Climate change and global warming

[Sarah Knightley]

Why are leading politicians and nations in denial of global warming and climate change?

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, Sarah Knightley said:

Why are leading politicians and nations in denial of global warming and climate change?

Because it's not profitable (financially), democracies Achilles heal is short term thinking, so anything difficult that can be kicked down the road, will be.  

[Curious layman]

Most aren't ( Germany, China etc ), it just small few, although that includes USA so it's a pretty big small! I'm not too worried, it's the general public who will make most of the difference. And from my experience the public are really behind it. 

The younger generation are behind it too which is encouraging.

Tell you what though, can't get me head around Australia not believing it, Would of thought that with the barrier reef and the plagues ( locusts etc ) they would be more environmentally minded.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Curious layman

[dimreepr]

47 minutes ago, Curious layman said:

Most aren't ( Germany, China etc ), it just small few, although that includes USA so it's a pretty big small! I'm not too worried, it's the general public who will make most of the difference. And from my experience the public are really behind it. 

The younger generation are behind it too which is encouraging.

Tell you what though, can't get me head around Australia not believing it, Would of thought that with the barrier reef and the plagues ( locusts etc ) they would be more environmentally minded.

China has good reason to increase their solar energy collection (they don't really want to kill off their population) the rest you'll notice have made pledges way beyond the next election whilst minimally striving to attain it, oh and China's not a democracy.

[Curious layman]

 

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

China has good reason to increase their solar energy collection (they don't really want to kill off their population) the rest you'll notice have made pledges way beyond the next election whilst minimally striving to attain it, oh and China's not a democracy.

The op doesn't mention democracy, but your right about most countries doing little to reach targets, that's where the general public come in, most are making an effort I think, but whether its too little too late remains to be seen.

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, Curious layman said:

The op doesn't mention democracy, but your right about most countries doing little to reach targets, that's where the general public come in, most are making an effort I think, but whether its too little too late remains to be seen.

The word politician (rather than dictator), in context, strongly implies democracy.

The west's population is getting older, which generally means more conservative and insular and frightened to loose what they have now.

[Curious layman]

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

The word politician (rather than dictator), in context, strongly implies democracy.

The west's population is getting older, which generally means more conservative and insular and frightened to loose what they have now.

Good point about politician! 

Got nothing else to say about the last bit though because your right

Im still encouraged, just a little bit less!

 

[et pet]

10 hours ago, Sarah Knightley said:

Why are leading politicians and nations in denial of global warming and climate change?

Just keeping That pot stirred?

No one, that has any intelligence at all, should fall for arguing either For or Against ACC.

There should be no arguing about it period!

Realistically, with over 7 Billion Humans on this Planet, how could anyone with even the tiniest amount of intelligence possibly think that these 7 billion+ Mammals at this stage of technological advancement(?) would NOT be impacting our Home's Climate?

Humans, on a multitude of levels, are actively destroying the ability of this Planet to continue to support Any and All Life.

Not just Human Life...ALL LIFE!

NO, there should be NO arguing about it, PERIOD! There should only be a concerted effort by EVERYONE to END IT!

 

Oddly, though, it seems that most would rather argue about the issue than to actually work together to do anything about resolving the issue.

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by et pet

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Nevertheless, they do. The question before us is why they do.

 

[et pet]

12 minutes ago, swansont said:

!

Moderator Note

Nevertheless, they do. The question before us is why they do.

 

Why?

Answer :

19 minutes ago, et pet said:

Just keeping That pot stirred?

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by et pet

[J.C.MacSwell]

21 minutes ago, et pet said:

 

Humans, on a multitude of levels, are actively destroying the ability of this Planet to continue to support Any and All Life.

 

Rapid climate change can certainly make it hard for many current species to survive.

[et pet]

17 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Rapid climate change can certainly make it hard for many current species to survive.

Yep!

[Sensei]

10 hours ago, Sarah Knightley said:

Why are leading politicians and nations in denial of global warming and climate change?

Currently the main rejecter from politicians is just D.T.

 

[Curious layman]

1 minute ago, Sensei said:

Currently the main rejecter from politicians is just D.T.

