I was going to write a blog on the forthcoming recession this morning, but this seemed more important:
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I disagree.
We should not panic.
Because the opposition will tell us and everyone else that we are. And there will be a backlash that will further entrench resistance.
We just need to keep at it slow and steady, unrelenting. We will be overtaken by events anyway in one way or another which will may make the need for change more apparent for us.
I disagree, one of the better books I have read is “Voltaire’s Bastards” by John Ralson Saul – the ability to panick when in extreme situations is regarded as a virtue – R-S shows quite well waht happens when you don’t (WW1 featured extensively – but also other situations). It is a climate emergency – we need to act accordingly – the house is burning down – we don’t have time to discuss how to make sure not too much water is used in putting out the blaze (e.g. solving the climate emergency in an econometrically efficient fashion a la Stern etc).
Yes, this IS the existential subject that we shall ignore … at our peril!
Even small individual changes can help. I’m baking my own bread, using only grains grown in the United Kingdom (spelt and rye) to try to minimise food miles. My daughter wants me to fly to Rumania in September to visit a friend who has moved back there; although I haven’t flown for many years, I’m very reluctant to comply, but her husband won’t go, and won’t let her travel alone, so I may yet be persuaded – Mariana is my friend as well as Julia’s. When I’m food-shopping, I try to buy local seasonal products – both fruit and vegetables; this isn’t difficult in any large town, and can be done in towns as small as Machynlleth, because I did it last week. Local cheeses, butter, fish – what’s not to like?
Our central heating won’t be ramped up this winter either – we’re going to use layers of clothes to minimise the perceived necessity (and it is our personal perceptions that trigger reactions which may be quite inappropriate).
A tiny grain of change against an ocean which threatens to overwhelm mankind. We now know how fast the planet is warming – and the northern parts of these islands may reap the consequences this afternoon in torrential rain and thunderstorms! If everyone in this country implemented small changes in their lifestyles, the grain would swell to a bakery full of bread, perhaps. Not enough to prevent disaster – I think that this is now inevitable, but we can – and should – mitigate its local consequences.
These changes do matter
I am trying the same things along the same lines whenever I can
Richard
Climate change has moved from science to religion, characterised by intolerance of debate which is a corner stone of science, and a belief that it is due to human sin a cornerstone of religion. I have no idea whether these are facts confirmed by scientific principles or “truth” passed down from the wise and intolerant. I am not prepared to subscribe to a new religion, Christ is my saviour, but I realise the dangers challenging the “true faith”. Just like the religious minorities of the past I will keep my head down and look for business opportunities. Is anyone interested in funding research into materials for electric cars and aeroplanes, which as well as cutting CO2 is worth billions?
I have to disagree Dave
I think climate change is all about science: the case is proven as well as anything can be now
The faith side is that the science is wrong
Billions are going into electric cars but not planes
I would suggest electric cars cannot save us as thinking goes now: the whole idea of the car has to be redesigned to really save carbon. Changing the fuel system of an existing car will not really do that
“The faith side is that the science is wrong”
Well said. No-one is yet following the recommendations of people who have Nobel prizes in economic sciences and with good reason. Faith is more powerful.
We need to look to more radical action. I suggest most road repairs are abandoned forthwith unless they are also include restrictions that mean less traffic will come after the fixes. Filling in potholes only encourages more motor vehicles to use the roads.
No, it’s not a religion around global warming/heating. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the earth is heating up. We also have a very good idea about what will happen if it gets much warmer.
The intolerance for debate is not because of a lack of tolerance for alternative views. The climate change debate is (should be) over. We have the data, we know what’s happening. Are you also going to cry intolerance because people won’t debate gravity or electromagnetism?
So please, don’t try the intolerance argument regarding this subject again. Thanks.
