Dr. Lovelock: Climate Change is Happening... Slowly

Started by TRIFORCE89 June 26th, 2012 7:40 PM
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TRIFORCE89

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From MSNBC World News.

Not really sure why this making news this week because it happened back in April. But I saw several stories on this pop-up on Google News today. I guess the media only just grabbed on to this now? Anyway, he's known as the father of climate change and as Wikipedia puts it:

In an April 2012 interview, aired on MSNBC, Lovelock stated that he had been "alarmist", using the words “All right, I made a mistake,” about the timing of climate change and noted the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the book The Weather Makers as examples of the same kind of alarmism. Lovelock still believes the climate to be warming although the rate of change is not as he once thought, he admitted that he had been “extrapolating too far." He believes that climate change is still happening, but it will be felt farther in the future. Of the claims “the science is settled” on global warming he states:

“One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”

He criticizes environmentalists for treating global warming like a religion.

“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed

“I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”

In the MSNBC article Lovelock is quoted as proclaiming:

"The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened;” he continues

"The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now," he said

The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time ... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising - carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that", he added.

In a follow up interview Lovelock stated his support for natural gas; he now favors fracking (which environmentalists oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal. He opposes the concept of ‘sustainable development’, where modern economies might be powered by wind turbines, calling it meaningless drivel.
He also supports nuclear power, as most people (excluding the "religious environmentalists" he's referring to in the article) did back in 1998 when Kyoto Protocol came to be.

So, discuss.... Not so much if you believe in climate change or not. Or its cause. But, rather what is an appropriate and economical solution and when?

Ivysaur

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Developing clean, renewable sources of energy that never run out and are barely nocive for the environment is always the solution, regardless of climate change or not. You don't want for your decades-old car to explode in the middle of the road to replace it for a new, cheaper and more reliable one, do you?

The isssue of nuclear power is the nuclear waste, a time-bomb that takes centuries to defuse and can cause massive damage to everything if not handled properly- now and in 500 years into the future. And then a tsunami comes in, a Fukushima happens and several square meters of towns have to evacuated and emptied for centuries. The drawbacks are potentially too high.

Overlord Drakow

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Developing clean, renewable sources of energy that never run out and are barely nocive for the environment is always the solution, regardless of climate change or not. You don't want for your decades-old car to explode in the middle of the road to replace it for a new, cheaper and more reliable one, do you?

The isssue of nuclear power is the nuclear waste, a time-bomb that takes centuries to defuse and can cause massive damage to everything if not handled properly- now and in 500 years into the future. And then a tsunami comes in, a Fukushima happens and several square meters of towns have to evacuated and emptied for centuries. The drawbacks are potentially too high.


Climate change has been happening since the Earth has existed.

We humans are not causing it. We didn't even exist until very recently in the Earth's history.
I remember in biology, we did this experiment and the results disproved global warming lol. The teacher said we did it wrong but we were sure we followed the procedure correctly.

Shiny Celebi

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Human activities still cause negative consequences for the planet. We really should be trying to find clean, renewable fuels, because, lets face it, fossil fuels will run out, and we need to have something in place to use instead, preferably making the transition before oil runs out. The fact is exhaust fumes and such pollute the air, it's not exactly good for breathing. We really should try to live in a more sustainable way regardless, or life for us is just going to become more difficult. Personally Id rather live on a planet with clean air and water and greenery than the alternative.

Esper

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Seen June 30th, 2018
Posted June 30th, 2018
An appropriate economic solution to climate change would be not putting as much into the environment as we're doing. We should assume we're changing the environment and take steps to prevent that whether we're 100% sure we are or not.

We just need to stop wasting. Don't make things with planned obsolescence. Make and use things that can be reused. Make things easier to replace in parts so we don't have to throw away a whole computer after 5 years when a hard to reach piece breaks. Make things run on less power or no power at all, like passive solar heating for buildings. Just... don't waste.
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Plastic is made out of petroleum as well so if we want to reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum we should try finding alternatives to plastic or at least different ways of making plastic like from corn.

