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Which is Worse, Global Warming or No Energy?
To meet the proposed CO2 limits, we'll need to use less energy per person than did the Pilgrims. This means no air conditioners, no heaters, no cars, and no computers. Is this better or worse than the expected effects of a rise in temperature of 0.5 Deg C
This one ends with irreversible processes. The other one is a temporary problem, which could be fixed. All we need is to wake up and realize that we have sufficient amounts of sustainable energy forms that are left unharvested.
Yes lets harvest the other forms of energy but why do that when oil and other forms of non renewable sources are still here? because they will go away? Where's the incentive to care about a future where we present humans no longer exist?
oh you care about people? do you work for money? if you do, you dont care about people, if you cared about people, you would work without pay and do it as volunteer work.
None of that is relevant to this debate. If you cannot defend your position or think of a relevant question, you are just wasting everyone's time by replying.
ha but if you look closely i did defend my position. He or she said that global warming is worse than having no energy. i told him or her no energy is worse because we are living now, and it is pointless to 'save' energy for the sake of future generations, we might as well use it now.
He or she then said that they care about people. i rebuttal that saying that they didn't really care about people or else they would work for free. Hence, if they really did not care about people then their global warming is worse than no energy has no merit since their only reason was they supposedly cared about people.
I think you are the one who wasted everyone's time with a response that showed how unobservant you are. Next time try re-reading the post and try to make sense of it before you try bashing their response. :)
What he does is relevant because he said 'i care about people' as the reason why global warming should be stopped and i asked him a question in response to that to prove whether or not he cares about people. If you work and get money that means you care about your own well-being as opposed to giving that money to other people which would show that they care about people. This shows that he contradicted himself and here you are trying to completely close me out by not even stating why my arguments are irrelevant but rather merely stating they are.
You're arguments are irrelevant because his personal activities and lifestyle have nothing to do with the argument he presented.
He is saying "We need to worry about the people who come after us." You reply with "I bet you don't even care about people." That isn't an argument because it doesn't matter if he actually cares about people as you understand that to mean. He is only arguing from his perspective of what caring about people means, yours is irrelevant.
A relevant follow up question would be "What do you mean when you say you care about people?". A relevant rebuttal would be an argument demonstrating that his position would not be beneficial to future humans.
I understand your point. Thank you for clarifying that for me. :) I still think my points are valid because he said, "i care about people' and i was trying to fight that statement but its ok, i understand how to argue correctly
Nope, that was natural. The earth does that. However, mankind is increasing the changes. Global warming is a natural occurrence, as is global cooling. However, because of humans, the earth is heating up too much, thus the ice at the north pole is melting faster than the new snow can build up on it. That is not meant to happen.
Hmm, I know many, many, many, many people who would say otherwise... People who will talk about CO2 and Sulphur Dioxide levels rising ( acid rain), temperatures rising, sea levels rising, climate change in general from all parts of the world, all changed dramatically in the last couple of centuries. Of course there are fanatics blowing it out of proportion, but some of it is true. Unless it's all just a conspiracy...
In the 70's the scientists thought it was global cooling. Don't get me wrong... I'm hoping for global warming. I've always wanted a palm tree in my front yard and if a few tiny islands in the Pacific have to go down then so be it.
No I didn't. If global warming occurs, then there will be no use of energy, because everyone will be dead. If people now stop using such large amounts of energy, then there will be no global warming, and we all live happily.
No I didn't. If global warming occurs, then there will be no use of energy, because everyone will be dead.
Not necessarily.
Global warming is a on going slow process. No is just going to fall over dead because of a small change in the regular temperature. Global warming happens because their is a tear in the ozone layers, but the ozone layer does regenerate over time. So we can survive while global warming is happening.
Global warming is an issue that affects literally everything on the planet, including humanity. No energy, technically only means, no energy we can use.
In the end, there will be no energy, when humans are dead and gone, but life will still thrive, and we will be forgotten as if we were just a one hit wonder.
