Do Natural Disasters benefit the midwest?

[chaglang]

Who are these people you keep referring to who believed the earth was cooling?

Given the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that this is a manmade created or amplified problem that could do massive global harm, the conservative thing to do is take action immediately.

[aknowledgeableperson]

" to explain why inaction is the best course of action."

What inaction am I talking about?


"Who are these people you keep referring to who believed the earth was cooling?"

Just do a search of global cooling. But mostly I am talking about in the past, 40 to 50 years ago. As example such as from Wiki:

"1974 Time Magazine article

While these discussions were ongoing in scientific circles, other accounts appeared in the popular media. In their June 24, 1974 issue, Time presented an article titled Another Ice Age? that noted "the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades" but noted that "Some scientists... think that the cooling trend may be only temporary" [31]

1975 Newsweek article

An April 28, 1975 article in Newsweek magazine was titled "The Cooling World",[32] it pointed to "ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change" and pointed to "a drop of half a degree [Fahrenheit] in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968." The article claimed "The evidence in support of these predictions [of global cooling] has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it." The Newsweek article did not state the cause of cooling; it stated that "what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery" and cited the NAS conclusion that "not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."

The article mentioned the alternative solutions of "melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting Arctic rivers" but conceded these were not feasible. The Newsweek article concluded by criticizing government leaders: "But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies...The longer the planners (politicians) delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality." The article emphasized sensational and largely unsourced consequences - "resulting famines could be catastrophic", "drought and desolation," "the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded", "droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons," "impossible for starving peoples to migrate," "the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age."[32]

On October 23, 2006, Newsweek issued a correction, over 31 years after the original article, stating that it had been "so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future" (though editor Jerry Adler claimed that 'the story wasn't "wrong" in the journalistic sense of "inaccurate."').[33]"

[chaglang]

Huh. So anyway, spending time figuring out exactly how much change is attributable to humans isn't the most productive use of time. There's more danger in trying to be too fine about changing carbon emissions than there is in overdoing it. The latter is also incredibly unlikely, given our current state of progress.

[pash]

.

[earthling]

^Agree. About 10 years ago when the US was pressuring China not to pollute the world so badly with coal, they responded (paraphrased), "If you want us to make your iPods cheaper than you can, we have to use coal".

Humans don't have a very good track record controlling impact of human 'progress' ever since farming started 13K years ago. We alter nature at a faster rate than we can restore the impact of it. Resetting the population below 1B and going back to hunter/gathering would be a solution but instead we are about to add over 500M modern consumers in another generation or so. Wouldn't it be hypocritical for say the West to desire to prevent the East from 'progressing' and having modern amenities that most in W have?

Species that can't control change survive by adapting to change. Control what you can, adapt to what you can't.

[chingon]

Après moi le déluge ...

Mmmm, deluge...sexy.

[aknowledgeableperson]

"So anyway, spending time figuring out exactly how much change is attributable to humans isn't the most productive use of time."

It is not important to determine the actual percentage of responsibility but what is important what has the major impact. Human behavior or Mother Nature. If Mother Nature then then whatever we do in behavior change will have little impact in the final outcome. This doesn't mean to do nothing since our contribution accelerates climate change, instead we don't do everything no matter what the cost is. We can pick and choose what to do, maybe those actions that make economic sense. If human behavior does have the major impact on climate change then more changes have to be made even if it hurts economically.

[chaglang]

"So anyway, spending time figuring out exactly how much change is attributable to humans isn't the most productive use of time."

It is not important to determine the actual percentage of responsibility but what is important what has the major impact. Human behavior or Mother Nature. If Mother Nature then then whatever we do in behavior change will have little impact in the final outcome. This doesn't mean to do nothing since our contribution accelerates climate change, instead we don't do everything no matter what the cost is. We can pick and choose what to do, maybe those actions that make economic sense. If human behavior does have the major impact on climate change then more changes have to be made even if it hurts economically.

Ah, you're not making an argument for parsing blame for climate change. You're making an argument for having your cake and eating it too.

