How Silly is Climate Change Denial?

[mike]

Why have i posted so much data ?

Well as Dr Phil says you cant fix what you dont acknowledge. Its a known facet of climate change debate that overpopulation gets avoided in that debate.

But the reality is if we dont fix the root cause, we wont change the problem. and climate change is just one facet of the impact of overpopulation.
The pollution, the species extinction, biodiversity loss and all the other terrible consequences of unchecked human expansion can be fixed by treating the root cause.

Ive posted lots of data because there is lots of data, this stuff is the tip of the iceberg. the evidence is overwelming

And because i am deeply disturbed at the destruction of our fragile biosphere, someone needs to be a voice for the species that we are wiping out at an unprecidented rate, I'm no Jaques Cousteau, no Goodall or Attenborough.
These ppl do much better at spreading the message than i ever could.
But that doesnt mean little guys like us dont have our part to play, on the contrary a million little guys has as much if not more power to change public perceptions as any of these giants.

We need to talk about this, for our own survival and that of the other terrestrial bioforms that have a right to their place under the sun.

The bacteria in Suzuki's test tube, looked around at the 59th minute and said (like some here) what problem ? there is still plenty of room.

But the maths of exponential growth is solid. Its time we as a species started giving it the consideration it deserves.

Stephen Hawking – physicist b1942

“In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9 per cent per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.”



The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
- Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Colorado; World Population Balance Board of Advisors

 

[mike]

While some of these projections may look gloomy, remember: we can change the future. We can create a new vision, a new dream for the planet. It is in our power to humanely slow and stop population growth and solve the many problems that growth is creating. See our "How You Can Help" section to learn what you can do!

• World Population in 2011 reached 7 billion.
• It has doubled in the past 45 years! Earth's population is increasing by over 140 people every minute ... equivalent to another Los Angeles plus another Chicago every month.
• Right now, with over 7 billion of us:
• (1) We are driving over 50 species of plants and animals to extinction per day!
• (2) We are destroying rain forests many times faster than they can regenerate.
• (3) We are consuming stored solar energy (fossil fuels) at rates thousands of times faster than it is regenerating.
• (4) We are consuming fresh water at least 10 times faster than it is being replenished in regions of northern Africa, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, China, and the U.S.
• (5) We are causing soil salinization and erosion several-fold faster than rates of restoration.
• (6) We are over-fishing our oceans, radically changing the species balance in many places.
• For several years population has been increasing faster than many vital non-renewable and renewable resources. This means the amount of these resources per person is declining, in spite of modern technology.
• Other massive social and environmental problems ... political instability, loss of freedoms, vanishing species, rain forest destruction, desertification, garbage, urban sprawl, water shortages, traffic jams, toxic waste, oil spills, air and water pollution, increasing violence and crime ... continue to worsen as our numbers increase by more than 70 million more people every year. Solving these problems will be much less difficult when we stop increasing the number of people affected by them.
• Two billion people live in poverty, more than the population of the entire planet less than 100 years ago.
• Today there are more people suffering in misery and starvation in the world than ever before in history.

The Global Population Situation - World Population Balance - sustainable world US population

Understanding Exponential Growth Tutorial and Exercise - World Population Balance

 

[Tyger]

Why have i posted so much data ?

Well as Dr Phil says you cant fix what you dont acknowledge. Its a known facet of climate change debate that overpopulation gets avoided in that debate.

Who'd a thunk it? Right here in River City! Dr Phil!

 

[Tyger]

Part of the aversion is due to strong religious beliefs - which really translates to philosophical views regarding life and stuff. It's a hot potato for sure - yet there have been societies that made sure the living were healthy and able - Sparta comes to mind at once.

This conversation is a serious one. Though all the ghosties from the beginning of the 20th century come to haunt this discourse.

 

[Tyger]

• Two billion people live in poverty, more than the population of the entire planet less than 100 years ago.
• Today there are more people suffering in misery and starvation in the world than ever before in history.

It is the true obscenity. It has to change. It's one big ball of twine. It's all one. Global Warming, a fair and just economy that gives everyone a decent life, a world with diverse life in healthy habitats, energy that is renewing, a world without torture of any kind - a vision. We have to have the vision - and it can happen. How? I think about this every now and again - and I think it's a combination of a global vision and local control.

