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jan21405 at 00:15 AM on 23 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Carbon Neutral, especially in China, is a dream.
With the current approach, RES technologies, speed of replacement of fossil fuel energy produced to the RES or Nuclear it will take more than 50y from now (in the best scenario).
But China would have to accelerate RES capacity building significantly. However, no one considers the deterioration of conditions, which are limiting for the RES. For example, there will be less solar capacity if there is more precipitation. Furthermore, no one considers how the current YtY growth in energy consumption (only in China) will cause there to generate twice as much energy in 2050 as is needed in 2021. I have seen a few Chinese "scientific" studies that are virtually impossible. For example, here is my analysis of such approach:
[link]
Unless we know how to "solve" China, we can put all the plans in the trash. But China does not have a headache. So who will push them UN, G7, G20?
Here I have discussed several possible development scenarios for the China energy sector:
[link]
And here is the simplified version:
[link]
There is one option that no one will like - to freeze and reduce energy production growth in China. But it will hurt everyone.
Moderator Response:[BL] Links inserted and shortened to prevent page formatting issues.
The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.
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Evan at 22:35 PM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Eric (skeptic)@7
"Seems rather obvious to me that decreasing ambient CO2 is inevitable after stopping the rise."
I don't think any of this is inevitable. We will only solve the climate crisis through shear willpower. You are referring to carbon from the energy sector, but agricultural emissions are more difficult to zero out, and will likely require negative emission technologies (NET) to do that. Although some of the NET systems represent modified agricultural practices that may represent win/win scenarios, much of the NET systems will represent a pure tax. And we know how people respond to increasing taxes.
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Eric (skeptic) at 20:48 PM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
The idea that emerges is more like, because we have wind turbines and solar panels, with the wave of a hand we can easily switch from fossil fuels to renewables.
I don't think wind turbines owe much to science. As an engineer I much prefer solid state power for which we need more science. China as one example puts a lot of money into science such as solar fuel catalysts. Those promise not just carbon neutral fuel, but solar energy storage and eventual sequestration.
This path shown in Table 1 leaves us with 450 ppm CO2 in 2050, sufficient to take us to 2°C warming, if we don't get CO2 to start decreasing at that point.
Seems rather obvious to me that decreasing ambient CO2 is inevitable after stopping the rise. I agree stopping the rise by 2050 is very challenging, but probably only by a decade or two. Along with your fig 4 you should show cost per watt ($3 when I bought my first panel to 50 cents today), efficiency (approaching 50% in the labs), etc.
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jan21405 at 20:38 PM on 22 March 2022Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Gents, as a fan of your site, I have some additional points to this discussion:
1. Be careful when using data from a source Our World in Data. I found many discrepancies there.
2. Same regarding data from FAO/FAOSTAT. In my last study, you can find exact pieces of evidence.
3. Based on my last communication with EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, EU JRC), I discovered that binding differences in outputs arise due to insufficient taxonomy data in their EDGAR DBs. Not to mention that their data are still necessary to be paired on LULUCF from FAOSTAT data sources (which, as I explained above, is in a catastrophic state). However, unlike the FAO, they thanked for the proposed adjustments that give them a sense of data quality.
4. Regarding the impact of animal agriculture on the total emissions, even in the case of the Food systems, I discovered several serious shortcomings from the FAO.
I like vegetables, even containing a lot more share on my plate, to be sure. However, I also like reliable data. I also like the interpretation of the data in a broader context.
To prove what was written by me, you can check my last document:[link]
I would like to read your opinions, respectively. I will be happy to help you edit your article.
I think that too much meat production is being created unnecessarily. Sure. This does not mean that tackling climate change through extremism is right. Not all meat source is produced as it is made from various extreme videos. It's like a dream when someone thinks we can replace fossil fuels with RESs by 2050 - no, we're not (with current technologies and the G7/G20 approach). If we are looking for useful and long term sustainable solutions for this planet, we will be on the right track.
Moderator Response:[BL] long link activated.
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Evan at 20:29 PM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
anticorncob6 @4
Thank you for your thoughts. I am trying hard not to write as a pessimist, but to help people see the true scope of the problem so that we can prescribe effective solutions. Getting to net zero will be tough, and we need to prepare for that. Whether or not we achieve net zero by 2050, we need to push to achieve that as close as possible and as fast as possible.
"Also, am I interpreting you correctly that if all carbon emissions ended right now, we'd still get to 1.7C? If so, where do you get that?"
This is tricky. If we ended all carbon emissions now, we would stabilize at something like 1.1C. But if we stabilize CO2 at something like 420 ppm and it does not drop, then we eventually warm to something like 1.7C. This is due to the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), which the IPCC estimates as being in the range of 2.5 to 4C increase for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. A common value used for ECS is 3C/doubling CO2. In Analogy 4 I show measured temperature and CO2 data that exhibits this ECS = 3C/doubling CO2.
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Wol at 20:10 PM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Congratulations!
At last: a piece in an influential science-based outlet that doesn't skirt around, or ignore, the fundamental problem which is there are too many of us, and more by the second.
I've seen all sorts of arguments from all sorts of people attempting to play down the population issue, none of which make sense.
We are all familiar with arithmetic v exponential growth. It really is as simple as that. All living systems find equilibrium within their niches - except us: our technology has enabled us to outwit the exponential v arithmetic equation. Except that it hasn't. What it HAS done is enable us to extract from a limited - if large - natural capital of energy and raw materials to APPEAR to have done it, and now the end game is in full view. It's not just CO2, or energy generally - it's everything. There are just too many of us even if starting from a full bowl and not from the point where we have already used a large amount from the bowl.
It's not easy being optimistic today: I'm just glad to be eighty this year and with no children to worry about.
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Eclectic at 14:17 PM on 22 March 2022The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
David-acct @4 : you should delve more. Your examples are not good.
Your example of misinformation [vaccine causing autism] was reasonably quickly debunked scientifically . . . yet here we are, nigh on 20 years later, with a significant slice of the population still believing it (or at least, feeling very uneasy & hesitant about the measles vaccine). And there is a multiplying effect ~ FUD breeds more FUD . . . perhaps analogous to a nuclear fission reactor core. It spills over into other vaccines : and has all gotten worse, thanks in part to flaky celebrities and venal "influencers". And it poisons the scientific well in other areas too.
David, you are living in the past, if you hold to "zero-censorship" ideals. The modern world is different to the pre-internet world which you seem to base your ideals on.
For a pictuesque analogy : the wood-fire of yesterday's communication systems (with some natural tendency to extinguishment) has become today's nuclear reactor, owing to the perversity and imperfections of the human psyche. Nowadays we very much need to use Control Rods to damp down the extensive misinformation (from ignorance) and the disinformation (from malice).
You can call it censorship, or name it some better-sounding term ~ but the underlying need, whether it's a nuclear fission reactor or a living organic cell, is for negative-feedback control mechanisms to sustain things in a healthy range.
Either zero-censorship or total censorship [which is an impossibility] . . . they are both dangerous extremes to aim for. They are both incompatible with a healthy society. ~ Please avoid doctrinaire ideologies, and aim for the middle path !
