Europe Turns Back to Coal, Raising Climate Fears

No, not scary. Pragmatic. Oil is expensive. Which would you rather have: a cleaner environment and no electricity, or electricity and a slightly dirtier environment?

Then again, I'm not fond of sentiments like "scary." Bad shit happens™, and the world generally is always getting "worse." Considered as merely a datapoint on a long downward trend, there is nothing particularly alarming about this specific turn of events.

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It's definitely a negative development. Which you rather have for your grandchildren, an inhabitable planet or an uninhabitable planet?

Which would you rather have, electricity for your actual self, living today, or a dim cave for your hypothetical grandchildren?

Appealing to emotion is insulting. Stick to the facts as they are now. Besides, if fewer people had kids, we'd have less climate change. I bet if we somehow miraculously got the world population back under 4 billion - or even 5 billion - we'd see a substantial fall-off in negative environmental developments, even without any changes in lifestyle.

And appealing to selfish interests is appalling. Here's a fact as it is now: We're dumping 70 million tons of C02 into the atmosphere every day. I agree that we'd have less climate change if fewer people had children. We probably would see environmental damage level off if the global population dropped by 2 or 3 billion people. The trouble is such an immediate reduction in population would be far more genocidal than miraculous.

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Original post by Oluseyi No, not scary. Pragmatic. Oil is expensive. Which would you rather have: a cleaner environment and no electricity, or electricity and a slightly dirtier environment?

I am not sure if slightly is the right adjective here. Global warming concerns have existed for quite some time but the resource scarcity we are facing makes are making it worse. Shortage of oil has caused increasing pressure on ethanol which impacts food generation. Even China has switched from being an exporter of coal to a net importer.

Nature, I believe, like most systems, can take upto a certain limit. After which there is total failure instead of gradual decline.

I guess I will also wait and watch how we balance food, fuel, economy and nature.

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Original post by Oluseyi Which would you rather have, electricity for your actual self, living today, or a dim cave for your hypothetical grandchildren?

"dim cave"? lol, what?

Besides being hilariously selfish, you imply that it's impossible to have both.

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Original post by Oluseyi I bet if we somehow miraculously got the world population back under 4 billion - or even 5 billion - we'd see a substantial fall-off in negative environmental developments, even without any changes in lifestyle.

That's good; You concentrate on your "miracles" while part of the rest of the world actually tries to do somethign about the problem.

I would wish the NY Times cared as much about emissions in the USA and China as about one energy supplier in Italy, which is not "Europe". Italy is just one European country, and one of the smaller CO2 emitters in the EU.
As such, the article is deliberately misleading and hypocritic.

The USA, being by far the greatest CO2 producers worldwide (although China is trying very hard to become #1), have been boycotting the Kyoto Protocol (or any other measure) for many years, preaching ecology, and doing economy. I didn't read anything about that in the NY Times.
Europe has been very active on CO2 reduction and other environmental issues for decades and long before all others (haloalkanes, anyone?). Sadly, whatever EU is doing is good for nothing, because Europe's share is so diminuishing small that even reducing everything to zero wouldn't have any effect.

By the way, these guys provide a frontend for Yahoo search and promise to plant trees from the revenues: http://www.ecocho.com/

Not sure what the promise is worth, but since their search results aren't worse than any others, I'm giving it a try. :)

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Original post by LessBread And appealing to selfish interests is appalling. Here's a fact as it is now: We're dumping 70 million tons of C02 into the atmosphere every day. I agree that we'd have less climate change if fewer people had children. We probably would see environmental damage level off if the global population dropped by 2 or 3 billion people. The trouble is such an immediate reduction in population would be far more genocidal than miraculous.

I think this global warming stuff is vastly over-hyped. Ultimately, we can't pump CO2 into the atmosphere forever, but there is a strong case for alternative energy simply from an economic and strategic perspective. Climate change is too poorly understood for us to be able to say with certainty that the recent minor rise in temperature is due to man-made activity.

And what's worse is the fear mongering over the cataclysms that global warming will allegedly produce. Remember when people were claiming that plankton and coral reefs would die off? Puh-lease.

Already we are seeing the consequences of a poorly thought-out biofuel craze: starvation. I'd rather that the climate continue to become warmer than starve people to death to maintain our SUVs. I don't enjoy cold weather much, and would much prefer that we return to a Mesozoic-era climate (but even the most drastic of climate change "models" aren't predicting that, to my knowledge.) It'll be more pleasant outside and maybe we'll be able to grow crops further north. :)

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Original post by trzy And what's worse is the fear mongering over the cataclysms that global warming will allegedly produce. Remember when people were claiming that plankton and coral reefs would die off? Puh-lease.

