Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity

kidbob said:
Just wait until clean drinking water becomes a rare and sought after thing. Which is horribly a real eventuality in a couple of life times.
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Yep, we're almost there is many areas. And within a decade or so, we'll be seeing huge population displacements as well, as mass-inhabited coastal areas like the Nile Delta or Bangladesh will get into trouble due to rising waters.

But let's talk about this a little more. We can't let green policy hurt the economy. And is it really that bad? Sorry, I have the current electorate to consider you know!
 
kidbob said:
Yeah that's what I kind of meant in terms of child's play. I mean we have a 'refugee crisis' now apparently, imagine what it will be when those places become literally inhabitable. It makes me so sad for my daughter and I do really think sometimes that, as much as I lover her, it was somewhat inhumane to bring her into this World.
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As @Cheimoon points our it’s already happening with some of the places you already associate with war and refugees. What people don’t seem to appreciate is that some of the most developed and desirable areas in the world are going to become uninhabitable. Coastal cities will be lost and the people that inhabit them will be forced to leave their life behind and try to find somewhere else to live, along with everyone else. People living in the more comfortable spots won’t like the influx of people coming to their region, they never do.
 
Pexbo said:
As @Cheimoon points our it’s already happening with some of the places you already associate with war and refugees. What people don’t seem to appreciate is that some of the most developed and desirable areas in the world are going to become uninhabitable. Coastal cities will be lost and the people that inhabit them will be forced to leave their life behind and try to find somewhere else to live, along with everyone else. People living in the more comfortable spots won’t like the influx of people coming to their region, they never do.
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And we can forget about the north becoming inhabitable instead. If the permafrost thaws away, those places will be swamps first, not arable or liveable countryside. Plus the thawing permafrost wpuld release so much methane into the atmosphere that climate change would get into a feedback loop and go into overdrive.
 
So I just read that in Jacobabad (Pakistan) they reached 50 degrees Celsius? I mean...what the feck?
 
esmufc07 said:
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The interviews also gave a glimpse of how the fossil fuel industry really views some of its most recent pro-climate PR moves. After years of lobbying against actual proposals for a carbon tax, many oil majors and affiliated groups have done an about-face on the policy. Exxon is among the founding members of the Climate Leadership Council, a group that backs a carbon tax.

During his Zoom interview, he called a carbon tax an “advocacy tool” and “great talking point.” “Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans and the cynical side of me says, yeah, we kind of know that but it gives us a talking point that we can say, ‘well what is ExxonMobil for, we’re for a carbon tax,’” McCoy said.

https://gizmodo.com/exxon-lobbyists-reveal-in-secret-recordings-how-they-ma-1847205392
 
kidbob said:
This shit is going to make Covid look like child's play. Thank God we never listen to the experts. The worst is that there isn't a thing that the average Joe can do because the top polluters by far are the rich and they are just going to let us die. If ever there was a time for mass rebellion is it now but to be honest its probably a good thing that we die off. Climate change won't be the end of Earth it may be just the end of humans. Good riddance.
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It won't be the end of life on Earth but I feel bad for other species that will die too through our own corruption; we'll be taking a fair few species down with us.

The migrant crisis will be horrific.
 
"The Craigneil project would generate enough energy to meet the needs of around 20,000 homes"

... from 11 turbines?

(another estimate: "The Craigneil proposal will generate enough electricity for more than 24,900 homes".)

Are they taking the "rated power" (ie, maximum output) of the turbines to work out how many homes they could power?
 
Jippy said:
Pretty sure an airliner has never hit a wind turbine:confused:

Plans for new wind farm thrown out by councillors amid plane crash fears



https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp...yGJBdtwwnX51URrSVouXlKujelaPmA1XljIE8brU4eotQ
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Wind turbines can be pretty tall but they're no more risk than any other structure. Its not like they're invisible. Generally though we've moved away from the idea of onshore turbines as its looking like offshore will be cheaper in the very near future and is already more efficient/productive now. Wont be long before mobile offshore turbines are a thing either and can just move around to wherever is most beneficial at the time. Plus probably more environmentally friendly from a wildlife/effect on human health perspective...I think with onshore councils and the government almost look for excuses to move away from it at this point. Not sure that's completely right as its only going to slow things down but they clearly don't see it as part of the answer, and overall renewable energy is on a pretty steep upward curve.

