Should some of your freedom be restricted in order to preserve resources?

[Krynn72]

Carbon dioxide has been known to absorb infrared radiation for a very long time. Infrared spectrometers are pretty common lab instruments. All C=O double bonds absorb strongly. The science of increased CO2 levels causing increased trapping of heat is pretty solid. One might debate whether things like cloud formation offset the increased heating (research published last year using climate models says no), but if there is CO2 in the atmosphere and infrared light passing through it, it IS undeniably absorbing and re-radiating the heat. While CO2 is present at small levels, the increase in CO2 over the past decade is significant enough that profs actually have to revise their homework problems every few years to update the CO2 concentration.

If you want an example of the effect of carbon dioxide on climate on a planet-wide scale, look at Venus. Extreme case, but carbon dioxide has clearly royally screwed up Venus. If you need an example closer to home, look into how Earth switched over from "Snowball Earth" to the Cambrian explosion. Granted, CO2 levels leading up to the Cambrian period were 350 times higher than they are today, but that was to warm from completely-frozen-over temperatures to massive-explosion-of-life temperatures. In our case, people are concerned about smaller 1 to 2 deg Celsius warmings and other climatic changes because crop growing periods, the water cycle - which has a significant effect on crop growing, and animal life cycles (although you don't really seem to care about those) can be sensitive to small climate disruptions. Insect populations are particularly sensitive to temperature in that larval hatching and insect lifespans are often controlled by temperature. Even if you don't care about insects themselves, you should consider insect-crop relations.

Also, while I agree that individual actions are miniscule on the scale of the carbon output of everyone in the world, we need to start somewhere. This is why overarching policies would have to be implemented to make significant change, which I think was the point of this thread in the first place.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the other (non carbon emission related) effects of an individual action on the global climate," so I can't respond to that.

Jverne, be more like this guy and people will take you seriously. He actually has evidence to back up his points and makes it clear what he is disputing.

 

[jverne]

Carbon dioxide has been known to absorb infrared radiation for a very long time. Infrared spectrometers are pretty common lab instruments. All C=O double bonds absorb strongly. The science of increased CO2 levels causing increased trapping of heat is pretty solid. One might debate whether things like cloud formation offset the increased heating (research published last year using climate models says no), but if there is CO2 in the atmosphere and infrared light passing through it, it IS undeniably absorbing and re-radiating the heat. While CO2 is present at small levels, the increase in CO2 over the past decade is significant enough that profs actually have to revise their homework problems every few years to update the CO2 concentration.

If you want an example of the effect of carbon dioxide on climate on a planet-wide scale, look at Venus. Extreme case, but carbon dioxide has clearly royally screwed up Venus. If you need an example closer to home, look into how Earth switched over from "Snowball Earth" to the Cambrian explosion. Granted, CO2 levels leading up to the Cambrian period were 350 times higher than they are today, but that was to warm from completely-frozen-over temperatures to massive-explosion-of-life temperatures. In our case, people are concerned about smaller 1 to 2 deg Celsius warmings and other climatic changes because crop growing periods, the water cycle - which has a significant effect on crop growing, and animal life cycles (although you don't really seem to care about those) can be sensitive to small climate disruptions. Insect populations are particularly sensitive to temperature in that larval hatching and insect lifespans are often controlled by temperature. Even if you don't care about insects themselves, you should consider insect-crop relations.

Also, while I agree that individual actions are miniscule on the scale of the carbon output of everyone in the world, we need to start somewhere. This is why overarching policies would have to be implemented to make significant change, which I think was the point of this thread in the first place.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the other (non carbon emission related) effects of an individual action on the global climate," so I can't respond to that.

Case in point, I really haven't been following what you've been doing lately too closely. Threads like these bore the shit out of me. So I'm not going to tell you you're wrong or a retard, but I am (and did) going to give you some advice given the situation that you're in. You're becoming very unpopular, that's a fact. It's not anyone's biased perception or bandwagon jumping. I don't know the specific reasons for it like I said, but I can tell you what you shouldn't do.

