While I love your history lessons and appreciate your perspective I have to part ways with you here. Climate change is more than just an annoyance to be adapted to. Also, we ARE the only creatures on this fragile planet, or ever to occupy this planet, that spews waste and CO2 into that atmosphere at rates that are simply not sustainable. Our problems are truly man-made. But I'll grant you this and to quote George Carlin "when we are done earth will be just fine, its going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas"
quote: So if you're worried about climate change, more power to you. Cut as much carbon as you can from your lifestyle. Any progress you make will be appreciated.
First I agree we will need to adapt- but we can also ameliorate! We proved humans CAN fix human caused global issues- example the so-called Ozone Hole. The main causes of ozone depletion and the ozone hole are manufactured chemicals, especially manufactured halocarbon refrigerants, solvents, propellants, and foam-blowing agents (chlorofluorocarbons). Global action banned these chemicals in 1989. From a Wikipedia entry, "Ozone levels stabilized by the mid-1990s and began to recover in the 2000s, as the shifting of the jet stream in the southern hemisphere towards the south pole has stopped and might even be reversing.[8] Recovery is projected to continue over the next century, and the ozone hole was expected to reach pre-1980 levels by around 2075. In 2019, NASA reported that the ozone hole was the smallest ever since it was first discovered in 1982."
Yes individuals CAN make a difference but individual actions are a drop in the bucket and can quickly frustrate a dedicated person when a societal problem to be solved is made to appear as one of solely individual responsibility.
think it ludicrous to compare natural phenomenon such as cyanobacteria to actual human action. With regards to climate change, we essentially KNOW the causes- for which some people are getting vastly wealthy continuing the same path. Tossing out arbitrary dates like year 1000, or year 10000 are red herrings. And we don't need to go back to 1750. Just go back to approximately the late 1880s and the start of the industrial revolution with the advent of widespread fossil fuels. The "hockey stick" is still valid.
Excellent analysis and I agree whole heartedly. Just don't expect to get much sympathy from those siphoning up the trillions of dollars governments are wasting to reduce our "carbon footprint" or from those who have drank the Kool Aid in the Church of Climate.
I appreciate the post tackling this topic which unfortunately isn't as controversial as it should be. One only has to look at Germany and France and see the real damage good intentions have on climate outcomes i.e. carbon emissions after nuclear power decommissioning. Adaptation is a necessary investment in a world where real solutions are needed and: the most vocal and wealthier advocates of climate change prevention do not hide the hypocrisy of their own energy consumption, the least wealthy aren't likely to agree to a lower standard of living (they would have to be coerced into it), emerging nations form an ever larger portion of the production of green house gasses as their own standards of living begin to catch up to the global north, and real alternatives of power production which would lower costs and raise standards of living are rejected by the public at large. Perhaps the larger reason of the need for pragmatism is the polarization of political and social thought, pundits on the social right refuse to recognize (or perhaps choose to ignore) the environmental and economic cost of residential sprawl and the lack of proper public (available to the public, not government owned) transportation; while pundits on the social left refuse to acknowledge the consequences of only adopting intermittent output energy production. I come at this problem as a citizen of a carbon negative nation where the problems are far different from those of the global north. From where I stand, at sea level in year round 95 degree weather, the most important solution might be to abandon the hypocritical political elites and reach across the aisle; only then might pragmatism (adaptation and its costs) be relegated out of our minds and wallets.
The good reasons to care about climate change are more than sufficient. Much of the rest of your post is frankly gratuitous. The big problem with your comments here are the lack of scale and perspective. Yes, humans have always adapted to changes in climate but what scientists are predicting are changes to such an extreme degree and at such a swift pace as we have not faced since the rise of Western civilization. Adaptation sounds nice but are we talking about abandoning Miami or Norfolk or moving them inland? And don’t even try to sell your argument to the island nations that will be gone.
And the difference between different levels of warming - say 2 degrees Celsius from the baseline to 3 or 4 degrees - is earth-shaking. It’s not a question of focusing on cutting emissions or not - it’s a question of whether we can keep climate change to a level to which we can reasonably adapt or if we are talking about levels leading to genuinely disruptive events like mass migration across the planet.
Observing the breadth of man-made climate change and blithely saying that humans have always adapted to the weather is a bit like standing in the middle of the bloodiest battlefields of WW II and yawning “Yeah, people have always gotten into arguments.” Historical analogies can only take us so far unless we acknowledge the size and scope of the problems in question.
Animals have much less ability to adapt. Ask the dinosaurs and wooly mammoths. Polar bears without pack ice have an existential problem. And on the Arctic Slope of Alaska, north of the Brooks Range, melting permafrost is turning the rivers orange as heavy metals that had been relatively stable in the permafrost are leaching out. It is killing the aquatic life that the fish feed on and poisoning the water that villages downstream depend on.
And you see a lot of damage in South Central Alaska from Spruce Bark Beetles. We have the same issue where I live in Central Europe. The beetles were always around but cold winter temperatures kept them in check. Warming temperatures have caused their numbers to explode with huge tracts of forest dying off. Ungulates like moose count on some of these plants for winter browse. And the roots of these trees protect the rivers and safeguard the fish.
Prevention is almost always cheaper and more effective than mitigation.
Can't any human problem be shrunk to insignificance simply by extending the time frame to 2 million years? To casually admit that "people" will suffer and die, and to lead cheers for the politicians who have long touted "adaptation" over the concerted public effort needed to reduce carbon emissions, seems a bit head-in-the-sandish.
