The environment thread

[Y2HH]

See, this is where the biggest issue is...with our worldwide division. Never mind the fact that we're all human, and we're all to blame...some of us are white...and some of us are chinese...and some of us are black...you get the idea. We can't do this because if one nation caps themselves, or taxes their own companies to hell and back, and another doesn't follow suit, undoing any good we attempt to do, they would also crush us economically when everything they produce is uncapped, and untaxed...thus cheap and impossible to compete with on an macro-economic level.

 

These suggestions aren't real world solutions. They're utopian solutions, at best. Until we are a united Earth, one currency, one culture...those solutions cannot work, because when implemented, they will overburden your GDP and give others that do not follow these same rules a huge advantage.

 

So...what are some actual non-utopian solutions to this?

 

Or is the answer so simple, but so scary, you don't want to say it? There is no solution. Because the human race won't allow there to be.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Y2HH

[StrangeSox]

Wouldn't these types of solutions hinder the economy at a time when that's the last thing we can do?

Sure, and that's what i was saying a week or two ago when we were talking about addressing the issue.

 

The response to that is that "do nothing" isn't a zero-cost option. More warming means rising oceans, which presents issues for ocean-front property (and not just beach houses). It means stressed ecosystems and increased rates of extinctions globally. It means a more energetic climate, so more tornadoes and droughts and floods and hurricanes. It means increased acidity in three ocean, which leads to coral bleaching asking other things.

[StrangeSox]

See, this is where the biggest issue is...with our worldwide division. Never mind the fact that we're all human, and we're all to blame...some of us are white...and some of us are chinese...and some of us are black...you get the idea. We can't do this because if one nation caps themselves, or taxes their own companies to hell and back, and another doesn't follow suit, undoing any good we attempt to do, they would also crush us economically when everything they produce is uncapped, and untaxed...thus cheap and impossible to compete with on an macro-economic level.

 

These suggestions aren't real world solutions. They're utopian solutions, at best. Until we are a united Earth, one currency, one culture...those solutions cannot work, because when implemented, they will overburden your GDP and give others that do not follow these same rules a huge advantage.

 

So...what are some actual non-utopian solutions to this?

 

Or is the answer so simple, but so scary, you don't want to say it? There is no solution. Because the human race won't allow there to be.

 

pretty much the last thing. This is the worst sort of problem to need a political solution to.

[iamshack]

Someone has to take one for the team and just do it...then others will follow...then you get a coalition strong enough to start economically sanctioning those that defy the mandate of the coalition.

 

 

[Balta1701]

James Hansen has an op-ed in tomorrow's washington post and apparently a paper coming out on topic on Monday.

When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.

 

But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

 

My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.

 

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

 

This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

 

The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.

 

These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.

 

 

....

The change is so dramatic that one face of the die must now represent extreme weather to illustrate the greater frequency of extremely hot weather events.

 

Such events used to be exceedingly rare. Extremely hot temperatures covered about 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the globe in the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. In the last three decades, while the average temperature has slowly risen, the extremes have soared and now cover about 10 percent of the globe.

 

This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it — the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.

[StrangeSox]

Mutant butterflies caused by Fukishima:

 

http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/mutant-...aster-1.3909562

 

No Mothra....yet.

[Balta1701]

In case anyone missed it, we broke through the all-time recorded low for arctic sea ice extent over the weekend and we're still going (usually the yearly minimum is sometime in early september).

 

Do take note of the fact that the bottom of this graph is not zero, however, we're clearly on a trend to threaten zero within a decade or less.

[Jenksismyhero]

In case anyone missed it, we broke through the all-time recorded low for arctic sea ice extent over the weekend and we're still going (usually the yearly minimum is sometime in early september).

 

Do take note of the fact that the bottom of this graph is not zero, however, we're clearly on a trend to threaten zero within a decade or less.

 

"all-time" of 30 years doesn't seem like a lot.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Jenksismybitch

[Balta1701]

"all-time" of 30 years doesn't seem like a lot.

It's probably more like 120,000 years, but 30 is what we have had satellites for.

 

There is a legitimate collapse happening in those icecaps.

[StrangeSox]

100 Most Endangered Species (in pics)

[StrangeSox]

I know Balta has mentioned this before, but there's another study out linking lead exposure and mental/psychological development problems:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-k...ol-performance/

 

Over the past 50 years, after scientists realized that even minute doses of lead can have harmful effects, policymakers have been steadily pushing to eradicate the stuff from the environment. In the United States, no one uses lead-based paint or fills up their cars with leaded gasoline anymore—those were phased out back in the 1970s and 1980s. Lead levels in the air have dropped 92 percent since then.

 

By most accounts, this was a savvy investment. There’s ample evidence that lead exposure is extremely damaging for young children. Kids with higher lead levels in their blood tend to act more aggressively and perform more poorly in school. Economists have pegged the value of the leaded gasoline phase-out in the billions or even trillions of dollars. Some criminologists have even argued that the crackdown on lead was a major reason why U.S. crime rates plunged so sharply during the 1990s.

 

Yet there’s arguably still more clean-up that could be done. Childhood lead levels have been falling steadily in the past decade, according to the Centers on Disease Control, but there’s room to fall further. There are still older houses with deteriorating lead paint. Soils in urban areas contain lead deposits from old vehicle emissions. And thousands of miles of lead water pipe are still in service around the country. It would take money to strip that lead out. But a new NBER paper from economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes suggests that even modest reductions can have out-sized benefits.