Global Warming is not to impact us but future generations. Where is the incentive to care about future generations of humans when i plan to have no children? I want to worry about the life i have now with the family i have now. so having no energy is worse.
That is a fairly egocentric/assholic perspective to have. That is similar to saying; I am clever enough to kill your whole family without being caught, and if that makes my life better at the present, it is all good.
umm I guess I kinda see where your coming from on how what I said is similar to what you said. I like how you judged my perspective :) So are you saying countries that do not approve of greener improvements to their countries are egocentric? The countries do not want more greener solutions because it will negatively impact the present citizens jobs and other aspects about their lives. The countries are caring about the present people. What do you have to say about that? are they being egocentric? hmmm?
No one is denying that the planet would be getting warmer if we never came across fossil fuels, since we had been in a mini ice age from 1350-ish to 1850-ish. I think that the most important thing to remember is even the most aggrandized and ridiculous figures only point to the planet warming a few degrees over the next century; we just won't be using fossil fuels by then.
Global warming is not a myth, it's just not worth worrying over.
"During the course of this century the resilience of many ecosystems (their ability to adapt naturally) is likely to be exceeded by an unprecedented combination of change in climate, associated disturbances (e.g., flooding, drought, wildfire, insects, ocean acidification)"
"Approximately 20 to 30% of plant and animal species assessed so far (in an unbiased sample) are likely to be at increasingly high risk of extinction as global mean temperatures exceed a warming of 2 to 3°C above preindustrial levels (medium confidence)"
Substantial changes in structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems are very likely to occur with a global warming of more than 2 to 3°C above pre-industrial levels (high confidence).
Coasts will be exposed to increasing risks, including coastal erosion, over coming decades due to climate change and sea-level rise (very high confidence).
The unavoidability of sea-level rise, even in the longer-term, frequently conflicts with present-day human development patterns and trends (high confidence).
I could go on but I would just be quoting the IPCC reports. If you want to have a legitimate opinion about the seriousness of climate change you ought to get your opinions from a credible, peer reviewed resource. No resource is better than these reports, so you would probably want to have a look at them.
"During the course of this century the resilience of many ecosystems (their ability to adapt naturally) is likely to be exceeded by an unprecedented combination of change in climate, associated disturbances (e.g., flooding, drought, wildfire, insects, ocean acidification)"
That's really not our concern. Even if the ecosystems do change and get knocked around, the impact that it sustains on us is still going to be outweighed by cheapness in fuel. You could say that it might threaten our supply of fish from the ocean, but it won't completely eliminate it or really even take out a substantial part of it. The rest of the ecosystems really don't matter to us, and are not our concern.
"Approximately 20 to 30% of plant and animal species assessed so far (in an unbiased sample) are likely to be at increasingly high risk of extinction as global mean temperatures exceed a warming of 2 to 3°C above preindustrial levels (medium confidence)"
Substantial changes in structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems are very likely to occur with a global warming of more than 2 to 3°C above pre-industrial levels (high confidence).
I'm not sure how this affects us.
For plants, most other species that are resilient and adapted to it will just expand into new areas; ecosystems are built around the climate, not the other way around. It's a small factor, but rising water vapor levels (forming clouds) will shield and deflect sunlight.
Coasts will be exposed to increasing risks, including coastal erosion, over coming decades due to climate change and sea-level rise (very high confidence). The unavoidability of sea-level rise, even in the longer-term, frequently conflicts with present-day human development patterns and trends (high confidence).
That's not a huge concern. The ocean levels rise very slowly in response to industry, the amount of emissions that we're shelling out is completely worth as water levels aren't a huge concern. Rising water levels will also cause more uniform temperatures.
Actually, you already see nuclear powered aircraft carriers, it looks like it's going to hit factories soon enough (at least before cars, if they will even exist up to that point).