Its just moving too slowly like everyting else. The answers in terms of carbon emissions are within reach, but the answers in terms of human population levels and sustainable levels of resources aren't. We can have 100% renewable energy, electric cars, carbon neutral buildings, etc. within the forseeable future, but we will still need to build more homes, schools, hospitals etc. and to do that we need steel, timber, concrete, etc. We need more food, water supply etc, and the resources and transport that provide that. This is my gripe with the likes of Extinction Rebellion...unless they have answers to how you sustain the current and still growing population of the planet, without causing more harm to the planet (and they don't), then its a bit pointless just moaning and protesting about it.
 
noodlehair said:
We can have 100% renewable energy, electric cars, carbon neutral buildings, etc. within the forseeable future, but we will still need to build more homes, schools, hospitals etc. and to do that we need steel, timber, concrete, etc. We need more food, water supply etc, and the resources and transport that provide that. This is my gripe with the likes of Extinction Rebellion...unless they have answers to how you sustain the current and still growing population of the planet, without causing more harm to the planet (and they don't), then its a bit pointless just moaning and protesting about it.
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Can you give citations for both parts? Can you also specify who should be sterilised to save humanity, and who would make these decisions?
 
Counterfactual said:
"The Craigneil project would generate enough energy to meet the needs of around 20,000 homes"

... from 11 turbines?

(another estimate: "The Craigneil proposal will generate enough electricity for more than 24,900 homes".)

Are they taking the "rated power" (ie, maximum output) of the turbines to work out how many homes they could power?
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I'd always take figures like that with a massive pinch of salt as there's so many variables its basically just a number plucked from thin air. Not just that they can use the maximum power output as you said but also there's a multitude of ways to decide how much power an average home uses.

A brand new home built to current energy standards will use a tiny fraction of the power a 60 year old house would. 20,000 of one type of home equates to about 1,000 of another.
 
berbatrick said:
Can you give citations for both parts? Can you also specify who should be sterilised to save humanity, and who would make these decisions?
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You could just not be lazy and go and research it yourself. It's not like any of the information isn't public.

I'm not going to waste my time finding you loads of links to reports etc...but there is an EU energy report that will tell you its entirely feasable with current technology to power the entire of the EU with wind power, complete with a strategy on how to do it. There is a UK energy report that will tell you that wind energy currently already provides nearly a third of our power and is also projected to be the cheapest source of energy within 10 years.

I don't need to citate electric cars to you because you can literally go and buy one, and I don't need to citate carbon neutral homes to you because you can just go on google and read about how they are already a thing. We can extract heat from the air or the ground and provide power through solar and wind, recycle water, heat, etc. The problem is its much less cheap so not attractive to a large scale house builder, and even if it was we have millions of existing homes that are built to hugely outdated standards..

On the second part the reality is that no one has the answers I'm afraid. At the moment its an impossible equation. We need twice the resource the planet can provide and possibly up to 6 times if population levels increase as some estimates would show. Waving a placard around or glueing yourself to a train while only looking at half the equation isn't going to change anything. Even if every house built from now was carbon nuetral in terms of its energy use and efficiency, the materials needed to build them would still leave a massive carbon footprint...and that's if we even had enough resources to create those materials. Even building a wind turbine requires, concrete, steel, transport, construction tools, etc.
 
noodlehair said:
You could just not be lazy and go and research it yourself. It's not like any of the information isn't public.

I'm not going to waste my time finding you loads of links to reports etc...but there is an EU energy report that will tell you its entirely feasable with current technology to power the entire of the EU with wind power, complete with a strategy on how to do it. There is a UK energy report that will tell you that wind energy currently already provides nearly a third of our power and is also projected to be the cheapest source of energy within 10 years.

I don't need to citate electric cars to you because you can literally go and buy one, and I don't need to citate carbon neutral homes to you because you can just go on google and read about how they are already a thing. We can extract heat from the air or the ground and provide power through solar and wind, recycle water, heat, etc. The problem is its much less cheap so not attractive to a large scale house builder, and even if it was we have millions of existing homes that are built to hugely outdated standards..