 

What's D.T. ?

[Sensei]

18 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Rapid climate change can certainly make it hard for many current species to survive.

...and the worst case is that majority of them are barely visible: plankton..

It will die the first due to increased temperature of oceans. Later fishes and sea living species which have plankton in their food chain.

 

Just now, Curious layman said:

What's D.T. ?

There are two politicians who have such initials.. Should be easy to guess, I think.

 

Who withdraw from Paris Agreement?

 

[Curious layman]

 of course, but good old US of A isnt like UK, so his time is limited thankfully.

[MigL]

The US has seen a few years of declining CO2 emissions, but last year saw the second largest surge in 20 yrs.
Emissions rose by 2.5 - 3.4 % ( depending on your source ); an alarming rise, mostly due to D Trump's deregulations ( not withdrawal from any accords ).

The same source that provides a US rise of 2.5 %, gives a rise in China of 4.7 %, and in India, of 6.3 %.

Plenty of blame to go around.

[beecee]

14 hours ago, Sarah Knightley said:

Why are leading politicians and nations in denial of global warming and climate change?

I like the following answer

14 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Because it's not profitable (financially), democracies Achilles heal is short term thinking, so anything difficult that can be kicked down the road, will be.  

There is also a hint of a "don't care"  attitude by some. Some I know for instance are just not concerned about rising sea levels and low lying Pacific Islands....others know that the probability of real life changing effects, will not affect them in their lifetime...a "f&^% you, I'm alright Jack" attitude.

 

4 hours ago, et pet said:

NO, there should be NO arguing about it, PERIOD! There should only be a concerted effort by EVERYONE to END IT!

Forum's such as this are venues for discussion on climate change...It's what people need to do to convince those not sure about the issue, how valid the issue really is. Othwise the real anti global warming nuts would have a field day! Listen to Brian Cox [towards the end] argue the case for global warming and climate change with a complete ignorant nut....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxEGHW6Lbu8

Quote

Oddly, though, it seems that most would rather argue about the issue than to actually work together to do anything about resolving the issue.

What are you personally doing about the issue, other then debating it here?

 

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

A reminder that this is a politics thread. Discussions of the science details belong elsewhere

 

[Ken Fabian]

On 6/18/2019 at 4:11 PM, Sarah Knightley said:

Why are leading politicians and nations in denial of global warming and climate change?

I think at heart it is a hard nosed and short sighted business decision. A widespread desire by business owners and operators and broader commercial and industrial interests to not be held responsible and accountable for anything climate related is at the core of climate science denial - which I think is effect not cause; climate responsibility denial requires some kind of justification and denying the science is true is the most basic kind. Framing those who advocate for climate action as extremists with anti-capitalist ideological agendas and solutions as incompatible with free market democracy and prosperity have been powerful messages and the understandable concerns of political environmentalists and their being loud and standing tall on the issue - whilst the mainstream 'leadership' has avoided strong commitment of any kind but to the status-quo - made it easier to make that 'led by extremists' fear appear credible to the uninformed.

I think this desire to avoid responsibility and accountability and ultimately to avoid liability flows downward through their companies to their employees, as fear for job security and lower pay - potent near term fears that tend to override any longer term concerns - and upwards to politicians and political parties as business leaders and associations lobby them hard to keep an enduring amnesty and de-facto subsidy on the externalised costs of emissions. Given how solid the science is, it takes something extraordinary to get people to distrust it, so framing it as about free market democracy versus extremist socialist ideology and prosperity vs poverty with so much pre-existing strong feeling and innate support for the former allowed them to bypass that trust in science by using alarmist fears. It has been extraordinarily successful.

Pro- business politicians and parties (which tend to include all centrist as well as conservative right ones) put aside their greater obligations of trust and responsibility to their nations as a whole in order to act as advocates for those narrower interests - and those interests have developed a variety of techniques for inducing and influencing politicians, government policy and community opinion. PR, Advertising, Strategic Donations, Tactical Lawfare, Post politics career inducements, Lobbying and Tankthink are all used ruthlessly and with only minimal regard for the truth or ethics. The validity of the decades of science based expert advice governments have commissioned and received barely enters into their decision making.

