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Now!

30 (38%)

2050?

13 (16.5%)

No, 2100.

5 (6.3%)

Never, you god damn cretin, Antarctica is an icy hellhole.

31 (39.2%)

Total Members Voted: 78

[Scoops Novel]

I want more seriousness. Memes, yes, giving into tvtropes links, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome (yes), but this needs to be discussed and we need to know about it.

[Flying Dice]

The primary issue with acting quickly, of course, is that anything on the scale necessary would take tremendous amounts of political capital and popular pressure... which honestly isn't there. The big push needed to come a couple decades ago, and it didn't happen. Barring any extreme action (near-total dismantling of modern industry), we aren't going to prevent permanent damage. We should still try, of course, but in realistic terms it won't happen.

I want more seriousness. Memes, yes, giving into tvtropes links, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome (yes), but this needs to be discussed and we need to know about it.

Have you seen the seven posts immediately before yours? Or most of the thread, for that matter?

[Scoops Novel]

I was responding to mr space cats back to jokes finish of his post, precisely 5 above me.

[Scoops Novel]

What, exactly, has happened to popular pressure in general? Bugger me, this does filter through to people but apathy doesn't cut it.

[Flying Dice]

By and large people don't notice the existing effects of environmental degradation. That's excluding the individuals and groups that have a vested interest in environmentally destructive behavior. Of those who recognize what is happening, quite a few are apathetic. That's one of the most basic lessons to learn about people, especially large groups of people: if the solution to a problem isn't easy, they'll be content to half-ass it. The ones who don't are generally small enough in numbers that they cannot force everyone else into line. So you're dealing with mass apathy (which, to be fair, is not always a bad option, though obviously not in this case) combined with the economic-political machine of all of the industries which engage in harmful activities campaigning in the opposite direction in a quest for continued short-term profits.

You've got the people who don't "believe" for one reason or another (though this category is shrinking); the people/groups who have an interest in preventing environmental reform (who, not coincidentally, have bucketloads of money and political influence); the people who understand on some level but can't be arsed to do anything more than making relatively small changes in their own lives; and the people who both understand and are willing to campaign and sacrifice their own comfort in the hope of progress. Guess which group isn't the majority.

[Scoops Novel]

What are your sentiments on apathy on practically every other problem?

[10ebbor10]

We are likely to survive, yes. But Earth will incur permanent damage that no amount of innovation can fix if we do not act quickly. To keep us under 2 degrees and avert most of that damage, carbon has to peak in 2015 and zero out in 2050.

Actually, it's the other way around. There's no way we're going to kill Earth's ecosystem (Might leave/ have left) a mark though.

Oh, and on the note of melting the (Ant)Artic. While unlikely, there are some theories that give staggering changes. Most importantly, the fact that melted toplayer ice doesn't refreeze, as expected, but instead worms it way downward, creating cracks and allowing the entire ice field to slide into the sea. That's the way we lost several ice plateaus which were expected to last a hundred years.

But yeah, the current problems are that the EU is not willing to decrease their Co² quotas even more(we're supposed to drop by 20%* by 2020) as long as the other nations don't participate. China refuses to participate if the others (US in particular) don't cooperate, and the US is being American for the moment.


Oh, and I doubt we'll stop global warming just like that. We are going to need to look into Geoengineering, and do it now. It might give us the time we need.

*Compared to 1990

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Geoengineering is very questionable.  Sulfate aerosols carry a whole host of unpleasant side effects and iron seeding is mostly theoretical.

The big thing we need is CCS. Not burning coal isn't likely to happen, but global CCS systems can make it so burning that coal only has 10% of the effect it would normally have.

[10ebbor10]

Geoengineering is very questionable.  Sulfate aerosols carry a whole host of unpleasant side effects and iron seeding is mostly theoretical.

The big thing we need is CCS. Not burning coal isn't likely to happen, but global CCS systems can make it so burning that coal only has 10% of the effect it would normally have.

