As myself and many others in my area are suffering asthma attacks from the recent California fires, I would say it costs our health and future generation's health. When asked to rank the important issues that should be addressed in the next election I rank the environment first. There will be no amount of medicine, even if we could afford it, that will save our health if our skies are dark with fire smoke and our water contaminated from fracking. Please vote to save our planet and in essence us.
33
there is nothing we can do to stop the chaos we've put into so many natural systems. and, we aren't even trying. why are there 10000 kinds of hand soap? nothing we do is sustainable and we'll be extinct by 2100.
6
I think the issue of human migration, which you mention, is hugely under-examined and under-emphasized. We've seen that the migration from the Syrian civil war (itself rooted in an extended drought) has revived right wing nationalism and destabilized governments across Europe, and of course, we have our own immigration problems here in the US.
Just think what it will be like when the most populous areas across the globe - coastal cities - start to flood and hundreds of millions of people must flee to - somewhere. And even many who were formerly well off, through ownership, will arrive at their new destination destitute, as their flooded property becomes worthless.
We know that mass migration triggers conflict, so we should anticipate that decades of climate-related migration will trigger decades of conflict.
And folks who think they are living in a lucky spot that will transition, via climate change, from a bit too cold to just right, with a longer and more profitable growing season, etc., should also factor in to their thinking how they will accommodate their millions of newly arrived and destitute neighbors.
8
What journalists seem to fail to understand is the robustness of the argument put forward in 1969 by Paul Ehrlich.
Even if by some magic technology you eliminated global warming as a problem, population growth would cause some new problem to arise.
The reason for the robustness of the argument, and the reason the result is so certain, is that it is based upon mathematics, not science.
It is the mathematics behind exponential growth, which should be a requirement for anyone achieving a university education.
Doubling time is determined by the law of sevens. That is if population is growing at 2% per year, you take the quotient .7/.02 and get 35 years for doubling time. The problem is that only a few doublings makes the population fill up the entire earth.
We doubled once from 1972, about when Ehrlich's book appeared, to the present. That makes the problem twice as hard now as it was then.
Ehrlich was wrong about one thing. He thought people would starve. But global warming will kill us before we starve. However, if we magically cured global warming, we would starve or kill each other through nuclear war or die of disease.
That's because after a few thousand years 2% growth causes the earth to become a ball of protoplasm expanding at the speed of light.
And that is why I am so certain that Ehrlich was right and that current politicians are foolishly condemning us to a future in which civilization dies if not the human race itself.
10
Population is a fundamental factor in climate change, and every other environmental ill.
The US is the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions.
Yet, our Congress is pursuing policies, namely mass immigration, that boost total US greenhouse emissions--despite the fact that the average immigrant's greenhouse emissions rise fourfold after arrival in the US.
Since 1990, immigration has added 43 million (two New York States' worth) to the population of the US. According to the Census Bureau, we'll be adding nearly one NY State's worth per decade through mass immigration over the next 50 years. Elizabeth Warren is proposing INCREASING immigration to the US, and not one of the Democratic candidates is talking about reducing immigration.
5
Oreskes is not a climate scientist. She is a professional activist who once dabbled in the history of science. She doesn't know what she is talking about.
2
@Jonathan Katz She has a Ph D. in Geology
4
Could you document a few specific examples to support your assertion?
2
The economics don't matter if you're dead.
Nature always wins.
4
We're on the IPCC's RCP 8.5 pathway at present which delivers a temperature increase of about 4.3˚C by 2100, relative to pre-industrial temperatures.
I see no action by humanity at the moment that is more optimistic than this path. This amount of warming will leave no part of the world ecologically intact. We should expect most ecologies to totally collapse disrupting our world in ways we simply cannot imagine.
I have no faith or hope that we humans will do anything other than barrel forward driving stupidly large pickup trucks and building more fossil fuel infrastructure. We're a dead species walking.
I think we know the answer to the Fermi Paradox. We're going to helplessly and relentlessly commit suicide as likely do most 'intelligent' creatures.
22
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. This is where we are regarding climate change.
9
I am not optimistic. We are intelligent enough to always create a bigger problem in our attempts to solve a current one. (This is called the law of unintended effect.) We cannot see over the horizon, and hence all technical solutions bring along baggage that create tomorrow's problems. One of the major unintended consequences of our industrialization and tremendous scientific discoveries is an increased human population. (Our population did not reach 1 billion until circa 1800. Today we are 7.7 billion.)
To expect technology to enable us to avoid the iceberg on the S.O.S. Denial is absurd.
What is needed is a full rethink of what being human is, our relationship with the ecologies of the Earth, markers of social status, need vs want, social organization, population policy, overcoming games theory problems, and many other things = some of which we don't even know.
We may face a major cull via disease, war or famine, (and all three are on the horizon if we cannot change while the times are good, and governments can still find the will to cooperate.)
The problem is us, with our vulnerability to maladaptive behaviours which were not always so from an evolutionary frame.
There are powerful and vested players who would appear to prefer to sink from 1st class, rather than turn the ship from 2nd or 3rd class.
"We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way."
- Aldous Huxley.
8
"Even if we stopped growth tomorrow, the damage to our environment and climate would continue in a fundamentally unsustainable way.
We must get net emissions to zero by midcentury. You cannot get them to zero by halting growth and continuing as we are."