On the second part the reality is that no one has the answers I'm afraid. At the moment its an impossible equation. We need twice the resource the planet can provide and possibly up to 6 times if population levels increase as some estimates would show. Waving a placard around or glueing yourself to a train while only looking at half the equation isn't going to change anything. Even if every house built from now was carbon nuetral in terms of its energy use and efficiency, the materials needed to build them would still leave a massive carbon footprint...and that's if we even had enough resources to create those materials. Even building a wind turbine requires, concrete, steel, transport, construction tools, etc.
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The EU and UK aren't the world, and in fact don't even produce most of the (carbon- and resource-heavy) manufactured goods they consume.
 
bsCallout said:
Even with our best efforts we aren't reversing things now, surely?
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I reckon some badly affected country will eventually try one of the speculative geo-engineering technologies unilaterally. All bets are off at that point.

Let the battle for the Earth’s thermostat commence.
 
Irwin99 said:
It won't be the end of life on Earth but I feel bad for other species that will die too through our own corruption; we'll be taking a fair few species down with us.

The migrant crisis will be horrific.
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If we are being really honest, our beautiful planet will inevitably be far better off without humans.
I have 5 grandchildren ranging from 8 to new born. So all being well, they are likely to be around at the end of the century.
I won't of course. But that doesn't stop me being extremely apprehensive about their prospects going forward.
We are not even sleepwalking into this crisis.
We are doing it knowingly because, collectively, we just don't care enough to do what we know is necessary. So much easier to just ignore it hoping for a miracle....
 
Buster15 said:
If we are being really honest, our beautiful planet will inevitably be far better off without humans.
I have 5 grandchildren ranging from 8 to new born. So all being well, they are likely to be around at the end of the century.
I won't of course. But that doesn't stop me being extremely apprehensive about their prospects going forward.
We are not even sleepwalking into this crisis.
We are doing it knowingly because, collectively, we just don't care enough to do what we know is necessary. So much easier to just ignore it hoping for a miracle....
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Sad but true. There is no hope where consumerism is king.
 
Buster15 said:
We are doing it knowingly because, collectively, we just don't care enough to do what we know is necessary. So much easier to just ignore it hoping for a miracle....
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I think that's what the majority of people are doing; on an individual level it just seems too big and futile and people have so many other cares and concerns in their lives. Some clever boffin will solve everything or it won't be as bad as we expect etc. it the hope. It seems the disruption and change necessary to even attempt to cope with this issue is something that there's no real drive for as yet.
 
Irwin99 said:
I think that's what the majority of people are doing; on an individual level it just seems too big and futile and people have so many other cares and concerns in their lives. Some clever boffin will solve everything or it won't be as bad as we expect etc. it the hope. It seems the disruption and change necessary to even attempt to cope with this issue is something that there's no real drive for as yet.
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Sobering but accurate. Unfortunately, man made climate change will probably defeat humanity in the end.
There will be significant progress in reducing CO2 emissions. But we have most likely reached or exceeded the tipping point at which everything just adds up and starts to run away.
Good luck to the next generations.
You are going to need to fundamentally change the way we have been living.
 
Irwin99 said:
I think that's what the majority of people are doing; on an individual level it just seems too big and futile and people have so many other cares and concerns in their lives. Some clever boffin will solve everything or it won't be as bad as we expect etc. it the hope. It seems the disruption and change necessary to even attempt to cope with this issue is something that there's no real drive for as yet.
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I still feel the individual has little meaningful power to tackle the problem. We can all make better decisions but our waste feels completely meaningless when you have others setting the ocean on fire. Its a problem of scale, of the actions of tens of thousands of individuals and it can only be addressed within them systems. We're a million miles past them willingly engaging the issue so it needs to be forced on them - I dont know how you do that, or if it ever happens.
 
Buster15 said:
Sobering but accurate. Unfortunately, man made climate change will probably defeat humanity in the end.
There will be significant progress in reducing CO2 emissions. But we have most likely reached or exceeded the tipping point at which everything just adds up and starts to run away.
Good luck to the next generations.
You are going to need to fundamentally change the way we have been living.
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people (right wingers) continually make fun of Greta for having mental illness, especially depression, but just imagine actually being brought up as a child being told the truth and that we are deciding to just not take action.

