It's the Climate, stupid

[Chi13]

I don't understand why climate change and the existential threat it poses isn't a bigger issue. I feel humans are like frogs put in slowly boiling water, and don't realise what's happening until it's too late.
Big polluters have been very effective at calling climate change a hoax, but surely things have somewhat turned a corner here. At least I hope so. Yet nothing seems to change?

The economy won't matter much if the climate becomes such a threat that we can't feed ourselves. Eight billion people essentially burning things for energy, whilst at the same time cutting remaining forests and pouring plastic into the ocean isn't sustainable. Even if you don't believe in man induced climate change, most would realise this is a problem.

 

[flylowgethigh]

This spring has been too cold and wet to plant.

They had to change their fear-mongering from 'global warming' to 'climate change'.

 

[Chi13]

Well, it's still warming overall. Weird things were happening with polar vortexes, or whatever they were. The evidence is almost indisputable as far as I can see.

I grew up in a family business growing plants in glasshouses (not cannabis). In the eighties my dad was looking into raising co2 to increase plant growth. The levels of co2 he wanted to achieve are what they are now, with no input.

 

[Chi13]

Big Oil’s lies about climate change—a climate scientist’s take​

By Adam Sobel | July 9, 2021

Image courtesy of Merio/Pixabay

The Guardian’s new series of articles on fossil fuel companies’ culpability for the climate crisis is entitled “Climate Crimes.” Is this too extreme a title?
After all, Exxon and the others were just working within our legal, economic, and political systems to provide a commodity we all use every day. They may have known that global warming posed a risk, but people accept all kinds of risks in exchange for the many benefits of living a relatively affluent life in a modern, industrialized economy. Is it really appropriate to call them criminals—and accordingly, to take them to court all over the world?
I think the answer is yes. It comes down to the scale of the harm; the willful, systematic, and sustained nature of the lying; and the leading role the climate denial movement has played in the sustained assault on democracy that we see today.

I’m no lawyer, so this is not a legal judgment on my part. In fact, because the scale of the crime is so great, it seems to me that, notwithstanding a glimmer of hope here or there, the legal system so far seems ill-equipped to grasp it.
But the moral case, at least, is clear.
We know now that fossil fuel company researchers understood early on, from their own work as well as that of academic and government researchers, that warming due to human emissions of greenhouse gases posed risks at the planetary scale.
If a company were to dump toxic waste in your back yard, making the air you breathe and water you drink hazardous, they’d be liable for the harm they caused you. (Of course, fossil fuel companies have done exactly this also, in many places around the world, and often faced little consequence, particularly when the victims are from poor and marginalized communities.)
Increasing carbon dioxide concentrations globally doesn’t poison us, but it’s still broadly analogous to this backyard example—except on the scale of the entire planet. Instead of giving us cancer or heart disease, the increase in carbon dioxide emissions is making essentially irreversible changes in the environments in which we all live, such that they deviate from those to which our civilization is adapted.
We’ve known for some time that that’s exceedingly dangerous. We know it even better now, as we see unprecedented heat waves and wildfire seasons coming ever more frequently and sea level rise lapping at coastal cities. The scale of the harm is difficult, perhaps even impossible to calculate; for example, how do you account for a small probability of true global catastrophe due to unpredictable tipping points? Economists try to calculate it nonetheless, but it’s almost certain that they—and consequently also politicians—have historically grossly underestimated the sheer scale of the harm, because economics as a discipline is based on assumptions that don’t fit global-scale environmental crises.
RELATED:
Fusion’s role in fighting climate change

Because carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are well-mixed—so that emissions anywhere affect climate everywhere—the cause and effect are also much more diffuse than in the back yard waste example. This diffuseness, as well as the fact that the climate system responds slowly (so that the worst consequences remain in the future), make our legal system poorly equipped to handle the climate problem. The “global” in global warming makes it hard to prosecute in court, at the same time that it makes it so enormously grave.
So while fossil fuel executives may have understood the potential harm to which they were exposing all of us, one could argue that they have worked within the legal system while extracting and selling fossil fuels. They have also been fulfilling their fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. In a sting video recently released by Greenpeace, a top Exxon executive, speaking with a frankness we never see in public from such people, made exactly these arguments. Are those arguments not fair? Haven’t the fossil fuel execs just been doing their jobs?
No, because of the lying. With all the resources at their disposal, these companies have systematically, cynically misrepresented and suppressed the facts. Their jobs didn’t require them to do this. But they did, and in such a way as to hide the fact that they were doing it: sponsoring outside groups to spread doubt and confusion, and even supporting bogus research to create the appearance of dissent among scientists. All this is well documented and widely known by now. And they’re still doing it: perhaps not all of them, and perhaps in some cases with different tactics, but fossil fuel companies are still funding denial groups and politicians who act on the denial agenda.
Since carbon released from the ground into the climate system stays there for millennia, enormous numbers of people, now and in the future, will be paying the price for a very, very long time. That long time scale is another factor that makes the crime at once so egregious and so difficult to comprehend.
RELATED:
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But what’s scarier now is how the denial agenda has outgrown the climate problem, morphing into a full-scale attack on any sense of shared reality, and thus on our democracy.
When the climate denial movement started in the 1970s, most people still got their news from a set of gatekeeping referees: national media, informed by academia and other trusted sources. All these gatekeepers had their biases, and they could be wrong, but they mediated a shared reality, and that facilitated the US democracy that those of my age grew up with. Whatever its many and serious flaws, that democracy allowed for some real social progress, and for the hope that national challenges could be addressed by electoral politics.
The shared reality no longer exists, and democracy is under direct and serious threat. Diagnosing all the causes of this will be a task for future historians, but I’m convinced that, looking back over the last few decades, climate denial was the leading edge. And today, it’s no accident that many fossil fuel companies have backed former President Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Having learned that propaganda can make a decent fraction of the population believe lies on a large scale with no consequence, it’s hard for these bad actors not to keep doing it, and to apply that power more widely. Maybe being a climate scientist colors my view, but “the science is not settled” looks to me like the gateway drug that led to “stop the steal.”
I know that we—those of us affluent enough to be in a position to read or write this—all are complicit, to varying degrees, in the climate crisis. I’ve flown on lots of airplanes and so on. And I know that many good people work at fossil fuel companies; I know some of them personally. But I can’t forgive those at the top who made the decisions that first created the climate crisis, and who now are working to disable whatever capability our political system might have to deal with it.
Criminal seems a fair word to use.