Seriously, you said we don't need to figure out what percentage is to blame on nature vs man (a question the vast majority of scientists consider settled), but then said that we can avoid economically painful solutions if man isn't the primary cause. That's just a straight line back into blame parsing and dithering. What if man is to blame for 45%? What if it's only 30% but that would be enough to reverse course? May I borrow your fiddle, Nero?

I suspect that if there were meaningful ways to combat climate change while having no major impact on the economy, someone would already be advocating that as the solution to our problem. But, given that a whole bunch of the world economy is tethered to things that cause climate change, I am skeptical that there is a painless way out of this.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Your approach seems to be doing everything and anything to combat climate change no matter the cost even if climate change will happen whether we do anything or not. I'm surprised your still part of the modern society. Shouldn't you be living in a grass or mud hut somewhere living off the land?

It isn't just the economy that is tethered to things that cause climate change but it is also us, as individuals, that is behind the economy or drives the economy that cause climate change no matter to what degree. The desire to have the latest cell phone, even when the current one works just fine, plays a part. The new German beer, Russian vodka, or Mexican tequila over something local plays a part. The need to have the new fashions when the older clothes are still in great shape plays a part.

[chaglang]

Your approach seems to be doing everything and anything to combat climate change no matter the cost even if climate change will happen whether we do anything or not. I'm surprised your still part of the modern society. Shouldn't you be living in a grass or mud hut somewhere living off the land?

It isn't just the economy that is tethered to things that cause climate change but it is also us, as individuals, that is behind the economy or drives the economy that cause climate change no matter to what degree. The desire to have the latest cell phone, even when the current one works just fine, plays a part. The new German beer, Russian vodka, or Mexican tequila over something local plays a part. The need to have the new fashions when the older clothes are still in great shape plays a part.

My mud hut happens to be in a fiberhood. Thus, my internet connection is awesome.

But you do make a compelling case for valuing trivial consumer wants er, "needs" over an environmental catastrophe. (I assume you were being facetious there.)

Consensus is that this is a problem that needs to be rapidly dealt with. Spending time figuring out what is precisely the absolute minimum amount of behavior change needed is not a plan for expedient action. It's something that seems like a reasonable and prudent in the short term, but exponentially increases the chances for failure. There's also a reasonable risk that we spent a bunch of time doing the bare minimum, only find out that we didn't do enough. Like I said before, there's less risk in doing more than needed.

[pash]

.

[aknowledgeableperson]

"(I assume you were being facetious there.)"

Both facetious and serious. Its about those who preach the most about climate change and how even doing the little things can help but then do not practice what they preach about the little things that can be done.

And I am not talking about only doing the minimum that can be done but balancing what can be done against the cost of doing it.

[earthling]

But when we Americans put out about twice the carbon-equivalent emissions per dollar of economic output as other similarly wealthy counties, I think it's hard to argue that there's no room for improvement.

...leaving China alone as the major outlier in carbon emissions.

Well this is the hypocritical thing we do in America. We on the surface could maybe claim reduction of emissions on some level at some point (within US boundaries) yet will still consume products that were made elsewhere. As long as we consume, the best we can do is shift the emissions somewhere else. China is only the heaviest at this point because they make most of the world's products. And they are also shipped, eating resources. As consumerism grows around the world, it will increase no matter who is making the products. Tree hugging Americans are just masking their perceived reduced footprint.

As long as you are a consumer, you are contributing. The only ones not hypocritical are those who are entirely living off the land and restoring back what they took away, and I don't know of a single person doing that (except maybe a tribe I visited in Peru - oh wait, they were wearing modern clothes probably made in Asia).

[pash]

.

[earthling]

Yeah, I recall you bringing that up before and responded America is designed to be more car dependent than Europe so will be tough to alter lifestyle (though agree we should pursue less car dependency for other reasons). And even if we could someday reduce car dependency to level of Europe...

The bigger picture is that we have resources in the ground that will ultimately be used and processed in the end. Maybe we can slow it down or come up with ways to reduce emissions but highly unlikely not the net impact. We can mask the use by shipping resources somewhere else - IE not burn coal in America but it will be shipped somewhere else that continues to allow it. And there are many changes in shifting politics/idealism every generation that varies every decade between countries that likely couldn't stop profiting from resources. It's been this way ever since mankind figured out how to manipulate nature. It _is_ human.

