Food for thought - Climate Change

[Linas.P]

Came across this brilliant video (at the bottom)... just to be clear I personally think it is somewhat speculative, truth is that our understanding about climate is very limited.  That is why I HATE terms like "climate emergency" so much, how can one say it is emergency if in fact we don't know what "normal" is? Instead, "Climate Change" is correct term, because that is observable and we simply stating the fact e.g. average temperature changed by 0.01% per year or whatever, but it is moronic to jump to conclusions and follow ecovandalists and ecomentalists when we don't fully understand the causes, just by observing short term changes that we still cannot explain! For example many people do not realise that CO2 induced global warming is just a theory! It does seem logical and some of data corelates, as well it is fact that climate is warming, but it has not been definitively proven it is because of CO2, or because of human activity... yet most people nowadays already treat this as a fact which it isn't. It may be true, or it may not be true - the judgment is still out, research is still ongoing, the results are not consistent, yet we have things like Paris Accords where our leaders agreed on actions for something we don't fully understand yet. Now if the pledge would have been to spend 1% of GDP to research this - fine, but we just skipped that part and went right into the action without knowing what we are acting for.

Just to note - I am not meteorologist, nor climate scientists, I know some people really get offended if I don't state the obvious when it is just my opinion, so I just like to look at sources on both sides and use logic to work out what adds-up and what doesn't. The video below actually introduced me to few terms that didn't know about before and few interesting processes. For example the fact that based on correct terminology we are still currently in "ice age", it is speculative to say that we are in now in "termination" period, but the concept itself is kind of proven and repetitive. And I think that perspective is what is mostly lacking in the discussion. This planet is billions years old, most of processes takes 100s of thousands of years, and we (or rather all the ecomentalists) are looking in tiny period of few hundred years to draw conclusion about impending doom.

In short - what is being presented here is more along the lines of what I consider objective view or at least discussion when it comes to climate change, I think to understand what is going on we need to look into at least 100s of thousands of years climate perspective, because otherwise we are at risk of sampling error and general research bias. We can even call it cherry picking - in the event that takes 100 thousands of years we picked last few hundreds to maybe a couple of thousands of years and we trying to draw conclusion from that. Yet if we broaden the perspective then we can see that climate was both much hotter and much colder in the past, and if indeed it is termination period then we can expect climate as much as 3C higher than current temperature, yet for some reason we (or at least some people) are alarmed about predicted 2C increase and want to basically stop any climate change. Isn't that a bit foolish to try prevent something from happening despite it being natural cycle for the planet? I guess it is fair to say we don't know if it is or if it isn't, but that is why we should not jump to the conclusions too early.

Now what it has to do with cars and car forum? We all obviously impacted by these overreaching, idiotic and hysterical reactions from ecomentalists. I do agree with desire of preserving the planet, but to do that we need to understand what is going on first, perhaps improve the science and then act, not simply stop living like the ecovandals basically demand. So all of our quality of live is negatively impacted by minority which is overreacting to the processes they don't understand. It would be fair if they demand to fund the research to understand what is going on, but they just want to skip that part and go right into corrective actions despite not knowing what they are correcting and why.

So yeah... the video:

 

[Boomer54]

I tend towards your view myself. I am no expert on climate change, but I am pretty good with numbers. That is where I take great umbrage with our govt approach to limiting carbon emissions in this country. That is, given we contribute approximately 1% of carbon emissions globally it is an accounting farce to take on a rather disproportionate added cost in order to reduce same. Basically, our actions are hardly likely to have any significant impact at all on climate change given our almost miniscule contribution yet we are sold the need to address it as though it is our highest priority. Frankly, it's going to make some money for some people, but implicitly the rest of us pick up that cost. No politician though is going to stand up and honestly declare they have been sold 'a pup'.

[The-Acre]

17 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Came across this brilliant video (at the bottom)... just to be clear I personally think it is somewhat speculative, truth is that our understanding about climate is very limited.  That is why I HATE terms like "climate emergency" so much, how can one say it is emergency if in fact we don't know what "normal" is? Instead, "Climate Change" is correct term, because that is observable and we simply stating the fact e.g. average temperature changed by 0.01% per year or whatever, but it is moronic to jump to conclusions and follow ecovandalists and ecomentalists when we don't fully understand the causes, just by observing short term changes that we still cannot explain! For example many people do not realise that CO2 induced global warming is just a theory! It does seem logical and some of data corelates, as well it is fact that climate is warming, but it has not been definitively proven it is because of CO2, or because of human activity... yet most people nowadays already treat this as a fact which it isn't. It may be true, or it may not be true - the judgment is still out, research is still ongoing, the results are not consistent, yet we have things like Paris Accords where our leaders agreed on actions for something we don't fully understand yet. Now if the pledge would have been to spend 1% of GDP to research this - fine, but we just skipped that part and went right into the action without knowing what we are acting for.

