How Silly is Climate Change Denial?

[mike]

Thats how i see them, as relatives, as family. we all come from the same home.
And if this is how we treat family, can you image the disregard we would have for life on other planets ?

You wouldnt rent a room in the family home to someone who you knew with no reason or remorse had simply murdered their mother father and siblings.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And now we have the notorious corn flake conspiracy:

Climate Change Will Make These Breakfast Cereals More Expensive

 

[mike]

Stephen Emmott: overpopulation is at the root of all the planet's troubles


Stephen Emmott is a professor of computing at Oxford University and head of Microsoft's Computational Science Laboratory in Cambridge. His lab is devoted to finding new techniques and ideas for solving key scientific problems. One of his research groups works on small-scale issues including the make-up of living cells and includes immunologists and neuroscientists. Another group is focused on global problems including the carbon cycle and is made up of plant biologists and marine ecologists.

Human numbers have risen from one billion to our current population of seven billion in 200 years. That is pretty short order, and we have got to that state through our cleverness and inventiveness. But that cleverness and inventiveness are now the sources of all the global problems we face today – and those problems are only going to intensify as our numbers continue to grow. It is really important to talk about overpopulation. Far too many scientists still refuse to discuss the issue. Yet it lies at the heart of all our environmental problems today.

We are in a desperate situation and I don't think people realise that. Many think we will find a clever solution sometime in the future, like building solar shields in space to keep our planet cool. I am going to tell the audience that these ideas are very suspect. Radical behaviour change is what is really needed. Our problems are not just those concerned with carbon emissions. There are so many other things – overfishing, destroying habitats and eradicating species – that we need to change. It is either that or sit and do nothing which, in effect, is the position we have adopted so far. Science has spent far too long hiding behind caveats. We have to come off the shelf although I suspect it may too late now. Indeed, the show will end with my admitting to the audience that I think we are fucked.

Stephen Emmott: overpopulation is at the root of all the planet's troubles | Science | The Observer


Of course when Prof Emmott says we....... its not just our species, We'll take (have already taken) plenty of others with us

 

[mike]

Australia is home to more than 500,000 animal and plant species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Over the last 200 years, more than 100 animal and plant species have become extinct. In NSW alone there are close to 1000 animal and plant species at risk of extinction.

Habitat Destruction: The harvesting and exploitation of the earth's natural resources by man is the leading cause of habitat destruction. Human activities such as commercial development, clearing land for agriculture, drilling for oil and gas exploration have wreaked havoc on our ecosystems. The majority of deforestation can be directly attributed to agricultural expansion. The world's growing need for food has resulted in the increased conversion of natural habitats into agricultural lands. During the 1990s about 94 million hectares of the earth's forests were cleared and 70 percent of that land was converted for agriculture use. Habitat destruction is not limited to terrestrial habitats. In the ocean, destructive commercial fishing activities such as trawling and dynamiting reefs have been responsible for the loss of entire coral reefs.

You cant possibly look at these figures and facts and claim overpopulation isnt a problem

 

[mike]

''And they gave us five big sugar-bags full of fish,'' Macfadyen says. ''They were good, big fish, of all kinds. Some were fresh but others had obviously been in the sun for a while. We told them there was no way we could possibly use all those fish. There were just two of us, with no real place to store or keep them. They just shrugged and told us to tip them overboard … They told us that this was just a small fraction of a day's by-catch. That they were only interested in tuna and everything else was rubbish. It was all killed, all dumped. They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing.''
It was one fishing boat among countless others working unseen beyond the horizon, many doing exactly the same thing. Little wonder the the sea was dead

I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles, there was nothing alive to be seen.''

But garbage was everywhere.