It ain't bias if it's right.

In fact I have read your posts, and frankly I really can't discern anything that is specific. You just give vague generalizations and suggestions and rely on ad hominem to back up your arguments.

Now we've switched to carbon dioxide and now Dan is arguing i'm afraid of climate change. See what i mean?
I never really was talking about climate change, because that's the least of my worries, however i'm not denying it's existence.

See what i have to deal with?!

Jverne, be more like this guy and people will take you seriously. He actually has evidence to back up his points and makes it clear what he is disputing.

Yes obviously giving some facts about a Carbon dioxide and other the impact on the environment is considered....you know smart. If i wanted to do that i would, this thread is not directly about climate change. More about destroying our resources and habitat, sure climate change is part of it, but stating the obvious scientific data does not prove anything. This is more of a thread about if you're willing to participate in improving our living space and by which means.

Now you have this guy

If you read what I said, I never doubted that a mechanism for human industry affecting climate exists. What I said was that you cannot simply isolate the effect of carbon from a complex system and treat it as the whole story. Scientists have identified one pathway by which carbon dioxide can affect climate, but I doubt that it is the only one. Climate is linked to pretty much everything on the Earth.

My next point, is that the impact of an individual action on carbon production is also a complex system. How do you know what the magnitude of your affect will be for each choice? The idea that paper cups are more environmentally friendly than styrofoam is a popular example. LCA are never comprehensive, because you can only go down the chain so far. Once you get past carbon produced by effects 4 or 5 steps removed from your choice, you are dealing with thousands if not millions of little factors.

My last point about other effects of individual action is the infinite number of other ways in which your choice affects the climate other than via carbon dioxide production. Take for example, the creation of other greenhouse gases, the impact on ocean currents, the impact on humidity, the change in surface albedo (adding shiny roof to your house?) These are all just possible pathways off the top of my head. They are all small impact and hard to quantify, but so is carbon.

So we have people like Jverne, who want to maximize their personal health. They make the connection that changing climate will adversely affect their well being. This is another one of those big complex relations. But anyways, the goal of personal well being or well being of people in general becomes the goal of stable climate. Well lower carbon emissions will stabilize the climate right? So the goal of personal well being has been shuttled down to lowering carbon emissions. Now how can your product choices lower carbon emissions? Easy, pick the car with the best mpg right? right? So what is the final impact? How much does that car affect carbon dioxide affect the climate affect your personal well being? Is this really the most significant chain of causation affecting personal well being? Is it even valid? Did that car have other unexplored impacts on carbon production or on the climate? Maybe you didn't actually maximize the environment or your well being. Maybe there are other more direct ways to influence your well being than to go through the climate.

Who states we just can't perceive what our effects on the (local) ecology could be. Which is in theory it's true, however that knowledge keeps increasing daily.
For one thing...2000 years ago the air, water and soil was much cleaner. What is the obvious deduction here Dan?
Could it be that by decreasing mining of lead and burning it in the atmosphere might actually decrease lead in the atmosphere thus reduce heavy metal pollution?
You can either substitute lead with some other element that works for a particular technology or you could just NOT ****ing use something that needs lead to operate.

One thing is for sure...if we moved to a more sustainable economy the growth would decrease. It's just a matter if you're willing to live with that.
For what purpose do you ask? My health, my enjoyment, my well being.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Yo, jverne, when he criticises your argument for lack of specifics perhaps you might do well to get really specific.

I was thinking of population with regards to conserving natural resources such as natural habitats, biodiversity etc. from the effects of increasing agricultural demand rather than oil, CO2 emissions and the like - did I not make that clear? I was aware that the countries with highest population growth tend to produce far less CO2, esp. when you look at it per capita.