Come have a swim in the Great Barrier Reef. There are sections that are already dead.

edit: To back that up a little more specifically, the stats Im finding from research foundations with a quick Google claim about 1/3 dead and 58% under threat.

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Original post by trzy Already we are seeing the consequences of a poorly thought-out biofuel craze: starvation.

I question this, everyone is blaming bio-fuels but energy costs are the other half of the equation. If bio-fuel production stops then oil prices go up and since you need oil to run tractors and transport food your right back where you started.
If anything the current food shortages are a lesson that even when you ignore climate change our civilizations dependence on oil from a few and often politically unstable regions is probably our biggest problem of this century.

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Original post by trzy I think this global warming stuff is vastly over-hyped. Ultimately, we can't pump CO2 into the atmosphere forever, but there is a strong case for alternative energy simply from an economic and strategic perspective. Climate change is too poorly understood for us to be able to say with certainty that the recent minor rise in temperature is due to man-made activity. And what's worse is the fear mongering over the cataclysms that global warming will allegedly produce. Remember when people were claiming that plankton and coral reefs would die off? Puh-lease.

If you could back this up, I'd be very interested. But I highly doubt it. I was under the impression that the evidence for man-made climate change is huge and growing steadliy.

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It'll be more pleasant outside and maybe we'll be able to grow crops further north. :)

This makes me doubt that you know what you're talking about.

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Original post by trzy I think this global warming stuff is vastly over-hyped. Ultimately, we can't pump CO2 into the atmosphere forever, but there is a strong case for alternative energy simply from an economic and strategic perspective. Climate change is too poorly understood for us to be able to say with certainty that the recent minor rise in temperature is due to man-made activity.

Too poorly understood? Do you think that the IPCC was just a bunch of wild speculation and a lot of hot air? A significant portion of atmospheric CO2 is from human emissions.

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And what's worse is the fear mongering over the cataclysms that global warming will allegedly produce.

You're quite right, the predicted 7 meter sea level rise from the Greenland ice sheet flowing into the sea is nothing to be feared, if you happen to be fortunate enough to live that much higher than the current sea level. Too bad that millions of people are not quite so lucky. Of course you can always pretend that the whole thing isn't happening, all the while the polar ice is melting at an alarming rate.

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Already we are seeing the consequences of a poorly thought-out biofuel craze: starvation. I'd rather that the climate continue to become warmer than starve people to death to maintain our SUVs. I don't enjoy cold weather much, and would much prefer that we return to a Mesozoic-era climate (but even the most drastic of climate change "models" aren't predicting that, to my knowledge.) It'll be more pleasant outside and maybe we'll be able to grow crops further north. :)

The idiocy around biofuels aside, continuing to use fossil fuels will get you both starvation and warmer weather. Growing crops further north is hardly a benefit, when it becomes increasingly difficult to grow crops in regions closer to the equator.

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Original post by samoth The USA, being by far the greatest CO2 producers worldwide (although China is trying very hard to become #1)

Seems they already have.

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Original post by caffiene Quote: Original post by trzy And what's worse is the fear mongering over the cataclysms that global warming will allegedly produce. Remember when people were claiming that plankton and coral reefs would die off? Puh-lease. Come have a swim in the Great Barrier Reef. There are sections that are already dead. edit: To back that up a little more specifically, the stats Im finding from research foundations with a quick Google claim about 1/3 dead and 58% under threat.

Which is ofcource, entirely meaningless.

Corals have been around for a while, and they have seen much more extreme climate changes than what has been happening over the past few decades. Which is nothing out of the ordinary at all, by the way.

The idea that corals will die out as a result of human induced climate change is utterly rediculous, and just one of the many examples that illustrates the shallowness of such propaganda.

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Original post by SnotBob Quote: Original post by trzy I think this global warming stuff is vastly over-hyped. Ultimately, we can't pump CO2 into the atmosphere forever, but there is a strong case for alternative energy simply from an economic and strategic perspective. Climate change is too poorly understood for us to be able to say with certainty that the recent minor rise in temperature is due to man-made activity. Too poorly understood? Do you think that the IPCC was just a bunch of wild speculation and a lot of hot air? A significant portion of atmospheric CO2 is from human emissions.

I think you are confusing two things.

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Quote: And what's worse is the fear mongering over the cataclysms that global warming will allegedly produce. You're quite right, the predicted 7 meter sea level rise from the Greenland ice sheet flowing into the sea is nothing to be feared, if you happen to be fortunate enough to live that much higher than the current sea level. Too bad that millions of people are not quite so lucky. Of course you can always pretend that the whole thing isn't happening, all the while the polar ice is melting at an alarming rate.

Except that said rise is predicted to take place over millenia, and regardless of human input. Which kindof relativates it, dont you think? Thank Gore for that piece of 'knowledge'. Nothing exciting at all is hapening to polar ice, by the way.

