O/T:- Climate Change

[MarcusCole]

If you don't believe the figures, why did global death rates suddenly increase when Covid was around?

Do you accept that the jump was down to Covid?

If not, what else caused it?

Perhaps it was due to all the medical facilities being closed to everything other than Covid. My uncle had all his cancer treatments cancelled, guess what happened to him, he miraculously died with Covid. What do you think happens when you remove access to medical facilities for a population, but yes it has to be Covid.

[jackal2]

What a witty fellow J2, but if wit was tit you wouldn't need a bra.

Nice to see you're keeping abreast!

[Newish Pie]

I don't personally know of anyone who died as a direct result of COVID, but no doubt lots of people do.

One thing is clear though - the government deliberately falsified the data to make the pandemic seem worse that it actually was. The question is, why?

Going back to the climate change issue, this is my major concern - that governments will hijack what is certainly an important issue and blow it out of all proportion, so they can introduce new laws and conditions that would otherwise be unacceptable to the public. They'll stoke fear until people are begging the government to control what we're allowed to do, where we're allowed to do it, and when.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that increases the government's control over our lives is fundamentally bad for most people - except in very extreme cases where top-down control is the only way to implement necessary changes. Is climate change one of those cases? No idea, but I think a lot of people no longer trust the government to act in our best interests.

I don't think it is at all clear that the government deliberately falsified the data. There are plenty of cases where it's genuinely difficult to tell whether someone died of or with COVID, and when, in the middle of a global pandemic, the distinction doesn't matter a great deal. It's a medical records coding issue, and it seems an odd issue to focus on, when the overall number of deaths vs expected deaths tells a pretty clear story.

Two things I'd say about COVID and accusations about over-hyping. The first is that at the start, there was a lot that we (scientists, medics) didn't know about COVID. They knew about coronaviruses more generally. But they didn't know about levels of transmissibility - hence the early focus on surface washing, which proved later not to be so necessary. We also didn't know how best to treat patients. The second is that a lot of early predictions were based on not doing anything/taking no steps. But we did take steps to reduce the spread, and we did get better at treating people, and we were lucky in the way that the virus mutated so far. Or at least it could have been much worse.

More generally - there is an issue around the climate crisis, how it's reported, and how people campaign. This is true of absolutely every issue that everyone campaigns on. There's a dilemma - if you don't make it seem bad, people are less likely to respond. On the other hand, if you make it seem too bad/hopeless, people will regard it as a lost cause. There is some good news amidst all the bad news about the climate crisis and our response - much more power is generated through renewals, and we've had major culture changes towards recycling and minimising waste. These aren't nothing. We've also got some interesting technological interventions coming down the line that may help - carbon capture etc.

Problem is, some campaigners are resistant to reporting good/better news on climate (and perhaps COVID and other issues too) because they think it'll make people complacent. It was interesting reading what people said in the other thread about feeling hopeless and that nothing we could do could make a difference. We need to get the message - yes, there's a climate crisis. Yes, it's caused by human activity. No, we can't stop it, but yes, we can still reduce the damage.

I'm interested in this argument about government control. Genuine discussion to be had about how we share out the burdens of climate change fairly. But there's a paranoia in the air sometimes (not Slack Pie, I don't think, whose post is more nuanced) about everything being an excuse or pretext for government overreach or takeover. It's a very American argument... this idea that government is bad and will always overreach and will inevitably try to control everything. They also mistake trying to control what corporations do with controlling what citizens do. It's probably to do with their history and their national story of escaping colonial oppression, but our national story and relationship with our government is quite different.

There's no evidence for the idea of creeping totalitarianism. Yes, the government did take emergency powers during COVID, but then it relaxed them again. During WWII we had much greater restrictions on civil liberties, including rationing, which were all subsequently relaxed. And although we can all point to instances of police overreaction during COVID, generally policing was by consent and with a minimum of legal force.