BTW, good book that addresses this indirectly is "The Artificial Ape".. essentially that the essence of _human_ is its ability to manipulate nature to meet its needs and that 'progress' is an unstoppable force for better or worse. Another good anthro book that addresses how we manipulate nature faster than we can restore it, "Pandora's Seed".

Another nihilistic view from The Matrix that sometimes doesn't seem off base... we are a disease within the planet.

My view.. control what you can, adapt to changes you can't. Ants have become masters of this and have survived for supposedly 130m years while a species avg is around 5M.

[pash]

.

[earthling]

Yeah exactly, not quite as simple as that when looking at entire history of humanity. Alter habits where you have control, but maybe we should also spend resources to prepare for possible change.

The bigger question is can we really change ourselves in this case and it's hard to envision that realistically or even optimistically for every major country simultaneously when personal convenience typically trumps what is (we assume) best for the whole. We keep comping up with conveniences like personal Amazon delivery that is wasteful of resource and then cover it up by maybe some thinking, oh, but they use recycled containers so it's OK. And then there is the product inside that burned up resources to make it. The 'net eco savings' doesn't favor nature in the end, maybe even negligible.

We achieved abolishing slavery (well mostly) but is hard to envision we can abolish consumerism and 'progress', especially when at least half the planet thinks we don't have an impact, it heals itself, or that god(s) will solve any potential problem. The enablers of slavery were a much smaller force than the force of modern consumers and that force is about to grow by about another 500M+ within a generation or three. That's not really pessimistic doomsday survivalist BS, just a reasonable observation that implies we should probably prepare for a potential wave of that eco impact. It's simply risk management.

[phuqueue]

^yeah, I think he thought I'm taking an anti-human impact or anti-climate change stance, which I'm not. We definitely are impacting nature and change is happening - it's just hard to directly measure impact as nature is another variable. I don't find it acceptable we cut down forests for 'progress', just observing that is what is happening.

phuqueue, I'm just speaking as a detached anthro-observer, not with a pro/anti global change position. But you go for it. Humans will indeed and unfortunately continue to alter nature at a faster rate than they can restore it. Always has been that way, ever since we've started farming. Perhaps the only way to get back to a purely natural state of earthly changes is for humans to reduce to below 1B population and go back to hunting/gathering.

Fine to be hopeful about some kind of panacea for all eco issues but just not very realistic given modern consumer growth rate in Asia, and probably Africa after Asia is tapped out. In the meantime, let's keep the rivers/air reasonably clean, do some conservation of resource when possible yet adapt to the upcoming changes - that's more realistic.

What do you propose to keep planet in static state as Asia grows modern consumers at an exponential rate compared to the West?

I never claimed that there was a panacea, or especially that I possessed such a thing myself. Big problems don't have easy solutions, which is why your entire mindset here -- that either there's a panacea or there's just nothing much we can do except "keep the rivers reasonably clean" -- is wrong. This is a real problem and the only way to address it is to grind it out through political processes for as long as it takes. That doesn't happen if people throw their arms up and decide nothing can be done, and it especially doesn't happen if people let snowfall convince them that there is no global warming in the first place and nothing need be done.

Luckily we seem gradually to be trending away from that awful attitude. Even in the past ten years we've seen a dramatic shift in how people think about the climate, with energy giants advertising on their alternatives and so on (are they really doing much or is it just for show? I don't really know, but I know they wouldn't have even bothered running that ad in the not-very-distant past, which means their ad departments think that's where public opinion is going). We're obviously not close to where we need to be, but progress is being made in fits and starts. With the exception of America, other first world countries are largely on board, at least nominally (gotta start somewhere). Developing countries are a major problem, but they (China in particular) are taking steps to mitigate their impact at least to some extent (although this is frequently due less to concerns about global warming and more about cities blanketed in choking air pollution, but who cares why they're investing in green energy and limiting the availability of cars, as long as they're doing it?). When you try to decide what's "realistic" you risk doing too little. With a problem of this magnitude you shoot for the moon and take what you can actually get out of that effort. We probably won't be able to stop global temperatures from exceeding the 2 degree mark that was the popular target and is now thought to have, itself, been far too generous -- but if we take aim at that mark we're likely to get closer to it than if we decide "whatever, it's too hard, let's just try not to dump too many chemicals into the river and call it a day."