In the waters above Hawaii, you could see right down into the depths. I could see that the debris isn't just on the surface, it's all the way down. And it's all sizes, from a soft-drink bottle to pieces the size of a big car or truck. We saw a factory chimney sticking out of the water. ''We were weaving around these pieces of debris. It was like sailing through a garbage tip.''
Ivan Macfadyen is still coming to terms with the horror of the voyage. ''The ocean is broken,'' he says.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/the-ocean-is-broken-20131018-2vs7v.html#ixzz32J5DcIqV

 

[mike]

What is bottom trawling?
Bottom trawling is an industrial fishing method where a large net with heavy weights is dragged across the seafloor, scooping up everything in its path – from the targeted fish to the incidentally caught centuries-old corals. Bottom trawls are used in catching marine life that live on the seafloor, such as shrimp, cod, sole and flounder. In the US, bottom trawling occurs on the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts, capturing more than 800,000,000 pounds of marine life in 2007. Bottom trawls are also commonly used by other fishing nations and on the high seas.
Why is it a problem?
Bottom trawling is unselective and severely damaging to seafloor ecosystems. The net indiscriminately catches every life and object it encounters. Thus, many creatures end up mistakenly caught and thrown overboard dead or dying, including endangered fish and even vulnerable deep-sea corals which can live for several hundred years. This collateral damage, called bycatch, can amount to 90% of a trawl’s total catch. In addition, the weight and width of a bottom trawl can destroy large areas of seafloor habitats that give marine species food and shelter. Such habitat destructions can leave the marine ecosystem permanently damaged.

The extensive use of bottom trawls and dredges for commercial fishing causes more direct and avoidable damage to the ocean floor -- including deep-sea coral and sponge communities and other unique and sensitive seafloor marine life -- than any other human activity in the world.
Bottom trawls and dredges are so destructive because they effectively clear-cut everything living on the seafloor.

Just insane isnt it

Why do we do this ?. Because we have already overfished the oceans to feed the overpopulation, having taken most of the fish, we are now scrapping the bottom of the barrel to get to the last of them

Bottom Trawling Impacts On Ocean, Clearly Visible From Space -- ScienceDaily

Ocean fishing: Bottom trawling causes deep-sea biological desertification -- ScienceDaily

Some deep-sea fishes live more than a century; some deep-sea corals can live more than 4,000 years. When bottom trawlers rip life from the depths, animals adapted to life in deep-sea time can't repopulate on human time scales. Powerful fishing technologies are overwhelming them.

Deep-sea fish in deep trouble: Scientists find nearly all deep-sea fisheries unsustainable -- ScienceDaily

This is what we are talking about when we say using more than one planet

The simple mindset will say how can that be ? we only have one planet, the claim must be impossible duh......

But this graphic is about replenishment rates. To harvest the fish we currently do, and have their stocks remain stable we would need 1.51 planets worth. to harvest the forests we do at the rates we do and have them grow back so there was no net loss would require 1.51 planets. (by 2030 at current rates of harvest 2 planets)

But since we dont have that extra planet, and since those resources cant renew themselves at the rate in which they are being taken, those resources shrink.
Sometimes irreversably, lost forever.

And its a double whammy, because as we gobble up these resources faster than they can renew, we also grow the population, which in turns makes us gobble up these resources even faster, compounding the problem exponentially.

You can raise a very large family on a credit card, but when that card gets cut up by the bank because you are spending faster than you are paying it back.........

You get left with a lot of hungry mouths to feed, and no way to do so

in the short term as Gene has pointed out

Food prices forecast to treble as world population soars
Food prices tipped to treble over the next 20 years as an explosion in the world's population triggers a global fight for food.

Food prices forecast to treble as world population soars - Telegraph

High Food Prices Seen by Olam CEO as Result of Population Growth - Bloomberg

But Lindsay Grant, in a pamphlet published by Negative Population Growth, Inc., warns that if production and per capita consumption stay where they are, and U.S. population continues to grow at the present rate, “we will be consuming all the grain we produce in less than two decades, and running a deficit in agricultural trade; from then on, we will face mounting shortages.” Satellite maps are said to show that Earth is rapidly running out of fertile land.

The Social Contract - Population Growth Escalates Food Prices

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And:

April Ties For Hottest Ever On Record For The Globe

 

[Myself]

I could get behind the fact that the planet is warming, just skeptical as to how much ( if at all ) humans contribute to this. I'm highly skeptical of all politicians and even more so when they lean more to the liberal / democrat side. It's all about control.

This information isn't coming from politicians its coming from scientists.

 

[Myself]

Pat Sajak recently came out aggressively against climate change. I think I'll listen to scientists over a lifetime game show host.

 

[mike]

Can you imagine how bad it would be if we all did this

The Duggars don't use contraception, saying they leave the number of children they have "up to God".