Just to note - I am not meteorologist, nor climate scientists, I know some people really get offended if I don't state the obvious when it is just my opinion, so I just like to look at sources on both sides and use logic to work out what adds-up and what doesn't. The video below actually introduced me to few terms that didn't know about before and few interesting processes. For example the fact that based on correct terminology we are still currently in "ice age", it is speculative to say that we are in now in "termination" period, but the concept itself is kind of proven and repetitive. And I think that perspective is what is mostly lacking in the discussion. This planet is billions years old, most of processes takes 100s of thousands of years, and we (or rather all the ecomentalists) are looking in tiny period of few hundred years to draw conclusion about impending doom.

In short - what is being presented here is more along the lines of what I consider objective view or at least discussion when it comes to climate change, I think to understand what is going on we need to look into at least 100s of thousands of years climate perspective, because otherwise we are at risk of sampling error and general research bias. We can even call it cherry picking - in the event that takes 100 thousands of years we picked last few hundreds to maybe a couple of thousands of years and we trying to draw conclusion from that. Yet if we broaden the perspective then we can see that climate was both much hotter and much colder in the past, and if indeed it is termination period then we can expect climate as much as 3C higher than current temperature, yet for some reason we (or at least some people) are alarmed about predicted 2C increase and want to basically stop any climate change. Isn't that a bit foolish to try prevent something from happening despite it being natural cycle for the planet? I guess it is fair to say we don't know if it is or if it isn't, but that is why we should not jump to the conclusions too early.

Now what it has to do with cars and car forum? We all obviously impacted by these overreaching, idiotic and hysterical reactions from ecomentalists. I do agree with desire of preserving the planet, but to do that we need to understand what is going on first, perhaps improve the science and then act, not simply stop living like the ecovandals basically demand. So all of our quality of live is negatively impacted by minority which is overreacting to the processes they don't understand. It would be fair if they demand to fund the research to understand what is going on, but they just want to skip that part and go right into corrective actions despite not knowing what they are correcting and why.

So yeah... the video:

 

Personally I find it laughable that anyone would presume to know what may or may not have happened so long ago. As long ago as the 9th century severe heat and drought caused loss of life in Europe, but it seems most of the "Greta's" aren't interested in climate history, only the current "emergency"

[Bluemarlin]

I don't know what the reality is, but I do know that both sides use data in ways to suit their own beliefs/agenda.

On the one hand environmentalists point to correlations between carbon emissions and climate change, which may or may not be proven science, and yet we spend money on it as though it is.

Equally though, the other side point to historical climate change, before human influence, in order to claim it's simply a natural process, that has nothing to do with our activities. That's a bit like saying that forest fires have historically started naturally, and so they have nothing to do with carelessly discarded cigarette butts or bbqs.

The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle, in that there are natural processes/cycles that affect climate, which we can do nothing to control, and we also produce emisssions that affect climate, which we can control.

What we do know is that CO2 affects the planet's ability to dissipate heat. Logic would therefore suggest that additional CO2 production would require additional processing to mitigate any climate effect. This is largely done by the oceans, which ultimately impacts marine life as it takes on more CO2, and by forests, which are continually being reduced. As a conquence it makes sense to try and reduce CO2 emissions, but whether we're doing that in the most sensible and cost effective way is up for debate.

 

[Boomer54]

"the most sensible and cost effective way is up for debate." Not really. See above. Now bring to play Paretos Law and frame the issue within that context. Under that spotlight ,what we (the UK) are doing makes no strategic sense whatsoever.

For clarity, if you are not familiar with Pareto I refer you to ;

Pareto analysis is a decision-making technique used to statistically separate the data entries into groups with the most or least effect on the data. It is commonly used in business to find the best strategies or problems to pursue.