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anticorncob6 at 12:48 PM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
You made an excellent case for climate pessimism. I've also been a climate pessimist since 2015; it was the Vox articles "the awful truth about climate change no one wants to admit" and "7 reasons america will fail on climate change" that convinced me.
Like the author of 7 reasons (as well as ~99% of climate pessimists), I would be deeply grateful to anyone who could convince me I'm wrong. Non-pessimists have given me information that we're making progress, and I simply keep pointing out that emissions are still increasing, so what's happening isn't enough. This article does a great job of explaining why those statistics are highly misleading, so I can refer here when I need to without simply repeatedly pointing back to the same fact.
I agree with you on overpopulation, and am infuriated with people who think there's a low birth rate crisis and people need to have more kids. The simple fact is, fewer people means fewer emissions. We certainly could sustain 8 billion people if we chose to live more sustainably, but there's no sign of that happening, so not having children is the best choice. Plus, even if we do collectively wake up about this crisis and act, fewer people will help reach our goals.
Also, am I interpreting you correctly that if all carbon emissions ended right now, we'd still get to 1.7C? If so, where do you get that?
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David-acct at 12:26 PM on 22 March 2022The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
As I have previously stated, attempts to censor "misinformation " or "disinformation " if far more detrimental to the free exchange of ideas along with the advancement of knowledge. If what is stated is truly "disinformation, it will quickly be determined to be false. A good example is the lancet study that showed vaccines cause autism. That disinformation was quickly discovered to be false. If the statements are truly false, the free exchange of information will expose the misinformation for what it is.
Both sides of the political spectrum are purveyors of false information. I dont know how bad Faux news is since I dont listen to or read Fox/Faux, though though I can say many of the mainstream pervades in misinformation.
Granted there is large amounts of misinformation regarding climate science, yet bad information will eventually sink to the bottom with solid evidence.
Nigel posted the link to the NPR , though NPR is one of the worst offenders of misinformation. A few examples of NPR's misinformation include 1) during Trumps first well deserved impeachment, nary a word was mentioned of Hunters involvement in corruption, 2) during april 2020 NPR ran numerous stories on the "impossibility" of a lab leak, which 20 months later we know as the most likely source 3) During Sept & Oct 2020, npr ran numerous stories on Hunter's laptop as being russian disinformation though the NYT now admits was actually Hunters laptop
My apologies for delving outside climate science for examples. I am just pointing out that both sides of the political spectrum are heavily invested in disinformation. The obvious risk is allowing one side of the political spectrum to decide what to censor.
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Evan at 11:15 AM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
MA Rodger@2 thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.
I agree that Net Zero as defined by the leading authorities means net zero emissions by 2050, which would cause CO2 cocnentrations to drop well before then. I also understand net zero emissions is an aspiration. There is no way to ensure this is enforced. It is merely a goal.
Hence, what I am presenting is actually much easier than that, and yet Fig. 5 and Table 1 clearly show the great effort required to meet this "easier" goal. If we were to achieve anything like what is shown in Table 1 it would be a great accomplishment.
So I accept your correction to my use of the term "net zero", but maintain that what I show in Table 1 is sufficiently close to what we need to achieve, is much easier to comprehend and remember, and itself represents a near miracle if we achieve it.
As far as population, let's just leave it that you and I disagree. Every person is a carbon emitter. Even if you remove the top 10% of carbon emitters, responsible for 50% of emissions, we still have a climate crisis. So we are splitting hairs, because halving our emissions won't get us anywhere near where we need to be.
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MA Rodger at 10:58 AM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
I cannot agree with the notion set out by the OP that "accelerating" AGW is being driven by the rise in global population.
Firstly, yes, the global population is increasing, presently at 80 millions per year, and the population & CO2 emissions rises are very similar, but the societies with rising population are not the major contributors to the emissions rises. There is thus no viable connection between population & CO2 emissions.
Secondly, what is meant by the idea that AGW is "accelerating" does need to be nailed down before it is presented in such an analogy.I do agree with the general view that there is a disconnect between the science and the real-world policies to mitigate AGW.
There certainly is a "don't scare the horses" agenda being propagated by politicians. (Or perhaps it is the civil servants that advise dumb politicians who are doing the propagating.) The idea that we can scale up renewables to achieve a 50% cut in GHGs by 2030 and 100% cut in CO2 by 2050 is not practical given the present efforts to achieve it.
I am from UK whose ruling politicians are not-so-long-ago climate-change-deniers. They delight in telling the world how we have cut our emissions by a world-beating 40% since 1990. Ignoring the significant exporting of emissions through the period since 1990 that allowed the 40% cut to be achieved, we are still (2020 data) at 32M toe non-fossil-fuels primary energy production, a value that hasn't moved since 2017. (See DUKES 2021 datasets) So no sign of any actions to address any looming climate emergency. Instead we get bonkers Boris and his world-beating nonsense.
So I generally agree with the message the OP is hoping to provide, but am not at all happy with the analogies.I would also point to errors in the portrayal of "net zero". The zero is about CO2 emissions and not about atmospheric concentrations. The scenario SSP1-1.9 hits net zero emissions by 2050 but atmospheric ppms peak and begin the drop from 2040 (at 440ppm according to Meinshausen et al 2020).
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:17 AM on 22 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Thank you for providing another thought provoking presentation.
I will share more thoughts after pondering the entire presentation further.
But my initial thought is that the root of the problem can be better understood by evaluating:
- What if the global population was not still growing?
- What if the developing poorer portion of a global total of 8 billion people continued to aspire to develop to live like the supposedly 'more advanced - higher status' portion of the population did/do?
- What if the higher status people continued to live 'more' harmfully rather than all competing to set better example of living in ways that are less harmful and more helpful to others?
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:31 AM on 22 March 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
The following recent NPR items are like The Atlantic item "We Need to Tell People Their Houses Are Going to Burn". They are about severe flooding events affecting already built parts of the USA. They are stories that are likely mirrored around the world.
Rebuild or leave? In a flood-prone Tennessee town, one family must decide
This school wasn't built for the new climate reality. Yours may not be either
What they have in common is long standing developed features that have been severely damaged by intense unprecedented recent flooding. As a result, the developed items and locations are being understood to be at serious risk of future severe flooding, but without certainty about how severe. And what they also have in common is the belief that the solution is 'building what is hoped to withstand the future events or building what are hoped to be adequate regional flood mitigation measures' rather than 'abandoning the locations that are at risk of being severely flooded in the future'.
As a Civil engineer I am painfully aware that without certainty regarding the future magnitude of human climate change impacts it is less likely that climate forecasts can be developed to establish a conservative certainty regarding the changed climate conditions that need to be designed for.
Even if climate change impacts are limited to 1.5C, or peak slightly higher then are rapidly brought back down to 1.5C, it is difficult to establish conservative future design requirements (especially when the cost of more conservative requirements is argued against by people hoping to save money or save part of the developed status quo). And if the impacts peak at 2C or higher it is even less certain what the required conservative design conditions would be.
Abandoning areas at risk of future flooding, based on a very conservative evaluation of flood risk, would develop things that would survive far into the future with less risk of disruption or repair costs. That would build lasting improvements, rather than hoping to save money by building something that is hoped to be good enough based on not really having much understanding about what the future will be like.
