OUR POWER IS IN WHERE AND HOW WE PERSONALLY SPEND OUR MONEY AND RESOURCES. IF ENOUGH START LIVING RESPONSIBLY, A CRITICAL MASS CAN DEVELOP AND GOVERNMENT AND CORPS MUST FOLLOW OR LOSE US! LET'S US LITTLE PEOPLE GET TOGETHER ON THE BIG ISSUES AND DO OUR OWN LITTLE BIT!

Jennifer - THAT was well said. And you are right .... that is probably the ONLY way change will happen. En mass by us little people each doing the responsible thing.

Jennifer

I think I agree - all we can do is what we CAN do, and living our own lives resonsibly is a big first step.

Personally, I think that major change won't come easily, and might never come through the institutions that have been corrupted into wholly-owned tools of what might as well be called a ruling class.

The big changes needed MIGHT come from grass-roots political activism, but that seems like an uphill struggle. They will only come when a large majority of people make the difficult choices to live responsibly and not in denial.

And they might require something as devastating as a revolution or climate crash to shake things up enough to loosen the death-grip of the greed-worshipers.

We think our culture is a massive and durable thing. Maybe the relatively rich North America is relatively stable compared to poorer regions. But that just means it will take us MORE crop failures before a majority are willing to do almost anything to feed their children.

Rick - You are absolutely right. It will take a disaster to wake most people up. Right now, most are in denial.

I want to soften my opinion and post something hopeful about climate change, meaning hopeful about people and governments DOING something effective.

But I can't think what to say.

I HOPE that the change becomes so severe so soon that even governments and voters realize they have to ACT before it's too late, assuming it isn't already too late. Too bad we didn't reach the point of willingness to take painful actions back in the 1980s - the pain could have been less, spread over a longer time, and more effective due to starting 300 BILLION TONS of CO2 ago.

But we didn't, unless you count some of the climate treaties that Republicans didn't want us to sign.

Maybe this is optimistic: whatever it takes to wake enough people up, WILL eventually happen. CO2 keeps climbing, it absorbs heat, period end of story. It will keep getting worse until the message can't be denied even by professional, paid climate deniers. And Republicans.

We've ignored subtle and obvious clues, ignored dire warnings, even ignored near-total scientific consensus. Like a mule ignoring urgings, threats, screams and beatings, I guess it is going to take a BIG 2x4 to the head to wake up a majority enough to do anything inconvenient.

While we keep pumping out 9 BILLION metric tons per year of CO2 that is not absorbed by plants, soil or water. Per year. That's digging the grave deeper VERY FAST.

Whether it takes cyclonic storms washing away our seaboard, or rising waters drowning them, more exceptional droughts and floods, the already-dropping crop yields trends, or massive crop failures so OBVIOUSLY due to changed climate that not even our current representatives can pretend to still disbelieve ... whatever it takes to make humans see the inconvenient obvious, it will eventually happen.

THEN we'll start acting.

But STARTING the corrective action after the damage is well and truly done may (almost certainly) be too late to avert even worse consequences.

Suppose it takes as long to cure the CO2 excess as it did to create it? Say, 50 to 150 years. Assume that we could, somehow, drop the global CO2 excess production linearly down to ZERO over 100 years, that would still add 450 BILLION more metric tons of CO2 over that same 100 years.

From the point at which we start acting like we're in a lifeboat with a hole in the bottom, things will continue getting worse for who-knows-how-long.

If we wait until there are a few crop failures, probably it will keep getting worse until there are MANY crop failures.

If we wait until seawater is ankle-deep on Wall Street, it will probably reach knee-deep before we change the atmosphere back to something sustainable. And then it will take longer for the excess CO2 to leach out of the air ... while things keep getting worse.

Lately it has seemed to me that humans are proving we are not a species capable of surviving our own abilities to pollute and despoil.

I think it is as American as apple pie for us to think "It cannot happen" It is not going to happen"

All you have to do is remember 9/11. There were warnings, evidence, of what was planned and nothing was done. Warnings were not even shared with the public because the powers that be did not want the American's to be afraid and even our representatives did not believe it was possible. They are a product of our society. No different than any other citizen. They just managed to have enough money and donations from the people that want what they want to buy them the power that they want for themselves.

The ones that make the laws and make their money off of ignorance will continue to spread the doubt and those that want to doubt will doubt it is what they want.

I bet a lot of people did not understand what Newt Gingrich 's obsession of having a permanent manned colony on the moon when he became President as his main goal. Why he visits every zoo he passes. He has a Noah's Ark plan. He knows a sinking ship when he see's it.

I went to some of the Princeton "L5 Society" conferences, or at least conferences devoted to Gerard O'Neil's space colony/habitat ideas.