Fair enough (neither of my links 404 for me???) but it seems like a similar argument would apply, albeit not so strongly. Surely first world countries consume more of the resources you're talking about than any other. When (for example) the EU is refusing to enforce international fishing borders that would prevent European trawlers from overfishing in Senegalese waters, it's hard to see it as resulting from overpopulation in any of the countries involved. Certainly to say that overpopulation is a contributing factor to famine and starvation would generally be to criticise a man you robbed for not having enough money to sustain the loss.

In any case, how do you go about controlling the population? I can see that in the UK the government could probably enforce a limit on children. But how would you do it where the population is growing fastest? How is it possible?

 

[dfc05]

If you read what I said, I never doubted that a mechanism for human industry affecting climate exists. What I said was that you cannot simply isolate the effect of carbon from a complex system and treat it as the whole story. Scientists have identified one pathway by which carbon dioxide can affect climate, but I doubt that it is the only one. Climate is linked to pretty much everything on the Earth.

My next point, is that the impact of an individual action on carbon production is also a complex system. How do you know what the magnitude of your affect will be for each choice? The idea that paper cups are more environmentally friendly than styrofoam is a popular example. LCA are never comprehensive, because you can only go down the chain so far. Once you get past carbon produced by effects 4 or 5 steps removed from your choice, you are dealing with thousands if not millions of little factors.

My last point about other effects of individual action is the infinite number of other ways in which your choice affects the climate other than via carbon dioxide production. Take for example, the creation of other greenhouse gases, the impact on ocean currents, the impact on humidity, the change in surface albedo (adding shiny roof to your house?) These are all just possible pathways off the top of my head. They are all small impact and hard to quantify, but so is carbon.

So we have people like Jverne, who want to maximize their personal health. They make the connection that changing climate will adversely affect their well being. This is another one of those big complex relations. But anyways, the goal of personal well being or well being of people in general becomes the goal of stable climate. Well lower carbon emissions will stabilize the climate right? So the goal of personal well being has been shuttled down to lowering carbon emissions. Now how can your product choices lower carbon emissions? Easy, pick the car with the best mpg right? right? So what is the final impact? How much does that car affect carbon dioxide affect the climate affect your personal well being? Is this really the most significant chain of causation affecting personal well being? Is it even valid? Did that car have other unexplored impacts on carbon production or on the climate? Maybe you didn't actually maximize the environment or your well being. Maybe there are other more direct ways to influence your well being than to go through the climate.

I agree that other things like methane are worse greenhouse gases than CO2 on a pound basis, and so perhaps we should include how many cows we have . But since CO2 is linked to energy consumption, which is huge, constantly increasing, and a global commonality, that's why it's targeted as the prime suspect rather than for example shiny roofing. I don't think housing or cow farming has increased at the same relative rate as energy consumption. I vaguely remember doing "global warming potential" calculations by multiplying estimated emissions by how much warming each pound of CO2, methane, etc would theoretically produce (e.g. based on testing it in a lab) and its lifetime in the atmosphere. CO2 surpassed everything else because of the quantities being emitted.

I know people like to mock the hockey stick graph, but the increase in temperature over the past decades with the rapid increase in global energy usage was/is a big point for linking CO2 to climate change. I think it's telling that temperatures stayed about steady while people were farming, chopping down trees, constructing buildings, etc, but after major industries and power plants became commonplace (a relatively recent occurrence) and emitting massive quantities of carbon, temperatures started changing. So I'm personally ok with accepting carbon as the primary cause although I can see why you would debate that.

And again I agree that individual actions are hard to quantify and personal product choices are more effective for other issues (like recycling materials). I think purchasing electric cars or getting your electricity from alternative energy sources is more making a statement and creating consumer demand for an energy change (so energy companies will be willing to invest in providing alternative energy), rather than making your own climate impact. To actually change things, we'd have to tax oil and wean ourselves off of coal/fossil fuels for energy. I'm not saying I'd be happy to pay more for gasoline because nobody likes paying more, and I'm pretty sure the majority of people would be pissed about that so those policies will never get implemented. Even a very progressive president wouldn't be able to effect this since we have a thing called Congress.