Dear Johan
You have just demonstrated my point. I agree with everyone that the world is warming, that it is serious , that emissions are bad. When I was young in the olden days when houses were cold, we had two sets of clothes (best and school uniform), we had a bath or shower once a week, we walked to school and rode our bike to work, our holiday was a week in Blackpool in the rain. So why are you telling me to shut up and accept what I am told? My caution is that the climate science new and unproven, the sensors are new, the huge computers and algorithms are new and the data sets are new. If we just accept the results we could make some serious mistakes. We have to keep checking and re-checking, if we do not adopt scientific principles and keep re-visiting the science we could make it worse not better. Our danger is idiots like Trump who lets the Cinese off the hook. BTW gravity is not understood, we don’t even know what it is, we spend billions trying to detect gravitational waves in the hope of finding out, we don’t understand how the universe can continually expand despite the effects of gravity. As for electromagnmetism where would you like to start, at frequencies from DC to light there must be more papers published on this than any other subject.
David
The science is being revisited continually
And is now thought to be as beyond dispute as science can be
That’s why I accept it
Richard
Dear David
Thank you for your response. I can see why my post might have felt like “just shut up”, but that’s not what I said.
Without descending into aggressive rhetoric again, the global warming debate, from a scientific standpoint, is done. There is no debate on the main message. 99% are in agreement and new data only enforces that which we think is known.
The habit of crying intolerance when people won’t debate climate change is incredibly dangerous. It gives a voice to the deniers. Which wouldn’t be a problem if everyone were well informed, but they’re not. If there appears to be a side which says “carry on as usual, nothing to see here” a disproportionate number of people will follow – disproportionate in relation to the weight of evidence on both sides.
So I appreciate the concern that climate change is “becoming a religion” where dissent against is shouted down, but the shouting down is done precisely because it is not a religion. As I said before, we have the data. Reams and reams of it.
My first response was not meant as a personal attack, nor to tell you to shut up. But simply to hammer home the message that feigning victimhood of intolerance when people will not debate a subject which has been settled with a huge weight of data, is not just unhelpful but deliberately distracts from the somewhat pressing issue at hand.
Sorry, I should have responded to the points on gravity and EM.
Gravity – we have a reasonable idea. The Higgs boson has been found. Whilst the really fundamental stuff is still under question we know what two lumps of mass will do in relation to each other. I’m sure you wouldn’t contest that point.
EM is kind of similar. Sure there’s lots of research around how EM waves interact with matter and how to couple waves into structures and manipulate light and on and on but the general behaviour is known and understood.
I think the point I’m trying to make is that we have theories which describe gravity and EM well. We know what will happen for the most part. I’m confident we’re at that point with climate change as well. In fact it seems more and more likely that the models we have are too conservative and unfortuantely, unlike with gravity and EM, we really don’t want to test our theory on climate change any further.
Dave, climate science is not new. Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, did the first global warming calculations in 1896. The current numbers are surprisingly similar – though the calculations are vastly more complex.
But even if we agree that there’s some uncertainty we should also agree that warming might be greater, not less, than the models show. In fact its more likely to be greater. So we need to address the risk.
I suppose it depends on whether any panic is likely to be productive and worthwhile.
There appears to be little point panicking over CO2 and CH4 emissions – that boat seems to have sailed. Just two examples – 17 of the last 18 warmest years in the entire 136 year record have all occurred since 2001 and global temperatures have increased by 0.9 degrees C since 1880 (NASA/GISS 2018) and removal of 25% of ALL the CO2 emissions for the last 30 years (even if we had the technology to do that) would be outweighed by the loss of the reflective power of Artic sea ice ((Pistone, Eisenman & Ramanathan (2014) Observational determination of albedo decrease caused by vanishing Artic sea ice – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA , vol 111).
On the other hand if governments and individuals are not already a fair way down the path of deep adaptation or resilience (See – Bendell (2018) Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy and Stockholm Resilience Centre (2015) What is resilience?) you should probably start panicking.