I can only imagine what children 30-40 years from now will be like when nothing has changed.
 
WPMUFC said:
people (right wingers) continually make fun of Greta for having mental illness, especially depression, but just imagine actually being brought up as a child being told the truth and that we are deciding to just not take action.

I can only imagine what children 30-40 years from now will be like when nothing has changed.
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You are right.
To anyone who takes the easy option of saying that nothing I do is going to have any effect, just take a look at what Greta has done.
She has mobilised a generation.
And I wish her well and hope she remains strong enough to battle on.
 
The funny thing is, we're not destroying Earth per say. We're (humans) just making inhospitable for future generations of our own species. Once we die from the greed of mega corps, and corrupt governments who enable them, the Earth will eventually "heal" and a new species will take our place and planet Earth will be as good as new.

Also I hope every board member of Exxon dies a horrible death. :)
 
DatIrishFella said:
The funny thing is, we're not destroying Earth per say. We're (humans) just making inhospitable for future generations of our own species. Once we die from the greed of mega corps, and corrupt governments who enable them, the Earth will eventually "heal" and a new species will take our place and planet Earth will be as good as new.

Also I hope every board member of Exxon dies a horrible death. :)
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Agree with all of that. Especially the last part.
 
DatIrishFella said:
The funny thing is, we're not destroying Earth per say. We're (humans) just making inhospitable for future generations of our own species. Once we die from the greed of mega corps, and corrupt governments who enable them, the Earth will eventually "heal" and a new species will take our place and planet Earth will be as good as new.

Also I hope every board member of Exxon dies a horrible death. :)
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Yep, I find it incredibly sad that things like hedgehogs are on the endangered list , when I was a kid there were loads of them . According to David Attenborough we are at a point in time where we could be seeing species extinctions at its highest rate which is incredibly sad to me. Unfortunately my grandchildren will grow up and that is all they will ever know.
 
djembatheking said:
Yep, I find it incredibly sad that things like hedgehogs are on the endangered list , when I was a kid there were loads of them . According to David Attenborough we are at a point in time where we could be seeing species extinctions at its highest rate which is incredibly sad to me. Unfortunately my grandchildren will grow up and that is all they will ever know.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

We’re in the 6th extinction event in the history of life on earth. Humanity is finally as impressive as an asteroid.
 
Eriku said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

We’re in the 6th extinction event in the history of life on earth. Humanity is finally as impressive as an asteroid.
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And for the first time, self inflicted.
The first so called truly intelligent species. Who cannot:
Control its numbers
Control its usage of the world's natural resources
Control its greed
Control something simple like CO2 emissions because it didn't really want to and preferred to carry on as normal. Even though it knew how to.
 
Buster15 said:
I defy anyone to read this and not be as 'freaked out' as are the climate change scientists.
Please do yourself and your family a favour and read this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57729502
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Naomi Klein mentioned in her book "this changes everything" that there are open discussions in policy circles about the use of aerosols. She highlighted a conference in which it was being taken seriously that we just give up on CO2 targets and pump aerosols of certain compounds into the atmosphere and essentially try to outpace the warming. When the conference talked about the impact of aerosols, it was suggested that Africa and China regions would essentially stop receiving rain ever again. The response was what you expect....who cares. Leading to a UN delegate claiming "it sounds like we are really talking about whom we are going to sacrifice/murder in order to maintain the status quo". This was on top of concerns raised that no one has any clue what would happen to the atmosphere at different levels if you pumped aerosols for the rest of human existence.

A dangerous mix of denialism, status quo, philanthropy money and ego collide to essentially try to maintain their status in society whilst giving up on the rest of the species. And unfortunately, the more articles we see like this over the coming decades, the more these megalomaniac philanthropy types are going to get special preference at the policy table.
 
The arm wrestle for the future of the environment is getting more even, hopefully the greener arm continues to get stronger.
 
