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Climate Change & Global Warming


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How important is Global Warming to you in the Grand Scheme of Things?  

246 members have voted

  1. 1. How important is Global Warming to you in the Grand Scheme of Things?

    • Give me a break, I've enough on my plate
      17
    • I suppose there's something in it, but it's for the Politicians/Corporations/Those in power to sort out
      4
    • Yes I think it is important and I try to do my bit.
      79
    • If we don't stop it, the Planet dies in a few years, it's as simple as that.
      34
    • I think it is all hype and not half as bad as they make out
      108
    • I don't know what to think
      17

This poll is closed to new votes


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Excellent post Malachy, though I do disagree with part of it:
Making a difference, I think, will involve a complete change in our lifestyle. It may involve sacrificing many of the luxuries that we now consider to be our right.

We don't have to sacrifice anything. All we have to do is to stop burning fossil fuels. Close down the coal and gas power stations and replace them with nuclear and renewables and change our transport to run on hydrogen. That's it. Job done.

 

So, do you support additional Nuclear powered generation Malachy?

 

I can agree entirely with your comments AT, but there is an overwhelming number of Global Warming subscribers that tie the solution to giving up every advancement in modern life and moving back to a simple, austere, carbon free lifestyle - like Al Gore; who says it, but doesn't live it.

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I make no apology for the fact that I believe the problem is not nearly so simple as you suggest. I would tend to consider a wide variety of environmental issues as being connected here, and that tackling climate change is only one part of the very difficult challenges that we are faced with. Which is why, unlike AT, I don't support the Viking Energy plans for a windfarm (nor am I a supporter of Tesco, Auld Rasmie, though I'm not quite sure how you see that as being connected).

Converting to nuclear, renewables and hydrogen would obviously massively reduce our output of greenhouse gases, and that is a very valid goal, but that does not mean that continued destruction of our natural environment will no longer have a negative impact. It doesn't matter how little CO2 we are producing if we have no rainforests or peatbogs left. We cannot control our climatic system single-handed.

And if plants and animals continue to become extinct at present levels, then what exactly are we trying to preserve and protect? Is our way of life really the only important thing here? Is that the only reason people want to stop global warming? Surely the impact on other forms of life is important too. And surely, then, we must consider the other, more direct, ways that human beings are affecting life on earth. We can't just switch to nuclear and say 'right, job done'.

I think I am a fairly reasoned and rational person, and this is a subject that I have thought a lot about. It is an unfashionable and unpopular conclusion that I've come to - perhaps even an 'extremist' perspective - but I'm not going to change it just because of that. I do believe that, unless there are fundamental changes to our way of life, not just material changes but psychological changes too, particularly in terms of the core values of our culture, then we are in a pretty bad situation. Terminal, in fact.

Ours is a culture and a society that is driven by greed. That is how capitalism works. When things get shaky, as they are at the moment, we are encouraged to go out and buy more things we don't really need, just to make sure the economy keeps ticking over. To me that suggests that something is fundamentally wrong with the way we are living. There are 6 billion people in the world, and there is simply not enough space, not enough soil, fresh water, oil, fish, paper or anything for all of them to live like we do. It is highly hypocritical and intellectually bankrupt for anyone to turn round and accuse people like me of denying folk in the third world the right to live like we do. They can't live like we do because there simply isn't enough stuff in the world for them to do so; even without the fact that capitalism wouldn't function properly if they did. We need poor people, otherwise we couldn't be so rich. That's the way it functions. The system is fueled by inequality. So the whole basis of the question is flawed. The vast majority of people are denied our way of life by reality - by the size and nature of our planet - not by nasty environmentalists.

So yes, I am saying that not everyone can live our kind of lifestyle - it's blatantly obvious that they can't, for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with their output of CO2. (I realise I have moved away from the topic of global warming, but the question was posed, albeit indirectly, so I am answering it.)

As it happens I do not really have much hope for the future. With the current (fast increasing) world population, I do not believe there is any way for us to live sustainably. I don't think there is going to be a sudden sea change in the way Westerners think. We will continue to be greedy and want more than we need. And most folk who are not so lucky as us will continue to want what we have. That won't change.

The inevitable question then is 'why bother to do anything?' Why do I choose to write about these issues? Why do I maintain the slight hope that somebody might occasionally agree with me, or even be in some small way influenced to change the way they live. Well, I suppose I wouldn't really be human if I didn't.

I'm not holding myself up as some model of sustainable living. Probably many folk would consider my life to be a bit austere - I don't buy lots of 'stuff', I don't have a TV, etc etc. And my carbon footprint is probably not too bad either - living in Fair Isle most of my electricity and heating comes from a windmill, I eat my lamb, reared here, vegetables grown here, blah blah. But I do still live within, and take part in a society that is fundamentally corrupt - cancerous even. If I could change it I would, but I can't.