That's really not our concern. Even if the ecosystems do change and get knocked around, the impact that it sustains on us is still going to be outweighed by cheapness in fuel.
No it is not. We get all of the fundamental resources of life from nature. We get clean water, nutrients and a fine decomposition system for free. Cheap oil isn't sustainable, nature is.
You could say that it might threaten our supply of fish from the ocean
Three quarters of fishing grounds are exhausted, depleted or in danger of being so. This is mostly due to overfishing, but I don't see how that makes the problem any better.
The rest of the ecosystems really don't matter to us, and are not our concern.
Why do you suppose that is so? We depend on a lot of things in the ecosystem, and in turn these things depend on others. Everything depends on everything else. We can't just ignore what is going on around us because eventually it will destroy the foundation of our lives. 20% of the worlds population uses 80% of it's resources. We don't need these things, 80% of the world would agree. We could live happy, peaceful lives even if we have to quit our sitting addiction in the process.
It's a small factor, but rising water vapor levels (forming clouds) will shield and deflect sunlight.
Water vapor is a green house gas. Even if we get more clouds, which deflect heat, the gross consequence of more water vapor in the air will be a warmer climate, thus accelerating the process. This is an auto catalytic process, and if it starts going at some specific pace, we have lost control of the situation.
For plants, most other species that are resilient and adapted to it will just expand into new areas; ecosystems are built around the climate
Ecosystems influence the climate just like climates influences what type of ecosystem will evolve. You suppose that life will easily adapt to the changes, but I think that's a dubious assumption. It took millions of years for arrive at this balance; everything is interconnected. It took us about 300 years to drastically change everything, and now species are going extinct at 2000 times their normal rate. In order for the natural ecological systems to survive this, nature would at least have to counter some of the extinction rate, and it needs to be with life forms that balance out with each other. Everything needs to be interconnected, ecological systems don't work without interconnection. Creating balance on a global level takes a whole lot of time, millions of years. There's only one kind of life form that can do evolve at the pace needed, and that's bacteria. It is a problem.
The ocean levels rise very slowly in response to industry, the amount of emissions that we're shelling out is completely worth as water levels aren't a huge concern
It is a huge concern considering that most (all?) metropolises lie at coasts. If water levels rise enough we will see mass immigration. All of a sudden massive amount of people will be jammed up in the remaining natural reserves, eventually depleting the soil and everything else.
No it is not. We get all of the fundamental resources of life from nature. We get clean water, nutrients and a fine decomposition system for free. Cheap oil isn't sustainable, nature is.
Most of the water that we get straight from natural source is not clean. We reuse the water that we have now to a certain extent. We also are already getting water from the ocean, another thing that will kick off as technology improves.
Three quarters of fishing grounds are exhausted, depleted or in danger of being so. This is mostly due to overfishing, but I don't see how that makes the problem any better.
Oh, no. You have a point, I'm just trying to say that global warming won't have as large an impact on the oceans as rising ocean waters lead to more moderate temperature. I'm not talking about overfishing.
Why do you suppose that is so? We depend on a lot of things in the ecosystem, and in turn these things depend on others. Everything depends on everything else. We can't just ignore what is going on around us because eventually it will destroy the foundation of our lives. 20% of the worlds population uses 80% of it's resources. We don't need these things, 80% of the world would agree. We could live happy, peaceful lives even if we have to quit our sitting addiction in the process.
That's because we won't in time. We won't be using oil and coal by year 2113. Soon enough, we won't have to worry about our impact on the planet.
Water vapor is a green house gas. Even if we get more clouds, which deflect heat, the gross consequence of more water vapor in the air will be a warmer climate, thus accelerating the process. This is an auto catalytic process, and if it starts going at some specific pace, we have lost control of the situation.
I think that you mean net (instead of gross)?
The clouds are still going to deflect sunlight and rays, absorbing heat is a different story.