[Linas.P]

Indeed - I am not saying above video is definitive answer to our problems, but I think it helps with perspective, especially when somebody calls it emergency and starts throwing paint at buildings, cars, concerts, sport events etc. I myself have been researching this topic for at least decade when I realise some of the claims and solutions just doesn't make sense, and yet until today I was not aware that technically speaking ice ages has not ended (by historic climate perspective). How many people knows about this, how many have considered it, what does it mean, does our politicians considered it, have they accounted for it having potential impact when they agreed to something. I reckon not many knows about it, "termination" phase it self seems to be relatively new study from 2008. And yet we have proportion of population running with "Greta" and other ecomentalists and ruining our lives... Just think about it - how many "just stop oil" ecoterrorists knows at least basics of environment studies?! I reckon not many... yet they keep shouting "climate emergency"! Imagine one is locked in the sauna and doesn't know what the sauna is... what would their reaction be when temperature reaches 80C?! Well that is how they seems to react to climate change! Yet when one knows it is sauna, I think the reaction is much more adequate.

I am all for spending more money to understand earth climate better, climate patterns better, definitively prove what natural increase/decrease and what is human activity doing... ONLY then we can identify what is causing it and what we can do, or if we even need to do anything. This is not question of beliefs, not a matter of opinion, not an observation one can do by looking at life-time experience or without concrete scientific evidence - this is a question of research and finding the cause and applying right solution to it.

If anything available data is horrible (and I am not saying it was better at some point, I am just saying it is missing), I myself often quote pollution per sector, in which transportation is responsible for ~10-12% global emissions and from which vehicles are 2.4%. Now those are true numbers I am not pulling them out from from my back side, BUT they are far from perfect. Do begin with 10% was number in 2016, 12% was in 2020, but the data for first one was collected between 2006 and 2012, and second one 2012 to 2018. Meaning we talking about decades old data! And not only that - the % is CO2 equivalent of SOME pollution sources. Now what is the problem with that. First of all if you look at the underlying source data, then it turns out that every country has different methodology to count it, different methodology of what in included or excluded from pollution... so the end result in technical terms is "shaite in shaite out"! Some countries count Methane and Phosphates, some exclude particle pollution, or lead, there are just so many variables, can you even trust data from countries like China or ruzzia?! What I am saying - it seems the first step is to have GLOBAL pollution sources identified, analysed and have complete data set of all pollution sources, consistently added in the list, using same well established methodology. In short - we don't even know how much exactly we pollute, we have rough estimate at best! How we can address the problem when realistically we are guessing what it is?!

That is why I kind of like the questions raised in US and now in UK as well... "for US to become carbon neutral by 2050 it will cost $30 Trillion, what impact it will have on global warming"... answer - "we don't actually know". But $30 Trillion can pretty much eradicate hunger, most of diseases, probably finance fusion energy research 10 times over and there would be still money to spare. Now sure this is just the money, but that is opportunity cost as well, so if we would spend that money wisely our life quality can significantly improve, but now it will be significantly reduced for over 30 years because we traying to battle the problem we don't even understand properly and we don't know whenever what we doing adds any value, or it is just total waste because maybe we indeed in some sort of "Ice age termination" phase... or another million of possibilities we have not thought about!

I guess in summary, I am saying - to make any decision we as a society/race at very least need good quality data. Nobody can make good decision without having even basic fundamentals right. And I am not saying we should do nothing! I am saying we should use logical and consistent approach - identify the issue, find the data, analyse the data, make a decision. Not suspect there is an issue, make assumption about the subject you don't know and it isn't even well researched and right away jump to conclusion and force everyone implemented the remedies you guess may work which has impact for decades. 

[The-Acre]

I looked at the BBC online news today, we're having a heatwave, just like the often occuring early September heatwaves I remember in my 71 years, but the BBC has it under their "climate change" section. The more they, and the met office and the government (and others) do this, the more people will just accept it as fact without a debate. One of my customers was talking about climate change, and when I said "assuming there is such a thing" she just said "oh, you're one of them" No debate, just labeled a conspiracy theorist. But of course, it's only a conspiracy if it isn't true! 

[VFR]

History tells us that totalitarian states would often use children to denounce / accuse the adults who were in their sights and the sheep would all then join in to raise the volume. 

This is what crossed my mind when the press wheeled that village idiot out (which is what happened) and all those at the UN then bowed & scrapped at the feet of saint Greta. 

To my knowledge there was only one leader (at the time) who ignored her there and her scowling face told the tale IMO

[Boomer54]

In essence, it is most unfortunate that people influencing decisions really do not prioritise factual data. Indeed, I suspect you could qualify most of them to be in one of two camps (sometimes both). Group one, blinded by ideology, what they 'know' is absolutely right (Greta). Group two, politicians and their associated satellites, who are mostly interested in the political value of the issue at the ballot box. Bring those two together, and who cares about the facts. Far too complicated to sell to the electorate over their morning breakfast juggling kids to school and rush hour traffic to the workplace.