There are other options that sulfate aerosols and iron seeding. A whole lot of them could actually work. ((Artificial cloud generators for example*))

CCS is actually one of the more questionable systems. Storage is highly dangerous and prone to leakages, efficiencies of the apparature it's attached to drop with more than 40%, and it's not that cheap. Besides, recuperating more than 60% of the emmisions is highly unlikely and not very viable.

*Wind powered seawater sprinklers, positioned in the midst of the sea to prevent salinating nearby coasts.

Whatever the plan is, we need real solutions and no Green PR*

Example: Germany, which shut down it's nuclear power plants (congratulated by all green parties) and replaced them with coal(nobody said a word about it)

[Mr Space Cat]

Isn't there all this scientific work on finding effective alternate sources of renewable power? Stuff like hydrogen dust on the moon and hydrogen burning cars and that stuff?

It seems as though when discussing power sources there's almost always a set list of options, either wind, nuclear, coal, hydroelectric, etc, and never any new developments.

[PanH]

Example: Germany, which shut down it's nuclear power plants (congratulated by all green parties) and replaced them with coal(nobody said a word about it)

That's the issue I have with ecologists. There's no way to produce energy without pollution today. So abandon the newest technology which doesn't pollute a lot and get back to 100 years ago ? There's 3 principal sources of energy nowadays : coal, oil, nuclear. To me, the choice is pretty clear.

[RedWarrior0]

Also, odds are that if global warming happens, planetary biomass and species diversity will probably go up.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That's the issue I have with ecologists. There's no way to produce energy without pollution today. So abandon the newest technology which doesn't pollute a lot and get back to 100 years ago ? There's 3 principal sources of energy nowadays : coal, oil, nuclear. To me, the choice is pretty clear.

This isn't so much on ecologists as it is the anti-nuclear movement specifically. There are plenty of Greens that accept nuclear power.

Don't be so sure about your three sources staying that way for long. Wind is already growing exponentially and Solar is beginning to follow. It's small at the moment, but when your capacity doubles every year....

Also, odds are that if global warming happens, planetary biomass and species diversity will probably go up.

No, that's not the case at all. In fact, the exact opposite is true. How you could even come to that conclusion is beyond my capacity to speculate.

[Doomblade187]

Isn't there all this scientific work on finding effective alternate sources of renewable power? Stuff like hydrogen dust on the moon and hydrogen burning cars and that stuff?

It seems as though when discussing power sources there's almost always a set list of options, either wind, nuclear, coal, hydroelectric, etc, and never any new developments.

My guess as to the 'list' is that those are the most commercially stable/known sources, and hence the most popular. A side note that can help cut carbon emissions is switching to Natural Gas over Coal, as there are fewer carbons per unit, and is less fuel intensive. This is only probable in some places, though, as people who have coal are going to use coal, like China or Germany.

On a side note, Nuclear is mostly carbon free, if commercially risky.

[PanH]

Don't be so sure about your three sources staying that way for long. Wind is already growing exponentially and Solar is beginning to follow. It's small at the moment, but when your capacity doubles every year....

Wind and solar are just utterly ridiculous at the moment. Solar panels (electricity) are just not rentable today without governement grants. If you had to pay for everything, maintenance, etc, you would lose money over the life of the panel. Solar cells are damn expensive, and not very clean to produce. Wind turbine aren't much better, and got some pollutants, especially in the alternator.
Considering the low output, I'm not even sure wind and solar are less polluting, energy wise.

And, even if we had 100x the energy produced, we still couldn't use it widely because of the restrictions of consumption. I still need energy when there's no wind, and I need more energy when it's night. They're not reliable over constant production, so there is no way they could be used as a wide way of energy production. I doubt wind and solar are ever gonna go over the 15% of total production for a country.

Dam and geothermal plants are much more interesting, but they're still not up to the capacity of production of nuclear, oil and coal.