Then ... growth makes it even harder, right? If the global population increases by 50% this century (from 7.4 billion to 11 billion), it undoes a 33% reduction in consumption, without even addressing the desire/need/right for many to increase their consumption.
Why wouldn't the top priority be meeting 100% of demand for family planning services worldwide?
22
These climate science writers make the problem of climate change seem more manageable than in fact it is.
A better idea is found in the book, the Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace-Wells, although it is highly flawed. What this book does get right is some understanding of what kinds of problems people will face as temperatures rise on planet earth.
We already have a foretaste in the fires occurring in California. Higher temperatures will eventually make much of the equatorial region uninhabitable. That will cause massive migration that will make our current illegal immigration problem appear trivial in comparison.
It is hard to imagine that our democratic institutions will survive. Indeed, the Trump presidency indicates the kind of divisive policies which will likely occur in the US as living standards start decreasing, relentlessly, year after year.
Our elected representatives already make promises they cannot fulfill, and this will likely get worse.
There is one bright spot, however. We might be able to turn global warming around if we could start controlling population growth.
Population growth makes efforts to curb greenhouse emissions ineffective, because a larger number of people continually increase usage of fossil fuels, even as we try to shift to solar and wind energy.
The problem is: we were warned in 1969's the Population Bomb and did nothing.
And politicians seem unwilling to accept the relationship between population growth and global warming.
13
In 1969, Paul Ehrlich's book, the Population Bomb, appeared. It argued that continued population growth was unsustainable. Paul Ehrlich appeared on Johnny Carson's show and promoted his book, but the warning was ignored.
In the 50 years since then, the population of planet earth has more than doubled. That makes global warming twice as difficult a problem to solve as it would have been if Ehrlich's message had been heeded.
There is an air of unreality regarding current discussion of global warming. Trump denies global warming altogether and is pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord.
But liberals seem to claim that population growth itself is not the problem. We need to adopt lifestyle changes. But population growth wipes out the advantages achieved by lifestyle changes.
We can try to shift from gas-powered autos to electric cars powered by solar panels, but it will take time to make the transition. Meanwhile each year use of fossil fuels goes up because of population growth.
Scientists should be honest. Without cutting population growth to zero, global warming will certainly occur and it will get worse until higher death rates lower human population to a sustainable level.
The discussion has not reached that point.
China is ahead of us. China at least instituted a one-child policy and would likely reestablish it again if China's population increases too rapidly.
It is sad that an autocratic government has better global warming policies than the US.
17
I believe that it's going to require changes on a national level. Where are the plans to install solar on every building? Where are the plans for affordable and climate friendly buildings? I have fantasies about becoming a "sabotabi-kitten"(a saboteur) to destroy coal mines and coal using energy systems. To requisition electric vehicles for those who can't afford them. Where there is a will monies must be available to speed the essential transition that we need to make. Recycling and keeping heating and cooling of my home down just doesn't add up in the emergency we face.
3
Where is the call to a plant based diet? Why isn't it in the first line? When are even the scientists going to wake up?
5
Every country continues to develop their fossil fuel resources and there is absolutely no sign that it will stop. There's money to be made selling oil and gas--by capitalists, communists, socialists and autocrats. If we only have 11 years then we might as well pack it in.
By the way--what will you say 11 years from now when the status quo persists?
4
A canard of the right when discussing climate change is that it will 'have positive effects, too'. They've adopted this line since denying the science of the greenhouse effect or the human role in inducing that mechanism is no longer remotely tenable. A few of the questioners here have parroted this. The plain fact of the matter is that at no time in the history of human civilization has the atmosphere of the earth warmed so much so rapidly as it will likely do over the nect century and the disruption from that rapid warming for human beings, but much more consequently for the ecosystems upon which all life depends, will be catastrophic. Only an outright nitwit would think being able to sunbathe in Nova Scotia or grow corn in Nome is any kind of recompense for the huge environmental disclocations, in many instances amounting to systemic collapse, that our descendents will see.
24
Climate change has consequences.
Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, and it is this 'unintended consequence' of global warming that will make it essentially impossible for humanity to overcome climate change.
It's Pandora's Box, if there ever was one.
"The higher the temperature, the more efficient wetlands are at producing methane," he says. So global warming is causing these wetlands to produce more methane. And the methane is causing more global warming.
Global warming is causing these wetlands to produce more methane. And the methane is causing more global warming.
"This really does demonstrate the fact that we are having this vicious cycle in the climate system. And we're seeing it now."
It's not yet to the stage where it's a runaway warming effect, Palmer says. But climate scientists are worried that we could hit that tipping point.
There's no obvious way to control methane from natural wetlands other than to keep them from overheating.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122638800
2
In 1969, the book, "the Population Bomb" appeared, which argued that continued population growth was unsustainable.
I was teaching calculus in a small college so I did the calculation as an application of exponential growth. What would happen if population growth were to continue at 2% for the next several hundred years? In about 700 years, there would be one human per square foot of earth's surface. At that point, earth resources would have been exceeded. The argument was robust: Any positive rate of population growth must come to an end. If not by use of birth control, then by a higher death rate which prevents more births.
This is what happens to fish in a pond, for example.
It seems ridiculous to me to prefer a higher death rate. Yet by doing NOTHING for the last 50 years we have been making that choice.