[Linas.P]

29 minutes ago, The-Acre said:

I looked at the BBC online news today, we're having a heatwave, just like the often occuring early September heatwaves I remember in my 71 years, but the BBC has it under their "climate change" section. The more they, and the met office and the government (and others) do this, the more people will just accept it as fact without a debate. One of my customers was talking about climate change, and when I said "assuming there is such a thing" she just said "oh, you're one of them" No debate, just labeled a conspiracy theorist. But of course, it's only a conspiracy if it isn't true! 

Climate Change had many connotations, with the perspective on things that I have, I consider it just normal that climate does change, to be honest I knew that when I was like 10 years old, because as surprising as it is kids actually learns about the history and various changes the planet went trough. Well at least I hope so - because in the days when I was in school (which wasn't that long ago!) we had something that roughly translates into "getting to know your planet/environment", this was for the primary school and had explained broad topics like basics of physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy and history. Just high level, but putting everything in perspective. So it went into how earth was formed, the key periods (geologic scale), ice ages etc. So that is what 7 years olds learn! Meaning that by the time I was 10 I had rough understanding that climate is constantly variable, it does get colder and hotter all the time and that those period can last 10s and even 100s of thousands of years.

Yet Climate Change in many people mind is some sort of negative thing, for various reasons, but common ones are pollution and human activity, yet natural reasons for Climate Change are almost always ignored. 

But like that is not enough - Climate Change was not shocking enough, now we have new terms "Climate Catastrophe" and "Climate Emergency", despite it neither being catastrophic (as Ice Age would be), nor really that "emergent" as even in worst case scenario it will take thousands of years for meaningful change to happen. Same with Sea Level and Salt Level, same with animals going extinct - over 99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct! I am all for preservation, but adaptations, mutations and extinctions just part of existence.

So although I would say "climate change is fact" - I mean it in a way that constant temperature, humidity, co2, o2 levels change is just normal. 

[The-Acre]

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Climate Change had many connotations, with the perspective on things that I have, I consider it just normal that climate does change, to be honest I knew that when I was like 10 years old, because as surprising as it is kids actually learns about the history and various changes the planet went trough. Well at least I hope so - because in the days when I was in school (which wasn't that long ago!) we had something that roughly translates into "getting to know your planet/environment", this was for the primary school and had explained broad topics like basics of physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy and history. Just high level, but putting everything in perspective. So it went into how earth was formed, the key periods (geologic scale), ice ages etc. So that is what 7 years olds learn! Meaning that by the time I was 10 I had rough understanding that climate is constantly variable, it does get colder and hotter all the time and that those period can last 10s and even 100s of thousands of years.

Yet Climate Change in many people mind is some sort of negative thing, for various reasons, but common ones are pollution and human activity, yet natural reasons for Climate Change are almost always ignored. 

But like that is not enough - Climate Change was not shocking enough, now we have new terms "Climate Catastrophe" and "Climate Emergency", despite it neither being catastrophic (as Ice Age would be), nor really that "emergent" as even in worst case scenario it will take thousands of years for meaningful change to happen. Same with Sea Level and Salt Level, same with animals going extinct - over 99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct! I am all for preservation, but adaptations, mutations and extinctions just part of existence.

So although I would say "climate change is fact" - I mean it in a way that constant temperature, humidity, co2, o2 levels change is just normal. 

And on the news just 45 mins ago, climate scientists are saying this is likely to be the hottest year for 120,000 years! My question to them, "were you there?"

[Linas.P]

My PC drives me mad, I have little weather widget at the bottom and it used to say just temperature, then they improved it to give warnings like "rain is coming", "high wind" etc. sometimes quite useful... Now it is outright propaganda, every bloody day is record high! Not joking - was sitting at home on rainy Saturday day in July, 22 degrees, windy, had to close window in the room as it was outright cold in the morning, what the widget says "RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE!" 22C in bright red with red exclamation mark (or maybe it is rea thermometer)... I am sorry, but even in my short little lifetime I have seen hotter Julys! And fair enough if it would be some generic location, I know it was hot in Spain that day, but no it is my location, my temperature and it is record high! What?!

