Are you saying global warming is a political issue? I realize it’s become one, since the rise of the well funded CCCM, but I refuse to regard it as s political issue. It’s science.
Climate change is science. What to do about it is a political issue. Do we use laws? Free market? Subsidies? Taxes?
Should Western countries be subject to these laws, but not developing countries, or vice versa? What if the free market wants to build a wind turbine next door? Should wind be subsidised, but not solar? How about "clean coal"? Should we with 30kWh electricity a day available each stop using coal in our country, but export it to developing countries so they can have 1kWh a day? Should there be a carbon tax, and if so what should with do with the revenues?
All these are political questions, and their answers are more reflective of an individual's ideology than science, since the scientific answer is "stop all emissions NOW." Which means disconnecting from the internet and turning off the computer. NOW.
Yes I have kids. And I’m terrified for their future. And my dad can go to hell for taking part in stealing from their future.
Would you like to do a carbon audit of your family's household with us publicly so that we can point out how you're "stealing from their future", too? We could even invite your dad on, and we could compare relative emissions. After all, are we to judge your carbon emissions from how much you say you care about climate change, or from how much you and your family are actually responsible for?
I'm not Christian, but "judge not, that ye be judged" by the same standards is a good principle.
These are important issues. I am very aware of them. Resource depletion is also an issue, several years ago I wrote an article about it on TheOilDrum.com, "The Freezing Point of Industrial Society." [http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3228] I wrote other articles about reducing emissions, such as "Just One Tonne." [http://www.bicyclefixation.com/howto.html] So if you really want to go down into the reeds on these issues, we can do that.
But you may just want to think about what you're doing. In a resource-constrained society, family and community ties will be very important. Cross the bridge before you burn it.
Hey Kyle,
Yes - in that sense - policy is political. I agree. And the time to start those policies was decades ago. Carbon tax - YES. What to do with the funds - buy up all US coal reserves, close down all the coal plants, do what needs to be done to relocate and retrain the employees of the coal industry and spread them out over all of the renewable energy industries that seem to have decent potential for delivering clean energy over the long haul. For example of one of many things we should be doing.
Do we use laws? Yes. Do we use the free market - to a degree, yes. Do we use taxes. yes. Should we use subsidies? Yes. Should we fund wind not solar? Why would we choose just one? Why not subsidize both, and others? Spread the bets.
Yeah - the details get thorny. But you've got to at least agree on the science and move forward, even if imperfectly.
But the CCCM has made the
science political. The main source of my frustration - and judgement - is the extent and effectiveness of their doubt campaign. The thing that kills me is that my family is so taken up in it. The last sentence my dad quoted to me was,
" If a projection of climate-change cost ignores adaptation, we can safely ignore it."
^^^ That is chilling. In other words, 'you can safely ignore this issue altogether'. And that was in the WSJ. A lot of people are influenced by that paper. I'm not aware of many people who stopped their subscriptions when Rupert Murdoch bought the WSJ. And so they don't realize it's a conduit for CCCM propaganda. I mean - the Manhattan Institute? FFS. They're notorious for the climate change doubt campaign.
This past few years have seen us figuring out our own C footprints and reducing them as much as possible. We've gone vegan, haven't owned a car in a couple years, bike every where, try to buy local-ish food. We don't buy clothes unless we need to replace old clothes that can't be mended. We keep the heater low. etc.
Just by living in the western world, and buying food at the grocery store, I don't see how a person can have a footprint under 8-10 tons per year.
Yeah - I'd totally be willing to be put under the microscope. But I think we'll come out a couple tons above that homeless person whose footprint was determined to be 8.5tons a year. Western infrastructures were built on $20-$60 oil, when they should've been built on like, $600 a barrel oil. So now, there's no escaping having an outsized footprint unless you take to the woods like Ted Kazinsky. But even he biked into town for provisions. So his footprint was non-zero.
Do you agree with me - that just by virtue of buying food at the grocery store, you're locked into multiple tons of CO2 footprint?
What I'm saying is this:
it isn't my dad's carbon emissions that anger me. It's
my dad's refusal to see the propaganda machine he's tapping into. Even after I've pointed it out dozens of times. It's the fact that every time he propagates their messages, like a cog in their system whose only function is to maintain the status quo - the more he's part of the problem. And I take it personally. Because my son is going to pay dearly for our inaction. And my dad is contributing directly to our inaction.
My friend just posted about flying business class roundtrip from LA to London. It's like fingernails on chalkboard.
I've got your links loaded in browser. I've gone into the weeds enough personally, but thanks for the offer. I just read Mike Berners-Lee's How Bad Are Bananas: The Carbon Footprint of Everything. And I'll read your papers. Thanks for linking them. Do you have something else in mind that I'm missing?
Sorry for the long reply. My posts could do with a little more succinctness.