And the population of planet earth has doubled.
Do we really want the population of Africa to double once again by 2050?
If not, why aren't liberals pushing for universal access to birth control, and access to abortion when needed.
The Mexico City Policy prevents US NGO's from giving any information on abortion. Just reversing that would be a huge step forward.
Without a coherent family planning policy the US abdicates its responsibility on global warming to countries like China that have at least tried a one-child policy.
And that policy may be partially responsible for China's 6% GDP growth year after year.
We need a one-child policy for Guatemala.
12
@Jake Wagner It's strange to consider that the mainstream media is STILL telling us that Earth is not overpopulated with humans.
I find that to be utterly dumbfounding. Especially, considering that there are no downsides to a smaller human population. There will be the same amount of resources, but shared amongst fewer people. Therefore, we will ALL have a better quality of life.
It's a 'win/win.'
8
Guatemala? Look, Guatemala's carbon footprint per capita is very small compared to ours. The rural inhabitants of that country have seen their subsistence agriculture ruined by climate change, which has caused unpredictability of rain. They absorb the effects of our over-use of fossil fuels and you blame them? And when the predicted mass migration occurs, will we blame the victims then, too? This fixation on population growth is being used as an excuse to push Trump's anti-immigrant racism.
So imagine that we already knew that modern global society was going to collapse and that much of our current advanced culture would be lost (like what happened to the Mayan Empire), but that there would be survivors--scattered human scavenger tribes--living in a new normal of a hotter planet.
Rather than all this futile bickering about how to save our techno-empire, maybe we should accept our failure and think instead of how to leave the post-collapse generation with some tools, strategies, and lessons learned so they could start to build a more sustainable civilization?
10
@Heather I'm surprised that I've never noticed this obvious similarity to the plot of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. The entire purpose of the Seldon Plan was to minimize the period of chaos and suffering after the predicted collapse of the Galactic Empire. A similar plan for humanity seems like a really good idea.
6
@Heather People have already thought this whole thing out, a long time ago, in fact. That's why the 'Georgia Guidestones' were created.
The problem is that there's no political will, and politicians aren't willing to be upfront about the problem, and tell the truth.
I would love to see a Bernie, or a Mayor Pete, come out and say,
"We need the older generation to sacrifice their lives for the youth. We will create a government program to euthanize the elderly."
For one, I don't see the Boomers buying into that message, and they certainly won't vote for it.
BTW, I would go for it, but I have always thought that Earth was overpopulated since I was a kid. I've been conditioned to accept death at a 'younger' age...I think anybody over 40 should have the option to be euthanized peacefully.
But, assisted suicide is illegal. And, I don't see the laws regarding that, changing anytime soon.
https://www.wired.com/2009/04/ff-guidestones/
5
It is not clear that the question: What's the Price of Ignoring Climate Change? has an answer.
After all, one possibility is that ignoring climate change leads to extinction of humans. How do you measure that cost?
What is disturbing is that this series of questions and answers by Oreskes and Stern ignores the real question:.
Why have Americans ignored the impact of population growth on global warming for so long?
I know. Donald Trump considers global warming a hoax. That's even worse than denying the connection between population growth and global warming.
But without understanding the impact of population growth on climate change, Americans are incapable of understanding the best policies for fighting and possibly mitigating the effects of climate change.
Without a full discussion of the causes of climate change, does democracy make any sense.
In 1972, several authors wrote a book, "Limits to Growth," which investigated possible effects of continued population growth. Recognizing that the future is unpredictable, the authors provides models for a range of outcomes. One of the outcomes was environmental degradation.
Climate change was not understood in 1972. But one could already see that population growth was impacting the environment.
The arguments presented were robust because they were essentially mathematical in nature. As population increases, available resources per individual goes down, until hardship of some form occurs.
10
@Jake Wagner - sadly, climate change was understood in 1972. As to your other point, the birth rate has already dropped dramatically. It could still drop further, but it's neatly at the point where the population will start to decline... in around 80 years' time, when the death rate catches up with the birth rate.
In the meantime, unless you propose we start killing people off, the solution is to change our lifestyle and reduce our emissions. I'd rather cut my emissions in half than cut my life in half, wouldn't you?
3
About 50 years ago, I read an important book, "the Population Bomb" by Paul Ehrlich. A few years later I read an even more important book, "the Limits to Growth," by Meadows et al.
What amazed me about these books was the realization that the basic argument was purely mathematical. Population growth of 2% per year leads to one person per square foot of earth's surface in about 700 years. At some point the carrying capacity of earth is exceeded.
In biology, the exponential becomes limited by a higher death rate. Exponential growth always comes to an end. For humans, we have the choice of a higher death rate or limiting fertility through birth control.
The choice seemed obvious to me. But we have not even had a full discussion of this argument in the media during the last 50 years!
China was different. After the Great Chinese Famine killed tens of millions of Chinese, Deng Xiaoping introduced a one-child policy for China. It didn't solve all problems. But how do you explain China's economic growth of 6% per annum when the US cannot achieve 2% growth? Perhaps the policy has had something to do with it.
Our inability to have a full discussion of the impact of population growth in the US does not augur well for the future.
What point is there to a democracy when discussion of this issue is essentially censored by the media? And by academics who fall all over themselves trying to avoid appealing to the obvious cause of global warming.