WPMUFC said:
Naomi Klein mentioned in her book "this changes everything" that there are open discussions in policy circles about the use of aerosols. She highlighted a conference in which it was being taken seriously that we just give up on CO2 targets and pump aerosols of certain compounds into the atmosphere and essentially try to outpace the warming. When the conference talked about the impact of aerosols, it was suggested that Africa and China regions would essentially stop receiving rain ever again. The response was what you expect....who cares. Leading to a UN delegate claiming "it sounds like we are really talking about whom we are going to sacrifice/murder in order to maintain the status quo". This was on top of concerns raised that no one has any clue what would happen to the atmosphere at different levels if you pumped aerosols for the rest of human existence.

A dangerous mix of denialism, status quo, philanthropy money and ego collide to essentially try to maintain their status in society whilst giving up on the rest of the species. And unfortunately, the more articles we see like this over the coming decades, the more these megalomaniac philanthropy types are going to get special preference at the policy table.
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It would be a massive mistake for a policy which said, give up on CO2. The general public has been focused on CO2 as the problem. And any deviation from that would just kill the public buy-in on climate change. And the denier's would jump on that with glee.
 
Now I can take statements made by the government with as big a pinch of salt as the next man. But the likelihood of achieving electric powered domestic aircraft flights in less than 20 years from now has to be remote in the extreme.
Both Boeing and Airbus have orders for jet powered aircraft in the many thousands.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57830168
 
Buster15 said:
If we are being really honest, our beautiful planet will inevitably be far better off without humans.
I have 5 grandchildren ranging from 8 to new born. So all being well, they are likely to be around at the end of the century.
I won't of course. But that doesn't stop me being extremely apprehensive about their prospects going forward.
We are not even sleepwalking into this crisis.
We are doing it knowingly because, collectively, we just don't care enough to do what we know is necessary. So much easier to just ignore it hoping for a miracle....
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This is the thing that should be waking people up imo

Family

I’m 32, I’ve got a near 2 year old Son, like your young Grandchildren he’ll hopefully still be around with his own family towards the latter stages of this century, but what kind of a world will he and his family be living in, there’s nothing I personally can do about it but it does worry me

hopefully I’ve got another 50-60 years left but I’m sure with the evidence presented to us by our scientists that even in my lifetime things will be very different climate wise in my twilight years

It will never happen, but sadly we have the technology right now to really make a different, problem is we aren’t implementing it anywhere near quick enough as what we need to be

it’s the most serious thing facing us and other inhabitants on this planet and we are being extremely lazy about it

It’s like we are are in a paddle boat drifting towards a major waterfall, we can see the edge coming rapidly closer, we’ve got the solution which is our oars which we can use to paddle to safety but we just aren’t getting them into the water quick enough meaning the likely outcome is, we’ll go over the edge

Get those god damn oars in the water right now and start paddling hard and fast to avert this outcome
 
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TheLiverBird said:
This is the thing that should be waking people up imo

Family

I’m 32, I’ve got a near 2 year old Son, like your young Grandchildren he’ll hopefully still be around with his own family towards the latter stages of this century, but what kind of a world will he and his family be living in, there’s nothing I personally can do about it but it does worry me

hopefully I’ve got another 50-60 years left but I’m sure with the evidence presented to us by our scientists that even in my lifetime things will be very different climate wise in my twilight years

It will never happen, but sadly we have the technology right now to really make a different, problem is we aren’t implementing it anywhere near quick enough as what we need to be

it’s the most serious thing facing us and other inhabitants on this planet and we are being extremely lazy about it

It’s like we are are in a paddle boat drifting towards a major waterfall, we can see the edge coming rapidly closer, we’ve got the solution which is our ores which we can use to paddle to safety but we just aren’t getting them into the water quick enough meaning the likely outcome is, we’ll go over the edge

Get those god damn ores in the water right now and start paddling hard and fast to avert this outcome
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Ore or Oar?
 
Polluting the planet is easy to do, just the presence of humans ensures it, and the rate it develop's now is almost exponentially ('towards infinity.... and beyond)
Reversing pollution is almost impossible to achieve, too much damage already done, best we can hope for is to slow it down.... but that takes decision making at the highest level and of the highest order, in the shortest possible time, with a wholesale commitment from ever human on the planet now and for the next 30 years.
Somehow its not looking feasible... over to your Richard Branson, get us off this planet.... fast!
 
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