Let’s say that humanity needs planet earth in order to survive. Planet earth doesn’t need humanity.
20,000 years is the blink of an eye. A better overview is if we go back something like 500 to 5.5 million years ago
I agree the climate is changing. I don’t agree that the main culprit[rit is greenhouse gases and I think that the. pursuit of ‘net zero’ is a fool’s errand. Countries following that path have spent trillions of dollars and cause untold damage to their economies - just look at Germany, England and the rest of Europe.
A better understanding of climate change in terms of planetary temperature changes can be found here:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been
and here:
The situation is becoming so dire and urgent that I read a thought piece the other day entitled, “the world has already ended” … some feel it is too late to do much more than mitigate and survive, not evade. So yes the warnings are getting less nuanced and at times very emotional. As they should be. Most of the human race prefers to surf Netflix than make any personal sacrifices or advocacy. Motivated reasoning around the preservation of “normalcy” leads to the spectacle of a physicist lending his credibility to a crackpot website, etc. Then various people pick up on that and tell themselves there’s “nothing to see here”. It’s no wonder those warning us are laying it on thick.
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We arent living 5 million years ago
We live NOW and our progeny will live in whatever mess we leave them
So the spike in the last 22,000 years is relevant to NOW and to the future
< long emotional plea removed > 
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I believe that this discussion is more of a political stance than a scientific position.
Should we move to greener sources of energy - sure… as long as these sources of energy are green and practical. Destroying earth to mine critical minerals is not good for the environment, which is the definition of greener.
Having people die (cold weather) due to intermittent green energy is likely not the right avenue - unless you believe that we should kill humans - seems kind-of morbid to me.
Quoting university papers by those who have not spent 1-second in the real-world and only participate in academia are part of the problem, as these academics regurgitate what their monetary overlords repeat.
My opinion - yep, thats all it is … use the current energy to create a sustainable green energy. Which means fusion. In my opinion, solar is not green, electricity is not green, batteries are not green. The only temporary energy that we have which is partially green is oil - hydrocarbons are the sustenance of life.
How do we transition to green fusion energy? One thought is by not wasting money and energy on non-green substitutes, such as fission, solar, electricity, batteries, and other artificial energy sources which ‘feel good’ but are worse for the environment.
Spend research and development human-energy on technology, rather than wasting on so-called green energy. Oil is partially green, solar is not green, batteries are woefully not green, fission might be green - lets see how this turns out.
And once more you completely fail to acknowledge the difference the SPEED OF CHANGE makes (as explained in my first post).
THAT is the basic problem with deniers - you have to exclude the facts that contradict your stance to defend your position.
That’s not Science, that’s Opinion.
And THAT is the reason why deniers can’t move forward but just go round and round in circles.
Which makes discussion with deniers pointless.
Project much?
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I am not a climate change denier.
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But Ido understand physics. And scientific principles. And I respect the knowledge and wisdom of all in this place with regard to coding in all the languages used.
BUT 1727 scientists who are invested in climate science have stated that there is no “climate emergency”
These people can explain better than I can. Why are we wasting resources trying to emulate King Canute? We should be spending our energy and resources on other endeavours.
https://clintel.org/there-is-no-climate-emergency-a-message-to-the-people/
https://clintel.org
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no one has advocated such a position
oil, gas, & coal arent “green” in any sense
Solar is green since it doesnt release CO2, that was sequestered in plant deposits millions of years ago
Wind is green for the same reason
By that measure oil gas & coal are not “green”
You dont eat or drink oil coal or gas - not directly
They have to be heavily refined before that possible to come up with “edible oil products” instead of putttng milk in a coffee
We dont
FUSION as an energy source DOES NOT EXIST except in the SUN and other stars
Its been 30 years away for the last 30 or 40 years
And probably still will be 30 years away for the next 30 years
As an energy generating source oil isnt green
Generating electricity from oil, gas, and coal DOES release Co2 that was long sequestered back to the atmosphere (thereby increasing the concentration in the atmosphere)
Solar is because the process of converting sunlight to electricity does NOT release CO2
Now, is producing solar panels “green” ?
That ISNT the same question but IS related
Very likely not because the mining isnt green - they use vast amounts of oil & petroleum products to mine
So if we get rid of all that oil & convert those giant miners to electric would it be greener ? Yes
And there ARE mines where this HAS been done
And their CO2 output has dropped
Neither of their founders is actually a climate scientist ?
Mid 2019 plans of CLINTEL and Berkhout were leaked showing that they were organizing a campaign against political commitments to net zero carbon emissions being made into law. The campaign features a number of academics and industry figures with ties to climate change sceptics groups, as well as members from oil and gas companies
The other founder is _ science journalist Marcel Crok. _
Not sure I’d consider them to be an unbiased group
or “expert climate scientists”
What you state doesn’t add substance to the debate. Let’s throw numbers around:
At least the same numbers of scientists ‘who are in climate science’ do state that there is a climate emergency.
There was a time when a clear majority of scientists said ‘the earth is the centre of the universe’.
This is populism of the worst kind and it is inappropriate. @supcumps, I am silencing this thread now and you. Think what you do.
What I am pointing out is that there are no perfectly green alternatives. All sources of energy have positive and negative.
I think we may just agree to disagree - which is perfectly fine. Really, its all good.
