained, the economy will have changed so much that further reductions in atmospheric carbon, as well as further increases in ecosystem awareness and action, will be much more pronounced.  

This, (pricing out the carbon economy, and using the resulting taxes to change the system) I believe, is part of the tipping point.  I am curious, though, about other ideas.    

Since I am 47 years old and that has gone by pretty fast, 82 years seems like a pretty short period of time to make that kind of achievement.  

Hi David

Personally I am old enough to have seen difference in climate manifest themselves around me . The bird species in the UK have changed ,birds I once considered tropical or from the mediterainian at least have now become common in the UK even breed! Same with insects .
Why ? well that's pretty obvious to me too . There is only one suspect.

 

When I was considerably younger, the term glacial meant slow, and perhaps, by definition in the dictionary it still does, but since I live in an area where there were, and still are a lot of glaciers, and where I grew up there were and still are a lot of glaciers, and I have seen them melt, in my lifetime, receding faster than anyone imagined, and I'm only just going to turn 48 soon, then I think maybe that definition of glacial might have to change to mean rapid.  People's wells and creeks are running low in a relatively intact place like this?  That is a frightening idea to project on to the rest of the planet.  If it's that big of a change here, what's it really like in Kurdistan, where Turkey is currently waging a water war?  We, as a planetary culture, have a lot of work to do.  And it will take investment, by most people to get there.  

Talk of carbon trading etc are only another part of what I think of as the confusopoly we are being conned I believe .  

 I think the way it is being implemented is not... set up to achieve it's maximum effect, and it doesn't necessarily have the teeth it needs to enforce it.  I think that it could be set up so that it truly puts the breaks on the hydrocarbon economy, while at the same time boosting the alternatives and ecosystem and cultural restoration.  

But..  I'd like to think that I'm not just a dreamer who thinks we can get past the confusopoly and corporatocracy into something that actually is something that veterans of this war that is being waged to save the planet might be proud to say that we have finally attained an actual global peace that has justice attached to it too.  

Again, I have to ask, what are the solutions, then?

I am always a bit surprised at the number of permies who think global warming is a swindle. It is true there are two sides to the story, and the truth likely lies in the middle. But "both sides" arguments often are used as a manipulation tactic by manufacturing a radical point of view to pull the "middle" toward radical. As mentioned, a husband and a wife are each one point of view. But with science, there are more than two parties. I am often reminded of the silly John Oliver skit about both sides. If we are honestly to weigh "both sides" against each other we should have 96 people on one side and 2 people on the other to accurately reflect current scientific thinking. If you want to simplify the global warming argument to "is mankind causing climate change" the percentages get much higher (100%) or "is carbon dioxide a significant contributor to climate change" (99%). There continues to be a radical 1% view, and of course laws of probability do say it is possible they are right. But I am a somewhat rational person, and I will side with the 99% on this one.

Aside from that, I just don't see any downside to taking global warming seriously. So what if we invest billions in clean energy and environmental-friendly production? The fact that it will cost a lot isn't a good argument from my point of view (not to mention, these clean-energy industries often create jobs and improve the economy). How much did America spend in the 30s building infrastructure as part of the New Deal? As Roberto mentioned, we spend plenty more money on terrible things currently. And quite frankly, there is no economic-based argument you can make to me in terms of poisoning the only planet we have. I just don't care how much it costs. The economy is an idea in man's head. Our planet is real.

I am younger (33), and all I can see is a generation that poisoned my planet while knowing exactly what they were doing. I do not see many solutions possible while this older generation lives and cares so much about their economy and so little about their children. My solutions include moving away from coastal areas, buying land with access to year-round fresh water upstream of other humans, and expecting my world and climate to change dramatically year after year. It is a selfish point of view.