Big Oil’s lies about climate change—a climate scientist’s take

The fossil fuel industry lied about carbon dioxide and its effects on climate change. But is “crime” the right adjective to use to describe the activities of Big Oil? One climate scientist’s thoughts.

thebulletin.org

 

[member 505892]

I think most citizens around the world are just scratching together a living, so even though they would like to do the 'right' thing it isn't their most foremost priority.... if something has to be skipped it will be the thing that is 3rd or 4th on their priority list, as they're busy just making ends meet....
'Things' regarding the environment have to be made the easiest way to do things otherwise they will get skipped a lot of the time, even by well meaning folks.
I think we all have to do what we can and hope that clever people will find ways to make keeping the environment clean just the easiest way.... or make cleaning up our mess effective AND profitable.

 

[44:86N]

I don't understand why climate change and the existential threat it poses isn't a bigger issue. I feel humans are like frogs put in slowly boiling water, and don't realise what's happening until it's too late.
Big polluters have been very effective at calling climate change a hoax, but surely things have somewhat turned a corner here. At least I hope so. Yet nothing seems to change?

The economy won't matter much if the climate becomes such a threat that we can't feed ourselves. Eight billion people essentially burning things for energy, whilst at the same time cutting remaining forests and pouring plastic into the ocean isn't sustainable. Even if you don't believe in man induced climate change, most would realise this is a problem.

It's really the scale, the time frame and the non-linear progression (see Flylow's post) that makes it hard to wrap one's head around. As well as the fact that the solution is really top-down, not bottom-up. And everyone at the top is in it for themselves. Everyone.

As much as I hate to say it, we've basically screwed the pooch, and now the only real solution is going to be adaptation.

Today's CO2 level is 419ppm, as measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii --- last time it was this high sea levels were 100 feet/30 meters higher.

I guess you have to believe in "science" to swallow that, but if you're growing cannabis....... you know.... science.

There's about a 40 year lag between emissions and warming (kind of like putting an extra blanket on the bed when cold, it takes a bit to warm up) ---

which is to say today's climate is being driven by emissions from 1982. Emissions really ramped up in the early '90's.

The 2030's.

If you like wild weather, you're living in the right times.

 

[Weird]

Exxon Knew about Climate Change Almost 40 Years Ago

A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation

www.scientificamerican.com

Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago​

A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation

Global Warming in the Public Sphere on JSTOR

Jan Corfee-Morlot, Mark Maslin, Jacquelin Burgess, Global Warming in the Public Sphere, Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 365, No. 1860, Climate Change and Urban Areas (Nov. 15, 2007), pp. 2741-2776

www.jstor.org

Global Warming in the Public Sphere - published 1959



Every bit of suffering caused by this is well deserved as this is the cost of willful ignorance. There is no human rationale that makes this behavior reasonable.

If one looks to someone like Putin might understand that for some people destroying the world is an acceptable legacy if one can't control it.

Many humans have convinced themselves that their own existence is independent of the rest of humanity and this is the result.

 

[h.h.]

A rightous person sacrifices their own well being to support those who don't.

 

[midwest]

If we throw a virgin girl like Greta Thundberg into an active volcano it will appease The Science and bring better weather

 

[Weird]

Only human emotion can manufacture a reason do deny truth. On the internet there are only words so sacrifice would be found in them. The stand a person takes and the agenda behind it is discernible through words. A righteous person doesn't let others obfuscate reality with distortion when it causes harm.

One thing I never did here over the years was allow myself to become a marketable entity because it would require me to compromise truth for the sake of gain.