SCIENTISTS ARE COWARDS!
5
@Jake Wagner
Not cowards, but Cassandras, doomed to tell the truth, but no one believes them.
5
@Jake Wagner The reality is that scientists don't have any solutions, and that's why they don't talk about overpopulation openly.
Think about it, if the only solution to climate change is to 'kill humans'...do you really want to put your name on that research paper?
I don't know if we can reduce the human population humanely. We don't even allow assisted suicide for the elderly.
We could solve this problem overnight, but nobody wants to tell people the truth, because most people can't handle the truth. How many people would actually volunteer for euthanization after a certain age?
BTW, I would go, I could care less....I would rather die peacefully (maybe with a fentanyl cocktail), than die in WW3...but I know that I am in the minority. And, I also believe in reincarnation. Most people are conditioned to 'hang on for dear life.'
What we forget is that the earth will do just fine if and when most of the population is gone. The focus ought to be on the survival of civilization as we know it and not on saving the planet. The planet will still be here long after humans are extinct.
28
@Michael
So you wouldn't even look at geoengineering? Also, how many non-human species would become extinct? Why not blanket the planet with nuclear bombs and wipe out all life? The planet would still survive, and hopefully, life wouldn't evolve. No problems of environment degradation ever.
@Michael
The earth will do just fine?
The rocks and magma of the earth, sure.
Nobody doubts that. But the earth we're fighting for
is of course the life on it, in its infinite and startling variety.
That's under siege right now.
I doubt that's just fine with all the creatures riding along with us.
24
@Michael
You are correct that the geology of the earth will survive in geologic time long after mankind.
It is up to us to prolong the viability of plant, animal and human life.
The minds of our engineers and scientists far exceed the minds of our politicians.
4
Obama followed the UN philosophy of obligating the industrialized democracies to contribute $100 billion per year to the autocratic leaders of the third world while reducing the carbon footprint [$40 billion of which would be the US contribution.] The democracies would increase their energy cost, reducing their economic and political power.
Meanwhile, China would continue to start up a new coal fired plant every week or two. Under its Paris Agreement commitment, it increases CO2 and other greenhouse gases every year between 2016-2030, contributing more manmade CO2 to the atmosphere than mankind has added since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In addition, China is building coal fired plants in Kenya, Vietnam and the rest of the third world. So China
7
5 Nov 2019
World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806
11,258 signatories.
We must start with defining what needs to be done (see the above article for an outline) and then figure out how to pay for it. Incrementalism won't cut it. We don't want our collective epitaph to be, "They did what was politically feasible - but it wasn't enough."
2
@writeon1 More like, "We grew, we consumed, we died."
This article poses as raising alarm – but instead it’s mythical happy talk. Part of the worst crime in human history, our suicidal spiral to extinction of our species and much of the rest of life on Earth.
The title – “What’s the Price of Ignoring Climate Change?” –makes it appear a mere economic matter. Tell that to the horrors ahead for our grandchildren, and their children-- if they have any.
Your opening summary’s second paragraph begins with this: “In a worst-case scenario, climate impacts could set off a feedback loop . . ” the fact is that’s the present case. We are already in feedback loops and chain reactions that virtually ensure our civilization’s suicide.
Naïve academics keep imagining political and media leaders steering us toward solutions. But our political leaders are in a political bubble unaware of or ignoring scientific reality.
Democrats and “responsible” media combine to make it worse, becoming additional participants in this most-horrible crime: providing the cover-up. They divert us to the argument swamp of Medicare.
That’s like the crew of the Titanic rearranging deck chairs.
It’s a virtual certainty that for our grandchildren and the generations that follow, our human species will suffer agony from starvation and violence, shrink from billions to almost nobody at all. Left will be wreckage of our civilization and billions of our corpses.
But hey! – let’s keep writing of mythical solutions. And focus our election spotlight on Medicare.
14
@Dick Purcell We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Personally, I am sickened and horrified by the ostrich approach of the R's on climate and the environment. I'm also deeply worried, as one who is developing multiple health issues that would render me uninsurable should the R's succeed in destroying the ACA. What's worse is that I can't believe that we have to fight tooth and nail for not only these, but for the right to be counted (see also "gerrymandering", "voter suppression", and a litany of ways the R's are trying to make sure their minority numbers retain majority power throughout the federal and state governments).
9
@dtm
"Even if carbon dioxide emissions came to a sudden halt, the carbon dioxide already in Earth’s atmosphere could continue to warm our planet for hundreds of years, according to Princeton University-led research published in the journal Nature Climate Change."
Unfortunately, Dick is absolutely correct. The CO2 is out of the climate change bag.
The point is, that we have already made the mistake. We can't go back in time and undo it. We just have to accept that climate change is here to stay, whether we like it or not.
Now, that doesn't mean that humanity can't survive. If we don't descend into chaos and warfare, and we reduce the population peacefully (negative birth rates) we could, concievably ride this out.
The problem, of course, is that all of humanity would have to be on the same page, and considering how poorly we cooperate with each other, it's really unlikely that things will go smoothly.
"Scientists have thought that the temperature stays constant or declines once emissions stop, but now we show that the possibility of a temperature increase can not be excluded,” Frölicher said. “This is illustrative of how difficult it may be to reverse climate change — we stop the emissions, but still get an increase in the global mean temperature.”