Men argue. Nature acts. (Voltaire)

My solutions are  quite simple really each country taxes the f@@@ out of oil and coal , economically encourages renewable energy and stops interfering in the buisness of other countries. Pollution is treachery along with Tax evasion,  encourage self sufficiency .
Health care and clean water seen as rights not profit making scams . Policing to be based on communities not as a secret wealth or should that be lack of wealth tax . voting to made mandatory and constituencies based on logic not gerrymander.
There you go sorted it

Ah well back to my garden

I agree with much of the sentiment in your post, Kyle.

all I can see is a generation that poisoned my planet while knowing exactly what they were doing.  

 This, though, in my mind is only partly the case.  Many may have bought the lie on an unconscious level.  We are much better educated when we question things, but in the case of the last few generations, there was not a lot of questioning.  So long as our side won the wars, and we were still free, and the economy was not sliding into depression, then they tended to trust that the government and it's allies in industry should guide the system as it must.  It doesn't make it right, but I don't think the majority in the last few generations really understood how bad things were going to get, or that they were necessarily doing such harm at all.  This whole topic didn't really exist on the public radar until the last couple decades.  It is always easier to look at someone else and point out or pick out their misgivings or downfalls, or shortcomings... it's easy because we are somewhat outside of it.  How the next generations will look at us might be a lot different then how we perceive ourselves.  Unfortunately the post war baby boom generation had the detriment of being the humans who existed during this time period where the media and politically propelled industrial corporate consumer ideal really took off, and my generation followed in a failing economic model, but there was resistance and some gains made.  There were certainly those in the poison game who knew exactly what they were doing, were at the top and steered those decisions, and who should be feeling terrible about the situation (and who it might be justified to point a finger at), but I tend to have to forgive the majority for trying to pay the bills and feed the kids while the bills got higher, and the corporate profits soared.    

My solutions are  quite simple really each country taxes the f@@@ out of oil and coal , economically encourages renewable energy and stops interfering in the buisness of other countries. Pollution is treachery along with Tax evasion,  encourage self sufficiency .
Health care and clean water seen as rights not profit making scams . Policing to be based on communities not as a secret wealth or should that be lack of wealth tax . voting to made mandatory and constituencies based on logic not gerrymander.
There you go sorted it

Ah well back to my garden  

Nope.  No gardening for you.  I just took a poll.  You are now elected our Benign Dictator for 2018.  

Kyle Neath wrote:I am younger (33), and all I can see is a generation that poisoned my planet while knowing exactly what they were doing.

I think we have actually made tremendous strides, but part of the "swindle" is keeping that information from being out there.

My wife can remember looking out the window of her home at the Wild Ammossoc River in New Hampshire and watching bubbles come down the river 20 minutes before her neighbor came out and hung laundry on the line. It did not take a genius to figure out where they were coming from. And while I am only 10 years older than you, I remember chasms of erosion on on highly eroded soil from where back to back hurricanes had streamed down the hillsides. Today water treatment plants that went in all over the US in the 1960's dot every city and town, and a good friend of mine was on the national board that instituted the USDA-NRCS Environmental Quality Incentive Program. Originally they wanted to cram legislation down every farmers throat, but all it would have done was put farmers into bankruptcy.

That is why I am not a fan of the "tax the crap out of them", theory because it goes against human nature and would never work; heck it is not working now. That is a negative consequence, and it is only motivational when it is enforceable. The second the taxer lets their guard down, or an unforeseen loophole is found, it ends, and the world has gained nothing because the offensive behavior starts anew. That is basic human nature 101. If the world wants change...use positive reinforcement, not negative by using punitive taxes...

I got some ideas on getting global warming under control, but no one wants to think at 30,000 feet, they would rather rally against "the big corporations" when it really is more like the Movie Remo Williams, when the team gets to the Star Wars Program the military is hoarding, they realize it never existed. It is the same way here, bait and switch, that is why I think it is a swindle. Again not because climate change is not happening, but because not all the information is being forwarded.

So...lower the cost of wind turbines and other green forms of energy...not through rebates which again does not work, but by physically getting the cost of green products down. 9 out of 10 Permies on here lacks cash, yet 100% want green products...get them into our hands! And yes Roberto, it is going to take diverting money from the 7 Billion dollar US Navy Destroyers I used to build, to building wind turbines to do it, but my former employer opted out of that option...literally.

