[KaiserJeep]

Assuming that AGW is real - a topic I remain unconvinced about - I see two alternatives going forward:

1) Stop burning oil and coal, allowing the majority of 7+ billion people to die from lack of food, heat, clean water, and medicine.

2) Continue to burn fossil fuels at ever increasing rates to feed the rapidly growing demand for energy that arises from our rapidly increasing population, while desperately attempting to use our technology to discover a new and clean source of power.

I vote for #2. There are already people dying because the energy to feed and warm and care for them is not available. For all the progress in green forms of energy, the population growth is such that we are burning more oil and coal than ever before, along with exploiting every new source of energy discovered - and clearly, we are still short of energy.

Because ending the burning of fossil fuels would be genocidal today. We can adapt to the changes caused by AGW, we cannot adapt to a loss of fossil energy - at least, not yet.

[dorlomin]

Assuming that AGW is real - a topic I remain unconvinced about -

Find an appropriate thread for your 'opinions'.

This is merely about a course on the topic.

[dissident]

Assuming that AGW is real - a topic I remain unconvinced about

I am not convinced about the existence of gravity. GR is not the last word, hence the efforts by string theorists and loop-quantum gravity believers.

I am not convinced that airplanes can fly. The thin airfoil asymptotic perturbation theory is just too "hand wavy". And computer simulations of fluid mechanics cannot be trusted. You know, garbage in garbage out.

I am not convinced in the so-called laws of thermodynamics. The real world is not in a quasi-steady equilibrium and there are lots of skeptics who say they have invented devices that do not conform to these "laws".

I [in my worthless, uneducated opinion] am not convinced of [empirically established facts]....

[KaiserJeep]

I do not particularly care whether or not you agree with me about AGW. That is aside from my main point which is that whatever the effect on climate, we cannot afford to stop burning fossil fuels for energy. We can adapt to climate change and environmental damage. We cannot adapt to having insufficient food, water, and energy, except via genocide. Are you Greenies ready to prescribe genocide to avoid climate change?

There is only one environmental problem and it is the root cause of all others. There are too many humans on a limited planet, and the overpopulation is certainly causing environmental damage and MAY be altering the climate, which is just another form of damage.

You can hide from this, or occupy your mind with thoughts about climate, but what is your solution for the overabundance of humans?

[Lore]

We can adapt to climate change and environmental damage.

What makes you so sure we can adapt? What has destroyed civilizations in the past are these very same causes.

[dorlomin]

I do not particularly care whether or not you agree with me about AGW.

You are off topic.

Find an appropriate thread or start you own.

[ralfy]

What makes AGW skepticism irrelevant is peak oil.

[KaiserJeep]

If by that you mean that we may well run out of oil before we have finally proved/disproved the THEORY of AGW, that is entirely possible. After you run out of oil, oil burning ceases and whether the theory is flawed or correct will never be conclusively proven.

[SeaGypsy]

I do not particularly care whether or not you agree with me about AGW.

You are off topic.

Find an appropriate thread or start you own.

Huh? Looks like he did from here and this is the Open Topic- where VM posts his Off World Specials and all that.

[Ibon]

There is only one environmental problem and it is the root cause of all others. There are too many humans on a limited planet, and the overpopulation is certainly causing environmental damage and MAY be altering the climate, which is just another form of damage.

You can hide from this, or occupy your mind with thoughts about climate, but what is your solution for the overabundance of humans?

Excellent point. The reason we collectively obsess on climate change is because we do not have the courage to look at the already real ecological disasters that are staring us in the face due to the overabundance of humans.

[Lore]

There is only one environmental problem and it is the root cause of all others. There are too many humans on a limited planet, and the overpopulation is certainly causing environmental damage and MAY be altering the climate, which is just another form of damage.

You can hide from this, or occupy your mind with thoughts about climate, but what is your solution for the overabundance of humans?

Excellent point. The reason we collectively obsess on climate change is because we do not have the courage to look at the already real ecological disasters that are staring us in the face due to the overabundance of humans.

Or peak oil, or just about any other deadly population relief valve, but that doesn't take away from the severity of those problems. A suppression to the basic reproductive instinct is not something that is likely to save us through willful choice. Better to address those things we can change.

[Ibon]

There is only one environmental problem and it is the root cause of all others. There are too many humans on a limited planet, and the overpopulation is certainly causing environmental damage and MAY be altering the climate, which is just another form of damage.

You can hide from this, or occupy your mind with thoughts about climate, but what is your solution for the overabundance of humans?

Excellent point. The reason we collectively obsess on climate change is because we do not have the courage to look at the already real ecological disasters that are staring us in the face due to the overabundance of humans.

Or peak oil, or just about any other deadly population relief valve, but that doesn't take away from the severity of those problems. A suppression to the basic reproductive instinct is not something that is likely to save us through willful choice. Better to address those things we can change.

I am at a loss to know what it is that we can meaningfully change?

