Challenges and Solutions regarding Climate Change

Thank you, because listening to people on both sides of the argument (who have no actual academic knowledge or mastery of the subject) spew out what are obvious talking points to gain political brownie points annoys the hell out of me. (And let me further note, before someone claims I'm a hypocrite, I am not actually saying I have any academic mastery of the subject - something none of you can claim either).

Anyhow.....
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Personally, I vote that nature puts things back into proper order by killing off the majority of humanity.


But that's just me.....



Seriously, this isn't me trolling. Unless we have some massive breakthroughs in technological development a large number of the human population is going to be cut back due to the needs of the populous outweighing the ability of human's to compensate technologically. This includes the overly optimistic beliefs of people advocating alternative energy - our current human lifestyle is not sustainable by those means. Not without the populous decreasing. That said, maybe there will be a breakthrough. Who knows.

The other option is that we develop the means to begin finding and settling other planets. Finding reachable ones that suit our needs would be difficult, so the more likely possibility would be to terraform planets (change the environment to suit our requirements).


In any case, I have doubts that humanity can come together and give enough of a concerted effort to solve anything. We'll see, I suppose.

 

I hate to say it, but I think Nuclear fission power would be the most efficient short term solution. Switching to whole new infrastructures can take decades, so while we're doing that switching coal plants to nuclear would help a bit. It still would take a decade before we'd get enough nuclear energy though..

Instituting high taxes on energy and fossil fuels (Also for the industry!) would help a bit too.

Sustainable power sources are nice, but can't make up the whole production of energy now, because of peaks in production.

Immediate birth control in all nations.

Biggest challenges are:

-Convincing politicians and other people with power to focus on the longer term (almost impossible), see attempts to discredit climate change science.
-Storing energy from solar and wind energy. 'Easiest' would be 'pumped storage hydroelectricity'. Read the article to see how 'easy' this solution would be...
-The invention of an efficient and working nuclear fusion reactor would be the jackpot, but it's highly possible that that isn't possible to create in the coming century.

 

Agreed on both counts. Watch activists both activists and opposing/competing corporations hamstring any strong effort in that direction, though. :lol:
(Though they already have to a large extent).

 

Not just you.

I don't know. I've debated this enough to make me frustrated for a lifetime, hence why I didn't even click that other thread. I just do what I can as an individual now. I know it's foolish to think that small personal changes in ones daily life can impact the world, but if you get enough people who feel the same, who knows.

 

Just get off fossil fuels wherever feasible (switch alternative energy and hydrogen cell cars) and plant fookin' trees. I bet with those changes we'll stave off the worst effects.

 

"Personally, I vote that nature puts things back into proper order by killing off the majority of humanity."

That's one of the reasons I made that other thread, a bunch of people on my side of the political spectrum (left-wing) think that people are the worst thing that has ever happened and the less of us the better. :/

I think we need to do two main things:

1. Cut or element carbon emissions NOW as that is the most important thing we can do in reducing the effects of climate change.
2. Defend areas of human habitation and important infrastructure against extreme storms and rising sea levels. Using things like levees and pumping stations.

 

Somehow raise the prices of meat and meat product in Second and Third World countries because we can't afford as a planet to have the new middle class achieve what has been the birthright of the First World. Why is the developing world trying to copy us? :dry:








Ok, that was a bit facetious, but we will have to become more economical with our resources as more people enter the "world economy." A "roast in every pot" every day for half the world is not exactly the best way to reduce greenhouse emissions :lol:.

 

I'm not even saying human beings are the worst thing that ever existed. I'm saying that the planet's environment is only meant for so many people before it inevitably pushes back. It's only technological advancement that has allowed us to get where we are - it is certainly possible that we'll continue making strides there and continue to be able to account for more people. It's also possible we've hit a plateau and can no longer sustain our current living habits.


When you get to the point where it's no longer sustainable, the populous will decrease due to the constraints put forth: be that due to starvation, human inflexibility toward climate change (it's happened before, but never with such a large populous - thus the inflexibility), disease, etc. etc. It's a natural thing, and it's not the first time it will have happened. Not the first time for humans, or any number of species before us.

 

Wait until the shitty old politicians are dead in 20-30 years and people who were raised with the interconnectivity of the Internet and the empathy and worldliness it brings move into governance.

At least that's where most of my hope lies. There are lots of perfectly viable solutions available but there are assholes standing in the way.

 

Ok fair enough.

