Wayfarer wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:35 pm
There was a
good article on the UN report in the Sydney press this Sunday, which contains this powerful sentence:
Our goal for reducing greenhouse gases should be set on the basis of scientific knowledge, and the political debate should be about the most economically efficient way to achieve it.
That sentence is really great.
Instead, 20 years have been wasted arguing about whether climate change is real, mainly due to the malign influence of conservative politicians and the fossil energy lobby. Here in Australia there was an early consensus on the facts, until it was completely destroyed by a conservative who declared the successful introduction of emissions trading as 'a great big new tax on everything'. This politician, who later went on to become prime minister, also famously compared belief in climate change to a pagan religion. (With any luck, he'll lose his seat in Parliament in the elections being held Saturday.)
I think the debate about it being real, if it's due to human activity and how fast is it happening is worth having... among scientists. It should go on until we know better what is actually happening.
Maybe now you guys are left thinking "I can't believe this guy doesn't believe in climate change". My beliefs would be irrelevant, and I'll explain. I do like my analogies, so keep up with me for a little while before calling me a denier!
So, where I live (Portugal, Algarve), we have a lot of beautiful beaches. Many of them are surrounded by amazing cliffs. Those cliffs, on occasion, crumble. Maybe a bit here one year, another bit there another year and so on. Natural erosion and the type of rock. Nothing big. However, if someone is having a little sun bellow when a portion of the cliff goes down, it's almost certain death. So, what was done? Beyond placing warnings, some areas were actually closed. Some didn't crumbled so far, but the government acted AS IF they could crumble at any moment, thus protecting lives. In some areas the fact is that rocks fell. Were those areas opened to the public and people would have died. It happened in the past and still happens when people ignore the signs.
So, by now you guessed my point. Very early on, when some climatologists warned about the possibility of global warming and its dreadful consequences, that alone should have prompted a response by the governments. The consequences expected were so hard that action should have been taken AS IF it would actually happen. The details would be figured along the way. Having some time available, the measures to eradicate fossil fuel dependence would have had less consequences for the poorer. In the end we would have given an enormous step by getting rid of such dependence. Happy ending, global warning theory being accurate or otherwise. Using fossil fuels to generate energy has many undesirable side effects even without climate changes. So, it would have always been a smart move to overcome such dependence.
What happened?
Politics and greed got in the way.
Obviously the owners of fortunes made on fossil fuels weren't happy, so they did all they could to cast doubt (from hiring scientists, spokesmen, politicians you name it). Let's try to milk the cow for as long as possible.
On the other side, opportunists saw a way to create a new tax. All governments love new ways of having money coming in, the more so when they are incompetent managing public money. The truly dire effects of climate change weren't (and aren't) still being felt in all their devastating power, and those idiots (sorry, but they are) started milking the CO2 cow. Most people, not really aware of what was going on, knew one thing: that global warming stuff "that nobody could really feel", was harming their finances. That, they knew. So a fair amount of public resistance was generated and it's alive and kicking (Trump won the elections in the States, for goodness sake).
It got worse. Not by scientists fault, but because of ideologues, politicians and lobbies. To a sane hypothesis, a lot of stuff, unnecessary stuff, was attached. Liberals on one side, conservatives on the other, most sharing two common denominators: knowing jack and shit about the subject.
A lot of propaganda was generated from both sides. Sometimes inventing stuff, others warping data and worse, using truth to lie. Too much hype was generated about a subject that needed to be debated with the utmost gravity. Epithets appealing to emotion were created from both sides and a subject that should have brought humanity together became a more and more divisive matter. From one side, if you "believe" in climate change, you're surely a socialist or a communist. From the other, if you require more evidence, you're a denier or are in big oil paying role... numbers were made up and, unfortunately, listen well, it became a sect like subject. You're either with us or against us. This sort of mentality was immediately exploited by both sides, thus terms like "pagan religion", "climate change sect", "deniers", "big oil lackeys" were thrown around, often in unjust ways. It got insane. Prophecies (note I'm not writing predictions) were made. Doom and gloom. Didn't happen. We're still here. The world isn't yet a blazing hell as we were told. Conclusion? It's bullshit (cuz I wanna drive my big ass car). So, now we change the name. From global warning we now call it climate changes. Sure... pretty much covers anything. Bang, big oil lobby points that out! That there were reasons that can possibly explain why the outcome are these extreme events instead of global warning matters little. Now those who don't believe climate change theory claim that the most hurt will be the poor (they are right because governments didn't react on time mainly due to their malign influence!), undermining the bases of the left. So liberals fabricate numbers like 97% of scientists agreeing with this theory (the way that number was arrived at is utterly dishonest), and call it a fact. The weather goes crazy, as it happened so many times in the past: it's climate change! Doom and gloom! Conservatives see their game and do their own: cognitive bias! You see what you want to see! Big oil lobby: oh the poor, da poooorr will suffer if we stop! (as if they give a crap). It's insane how this got completely out of hand.
The problem? Fossil fuel dependence is bad. Climate changes may be happening. This can be irreversible.
Governments should have acted AS IF. Too much was a stake to risk otherwise. It didn't confirm? Great! At least overcame the dependence of a finite, extremely polluting resource. Well done!
We avoided it? Fantastic! Cleaner world for everyone.
But the problems are truly dire and enormous now, and I really do fear for the (very near) future.
So do I. We desperately need a technological breakthrough. Other measures are mostly palliative? Why? Because 20 years or more were lost.
(I also remember the grim saying by Heraclitus, 'the cattle are driven to the pasture by blows'.)
Unless something unexpected happens, I'm afraid that will happen to us as a specie.