Ecosystems influence the climate just like climates influences what type of ecosystem will evolve. You suppose that life will easily adapt to the changes, but I think that's a dubious assumption. It took millions of years for arrive at this balance; everything is interconnected. It took us about 300 years to drastically change everything, and now species are going extinct at 2000 times their normal rate. In order for the natural ecological systems to survive this, nature would at least have to counter some of the extinction rate, and it needs to be with life forms that balance out with each other. Everything needs to be interconnected, ecological systems don't work without interconnection. Creating balance on a global level takes a whole lot of time, millions of years. There's only one kind of life form that can do evolve at the pace needed, and that's bacteria. It is a problem.
What I'm saying is that species don't need to adapt. Most can migrate or move to newly suitable areas, especially plants, which are the greatest concern for a balanced ecosystem.
It is a huge concern considering that most (all?) metropolises lie at coasts. If water levels rise enough we will see mass immigration. All of a sudden massive amount of people will be jammed up in the remaining natural reserves, eventually depleting the soil and everything else.
I believe, with the exception of Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London, and several large cities in India, yes. Several feet extra can be walled up, but it won't get higher than that since the most over the next century will only be a few at best.
You are intelligent and well informed. I am enjoying this conversation.
I have to admit that I don't know much about these issues. One of the main problems in addressing them is that there's no single cause to many of the trends we see today. It's starting to become a cliché but everything is interconnected. If we want to talk about desertification in Sahara attributing it solely to global warming would be an oversimplification. Putting the world into neat little boxes and drawing conclusions from those doesn't take us very far, but I am going to do my best anyway.
Most of the water that we get straight from natural source is not clean.
While it's true that it isn't exactly clean compared to the standards we like, fresh water is still a necessary resource - basically everything terrestial depends on it on some essential level. The oceans' surface areas are expanding, and as a result terrestrial fresh water aquifers are blended with brackish water and large rivers with be contaminated with salt, effectively turning them into oceans. Fresh water is already a stressed resource due to overpopulation and/or its incredible misguided use in agriculture. The result is that our fresh water sources are not only in the process of being used up, they are being irreversibly damaged by salt contamination. The fact that global warming actively contributes to the decline of this very important resource is pretty scary.
Desalination is not a valid solution to the problem considering that its hugely energy intensive. Unless we get this energy from sustainble sources, then desalination will contribute to the exact same problem it's trying to solve.
Soon enough, we won't have to worry about our impact on the planet.
50 years ago, the most pessimistic and extreme predictions eventually turned out to be underestimates. A hundred years might not sound as much, but it's contended whether that's fast enough. I am not sure anybody knows, but I think it should be a fairly easy decision regardless. Either we cut down our use of hydrocarbons to negligible levels or we continue business as usual. If we were to cut down our use then the biggest problem we needed to deal with would be adapting to a new energy source; i.e. a short term, fixable problem. If we continue business as usual, then we might be lucky, and burn up the last oil without causing irreversible damage. But there's also the chance of causing irreversible damage and the extinction of the entire human race. We have to make a bet, and I think it would be largely irrational to pick the one where there is a chance that we will all die.
Most can migrate or move to newly suitable areas, especially plants, which are the greatest concern for a balanced ecosystem.
Allow me to reiterate: Species are dying at a much faster rate then would be predicted by the background extinction rate. We are experiencing a mass extinction event; nature simply can't adapt fast enough. Sure some species will migrate, but it isn't happening fast enough for the situation to be sustainable. Nature can easily deal with minor disturbances, but this is not a minor disturbance. But even if we assume perfect migration, global warming will still result in problems. Think about the ecosystems that species are migrating from. What about equator? If we keep warming up, then species will only move from, never move to the ecosystems around the equator. These ecosystems will just dry up at a faster and faster rate. The result will be mass desertification (This is just my intuitive understanding anyway, I not sure I can back it up scientifically). It is however true that, proportionally more deserts means proportionally less plants. Plants trap carbon dioxide; more deserts will thus results in more global warming, and assuming global warming causes more deserts, we get more deserts ad infinitum. We should love nature because it's our primary food source. Sure, we could start basing our diet on laboratory produced essential nutrients, but the fact of the matter is that we can never be as effective as nature. Mass desertification directly affects us. It's not an insignificant problem.