One guy from the audience asked a le4ngthy question that seemed like a proposal to use space colonies as a way to deal with a spreading AIDS epidemic. We thought he was proposing to ship AIDS patients off Earth to a space habitat where they could be kept away from everyone else.

Finally someone stepped up and said (politely) how reprehensible that would be - like jailing sick people.

Then he explained what he had really meant: that he expected "everyone else" to need a place to flee to when MOST people had become infected.

I wonder if there is something in evolution that causes otherwise intelligent beings to prefer hiding from problems, to solving problems? Does it work so well for ostriches that humans have to dig holes to stick their heads into, so they can't see the problems?

I think Pogo was right: we have met the problem, and they is us.

This is a must see video about wolves and conservation. This will make you feel more hopeful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You are right that is a hopeful positive clip.

Everything on the earth has a purpose and a reason for being on this earth.

That is good news.

I take it this way: sure, humans did a huge amount of damage to Yellowstone - that's what we do even when we try not to.

But the good news is that UNdoing even just one thing (letting wolves come back) had an overall effect that was stabilizing and beneficial (in our opinion) - and unexpected, which seems to be usual when you talk about randomly "doing things" to anything as complex as an ecology.

It reminds me of this little parable or true story:

Ecologists used to assume that any ecosystem was unstable, and only huge ones could show long-term stability. Or, at least, this one ecologist assumed that and did an experiment to prove it.

He picked out a simple ecosystem that would be cheap to create dozens or hundreds of micro-examples of.

He collected some seawater and sand and species like algae, sand fleas, tiny plants, anything small and from the shallow ocean.

Then he made up dozens or hundreds of small, sealed glass vessels, each with a little sand, some water, some air, many algae, and a few species of small plants and tiny insects/animals. He tried for as much variety as possible: numbers and types of oxygen producers and consumers. Some decay organisms.

Then he sealed each one hermetically - no O2 in, no CO2 out.

Of course he exposed them to strong sunlight so the plants would photosynthesize.

His plan was to "play fair" by creating as many starting points as possible, each with a "plausible" mix that he thought would, IF IT WERE POSSIBLE , in some cases at least, produce a balanced micro-ecosystem.

But he was sure they COULD NIT, because they were too small and could not withstand small fluctuations.

His intention was to show that even when given a good chance, tiny ecosystems are all too simple and fragile to approach stability. He was sure that 90% or more of his sealed glass vessels would take only a few days to kill off most of the species and turn to stinking dead sludge.

Too bad he didn't ask any gardener what happens when you assume you know what Nature is going to do, or what She "can" do!

To his surprise, almost EVERY little glass vessel found a balance point where enough plants (or algae) survived to produce enough oxygen.

Some of them had no sand fleas left once the balance point was reached.
The mix of plant and algae species varied a lot from flask to flask.
Many had rather few oxygen-consuming species.

But almost all of them found some balanced position with some producers, some consumers, and enough decomposers to turn the wastes back into usable raw materials.

When a scientist designs an experiment to prove one thing, but it actually proves something contradictory, then I am very quick to believe the "something else".

Now, I don't know whether he proved something technical about seashore species and ecological flexibility and stability, or something philosophical/spiritual/epistemological about the nature of life, or the nature of Nature, or for that matter, maybe about God's Will.

But it sure was interesting and hopeful: if every little pint of stuff you scoop up off a beach is capable of becoming a balanced ecosystem, no matter how small, MAYBE there is hope for the human species managing to NOT turn our planet into a sterile desert.

I think, though, that he forgot to record the most important aspect of sealing the flasks: once sealed, humans could not get their destructive hands inside it and mess it up to add five cents to their profit statement for that month.

Nature is very resilient and resourceful - if humans keep their #$%^# hands off!

I've noticed that almost any vista of wild land is beautiful. Even when desolate, beautiful.
But of areas that humans built, we have more slums, dumps and industrial "parks" than we have beautiful monuments or attractive city blocks.

What can I say, humans are humans. That scientist turned around and made a company that sells little glass spheres SEALED but thriving with life.

Probably, if some Guru discovers the exact nature of God and the universe, he'll diversify, do hostile takeovers of several other Guru's organizations, go public, evade taxes, out-source, off-shore, and make millions.

I have often thought that the world would begin making huge strides to heal itself the very minute humans stopped doing damage. It has incredible powers of recovery. That alone proves God for me!

EVERY COUNTRY NEEDS THIS!!

https://leapmanifesto.org/en/t...

I skipped the last 3 months of replies to this thread... Temper temper!

I've just learned and investigated some Interesting numbers!
Fossil fuel burning accounts for... Get ready for it! Only 14% of greenhouse gas emissions...
Animal agriculture accounts for... Bet you not for this!
51%!!!
Much of it is methane gas, dealing with methane gas is entirely different than dealing with co2!

We should all education ourselves better! The media, and the " powers that be" certain won't! As a matter of fact it's their job to keep the pulled o we our eyes!