Being a Science Fiction writer - Fantasist in my salad days - I could spin tales on how this might happen (not that I did or have on this particular subject - but that it would be or would have been my penchant to spin as Gernsback said: 'if this goes on.....what.....'). I could see the dire results of Global Warming in the worst case scenario be the impetus for both the local control and the global vision. Technology would keep the world aware as one - but the physical realities of land masses greatly reduced, with lakes and inland seas - more islands - would mean smaller national entities and local control. Massive oceans and inland seas would mean natural barriers to warring with neighbors. The issue would always be resources and how the areas choose to deal with sharing. I could see an internet-like technology being key, maybe.

 

[mike]

Interestingly, the people here who are pushing the overpopulation myth never consider them self to be part of the problem. The problem always lies elsewhere and with other people. I agree with what several comics have stated over the years. If you truly believe in overpopulation then start with your own house and take yourself out. Meanwhile, those of us who don't believe in it can help work on real solutions to distribute resources to people living in places that lack resources.

Again with an assumption pulled out of your um...... hat

Of course i am part of the problem, at current numbers we all are.
As for starting with my own house, one doesnt need to be as drastic as suicide as you suggest i do.

Married for 30 years ive chosen not to have children. Mt wife is one of 12 kids, i am one of four. Our bloodlines and indeed the planet dont need us to contribute our genes.
We are vegetarians, not in any way strict, but we keep our consumption to a minimum, our dogs eat more meat than we do.
I dont buy leather where man made substitutes will do, but again, not a purist. If i think a leather product will outlast a synthetic one and thus attract less cost to the environment i will go with that option
We have one car, which comes out of the garage maybe 3 times a week, public transport is what we use most of the time
I repair items that break down rather than replace them when i can, either myself, or when its beyond my ability i pay someone else to do so. even if the cost of the repair is greater than buying a new item. i always factor in the cost to the environment of throwing things out.
I grow a lot of my own food at home, this week you could fill a bath with cherry tomatos, and when i buy externally i choose local food over food that has traveled.

Consumption

We’re calling for individuals living in developed countries to be environmentally aware and not to consume excessively

Campaigns « Population Matters

Thats me, i am environmentally aware, and do my best not to consume excessively, but its the fact that i recognise that no-one can live a impact free existance that highlights the fact that we dont need anymore people, have in fact too many already.
Everyone is a drain on the biosystem, the more people the bigger the drain, we are now at the point where the drain on the system is unsustainable. Its as simple as that
As Goodall says

“It’s our population growth that underlies just about every single one of the problems that we’ve inflicted on the planet. If there were just a few of us, then the nasty things we do wouldn’t really matter and Mother Nature would take care of it — but there are so many of us.”

You on the other hand have amply demonstrated your idea of "helping to work on real solutions" is to simply deny we have a problem.

 

[mike]

According to some critics, the earth has exceeded the carrying capacity. The population exceeds resources.

Paul Gilding in his address to TED says, “the earth is full”

The problem is that if we cannot objectively and rationally assess issues associated with overpopulation, or climate change, then there is no capacity to act coherently and effectively.

How many ppl is too many people is explained very well in the video above.
Please watch it

 

[Charlie Prime]

Global Warming Religion trumps Science.

Children are taught that they are born, literally born as filthy sinners, and only the Great Sky Father can absolve them of this built-in sin. Malthusianism is also based on this.

As adults, government becomes their Great Daddy. The all-mighty God GOV will punish the wicked children (polluters, criminals, bullies, etc.), and also the Great Mother who will comfort the poor and sick.

They want to believe so strongly that they can completely ignore the absurdity of anthropogenic global warming.

 

[flipper]

When we chop down trees and build houses on what used to forest, swamp, or grassland that we have affected climate change. This warms the planet. All the persons (turtles, ferns and foxes) that were living there had their homes destroyed. Therefore, I think that we are asking the wrong question. The question should be, if we want to strictly keep to the subject of climate change and not talk about how we live, that destroys where we live, is: "How much does human activity affect climate change and what other factors, like the sun, have a part in this?"

 

[BoyintheMachine]

This is for Gene who scoffs at the notion of a UN conspiracy. Climate scientists where busted lying and sitting on data that disproved their claims. Additionally they have ignored freedom of information act requests to release the data that they claim they used to prove the reality of AGW. Not to mention the Climate Gate of 2009 that people have seem to already have forgotten. In the first video the case of climate scientists committing crimes by lying/hiding evidence is discussed. However, it didn't come to light until after the statute of limitations expired so no charges were pressed. The UN's panel on Climate Change is what is behind forcing the world to accept AGW.

 

[Charlie Prime]

This is for Gene who scoffs at the notion of a UN conspiracy.

No good. People his age only trust corporate media.

Only the conspiracies approved by corporate foundation supported media like PBS are acceptable to them.