While I love your history lessons and appreciate your perspective I have to part ways with you here. Climate change is more than just an annoyance to be adapted to. Also, we ARE the only creatures on this fragile planet, or ever to occupy this planet, that spews waste and CO2 into that atmosphere at rates that are simply not sustainable. Our problems are truly man-made. But I'll grant you this and to quote George Carlin "when we are done earth will be just fine, its going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas"
quote: So if you're worried about climate change, more power to you. Cut as much carbon as you can from your lifestyle. Any progress you make will be appreciated.
First I agree we will need to adapt- but we can also ameliorate! We proved humans CAN fix human caused global issues- example the so-called Ozone Hole. The main causes of ozone depletion and the ozone hole are manufactured chemicals, especially manufactured halocarbon refrigerants, solvents, propellants, and foam-blowing agents (chlorofluorocarbons). Global action banned these chemicals in 1989. From a Wikipedia entry, "Ozone levels stabilized by the mid-1990s and began to recover in the 2000s, as the shifting of the jet stream in the southern hemisphere towards the south pole has stopped and might even be reversing.[8] Recovery is projected to continue over the next century, and the ozone hole was expected to reach pre-1980 levels by around 2075. In 2019, NASA reported that the ozone hole was the smallest ever since it was first discovered in 1982."
Yes individuals CAN make a difference but individual actions are a drop in the bucket and can quickly frustrate a dedicated person when a societal problem to be solved is made to appear as one of solely individual responsibility.
think it ludicrous to compare natural phenomenon such as cyanobacteria to actual human action. With regards to climate change, we essentially KNOW the causes- for which some people are getting vastly wealthy continuing the same path. Tossing out arbitrary dates like year 1000, or year 10000 are red herrings. And we don't need to go back to 1750. Just go back to approximately the late 1880s and the start of the industrial revolution with the advent of widespread fossil fuels. The "hockey stick" is still valid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T_comp_61-90.pdf
Excellent analysis and I agree whole heartedly. Just don't expect to get much sympathy from those siphoning up the trillions of dollars governments are wasting to reduce our "carbon footprint" or from those who have drank the Kool Aid in the Church of Climate.
I appreciate the post tackling this topic which unfortunately isn't as controversial as it should be. One only has to look at Germany and France and see the real damage good intentions have on climate outcomes i.e. carbon emissions after nuclear power decommissioning. Adaptation is a necessary investment in a world where real solutions are needed and: the most vocal and wealthier advocates of climate change prevention do not hide the hypocrisy of their own energy consumption, the least wealthy aren't likely to agree to a lower standard of living (they would have to be coerced into it), emerging nations form an ever larger portion of the production of green house gasses as their own standards of living begin to catch up to the global north, and real alternatives of power production which would lower costs and raise standards of living are rejected by the public at large. Perhaps the larger reason of the need for pragmatism is the polarization of political and social thought, pundits on the social right refuse to recognize (or perhaps choose to ignore) the environmental and economic cost of residential sprawl and the lack of proper public (available to the public, not government owned) transportation; while pundits on the social left refuse to acknowledge the consequences of only adopting intermittent output energy production. I come at this problem as a citizen of a carbon negative nation where the problems are far different from those of the global north. From where I stand, at sea level in year round 95 degree weather, the most important solution might be to abandon the hypocritical political elites and reach across the aisle; only then might pragmatism (adaptation and its costs) be relegated out of our minds and wallets.
Ugh. Boomers.
Not my favorite post, but damn, you’ve written so many good ones I think I’ll stick around so I can read more of those.
The good reasons to care about climate change are more than sufficient. Much of the rest of your post is frankly gratuitous. The big problem with your comments here are the lack of scale and perspective. Yes, humans have always adapted to changes in climate but what scientists are predicting are changes to such an extreme degree and at such a swift pace as we have not faced since the rise of Western civilization. Adaptation sounds nice but are we talking about abandoning Miami or Norfolk or moving them inland? And don’t even try to sell your argument to the island nations that will be gone.
And the difference between different levels of warming - say 2 degrees Celsius from the baseline to 3 or 4 degrees - is earth-shaking. It’s not a question of focusing on cutting emissions or not - it’s a question of whether we can keep climate change to a level to which we can reasonably adapt or if we are talking about levels leading to genuinely disruptive events like mass migration across the planet.
Observing the breadth of man-made climate change and blithely saying that humans have always adapted to the weather is a bit like standing in the middle of the bloodiest battlefields of WW II and yawning “Yeah, people have always gotten into arguments.” Historical analogies can only take us so far unless we acknowledge the size and scope of the problems in question.
Animals have much less ability to adapt. Ask the dinosaurs and wooly mammoths. Polar bears without pack ice have an existential problem. And on the Arctic Slope of Alaska, north of the Brooks Range, melting permafrost is turning the rivers orange as heavy metals that had been relatively stable in the permafrost are leaching out. It is killing the aquatic life that the fish feed on and poisoning the water that villages downstream depend on.
And you see a lot of damage in South Central Alaska from Spruce Bark Beetles. We have the same issue where I live in Central Europe. The beetles were always around but cold winter temperatures kept them in check. Warming temperatures have caused their numbers to explode with huge tracts of forest dying off. Ungulates like moose count on some of these plants for winter browse. And the roots of these trees protect the rivers and safeguard the fish.
Prevention is almost always cheaper and more effective than mitigation.
Can't any human problem be shrunk to insignificance simply by extending the time frame to 2 million years? To casually admit that "people" will suffer and die, and to lead cheers for the politicians who have long touted "adaptation" over the concerted public effort needed to reduce carbon emissions, seems a bit head-in-the-sandish.