The Economist is only slightly less fanciful, proposing that natural gas can stick around for awhile, but “in time it will require more global trade in electricity so that distant windy and sunny countries with renewable power to spare can export it.” I suppose this means constructing massive wind and solar installations in central America, with power lines or green hydrogen trucked into Alberta so we don’t freeze in the dark in winter. Smith: Something has got to give on unrealistic net-zero plans | Calgary Herald
Not really. You just let the hydrocarbons - carbon life cycle, decay, provide manure for plants, let the plants eat the grass, and produce milk. Maybe cows are ‘edible oil products’?
I agree, that we are likely many years from fusion as an energy source. May be agree to disagree? Oil is somewhat green, not perfect. Solar is not perfectly green: The Dark Side of Solar Power
Please have the green people stop cutting down forests to build solar panel farms.
When forests are cut down (which is part of the CO2 cycle) and replaced with solar panels, then then additional heat is created. Here is a thermal picture, notice the grass (part of Carbon Life cycle) temperature and solar temperature.
This is very similar to the long lists of “scientists” who supposedly don’t believe in evolution that the Young Earth Creationists trot out … it is actually technicians, engineers, journalists, a few actual scientists in completely unrelated fields, etc. – in other words, the classic appeal to authority fallacy. And of course they can always find a retired crackpot biologist or two to sign on.
There are many forms of misinterpretation… ok, lets just call it what it is… lies. It is honestly to the point where I believe nothing until I physically use it and spend time with it. All other comments are usually considered as mere opinions.
It has become so bad, that I can’t trust consultants anymore. In the old days, you could usually trust a consultant to perform fairly good work. Now, the quality of work approaches 40%. If I received a 40% grade in school, I would consider this a fail. In todays world, everyone gets a trophy.
This is actually fair, although I think you’re way off base in saying oil is even imperfectly “green” on the basis that it’s natural or … something. It is ecologically damaging (and increasingly economically inviable) to extract and export; it is energy-intensive and ecologically damaging to refine; and something like a third of it doesn’t even become fuel, but rather things like asphalt and plastics. It is a dead end as an energy source. It is not some kind of way forward.
Solar and wind etc are not perfect or without downsides although their opponents tend to “puff” the downsides. For example ridiculing the intermittency of these sources. Ignoring various technologies that show much promise to store daytime solar collections for nighttime use, or the fact that wind works at night quite well thank you, in some microclimates even better than in daytime. Also in an energy-scarce world I would rather have electricity during part of the day than not at all.
My EV charges from solar panels for free in nearly every charge cycle and when not it’s on a grid that’s not coal-fired, and that is a net win on emissions and personal cost.
There are only imperfect answers but if we have the will we can smooth out a lot of those imperfections and make it a win-win in most cases – probably not for a few individual wealthy folks but for humanity overall. We can’t afford to cling to fossil fuels out of familiarity / fear of change basically, and because of the tender sensibilities of fossil fuel interests who, let’s face it, are all about self-perpetuation and not the good of mankind.
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Well the upside of that is this consultant, once trust is earned, can command a pretty high hourly rate.
But yeah a lot of what you’re describing is just simple human dynamics. The first wave of software developers were obsessive-compulsive dweebs who would work around the clock for the sheer love of the craft, and not necessarily compensated any extra for it. Now that most standard libraries already have highly optimized sort algorithms etc., and it is more building from a lego set, it is more youngsters who just want a 9 to 5 job like everyone else; meanwhile mentoring and managing has, if anything, deteriorated rather than improved from what I’ve seen. Most of the questions from noobs on places like quora are non-sequitur questions like “what’s the best programming language to learn so I can start earning six figures quickly” so you can see where it’s all going.
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I respect your opinion, and my belief is that hydrocarbons are probably the only way forward - at the moment at least.
I had the opportunity to work with the Deepwater project before and after the horrible oil explosion. When the government and environmentalists became involved, then many animals and plants died - due to outright incompetence. It was a revealing moment where environmentalists caused destruction of the environment instead of protecting it. Its similar to when the government shows up on your door steps and says something like “I am from the government and am here to help you”.
I respect your opinion, however, I also have the opinion where electronic vehicles are excessively energy intensive, wreak the environment, and cause more harm than good. Again, its just my opinion.
This is just a friendly discussion, no feelings are hurt, and we are just having a friendly coffee-shop chat
You quote and reference are misleading
I said “no one has advocated such a position” Specifically I meant no one has advocated
we should kill humans
As a resident of a northern climate, like yourself, there are going to be issues with cold winters
But - the sun still shines
Alberta, esp southern Alberta has a huge potential to be a significant generator of solar power, as we do get a LOT of clear sunny days. And even on somewhat cloudy days solar generation still works.
The BIGGEST issue we do need to address is how to store excess power generated for those days when the sun isnt shining, overnight etc.
This I see as a soluble problem as there are many suitable alternatives like compressing air into abandoned wells and releasing that during low production versions, pumped water storage, motion salt, vanadium reduce batteries, etc.
Some of these are already in use around the world and are VERY large (giga watts in size)
But NO ONE has suggested we should just kill people
And we’ve never ever cut down a tree to produce oil gas coal etc ?
Not saying its right as there are already millions of square feet that can/could be put to use - every last rooftop in a city would be a great start
And, out here, it low lying prairie grass where trees dont need to be cut
OK so for oil & gas etc we’re talking about “not green” in terms of the CO2 they release
And this article you cite is how solar panels have to be recycled, replaced etc - and has NO mention of additional CO2 production
So were literally not talking about the same things here
Is solar panel disposal going to be an issue ? Sure
Same as oil & gas clean up is today where there are thousand of wells that have not been cleaned up properly, leak methane or other toxins in to the water table etc.
The O & G industry isnt faultless either
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Again, just a friendly discussion and I respect your thoughts.