The real story is that the real problem is that the short term benefits of being increasingly harmful to the future generations are too hard for those currently living to give up. It is even harder for caring people to have the power to 'motivate (force)' the people benefiting the most harmfully to give up their harmful unsustainable developed pursuits of 'more'.
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Eclectic at 20:19 PM on 20 March 2022Models are unreliable
BaerbelW @1301 - thank you for adding the latest Potholer54 video to the bottom of the article "Which is a more reliable measure" [linked @1301]. Potholer54's video is 20 minutes long, and (unusually for him) contains only a few humorous remarks.
But I think it is a neat summary of of Dr Spencer's ongoing error-making in measuring AGW's increase ~ and shows how Spencer has gradually changed from a scientific black sheep, into merely a dark gray sheep.
Potholer54 puts Spencer's history into perspective ~ and I find the PH54 videos a very useful source for arguments against denialists. And always useful to be able to quote Spencer's own evidence against denialists !
Noteworthy :- Potholer54's new video has scored 22,000 views in its first 24 hours.
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Eclectic at 20:06 PM on 20 March 2022Models are unreliable
Bob Loblaw @1302 - thank you. It is a while since I looked at the background info on Dr Roy Spencer. The SkS info on him is from 2012, and the Desmog info goes up to 2017. ( I do see Spencer's UAH monthly chart always gets featured on the WUWT blogsite, and draws many comments of a vacuous sort. Other global temperature charts get little mention there . . . and oceanic warming is almost tabu. )
Spencer has to keep backstepping from his original position of total AGW denial (including the "minimal warming" assertion). And he has stepped even further back since 2017, and is now admitting (quietly) that it is possible the majority of modern warming comes from manmade GH gasses.
No such admission from that other celebrated contrarian climatologist Dr Judith Curry. On her blog [ClimateEtc] her latest article, posted 17 March, titled: "A 'Plan B' for addressing climate change" . . . is classic Curry vagueness. The reader risks almost drowning in discursive verbiage ~ which in essence kind of boils down to: We should be doing nothing to counteract Global Warming because it is all too difficult (and too mild) and should probably be given a priority way, way below all the other problems that we face in this world. (And of course we cannot tackle more than one problem at a time.)
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Bob Loblaw at 04:50 AM on 20 March 2022Models are unreliable
Although it does not have a place for comments or responses, readers of this discussion who are curious about Roy Spencer's work may also wish to read the information on this page:
https://skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Roy_Spencer.htm
As usual, Desmog also tracks him:
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BaerbelW at 00:24 AM on 20 March 2022Models are unreliable
@Eclectic #1300
The argument answering the question "Which is a more reliable measure of global temperature: thermometers or satellites?" is a better fit for Peter Hadfield's latest video. Which is why I added it as a "further viewing" note at the bottom just now.
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Eclectic at 22:55 PM on 19 March 2022Models are unreliable
Out today ~ date 19 March 2022 ~ a new YouTube video
by science journalist PotHoler54
Describing multiple errors with Dr Roy Spencer's [Christy and Spencer] UAH satellite system's tropospheric temperature measurements, errors made over several decades.
In short : Spencer's predictions wrong, and model predictions right.
Not exactly news ~ except I myself had not realised how greatly Spencer's fundamentalist religious beliefs had given a severe bias to his thinking.
(Moderator ~ I'm not sure if there is a better thread for this post.)
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One Planet Only Forever at 11:25 AM on 18 March 2022The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
nigelj, Thanks for helping with the link.
It is tragic that so much effort is required to try to clean up the messes of harmful misunderstanding that are created by politically motivated marketers.
The SkS team are very helpful, especially with the generalized presentation on this poster. It helps on many 'misleading marketing fronts', not just the climate science issues.
A related reference if you are interested in the gory details of advertising standards is the International Council for Ad Self-Regulation. The following is linked (hopefully) to the ICAS Advertising Standards web page which opens with the following:
"Self-regulatory Advertising Standards and Codes exist to ensure that advertisements and all forms of marketing communications are prepared with a due sense of social responsibility. Among the basic principles incorporated in ad standards worldwide are the fact that ads should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Moreover, ads should conform to the principles of fair competition, as generally accepted in business."
Imagine that ethical standard actually being honoured by all politically motivated marketers.
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nigelj at 05:45 AM on 18 March 2022The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
OPOF @1 good news item, but the link doesn't work. Found the article here:
www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087047638/the-truth-in-political-advertising-youre-allowed-to-lie
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:21 AM on 18 March 2022The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
This is indeed helpful. And tragically, more helpful items like this are likely to need to be constantly repeated as a reminder to people because, as this NPR News item nicely summarizes in its headline, "The truth in political advertising: 'You're allowed to lie'"
Moderator Response:[BL] Link fixed, based on following comment.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:24 AM on 17 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Recent leadership actions in Texas and other parts of the USA (NPR News item - Texas and other states want to 'boycott' fossil fuel divestment) are examples of why Figure 2 is what it is.
These types of actions through the past 30 years are why the required correction of developed activity is now so large and needs to be so rapid. These ‘legal efforts’, and the recent repost in SkS of Supreme Court hears case on EPA GHGs regulation, are further evidence supporting many of the points I make in my comment @86:
- Undeserving people try to avoid suffering loss of status by prolonging harmful misunderstanding that excuses their harmful pursuits of benefit.
- Legal power is abused to create harmful laws and push for harmful legal decisions.
- Bad exampes are set by many wealthy and powerful people
Those types of actions by supposedly more advanced people clearly set bad examples for people who are pursuing improved lives. Many of those hoping for a better life incorrectly aspire to develop to match the harmful examples that have been set. And harmful powerful and wealthy people in developing nations learn from bad examples set in the supposedly more advanced nations.
A related point is that helpful action, like renewable power built in Texas, does not off-set the harm done by Texas leadership. Harm is not to be masked by claims of ‘deserving credit for appearing to be helpful’. It is incorrect to do a utilitarian style overall evaluation of help and harm, especially when one group is helped to do more harm to others.
Harmful resistance to learning to be less harmful and more helpful, especially by many among the rich and powerful, is a major root of the problem. The ‘successes’ of those type of people through the past 30 years have made the required correction larger and more rapid. And some of them did succeed in not experiencing the losses of status associated with the required correction in their lifetime. Their success made the current day challenge worse than it needed to be.
Tragically, the cycle of harm continues. Many people today have developed the same harmful misunderstanding fuelled hope. They hope to be able to make the problem worse for others, including the future generations. They do not care how much harm is done to Others, including not caring about a more significant and rapid correction happening in the future in places like Texas, or Alberta. They hope they will not suffer the consequences of their resistance to learning to be less harmful. But they also promote the misleading claim that people who are less harmful than they are must not be allowed to develop to be like them, even though the bad examples they set can clearly encourage others to aspire to develop to be like them, just like today's leaders in places like Texas continue to try to set the examples of how to be as harmful as possible.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:47 AM on 16 March 2022Models are unreliable
Oldengine,
I very much understand how you feel. I used to teach the weather and weather data sessions in the groundschool part of a pilot training program. Back then, CO2 content was still around 300ppm. The fact that it increased to 400 is a geological scale event that happened in a geological blink of an eye. There is no natural explanation for this whatsoever.
