The Save the Planet thread

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Elefantino

I swear that sometimes I think I'm living in an Onion world run by flat-earthers who believe in the Easter Bunny.

It does feel that way, doesn't it?

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

Just start with the level of CO2 in our atmosphere.

And for the skeptics, I'll add this to explain the process.

https://www.climate.gov/taxonomy/term/3415

[daker13]

Originally Posted by notsew

Folks that have decided they just need to see "real science" to be convinced can't be convinced. It's a belief, not a lack of information.

This. In this very thread, there's a post saying the author "distrusts scientific reports and data" at the same time that he doesn't believe in human-powered climate change because he hasn't seen the "science." So how anyone is going to convince someone like that of anything, or why they would even want to, is beyond me.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I am convincible and would love nothing more than to be convinced, I just haven't seen it yet. I am not a climate change outlier, just a very skeptical person.

You should talk with my girlfriend. She's an ambassador for 5gyres (https://www.5gyres.org/), and over the past few years really opened my eyes to what is happening. Mostly in plastic pollution, but it led to thinking about other things. Once you really look at the trash YOU create, the damage YOU do, it's hard to keep doing it.
I no longer use plastic bags at the store, lettuce doesn't need to be in a plastic bag, potatoes can be rung up while loose. I tap the "jars" I buy food in to see if there's one in glass. As stated by someone, I won't buy individually wrapped items unless that is the ONLY way they come. I buy bulk more. I make my own chamois creme, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, conditioner for my hair. I keep & reuse as many plastic containers as I can find a use for. I'm not buying any more MAAP bibs, because the wonderfully comfortable ones I just bought came with a totally useless, unnecessary silicone/plastic tag with "MAAP" on it that overlays another CARDBOARD one.
The fact that doing right also saves me money is just an added bonus.
Are any of these things going to save the planet? No. But if I do this, you do a little, everyone on this board does something, maybe the planet will get a bit cleaner for those who come after us.

[redir]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I heard all trees would vanish from the planet when I was about 10yoa. At the time I loved to draw and I asked for paper for my birthday present because I was so scared of losing all the trees and not having paper. It never occurred to me that the loss of toilet paper would have posed a much greater hardship if that disastrous scenario had occurred.

That galvanized my distrust of scientific reports and data and also led to my disbelief that we are causing any of this warming. The planet is warming because that what it do. We are in that cycle and it will cool and warm and cool and warm again ad infinitum.

I'm going to drink through plastic straws and wear nitrile gloves while wiping myself with the best damn products I can find.

Recycle, reuse (well, not the wipes, and conserve when you can. I love the thought of harnessing power from your best available resources whatever they may be, but I am thoroughly unconvinced that this fear mongering is the proper use of science. The salvation of $100k all electric cars does not help anything. It does nothing to minimize the ecological deficit it provides. You just can't convince me otherwise.

I realize I am in the minority here, but my conscience can't allow me to believe things that are unproven or illogical. I am terrible at maths but this math just doesn't work for me.

As a geologist let me explain a few things. First of all we are NOT headed to a period of warming and in fact are in an interglacial period headed for cooling and another ice age. You and I won't be around to see it but it's coming.

As for climate change think about this for a second. Trees are essentially like solar panels except instead of producing energy directly from the sun they store the energy in the form of wood or in time as coal. There are sea creatures too called diatoms that collect energy from the sun and over time store it in the ground as oil.

So it took about 300 million years of trapping and storing the suns energy in the form of fossil fuels. It's really hard to imagine geologic time but that's a heck of a long time and a whole lot of energy from the sun stored inside the earth.

Oil was discovered lets just say 600 years ago. It really only started getting used in the 1800's.

So we are about to burn up 300 million years of the suns energy in about 600 years. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that as a problem.

[CunegoFan]

Originally Posted by notsew

Folks that have decided they just need to see "real science" to be convinced can't be convinced. It's a belief, not a lack of information.

I hear ya. It has been obvious for decades that nuclear energy can replace carbon producing power plants, but the science deniers have fought this green energy to a standstill while pretending they care about the environment. Sad.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by CunegoFan

I hear ya. It has been obvious for decades that nuclear energy can replace carbon producing power plants, but the science deniers have fought this green energy to a standstill while pretending they care about the environment. Sad.

Green on the front end. It's the back-end and the unexpected that's the problem.

[Elefantino]

There are some Europeans (and probably a few Americans) who believe Chernobyl was a giant Kremlin hoax perpetrated to convince Western Europe to stop building nuclear power plants and use more Russian oil and gas.

[Red Tornado]

Originally Posted by dbrown

I grew up when most restaurants didn’t provide a straw unless you requested one. In my family, they were requested only when we thought someone was likely to spill their drink if they were just drinking from the glass. Now, it seems every restaurant gives a straw automatically. The only time I use a straw is if I am in the car and have a cup from a fast food place. Why do people use a straw in sit down restaurants?

I spent a little time in my youth working as a dishwasher in a restaurant - not a fast food joint. What I saw there made me never want to drink from a re-used plastic/glass cup in a restaurant again, without a straw.

