Climate Change
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- Salient
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Re: Climate Change
I'm actually relatively surprised that the first choice got 71% of the votes. I think there could be quite a lot of truth to the 2nd & 3rd choices. I don't really see enough people actively doing enough to combat climate change and I think it's going to stay that way until something changes drastically.
Be the best you that you can be.
- Rollie Free
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Re: Climate Change
Well there is a lot of virtue signaling minus any actual personal behavior changes. People say they believe this but their actions don't match what they say. I saw some interviews of college students recently where they were very concerned about the 'grave' danger of global climate warming change etc. . When they were asked if they would discontinue traveling to help they changed their tunes pretty fast. One girl said that she can't do that, she likes to travel. That mindset is probably the norm and not the exception. Personally I'm not concerned and find a lot of it a crock of bull. That being said what difference does it make what I believe or what anyone believes on the surface? How many of those 71% have discontinued air travel or don't own a car or live without an AC? I am guessing about 1%.Salient wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 7:30 am I'm actually relatively surprised that the first choice got 71% of the votes. I think there could be quite a lot of truth to the 2nd & 3rd choices. I don't really see enough people actively doing enough to combat climate change and I think it's going to stay that way until something changes drastically.
"Quicker than I can tell it, my hands failed to hold, my feet slipped, and down I went with almost an arrow’s rapidity. An eternity of thought, of life, of death, wife, and home concentrated on my mind in those two seconds. Fortunately for me, I threw my right arm around a projecting boulder which stood above the icy plain some two or three feet." Rev. Elijah Lamb
- cottonmountaineering
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Re: Climate Change
No one wants to give up their lifestyle, but i feel its unfair to shift the blame to 7 billion different people for simply being participants in being alive. In our current system everything takes energy. If you pay taxes in america, you contribute a lot of emissions just due to the way our government spends that money.Rollie Free wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:09 amWell there is a lot of virtue signaling minus any actual personal behavior changes. People say they believe this but their actions don't match what they say. I saw some interviews of college students recently where they were very concerned about the 'grave' danger of global climate warming change etc. . When they were asked if they would discontinue traveling to help they changed their tunes pretty fast. One girl said that she can't do that, she likes to travel. That mindset is probably the norm and not the exception. Personally I'm not concerned and find a lot of it a crock of bull. That being said what difference does it make what I believe or what anyone believes on the surface? How many of those 71% have discontinued air travel or don't own a car or live without an AC? I am guessing about 1%.Salient wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 7:30 am I'm actually relatively surprised that the first choice got 71% of the votes. I think there could be quite a lot of truth to the 2nd & 3rd choices. I don't really see enough people actively doing enough to combat climate change and I think it's going to stay that way until something changes drastically.
That said, in my opinion, the issue is we aren't pricing in the true cost of emissions.
An example would be if i open a gold mine, mined $1000 worth of gold, but caused $10,000 worth of environmental damage. Prior to regulation, the gold miner takes off with $1,000 and the tax payer foots the bill for the cleanup. The net benefit is quite negative. There are regulations (albeit a bit shoddy) now that a certain amount has to be set aside for remediation when mining, so it changes the formula a bit for damaging the environment. I think it would be fair to apply the same to carbon emitting industries.
Honestly people will only change their habits when it makes financial sense to do so, and there are many ways to make big strides while not hurting the average consumer. No regulation is perfect... but at the rate we are going, our children will have a bleak future.
- randalmartin
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Re: Climate Change
Bingo!cottonmountaineering wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:32 am Honestly people will only change their habits when it makes financial sense to do so
Conserving and using less resources cannot be about the altruistic choice of individuals. It will never be successful otherwise. The key is making the technology advancements that result in achieving the similar outcomes with less. One of the biggest will be the Nuclear. It is far and away the best hope for a dramatic reduction in the resources required to produce the same output (energy).
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Re: Climate Change
People still have to choose the new technology, at least at the beginning. Electric cars are a good example right now. Even with huge government subsidies for them, electric cars are still more expensive to buy than regular cars. Eventually it is possible that they won't be, but for now they are. Some people have chosen to pay the extra for an electric vehicle. I say good for them. It's not the way that I help the environment, but good for them.randalmartin wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:05 pm Conserving and using less resources cannot be about the altruistic choice of individuals. It will never be successful otherwise. The key is making the technology advancements that result in achieving the similar outcomes with less. One of the biggest will be the Nuclear. It is far and away the best hope for a dramatic reduction in the resources required to produce the same output (energy).