[CharonY]

On 6/18/2019 at 1:43 PM, MigL said:

The US has seen a few years of declining CO2 emissions, but last year saw the second largest surge in 20 yrs.
Emissions rose by 2.5 - 3.4 % ( depending on your source ); an alarming rise, mostly due to D Trump's deregulations ( not withdrawal from any accords ).

The same source that provides a US rise of 2.5 %, gives a rise in China of 4.7 %, and in India, of 6.3 %.

Plenty of blame to go around.

While kind of true, I will add that China and India are still developing (and per capita, still emit far less) as such, the increase is actually relatively moderate, compared to a fully developed industrial nation. It should also be added that according to the Cicero Center for international climate research a revised model implies only a 2.3% increase for 2018 in China (4.7% was the predicted value). This is still a higher increase over previous years (1.7% 2017) after a decrease between 2014-2016. According to the report the initial reduction was the result of expansion of renewable energies, but those were unable to cover the increased demand after 2016. 

While the sheer amount of people involved in the process post a significant challenge, it is at least somewhat surprising that they managed to reign things in a bit (all things considered). India has seen a sharper increase, but are emitting even less on a per capita basis.  China produces ca. 26% of its energy via renewable resources, whereas in the USA it is only 17%. In India capacity and production were quite a bit lower. That being said, a large part of these investments in renewable energy in China are  not necessarily targeted at climate change per, but also much of it is about energy independence. On top, smaller scale renewable energy production is a way for them to create energy in more isolated areas of China, where standard of living (and energy consumption) is still very low. A rise is pretty much inevitable, if China and India plan to increase standard of living, and the question to a large degree is how fast they can expand their renewable energy production capabilities.

[CharonY]

I just came across an interesting paper looking at CO2 emissions in China. Based on their analysis the CO2 production is likely going to peak at 13–16 Gt CO2 /yr between 2021 and 2025. 

Wang et al. 2019, Nat Sustain

 

[Ken Fabian]

On 6/18/2019 at 4:11 PM, Sarah Knightley said:

Why are leading politicians and nations in denial of global warming and climate change?

Commerce and industry does not want to be held responsible for the climate consequences of the emissions of their activities. Politicians rarely manage to remain "leading" ones if they have policies that Commerce and Industry do not want. If businesses are deemed to bear climate responsibility - we all bear some responsibility but some are a lot more responsible than others - then companies will face a burden of costs to prevent climate harms. I think their response is a variant of the way a company that learns it's products are harming consumers respond... deny all liability and vigorously oppose any actions to make them liable. The greater the responsibility and potential liability the harder they tend to fight it.

Business leaders have a well developed toolkit for influencing the attitudes of public and politicians - PR, Advertising, Strategic Donations, Tactical Lawfare, Tankthink. I suspect the single most effective response for responsibility avoidance has been the stoking of economic alarmist fear of strong emissions reductions policy - it flows upwards to politicians as concerns from business leaders and associations as fear for reduced economic growth or economic damage and downward to employees and public as fears for employment security and remuneration.

Given some of the loudest voices in this have been Environmentalists it became possible to make it appear like it was Extreme Environmentalism driving the whole issue - framing the debate as about stopping Extremists who seek to impose unwanted regulations on business rather than about responding to the problem, as presented by the top science agencies and reports, made it possible to lead people into the well worn ruts of Left vs Right, Capitalist vs Socialist, Doers vs Complainers - a debate where partisan political affiliation has the most impact and science based facts and reason have the least.

 

[Moreno]

If it is assumed that men-made gases cause greenhouse effect and this is really terrible, then why humanity cannot create some potent gases to counterattack the problem? For example some potent agents which reflect well only UV rays and harmless to any leaving beings? Would not it help to cool Earth down and protect leaving beings from UV rays?

[swansont]

19 minutes ago, Moreno said:

If it is assumed that men-made gases cause greenhouse effect and this is really terrible, then why humanity cannot create some potent gases to counterattack the problem? For example some potent agents which reflect well only UV rays and harmless to any leaving beings? Would not it help to cool Earth down and protect leaving beings from UV rays?

Because it’s not magic