Parents seek medical advice to have baby number 20

 

[Tyger]

TEXT: "Eight Pseudoscientific Climate Claims Debunked by Real Scientists - Most people who deny that human activity is warming the planet just dismiss a massive body of scientific evidence as a big hoax. But there’s a more sophisticated set of climate “skeptics” who make arguments that, at least to the lay ear, sound like they’re grounded in scientific evidence. And because most of us lack the background to evaluate their claims, they can muddy the waters around an issue that’s been settled in the scientific community."

LINK: Eight Pseudoscientific Climate Claims Debunked by Real Scientists - Ring Of Fire Radio: Robert Kennedy Jr, Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder

The one claim I will quote is #4 -

4. Yes, There Is a Scientific Consensus

"The most important thing to understand about the scientific consensus that human activities are causing the earth to warm is that it isn’t a result of peer pressure or someone policing scientists’ opinions. It results from the scientific method.

"John Abraham - Professor of thermal and fluid sciences, University of St. Thomas School of Engineering: “Scientists are very interested in theories that other factors may be causing climate change,” says John Abraham. “The contrarians put forward ideas and the consensus scientists investigate them honestly and find that they don’t withstand scientific scrutiny. This happens all the time. That’s how science works. In fact, showing that these guys are wrong makes the science better.”

"A scientific consensus emerges when the weight of evidence for a proposition becomes so great that serious researchers stop arguing about it among themselves. They then move on to study and debate other questions. There’s quite a bit of scientific debate about lots of different aspects of climate change, but the question of whether humans are causing the planet to warm isn’t one of them.

"There have been three studies, using different methodologies, that have shown that almost all working climate scientists — 97 percent — accept the consensus view."

 

[Tyger]

A lot of what we are hearing likely has roots in those who watch Fox News - getting their climate change information from there. Some of it rings almost verbatim from Fox News - I just highlight one element in the text I quote - but the whole article is relevant -

Fox News Lies A Lot About Climate Science
LINK: Fox News Lies A Lot About Climate Science - Ring Of Fire Radio: Robert Kennedy Jr, Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder

Text: "It’s not a hidden or new idea that Fox News loves to skew facts and incite fear among its viewers to push the conservative agenda, but it’s still good to see research and hard numbers illustrating that. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) conducted a study that tracked the accuracy of the three major news networks reported on climate science in 2013.

"Out of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, the latter misled and lied about climate science 72 percent of the times they reported on climate science. Just for comparison’s sake, MSNBC was accurate about climate science in 92 percent of its coverage.

"According to the report, 53 percent of Fox News’ inaccurate and misleading coverage came from The Five, featuring the hosts Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Juan Williams, and Andrea Tantaros.

"On September 30 of last year, Gutfeld accused the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of obfuscation saying the “experts pondered hiding the news that the earth hadn’t . . . warmed in 15 years, despite an increase in emissions. They concluded that the missing heat was trapped in the ocean.”

"To the contrary, IPCC scientists publicly discussed the “relationship between surface temperature trends, heat trapped in the ocean, and the flow of heat throughout the planet as the climate warms.” "

 

[mike]

carbon footprint. OSU statistic professor Paul Murtaugh, one of the report’s authors, said:
“In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime. Those are important issues and it’s essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources.”

How much impact would having fewer (or no) children have? For each child born in the United States, the report’s authors concluded:
” … the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives — things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.”

The study concluded that in 2009, an American child would add 9441 metric tons of CO2 to a parent’s carbon legacy, which would increase the parent’s direct lifetime emissions by about 570%. And if that child had children, the indirect increase in carbon emissions would be exponential.

Children's effect on carbon emissions and climate change | Crikey

Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals

The study found that having a child has an impact that far outweighs that of other energy-saving behaviors.
Take, for example, a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models. If she had two children, the researchers found, her carbon legacy would eventually rise to nearly 40 times what she had saved by those actions.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...ct/comment-page-7/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Save the Planet: Have Fewer Kids | LiveScience

We need to start asking two questions when we think out having kids

A: Can i afford them
B: Can the planet afford them ?

And as with anything we want to put on the credit card

I may want it, but do i need it. Like the couple in the link above, do they really NEED 20 children ?

I know its a contentious issue, thats why we have the problem. The imperrative to procreate is hard wired.

This is why i say when it comes to carbon emissions, LED bulbs and energy saving devices are no more than a band aid on an open artery.
A futile attempt to have our cake and eat it too

Overpopulation is the problem, fix that and we fix it all.