Think it's fine to worry about what sacrifices people will have to make to avoid the worst of the climate crisis and about how that burden will be divided and how those decisions will be taken. But it's possible to do that without going down a paranoid rabbit hole.

[OchPie]

One thing is clear though - the government deliberately falsified the data to make the pandemic seem worse that it actually was. The question is, why?

Honestly, I think the question is "why is this clear?".

Counting COVID deaths is really hard. Asking "what is a COVID death" isn't nearly as straightforward as it might at first seem. You catch COVID, it has impacts all over the body, short and long term. You get over COVID, maybe it's damaged something sufficiently you still later die of it. Or you die while with COVID because it made you more susceptible to something underlying. Or you had COVID but a comorbidity was always going to finish you off anyway. How do you account for those things?

The UK government took some naive decisions which it later changed, some of which reduced COVID death numbers (e.g. imposing a 28 day cutoff from a positive test). In truth, it's pretty widely accepted that death numbers were probably understated if anything, especially early on when testing was difficult.

Similarly with climate change, the research needed to say it is happening is not simple. The mechanisms are pretty simple to explain, but the Earth has various feedback mechanisms, some of which dampen climate change and some of which accelerate it, and it's not easy to model how they interact. Those of us championing more EVs have to face that in the short term this may well increase warming because it also removes particulate matter from the air.

However very very few serious scientists now doubt climate change. The weight of evidence is absolutely massive. Contradictory evidence is tiny. There's still lots of argument around the edges, about how this or that system works or on the impact of a particular ecosystem or activity. But the change itself is happening, and it is happening because of us.

[SwalePie]

I don't think it is at all clear that the government deliberately falsified the data. There are plenty of cases where it's genuinely difficult to tell whether someone died of or with COVID, and when, in the middle of a global pandemic, the distinction doesn't matter a great deal. It's a medical records coding issue, and it seems an odd issue to focus on, when the overall number of deaths vs expected deaths tells a pretty clear story.

Two things I'd say about COVID and accusations about over-hyping. The first is that at the start, there was a lot that we (scientists, medics) didn't know about COVID. They knew about coronaviruses more generally. But they didn't know about levels of transmissibility - hence the early focus on surface washing, which proved later not to be so necessary. We also didn't know how best to treat patients. The second is that a lot of early predictions were based on not doing anything/taking no steps. But we did take steps to reduce the spread, and we did get better at treating people, and we were lucky in the way that the virus mutated so far. Or at least it could have been much worse.

More generally - there is an issue around the climate crisis, how it's reported, and how people campaign. This is true of absolutely every issue that everyone campaigns on. There's a dilemma - if you don't make it seem bad, people are less likely to respond. On the other hand, if you make it seem too bad/hopeless, people will regard it as a lost cause. There is some good news amidst all the bad news about the climate crisis and our response - much more power is generated through renewals, and we've had major culture changes towards recycling and minimising waste. These aren't nothing. We've also got some interesting technological interventions coming down the line that may help - carbon capture etc.

Problem is, some campaigners are resistant to reporting good/better news on climate (and perhaps COVID and other issues too) because they think it'll make people complacent. It was interesting reading what people said in the other thread about feeling hopeless and that nothing we could do could make a difference. We need to get the message - yes, there's a climate crisis. Yes, it's caused by human activity. No, we can't stop it, but yes, we can still reduce the damage.

I'm interested in this argument about government control. Genuine discussion to be had about how we share out the burdens of climate change fairly. But there's a paranoia in the air sometimes (not Slack Pie, I don't think, whose post is more nuanced) about everything being an excuse or pretext for government overreach or takeover. It's a very American argument... this idea that government is bad and will always overreach and will inevitably try to control everything. They also mistake trying to control what corporations do with controlling what citizens do. It's probably to do with their history and their national story of escaping colonial oppression, but our national story and relationship with our government is quite different.