As well now BBC shows temperatures between 10-12C as yellow, 13-14C already is kind of amber and it is nearly red by the time it gets to 21-24C. No! I am sorry, but 24C is just comfortable normal temperature in spring and autumn and it is outright disappointing in summer. I guess nice if you sitting in the office, but not a day to go to the beach for sure! I would say ~28C is what normal summer is like, but I don't want to see any amber until it hits at least 30C, and any red before it is 40C. And I have no issue calling hot day a hot day and showing it as red, last summer for example was very hot when we had all the fires near London, even houses burned. As it happens I was in the Egypt at the time and it gain was kind of disappointing, because when we left the Heathrow it was 38C, when we landed in Sharm it was 42C, I even joked that there is no point going in Egypt anymore when we have such temps in UK. Cool - show such days as red! And indeed it was hottest day since record began in 1884 or something like that. But 21C as redish-amber in the summer?! What is that?

And here is another thing - record high since 1884 (maybe different date, but the point is - few 100 years at best)... Sorry, but that is just trivial, even our race which is just a tine dot in the timeline has existed depending on the study for 300,000 -2,000,000 years. Why we care about temperature record since 150 years ago? It is almost like saying "you are smartest and most beautiful lady named Karen I have met in last 15 minutes!"

Here is nice graph - age of the earth and then there are "hominins" - just a dot! I am pretty sure they could not make it smaller in this resolution, but even single pixel is probably exaggerating it! And we think that 150 year old record means something!

[The-Acre]

6 hours ago, Linas.P said:

My PC drives me mad, I have little weather widget at the bottom and it used to say just temperature, then they improved it to give warnings like "rain is coming", "high wind" etc. sometimes quite useful... Now it is outright propaganda, every bloody day is record high! Not joking - was sitting at home on rainy Saturday day in July, 22 degrees, windy, had to close window in the room as it was outright cold in the morning, what the widget says "RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE!" 22C in bright red with red exclamation mark (or maybe it is rea thermometer)... I am sorry, but even in my short little lifetime I have seen hotter Julys! And fair enough if it would be some generic location, I know it was hot in Spain that day, but no it is my location, my temperature and it is record high! What?!

As well now BBC shows temperatures between 10-12C as yellow, 13-14C already is kind of amber and it is nearly red by the time it gets to 21-24C. No! I am sorry, but 24C is just comfortable normal temperature in spring and autumn and it is outright disappointing in summer. I guess nice if you sitting in the office, but not a day to go to the beach for sure! I would say ~28C is what normal summer is like, but I don't want to see any amber until it hits at least 30C, and any red before it is 40C. And I have no issue calling hot day a hot day and showing it as red, last summer for example was very hot when we had all the fires near London, even houses burned. As it happens I was in the Egypt at the time and it gain was kind of disappointing, because when we left the Heathrow it was 38C, when we landed in Sharm it was 42C, I even joked that there is no point going in Egypt anymore when we have such temps in UK. Cool - show such days as red! And indeed it was hottest day since record began in 1884 or something like that. But 21C as redish-amber in the summer?! What is that?

And here is another thing - record high since 1884 (maybe different date, but the point is - few 100 years at best)... Sorry, but that is just trivial, even our race which is just a tine dot in the timeline has existed depending on the study for 300,000 -2,000,000 years. Why we care about temperature record since 150 years ago? It is almost like saying "you are smartest and most beautiful lady named Karen I have met in last 15 minutes!"

Here is nice graph - age of the earth and then there are "hominins" - just a dot! I am pretty sure they could not make it smaller in this resolution, but even single pixel is probably exaggerating it! And we think that 150 year old record means something!

As much as I would dispute any attempt to suggest the age of the earth because no one really knows, I absolutely agree this climate thing is propaganda. Propaganda is used to control the masses, but for what purpose? Perhaps secret discussions at the WEF meetings may reveal something. A certain unpleasant person from the 30's and 40's once said "a lie told once remains a lie, a lie told a thousand times becomes truth"  It's also interesting to see (I think it was the Express) saying the Greek fires were arson, apparently there's proof! Talking of propaganda, why is it that the mainstream media never want to talk to scientists with opposing views on climate, they just don't. 

[eightk]

Don’t forget since June we also have HHA - Heat Health Alerts! 
We’re currently at amber alert level as I’m wearing shorts. I assume a red alert means I’ll need a thong. Apologies for that so early in the morning.

Try and find Ian Plimer on YouTube. One of his speeches came up and basically, when people say ‘global warming’ the key question is ‘since when’. We’ve been hotter, colder, had more CO2, less CO2, it just depends what time periods you’re looking at. Doom mongers cherry pick time periods and tell us the sky is falling in. I’m not so sure.