The reason why this thread is so long and convoluted is the never-ending insistence of some to protect the power of certain industries. In that effort, they deploy an infinity of vacuous arguments, all of which have to be dismissed meticulously by the reality based crowd. Meanwhile, they have no problem remaining free of the very strict standards they demand of others, with arguments ranging from grotesque as shown by basic physics, to downright mendacious. They seldom, if ever, argue in good faith.
I actually trend to agree on many of your points. I hope the reactor being built in Wyoming will pan out and show itself as a viable tool. The efforts toward fusion energy should increased tenfold. Coal burning on an industrial scale should be phased out as quickly as possible. Terrestrial transportation should be electrified to the best extent possible. All possible avenues to minimize emissions in agriculture practices should be explored and implemented. Buildings should undergo retrofitting work, new ones should have appropriate certification standards. Fossil fuels use should be reserved to situations where alternatives are not possible or practical, like aviation, which presents unique challenges in terms of weight and energy density, but where efforts to find ways for the future have increased significantly in the past 15 years.
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Oldengine at 03:14 AM on 16 March 2022Models are unreliable
Oldengine is a retired engineer, not a scientist. I love watching scientists argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But this has become tiresome and dangerous. The accuracy of the measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere is "good enough" to take action now. My ASHRAE handbook from 1977 shows the CO2 content of "average air" was less than 300 ppm. Now it's over 400 ppm (+/- whatever).
Don't you all see what you are doing. We (The big "we", as in all humanity) are driving towards a stone wall at more than sixty miles an hour and we are not taking our foot off of the accelerator. It doesn't matter if the speedometer is calibrated in MPH or furlongs per fortnight. It doesn't matter if we are actually going 58 mph or 62 mph. We have to step on the brake now. Paralysis by analysis will result in the end of life as we know it.
FYI - I think we should be building 500 thorium salt fueled nuclear reactors (50 to 100 MW each) right now and ordering another 500 tomorrow.
Oldengine
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:55 AM on 15 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
I agree with the Moderator's comment on my post @85.
Only the second paragraph of my comment departs from the OP topic of the need for rapid required corrections of developed activity and development activity.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:19 AM on 15 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Here is my response to what swampfoxh wrote @74 (in the context of other responses and all the other comments on this thought provoking OP).
Regarding animal agriculture, I support corrections of all food production, distribution, and consumption aligned with the understanding that harmful unsustainable ways of food production need to be ended. It is especially important to correct the developed types of production and consumption that have already caused phosphorous and nitrogen impacts to exceed safe planetary boundaries (see Planetary Boundaries). It is also important to limit waste and ensure that all people receive at least basic decent nutrition, preferably from maximized local food production (refer to the compendium of climate impact related solutions presented in Project Drawdown).
Upon reflection it appears that serious important questions are raised by the way that swampfoxh chose to try to focus attention on the matter Rights (in spite of the content of my first comment on this topic @3, and all subsequent comments).
The (sort of) quick response is:
Fossil fuelled development can produce perceptions of prosperity and superiority. And the competitive for pursuit of higher status (admiring and aspiring to be like the highest status) can develop harmful misunderstandings in attempts to develop and prolong harmful activity. Undeserved status would be lost by a correction of what has developed and a correction of the direction of development (away from fossil fuel use).
A correction to limit the harm of climate change impacts will cause loss of developed status. The more rapid the correction, the more significant the losses will be. And it now appears, based on Figure 2, that significant losses will have to happen in the remaining lifetime of many people who fought to delay the correction. Their fight against change, their fight against correction of harmful developed misunderstandings, has created the need for more rapid correction. That has motivated increased resistance to learning in people who would prefer to have the losses happen to Others, especially the future generations who have no influence today. They make excuses that the future will always be better for everyone. And they make related demands that they not suffer any loss of their status relative to others due to required corrections, claiming things like ‘everybody’s perception of prosperity needs to constantly improve fro the current developed starting point, like a marathon racer who wants to start 20 miles into the race, because that is where they are when the race starts.
Rights are an ethical matter that gets harmfully compromised by political game players. The harmful socioeconomic game players who have significant political influence can become the least ethical people, using the power of misleading marketing to promote and prolong harmful misunderstanding.
Poverty in the midst of Plenty is the result of systems that create cases of people who do not deserve the circumstances they experience. Many of the lower status do not deserve their lower status. And many of the higher status do not deserve their higher status.
A different response is:
It is a misunderstanding to believe that people who were less able to develop the more harmful, less sustainable, fossil fuelled ways of living (mistakenly perceived to be more advanced or superior) have ‘missed the bus’. It is also unacceptable to declare that the people enjoying the ride on the ‘harm-full bus’ must not have their level of enjoyment limited or governed externally by others. It is not right to declare that the ones on the ‘Harm-Full Bus’ have the right to be more harmful than Others. And it is not right to declare than others cannot develop to harmfully joy-ride like the ones already on the ‘Harm-Full Bus’.
And helpful people should not have to try to undo or repair the harm done by people on the ‘harm-full bus’. However, until the Harm-Full Party Bus is safely kept from harmfully compromising leadership actions, all possible helpful hands are required to build the power to limit the harm done - no more bystanders or people ‘just focused on the science’, because those type of people are part of the harm problem by not being as helpful as they could be.
Competitors who are willing to try to benefit from something harmful that others may not notice as harmful (like sports cheaters) or try to benefit from a harmful misunderstanding (including unethical rules or unethical enforcement of rules) can mistakenly develop the belief that ‘everyone is like they are’. That can create a mind-set that can be easily tempted to spiral down into more harmful misunderstanding.
Less fortunate people have more excuse for being less aware of how to avoid being harmful to others. More fortunate people have less excuse. And the legitimacy of the highest status, like the wealthiest 10%, should be evaluated based on the understanding that they all have ‘little excuse for maintaining harmful misunderstandings’.
Disclosure: I have lived for decades in Alberta, a major region of origin of harmful fossil fuelled misunderstanding. I have tried to be less harmful, engineering was a good fit for that, and more helpful to others (a diversity of volunteer activities are part of that). My abilities, combined with those focuses, appear to have enabled me to rise into the top 10% of income earners in Alberta. I may have been able to achieved a higher status, but I was not interested in compromising my ethical perspective in pursuit of that.
A detailed response regarding my perspective on the issue follows:
Constant learning from a constantly improving ethical perspective is an important part of the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful to others. And that expanded ethical perspective includes consideration for all other life, humans do not stand apart from nature, now and into the future, constantly learning to correct, and make amends for, developed harmful misunderstandings and related actions.
Everyone learns and develops their motives and perspective from the environment they are born into and grow up in. A lack of diversity of experience, including a lack of natural experiences, can develop a harmfully limited perspective. And that developed limited perspective can resist learning how harmful the things that are perceived to be beneficial actually are. Too much focus inside a man-made socioeconomic-political environment of competition for survival and superiority relative to others can develop intensely held harmful misunderstandings.
Ethical fairness of what is being evaluated is determined by considering the system and its results from versions of the following perspective: The system is fair and just if I end up experiencing any of the diversity of individual circumstances that the system could potentially produce (consider the history of European colonial conquest from that perspective, and extend that thinking into the future).