This is why I said the climate change topic depresses me, because energy and vehicle usage is so ingrained into our assumptions of what we're entitled to have (and so much infrastructure is in place that changing it would be prohibitively difficult) that I can't foresee any optimistic solution to this. This is pretty doom-and-gloom-y, but I think the only time people/governments will actually be willing to modify energy consumption habits is if climate change gets so bad as to cause flooding in developed countries and food shortages. Ice sheets collapsing and Arctic shipping channels being open for longer than usual and 30+-year projections are too far removed to make people care ("climate change" has been showing up in polling as the absolute LAST concern people have, after stupid issues like "immigration"). By the time the problem is bad enough for people to care, it would be unsolvable. D:

 

[jverne]

Yo, jverne, when he criticises your argument for lack of specifics perhaps you might do well to get really specific.

Some examples came up along the way. And i was hoping for people to come up with your own examples that prove the position they took.

Personally i believe some restrictions should be made since not all people are or want to get educated and self control. Some people also can learn by braking laws, as in they learn about the issue when they're breaking that law.
We could talk about illegal dumping grounds, water pollution, use of pesticides, luxuries, habits, resource utilization,...
Basically everything could benefit from a little restriction that might be self imposed or state imposed.
Dan brought the issue up "what and why should we care about?". But his position is that nothing can be argued because of lack of knowledge. What then can i argue about?

 

[jverne]

I agree that other things like methane are worse greenhouse gases than CO2 on a pound basis, and so perhaps we should include how many cows we have . But since CO2 is linked to energy consumption, which is huge, constantly increasing, and a global commonality, that's why it's targeted as the prime suspect rather than for example shiny roofing. I don't think housing or cow farming has increased at the same relative rate as energy consumption. I vaguely remember doing "global warming potential" calculations by multiplying estimated emissions by how much warming each pound of CO2, methane, etc would theoretically produce (e.g. based on testing it in a lab) and its lifetime in the atmosphere. CO2 surpassed everything else because of the quantities being emitted.

I know people like to mock the hockey stick graph, but the increase in temperature over the past decades with the rapid increase in global energy usage was/is a big point for linking CO2 to climate change. I think it's telling that temperatures stayed about steady while people were farming, chopping down trees, constructing buildings, etc, but after major industries and power plants became commonplace (a relatively recent occurrence) and emitting massive quantities of carbon, temperatures started changing. So I'm personally ok with accepting carbon as the primary cause although I can see why you would debate that.

And again I agree that individual actions are hard to quantify and personal product choices are more effective for other issues (like recycling materials). I think purchasing electric cars or getting your electricity from alternative energy sources is more making a statement and creating consumer demand for an energy change (so energy companies will be willing to invest in providing alternative energy), rather than making your own climate impact. To actually change things, we'd have to tax oil and wean ourselves off of coal/fossil fuels for energy. I'm not saying I'd be happy to pay more for gasoline because nobody likes paying more, and I'm pretty sure the majority of people would be pissed about that so those policies will never get implemented. Even a very progressive president wouldn't be able to effect this since we have a thing called Congress.

This is why I said the climate change topic depresses me, because energy and vehicle usage is so ingrained into our assumptions of what we're entitled to have (and so much infrastructure is in place that changing it would be prohibitively difficult) that I can't foresee any optimistic solution to this. This is pretty doom-and-gloom-y, but I think the only time people/governments will actually be willing to modify energy consumption habits is if climate change gets so bad as to cause flooding in developed countries and food shortages. Ice sheets collapsing and Arctic shipping channels being open for longer than usual and 30+-year projections are too far removed to make people care ("climate change" has been showing up in polling as the absolute LAST concern people have, after stupid issues like "immigration"). By the time the problem is bad enough for people to care, it would be unsolvable. D:

Aside from the climate change data you posted, which i don't really focus on.