The UK produces 1% of the worlds CO2. Total CO2 is currently 0.04% of the air - that’s 400 parts per million (400ppm). It’s not a lot! CO2 was as high as 9000 ppm millions of years ago, if our scientists guesses are correct. Fine, have a go at reducing our impact, but not at the expense of hamstringing our economy when other nations (and natural causes) are having a much larger effect.

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, The-Acre said:

As much as I would dispute any attempt to suggest the age of the earth because no one really knows, I absolutely agree this climate thing is propaganda. Propaganda is used to control the masses, but for what purpose? Perhaps secret discussions at the WEF meetings may reveal something. A certain unpleasant person from the 30's and 40's once said "a lie told once remains a lie, a lie told a thousand times becomes truth"  It's also interesting to see (I think it was the Express) saying the Greek fires were arson, apparently there's proof! Talking of propaganda, why is it that the mainstream media never want to talk to scientists with opposing views on climate, they just don't. 

And that is fair enough - when we talking about time period of BILLION years, I think it needs to be accepted that these are just current understanding. And that is key point - our understanding is constantly being updated. When I was in school the consensus was that people have roamed the earth for ~200,000 years. Then we have found remains which were carbon dated 300,000 years... and by now the working theory is ~400,000-2,000,000.

I think this is more or less true for earth age, but what is important here is that earth is AT LEAST billions years old, whenever it is 4.5 or 5.3 or 3.5 billion in grand scheme of things it does not matter when somebody cherry picks 150 years old temperature records and tries not only to draw conclusions from that, but as well decides on policy and forces other people to follow it. I am sorry, but current "climate emergency" has about the same level of scientific proof as most of religions. And it is not far from the truth - many climate activists and their organisations have religious sect like structures and belief system. Even if somebody supports them and thinks we need to do more to reduce our contribution to climate change, it is still undeniable that climate activists do not follow science, but rather their own "belief system".

1 hour ago, eightk said:

Don’t forget since June we also have HHA - Heat Health Alerts! 
We’re currently at amber alert level as I’m wearing shorts. I assume a red alert means I’ll need a thong. Apologies for that so early in the morning.

Try and find Ian Plimer on YouTube. One of his speeches came up and basically, when people say ‘global warming’ the key question is ‘since when’. We’ve been hotter, colder, had more CO2, less CO2, it just depends what time periods you’re looking at. Doom mongers cherry pick time periods and tell us the sky is falling in. I’m not so sure.

The UK produces 1% of the worlds CO2. Total CO2 is currently 0.04% of the air - that’s 400 parts per million (400ppm). It’s not a lot! CO2 was as high as 9000 ppm millions of years ago, if our scientists guesses are correct. Fine, have a go at reducing our impact, but not at the expense of hamstringing our economy when other nations (and natural causes) are having a much larger effect.

And that is precisely my point - we looking at the tiny period. Even the ice drilling is just tiny bit of story, because consensus is that earth was completely free of ice ~115,000 years ago. So you one obviously can't use ice core modelling before that period! That is why so ridiculous when some potato-head so called "scientist" says that "this was hottest year for probably 120,000 years". Like yeah sure - 120,000 years ago earth was completely free of ice and tundra had tropical climate, yet somehow it was apparently colder. Last time I checked we still have ice in both poles and we still have permafrost in vast areas.

This does not look very tropical to me:

Yet if you google "siberia" the first link is https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/climate-concerns-siberia-experiences-record-breaking-heat-n1216351 The "record breaking 26C". Again to your point - record breaking since when? And why do we hate people in Siberia so much... I much rather have tropical weather in tundra than 2 miles deep ice cap over UK.

[The-Acre]

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

And that is fair enough - when we talking about time period of BILLION years, I think it needs to be accepted that these are just current understanding. And that is key point - our understanding is constantly being updated. When I was in school the consensus was that people have roamed the earth for ~200,000 years. Then we have found remains which were carbon dated 300,000 years... and by now the working theory is ~400,000-2,000,000.

I think this is more or less true for earth age, but what is important here is that earth is AT LEAST billions years old, whenever it is 4.5 or 5.3 or 3.5 billion in grand scheme of things it does not matter when somebody cherry picks 150 years old temperature records and tries not only to draw conclusions from that, but as well decides on policy and forces other people to follow it. I am sorry, but current "climate emergency" has about the same level of scientific proof as most of religions. And it is not far from the truth - many climate activists and their organisations have religious sect like structures and belief system. Even if somebody supports them and thinks we need to do more to reduce our contribution to climate change, it is still undeniable that climate activists do not follow science, but rather their own "belief system".