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Quote: Already we are seeing the consequences of a poorly thought-out biofuel craze: starvation. I'd rather that the climate continue to become warmer than starve people to death to maintain our SUVs. I don't enjoy cold weather much, and would much prefer that we return to a Mesozoic-era climate (but even the most drastic of climate change "models" aren't predicting that, to my knowledge.) It'll be more pleasant outside and maybe we'll be able to grow crops further north. :) The idiocy around biofuels aside, continuing to use fossil fuels will get you both starvation and warmer weather. Growing crops further north is hardly a benefit, when it becomes increasingly difficult to grow crops in regions closer to the equator.

A common misconception. There isnt a single place on earth that is too hot to grow crops. The subtropics, ie deserts, lie to the north and south of the tropics, which roughly coincides with the equator. The problem isnt temperature, the problem is aridity. Rainfall just so happens to increase with rising temperature, as the IPCC report acknowledges. But somehow not everything makes it into the executive summary. Strange thing.

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Original post by Eelco Quote: Original post by SnotBob Too poorly understood? Do you think that the IPCC was just a bunch of wild speculation and a lot of hot air? A significant portion of atmospheric CO2 is from human emissions. I think you are confusing two things.

I think not. Unless you wish to deny that CO2 is a significant greenhouse gas.

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Except that said rise is predicted to take place over millenia, and regardless of human input. Which kindof relativates it, dont you think? Thank Gore for that piece of 'knowledge'. Nothing exciting at all is hapening to polar ice, by the way.

"The Arctic ice cap is melting faster than scientists had expected and will shrink 40 percent by 2050 in most regions." I wouldn't quite say that's nothing at all.
The Greenland ice sheet melting over millenia is overly optimistic and may be a matter of centuries. Also, 1 meter rise would already be quite devastating. Sure, even at a faster rate, this wouldn't happen over night.

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Quote: The idiocy around biofuels aside, continuing to use fossil fuels will get you both starvation and warmer weather. Growing crops further north is hardly a benefit, when it becomes increasingly difficult to grow crops in regions closer to the equator. A common misconception. There isnt a single place on earth that is too hot to grow crops. The subtropics, ie deserts, lie to the north and south of the tropics, which roughly coincides with the equator. The problem isnt temperature, the problem is aridity. Rainfall just so happens to increase with rising temperature, as the IPCC report acknowledges. But somehow not everything makes it into the executive summary. Strange thing.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that there are places that are too hot for farming. Land on and near the equator is covered in rainforest of all things. That global warming increases rainfall on arid regions is news to me. I wonder why, despite the globe getting warmer, Australia has been suffering from a drought for a decade now. It also seems that the IPCC report concurs that crop yields will be diminished in warmer regions.

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Original post by SnotBob Quote: Original post by Eelco Quote: Original post by SnotBob Too poorly understood? Do you think that the IPCC was just a bunch of wild speculation and a lot of hot air? A significant portion of atmospheric CO2 is from human emissions. I think you are confusing two things. I think not. Unless you wish to deny that CO2 is a significant greenhouse gas.

Thats kindof what the debate is about, yeah.

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Quote: Except that said rise is predicted to take place over millenia, and regardless of human input. Which kindof relativates it, dont you think? Thank Gore for that piece of 'knowledge'. Nothing exciting at all is hapening to polar ice, by the way. "The Arctic ice cap is melting faster than scientists had expected and will shrink 40 percent by 2050 in most regions." I wouldn't quite say that's nothing at all. The Greenland ice sheet melting over millenia is overly optimistic and may be a matter of centuries. Also, 1 meter rise would already be quite devastating. Sure, even at a faster rate, this wouldn't happen over night.

Its changing shape, mostly. shrinking in some parts, growing in others. Pretty much business as usual, but in terms of ice volume, its pretty damned constant.

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Quote: Quote: The idiocy around biofuels aside, continuing to use fossil fuels will get you both starvation and warmer weather. Growing crops further north is hardly a benefit, when it becomes increasingly difficult to grow crops in regions closer to the equator. A common misconception. There isnt a single place on earth that is too hot to grow crops. The subtropics, ie deserts, lie to the north and south of the tropics, which roughly coincides with the equator. The problem isnt temperature, the problem is aridity. Rainfall just so happens to increase with rising temperature, as the IPCC report acknowledges. But somehow not everything makes it into the executive summary. Strange thing. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that there are places that are too hot for farming. Land on the equator is covered in rainforest of all things. That global warming increases rainfall on arid regions is news to me. I wonder why, despite the globe getting warmer, Australia has been suffering from a drought for a decade now.

I dont know, youd have to consult your local astrologer or something.