A major point of this thread is if you'd be willing to live with less luxuries.

 

[dfc05]

Aside from the climate change data you posted, which i don't really focus on.

A major point of this thread is if you'd be willing to live with less luxuries.

Short answer: Yes, I'd be willing to live with less. I don't know if freedoms "should" be restricted but I'm good with regulating industry on resource usage (in a similar fashion to regulating industry on toxic emissions), and charging people money for being overly wasteful (e.g. some places make you pay a higher cost per gallon for water if you use way more than the average person).

 

[Solaris]

"Argument your answer" - OP

???

 

[Eejit]

I was thinking more of the near(ish) to long(ish)-term future than the current state of affairs with food production Sulk, as population continues to grow and available arable land continues to shrink. It's something of a perfect storm, particularly if fossil fuel production drops during the same period without us having a viable alternative for automobiles - a hell of a lot of oil is used in intensive agriculture let alone distribution of food.

In any case, how do you go about controlling the population? I can see that in the UK the government could probably enforce a limit on children. But how would you do it where the population is growing fastest? How is it possible?

I've heard various proposals, from the draconian to the moderate.
The one that appeals to me most in principle is the suggestion that every woman of childbearing age in the world is paid ~$20 per month if they don't have a child, dropping to ~$10 after one child and 0 after two. Apparently with those numbers the programme would cost less per year worldwide than the war in afghanistan. Presumably with committment the numbers could be adjusted as seen fit.
The benefit of this approach is that you're not trying to enforce a limit on population growth, but merely rewarding the lack of growth while at the same time helping single child families to support their offspring with better healthcare and education. This would be particularly effective in the poorer countries where population growth is typically higher to begin with.

 

[jverne]

"Argument your answer" - OP

???

Why you voted for a particular answer and if you want post some examples that support your decision.



As for freedom...this has a wide range, freedom to buy, act, have. Too much to name every little combination. If you don't know post an extreme example you wouldn't like or give a mild one you'd be content with. I don't know...let's say limit on MPG or something...just use your imagination.

 

[Bad^Hat]

You know, this thread is a nice allegory for jverne himself. We only have so much forum space, you know.

Sorry if this has been pointed out I don't read jverne's threads any more.

 

[jverne]

Ok this turned out a complete shitfest. Mods close the thread

 

[Sulkdodds]

I've heard various proposals, from the draconian to the moderate.
The one that appeals to me most in principle is the suggestion that every woman of childbearing age in the world is paid ~$20 per month if they don't have a child, dropping to ~$10 after one child and 0 after two. Apparently with those numbers the programme would cost less per year worldwide than the war in afghanistan. Presumably with committment the numbers could be adjusted as seen fit.
The benefit of this approach is that you're not trying to enforce a limit on population growth, but merely rewarding the lack of growth while at the same time helping single child families to support their offspring with better healthcare and education. This would be particularly effective in the poorer countries where population growth is typically higher to begin with.

This actually seems pretty clever. Walking back from a lecture today I was thinking of how large families in the developing world might be motivated by poverty (ie more people to work for the family) and high mortality rates (more chance of at least one kid living). Actually paying people to have fewer children would at least address the first one. Obviously the best way to lower total fertility would be to make the world a better place, but if you think fertility is such an impediment to that then it's rather a Catch-22.

This does open up the way for a whole range of revolutionary policies. I mean, it would cost far less than the total wars since 2001 just to pay seven billion people a thousand dollars a year. I wonder if it might ever actually work as an instrument for the improvement of the world if you just selectively bribed people?

Ok this turned out a complete shitfest. Mods close the thread

No, shut up. This is still interesting. You're the only one getting incy, and only when people happen to insult you.

 

[Solaris]

That's a ****ing awesome idea. What if, instead of invading Iraq, we had said if they removed Sadamn and became a democracy, we would give every man woman and child £1000 a year.