They do not understand the concept of media without advertising that is directly supported by listener donations.

 

[marduk]

The fact is that the climate is changing.

It's always changing; it's a dynamic system.

Let's look at some time scales (good page here: Climate Change Data: Could Gore, Reid, Obama, or Pelosi Pass College Physics?

Looks bad, right?

Let's zoom out a little.

And then a lot more:

So the climate is changing, and does change.

There is however, a significant portion of that change that is due to human industrialization activity that is accelerating that change.

Debating about how much of that is and is not true is like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The Earth in it's geologic history is generally warmer and wetter than it is now.

A better question to ask is what are we going to do about it?

Do we want higher sea levels and abandon our costal cities? Our ancestors had to do this.

Do we want more or less arable land? Many civilizations failed because of climate change's impact to food production.

Do we want to deal with mass human migration? Our ancestors did.

It does not matter what is causing climate change. If we all ran our cars on water the climate would still change eventually. We're just making it go faster.

What matters is what we are going to do about it. As Suzuki puts it, we are now a superspecies that dominates all life on planet earth. Are we going to keep it the way we like it or are we going to let nature take it wherever it will?

The Earth will survive no matter what we do. This isn't about saving the Earth. It's about saving our skin and our comfortable industrialized way of life.

 

[mike]

In all honesty, while i think climate change is related to runaway human expansion, i also think its one of many problems associated with it.
Thats why adressing that as the root cause strikes me as best practise, it may or may not have a dramatic effect on CC, but it will have an effect on the depletion of renewable resources like fish stocks and deforestation, with the loss of habitat and bio diversity. With the extinction rate and pollution of our air, oceans and rivers.
These positive outcomes are what happens when we employ best practise, when we exist in balance with the biosphere.

That we are out of balance now can be measured and observed

Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

 

[mike]

The Sixth Extinction

This explosion of human population, especially in the post-Industrial Revolution years of the past two centuries, coupled with the unequal distribution and consumption of wealth on the planet, is the underlying cause of the Sixth Extinction. There is a vicious cycle:

Overpopulation, invasive species, and overexploitation are fueling the extinction.

•More lands are cleared and more efficient production techniques (most recently engendered largely through genetic engineering) to feed the growing number of humans — and in response, the human population continues to expand.
•Higher fossil energy use is helping agriculture spread, further modifying the environment.
•Humans continue to fish (12 of the 13 major fisheries on the planet are now considered severely depleted) and harvest timber for building materials and just plain fuel, pollution, and soil erosion from agriculture creates dead zones in fisheries (as in the Gulf of Mexico)
•While the human Diaspora has meant the spread, as well, of alien species that more often than not thrive at the detriment of native species. For example, invasive species have contributed to 42% of all threatened and endangered species in the U.S.

Can conservation measures stop the Sixth Extinction?
The world’s ecosystems have been plunged into chaos, with some conservation biologists thinking that no system, not even the vast oceans, remains untouched by human presence. Conservation measures, sustainable development, and, ultimately, stabilization of human population numbers and consumption patterns seem to offer some hope that the Sixth Extinction will not develop to the extent of the third global extinction, some 245 mya, when 90% of the world’s species were lost.

Though it is true that life, so incredibly resilient, has always recovered (though after long lags) after major extinction spasms, it is only after whatever has caused the extinction event has dissipated. That cause, in the case of the Sixth Extinction, is ourselves — Homo sapiens. This means we can continue on the path to our own extinction, or, preferably, we modify our behavior toward the global ecosystem of which we are still very much a part. The latter must happen before the Sixth Extinction can be declared over, and life can once again rebound.

Paleontologist Dr. Niles Eldredge is the Curator-in-Chief of the permanent exhibition “Hall of Biodiversity” at the American Museum of Natural History and adjunct professor at the City University of New York. He has devoted his career to examining evolutionary theory through the fossil record, publishing his views in more than 160 scientific articles, reviews, and books. Life in the Balance: Humanity and the Biodiversity Crisisis his most recent book

 

[BoyintheMachine]

The fact is that the climate is changing.

It's always changing; it's a dynamic system.

Let's look at some time scales (good page here: Climate Change Data: Could Gore, Reid, Obama, or Pelosi Pass College Physics?

Looks bad, right?

Let's zoom out a little.

And then a lot more:

So the climate is changing, and does change.

There is however, a significant portion of that change that is due to human industrialization activity that is accelerating that change.

Debating about how much of that is and is not true is like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The Earth in it's geologic history is generally warmer and wetter than it is now.

