MIchaela is right. The earth has been hotter or colder than now. More CO2 as well and it survived. What it hasn't had before is Plastic, Nuclear products, Rare earth metals in landfill sites, fertilizers in abundance. We should forget climate change and concentrate on the things that matter most. Climate change is about controlling people not controlling climate change. If it were not then why aren't the great minds and politicians concentrating on the points I have just raised.
No, we should not. From the invention of agriculture onwards to industrial revolution, we ARE at least co-responsible for global rise in temperature and realistically for much, much worse... And we certainly are responsible for our beliefs, esp. when we believe the biggest polluters...
yes... but what you believe may not align with the facts of earth's history. I can state I believe in elves, tooth fairies and spaghetti gods, does not mean it is factual
Global Warming and cooling are going to happen and we cant control it ! what we can control is pollution and that's what we should be thinking about ! plastic being the main problem now floating in the oceans filling landfills nobody wants it but we keep making it and buying products packaged in it or made of it because its cheap and convenient !
Nonsense! We are talking of THIS one, not previous ones. Pollution is just a part of it. Production of GW gasses is just a part of it. And it is criminal not to talk about what we, as a species, are doing! There are many points the deniers won't touch under any circumstances, despite the most responsible industries knowing the facts for a long time...
That's because there was no viable way to make money by taxation on the last round of "the sky is falling!". Get rid of the pollution so that we can plant more trees. That pollution is in the ground, skrewing up anything that grows. And more trees means less CO2. WTF are GW gasses??? Do you mean Greenhouse Gasses? If so, try going a winter without heat or hot water. Humans would burn dead bodies if that's what it took to maintain some semblance of creature comfort. And don't even try to tell me no, because I've spent time with the homeless; huddled around a steel barrel burning newspaper or wood or whatever they could get their hands on. (Yes, I've been homeless. That's one of the many things that bolsters my compassion toward humanity.) Try not buying a new computer / cell phone / tablet / smart TV / game console, et.al. for yourself or your kid(s). And watch how Moore's law forces this constant consume mindset and mode on all of us. With every new OS or video game, there comes a new reason to purchase the next-gen motherboard. Where do you think these products come from?!? They come from -EXTREMELY- toxic processes that produce -TOXIC- waste. If you don't believe that, just take a look at places in Africa and India, where the e-waste business is booming. Those people have to deal with having decades shaved off of their lives just to make a buck. Squeezing more money out of the already overtaxed consumer is -NOT- going to change a thing, except to make fat-cat politicians richer and to make people spend less. Start by cleaning up what's already there.
I seen it in india and africa the kids that clean up all does computer HW junk yards are exposed to all that toxic contamination is really sad the US and other big nation states dump all that on them...but i dont see humanity changing they want more and more all the time until this planet will have nothing else to give.
Seriously, your short sighted bias is equal to the POTUS https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/China-to-surpass-US-as-world-s-biggest-consumer-market-this-year
Nope, you lot are in the back pocket of the biggest culprit industry, i.e. vested interest in status quo - and yet you have the audacity and/or no brains to say all these things...
@gorski: Nahhh. We just need to get our priorities straight. Any money spent at this time should be put into cleaning up the land and the sea. That's where our food comes from. I've seen some awesome ideas tossed around in this thread. One of the best was JIT vegetables, i.e. grow them on-site via hydroponics. That should stop the waste somewhat. And what you can't sell, give it to the poor. The next thing needed is to provide the tech to the 3rd world countries so that e-waste can be safely and efficiently processed. I believe that the companies who create the tech should pay (at least in part) for this tech. They should also fund the research that finds the best route towards this goal. These companies will profit from efficient collection of the rare earth metals used to create the tech. That would cut back on the need for mining. And that means more land for trees, which will help solve the CO2 problem. As far as NO and NO2 are concerned, they should be scrubbed from the exhaust and catalytically converted to HNO3, which is an acid commonly used in chemistry. (Nitric Acid) Even if the quality is poor, it can still be refined at another chemical company. That could be used as part of a tax package. SO2 could be processed in the same way. The result: A process by which power companies could lower their bottom-line by leveraging emissions processing costs against tax breaks. Single operator solar energy systems attempt to do the same thing by selling back electric power to the grid. On a small level, these processes are expensive. But on a very large level, I wonder what the efficiency could be made to be? It's all about forward thinking, and solving multiple problems at one time.
does are great ideas my fear is by the time we realize what we have done it will be to late....when i see all the waste floating around our oceans alone not counting what we dump on the earth is alarming!!
To tax fossil CO2 is a bad approach, because you tax something that should not be here anymore. And IF taxing it then the major producers have to be taxed the same amount. Means the industry and companies themselves, not the little end user of petrol who just drives his little car. The taxes on fuel here in the EU / Germany are already half of the price and therefore by far enough. But that all actually doesn't matter. I don't need 'global warming' to be sure that we have to stop burning fossil fuels and that now/today and not tomorrow. The simple reason is that the energy of the sun will last a longer time than fossil fuels will.
things wont change much until things get really bad , water solar and wind and nuclear power need vast improvements , even household trash creates a large problem everything you buy is encased in plastic some you can recycle some you cant what you cant goes into the garbage . it goes into the garbage dump and creates more future problems , glass is no longer accepted you must haul it yourself to a special place because they don't want it in the recycle or garbage ! electronics and batteries and solar cells spent nuclear fuel contain contaminates , convenience is the problem people like to see the fresh product that's why all the vegetables are wrapped in plastic, and cars contain more plastics parts medical supply's and pills are in a plastic container's , change is needed in our thinking about reusable and energy products, electric car's are nice they don't burn fossil fuel but the battery disposal does create a problem and they are very expensive
One does not need a helluva critical mindset to figure out that a society based in amassing wealth and consuming just for the Hell of it - is cutting the branch we sit on... Science and tech on their own will do f@&# all...