That evaluation justifiably determines that systems that produce poverty in the midst of plenty need correction. It also establishes the understanding that a person who acts in ways that harm others does not deserve credit for helping ‘a different sub-set of others’. A person who ‘helps some people’ in ways that ‘harm other people’ is harmful. And that individual-based understanding can be extended to groups of people. A group or nation is not Collectively Good if some of its members are helpful pursuers of being less harmful while other members of the group or nation pursue benefit in harmful ways.
A fundamental ethical point is understanding that each person born should not have ‘advantages or special rights and privileges’ due to where and when they are born or who their parents and ancestors are. That understanding is often attempted to be denied by the promotion of harmful misunderstandings regarding ‘perceptions of status’ (like believing that a ‘special sub-set of the population’ deserve to be the first and only ones on a bus). A related point is that a person who has attained higher status relative to others by benefiting from harmful actions does not ‘deserve the ability to be harmful because they can afford it or can legally win attempts to penalize them for the harm they benefit from’. Harmful laws and harmful application of laws have been developed, proving that all Rule of Law is not Ethical Law and Order. Harmful laws and enforcement are often developed to defend and excuse harmful people who have become wealthier or more powerful through harmful means.
That context leads to ethical questions of how fair and just it is for someone to declare that:
- They were the first to benefit from a harmful unsustainable activity and therefore must not be corrected, but others who have not developed to live that way must not be allowed to develop to be like that.
- They have developed to be the most harmful pursuer of personal interest and must not be corrected, but others who have not developed to live that way must not be allowed to develop to be like that.
- Because they were born into a group that had developed perceptions of higher status relative to others through actions that are now understood to be harmful and that were/are excused and defended by harmful misunderstandings, they must not be corrected, but others who have not developed to live that way must not be allowed to develop to be like them.
Applying that thinking to climate change impacts, what swampfoxh states @74 can be understood to be arguing for the right to continue to be more harmful than Others are allowed to be.
Applying a different perspective, what swampfoxh argues @74 is no reason for nations like China or India to forego their development. There is lots of coal and oil to burn. It is clearly inexcusable for people in nations with a history of benefiting from harmful actions to demand that they have the exclusive Right to maintain their harmfully obtained benefits, insisting that others who have been less harmful and have less developed ways of living must not develop to be like them.
I will use Canada (representing the Western developed nations), the nation I was born in about 60 years ago and continue to live in, as the example to reinforce the point. The following compares per person emissions from 1960 (World Bank data) between Canada - USA and the BRIC nations. The average atmospheric CO2 levels are provided in brackets to indicate harm already done primarily by western nations (with 280 ppm as the understood level before those impacts:
Yr (ppm) Canada - USA: Brazil – Russia – India - China
1960 (317) 10.8 - 16.0: 0.65 12.1 0.27 1.2
1970 (326) 16.0 - 21.1: 1.0 18.1 0.35 0.94
1980 (339) 18.1 - 20.8: 1.6 25.1 0.45 1.5
1990 (354) 15.1 - 19.4: 1.3 14.6 0.64 1.9
2000 (369) 16.8 - 20.5: 1.8 10.2 0.89 2.6
2010 (389) 15.7 - 17.4: 2.0 11.1 1.4 6.3
2018 (410) 15.5 - 15.2: 2.0 11.1 1.8 7.4 latest World Bank values
2020 (412) Canada 16.8 (= 637 Mt / 38 million): China approx 10 (like Canada was in 1960)There is ample coal and oil for China and India to develop to match the pattern of high emissions per person for 60 years. What is their motivation to not do that? Why wouldn’t they follow the examples set by the more developed nations? The argument by swampfoxh @74 would deservedly be laughed away.
And, revisiting my comments about how averaging things can obscure what needs to be seen, why wouldn’t every region of China and India develop to match what the region of Alberta/Saskatchewan in Canada has currently developed to be? The combined population of Alberta and Saskatchewan is 5.6 million (4.4 + 1.2) with emissions impact rates of 60 tonnes per person (potentially increasing if the rate of extraction and export of fossil fuels, especially Western Canada Select - diluted bitumen - is increased). It is important to note that that high rate of impact does not count the additional harm done outside of Canada to process the exported product into final products for burning. What is exported, WCS, is heavy sour crude. Upgrading it to the quality of other globally traded oil products before export would result in more emissions in Canada (that understanding indicates that the federal government shares the blame with the provincial governments for exporting more harmful products to make Canada’s numbers look better).
I am fairly proud of a lot of actions taken by Canada's leadership on matters of corrections of harmful developed misunderstandings, but not regarding climate change.
Moderator Response:[BL] As was suggested earlier, if people want to discuss veganism and/or agriculture, there are two possible threads here at Skeptical Science that might be more suitable. If you are to comment on those threads, make sure to read the original post, any following comments, and make sure that your comments are on topic.
https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm
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nigelj at 05:54 AM on 14 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Swampfox @80, I believe the climate problem is very serious, but solutions that impoverish the world in the process seem as bad as the climate problem. Poor countries have to be able to put food on the table and meet basic needs ( as per Evans comments) including modern healthcare and this means at least some economic growth for a period. However there is much they can do to reduce their emissions anyway by building wind and solar farms rather than coal fired plant. The costs favour wind and solar anyway. The solution to the climate problem is primarily an energy substitution process, rather than reducing growth. This is the theme of the IPCC reports.
I see that there are problems with industrial agriculture. I think the IPCC mitigation section promotes a "low meat diet". This is not a bad solution all things considered. Some land is only really suitable for grazing.
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Evan at 02:11 AM on 14 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
swampfox@83 "..could be outlawed, "today" because we have an adequate, alternative, suitable and available food supply: Plants. "
Yes, they could be outlawed. But I expect that the move to vegetarian will be a blip and coexist along with the numerous carnivors on our planet. Most people simply want meat.
I agree with your assertion, and this is a large reason why I became vegetarian. I just don't expect people to make this change in numbers large enough to make a difference.
I hope I'm wrong.
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swampfoxh at 01:59 AM on 14 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Evan at 82
One final "short" then I have to go. Animal Agriculture, arguably the largest multifaceted threat to the planet, responsible for a large share of GGEs, deforestation, desertification, eutrophication and acidification of the oceans, massive excessive fresh water use, widespread habitat destruction, wild animal and plant species extinction, land use degradation. various human illnesses from hormones and endocrine disruptors...could be outlawed, "today" because we have an adequate, alternative, suitable and available food supply: Plants. Fossil fuels, burned, essentially affect the balance of gasses in the atmosphere but are not a factor in the above laundry list of damages to the remaining ecosystems.
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Evan at 20:23 PM on 13 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
swampfox@80, absolutely agree there is no time to waste to take action to stabilize the Keeling Curve. I am simply suggesting that we in the developed countries take the lead in cutting emissions and expect that people in developing countries may continue to increase their emissions for a while. For people trying to put food on the table it is a cruel message that they have to cut down. It is also an impossible message. People have a "right" to feed and clothe themselves using the best available methods. If that method involves using fossil fuels, then that is what they need and have a right to do.
But I sense that more to the point this is all an academic discussion. because we are really locked in a 2-front battle: one front is people fighting to maintain their right to consume whatever they want and the other, people fighting for survivial. There is a thin slice of humanity that seems to "get it" and to at least agree to take action. But for all of the positive-sounding polls that indicate people support climate action, in the end, people's voting records seem to hinge more on other social and economic issues.