Long answer, sorry. And as for the nuclear question, I am undecided I am afraid. Clearly I don't think it's a solve-all otherwise I certainly would support it. I haven't made up my mind.

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I worry the same, and is one reason I found myself interested in trying to do something about it all, best of course if I could manage to be part of a group with the same aims.

 

So I might direct you to have a look at a European effort looking towards sustainable living, and not based on the capitalist system:

 

http://en.technocracynet.eu

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Good post Malachy, not sure if I agree with this part though;

 

"They can't live like we do because there simply isn't enough stuff in the world for them to do so; even without the fact that capitalism wouldn't function properly if they did."

 

Resource allocation aside, capitalism would benefit from spreading its tentacles deeper into the third world and indeed it is a useful marketplace for products which are falling out of favour in more developed countries. (Fags, toxic pesticides etc.) Like you, I am pessimistic about the future, as I suppose anybody who seriously thinks about it will be. Successful capitalism depends on unlimited growth and neverending consumption yet the majority of people do not even realise that we live on a finite planet. Hmmm.

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Crofter, just to clarify - what I meant was that our consumption of unneccesary, cheap goods relies on those goods being made by people willing to work for very little money. If the goods were made, say, by our next-door-neighbour, they would be expensive (think of Shetland knitwear compared to Primark jumpers). In order to feed our endless consumption, we rely on there being poor people willing to cheaply make the stuff we're buying. So for those poor people to be able to live our lifestyle, there would have to be enough even poorer people who could make things cheaply enough that they could afford to buy them. That's what I meant.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Looks like the Government is finally starting to take Climate change seriously:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/12-years-to-halve-uk-co2-1047092.html

 

And some interesting thoughts on the problem:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/27/renewableenergy-energy

 

But it's still not enough according to some:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/02/climate-change-lord-turner

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people have known about climate change for at least two cycles of the earths prossession,(each cycle being about 24-26 000 years)first cycle they marked it off,second cycle they gave that gods names.as we're moving from pisces into aquarius of course we're getting global warming,just for a time though then it'll turn colder in the north again.if it doesn't warm up the ice wouldn't melt,seas won't flood,no age of aquarius.don't tink dat's part o da plan.it's strange how knowlege that's more than 30 000 years can get lost so quickly.it's even stranger that through simple observation those people knew about the effects of prossession on the earth and how peoples had to move around the planet as new land surfaced and dissapeared,but nowadays we've forgotten what nature is and we have to look at something other to blame.

i'm afraid there's nobody to blame,it's a natural cycle that we'll all have to learn to live with.time to move to higher ground.

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^^^^^ Are you serious? ^^^^^

 

First of all, it's precession not procession.

 

Secondly, the cycle of precession takes place over 25,800 years

 

Thirdly, the division of the precession cycle into the 12 zodiacal "ages" is an entirely artificial human invention. The zodiac is entirely meaningless in astronomical terms, a mere coincidence of stellar alignments.

 

If precession actually affected the climate then there would be a clear signal in the historical temperature data with a 26,800 year cycle. There isn't. As you can see from the graph below....

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

 

... the cycle is approximately 100,000 years (and is in lockstep with the CO2 cycle). You will also notice how the CO2 level has consistently varied between 200 and 280 ppm. It is now 380 ppm, a level which has not been seen for at least a million years, possibly a lot longer.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

 

Basically what I'm trying to say is try to find out something about the subject you're posting on before posting.

 

Alternatively, you could e-mail Mystic Meg and give her a rollocking for not warning us. :twisted:

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i think if you look at the movement of the planet through pressesion(or however you spell it)you'll find what will be hotest or coldest all the way through the cycle,unavoidable i'm afraid.sea levels will rise,the north will freeze over again locking up lots of water sea levels will fall the north will thaw sea levels will rise the south will freeze sea levels will fall a bit etc etc.also remember the sea will find new routes through time causing big changes too.it just so happened that the old people knew this giving each age 2 220 years a face,same as we have clocks or calanders,but bigger.the mystic meg zodiac mightwork for some people,good for them,but i'm talking about a natural cycle and an old way of keeping track of events.

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^^^^^ And I'm saying precession has no effect on climate ^^^^^^

 

so you're saying that the angle the sun strikes the earth,and the distance the earth is from the sun has no effect on climate?strange idea.how do you explain the normal 4 seasons?i seem to mind another graph maybe you didn't see it i think it was on a program called earth story but i might be wrong,that graph went up and down exactly in time with the earths wobble.but you're not interested in alternitive ideas,as you want(case closed)but that won't solve anything. :?

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If you would like to look at this link:

 

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

 

I think you will find out why i have been so sceptical of all this "man made global warming" bull. Your info is tainted. The UN and IPCC have been twisting the facts for their own twisted agenda of control.

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