Where do you stand on this issue? Are you a 17 yo non school attending Swedish girl who believes the World is next on the Inquest list? Or are you a big, bold, brash American President who is sick of people telling him how sick the World really is? Australia is burning, volcanoes are erupting all over the place, we’ve just had the hottest decade in recorded history. I tend to think something’s not right. But how bad is bad? I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to that one but do feel we all need to be doing more locally and nationally and internationally. If we don’t and we take the risk but get it wrong then it’s going to be pretty hard to put things right.
Man made climate change is real. Needs to be treated very seriously and more has to be done by us all. Trumps denial is damaging and he's a grade A ****. Equally, Greta is disconnected and speaks from a place of exceptional entitlement. Sweden is already a very clean country, her lifestyle is very easy to achieve, her parents are quite well off. Greta is trying to convince blue collar workers across the globe to give up their livelihoods by saying "how dare you, boomer." Which is only going to achieve the opposite effect. More and more will become defensive and deny climate change, exactly what Greta doesn't want to happen. South Park did an excellent episode on this mentality, which was a clear attack on the anti-trump left which are out of touch. By comparing it to a girl breaking up with an abusive boyfriend and her friends telling her "how could you even be so stupid in the first place." It makes her so defensive she returns to the abusive relationship. Many people have that mentality about voting and politics. If say, a Labour voter on a forum says that the Tory boys or climate change doubters are bollocks chatting morons. They will absolutely never change their mind and change their lifestyle, it's counter productive. We are trying to convince billions of people, many of the poorest on our planet to change their ways. I don't think our current strategy is working. I have however changed my lifestyle to something Greta would be proud of.
I agree. Millions and billions of people i think are the easier part of the equation in change. Think 5p plastic bags. It’s the World Leaders such as Trump and Bolsonaro who are the problem. The actions they instigate have much wider and far reaching effects. Think Amazon forest or withdrawing from the UN’s climate control agreement. Reducing the number of plastic bags is good but not cutting down trees is even better. Setting real targets and not “easy” targets is even better again. Climate controls have to be challenging and realistic and that comes from the top.
Brazil seems intent, obsessed even, with destroying their own country. So they will be very hard to convince. It needs to come from the top, but that pressure comes from the voters. It's those that need to stand up at election time and MAKE it an issue. Then Trump will bend. It's like Brexit, it happened because of grassroots, blue collar working class people who wanted it done. Those same people, can change a lot, they need to be on our side. Now they're not. And like I said, the strategy is failing.
They say that 90% of icebergs are under water or summit....so just turn them all upside down, problem solved.
Dan Brown’s book Inferno had population overgrowth as a central feature. “Bertrand Zobrist: Humanity is the disease, Inferno is the cure” and “Bertrand Zobrist: Our population is spiraling out of control. Inferno is the cure.”
That was a great read. Sadly our dipshit president doesn't believe in evidence. The low level of education in the southern United States has lead many Americans to believe things like "trees emit more carbon than humans"... Which is true, but they also take in more than they emit. Something that is conveniently forgotten by the nightly entertainers over at Fox news.
I hope you are not blaming volcanoes erupting on climate change as its more due to tectonic plates shifting and is actually generally positive for reduction of global temperatures due to the sulphur and fine particulate material shot up into the atmosphere. It also results in very spectacular sunsets. Global warming is happening for a variety of reasons, one of which is the world's continued reliance on fossil fuels. It has happened throughout geologic time though, albeit without any human help, and the earth has survived. Its a marvelously resilient planet that adapts to the changes in temperature, water availability very well, as do many of the plants and animals that live on it. Unfortunately we humans are not very good at that. However, while every little helps, a global rather than local solution is required and that isn't going to happen anytime soon as the developing economies are the ones with the highest projected increase in fossil fuel use and the most to lose, economically, from a switch to energy generation only from renewables. Countries are too wrapped up in their own geopolitical and economic future to work together to a solution. So I think you need to look at realistic ways that we can better control our carbon emissions. Switching from coal to gas as a fuel for power generation first of all, making CCS (carbon capture and storage technology) freely available to all nations, planting more trees and then working together to better develop photovoltaic technology and then make that freely available to all countries. I also think that if we don't find a solution the earth will find one, which would probably result in a significant reduction in population numbers, that will automatically cut energy demand and we can start again.
It makes no difference what we do cos China, India and Russia don't give ****!! Let's just enjoy the warm weather!
Mate it's the USA!! They contribute more than everyone. China has already signed a climate clean-up bill I believe and they're a member of the Paris agreement right? Only the U.S. of all the countries that signed have declared they will pull out. Edit: China are a member of the Paris accord yes.
Fair enough. Don't really follow the climate news much so know next to ****-all. It is getting warmer though, I have to say.
We have had a global heat up before I believe. It was in the medieval era, if I remember correctly. By all accounts at the time, Europe was exceptionally hot for a few summer's. I could be remembering wrong however and it was in fact a mini ice age and we had exceptionally cold winters for a few years. I cannot remember. But something climate related certainly did happen in that period.
I'm in Mumbai - been here for the last two weeks. Fantastic people, fascinating city but being here brings the stark reality to life of how badly the planet is being treated. Especially in some heavily populated parts of the world where infrastructure is not up to scratch.