These comment threads are full of suggestions for what people should do (and I think we are largely in agreement with these conceptual opinions), but what people are actually doing is markedly different.
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swampfoxh at 17:39 PM on 13 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Before I drop the subject of Animal Ag's coextential responsibility with FF for the emissions problem, I declared that AA contributed only a meager 1.5% to the Global Gross Product of Goods and Services. My source was: Bowles, N et al 2019 "The livestock sector..." Published in Ecological Economics 160 PP 128-136
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swampfoxh at 17:28 PM on 13 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Nigelj & Evan
This topic about "rights" could take more time and tolerance on the part of others who post here, so I'd like to just offer another approach. Suppose we drop the "rights" issue and see if we might share common ground on moral duty? We are seeing an inexorable rise in the Keeling curve, the implications being that if we don't put a stop to that, the rich and poor, advantaged and disadvantaged all fall into the abyss together. But, if we First Worlders take the draconian steps to eliminate all of the sources of GGEs as fast as we can, then all of us will be the better for it. Certainly the disadvantaged will suffer, for awhile. But our waiting for the disadvantaged to "catch up" will soon imperil us all. The Keeling curve will rise, inexorably, to the killing point. So "rights" entirely aside, I suspect we really have a moral duty to save the human race, rather than an obligation to honor a "right".
Your view?
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BaerbelW at 07:24 AM on 13 March 2022The Conspiracy Theory Handbook: Downloads and translations
On March 11, we added the Romanian translation of The Conspiracy Theory Handbook thanks to the work of Robert Coravu and Mihai Constantinescu. It is the 15th translation of this handbook!
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nigelj at 06:48 AM on 13 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Swampfox @73.
I should clarify my position a bit. I don't think its feasable that poor countries can have the same standard of living the middle classes in America have (for example) for a range of reasons. I do think they need to be allowed develop decent basic healthcare and education and eliminate dire poverty etcetera. I meant that in the sense that we in western countries cannot expect them to freeze their rates of economic growth at this stage of their development. We cant make them anyway - and I dont think we would have a "right" to force them to stop growth. They are sovereign countries. At most be could encourage them to slow their rates of growth down once they have developed the basics better.
The question of whether people have rights to a mimimum basic standard of living and this be payed for by "other people" of better means seems like a separate thing. Western countries already do this for their own populations with things like minimum wages, government financial support for very poor people, and the unemployed or as Evan points out even prisoners get the basics these days. I'm generally ok with such provisions, as long as we just provide for a basic minimum level.
I agree whether we do such things is ultimately an opinion and there is no satisfactory clear cut philosophical answer. However the vast majority of people appear to support such an approach, and if you don't agree with the community consensus on the issue, you always lobby for change, or vote for a very small government leaning party, and you have the choice of going and living in another country that takes a different approach and gives no governmnet support to anyone. This may seem harsh, but life is harsh, as you allude to yourself.
I've read some of the Greek philosophers and modern philosophers on such issues.
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Evan at 05:29 AM on 13 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
I should have written my previous comment not that people "are provided with some minimum levels of nutrition, health, and lodging," but rather that we should allow disadvantaged people to use fossil fuels to pursue some minimum level of nutrition, health, and lodging, longer than people in developed countries are allowed to use fossil fuels to pursue these goals. I am not an expert in this area nor have I given it a lot of thought, but it just seems that we should make allowance for people who are really struggling to make ends meet.
Sure wish we could edit our posts. :-)
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Evan at 03:40 AM on 13 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
swampfoxh@76, something doesn't feel quite right. We seemingly know how to provide minimum standards for incarcerated persons, so it seems that similar standards could be used for all people. Incarcerated persons are not provided cars nor houses, but they are provided with some minimum levels of nutrition, health, and lodging.
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swampfoxh at 03:05 AM on 13 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
Evan @ 75
No. There is no minimum standard that lies outside a subjective evaluation normally made by human committees. Amazonian natives live in huts, billionaires live in mansions. The only way you can obtain a "minimum standard" is to seize the reins of government and enforce (effectively at gunpoint) that minimum standard (whatever it is). Moreover, "minimum standards" are usually set by the committees that have the least stake in the decision, or if the affected parties are allowed to participate, their solutions will encroach upon the interests of those whom are not the target group affected by the proposed "minimum standard".
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Evan at 21:57 PM on 12 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
swampfoxh@73, is there some minimum living standard to which you feel all people have the right to pull themselves up to? Such as minimum standards for food, clothing, and housing?
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swampfoxh at 12:49 PM on 12 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
As to the issue regarding the Reference catalog I offered the monitor/Skep/Sci, I did not mean to imply that its contents be held in confidence. I just did not want the 30 page document in its entirely broadcasted to others. Certainly, every single reference can be found most anywhere because they are published works. The convenience of having these references in one document is of significant value and each of you can probably appreciate that putting together such a comprehensive catalog is no easy task. We should have the study's peer review completed by mid summer, so I shall refrain from criticizing Industrial Animal Agriculture until then.
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swampfoxh at 12:31 PM on 12 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
This has been the longest chat I've seen since joining Skep/Sci some 8 years ago. Just a couple of things I've noticed re:
One Planet Only Forever: "(underdevelops) have the right to live more like the higher status people...higher status people do not have the right to be more harmful."
nigelj: "...poor countries need to be allowed to grow their economies"
The theory of rights grew from the pen of Aristotle (Atomistic Theory) and was developed over 2,500 years in the writings of many political philosophers. Plato's theory of man's place in the world did not include rights. I won't take time reviewing 2,500 years of political history, herein, but in cutting to the chase, Classical Liberalism (America) holds that humans "retain certain rights" and Authoritarians believe all right are granted by authority, especially government authority, be they Kings, Despots, Autocrats, Dictators, etc.
Any discussion of "rights" is a political position and a political question. What any individual thinks constitutes a "right" (either natural/retained or granted by authority) is purely a matter of opinion, a political opinion.
Both, One Planet and Nigel, imply that there is a "right" that the poor have, to do whatever is necessary to make itself into a "First World" country and that the rest of "us" should stand down while they do so.
Nope. These people have missed the bus. It has left the station and is not backing up to board the stragglers. The global population's consumption and ecological footprint has probably already exceeded the planet's carrying capacity in sustainably supporting the 7.8 Billion humans now present. Injecting a "right", which is a political construct, disparages another politically constructed "right" to which a First World entity might adhere...as they refuse to watch the "poor catch up". We need not fiddle while the plant burns by allowing any more global damage than has already been done...just to wait on stragglers. Regardless, let us not proffer a "right" unless, perhaps, we can establish it as a universal right...which the entire humans race would have to agree to...but to which they are unlikely to do so.
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nigelj at 06:45 AM on 12 March 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #10 2022
The Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change is also a great addition to the list.
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nigelj at 06:44 AM on 12 March 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #10 2022
Thank's for the list. The informed opinions, nudges and initiatives is particularly useful.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:47 PM on 11 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
nigelj,
Found the quote in my comment @59
"It is not necessary to stop economic growth or go backwards.