I am no climate change scientist (just an FCA with a 35 year old science degree) and only came across the concept of Deep Adaption a few weeks ago from this article -https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/29/no-flights-four-day-week-climate-scientists-home-save-planet
and as someone who works a 3 day week, has not flown since 1997 and only eats the meat I kill, it scared the s**t out of me. When you have to call something Deep Adaptation because anything else (Doomsday prepping perhaps) is too scary for the public to handle it does at least make you wonder!
You are right…
It does make you wonder
And you have to plan in hope, that we might survive
The elephant in the room, so to speak, is how on earth will governments come together to fund the exponentially increasing transition costs that will impact so severely and regressively on global communities across national borders? Not only is there any evidence that they’re actually discussing it but they can’t even yet agree on the fundamentals of how ‘money’ functions in their individual countries let alone internationally.
Irrespective therefore of increasing awareness and any agreed upon ‘solutions’ (including possible geoengineering band-aid – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZIC6hJ_fCE), I suggest the prevailing ideological disaparity and lack of cooperation between nation states will be the final nail in the coffin of ‘homo economicus’ rather than the actual changing climate. It’s ironic in a very depressing way.
As a PS – today’s news item ‘Australia Sets New Record High for Emissions Pollution’ (https://www.ecowatch.com/australia-emissions-record-high-2639152810.html) is as about depressing as it gets.
The science is right, the world is warming, but the faith element could be dangerously wrong.
The hypothesis that warming is caused by industrialisation, is not proven, it is coincidental. Ice cores show that for the last 4 million years the world heats and cools on a 150,000 year cycle. For the last 2 or three thousand years the world has been quite hot and the record suggests temperatures will continue to rise to reach +4C as was reached at the peak of the last 150,000 year cycle before plunging into another ice age.
If this is the case we would be arrogant to think we can cool the earth without risk of hastening the next ice age which would be a REALLY big problem. Likewise we may not be able to stop the world heating. We need to ensure that the science is secure by allowing it to be questioned or we risk making some terrible mistakes. We should also ask the scientists the question “have you considered the possibility that it is not caused by population and industrialisation and the temperature rises by 4C some other mechanism such as solar or geothermal cycles?
The data we have is all indirect, I actually made the first Earth Resources Satellite (the high powered SAR processor which measures sea levels, a huge computer) in 1998 so our direct measured data covers 20 years out of 100 million years. Climate science is all new so it needs to be questioned and having journalists like David Attenborough gagging scientists and interfering in the legitimate scientific process is foolish.
Yes I know Trump and the idiots want to do nothing out of pure load mouthed selfish capitalist greed but that is no excuse to abandon good scientific practice.
I am happy that 95% or more of the reliable science on this issue is now in agreement that human activity is creating this crisis
The chance that this is a natural epiphenomenon is, I think so remote it’s not now subject to debate
I’ll risk an ice age: again, the chance is too remote for now to worry about even if it will, inevitably one day happen
Hi Richard
Would you be happy if you were 95% sure that brakes on your car would work?
Climate science has some of the most complex computers, sensors and algorithms. As an engineer who has written and tested code, built sensors systems and spacecraft, I don’t trust anything anyone (least of all a computer) tells me unless I can double check it, put a number on it and calibrate it, so being asked to just accept something because Richard Attenborough says so just gets my goat.
I will now withdraw from this debate and cross my fingers.
In this case 95% is agreement on an almost unprecedented scale based in overwhelming evidence
I’d say the evidence was well above 95%
The margin for error is purely human
@ Dave Skertchly Until Britain in the 19thC and pretty much everwhere in the 20thC we had never before used so much of the carbon based resources in the world in order to drive everyday human life.
It may, perhaps, be we are in a part of a warming cycle but just supposing we are not?
Shouldn’t we be following the precautionary principle?
Peter
Yes
Richard
95% is OK for practical purposes, but science is about precision and certainty. Let us remember that science is based on the sufferings of Galileo who was tried by the Inquisition, found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, and forced to recant and admit that the world was centre of the universe.