We could have carpet bombed money on them to prove we were serious.

 

[Maestro]

The irony here is the OP has given some of the least specific answers.

 

[dfc05]

I was thinking more of the near(ish) to long(ish)-term future than the current state of affairs with food production Sulk, as population continues to grow and available arable land continues to shrink. It's something of a perfect storm, particularly if fossil fuel production drops during the same period without us having a viable alternative for automobiles - a hell of a lot of oil is used in intensive agriculture let alone distribution of food.



I've heard various proposals, from the draconian to the moderate.
The one that appeals to me most in principle is the suggestion that every woman of childbearing age in the world is paid ~$20 per month if they don't have a child, dropping to ~$10 after one child and 0 after two. Apparently with those numbers the programme would cost less per year worldwide than the war in afghanistan. Presumably with committment the numbers could be adjusted as seen fit.
The benefit of this approach is that you're not trying to enforce a limit on population growth, but merely rewarding the lack of growth while at the same time helping single child families to support their offspring with better healthcare and education. This would be particularly effective in the poorer countries where population growth is typically higher to begin with.

I think it'd have to be significantly more than $20/month. People that really want children (e.g. not accidentally getting preggo) will have children regardless. And for the rest of folks, $20/month isn't all that significant. Minimum wage can get you $20 in ~2-3 hours of work. The only people that might go for it are maybe the people that go on "Who's the baby daddy" episodes of Maury, and those people are probably too dumb to prevent themselves from getting pregnant anyways. Also it's a little unfair that only half the population gets free money.

Charging people to have kids on the other hand.... would be effective but nobody would accept that .

 

[Sulkdodds]

Maybe, but I think he was talking about the developing world, mostly. Twenty dollars might mean more there than in the USofA?

 

[dfc05]

Maybe, but I think he was talking about the developing world, mostly. Twenty dollars might mean more there than in the USofA?

That makes sense, although then it looks like we're taking advantage of them or meddling or just being rude, as in "you guys are making too many babies, let's throw money at you to make it stop." Also, babies would probably start disappearing, like when China had their one-child policy and everyone only wanted a boy, so they got rid of their girls.

 

[PvtRyan]

This is why I said the climate change topic depresses me, because energy and vehicle usage is so ingrained into our assumptions of what we're entitled to have (and so much infrastructure is in place that changing it would be prohibitively difficult) that I can't foresee any optimistic solution to this. This is pretty doom-and-gloom-y, but I think the only time people/governments will actually be willing to modify energy consumption habits is if climate change gets so bad as to cause flooding in developed countries and food shortages. Ice sheets collapsing and Arctic shipping channels being open for longer than usual and 30+-year projections are too far removed to make people care ("climate change" has been showing up in polling as the absolute LAST concern people have, after stupid issues like "immigration"). By the time the problem is bad enough for people to care, it would be unsolvable. D:

We don't need to change habits. This can ONLY be solved by technology and correct appliance of technology.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

We should but are too lazy to change habits. This can ONLY be solved by technology and correct appliance of technology when we get our heads out of our asses and actually implement them, they already exist.

Fixed.

 

[lord_raken]

I'm against anyone taking my ability to chose what I do, buy exe. asl long as my actions don't directly violate another's right then I should be allowed to do it.

That being said I try to make informed decisions that make my consumption of resources more efficient.

If a resource is in danger of being depleted or needs protecting then it should be protected, but not by issuing ration cards or preventing citizens and companies from using them. Make a law damnit!

Not all resources have to be destroyed to be of use. National and State Parks are valuable both culturally and environmentally. They should be protected. There should be laws that dictated proper drilling methods for oil and gas (we have a bunch of those already). I'm fine with protecting what we have and making sure they are used well, but if ANYONE trys to say "oh, you can't buy that." or "you've used your allotted amount for the month." I'll say "F**K YOU, I have the money to pay, get out of my way commie."