What is required is correcting the harmful unsustainable aspects of what has been developed. That will allow growth of the economy through the development of even better ways of living than the 'sustainable' starting point humanity ends up at after the correction (not going back to cave living but, based on the evaluations by groups like Project Drawdown, going back to many pre-industrial ways of producing food with possible improvements due to legitimate improved understanding - note the base understanding is that many of the pre-industrial ways are actually superior to the industrial ways)."
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:05 PM on 11 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
nigelj,
My response to your @60 which started with "You appear...", started with "You appear to misunderstand my perspective."
In my comment @36 I included the following along with other information about my perspective. "I prefer to say something like ‘correction of harmful development’. Degrowth is too generic. I understand that undoing harmful developments at the pace required to limit harm done to future generations could result in reductions of measures used to track economic progress like GDP. But that indicates that the measure of economic progress failed to properly account for harm done because they are ‘externalities to the money math that are hard to precisely monetize’. They would be negatives if they were monetized."
And I paraphrased your "The system needs time to adjust." to highlight what Figure 2 indicates ... there is no longer the luxury of time.
From your comment @70 "However we can phase in such changes at a reasonable pace and it would likely happen that way anyway. " That is where we are unlikely to establish a common understanding. That is a different way of saying "things will eventually work out". I have pointed out that the available evidence, particularly through the past 50 years, is that the developed systems have harmfully resisted being corrected, persisted at being poorly governed to limit harm done (and, agreed, the Soviet Union and China also pursued harmful ways of appearing to be superior). They are powerfully biased to resist being corrected. And, going back to Figure 2, what is your anticipated time frame to maximize climate harm impacts and begin the reduction of CO2 levels (well past 2050)? And what total impact (well above 2C) are you suggesting is fair to the future generations and less fortunate who will suffer the most?
And I agree, the less fortunate, especially the ones that have been further challenged by climate change impacts caused so far, should not be the ones to suffer. That may be where we differ. Your perspective may be wanting to minimize suffering in the middle class of the richer nations. I share the perspective that those who have benefit more from the harm done should suffer the most. But it is too late to have only limited loss suffered by the middle classes of the nations that, to this day, continue to have the highest per capita ghg impact rates. Based on WorldoMeters 2016 data, those nations would include:
- a bunch of smaller oil producing nations
- Canada (18.6 tonnes per capita) The country I live in
- Australia (17.1)
- USA (15.5)
- Russia (11.4)
- all other nations are below 10 and most are doing better
New Zealand at 7.14 is not facing a significant rate of correction (NZ is not in the top 10% of high impacting nations), certainly nothing like what is required in Canada. And I live in Alberta, the epicenter of rapid required correction. Some of us in Alberta 'get it'. Recently, the Conservative Government tried to undo protections that were keeping coal mining out of important natural areas. They appear to have backed down because of public opposition. But, many Albertans fight really hard not to understand, and they did not understand the demands for reinstating the decades old protections.
Please re-read all of my comment on this item. I did not provide the comment @57. And after quickly reviewing things I am pretty sure I never commented that "It is not necessary to stop economic growth or go backwards", and certainly not @57. If you do find it let me know and I will respond to the full statement in its context.
I have said versions of the thought that it is possible for economic growth to happen de-coupled from harmful impacts and material consumption. (and in my comment @65 I included a quote from the Fortune article you linked “green growth probably doesn’t exist — at least not for the next couple of decades” - and put in context regarding my thinking). Improved ways of living can always be developed that are better than what we already understand are sustainable ways to live - fitting in as parts of the robust diversity of life on this planet and developing helpful technology that does not require its harms to be excused by misleading claims about the benefits obtained, by some people, being worth the harm done to Others.
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nigelj at 10:33 AM on 11 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
OPOF @69
"That was twisting, significantly misunderstanding, my comments. So I replied accordingly."
No its not twisting what you said. I said "you appear" to be saying xyz. This is not putting words in your mouth or twisting what you said. I honestly couldnt figure out 100% what you were saying - so I paraphreased my best guess in the hope you would clarify your position and used the word appear.
And even if I had twisted what you said, how does that give you the right to do the same? Have you heard the wise old saying "two wrongs dont make a right?"
You "appear" to also still be supporting that growth can and should go on forever. Your comments: "It is not necessary to stop economic growth or go backwards" @57. If so, I think you are wrong other than to say poor countries need to be allowed to grow their economies.
Your comments on the system adapting are too general for me to be meaningful. If you mean the world should instantly go back to traditional farming I believe that would be very problematic for the reasons stated. However we can phase in such changes at a reasonable pace and it would likely happen that way anyway. I'm not suggesting we stall such things or go like a snail.
Thank's for the comments on regenerative farming. I'm fully aware of much of that material and the the problems of industrial agiculture. I've said many times on this thread and elsewhere that industrial agriculture is causing environmental problems and has to change, however I don't support pie in the sky delusions that either traditional farming or regenerative agriculture is superior in every way and can achieve miracles that some so called experts have claimed . If it was, everyone would be doing it and industrial farming wouldnt exist.
I'm very passionate about the need to do better conserving the environment but I also like to maintain some realism and scientific objectivity. The solution is going to contain elements or modern and traditional agriculture. There are no simple, perfect doctrinaire solutions.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:25 AM on 11 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
nigelj,
I responded to the folowing in the context of the topic and comments.
"You appear to be promoting some form of perpetual and sustainable "green growth". I used to believe in this, but theres a growing body of expert opinion that it is neither possible or desirable. In addition cutting consumption of high income people is going to reduce growth by pulling demand out of the system. Adopting traditional farming would actually slow growth because its lower yield than industrial farming.
These things along with zero economic growth, or low growth, are not bad things - provided they dont happen too quickly. The system needs time to adjust. Human civilisation is getting old and is about to slow down. This may be a hard truth to accept.
This is all different thing to crazy agendas to rapidly cut resource consumption by massive levels."
That was twisting, significantly misunderstanding, my comments. So I replied accordingly. And I will maintain the understanding that 50 years ago there was potentially time to let the system adapt. But the evidence indicates that the system is powerfully uninterested in changing, and certainly won't change rapidly enough. That system has now developed the need for a much more rapid and painful correction, as illustrated by Figure 2, or massive damage will be done to future generations as many people today continue to enjoy what they believe to be success.
Agreed that many traditional agriculture systems are less productive per hectare in the short-term. But they have a longer future. Industrial agriculture is depleting the ability of lands to be productive, all while being more profitable than the longer lasting less harmful alternatives.
Reviewing the "Land Sinks" set of solutions evaluated and compiled in Project Drawdown is a way to learn about instances where modern industrial agriculture is not as good as pre-modern ways. And it can be appreciated that Project Drawdown is focused on changes and new developments that, in combination, address the required limiting of climate change impacts. There are, of course, many other aspects of developed modern industrial agricultural practices that need to be changed, to be more like the pre-industrial ways, to get Phosphorous and Nitrogen impacts back below safe Planetary Boundaries.
The summary page of the Land Sink set of solutions in Project Drawdown includes the following statement:
"Shift Agriculture Practices
What and how we grow, graze, or harvest can be a means to cultivate biomass and regenerate soil carbon. An array of “regenerative agriculture” methods are being rediscovered and developed worldwide, and show promising results. The integration of trees into farming through agroforestry practices is particularly powerful. All solutions that sustainably raise yields on existing farmland can also reduce the pressure to clear other areas."