A better question to ask is what are we going to do about it?

Do we want higher sea levels and abandon our costal cities? Our ancestors had to do this.

Do we want more or less arable land? Many civilizations failed because of climate change's impact to food production.

Do we want to deal with mass human migration? Our ancestors did.

It does not matter what is causing climate change. If we all ran our cars on water the climate would still change eventually. We're just making it go faster.

What matters is what we are going to do about it. As Suzuki puts it, we are now a superspecies that dominates all life on planet earth. Are we going to keep it the way we like it or are we going to let nature take it wherever it will?

The Earth will survive no matter what we do. This isn't about saving the Earth. It's about saving our skin and our comfortable industrialized way of life.

Do you know where you messed up? Let me show you:

There is however, a significant portion of that change that is due to human industrialization activity that is accelerating that change.

This is where you messed up. The problem is that none of the spikes in global temperatures on those graphs were caused by increased CO2 levels. Not a single one. However, you would have us believe that CO2 was recently bitten by a radioactive spider and has now gained the super power of being able to cause global warming. Even though it never did in the past, it now does and we human beings are responsible because our industrialization is producing CO2.

That's the problem that for some reason you AGW proponents always, always, always ignore. Well, we who are opposed the AGW are not going to allow you to ignore it. Your basic premise is wrong and there is nothing you can do or say to hide this truth. You can continue to fool some people but eventually more and more people will realize that 2 +2 does not equal 5, as you are claiming.

 

[mike]

Survey finds 97% climate science papers agree warming is man-made | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | theguardian.com


Our team of citizen science volunteers at Skeptical Science has published a new survey in the journal Environmental Research Letters of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers, as the Guardian reports today. This is the most comprehensive survey of its kind, and the inspiration of this blog's name: Climate Consensus – the 97%.

the consensus project

 

[Myself]

I'm really glad there are professionals with credentials working on this stuff, because this thread has been built on nothing but acrimony and ideology. The average person can't see outside of their own moral compass and ego long enough to find the facts. Long live scientific method.

 

[BoyintheMachine]

Survey finds 97% climate science papers agree warming is man-made | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | theguardian.com


Our team of citizen science volunteers at Skeptical Science has published a new survey in the journal Environmental Research Letters of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers, as the Guardian reports today. This is the most comprehensive survey of its kind, and the inspiration of this blog's name: Climate Consensus – the 97%.

Nearly 100% of climate scientists who are pro AGW are funded by their governments. These governments do not fund scientists who are opposed to AGW.

AGW proponents are some of the most darn right sneaky, shady people who are not above outright lying and fudging the data so that they can keep the money flowing.

The funny thing is that despite the countless posts Mike has made he can't answer two basic questions.

1. Why is CO2 all of a sudden the driving force of climate when it was never the driving force of climate in all earth's past history?

2. If overpopulation is a problem then how many people is too many people?

Mike can not answer these questions. All he does is post like 50 more comments to try to bombard people senseless so they they don't realize he is unable to answer these questions.

That truth is that AGW is a fraud and the world is not overpopulated.

 

[BoyintheMachine]

I'm really glad there are professionals with credentials working on this stuff, because this thread has been built on nothing but acrimony and ideology. The average person can't see outside of their own moral compass and ego long enough to find the facts. Long live scientific method.

Don't ever put faith in scientists. Part of the scientific method is peer review where scientists attempt to destroy theories. That's one of the reasons why we are in this mess because the public tends to treat scientists the same way that priests were once once treated, above approach and unable to critique or question.

In a past reply I posted a video that talked about how 1/3 of scientists admit to taking drugs. There is also a huge problem with lying and falsifying data because science is so highly competitive in nature and many people think it's their only way to get their foot in the door or to get grant money.

 

[mike]

Nearly 100% of climate scientists who are pro AGW are funded by their governments. These governments do not fund scientists who are opposed to AGW.

AGW proponents are some of the most darn right sneaky, shady people who are not above outright lying and fudging the data so that they can keep the money flowing.

The funny thing is that despite the countless posts Mike has made he can't answer two basic questions.

1. Why is CO2 all of a sudden the driving force of climate when it was never the driving force in climate in all earth's past history?

2. If overpopulation is a problem then how many people is too many people?

Mike can not answer these questions. All he does is post like 50 more comments to try to bombard people senseless so they they don't realize he is unable to answer these questions.

That truth is that AGW is a fraud and the world is not overpopulated.

I did answer the question, i gave two examples of how many people are too many people.

Your fingers in the ears nya nya nya insistance i cant answer the question is fraud pure and simple