And that is precisely my point - we looking at the tiny period. Even the ice drilling is just tiny bit of story, because consensus is that earth was completely free of ice ~115,000 years ago. So you one obviously can't use ice core modelling before that period! That is why so ridiculous when some potato-head so called "scientist" says that "this was hottest year for probably 120,000 years". Like yeah sure - 120,000 years ago earth was completely free of ice and tundra had tropical climate, yet somehow it was apparently colder. Last time I checked we still have ice in both poles and we still have permafrost in vast areas.

This does not look very tropical to me:

Yet if you google "siberia" the first link is https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/climate-concerns-siberia-experiences-record-breaking-heat-n1216351 The "record breaking 26C". Again to your point - record breaking since when? And why do we hate people in Siberia so much... I much rather have tropical weather in tundra than 2 miles deep ice cap over UK.

It's a shame someone has mentioned wearing a thong before I have lunch! And of course you're spot on when you say "since when" The constant narrative is, "since records began" As you say, we're only looking at about 140 years of records because the "scientists" say that's when more reliable records began. 

[Spock66]

11 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Here is nice graph - age of the earth and then there are "hominins" - just a dot! I am pretty sure they could not make it smaller in this resolution, but even single pixel is probably exaggerating it! And we think that 150 year old record means something!

So you could say that if one species of mammal that is currently dominant becomes extinct in the next 100 years or so, it's kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of the Earth's history.

[Linas.P]

52 minutes ago, Spock66 said:

So you could say that if one species of mammal that is currently dominant becomes extinct in the next 100 years or so, it's kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of the Earth's history.

I personally would say so, but I realise that not everyone are on board, which is understandable. However, whatever will be the reason for human extinction, it will NOT be climate change. Sure life could become harder, current fertile land can become infertile, although again currently tundra is infertile because of permafrost, but the ground itself is perfect, so we may gain more than we lose. Sure maybe some freak events, like tornados and floods will kill some people, but realistically NOTHING climate related can wipe us out completely. Just consider this - humans existed for AT LEAST 300,000 years, in that time we had 4 ice ages, proper 2 miles deep ice covering 40% of the planet which is way worse than tropical tundra option, our ancestors were pre-stone age (meaning they did not know how to use tools at all and were just running around with naked arse) and they still survived. So honestly, nothing climate change related is even remote risk - crank A/C harder that is all. The climate change related unrest - that is different topic, but it is not the weather that will kills us.

But you know what could kills us - Meteorite! Has done many times in the past, this is not some sort of hypothetical scenario, it is well known all life ending event. I would assume humans are advanced enough now where we would survive as a species, in some sort of bunkers etc. we would see it coming, somebody will survive, but it is highly likely that within 100 years we would be back into approximately medieval times, maybe early industrialisation, not stone age, but with 80%, 90%, maybe 95% of people dying we would inevitable lose much of knowledge of how to make stuff, or simply people who can make it or even machines to make it. It is all good and well to know how to make computer chip, but without $100 million machine you can't do it... heck chinsese can't do it properly even with machine! But even 5% is like 400 million people - so more people would survive than there were alive before bubonic plague. Obviously, that is all assuming we don't blow ourselves into pieces many times before meteorite come hurtling towards us.

So in that sense - meteorite is big danger, but not very likely to happen. Climate Chance is likely to happen, but realistically it is irrelevant for species survival.

As I said $30 trillions are required for US to become carbon neutral, US is ~5% of global emissions, so I assume for us as species we need at least $600 Tn to become carbon neutral. And us being carbon neutral is not guaranteed, in fact it's most likely won't make a difference on climate change. Sorry... it 100% will not make a difference on climate change, because climate is constantly changing. The only thing $600 Tn can achieve is to remove human impact from the natural climate change, but it does not guarantee that that natural 3C increase in temperatures won't happen, it may delay it slightly. In short it is WASTE OF MONEY and resources. And it is waste of OPPORTUNITY. Because you know what $ 10 Tn can do? It can easily finance colonisation of the Moon or Mars. So we can do it 60 times over for the money we wasting on something that may not have any impact on something that isn't even a risk for our survival. Now again - I am not sure everyone agrees that we need to colonise anything, or how to do it, but if we are concerned about our survival then this is just at least 60 times better option than trying to become carbon neutral.