[Jenksismyhero]

I know Balta has mentioned this before, but there's another study out linking lead exposure and mental/psychological development problems:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-k...ol-performance/

 

No more #2 pencils!

[StrangeSox]

No more #2 pencils!

 

fun fact:

 

Lead poisoning

Although lead has not been used for writing since antiquity, lead poisoning from pencils was not uncommon. Until the middle of the 20th century the paint used for the outer coating could contain high concentrations of lead and this could be ingested when the pencil was sucked or chewed

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil#Lead_poisoning

[BigSqwert]

Anyone catch Real Time over the weekend? They had some some scientist on talking about global warming and one of the panelists, a (former?) conservative congressman, mentioned that there was one day this year where it was over a 100 degrees in Chicago and only 83 degrees that day in Miami. The scientist's response was priceless.

 

EDIT: It's the vary last interaction in the video linked in this article. The whole video clip is worth watching if you have the time.

Edited October 11, 2012 by BigSqwert

[StrangeSox]

Italian Scientists were sentenced to jail for six years for failing to properly warn the public about the risks and dangers of earthquakes. This is some good commentary on how silly the case was.

[StrangeSox]

Cheap natural gas prices and a lack of a buyer have led to Dominion deciding to shut down the Kewanee nuclear plant in Wisconsin. I have to imagine that this is a strong sign that Crystal River won't go through with their $3B+ repairs to come back online.

 

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/articl...hut-down-spring

[NorthSideSox72]

Italian Scientists were sentenced to jail for six years for failing to properly warn the public about the risks and dangers of earthquakes. This is some good commentary on how silly the case was.

Beyond silly. And it scares me to think this might result in people in the US, after the next significant earthquake, suing the USGS or other agencies in a similar (but civil and not criminal) way.

 

[southsider2k5]

Beyond silly. And it scares me to think this might result in people in the US, after the next significant earthquake, suing the USGS or other agencies in a similar (but civil and not criminal) way.

 

I highly doubt it. It is (intentionally) about impossible to sue the government for anything outside of willful negligence.

[NorthSideSox72]

I highly doubt it. It is (intentionally) about impossible to sue the government for anything outside of willful negligence.

Yes, in theory that is true, you are right. I just worry that the already sue-happy culture in the US will continue to attempt to chink the armor, and eventually may find a weakness somewhere. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid.

 

[southsider2k5]

Yes, in theory that is true, you are right. I just worry that the already sue-happy culture in the US will continue to attempt to chink the armor, and eventually may find a weakness somewhere. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid.

 

Unless the government is willing to intentionally weaken its own powerbase (L-freaking-O-L) it isn't going to happen.

[Jenksismyhero]

It won't, but I never understood this idea that certain professions (doctors, lawyers, financial advisers) can be held to a certain standard of care, but other people can't. Why would that be such a bad thing? You'd have to prove they were negligent (I haven't read that story, so I'm not sure if it rises to that level) but I'd want to be able to go after them if i'm relying on them for something and they totally f***ed it up and I got hurt as a result.

[StrangeSox]

You can't really predict earthquakes, which is why this whole case is so bizarre. I'll excerpt the analogy from that post:

 

Imagine that one day, an apartment block in a major city catches fire. The fire brigade arrive too late, and the whole block burns down with people still trapped inside. An investigation reveals that the building’s fire alarm system was faulty and did not send out any warning to the residents, or the fire service. The survivors of this disaster seek legal redress against the owners of the building for failing to protect them. ‘The alarms should have sounded and warned us,’ they say. Would you agree with them? Most people probably would.

 

Now imagine that instead of burning down, the apartment block is burgled, and a resident who walks in on the thieves ends up being shot. Just before this, a spate of armed robberies in the local area got some press attention, and in an interview the chief of police says something along the lines of ‘we’re investigating, but crime rates are not significantly higher than usual, so please stay calm.’ An investigation in this case shows that security in the building was somewhat lacking: doors were often left unlocked. The residents again seek legal redress – against the chief of police. ‘You shouldn’t have played down the obvious danger to our building,’ they say, ‘if only you’d said we were going to be burgled, we would have made sure the doors were locked.’ Would you agree with them now?

[NorthSideSox72]

It won't, but I never understood this idea that certain professions (doctors, lawyers, financial advisers) can be held to a certain standard of care, but other people can't. Why would that be such a bad thing? You'd have to prove they were negligent (I haven't read that story, so I'm not sure if it rises to that level) but I'd want to be able to go after them if i'm relying on them for something and they totally f***ed it up and I got hurt as a result.

Wait... you think it makes sense to sue geologists for not correctly predicting an earthquake? Something that is nigh on impossible to predict?

 

[Jenksismyhero]

You can't really predict earthquakes, which is why this whole case is so bizarre. I'll excerpt the analogy from that post:

 

You can't predict certain medical issues to a degree of certainty either, but you can still sue a doctor for negligently failing to assess your medical problem and reacting in an improper way. It's a factual issue and it would be difficult to prove, but I don't see why it's a problem to go after a Chief of police that is advising you of things he knows to be completely untrue. For a Chief of Police you'd have a willful wanton standard, for a scientist you'd have professional standard.

[Jenksismyhero]

Wait... you think it makes sense to sue geologists for not correctly predicting an earthquake? Something that is nigh on impossible to predict?

 

I would hold them to the same standard of care as their peers. If it's impossible to predict, fine, it's impossible to predict. But if it's not, and they negligently do their jobs, then yes, I think you should be able to sue them. I'm talking about a general philosophy here, not specific to this case.