People who rationalize that they are insulated from cause and effect can't fathom the motivations of those who don't.

Many marginlize the gravity of reality because they lack the wherewithal to deal with the emotions it evokes.

 

[midwest]

Fun Fact:
There isn't actually any good evidence that the 20th century warmed more than the 19th century. The tidal gauges don't show that. The surface temperature measurements are not very good and don't go back that far. It's complete speculation that there has been any acceleration, let alone what the cause might be.

The earth has been warming for 12,000 years. We are coming out of an ice age. We don't actually know why. It happens pretty slowly though. Not really noticeable in any person's lifetime. Any crop that grew where I lived as a kid can still be grow there, so it's not really that urgent. If someday there was a need to geoengineer the earth I'm pretty sure reducing co2 (plant food) isn't going to be the best way to go about it.

I'd suggest chilling out and being more skeptical of people with grand claims saying they can save the world through controlling the means of energy production

 

[St. Phatty]

If we throw a virgin girl like Greta Thundberg into an active volcano it will appease The Science and bring better weather

Americans are perennially weak on Science.

Thunberg is a teenage girl who is well-spoken enough about a PC subject to get microphone time.

Since most of us are POT GROWERS, we should be able to appreciate the effects of decisions made long ago, to use fossil fuels to finance our civilization.

= why we are at 420 ppm of CO2 now.

But the General Public, including the American PC News media, misses the main point:
the CO2 is a by-product of our need for Heat.

Even if Nuclear energy replaced fossil fuels worldwide, we would still be generating excess heat inside our little garden shed (where Earth = little garden shed.)

e.g. Chernobyl RBMK reactors, generate 3200 Megawatts of Heat while generating 1000 Megawatts or 1500 Megawatts of electricity.

But note that the PC News Media NEVER talks about the Heat generated by the same processes that produce CO2. i.e. even if everyone switches to electric cars, the CO2 generation might slow down - but the heating of the atmosphere will continue.

AND THE GOOD NEWS IS: CO2 levels are headed for 450 ppm in 2032, rising about 3 ppm per year. Because of Technology/ Economy/ Greed-related decisions made 20, 50, & 100 years ago.

 

[midwest]

You ignored the science completely

What is your evidence for the claim that global warming accelerated in the 20th century?

 

[mexcurandero420]

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

Big polluters have been very effective at calling climate change a hoax,

Can you give an example? I see the big polluters as the pushers of climate change propaganda. They seem to be heavily invested in green energy and carbon credit schemes.

 

[Weird]

Can you give an example? I see the big polluters as the pushers of climate change propaganda. They seem to be heavily invested in green energy and carbon credit schemes.

Doubt is not proof of anything but the big polluters in question like oil companies have been exposed by their own evidences/admittion. It is been reported many times over the decades.

But note that the PC News Media NEVER talks about the Heat generated by the same processes that produce CO2. i.e. even if everyone switches to electric cars, the CO2 generation might slow down - but the heating of the atmosphere will continue.

A rational being would say that then the urgency to respond effectively is even more important. Getting frustrated because the gist of climate change misrepresents the complexity is just shutting down. Expressing it on the internet doesn't seem to make it clearer.

You ignored the science completely

What is your evidence for the claim that global warming accelerated in the 20th century?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.97.4.1406

Twentieth century climate change: Evidence from small glaciers​

Those glaciers did not rise in the 19th century just to melt in the 20th. If in doubt I suggest you check historical records for each glacier in question.

 

[Three Berries]

Well, it's still warming overall. Weird things were happening with polar vortexes, or whatever they were. The evidence is almost indisputable as far as I can see.

I grew up in a family business growing plants in glasshouses (not cannabis). In the eighties my dad was looking into raising co2 to increase plant growth. The levels of co2 he wanted to achieve are what they are now, with no input.

I've seen no evidence of warming with over 30 years of records. 400ppm, the norm, is not high enough to boost production. I run near 3000ppm in the winter. Talk about boosting production!

Currently I have a CO2 data logger outside and am recording the daily CO2 levels. As the plants wake up from winter and leaf out it will rise at night and fall during the day. ~385ppm-650ppm daily cycle.

Some years drought some years wet some years cold winter some years warm winter.

 

[Three Berries]

CO2 is the molecule of life. Limit it and you limit life. It has been many time higher than what it is now. Look how big dinosaurs got in high CO2 level times.

And a volcano will make mans contribution rather small in comparison currently there are 40-50 at a time actively spewing noxious gases.

 

[Gry]

.409.00 RUB +9.00 (2.25%)today

 

[Donald Mallard]

CO2 is the molecule of life. Limit it and you limit life. It has been many time higher than what it is now. Look how big dinosaurs got in high CO2 level times.

And a volcano will make mans contribution rather small in comparison currently there are 40-50 at a time actively spewing noxious gases.

so the whole world is going on about nothing it seems ,
and of course man hasnt added to this problem by any means despite the massive amounts of carbon gasses he emits through industry etc ,
maybe we will all just grow bigger and plants will be happier right??