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/11/24/even-if-emissions-stop-carbon-dioxide-could-warm-earth-centuries
6
@dtm
Do not worry, our Red States that control the Senate will keep on voting GOP until climate change is no longer a problem.
5
Readers’ questions are good and surprisingly beyond the economic assumptions issues the co-authors originally wrote about. Together, the questioners and co-authors’ answers break new ground. It’s always good to see more of the larger set of necessary answers. This includes some recognition of mindset barriers which have led to the current problem and are holding us back. However, such barriers, which can’t be blamed on external villains, are actually pervasive and held by even those trying to help. The co-authors show them, too, as seen in their (understandable) reluctance to accept some of the questioners’ premises (e.g. about population, growth, sacrifice), which, while deeply unpleasant, cannot empirically be ruled out. They still hold the “information deficit” model of change; i.e. if only we provide the necessary information, it will increase awareness and then to change. This model is increasingly questioned.
There are others, including some I see all the time: there’s nothing new under the sun; if we can point to another culprit, then we’re off the hook; we can’t count on business (outside of renewable energy companies) to step up and help; biodiversity does not have to be mentioned. These are all wrong.
I point out 60 mindset barriers here, http://greeneconomynj.org/2019/01/03/new-jersey-now-gets-climate-change-what-we-are-still-missing-why-were-not-talking-about-what-were-not-talking-about-part-4/. I’m currently struggling with the what do we do about it? question.
2
While you're fiddling around talking about the subtleties of the human race changing its destructive ways of living in a manner that is comfortable for us, while you're considering how to revise our political voice to hone it into a single purpose of our survival, while you're noting that major oil companies and other corporations are presently obfuscating their own selfish well being, while we're presently multiplying the population of our species far beyond what this globe can sustain, while the Amazon forest is burning down and our coastal cities are slowly being inundated by the warming and diminishingly productive oceans, there is a mindless reality inexorably bearing down on us like a huge meteor, whose trajectory no amount of our scurrying about will alter.
From this perspective, Nature shall have her say without considering our delicate sensibilities and our numbingly complex self-absorption with these minutiae. The fat is in the fire, and a five-alarm fire is consuming us as we palaver about it all.
14
Population is crunching around the world. Dire predictions aside the world population won't reach 11 billion by 2100. It will be declining world wide by then. Millions of cheap electric vehicles are being produced and purchased in China. Soon they will be exporting them around the world. ICE we be history. China has planted billions of trees. Renewable energy is being adapted around the world. New technology like Fusion reactors and fast charging batteries are on the way. So why the pessimism? Worst case scenarios are not real are a lot of what if's that never come through. No one is ignoring climate change.
What's price of having the Green Party and people with degrees in social justice in charge? What would happen to the oil producing countries when they lose capital from oil? What happens when money is not going to schools and infrastructure but instead solar and battery farms? Is this really a job for history teachers and the Grantham Research Institute? Are they the central planners of tomorrow?
1
I’m convinced and deeply concerned - what are proactive steps we can take as individuals?
1
@Nicole Watch movies on Netflix.
1
@Nicole
Vote Dem. Work and donate to Dems.
The Dems will do incrementally a little bit per decade, but the GOP will actively work to make the problem worse.
4
@Nicole There is lots you can do Nicole. First off, get educated about what is happening. Second, as Katharine Hayhoe says in her terrific TED talk, begin talking about it to your friends, family, neighbors. Focus on what your geographical area, or one where you have friends and family, is experiencing and look for ways to connect with those you are talking to. And Third, focus your individual efforts on A: lowering your energy use--less driving, less flying, lower the thermostat in winter and raise it in summer, get solar on your roof is you can afford it, B: eating as low on the food chain as you can; any variation of vegan helps; some folks do vegan til 6 pm, others do vegan Mondays, others go completely vegan, and eat food produced close to where you live, C: do what you can to consume less, buy used, share tools, recycle, consider the energy cost of all purchases including the cost of transporting to you. Look for non-consumptive ways to enjoy life--music, theater, art, nature. I'm trying to remember the words of the anthropologist Margaret Mead who said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
4
The price of ignoring climate change is our species extinction.
26
@Jack be Quick Exactly.
"Of all the species that have ever lived, more than 99 percent are now extinct."
Do you really think, considering those odds, that humanity is going to be the lone exception to the rule?
Now factor in climate change and the inevitable resource conflicts that will arise, and culminate in war.
If you're betting against the 99% extinction rate, then t's a horribly bad bet to make, because the odds are that humanity is doomed.
https://www.newsweek.com/five-mass-extinctions-earth-history-630314
1
@Jack be Quick very unlikely
@dad I'll take that bet because if you are right we have already lost, and even a 1% odd is infinitely better than the total loss of betting on the other side.
This may indeed be the Fermi Paradox playing out, but I won't go there without fighting for survival.
If our species goes extinct at our own hand, then how utterly shameful and embarrassing it is that human intelligence leads to extinction, and not only extinction, but mass extinction. Wonderful legacy, yes?
2
People will adjust to the necessities of existence.
This argument is a social one, about how people in groups, big ones, may adjust voluntarily to stave off the worst case scenarios. But they may not, and if so, people will just adjust.