And the USDA-NRCS EQUIP Program has been a HUGE success...FOLLOW THAT MODEL! It has only worked for 40 years, putting the money in the hands of the people who knew conservation best, in their counties, from conservationists and farmers working together. Most Permies do not realize 95% of the practices they want to do are covered by the USDA-NRCS, they just never go down and talk to them, but that is a thread unto its own.

I also think we should find the real culprits. I remember in the 80's everyone was so proud the CFC's or whatever it was...the crap in paint cans was outlawed in the USA, but no one realized just (1) US Space Shuttle trip was equal to one year of those damaging CFC's....and back then that thing went into orbit all the time. Today it is probably worse. It may not be a space shuttle...that was shuttered, but rockets are still going into the heavens. So lets cut back on space travel...and again Roberto...on those intercontinental missiles and such that every military in the world relies on. Of course that just scratches the surfaces of what really causes global warming, and what is being blamed.

And finally (for now), I think if we ALL just remembered, money is being fed to both sides: big corporations making money on energy, and big corporations making money on environmentalism. It is a two way street and no one understands the back door deals that are happening on a global scale. For many, many corporations the word "Environmentalism" and "Conservation" is just a way to line their own pockets without doing any real good for the environment.

Me, I am a numbers guy, I want real results, and no...1/2 a degree in 82 years is nowhere near good enough. Not when we have people paying huge sums of money to "pick on that guy, but not me", which is the way the back door deals are all done these days, energy and environmentalism alike.

lower the cost of wind turbines and other green forms of energy...not through rebates which again does not work, but by physically getting the cost of green products down. 9 out of 10 Permies on here lacks cash, yet 100% want green products...get them into our hands! And yes Roberto, it is going to take diverting money from the 7 Billion dollar US Navy Destroyers I used to build

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but aren't those Navy Destroyers paid for out of the U.S. budget?  Is that not taxing to the American people?  By diverting these funds, we simply transfer that debt from destroyers to green tech.  Does this not create a debt burden directly on the population as it relates to the economy?  Sounds like a hidden tax in a way, doesn't it?  Maybe I'm missing something. ? ?

Good idea, lowering the cost of green energy.  I would simply be happy if there was some investment in green tech studies, so that we can advance the existing technologies to meet the demand.  We need better solar cells, better wind turbines, better small scale water turbines, and we need to get geothermal and tidal and others into large scale fabrication/production reality.

And please don't mistake my support of the carbon tax idea to mean that I am generally pro-taxation.  I'm not.  Not even a little bit when it comes to centralized authority controlling it.  I would be very willing to contribute taxes on a larger scale than I am (and we are pretty heavily taxed here in Canada already), if it went almost entirely to local infrastructure; and that infrastructure was debated and voted on locally.  What happens if you live somewhat remotely in Canada as I do, is that most of my tax money goes to build the infrastructure of  and around cities like Vancouver, and most of our elected representatives live in and support the larger centers where the votes are.    

 got some ideas on getting global warming under control, but no one wants to think at 30,000 feet, they would rather rally against "the big corporations"

 I for one, am very open and wanting to hear your ideas, Travis.  As far as rallying against big corporations... no not really.  I'd much rather have the corporations change how they make money.  Why is it that they must destroy their own extended family's habitat in order to get rich?  Is that truly human nature?  I don't think so.  It's a pattern of conquest that has taken over human nature, which-when it comes down to it-is basically cooperative.

money is being fed to both sides: big corporations making money on energy, and big corporations making money on environmentalism. It is a two way street and no one understands the back door deals that are happening on a global scale. For many, many corporations the word "Environmentalism" and "Conservation" is just a way to line their own pockets without doing any real good for the environment.

