It's Good News Friday! (CLIMATE CHANGE)

Also it's correct that modern industrial agriculture is a finely tuned machine, which is why it's all the more worrying that a lot of the operation of that machine is going to have to change.

It's generally true in the developed world, which is the world spot261 is talking about.

Thankfully, we've got our skilled politicians in Washington who are expert in such matters.

And that has it's own set of problems. For example, organic farming on an industrial scale is, more or less, what we were doing prior to the 1930s...and we saw what that brought on.

If you don't survive in the short term, you don't have to worry about surviving in the long term.

You seem very convinced of that. I'm not. I wouldn't want to live in the 1700s so that the world could be 1 degree C cooler in the agregate.

With or without the resistance of those people, we've done phenomenally with this pandemic. This could've been 1918 all over again, and we've got it under control. If your philosophy of curtailing the use of our abilities had prevailed 20 or 30 years ago, would there be mRNA vaccines to fight a pandemic like today's?

People would have to be pretty certain extinction is on the table. It's not at all clear to me that it is. In fact, it seems less likely in some ways.

Would you trade the progress of the last two centuries if your belief could prevail?

Wish I could put staff on ignore. Just saying.

No need to be so nihilistic. The problem is, as ever, the GhG emissions resulting from most of the energy generation (speaking globally). That’s a very tractable problem, requiring only money (and probably a bit of education/political will). Turning on a fan doesn’t *inherently* make things worse.

On the other hand if we ignore the fact that GhG emissions are *currently* so entailed by turning on a fan (and all the rest of it), we’ll end up in a vicious cycle and before you know it, “adapting” will mean multi-trillion dollar seawalls and massively increased use of “fans”, resources which could have gone into other things.

It’s funny, Paladin doesn’t think it matters what’s at the other end of the fan cord, and apparently neither does spot. The only difference is what they propose to do about it. Paladin says crank up the fan, spot says unplug it. I think I speak for most of the rest of us when I say, how bout neither.

Yeah. I don't see why regressing away from the problematic technologies would be preferable to progressing past them.

Oh, by the way, mea culpa. This global warming deal is my fault. See, I prefer cold weather to hot, so of fucking course the world is heating up . . .

Yeah, the problem is that there are inevitably going to be teething pains with newer technologies that mean they are more expensive and less efficient than traditional sources of energy like fossil fuels.

For a long time opponents of solar pointed to the low efficiency and high cost of panels. The only way to get to the current point where it's becoming increasingly affordable was to do it anyway and let the industrial base and economies of scale build up.

The free market doesn't necessarily always find the best approach, it finds the cheapest approach on the current path.

There are cases like this where regulatory forces are needed to shift things onto the other path.

Seems to me like the argument Spot is making is that we are going to rapidly hit a point where we don't have the luxury of being able to spend time developing new technological solutions to the problems.

I may be overly optimistic, but I don't think we'll get past that point. People are talking about a worst case scenario...but what is it? It's going to be bad, but I'm thinking it's going to be, for 1st world countries at least, a massive influx of refugees. I don't see that as causing us to regress technologically. I believe we'll still be able to push forward. Hell, it may even help.

World War 2 caused a massive technological jump.

I'm not suggesting we unplug the fan as a preferable option, I'm suggesting that humanity as a whole are unlikely to take the necessary steps to prevent that becoming a necessity without becoming embroiled in the kind of petty dramas we've seen over vaccinations, lockdowns and masks.

@Paladin suggests we've coped well with the pandemic, but let's not overlook the fact that those areas which have most resisted measures are those which are suffering the most.

Climate change is less localised in it's impact, people (or, worse, nations) who resist cooperation cannot limit the impact of their intransigence.

Exactly.

Although tbh I'm concerned we've already reached that point.

This is the shortsightedness of the republican and even democrat middle. The earth is heading down a road to a massive collapse in our ecosystem. This is going to massively reduce the amounts of edible resources that exist on the planet. @Paladin and the right just do not conceive of a planet where they do not have a supermarket loaded with food right down the road. We are not talking abouyt food prices skyrocketing, we are talking about not being able to stock the shelves because the crops are gone and our livestock is dead.

This is no longer a matter of if it is coming, it is a matter of how soon the food shortages are going to be here. Paladin thinks he is going to be able to wander down to the supermarket and buy himself some food. He may be rich, but when there is simply no food on the shelf, you cannot buy any. Cows, pigs, chickens, and all of our other tasty animals cannot live on dirt. They do not grow big and fat on air. When people need the reduced plant matter to feed themselves, the farm animals die.

Even the hunters will be fucked. When all you have is scortched earth for wildlife, it dies off and becomes scarce. The specimens that are around become slim, malnourished, and diseased.

I am sure gunforge thinks their guns are going to help them steal food and kill others. If there is no food coming from the farms because they are burnt dirt the only thing your gun is worth is silencing the pain of starvation with one last meal of lead. OK, maybe some cannibalism, but starving people are just stringy and we will have used up all the BBQ sauce.

It's time to start treating oil company executives the same way we treat paedophiles and terrorists IMHO.

Republicans voting for them and giving them material support?

It is funny because it is true

That's ok.

Apologizing for them and trying to rehabilitate them at taxpayer expense?

Also worth pointing out that in such events it's the apex predator most at risk.

In other words us.

Then we are going to find out who the apex predators of the apex predators are. I am almost positive none of them owns an assault rifle for their survival. Gunforge, you are not it. In case of extreme emergency I would call gunforge walking meals. Of course, I would eat you after uncle albert. We could all share in that glorious feast.

https://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/3358591/

He's in parrot mode again, guys - hit Ctrl+Z and cue up the debugger.

Yes, I KNOW we put parrot mode in to spout Libertarian bullshit, but it's not meant to latch onto liberal posts too!

Next thing you know he'll be arguing for universal healthcare or the like and no-one's gonna buy the persona anymore!

Nothing boilerplate about Comrade Rick's post, though. Nope.

He is good enough for a 90's microsoft product.

You steal my joke, you get the poker up the arse.

Rick stole someone else's joke, I don't give a shit.

This does NOT apply if we replace jokes with labor, lest you feel cute.

I love how America has probably killed 10s of thousands of terrorists since 9.11 but UA chooses to focus on a few exceptions as the norm

This does not make you look smart

More like

Scientists: The global temps are increasing
People: ...
Scientists: The global temps are increasing
People: ...
Scientists: THE GLOBAL TEMPS ARE INCREASING
Fossil Fuel Industry: No, they're not
People: Scientists are liars!!!
Scientists: Look at this data we've been producing and publishing for decades
People: Why can't all scientists agree?
Scientists: We do
Fossil Fuel Industry: No, we don't
People: If global temps are increasing, why is it snowing?
Fossil Fuel Industry: *things that make you go "hmmmm"*
Scientists: oh FFS

"We can adapt!" is but the latest refrain. In reality it means that some privileged minority can adapt, and the rest are fucked.

Not responsive to anything I said.

His point, I think, is that America's response to paedophiles and terrorists is in fact anything but apologise and rehabilitate at the tax payer's expense.