Those who choose to pass on their genes via procreation have a better chance of genetic imortality by keeping their breeding levels with the biospheres ability to cater for. Over do it, And the result will defeat that purpose.

On a micro level you may be able to afford that large family, but on a macro scale, the biosphere most certainly cannot. its already strained to the point of collapse.

The planet can survive without us, but we cant survive as a species if we destroy it

Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth,” Murtaugh said. “Future growth amplifies the consequences of people’s reproductive choices today, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance.”
Murtaugh noted that their calculations are relevant to other environmental impacts besides carbon emissions – for example, the consumption of fresh water

 

[mike]

One of the biggest environmental problems we face today is overpopulation. The current population will continue to use the Earth’s resources, decimating the land and wreaking havoc on the natural biodiversity of the Earth. Not only are we draining the Earth’s freshwater supplies, we are eradicating many species of plant life, as well as completely filling landfills with toxic waste. We are expanding at such a rapid rate that farmers (whose fields are getting smaller) cannot maintain enough crops to feed the population we currently have. There simply aren’t enough resources on this Earth to continue to sustain overpopulation. We either wait for science to discover, create or work out how to solve these problems while we continue to self-destruct, or we take the matter into our own hands and make a significant impact where we can — by having fewer children and therefore reducing our numbers fast.

Read more at http://planetsave.com/2012/05/27/over-population-the-most-serious-environmental-problem-for-science/#USsPqJIOiwzEslfJ.99

 

[Charlie Prime]

Ok, so no one is qualified to talk about this

I am because I learned the Scientific Method in the 6th grade, at a public school no less.

It's a method for distinguishing science from science fraud like the current climate change fraud.

You should check it out.

 

[flipper]

Here is another explaintion for what is happening to us all. It has to do with the paranormal:
And this isn't the only active volcanic region under West Antarctica: another research team discovered a different active volcano in 2004. The authors of the Mount Sidley report frame underwater volcanoes in terms of 'compounding the effect of global warming', but what if they are the only - or most - significant reason for melting ice in West Antarctica?
Antarctica, is it melting or not? Man-made global warming can't explain this climate paradox -- Earth Changes -- Sott.net

 

[BoyintheMachine]

I am because I learned the Scientific Method in the 6th grade, at a public school no less.

It's a method for distinguishing science from science fraud like the current climate change fraud.

You should check it out.

There's no point in even trying to engage in conversation with them. This is a paranormal-themed show and forum and most people in the paranormal field have no clue about how science is supposed to operate.

 

[Trystero]

“Don't talk to me of independent study or scientific trial/I'm in denial, deep in denial/And as the waters rise around me/I'll just hold my breath and say it isn't so!"
—"Denial Tango," Men with Day Jobs

“Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies."
—Scott Westerfeld

 

[Tyger]

There's no point in even trying to engage in conversation with them. This is a paranormal-themed show and forum and most people in the paranormal field have no clue about how science is supposed to operate.

Quite the reverse - you may be unaware but you are talking to some scientists - well acquainted with the scientific method.

Suggest you actually read some of the links, especially the ones from the Ring of Fire Radio Show. Also, on your own - you need to start reading the reports and literature first hand - instead of hearing the spins and going with them as 'facts'. JMO.

 

[Charlie Prime]

There's no point in even trying to engage in conversation with them.

But everyone learns what science is in grade school. It's just so amazing how this religion has taken hold.

I understand the fraud. Throw 8 BILLION dollars to scientists and they will commit fraud, just like they did with the fraudulent science for eugenics produced by the Nazi government funding.

I understand the propaganda. The science of stupifying populaces with media is well-understood. We see corporations spending billions of dollars on movies and television shows promoting the Climate Fraud taxes because the banks who own those corporations receive 40 billion dollars per month in direct payments and trillions more every year in government contracts for medical, military/security hardware, HUD rents, etc.

What I don't fully understand is the religion. My thesis is that children are taught that they are born, literally born as filthy sinners, and only the Great Sky Father can absolve them of this sin. As adults, government becomes the Great Daddy who will punish the naughties (polluters, criminals, etc.), and the Great Mother who will comfort the poor and sick. Thus, they want to believe so strongly they can completely ignore the absurdity of anthropogenic global warming.