Nature is about as efficient as possible, as pointed out by the Darwinian punchline: Every organism fights for its life to be the best adapted. Nature is always approaching perfection from the bacterial to the ecological level. We have absolutely no chance of designing anything as good as it. Yet despite it's ingenious simplicity and inherent sustainability, we assign a higher priority to our technology and short term pleasures than we do to life. Biodiversity is our most valuable but least appreciated asset.
You are intelligent and well informed. I am enjoying this conversation.
Desalination is not a valid solution to the problem considering that its hugely energy intensive. Unless we get this energy from sustainble sources, then desalination will contribute to the exact same problem it's trying to solve.
I'm pretty sure that only the UAE and Saudi Arabia rely on desalination plants, and they don't need to rely on nuclear energy for it anyways. The only other place that would probably need desalination plants and have a lack of coal and/or oil and would be Australia.
I didn't want to put your entire paragraph in a quote, but you do raise a very good point with ocean water pushing into fresh water. I'm not sure if being more conservative with our aquifers could help with that, moving on.
If we continue business as usual, then we might be lucky, and burn up the last oil without causing irreversible damage. But there's also the chance of causing irreversible damage and the extinction of the entire human race. We have to make a bet, and I think it would be largely irrational to pick the one where there is a chance that we will all die.
Actually, it seems like we will be done with oil by just about then. Saudi Arabia, Libya and the North sea have about just under a century to go until they've been depleted. But, by the time you get about halfway through, it won't be affordable, other sources will be depleted and most governments will be imposing a carbon tax (as they're starting to now), and placing more taxes on it. Nuclear energy will be expanding, or at least I hope it does....
Honestly, I can't of any rebuttal for you desertification point, it seems like plants and animals could start to move away from the equator, which hosts the amazon rainforest and the chunk of rainforests in the middle of Africa.
I'm not convinced that human involvement is at the levels I've read, but I find the idea of someone ruling it out entirely unsupportable, I look forward to reading this debate.
It's been disproved. Grant it, there are some things we do that might warm the Earth in certain regions, but obviously, temperature across the Earth alone shows the Earth warms up every few years, then cools back down.
Global Qarming is actually natural and it's not man made. It's called, "feed your eyes". Organizations give you statistics that might be bias or correct. But it's not the whole picture you see. In the end, it's all about money.
Millions of life forms on this planet, nut just humanity can die, with global warming.
And for the record both of these are just theories, the issue is, if these theories were the actual case, which of these would negatively impact the world more. The answer is obviously global warming.
What a false choice. This is one of the reasons we are moving so slowly on this issue. Special interests and the media have done such a great job at convincing people that to move to a low-carbon economy (one where we are emitting very little global warming pollution), we have to use less energy, which in turn means turning our lifestyles upside down. Such a false choice.
The problem with seeing how we address climate change in that way is that it blinds us. We only get to see one bad path vs. another bad path, instead of one bad path vs. a very good path.
The fact is that we are creative beings. We've come this far in creating an amazing society, and there's no question that if we've invented computers, the Internet, iphones, drones, and more, we can't figure out how to tap the energy of the sun, the wind, and the Earth. There's no way we can't figure out how NOT to waste two-thirds of our energy because of inefficient appliances, machines, distribution lines, and technologies.
The very good path involves figuring out all that, and in the process creating countless jobs, making energy even cheaper, and our towns and cities even cleaner. Wouldn't that be beautiful? I wrote a piece describing exactly what that could look like, and why we ought to be talking in these terms instead: http://room4debate.com/debate/climate-change-isnt-an-emergency. I hope it's useful to those who only like to see the negative sides of things.