[rain dogs]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

but my conscience can't allow me to believe things that are unproven or illogical. I am terrible at maths but this math just doesn't work for me.

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I'm just not convinced. I love science, I love knowledge, I love learning, and I value education, but in this case You can't prove it.

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I am convincible and would love nothing more than to be convinced, I just haven't seen it yet. I am not a climate change outlier, just a very skeptical person.

If any of what you write above is true, I can, in ten minutes, tell you everything you need to know, if you have any basic grasp on three concepts:

1. How concentrations of substances increase in a closed system
2. The first and second laws of Thermodynamics
3. The carbon cycle and it's influence on the biosphere (the life-supporting part of the planet)

However, typing it all out would be tedious.... so maybe by fate we cross paths over beer.

OR

you could look up those concepts (since they are proven and logical) and since you love learning should be able to put it together and convince yourself in about 2 hours.

Just start here, and forgive me for the brevity: The biosphere is a closed system *as far as climate/photosynthesis/carbon go. Energy and matter are not created nor destroyed they are conserved *nothing "disappears". Matter always disperses from greater concentration to lesser - entropy *just cause you can't see it... Carbon is constant, but "locked" outside of the biosphere (in the lithosphere for example) until it is introduced into the biosphere by man (mining, petroleum etc.)...

yadda yadda, concrentrations, thermodynamics, the carbon cycle above^^^

Climate change.

If you disagree with the fundamental building blocks of science that have been proven, like gravity, while you might as well argue gravity too as Old Spud said.

Keep going....all the science is out there.

[RFC]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

uh oh.....ya know gravity is a theory as well, as is evolution...

gonna go get the popcorn.

lol!!!

[Seramount]

plastic pollution in marine ecosystems is ubiquitous.

it'll be another notable nail-in-the-coffin for silly humans...

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/...n-science-spd/

[velotel]

I'm constantly amazed at how in every 'conversation' about climate change and man no one mentions the number one problem, even though the subject was raised rather extensively and clearly as long ago as the 50s and even before, namely population. There are simply too many people on this planet, maybe 4, 5 times too many. Even if everyone was super careful about their uses of the climate, the results would remain negative because there are too many of us. Had the world restricted itself to 2 children per couple in the 50s or 60s, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in. if in the 80s every man had been restricted to producing one child, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in.

People use resources. The more people there are, the more resources used. The more resources used, the more waste produced. It's all rather simple.

The obvious fly in the ointment is capitalism and its need for constant growth. Unrestricted, uncontrolled growth is called cancer in the medical world. Humans, despite our remarkable talents and intelligence, are the cancer of this planet. So, we'll eventually die because we've killed what we live on. The planet will still be here and isn't measuring the time, at least to our knowledge. We're not even big enough to be considered a bump in the road.

But what a friggin, stupid thing to have done! A stunningly beautiful world and we're destroying it. No wonder no alien life has ever contacted us. They took one look and said, those whatever they are are nuts, don't touch them!

So, like so many others, I do what I can to limit my impact. Had one child immediately followed by a vasectomy, our consumption in the house is pretty low compared to norms, but could be better of course and in fact steadily improves. But, I'm not sure what for because as so many have also said, we're doomed. Thus why bother. But I do anyway, as best I can. For all those with more than one child, I always wonder what in the heck they're going to tell their children when the truth arrives that their future doesn't exist. Crazy and tragic and so damned needless. Just for a few dollars more.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by velotel

I'm constantly amazed at how in every 'conversation' about climate change and man no one mentions the number one problem, even though the subject was raised rather extensively and clearly as long ago as the 50s and even before, namely population. There are simply too many people on this planet, maybe 4, 5 times too many. Even if everyone was super careful about their uses of the climate, the results would remain negative because there are too many of us. Had the world restricted itself to 2 children per couple in the 50s or 60s, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in. if in the 80s every man had been restricted to producing one child, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in.

People use resources. The more people there are, the more resources used. The more resources used, the more waste produced. It's all rather simple.

The obvious fly in the ointment is capitalism and its need for constant growth. Unrestricted, uncontrolled growth is called cancer in the medical world. Humans, despite our remarkable talents and intelligence, are the cancer of this planet. So, we'll eventually die because we've killed what we live on. The planet will still be here and isn't measuring the time, at least to our knowledge. We're not even big enough to be considered a bump in the road.

But what a friggin, stupid thing to have done! A stunningly beautiful world and we're destroying it. No wonder no alien life has ever contacted us. They took one look and said, those whatever they are are nuts, don't touch them!

So, like so many others, I do what I can to limit my impact. Had one child immediately followed by a vasectomy, our consumption in the house is pretty low compared to norms, but could be better of course and in fact steadily improves. But, I'm not sure what for because as so many have also said, we're doomed. Thus why bother. But I do anyway, as best I can. For all those with more than one child, I always wonder what in the heck they're going to tell their children when the truth arrives that their future doesn't exist. Crazy and tragic and so damned needless. Just for a few dollars more.

Do I know a guy for you:

[jtbadge]

Climate science denial is so weird.