Pardon me if this has already been discussed, I just didn't want to read more replies that incite my temper...

I have a low tolerance for closed mindedness... We're all ignorant of many things, but the ultimate ignorance is refusing to open your mind... I think that's a famous quote, or close to one...

I had seen those stats somewhere, sometime back. I am sure the scientists will find fault.

Methane is much more heat-retaining than CO2, which gives it "leverage" if an author wants to emphasize it over CO2.

I'm surprised that proselytizing vegetarians don;t push that as a reason to remove beef and pork from our diets.

Are you sure that to get "51%" of the Greenhouse effect, they are only counting animal husbandry? I don't have sources handy either, but I would have been quicker to agree if you had said "animals and termites". I thought that termites were one of the biggest sources of methane.

Hmmm ... here's another way I could agree with you. Say the author was counting methane released from piggeries and ruminants ...
PLUS CO2 from tractors and food trucks and fertilizer trucks and trains with ag products and supplies
PLUS compost breaking down in farm soil and emitting CO2
PLUS CO2 from energy production devoted to fertilizer production
PLUS other energy uses by food-producing and food-distributing people
then its easier to agree. But those are usually counted in different ways:
1. CO2 from stationary power plants, even if those power industry including fertilizer production
2. transportation CO2, including transport of food and ag supplies.

Anyway, I think that an equal amount of methane is thought to have around 28-36 times more global warming potential than CO2 (if you figure over 100 years, which matters because CO2 stays in the air much longer than methane, but methane absorbs MUCH more heat. I wonder how the altitude concentration curve varys?)

http://www3.epa.gov/climatecha...


Do you have any sources for changing atmospheric levels of methane? If that is doing the same thing the Keeling Curve [*] is, then you get a prize for making me even MORE depressed about our chances.

[*]
(% CO2 in the atmosphere shooting straight up like a rocket, already higher than it has been for a couple of Ice Ages and interglacials)

I bet no one would call it geo-engineering if someone shot every cow and pig overnight. Maybe the Greens are afraid that people will think "they're just a buncha bozo vegetarians" if they came down harder on animal food production.

Or (speaking now for "the other side of the debate") maybe many of the activists started out anti-industry, but love their steaks and sausages!

You know I should not say this I know ,, However this ,
Makes me wonder about the number of climate changes in prehistoric ages of the planet ,
The planet was extreme , Brontosaurs eating and were nothing but methane generators passing wind , Planet was all water and swamp or desert during most of that .
At first it was thought temperature changes killed off the dinosaurs , now it is thought to be an asteroid ,
A few Gas release ages killed off most of the life before the dinosaurs , but life and creation returned ,
It is still as likely the same old disaster will take us all some day . Just as likely a Sunburst will cook us all as any , nobody is sure of anything , all it all still is , A process to make an educated guess , or another logic process from , educational existentialism has a way to go

If the Sun went nova, or a big comet hit the Earth and made us extinct, that would be bad but it would not be our fault.

I agree with you, Jim, that "life" will continue even if human civilization, or the human species, or every species larger than cockroaches died off to the very last mammalian infant and insect egg. Even if the planet were blasted down to glowing rock, some algae and plankton would survive in parts of the ocean that didn't boil. After enough million years, probably multi-cellular life would evolve from them (again).

However, I think of that as a "bad outcome", compared to survival of our species and the successful husbanding of the planet entrusted to our care.

Isn't it a Christian premise that we are responsible for the Earth and its inhabitants, as a herder is for his sheep, or parents are for their children?

If we kill ourselves by being too stupid to stop killing the planet, then we should be ashamed whether that's a religious responsibility or just common sense. It would mean that we failed a test, and proved ourselves too stupid to live.

I hope that our governments and electorates find the wisdom stop playing Russian Roulette with three chambers loaded.

If we get lucky, things will deteriorate SO slowly that we will have lots of leisure to make the problem SO bad that no one CAN deny it, and realize that we HAVE to fix things, even if that cuts into the profits that all go to just 1% of our most wealthy citizens.

Then if we are miraculously lucky, there will even be enough time to REVERSE the ill effects of CO2 excess before crop failures cause mass famine and mass migrations.

However, if I were God, and saw greedy selfish humankind in a sinking lifeboat, denying that there are holes in the hull, and defending their right to make those holes bigger and bigger forever for no reason but excessive greed, I would conclude that this failed experiment needs to be closed out so a more worthy race has a chance to evolve. Then maybe nudge a comet into a collision path to terminate the embarrassment to the Creator, that his children turned out to be THIS stupid.

Rick - I so love your answers. Your written words echo my thoughts!

I've always asked the question ... is God fed up enough with what we have done to our planet and all living creatures including ourselves to step away and let the chips fall where they may? Perhaps he has already.