[Tanada]

I do not particularly care whether or not you agree with me about AGW.

You are off topic.

Find an appropriate thread or start you own.

Huh? Looks like he did from here and this is the Open Topic- where VM posts his Off World Specials and all that.

When a thread title begins with OTSF that means Off Topic Split From. I use the shorthand so I can preserve most of the original title and interested people can still follow the side conversation.

[SeaGypsy]

Without breaking the hold of the perpetual growth paradigm no meaningful change is likely. The bulk of AGW's greatest advocates are aware of this essential missing factor- but it can't be pushed to the front of reports funded by Growth Mantra political parties. Equally without global accord- such economic restructuring would be pointless in the long run- like Australia's 'go it alone' Carbon tax. I see posts every day around the web from here by people who really seem to believe Australia can stop climate change. The vast majority of individuals I know personally who have a big focus on AGW- drive a car to work in an unrelated and unsustainable occupation, pay off a bank enriching mortgage, do all the big things which contribute to the problem, but maybe put a solar array on their roof and go part time vegan. The 'greenest' lives are the most primitive.

[ralfy]

If by that you mean that we may well run out of oil before we have finally proved/disproved the THEORY of AGW, that is entirely possible. After you run out of oil, oil burning ceases and whether the theory is flawed or correct will never be conclusively proven.

The only logical reason for questioning AGW is that we face economic losses if we unnecessarily switch to renewable energy or use less oil. But those will happen in any event given peak oil.

There are additional points to consider, such as logically preparing for a worst case scenario and dealing with environmental damage. In order to deal with these, one will also have to use more renewable energy and use less oil.

[KaiserJeep]

That analysis seems overly optimistic to me. Peak Oil has already happened, the runway is short to do anything pro-active to lessen the impact of Peak Oil, yet still we avoid even discussing the real problems of world overpopulation.

Those 7.3 Billion people are ALREADY HERE, they are consuming limited resources at ever-increasing rates, petroleum is just the first of many resources we will run out of. There is no alternative plan to not have any excess population, they are here already and their mere presence is destroying the planet. Drinking water and food are also things that we don't have enough of, and will soon have a lot less of, because petroleum is irreplaceable as a fuel for mechanized farming - and as a source of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.

I do not know if the number of souls on this planet will be 7B+, 8B+, or larger when the crash comes. But in their struggle to live and feed themselves and reproduce, I am certain that those billions of humans will complete the destruction of the environment. There will be nothing left except humans and their food species. I am hoping we will have discovered or built a new home before the planet we have becomes uninhabitable - or at least, a squalid place that nobody wants to live on.

For those of you who are not Americans, I acknowledge that we consume more than our share of limited resources. But I also will point out that even if the USA did not exist, there would be 2-8 times as many people in place of this country, consuming the same resources. That's even a worse problem.

[SeaGypsy]

Got your kids booked on the tin can ride KJ? Grandkids? Why don't you geeks realize we are terrestrial beings incapable of sustaining health in space long enough to go anywhere even remotely nicer than a post wipeout Earth? Do you believe in the 'Singularity' also? You started off here talking about AGW amounting to a huge distraction- but it's a lot more real than your tin can to a better world distraction.

[KaiserJeep]

AGW is certainly REAL. When a mouse farts during a Force 5 storm, the fart is real. The question being, just how significant is that fart in the greater scheme of things?

Additional questions you might ask yourself about AGW, aside from does it have any significance whatsoever:

1) Is AGW harmful or beneficial? Is the additional CO2 stimulating plant and plankton growth that increases or decreases the food supply for humans?

2) Is in fact the additional heat preventing an Ice Age? Ice Ages are entirely natural and periodic events that have devastating effects on the global environment, far exceding anything that the most pessimistic of AGW believers is stridently screaming in fear about.

3) What is the scale of AGW, and will it prove to be possible or impossible to confirm the unproven theory before we run out of oil to burn? If as I suspect, AGW is a minor influence on natural processes that are truly overwhelming in magnitude, there really is not anything to be done or said that will make any significant difference.

4) Many politicians have IMHO taken notice of AGW as a topic that usefully allows THEM to take and spend more of YOUR PERSONAL WEALTH than you yourself are allowed to control. If they had not first propagated a myth about the end of the World, and then promised that they would FIX IT FOR YOU, there is no way that you or anybody else would stand for the wholesale theft of your earnings.

Paid any Carbon Taxes lately?

[SeaGypsy]

I'm fine to kick back and watch AGW threads- just please leave the tin can to the next green planet out please! It's highly irrational and fundamentally useless as an idea- even if someone with less than average capacity for pleasure seeking believes it. Really it's no more relevant than talking about religion or eternal life.

[KaiserJeep]

Nope, I'm a lifelong fan of Science Fiction and a believer in space travel, I do in fact hope that we develop workable star travel and have access to other planets before we manage to make the one planet we have uninhabitable.

Of course I realize that this is a long term goal, and all about saving the species instead of individual humans, including my grandkids.