We should invest in clean energy and stray away from energy practices that may pollute the sea,sky, and land to obtain. More companies should start looking toward making renewable energy. I feel that energy and car companies are just looking at short term profits if they stick only to oil.
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TRIFORCE89

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I think we should proceed to invest in renewables, but not at economic expense. You can just add the power generated to the grid, it doesn't work. We can't yet store it for later use. So, a few times a year here we get a boost of energy into the grid and we can't use it. Instead we pay other provinces and states to take it off our hands. So, we wasted money to generate it, then we can't use it, and then we pay others to use it instead of them paying us. It is just illogical.

We need to move away from oil. For the time being I think natural gas is an okay replacement - so long as it is regulated and all standards met. I don't like "self regulation", do it properly. Eventually I think the end-goal should be sources like nuclear, fusion, or hydrogen, supplemented by wind and solar.

Nuclear plants built today are safer than those in the past. Technology changes. Yes, waste is still an issue. But the plants themselves are stronger. With a modern plant, what happened in Japan shouldn't have happened. So, I think it is worth investigating. Don't put them near the sea, try a lake for cooling.

I'm for animal and environmental conservation and preservation. Regulation of energy industries of all stripes. I want better energy not just because of climate change (which I think is real and man-made) but just because I want a cleaner planet. I want clean air, I don't want smog. I want lakes and rivers that you can swim in. That's worth pursuing I think.

A problem though is stuff like Kyoto, which is well-intentioned to be sure; but unrealistic. No matter how much the West cuts or conserves, it won't make a huge dent. We already have standards and regulations in place. We could have more, of course, and we probably should - but it won't lead to a massive decrease. Neither would loading more renewables onto the grid. We are already pretty well-off, but again things could be better. As long as there is India and China though, who are pretty much going through their industrial revolution now, who don't have standards and regulations then it won't really matter what we do. So, before we go throwing money at the problem I think we have to think it through and not hurt our economies trying to achieve something that is unreachable.

Atomic Pirate

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I have no problem with finding renewable fuels so that we can reduce American dependence on foreign oil.

What I oppose are environmental regulations that harm business; like cape and trade and plastic bag bans.
What you don't oppose is a government run by big-business tycoons who only care about money. And honestly, you people need to realize that A: Those big businesses that you love don't care about you, and B: They are in it only for the money and they don't care how uninhabitable Earth will become because of the rapidly increasing climate and growing pollution.

I'm assuming that you're too ignorant to realize that plastic cannot decompose, and constant use of it is only allowing trash to pile up in landfills.

And answer this: What will we do when there is no more space for trash? Oh yeah, I forgot, you dolts want to cut down every single forest in existence for "production".

If you stepped outside once in a while, you'd see how wonderful and beautiful nature is, and how it doesn't deserve to be destroyed.

But, being that you're a greedy big-business supporter, you just want to mine Earth dry of it's resources, pollute the air, and kill it's creatures, simply for money.
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TRIFORCE89

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I'm assuming that you're too ignorant to realize that plastic cannot decompose, and constant use of it is only allowing trash to pile up in landfills
Plastic can't decompose, but it can be recycled and re-used. That should be encouraged. As should community recycling programs to reprogram our behaviour and stop tossing plastic in the trash. Use less of it too. But, you can't just snap your fingers and have it be gone altogether. You have to replace it with something, just as useful and cheap (or reasonably cheap).

So, I'm all for looking into and researching any recyclable alternative to plastic.

Livewire

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HA I don't believe climate change. Here in Australia they use it as an excuse to tax the people with the Carbon Tax. The government is just full of lies.:'(

I don't know why you'd chose to ignore facts, right in front of your eyes.

Go google the continent-sized hole in the Ozone layer right over your own country.


Climate change is nothing new people.

TRIFORCE89

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I don't know why you'd chose to ignore facts, right in front of your eyes.

Go google the continent-sized hole in the Ozone layer right over your own country.


Climate change is nothing new people.
That works. I spent a couple of days on how to reply to that and came up empty handed. XD

Floating around Google News today (I perhaps need a better source for these stories) was that they reconstructed climate patterns over the last 2000 years. And Europe may have been consistently warmer than it was now

Supposedly. Probably not. I don't think one team of researchers counteracts everything else. Also says nothing about the rest of the world (hi China!). But interesting none the less.