Sean Nunn
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Re: Climate Change
I recall reading a summary of climate change challenges, written by Bill Gates, that for me was thought provoking. I assume his data was correct. What was interesting was that the bigger challenges were industries I hadn't even thought about. Turns out that cement production and manufacturing steel are huge contributors. Gates' conclusion was that really moving the needle would require an overhaul of industrial practices and that the things individuals could change in a meaningful way would have a limited effect. Again, I assume his data was correct.
I don't think what I or other individuals can do will solve this problem in my (limited remaining ) lifetime, but nor do I think that's an excuse to abdicate responsibility to do something. Even if changes at the margin will produce a relatively trivial movement of the climate change needle. Gotta start somewhere. Just me.
-Tom
I don't think what I or other individuals can do will solve this problem in my (limited remaining ) lifetime, but nor do I think that's an excuse to abdicate responsibility to do something. Even if changes at the margin will produce a relatively trivial movement of the climate change needle. Gotta start somewhere. Just me.
-Tom
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Re: Climate Change
this is valid for an approach to solving every major problem we, as a society, have created-- the majority of the fines need to fall on the major corporations, though. not individualscottonmountaineering wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:32 am Honestly people will only change their habits when it makes financial sense to do so
lose your net while fishing? bummer. $10,000 fine per net that doesn't make it back to shore.
and so on, and so forth.
“To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.” – Mary Davis
- hellmanm
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Re: Climate Change
^That is, until the fishing company responds by forcing their employees to own their own nets and be responsible for their preservation. With no leverage and a weak (if at all existent) union, the independently contracted fishing boats who can't take the financial risks necessary to produce maximum output go under. The big corporations either deal with marginal losses, find other fishermen, or make life so miserable for watchdog agencies that it becomes next to impossible to enforce this fine. It always falls on the little guy.stephakett wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:46 pm
this is valid for an approach to solving every major problem we, as a society, have created-- the majority of the fines need to fall on the major corporations, though. not individuals
lose your net while fishing? bummer. $10,000 fine per net that doesn't make it back to shore.
(Just saying how that example would go IRL -- idk the rules/regulations in the fishing industry, but fining/taxing tends to lead to such outcomes without properly targeted incentives. Anyway, climate change is bad and we're screwed -- just wanted to be a contrarian )
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Re: Climate Change
My personal line in the sand is 30 mpg. I won’t drive a car as a daily driver that get less than that. I can’t see how that could be justified.
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Re: Climate Change
if what i outlined is not a reasonable solution, then propose a better one instead of sitting around making excuses for why the world can't be a better place... maybe you should run for officehellmanm wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:02 pm
^That is, until the fishing company responds by forcing their employees to own their own nets and be responsible for their preservation. With no leverage and a weak (if at all existent) union, the independently contracted fishing boats who can't take the financial risks necessary to produce maximum output go under. The big corporations either deal with marginal losses, find other fishermen, or make life so miserable for watchdog agencies that it becomes next to impossible to enforce this fine. It always falls on the little guy.
