Public Opinion on Man-Made Climate Change Has Shifted

[Allybeboba]

If the fossil fuel industries like coal completely disappear in favor of better energy sources such as solar and wind, then good. It deserves to die.

Wind turbines kill millions of animals a year. Hundreds of thousands of birds. Thousands of golden eagles. Thousands of bald eagles. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bats.

An entire industry has sprang up just to clean up all the dead animals around them.

So much for being green.

[Jtbrig7390]

Maddening that it's hard to tell if a post like that is sarcasm, isn't it?

Its like living in the Twilight Zone.

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Wind turbines kill millions of animals a year. Hundreds of thousands of birds. Thousands of golden eagles. Thousands of bald eagles. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bats.

You realize that statistically tall buildings (windows) kill more birds a year then wind turbines right?

http://www.sibleyguides.com/conserva...ird-mortality/

Hell car's kill more birds then wind turbines...

[Garnier Fructis]

Wind turbines kill millions of animals a year. Hundreds of thousands of birds. Thousands of golden eagles. Thousands of bald eagles. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bats.

An entire industry has sprang up just to clean up all the dead animals around them.

So much for being green.

The alternative being loss of multiple species and habitats.

[Allybeboba]

Keep making fucking stupid excuses. Doesn't change the fact that we are making it worse.

How is what I stated an "excuse". Either the climate has been changing or it has not.

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Depressing its taken this long, but the general public are something special.

You are part of the general public right?

[Garnier Fructis]

How is what I stated an "excuse". Either the climate has been changing or it has not.

Because it's basically irrelevant, and doesn't actually refute climate theory in any way. At all. Considering it's part of the theory itself.

[Orbitus]

How is what I stated an "excuse". Either the climate has been changing or it has not.

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You are part of the general public right?

It has been changing yes, but saying that we aren't accelerating it, is making excuses that we shouldn't be doing something to stem the tide.

[Dug]

I think honestly the issue is who will have the bare the burden of climate change. Industrial titans don't want to bare the cost. The poor shouldn't morally be made to bare the cost but they lack the political power to avoid it.

The issue about handling Climate Change will be how and at whose expense.

Ideally all of us since we share this little ball of water and dirt.

[Theodarzna]

Ideally all of us since we share this little ball of water and dirt.

That would be ideal but what is fair? What is practical? What is even possible?

[Torto]

Ideally all of us since we share this little ball of water and dirt.

That would be ideal but what is fair? What is practical? What is even possible?

What costs are you guys even on about? Rising tides? Droughts? Is calamity imminent in our lifetimes?

[Dug]

That would be ideal but what is fair? What is practical? What is even possible?

Using mostly alternative energy is practical and possible but it's not going to be easy making that switch globally. Unfortunately at this point it's going to take some sort of drastic effects later on to really unify everyone on the issue. But we're making good baby steps.

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What costs are you guys even on about? Rising tides? Droughts? Is calamity imminent in our lifetimes?

Like physical cost to actually transition to a global society that doesn't rely on fossil fuels as much. But no probably not in our lifetimes but within the next 2 decades and on wards (if things don't change) expect to see some changes. It's not just about temperature, the climate has effects on every ecosystem on the planet.

And not quoting you but to answer your post in a previous page nobody claims we can reverse climate change or stop warming. That's going to happen whether we like it or not but we do have an effect on the rate of which that happens. So we continue on and keep ignoring the problem until it becomes a problem we quickly have to adapt to or we slowly adapt to it over time.

[kail]

Why has climate change always occurred throughout history without humans?

Because the world changes. After humans, we add extras to the mix. If you change the formula, the results will also change.

[Mormolyce]

It is if the levees are located in a third world country and the UN tells you its your fault because you turned the lights on and drove a car to work.

I'm sorry, climate change only affects third world countries now?

[Endus]

Climate change has been around as long as the Earth as been around.

Why has climate change always occurred throughout history without humans?

Because literally nobody claimed otherwise. It's an elementary component of anthropogenic climate change theory, because if we didn't understand the paleoclimate trends, there would be no way to show how wildly extreme the current anthropogenic trend is. And how none of the factors that contributed to climate change in those past cycles are driving the current warming.

The two of you are engaging in nothing but blatant willful ignorance. You may as well be claiming that the Earth is flat and all those pictures from space are just CGI. Because that's as informed and justifiable position as the anti-intellectual crapbag that is climate change denial.

For anyone who gives a shit about the truth, here's a thorough summary, with direct citations to primary source data; http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

[Torto]

I'm sorry, climate change only affects third world countries now?

Who would know? Do we throw climate change compensation money at Peru next time they have a mudslide because of all the rain? Which events do we blame climate change on and which do we accept as normal disasters?