Nature cares not how we decide to act in response to the challenges of environmental changes due to global warming. It will just respond as it always has. The simple fact is that if we stopped contributing to the rising concentration of carbon gases in the atmosphere, now, it will continue to warm for decades until the carbon gases naturally sink into solid forms of plants. The sciences tell us what is not what to do about it. We will not know how to solve this problem until we have seen it solved.
If the great cities founded when water travel was the most useful means are submerged, people will move and try to build new ones, if they can. If not, they will just find a way to subsist.
3
The people who like to see the world burn might get their wish in a couple of decades. Death by inaction, inaction by Tweets, Tweets by intellectual laziness.
The dire cost predictions are probably substantially overstated since they almost always totally ignore and deny the long term ameliorating benefits of more fresh water from more rain, longer growing seasons, and more arable land as glaciers recede. Nevertheless, the costs will be substantial.
The costs will be made much greater if people refuse to adapt to the climate changes and instead choose to fight them. For example, if we choose to try to "save" coastal areas as the sea rises several feet by building extremely expensive barriers in attempt to hold back the sea. That is the folly we chose when the sea took back much of New Orleans, a city foolishly built in the first place in a man-made hole is the ocean.
Regardless how great or modest the costs turn out to be, it is the unfortunate fact that global warming cannot be avoided no matter how much expense we put ourselves to trying to stop it. That is because China, the world's largest CO2 emitter by far, will be emitting enough by itself to cause global warming. And China refuses to cease INCREASING its emissions. Under the Paris Climate Accord, the world foolishly capitulated to China's demands and approved China's plans to keep increasing its emissions by an additional 25% by 2030.
So long as China refuses to reduce its emissions, global warming will occur even if the US and Europe emitted absolutely zero emissions.
4
@Errol , Fresh water isn't useful from increased rain if it arrives in devastating floods as Texas, the Midwest, and the Southest have seen recently. These torrential rains cause poorly stored animal waste, coal mine tailings, and other pollution to be released. Much of the water runs off into the ocean because the ground is saturated.
Re: China: their per-capita emissions are still behind ours, and our historical responsibility is greater than theirs. Plus they aren't reversing their vehicle tailpipe standards and other climate policies like Trump is.
5
@Rich
1) Global warming will cause climate changes that harm some areas and benefit others. And, global warming will increase total land area despite seas rising a few feet.
It is the net of the effects that counts, citing only areas harmed is misleading and produces erroneous conclusions.
2) Per capital emissions are misleading unless compared to per capita production. US per capita production is about 6 times as much as China per capital production yet our emissions to produce all that are only about 1-1/2 times as much as China.
China is a very environmentally inefficient producer. The US produces 150% as much GDP than China but emits only about 40% as much CO2 as China.
World food production (excluding US production) is insufficient to feed everyone in the world. US ability to produce so much food enables net food exports that make it possible to feed people worldwide who would otherwise suffer malnutrition or starve.
US food production requires emission of CO2. The US could substantially reduce our per capita emissions by ceasing production of more food than Americans need. Would you have us reduce our food production in order to reduce our per capita emissions and rectify our distant past historical emission behavior?
3
So how'd this hurricane season go? Zillions of hurricanes bashing us about. No, nothing unusual in terms of total hurricanes, majors -- we had many years just like this over 100 years ago. How come we aren't all dying because of hurricanes now, and tornados, you know?
4
@Ralphie Have you ever heard of the principle of 'inertia'? It takes time before the cause has an effect, especially on a planetary scale. But, that does not mean that there is not an effect.
"Even if carbon dioxide emissions came to a sudden halt, the carbon dioxide already in Earth’s atmosphere could continue to warm our planet for hundreds of years, according to Princeton University-led research published in the journal Nature Climate Change."
"Scientists have thought that the temperature stays constant or declines once emissions stop, but now we show that the possibility of a temperature increase can not be excluded,” Frölicher said. “This is illustrative of how difficult it may be to reverse climate change — we stop the emissions, but still get an increase in the global mean temperature.”
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/11/24/even-if-emissions-stop-carbon-dioxide-could-warm-earth-centuries
1
No big deal. Deniers are sure that they will survive the most destructive consequences. Conservatives have faith in their superiority. They God will save them.
1
@Roland Berger
I am no global warming denier. Estimates of temperature increase in the next 100 years range from about 2 degrees F to 10 degrees F. The average annual temperature of NYC is about 55 degrees F. The average annual temperature of Phoenix AZ is about 75 degrees F. Phoenix is 20 degrees higher! If the scaremongers were right, the streets of Phoenix should be littered NOW with huge piles of dead bodies, more dropping by the minute.
3
@Errol The Earth has been very warm in the past. It's not about the specific temperature, but how humanity will react to it. Humans will have to move to more hospitable climates, and the resulting mass migrations will likely result in warfare.
That's why the Pentagon calls climate change a 'threat multiplier.'
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/climate-change-as-a-threat-multiplier/
@Errol Consider that, at just 2-3 degrees Celsius higher mean annual temperature, many of the seeds of foods we rely upon (rice, wheat, soybeans, etc.) will no longer be able to germinate. No germination, no plant. No plants, no food.
Hungry yet?
2
A significantly reduced life expectancy? Not that big a deal. We all die anyway.