And the most beneficial of the food related "Solutions" presented in Project Drawdown are (along with their overall standing among the 82 solutions evaluated in Drawdown Scenario 2 which is roughly in-line with achieving 1.5˚C temperature rise by 2100 - and Scenario 1 which is roughly in line with 2˚C temperature rise by 2100):
Reduce food waste (#3 in Scenario 2 - #1 in Scenario 1)
Plant rich diets (#4 - #3)
Tropical forest restoration (6 - 5)
Silvopasture (11 - 11)
Tree plantations (on degraded land) (13 - 13)
Perenial staple crops (14 - 19)
Managed grazing (16 - 17)
Tree intercropping (17 - 20)
Regenerative annual cropping (20 - 21)
Multistrata agroforestry (22 - 25)
Abandoned farmland restoration (23 - 23)And there are more agriculture related items on the list. But always keep in mind that the Planetary Boundaries evaluation has identified that Phosphorous and Nitrogen impacts, largely unrelated to climate change impacts, are already significantly exceeding Safe Planetary Boundary limits due primarily to modern industrial agriculture.
I suggest multistrata agroforestry and indigenous people's forest tenure and tree intercropping as examples of traditional methods that are superior to industrial methods, from the perspective of being able to be continued long-term. Tree intercropping is described as something that was "Plowed under during the twentieth century to make room for industrialized methods of farming, tree intercropping is one of dozens of techniques that can create an agricultural renaissance—a transformation of food-growing practices that bring people, regeneration, and abundance back to the land."
But there are many other examples where more labour intensive methods, and ways that are potentially less productive per hectare in the short-term, are superior because they result in a lasting system that ultimately produces a larger total amount of food from the land that the industrial practices that deplete land quality and produce other harmful impacts while they 'appear to be superior - for a little while - because they are more profitable for investors who pursue maximizing their short-term return from every investment they make'.
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nigelj at 07:04 AM on 11 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
OPOF @67
"I will simply say your simplistic position that modern ways of food production are superior to pre-modern ways is wrong. "
I didn't say that. I've explained my position at least twice now. I said several times that traditional farming has merit and we need to ultimately go back to some sort of traditional farming. Personally I think we need a combination of modern and pre modern.
I only that that traditional agriculture has lower yields and productivity than industrial agriculture and this will push down growth. This was in support of the proposition that growth has to stop anyway. I said that over time we will find ways to overcome the yields problem. I said we would have to phase in more traditional forms of farming slowly.
And if you believe traditional farming or something like organic farming has equal or higher yeilds than conventional industrial farming please provide proper citations form the peer reviewed literature. Not vague references to something like project drawdown.
"let the system painlessly adjust"
I didn't say that. I don't care if rich farmers feel some pain. My comments were entirely about the system stability and effects on ordinary people. If traditional farming was introduced universally and abruptly the lower yeilds would be problematic. The system needs time to adjust. Things have to be phased in. This is obvious and basic.
"The 1980s resurgence of libertarian capitalism was one of the most damaging developments in recent history"
The problem of libertarian capitalism is well known. I've said much the same on many websites. But the causes of our environmental problems go well beyond this. Its not the one and only thing. If anyone is being "simplistic" you are. I'm using your terminology. Imho you are being too doctrinaire.
Not going to waste my time further responding to people who consistently put words in my mouth / twist what I say, and who create these strawmen. You have done it numerous times now. It gets frustrating and I have other things to do.
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MA Rodger at 02:52 AM on 11 March 2022Climate's changed before
paulbegin @885,
Increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase global temperatures directly through the greenhouse effect. An increase in temperature can influence CO2 concentrations but less directly. Thus colder oceans are more able to absorb CO2 so CO2 will be drawn from the atmosphere into the oceans during an ice age, this increasing the ice age cooling. But there are other temperature-CO2 correlations, for instance during the ENSO cycle with temperature and CO2 increasing in the aftermath of an El Niño. Yet in the ENSO cycle the fluctuating CO2 levels are not due to temperature but due to changing patterns of rainfall causing changes in vegitation growth in the Amazon basin.So it is CO2 that drives temperture while temperature has a small influence on CO2.
I'm not emtirely sure what you are asking for with your last question. The various drivers of climate change, be they forcings or the resulting feedbacks, are reasonably well understood for the past few million years but there is more difficulty going back into the more distant past as the drivers and the climate are less well understood.
The big difference between the last few-million-years and the last century-or-so is that the major climate forcing has resulted from human activity and that said, I'm not sure what you expect from comparing the last century-or-so with the last few-million-years. -
paulbegin at 02:04 AM on 11 March 2022Climate's changed before
When we say that CO2 and Temperature are correlated, which one comes first in that interaction ? I mean, is it the temperature that influences de CO2 or the CO2 that influences temperature ? Which one is the most significant, which one drives the most between the two ? Also, where can we find a comprehensive study, comparing the natural causes for climate changes over the last few millions years (or more if possible) compared to recent data, which would include the human factor, let's say since 1850 ?
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:47 AM on 11 March 2022Addressing the Climate Crisis:
Evolution orRevolution1
nigelj,
I will simply say your simplistic position that modern ways of food production are superior to pre-modern ways is wrong. There is ample evidence proving that. And it is easy to find examples in the Project Drawdown content.
What I try to point out is based on the understanding that beliefs that the system needs time to adjust would have been a little questionable even 50 years ago, when the Stockholm Conference of 1972 occurred.
But, with the increased awareness and understanding developed since then due to increased focus on identifying harmful developments and how to correct things that 'let the system painlessly adjust' attitude lost most of its potential to be reasonable about 30 years ago.
There now is increasing undeniable evidence, like the Planetary Boundaries understanding, that things have over-develped so harmfully that painful corrections are required, with the biggest current problems due to industrial food production (which contributes to the climate change problem but has caused massive harm unrelated to climate change impacts). And the pain and loss of required correction needs to be experienced by the people who enjoy the most benefit from the continued incorrect directions of development through the past 30 years. Those people can be hard to identify in the past. So what has to be done is focusing the pain and loss on the ones who more recently, and currently, are committing the most per person harm. However, the nations that benefited the most through the past 100 or more years are able to be identified and should be the groups suffering the loss due to the increasingly urgent correction, especially the nations whose leaders resisted the correction the most. And that makes some among the top 10% angry.
When you think about what the resistance to acceptance of Kyoto was motivated by, the motivation was largely the reluctance of powerful wealthy people to give up the perceptions of superiority they had developed. And US President Bush declared that 'Americans do not need to change how they live' when he announced that the USA was withdrawing from Kyoto. And a bunch of others chanted versions of Kyoto 'robbing the rich'. And the misleading attempts to excuse other harmful activities and maintain harmful misunderstandings apply to far more than climate science.
I see that understanding as the best explanation for everything that can be seen to be harmfully happening, including the harmful resistance to correction of harmful misunderstandings. The 1980s resurgence of libertarian capitalism was one of the most damaging developments in recent history. And the populist misunderstanding demands for 'political or nationalist identity protection from learning it is a harmful misunderstanding' and the other harmful freedoms to misunderstand things are aspects of the same systemic problem.