[Endus]

Who would know? Do we throw climate change compensation money at Peru next time they have a mudslide because of all the rain? Which events do we blame climate change on and which do we accept as normal disasters?

This is an overstuffed burrito of wrongness.

1> There's no "climate change compensation money". There's disaster relief funding, which isn't the same thing.

2> There's no "blaming". Climate change is affecting all weather patterns. There's no question of "did climate change contribute to this", because the answer is always "yes", at this point. And "climate change" isn't a specific individual you can level blame at, the concept of "blame" is nonsensical in this regard.

3> There's no distinction between events exacerbated by climate change, and "normal disasters". Again, there's disaster relief funding, but that's not going to be withheld unless you can "prove" it was climate change that caused it. That's just ridiculous.

It's just an attitude that's completely at odds with how anything is done and how climates work.

[Torto]

This is an overstuffed burrito of wrongness.

Yep that made me giggle

1> There's no "climate change compensation money". There's disaster relief funding, which isn't the same thing.

So what about all the third world countries petitioning the UN for 'resources to adapt to climate change'. That is not disaster relief funding.

2> There's no "blaming". Climate change is affecting all weather patterns. There's no question of "did climate change contribute to this", because the answer is always "yes", at this point. And "climate change" isn't a specific individual you can level blame at, the concept of "blame" is nonsensical in this regard.

Of course there is blaming. I can't not hear a news report about some heatwave, drought, flood w/e without some talking head blaming it on climate change.

3> There's no distinction between events exacerbated by climate change, and "normal disasters". Again, there's disaster relief funding, but that's not going to be withheld unless you can "prove" it was climate change that caused it. That's just ridiculous.

It's just an attitude that's completely at odds with how anything is done and how climates work.

I fully understand disaster relief funding. But if a low lying island inhabitants demand compensation because their village has become flooded due to rising tides, should my taxes pay for their relocation?

[PosPosPos]

So what about all the third world countries petitioning the UN for 'resources to adapt to climate change'. That is not disaster relief funding.

Yay far right wing goalpost shifting, resources to adapt to climate change is to build infrastructure to mitigate damage caused by disasters exacerbated by climate change, aka it's proactive; disaster relief funding is purely reactionary and used after disaster hits.

Of course there is blaming. I can't not hear a news report about some heatwave, drought, flood w/e without some talking head blaming it on climate change.

Did you even read his reply? He said the answer is always yes, hence it's pointless to blame - blaming something implies there's more than one possible culprit.

Just like it's asinine to blame drinking water for keeping yourself hydrated.

I fully understand disaster relief funding. But if a low lying island inhabitants demand compensation because their village has become flooded due to rising tides, should my taxes pay for their relocation?

Then if you get hit by any disaster whatsoever, you shouldn't hope anyone comes along to help you.

[Endus]

So what about all the third world countries petitioning the UN for 'resources to adapt to climate change'. That is not disaster relief funding.

And has nothing to do with disaster relief. Which is what you were referring to.

Funny how that works.

Of course there is blaming. I can't not hear a news report about some heatwave, drought, flood w/e without some talking head blaming it on climate change.

Those things aren't happening because of climate change. They're becoming worse because of climate change. Specific weather events are far too complex to boil down to a single driving factor, but climate change is definitely exacerbating them.

I fully understand disaster relief funding. But if a low lying island inhabitants demand compensation because their village has become flooded due to rising tides, should my taxes pay for their relocation?

That's foreign aid, which is a third thing. You keep moving goalposts and changing the argument.

However, in a simple answer, yes. Your taxes should help pay for that. This is why developed nations do foreign aid. It's a diplomatic windfall.

Also, those low-lying island inhabitants are what we call "climate refugees"; they'll be abandoning that island as uninhabitable, not asking for "compensation". And that's not guesswork. It's already happening. Welcome to 7 years ago.

[mage21]

Those things aren't happening because of climate change. They're becoming worse because of climate change. Specific weather events are far too complex to boil down to a single driving factor, but climate change is definitely exacerbating them.

How do we know that anthropogenic climate change is exclusively exacerbating problems? If the Earth arbitrarily warmed by 1 degree Celsius through the natural rise and fall of climate change, would that automatically make droughts/heatwaves/hurricanes/floods worse or more frequent? It would seem that there would be consequences both positive and negative. Yet all we seem to hear is that the Earth warming will cause every catastrophic climate shift to do so in a worse direction.

[Thepersona]

I think it would have been better to start that "At Whose expense," discussion before even fully getting people to acknowledge it simply because it might compel people to start considering it.

A big part of the resistance is a sense that the cost will fall disproportionately on some communities whose ability to weather that cost is nonexistent.

There're some papers on which countries should bear the blunt of the regulations for climate change, in order to be morally good or something. On those papers it states that rich countries (the ones that made most of the problem) should pay for it more than poor/developing countries