You may have withdrawn from the debate, but I want to point out your 95% example is entirely the wrong way round.
Instead you have 99 mechanics telling you your brakes have failed, and if you don’t come off the accelerator right now you’re going to smash into the wall just ahead. But 1 guy, who incidentally will make a lot of money from clearing the wreckage is telling you the brakes are fine.
Now on that 1 guy’s say so you are happy to keep speeding up and hoping everything will be ok? This is suicide on a civilisation size scale.
Like Pilgrim I agree we should not panic. I would have valued your views on the next recession more than the above and look forward to reading them shortly. The recession is what we need to reduce consumption and CO2 emissions and usher in the green new deal. That would have the best effect in reducing CO2 emissions which we need to do for many good ecological reasons.
If I did not consider the evidence on climate change I would not be in the Green New Deal
Besides still not wanting to use panic to cause change, I agree with Peter and others – something is happening to our climate – for example a lot of long-life ice is now melting rather quickly for my liking and the pre-cautionary principle needs to be applied. Once we get over the cause (man-made or natural) we just need to agree that something is indeed happening and we should at least not take it for granted.
The precautionary principle itself creates new opportunities for technology and we should grasp them and not allow vested interests to suppress it.
BTW – as a cyclist, not repairing pot-holes is a big no-no thank you very much – pot-holes can cause death or injury for us two-wheelers.
When you start to look at the Negotiations around the Copenhagen agreement etc it is not about reducing CO2 emissions it is about getting Britain America and Germany to pay for their Catbon debt. In other words how much cash are we going to pay out. This will come from our taxation so Richard what would the income tax vat rate be for the UK to pay its carbon debt over say 5 years or 10 years. The inference is that if we agree to pay our debt the rest of the world will help us save the planet, if we don’t they are happy to drown with us…..bit like blackmail really.
Caopenhagen did not happen
Paris did
And we should pay for decarbonisation – we created the problem
Yes, but it’s expensive. It will need to be spread over more than 10 years.
How expensive is survival?
And I agree, the expense will last much longer than 10 years
Quite, but how much will it cost each of us, the money will have to come from somewhere ie taxation and what we cannot make in tax will have to come from cuts such as cuts to the NHS, University tuition Charges, cuts to local services, cuts to pensions, reductions in old age care, fuel tax. Personally I think paying sums to poor countries to make up for our parents and Grandparents wilfull neglect is a good idea but how much? Will I have any money left to build my model railways?
Dave
Can I suggest you read the chapters in the Joy if Tax one where money comes from?
Richard
I’m not sure panic is a good idea yet, it would likely lead to rash decisions and actions,
but I must say I do feel a rising level of anxiety about the impact human activities are having on the global environment and the mounting evidence that points to rapid and almost irreversable changes being underway,
anxiety is the pre-cursor to panic, unless we recognise this anxiety and act upon it in a timely manner we will reach a point where it’s too late to do anything, then all we can do is panic!
what we definately shouldn’t do is ‘keep calm and carry on’
that govt’s are ‘keeping calm and carrying on’ whilst human civilisation is sleep walking towards a cliff edge is the reason I’m increasingly anxious!
when people quibble about the height of the cliff edge, whether the cliff is man made or natural, the accuracy of computer models predicting the effects of falling off a cliff or the fairness of tentative talks about how to fund a safety net below the cliff edge I find myself becoming increasingly irritable,
it’s a cliff edge and you’re sleep walking towards it!
panic will be the screaming heard between falling off and hitting the ground shortly afterwards.
My reaction is the Corporate Accountability Network
OK the bill for every man woman and child in the UK to pay to the poor countries to pay for the damage our ancestors did is roughly £3400.00 pa for 5 years so for a family of 4 that is roughly £13000 per year.
Dave
Thus is not on any agenda I know of
Richard