(Just saying how that example would go IRL -- idk the rules/regulations in the fishing industry, but fining/taxing tends to lead to such outcomes without properly targeted incentives. Anyway, climate change is bad and we're screwed -- just wanted to be a contrarian )
(just saying)
“To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.” – Mary Davis
- ClimbandMine
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Re: Climate Change
Regulations on modern mining in the US (and especially Colorado) are anything but shoddy. You example is awful. Mining is heavily regulated by a veritable alphabet soup of county, state, and federal agencies. And I can show you examples of excellent closure and closure management of mines. People break laws, sometime on purpose (more laws don't fix bad people!), and many mines were closed pre-NEPA (think Gold King) so more laws won't change that either...cottonmountaineering wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:32 amNo one wants to give up their lifestyle, but i feel its unfair to shift the blame to 7 billion different people for simply being participants in being alive. In our current system everything takes energy. If you pay taxes in america, you contribute a lot of emissions just due to the way our government spends that money.Rollie Free wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:09 amWell there is a lot of virtue signaling minus any actual personal behavior changes. People say they believe this but their actions don't match what they say. I saw some interviews of college students recently where they were very concerned about the 'grave' danger of global climate warming change etc. . When they were asked if they would discontinue traveling to help they changed their tunes pretty fast. One girl said that she can't do that, she likes to travel. That mindset is probably the norm and not the exception. Personally I'm not concerned and find a lot of it a crock of bull. That being said what difference does it make what I believe or what anyone believes on the surface? How many of those 71% have discontinued air travel or don't own a car or live without an AC? I am guessing about 1%.Salient wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 7:30 am I'm actually relatively surprised that the first choice got 71% of the votes. I think there could be quite a lot of truth to the 2nd & 3rd choices. I don't really see enough people actively doing enough to combat climate change and I think it's going to stay that way until something changes drastically.
That said, in my opinion, the issue is we aren't pricing in the true cost of emissions.
An example would be if i open a gold mine, mined $1000 worth of gold, but caused $10,000 worth of environmental damage. Prior to regulation, the gold miner takes off with $1,000 and the tax payer foots the bill for the cleanup. The net benefit is quite negative. There are regulations (albeit a bit shoddy) now that a certain amount has to be set aside for remediation when mining, so it changes the formula a bit for damaging the environment. I think it would be fair to apply the same to carbon emitting industries.
Honestly people will only change their habits when it makes financial sense to do so, and there are many ways to make big strides while not hurting the average consumer. No regulation is perfect... but at the rate we are going, our children will have a bleak future.
Want electrification? Gotta mine the metals to do it. Preferably not with kids if Africa, eh?
I don't care that you Tele.
- cottonmountaineering
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Re: Climate Change
it was an oversimplified example, 1850-1900 was a free for all that we are still paying consequences for in mining, regulations were introduced to make things better. there are superfund sites in colorado that were in operations in the 20th century as well. all im saying is that we currently do not have the environmental cost of carbon emissions baked into fossil fuels.ClimbandMine wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:18 pmRegulations on modern mining in the US (and especially Colorado) are anything but shoddy. You example is awful. Mining is heavily regulated by a veritable alphabet soup of county, state, and federal agencies. And I can show you examples of excellent closure and closure management of mines. People break laws, sometime on purpose (more laws don't fix bad people!), and many mines were closed pre-NEPA (think Gold King) so more laws won't change that either...cottonmountaineering wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:32 amNo one wants to give up their lifestyle, but i feel its unfair to shift the blame to 7 billion different people for simply being participants in being alive. In our current system everything takes energy. If you pay taxes in america, you contribute a lot of emissions just due to the way our government spends that money.Rollie Free wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:09 am
Well there is a lot of virtue signaling minus any actual personal behavior changes. People say they believe this but their actions don't match what they say. I saw some interviews of college students recently where they were very concerned about the 'grave' danger of global climate warming change etc. . When they were asked if they would discontinue traveling to help they changed their tunes pretty fast. One girl said that she can't do that, she likes to travel. That mindset is probably the norm and not the exception. Personally I'm not concerned and find a lot of it a crock of bull. That being said what difference does it make what I believe or what anyone believes on the surface? How many of those 71% have discontinued air travel or don't own a car or live without an AC? I am guessing about 1%.
That said, in my opinion, the issue is we aren't pricing in the true cost of emissions.
An example would be if i open a gold mine, mined $1000 worth of gold, but caused $10,000 worth of environmental damage. Prior to regulation, the gold miner takes off with $1,000 and the tax payer foots the bill for the cleanup. The net benefit is quite negative. There are regulations (albeit a bit shoddy) now that a certain amount has to be set aside for remediation when mining, so it changes the formula a bit for damaging the environment. I think it would be fair to apply the same to carbon emitting industries.
Honestly people will only change their habits when it makes financial sense to do so, and there are many ways to make big strides while not hurting the average consumer. No regulation is perfect... but at the rate we are going, our children will have a bleak future.
Want electrification? Gotta mine the metals to do it. Preferably not with kids if Africa, eh?