1
@Marc Bee
That is a false and silly prediction, undoubtedly proffered by scaremongers. Phoenix average temperature is now 20 degrees F more than NYC (the most pessimistic global warming predictions are for 10 degrees F increase). If the prediction was true, people in Phoenix would be dropping dead like flies.
1
I fact-checked a single claim of this article, that "the world’s largest untapped oil and gas reserves are in the Russian Arctic, and the company that has the contracts to drill them is Exxon Mobil" and found this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/energy-environment/exxon-russia.html
This is hugely disappointing. How can a scholar who claims to inform us about the effects of climate change be ignorant of this fact?
3
There is no evidence that climate change is, net, harmful. That is not even a scientific question. because it depends on subjective comparisons of harm and benefit, and on the human response.
Rising sea level is harmful. Lengthening growing seasons and carbon dioxide "fertilization" are beneficial. The balance? No one knows.
3
@Jonathan Katz
Most of the water for the interior US comes from glacier melt. What happens when the glaciers are gone?
@gratis
I don't think the primary source of groundwater is glacier melt. Rainfall in excess of that which plants use directly feeds groundwater. It seems down from rainfall directly, and from lakes, rivers and streams indirectly.
This article says what I've believed all along: climate change faces the ultimate 'free-rider' problem. No one is willing to make the sacrifices needed to stop it because they assume (or simply hope) that someone else will.
The ones that make those sacrifices will be the losers, at least from an economic perspective; the winners will be the beneficiaries that didn't make the sacrifices.
The planet's human population is too large but there's every indication that it's already started a downward cycle. Most of the large nations have sub-replacement birth rates (nominally 2.1 per woman, but in countries with higher infant mortality, the number is higher).
Our main population problem is that, especially in developing countries, humans are living longer (i.e. their life expectancies are catching up with ours).
So is anyone volunteering to die at a reasonable age?
4
@Justin,
If there were less people being born it wouldn't much matter how old people lived.
The problem has been, always has been, and will continue to be the fact that more people are being born. That builds upon itself every generation.
No one, anywhere, should have more than two children. That is the problem.
It is too late to do anything significant. Each country should take care of its own as best as it can. The world's ecology will collapse, humanity will contract, and a new equilibrium will emerge.
16
@Willt26
Population increase is unfortunately a more imminent threat than global warming.
Even if everyone limited themselves to 2 children in their lifetime, population would continue increasing for about 50 years.
3
@Justin It's very much a free-rider problem. If enough countries make enough changes to mitigate the worst disaster, those that sat back and watched will reap the same benefit. There's every incentive to sit back and wait for someone else to fix the problem.
Another version of this: My sister loves the fact that Republicans are gung ho about stopping all those baby-killers. Her health situation is extremely precarious, and she depends on getting health insurance through the ACA exchanges. She's sure the Democrats will protect her on that front, so she's free to vote for people who are "pro-life".
1
Again, an analysis of our climate tragedy solely in terms of its economic cost. When the non-economic cost will be incalculably greater.
OK, then, let it be economics:
If our banks are "too big to fail," then isn't our entire planet "too big to fail"?
1
Not a George Carlin fan? Check out his End of Humans on YouTube. The Earth will be fine.
1
This discussion does not provide many insights since it is essential to reduce population growth, and also wasteful consumption that in turn will lower economic growth.
8
The price of ignoring climate change?
The price of stepping away from
the responsibilities that go with
the gift of being alive?
The price of wildflowers,
leaping salmon,
the food on my plate,
a future for
the children I love?
The winking out of any realistic hope,
of a sorrow that will not ebb,
the price of shattering a glittering globe
that was placed in our hands,
just as it had been carried in our mothers'
and her mothers' back to the beginning of life?
What is the price of ignoring climate change?
What is the price of ignoring your own becoming?
What is the price of ignoring the hopes-- as yet unrealized--
by every future generation?
As though you could buy this gift, these experiences,
these memories, this life coursing through us all
like a river---as if you could buy it at any price.
This moment-- right now --is the last best chance
you will ever have to honor the miracle of being
by working through whatever creative means you can devise
to pass it on.
Will that be enough? No, but we each only have this one life,
so it will have to be enough for now, because there isn't any alternative worth having.
The only thing more frightening than finally facing up to our collective responsibility is the bleak abyss we face when we turn our backs on it.
Be bold. Stand for all life.
It is literally priceless.
30
@C. Whiting Your voice in this matter of our becoming is beautifully clear and apposite. Thank you.
2
@C. Whiting I didn't expect a thing of beauty lurking in the comments - thank you.
This dialogue brings up many salient points. I would also point anyone interested toward Gregory Bateson's "Steps to an Ecology of Mind," which links universe, ecosystem, animals and the human mind in a mutually dependent network. It also stresses the concept of non-linearity in complex systems, which more scientists need to learn about. I attended a Department of Energy scientist's talk two years ago and she claimed climate change would advance linearly with carbon emissions. This is not a given.
4
@David
It will probably advance more slowly than linearly because opacity saturates.
@Jonathan Katz
But it could be that Mr. Nathaniel Rich was/is right:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html?comments#permid=28190600
@David Everything in Nature is non-linear. Things just appear to be linear, when viewed in small scale. When you zoom out and see the 'big picture', the non-linearity becomes obvious.