I think we could even have 100 billion people and still sustain our population if we get resources from off planet... we need to do that anyway to continue an advanced way of life into the next century. Most of the growth should happen in cities though (not in protected areas or farmland.)

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Another thing we should do is limit our meat consumption... maybe using meat grown in a lab. Since it takes a lot of resources to maintain our meat supply that could be used to feed and water people rather than say cows.

 

I think the key is in financial incentives. As long as it is cheaper to drive gasoline driven cars they will dominate. The average age of cars on the street in the US has reached 15 years, so even if the automakers had 100% alternative fuel vehicles in 2015, it would be 2040 before all gasoline cars were off the roads.

Other industries we take for granted, and wouldn't want to be without are huge power consumers as well. In my city the top 3 power consumers are: the Frontier Oil Refinery, power is needed to make fuels; Union Pacific Railroad, trains are very efficient for shipping freight, but take an enormous amount of power to operate and maintain, they are still much more efficient than trucks or airplanes; and finally the Echostar Satellite Uplink, it takes an enormous amount of power to transmit all the Dish Network(tm) programming to the satellites so people at home can watch tv. As long as we have people who want to watch TV there will be these uplink sites.
The point there being is if we implement a Cap and Trade type system we have to be careful because the companies will pass costs to consumers, Satellite TV will become more expensive, things shipped by rail will be more expensive, gasoline will become more expensive causing everything shipped by truck to become more expensive etc.

 

I agree with this, and the idea of limiting the human population - with whatever means - is something I have also thought about, BUT, I also think there are other ways. You said it yourself - our lifestyle needs to change. We flick on the lights without thinking twice about it, we drive unnecessarily massive and inefficient vehicles, and we take advantage of the world without paying for the consequences. And one good solution to changing the lifestyle, at least a little, in my opinion, someone has already said:

Just like how (most of us) we think about if we can even afford to buy some outfit or device or whatever consumer product, we would need to think about how much energy we want to use. Fossil fuel companies (especially fracking companies) exploit the environment such that the cost it incurs to the company to drill and extract is no where near the cost it takes to repair the damage of that hole caused on the environment. The cost should be equal - whether through taxes or requirements through legislation - such that additional cost would be used to combat the damage to the environment the hole cost. (Note: I generalized to just a hole, but I also mean fracking chemicals, processing, etc).

 

"Personally, I vote that nature puts things back into proper order by killing off the majority of humanity."

With all of the right-wingers who want to dump waste all over the place, force people to reproduce and murder LGBT people, that's one of the worst thngs you can say. All you're doing is making leftists look as crazy as they are. Good thing I'm a centerist...

Anywho, I think we should stop the "everyone has to make babies" culture (for a variety of reasons), start planting more plants, stop killing plants as often as we do (I understand we need paper, roads, buildings and such, but at the rate we're doing this, we're almost asking for something to happen), and start using renewable energy (I know it's not nearly advanced enough to power the whole world, but the more we use it, the better).

 

I would like to think that we will change our ways before this happens, but we are setting ourselves up for a huge collapse when we run out of petroleum. I vote we take what's left and turn it in to the plastic part of solar panels.

---------- Post added 23rd Jun 2014 at 10:05 PM ----------

 

scientifically produce a creature that farts a counterbalance to co2 thousanda of millions times greater than plants, and make it really cute and biologically and ecologically sustainable


DUH SO SIMPLE COME ON OBAMA

 

I've never thought of that, but what you said makes perfect sense.

 

When people talk about "unsustainable lifestyles," remember that the first world is really the only to engage in the benefits of that lifestyle.

Reducing population isn't the answer on that account. Reducing our own greed is. It's gross that people have actually considered reducing global populations instead of bothering to change their own habits. The idea that those in poverty or underprivileged positions (the majority of the world) are an impediment to global climate stability more so than the handful (most of us on here, I believe) who reap the benefits of that destruction, is really ignorant or just plain evil.

We should all, as individuals, engage in the little things that help when they're all done collectively. Sharing cars, taking public transport, not eating meat/using other destructive animal products (basically anything produced on a large scale), turning the heater/air conditioner down, and just reducing the sheer greed of our consumption. Either we do it willingly, or we risk going into global chaos in which all but well-off in the first world will be living in terrible situations with no chance to enjoy even moderate luxuries, anyway.

When it's said that a natural population reduction will occur, what that means is that those in better off positions will withhold their supplies to those who will be sacrificing themselves for others' pleasure unwillingly.