For all the attention you give to Asia, it's still America that's the #2 GHG emitter in the world, and #1 on a per capita basis by a fairly wide margin. We, in America, just us acting alone, can do a lot to slow (not stop, sure, but seriously slow) global warming even if growth in Asia continues unchecked. But we need the political will to do it, and to muster that political will we can't keep deluding ourselves that there's nothing we can do about it. Governments wield a great deal of power here, but they have to be willing to use it. In a later post in the thread, for instance, you suggest that America could stop burning coal, but then all that coal would be shipped to China. If we're going to hypothesize a scenario as extreme as America banning the use of coal, though, we may as well go even farther and envision a scenario in which America bans the mining of coal. These obviously are not realistic scenarios but if you just set the goal posts at what's realistic in 2013, you'll never get very far. It's well within the government's power to phase out coal if it wanted to. It doesn't want to. Of course there are plenty of good reasons not to get rid of coal, not the least of which being the deleterious effects this would have on the economy, but it's just an extreme example to illustrate a point: it's well within our power to do far more than we've been doing, but we don't because too many people don't want it (even worse than that, too many people, particularly on the conservative side, are actively hostile toward any action to mitigate environmental degradation and climate change -- how can you have a real conversation with people who think mandating energy efficient lightbulbs is an assault on their fundamental "freedom"?). These attitudes have to change, which is going to require widespread popular recognition (contrary to what Fox News would have us believe, there is a strong scientific consensus already) that global warming is real, it's our fault, and it's catastrophic.

In the past there have been periodic warmings and coolings of the earth. Think of the various Ice Ages and the time(s) Greenland was green and Iceland wasn't iceland. Those changes happened for whatever reason and the last that I heard mankind wasn't responsible for those global changes. Recently as 40 or so years ago there was the fear that we were entering a period of global cooling. Not saying that mankind now doesn't have an effect on our global change but can anyone say with certainty how much we are affecting this current change?

We had literally this same conversation, "how much is mankind's fault," like a year ago, and it was as inane then as it is now. This isn't a tort action, we don't have to assign blame to determine who pays damages. The climate does change naturally over large timescales of thousands of years, but that's neither here nor there. Venus has also been cooked by a runaway greenhouse effect and man has never even set foot there but that doesn't mean anything. We are causing this instance of climate change, period.

[earthling]

^Be careful not to think too provincially/domestically as the real hit will come globally in next few generations - per cap doesn't matter, its total global impact. And domestically some of our improvements are because we shift the problems somewhere else and ship back the end product. We should pursue renewable energy but no projection shows it would stop use of coal.

The unstoppable path is/has been that consumerism is growing globally and the resource consumption along with it is somewhat exponential for each new modern consumer, which is now taking off in Asia. This hasn't changed since farming started >13K years ago and kicked into higher gear with industrial revolution. Africa (1B+) could become next wave of modern consumers in 50 years.

Just an observation, not a promotion of inaction. Control what you can but be prepared to adapt to what you can't.





Edit: Interesting forecasts...
http://www.bsi.com.au/news/middle_class ... rosperity/

This is eco output in dollars, not energy consumption but still curious...

The Reason for the growth is that Asia Pacific is coming from a low base. World will add 1.6b by 2034 –95% of the population growth will be in developing countries.

Here's one on coal consumption up to 2011.. US consumption lately going down but is exporting coal elsewhere. One claim is 25% of US coal is shipped to China.


http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2012 ... -shockers/

[phuqueue]

Per capita doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but extremely high per capita emissions compared to other developed countries does indicate that we should be able to significantly reduce our total emissions if we have the will to do so, and given that we're the second highest emitting country total and highest per capita, that suggests there's a lot of room for improvement without even falling below the standard of living or economic output of our peer countries. Obviously that's still easier said than done because as others have observed, much of Europe's emissions success has to do with lifestyle choices, urban planning, etc, so it's not necessarily easily replicated here, but if someone is doing it, then it can be done. You say what you're doing isn't a "promotion of inaction" but if it's not promotion, it's justification, which is basically just as bad. You're pressing a "the problem is unsolvable" message, which compels people not to try to solve it.