Now sure - we can come to the stage where we can terraform the planet, and we certainly need that technology for other planets, and at that point we can go well beyond just being climate neutral, we can come to point where we actually controlling the climate precisely, reducing the carbon at will, or any other gas in atmosphere... nice comfortable and shiny 26C all year long, nice and comfortable 16C for sleeping at night, heavy rain at 6AM and 10PM to wash the streets... you get the point, but we haven't even started calculating of what it will cost. As a species we eventually get to that point if putka does not nuke the world, but before than we have many more pressing issues than climate change. And it is not about denying that it is happening, it is about putting things into perspective.

In short - we are concerned too much about things that are irrelevant... I am not saying we should shaite all around us and pollute all the time, but it is just quality of life question, not survival question. And if it is quality of life question, then it is irrational to make our quality of life much worse to then make it slightly better.

[GMB]

I tried to read all the interesting comments in this thread and they are all worthy of consideration.

The elephant in the room is that we will actually extinguish ourselves well before natural forces take place.

The end of the world for us stupid humans will be due to the nuclear winter following the nuclear strikes started by ( choose any one of the following in no particular order 😞 USA - Russia - China - North Korea - Iran ( soon ) . Sorry if I missed anyone.

Have a nice day and cheer up🙂

[Lmafudd]

14 minutes ago, GMB said:

I tried to read all the interesting comments in this thread and they are all worthy of consideration.

The elephant in the room is that we will actually extinguish ourselves well before natural forces take place.

The end of the world for us stupid humans will be due to the nuclear winter following the nuclear strikes started by ( choose any one of the following in no particular order 😞 USA - Russia - China - North Korea - Iran ( soon ) . Sorry if I missed anyone.

Have a nice day and cheer up🙂

Actually we're more likely to be severely reduced by a proper virus and not just a beefed-up common cold like Covid. There are just too many humans on this planet and as there doesn't appear to be a handy planet for us to jump to then our over crowding will have a disastrous effect on everything. Its nature's way. Nature doesn't really care of course as whatever develops after us will just be another step in the day to day life of the universe. 

[GMB]

2 minutes ago, Lmafudd said:

Actually we're more likely to be severely reduced by a proper virus and not just a beefed-up common cold like Covid. There are just too many humans on this planet and as there doesn't appear to be a handy planet for us to jump to then our over crowding will have a disastrous effect on everything. Its nature's way. Nature doesn't really care of course as whatever develops after us will just be another step in the day to day life of the universe. 

Very good point. Nature always corrects unbalanced systems usually using disease, as you infer.

The difference is that I was talking about extinction not reduction/correction. Some unlucky few will survive the virus and develop immunity but at what cost?

[Linas.P]

Possibilities of our demise are endless, however climate change is not one of them...

That is why I am saying - let's try to be clean and tidy for our own convenience, but let's not overblow this issue, it is not existential risk, so let's not waste time and value resources trying to become carbon neutral.

Again - it is an opportunity cost... what can help us to survive nuclear war, a horrible virus (although 100% death rate is questionable)... maybe living on more than 1 planet can help?! Actually, that solves quite a bit of issue for us, pollution, overpopulation, resources and redundancy in case of catastrophic event.

[Cotswold Pete]

Interesting to read this thread, and my two-pence worth is Humans have been degrading the environment since we jump down from the trees, learnt we could burn them for heat, turn them into arrows and kill mega-fuana, so the burning of carbon based fuels is just the current extension of our mission to eventually ruin the places we live in.

As to governments limiting the ability of you and me to drive where ever when ever, I am kind of in support of, becuase we are all (in relative terms) selfish, and some level of control is required, a bit like speed limits, be a interesting world if no one regulated our speed in urban areas coz that was seen a a restriction of our liberties.

If we all adopted a quasi-buddhist come Quaker philosophy than maybe we would feel less need to consume and tarmac the planet, but in the meanwhile I am not in  position to give up my car and go everywhere by e-bike or shanks-pony, so I am part of the problem my kids will have to solve.

It does seem though the pace of global warming has increased in line with human population, so at a guess we are the problem as much as the earth wobbling a little bit nearer to further from the sun from time to time. (Unless of course there are some aliens just around the dark side of the moon having a larf while playing some game of SIM EARTH - and they forgot to switch off the WARM option)🤓

[The-Acre]

And there we have it again from the biased BBC, "the longest September heatwave on record" and of course, they had to mention climate changezzzzzzzz

[dutchie01]

6 hours ago, Linas.P said:

. maybe living on more than 1 planet can help?! Actually, that solves quite a bit of issue for us, pollution, overpopulation, resources and redundancy in case of catastrophic event.

Interesting philosophical question. Who will we send to planet B ?