Right? When it goes to hell, it goes quickly. I still can’t wrap my head around it.
The media began their “balanced” coverage as soon as industry began their disinformation campaigns. People see two ‘scientists’ debating a scientific issue, how are they going to judge the validity of the claims? It’s like if CNN et al had two physicists debating the meaning of the double slit experiment.
Industry followed the same playbook they used for tobacco and leaded gasoline. Only this time it worked, and it worked because in the larger picture we - collective we, humanity - don’t want to do anything about it. It’s difficult and painful and there’s no tangible costs that we’re paying for fucking over the climate and every living thing on it, now and for the future (well, until recently anyway.) We want cheap energy. Cheap cars, cheap consumer goods. Doesn’t even matter if things break or become obsolete, just buy another one. We don’t pay the actual costs for the products we consume, nor do we want to (I’m as guilty as anyone of this when it comes to computers.)
I got my environmental studies degree in the early '90s. Climate change was just starting to become an issue, but the courses I took covered acid rain for example far more in depth. (Hell, we barely touched on biodiversity loss in the tropics.)
And now we’re gonna sail right by two degrees, and probably three degrees too. We’re going to keep on the course we’re on, building pipelines, mining oil in Canada, ripping apart the last remaining tropical forests and fracking everywhere.
I have a hard time imagining what the next century is going to look like.
Peachy. But, you know, ‘alarmists.’
No less than ten distinct facets of what scientists call the Earth System could switch from neutral or helpful to harmful, eventually dumping more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere than all human activity combined.
Most have temperature “tipping points” beyond which the release of these planet-warming gases would be irreversible, at least on a human time scale.
“The feedback process becomes self-perpetuating after a critical threshold is crossed,” the study said.
“The Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing, rapid pathway towards much hotter conditions—Hothouse Earth.”
KevinC
3852
It’s not perfect, but can we please start utilizing nuclear power? You can build the reactor in my backyard.
The main problem with that right now is that it’s expensive. There were a couple of stories on NPR last year about how the existing reactors in the U.S. sell electricity at a price lower than it takes to make the electricity in those plants. Even though Solar and Wind are almost getting to the point of being able to compete with fossil fuel energy, with smaller need for government subsidy, Nuclear is too expensive to compete without subsidies now.
Of course, that was last year when oil was $50 a barrel, and it’s now $70 a barrel, so maybe Nuclear is competitive again?
KevinC
3854
I think Nuclear becomes a lot more competitive when you factor in the cost of climate change damage on top of the per-barrel cost. And unlike wind and solar (which I’m a fan of), it provides the baseline power which we need.
I’d be more than happy for my tax dollars to subsidize the construction of nuclear plants.
HYIMBYism: Hell Yes In My Backyard!
Interesting tidbit from the essential-fucking-reading “Losing Earth” piece in the NY Times… Neil Gorsuch’s mom is Anne Gorsuch, who ran the EPA under Reagan. The piece, granted with an axe to grind, describes Gorsuch as “an anti-regulation zealot who proceeded to cut the agency’s staff and budget by about a quarter.”
KevinC
3856
Your lobbying dollars at work!
Reagan also had James Watt. Those fuckers would fit right in with the current regime. Just wait until Kavenaugh is confirmed. Bye, bye environmental laws.
Gonna take more than that. According to the models in that study, even if we stop emitting all GH gases, temperatures are still going to rise. It means a radical transformation in lifestyles for people living in industrialized countries - but we can’t even do the little things yet. Probably kids today, and definitely their kids are gonna be turbo boned. Large swathes of the planet will no longer be habitable (too hot or under water.) It’s the nightmare scenario and we’re rapidly approaching the point of no return (absent some sort of global sequestration effort, i.e. actively removing carbon from the atmosphere.)
(Don’t get me wrong, but yes to more nuke plants.)
All one can do is the best one can do and mitigate the damage as much as possible.
Of course, we can’t even do that because our politics are fucked and our electorate has the attention span of a gnat with ADD.
Miramon
3859
I suppose when Arizona evacuates in a few years for being too damn hot, when half the people in India and Africa have already died, these monstrous creatures will be droning on about God’s Will from their gated communities in the great American state of Nunavut.
yeah, I guess I’ll throw this apparent idiocy in as well:
RichVR
3861
Coming soon, lead back in gasoline and paint.
And DDT and Agent Orange…
Nesrie
3863
And just how is the ocean doing with Japan’s ongoing Fukushima problems, you know the stuff they’re starting to find in things we consume in other places of the world, not Japan? I think cost is only a part of the problem in the wake of that.
KevinC
3864
How are the coral reefs doing with global warming? The acidification of our oceans and lakes? The wildfires in California? The disappearing island nations? The droughts? The floods? The famines?
Nesrie
3865
I don’'t think Nuclear is the answer. We can’t even handle what we have, and that’s when things go well. This one didn’t, and it’s still a problem, a major one.
That was an outdated model that due to corruption and short sightedness, was not kept safe. Because society refuses to invest in nuclear power, it will always be more unsafe.
In any case, the fallout was still far less than what a coal plant produces.
Nesrie
3867
I’m not convinced we know what to do with nuclear, and I am not a fan of kicking the can for other generations to figure it out either. We’re still exploring other renewable options… I have more faith in that.
Time is of the essence, though. Not that it matters to Americans, who don’t give a fuck about climate change. The rest of the world might have an opinion on the matter.