 Sounds like what we call 'green-washing' to me.  The environmental groups I belong to and support work only through individual donations and grass roots campaigns.  Nobody is corporate wealthy, most are quite poor.  There is a myth being thrown out there that environmental groups are being supported by large private donations by corporate benefactors. It's categorically untrue.   I'm not saying that is what you are saying, I just wanted to clarify that.   I like your idea of using a model where real conservationists and practical workers are being given the funds to do the necessary work; most of the groups I know and support would love to work directly with solutions to the problem rather than battle with the bad guys.  My local group does both, but all (100%) of our funding (which is from open access grants that we have to apply for annually like anybody else), goes into doing the physical work on the ground; when we battle the bad guys it's 100% pro bono/volunteer work.  I do support several larger groups which do use their funds to battle the bad guys, but all the ones that I support do so in a transparent way.  

I'm not at all familiar with the USDA-NRCS EQUIP Program.  Can you explain how it gets the funds and such?  Our previous dictator (cough, I mean Prime Minister) gutted our environmental programs.  I'm not sure, but I doubt if we have anything that is equivalent to that in Canada.

.use positive reinforcement, not negative by using punitive taxes...  

 Defintily would like to see more examples of this.

Travis
I don't think you realise how little you are taxed in the USA compared to Europe and much of the rest of the world .I note there is a lot of hype and propaganda about this with a mixture of laughter and sadness. Taxing petrol the same as the UK would be a start ( it's about £1.20 a litre )
Also the amount spent on the military in the USA boggles my mind it's more than  china Russia , UK France germany Isreal , Iran and the gulf states combined!
I see all these issues  a symptom of a greater malaise.

David

Roberto..honestly I lack the time to address a lot of the points you made right now, but military spending is one reason I got out of building ships. It broke my heart because I felt my ability to weld was being used for the good of the nation by building amazing ships. As the US Navy saying went, "Presence Matters". When Somalia pirates overtook an American Vessel and kidnapped the Captain a distress call went out. That ship never knew their call was heard but in the morning they woke up with a US Navy Destroyer on the horizon, Marine sharpshooters on the bow, and dead Pirates and 30 saved American's, a few hours later. That is the good, and it was great to weld critical welds such as Frame )ne on the USS Zumwalt, or the missile silos, or the hull, but it grieved my conscience to no end to see how the Union and Company both fleeced the American Taxpayer. Yes I would love to see such funds diverted to windmills, something my former employer considered, but there was not enough profit. I did not say they would lose money...not enough profit.

But in thinking at 30,000 feet instead of conventional wisdom, why is there paragraph upon paragraph about the government doing something? That is a tough question, but people missed my challenge...probably because I was not clear and so I apologize...but why cannot we home-build our own darn windmills? I know they have the same dynamic forces as an air plane so its not an easy task, but this is what we should be doing. We should rely less upon the government and more upon our own intellect and skills. You are a welder...so am I, and all of us (Permies) TOGETHER are smart, lets get the cost of home-built, or kit-built windmills down; or geothermal, or solar...Paul Wheaton did so with Rocket Mass Heaters. Gillion did it with woodworking tools...

Yes you are right...I am referring to the term "Green-Washing" and I stand by what I say. Because of the lack of transparency, even as diligent as people contributing might try to be, I do not think they can see the back door deals that are being made. Some of it is political posturing through the American Political System of lobbyists, but it occurs on a staggering level. Part of it is that 90% of people want "Conservation" yet defining just what that is can be hard. We have a huge chemical produced in Maine that should be banned. It kills thousands of people a year, contaminates water bodies, and takes very little to kill an individual. Of course I am talking about WATER! See how little it takes to generate interest in "conservation"; it is all how something is worded! A few years ago a Maine Logging Lobbying firm did a poll and 85% of those polled wished to ban water.

I must go, but I think this is what it is going to take to really make strides in climate change. Addressing the real issues; what we want to see, and what we do not. We cannot pick and choose...

Whilst I agree we should all take care of our 'little patch ' I also think we have a responsibility to use our vote . It matters It counts together we are strong divided not so much