"Chaotic systems are a simple sub-type of nonlinear dynamical systems. They may contain very few interacting parts and these may follow very simple rules, but these systems all have a very sensitive dependence on their initial conditions. Despite their deterministic simplicity, over time these systems can produce totally unpredictable and wildly divergent (aka, chaotic) behavior."
https://geoffboeing.com/2015/03/chaos-theory-logistic-map/
"Even if carbon dioxide emissions came to a sudden halt, the carbon dioxide already in Earth’s atmosphere could continue to warm our planet for hundreds of years, according to Princeton University-led research published in the journal Nature Climate Change."
"Scientists have thought that the temperature stays constant or declines once emissions stop, but now we show that the possibility of a temperature increase can not be excluded,” Frölicher said. “This is illustrative of how difficult it may be to reverse climate change — we stop the emissions, but still get an increase in the global mean temperature.”
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/11/24/even-if-emissions-stop-carbon-dioxide-could-warm-earth-centuries
How about the investment 'lost opportunity cost'?
Some scientists recently developed a chemical that will capture sunlight as heat, store it for up to a decade and, at the flip of a switch, release it again. Your roof will be able to absorb solar heat in the summer, and use it to warm your house in the winter. The scientists are European, as are the technologists adapting it into products. America can't be at the forefront of this kind of research because, although carbon is expensive enough to encourage research, chinese hoaxes are not. Later, when America is looking for technologies to employ against a climate emergency, the Europeans will be very happy to charge us up the nose for them.
3
@Phil
Nonsense. No such chemical exists, or can exist.
3
@Phil
Thanks for the information. Here is the link for those curious about this invention:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-04/moth-poulsen-s-energy-trapping-molecule-could-solve-solar-storage
3
I think time has run out, even if we could stop all burning of fossil fuel, climate change is happening with predictably catastrophic results. Not only do we have to stop the use of fossil fuels, we have to capture the carbon that is already in the atmosphere. This is a tall order and I don't think it can be done.
I fully support a "Green New Deal" and I believe a "Manhattan Project" to develop alternative energies and decarbonization of the atmosphere are critical, but every-thing has to be on the table, including geoengineering.
This the technology that "dare not speak its' name", and seems to taboo to many. The argument is that geoengineering would just facilitate the burning of coal,gas and oil but it needs to be studied and tested. It is only a stopgap, but what it can do is buy us time to fix the problems. When a patient goes to the ER, the first order of business is to stabilize the, then treat them for the underlying cause.
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@Rich
Agreed.
It’s really too late.
Especially given the arrogance and irresponsibility of humans.
4
@Rich
Look out the window, go for a walk. Where are the "catastrophic results"?
2
@Jonathan Katz Wait for it. The catastrophe will be coming to you soon.
2
Personally, I would like to know which insurance company carries the wind and flood damage policies on Mar-a-Lago. If anyone is in a position to call the nation's attention to the true costs of climate change, it's them.
11
But the fact that they're working with the loser at all suggests they won't have the nation's interests in mind.
1
Solutions to Time lag problems are hard to sell. Replacing the roof on your house before it leaks - I don’t want to spend money on it but it will cost a lot more if I let it go until other symptoms show up. Letting debt grow rapidly and endlessly - it will be more disruptive to deal with later.
We have plenty of knowledge and science to know, but since it is time lag, misbehaving politicians and talking heads can misdirect us away from dealing with it.
I see addressing it as a kind of forced socialism. The whole world is in it together. We all need about the same amount of clean water, air and food. Damage and any restorative efforts by us or others affects us and others - albeit more so on the next generations.
1
I wrote this for my grandson over 5 years ago.
15. This idea is hard to accept and harder to find a solution to. Almost all of the problems with the earth are caused by the overpopulation of humans. We have global warming and weather problems, scarcity of food and water, the extinction of animals and the loss of the forests and habitat. In the animal world, the wildlife managers have a theory called the carrying capacity of the land. This theory means that in any given area, there is a balance of all of the species and enough food, so they can coexist. This is basically what an ecosystem is. But, when the population of one species explodes, all of the other species suffer. So, when one species overpopulates an area, that species has famine and disease and the population is reduced. The animals also have a very limited lifetime before they die. But, modern medicine and technology combats the diseases that would reduce the human population and it helps us to live longer. So, the more people on earth, the more resources, water, and food we need and the more air and water pollution we create. I don’t have an answer for this one, but I do see it as a problem.
12
@Rick Bennett This is an incredibly simplistic explanation that shifts the blame away from the greatest cause of climate change, which is lifestyle.
The United States has a comparatively low population density, but our per capita carbon footprint is by far the largest. If American had the same per capita carbon footprint of people in India, a country we can all agree is extremely overpopulated, global carbon emissions would fall by over 10%.
11
@Rick Bennett
Malthus claimed that the British would be eating Irish children in 50 years to stave off starvation. Maybe that's why there are more people of Irish descent in the US today than in Ireland.
2
@Thad
Yes, that is a simplistic view of the problem. The way that I look at is that the whole world is our ecosystem. Everything should work together so we can coexist. If I wanted to get specific, I would have pointed out the loss of rain forest in South America, Africa and the west coast of North America. The rain forest absorbs the carbon that causes the global warming issues and air pollution. There are many things that contribute to the global warming problems, but I see overpopulation as the overall problem. And I blame social media for some of the problems, when they make heroes out of the Duggar family that had 15-20 kids.
2