There's no evidence for the idea of creeping totalitarianism. Yes, the government did take emergency powers during COVID, but then it relaxed them again. During WWII we had much greater restrictions on civil liberties, including rationing, which were all subsequently relaxed. And although we can all point to instances of police overreaction during COVID, generally policing was by consent and with a minimum of legal force.

Think it's fine to worry about what sacrifices people will have to make to avoid the worst of the climate crisis and about how that burden will be divided and how those decisions will be taken. But it's possible to do that without going down a paranoid rabbit hole.

Well put.

[OchPie]

There's no evidence for the idea of creeping totalitarianism.

What scares me is that it seems to me, it's often the people complaining loudest about the concept of totalitarianism who seem to embrace the slow realisation of it. GB News is against free protest - supporting government moves to cut protest, and complaining about the existence of Just Stop Oil (and not just their more extreme tactics). It has been one of the mildest critics (and showed outright support) of the Online Safety Bill. It demands an end to "wokeness" in every aspect, including those calling for it - a direct attack on free speech.

For what it's worth, I don't worry about elections being effectively stopped if any of the current lot in the UK win in 2024/25, while I do think that's a very real risk if Trump is reelected.

[jackal2]

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is real and that it's caused by human actions. These conclusions have been reached not as a matter of faith, but by using the same scientific method that's underpinned every aspect of human progress and development.

The idea that it's just scientists with their "fingers in the till" is just a conspiracy theory. Or wishful thinking.

If scientists are correct that human behaviour is on course to bring about our own self-destruction, then perhaps the people really with their "fingers in the till" are those who have calculated how much money can be made from exploiting the comically naive premise that humans are capable of mustering the willpower and co-ordinated, collective worldwide action to reverse climate change.

The most likely motivation for the 'green agenda' is savvy capitalists who have realised that, while we await the inevitable, there's a lot of money to be made from exploiting humanity's collective state of denial about where we're headed. It's a cash cow there to be milked, even if it's farts are also contributing to global warming!

[Mark_Ross]

New thread for Climate Change debate.

Sorry folks, but this debate is depressingly familiar in its futility. People are entrenched either on the one side or the other, and there's virtually zero movement between.

All I'll say is that most people seem to be perfectly happy to trust science (and its spin-off technology) for 99% of their everyday lives - the exception being something for which they have a very strong emotional response... a "gut" feeling... and another conspiracy is born.

see also:
Religion / supernatural, also extra-terrestrial visitors
{versus Evolution through natural selection, & their non-existence}

[the_anticlough]

The most likely motivation for the 'green agenda' is savvy capitalists who have realised that, while we await the inevitable, there's a lot of money to be made from exploiting humanity's collective state of denial about where we're headed. It's a cash cow there to be milked, even if it's farts are also contributing to global warming!

I think discussion of climate change on this site over the last week or so has been a King Solomon moment.

You know, when he settled a dispute over two women claiming to be the mother of baby by saying he would cut that baby in two...

The shocking level of misanthropy by those saying they don't care about future generations of humanity not being able to enjoy the kind of lives we've been able to live...

It really shows what these people are about, shrivelled-up hollow shells of human beings, most likely hollowed out by the very systems they defend so mindlessly with their conservatism.

[drillerpie]

Sorry folks, but this debate is depressingly familiar in its futility. People are entrenched either on the one side or the other, and there's virtually zero movement between.

People are unlikely to post that they have changed their mind, because it's a 'I lose you win' scenario. It they might think to themselves after they have logged off.

What I find interesting (and worrying) reading through board is how it's pretty easy to guess people's view on any controversial topic, from one opinion on one controversial topic.

It's not 100% accurate of course, but it is still very accurate. Tell me someone's opinion on climate change, for example, and I'll fancy my chances of telling you where they stand on Covid, Brexit, invasion of Ukraine, cancel culture, etc. Even though these are seemingly unrelated things.

I'm I my forties so I don't know how it was in say the 70s or 60s. Has it always been like this? Or is it the way we get our information now?