O/T:- Climate Change

[jackal2]

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...

I'm sure there are those with a misanthropic view that they simply don't care about future generations, but I doubt there are that many, and I certainly think it would be unfair just to categorise all climate change sceptics under that banner.

Like I've said above, I'm happy to accept the predominant scientific opinion on climate change, but I certainly don't believe human beings as a collective across the world will have the willpower to change or abandon, as you say, "the kind of lives we've been able to live", which is exactly what scientists identify as the problem.

Yes, that no doubt includes climate change sceptics (who presumably might not even try!) but it also includes many of the people who accept climate change is happening and purport to be living greener lives but only at a superficial level. You don't have to look too far to find people who say all the right words about living in a more environmentally-friendly way and do certain low-level gesture-type things that are consistent with it, but who then fly on holiday each year or keep three cars outside their house.

Then there's the whole global issue of countries like ours who in the past gleaned huge economic benefits from our industrial revolutions turning around to countries like China and saying "sorry, you can't have your own industrial revolution because we've now decided it is dirty and polluting". Unsurprisingly, the Chinese (and others in a similar position) tell us to get stuffed and build another batch of new coal power plants!

Are all these people misanthropes consciously and deliberately blighting future generations, or are they simply human beings being human beings: selfless at times, selfish at others. Perhaps as an imperfect species we're pre-programmed to self-expire as many other species have before us?

[BigFatPie]

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?

In the 70s and 80s there were big debates on smoking and we can probably guess who would have been which side on that one as well.

The parallels between that issue and climate change are quite striking, in both the science was settled for years but the waters were deliberately muddied by industry shills going round saying it wasn’t actually as bad as those uptight scientists said it was and also promoting smoking as a ‘freedom’ issue, with those wanting restrictions as being part of the ‘nanny state’.

Nowadays of course climate denialists, both paid and unpaid, have many more platforms to spread their nonsense, and their unscientific claims are proving harder to discredit. Sunak’s disgraceful announcements yesterday are of course a massive backward step.

[MarcusCole]

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}

I sort of see where you are coming from but I see there are being three camps on this

1st extremist view - There is a Climate Emergency and extreme measures must be taken and d@mn and consequences.

2nd middle of the row view - Something is going on but there is too much alarmist rhetoric. The want proper information on what is happening so they can decide what needs to be done

3rd Extremist view - Its all a lie

[slack_pie]

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.

I agree that it's not easy to pinpoint exactly what was the cause of someone's death when there are multiple factors involved. But back in 2020, if a terminally ill cancer patient contracted COVID on their death bed, that data point was presented to the public as a COVID death, not a cancer death. Now, that was either a deliberate attempt to inflate the numbers and, in the words of Matt Hancock, "scare the pants off" the public, or it was rank incompetence. Take your pick.

[the_anticlough]

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?

The majority of that will be accounted for by the underlying, unifying principles that make up a person's worldview (or backyardview ; ) ). So it's not necessarily tribalism or propaganda. If someone's applying, say, compassion or fatalism on one issue, they're most likely to bring it to bear on all the others too.

[the_anticlough]

2nd middle of the row view - Something is going on but there is too much alarmist rhetoric. The want proper information on what is happening so they can decide what needs to be done

The 'middle of the row, can't be so far behind, can it?

The information has been there for decades, it's clear what needs to be done, and the sooner it's implemented the less catastrophic it'll be for the poor suckers who had the misfortune to follow generations trained to be selfish and indifferent

[Newish Pie]

I'm sure there are those with a misanthropic view that they simply don't care about future generations, but I doubt there are that many, and I certainly think it would be unfair just to categorise all climate change sceptics under that banner.

Like I've said above, I'm happy to accept the predominant scientific opinion on climate change, but I certainly don't believe human beings as a collective across the world will have the willpower to change or abandon, as you say, "the kind of lives we've been able to live", which is exactly what scientists identify as the problem.

Yes, that no doubt includes climate change sceptics (who presumably might not even try!) but it also includes many of the people who accept climate change is happening and purport to be living greener lives but only at a superficial level. You don't have to look too far to find people who say all the right words about living in a more environmentally-friendly way and do certain low-level gesture-type things that are consistent with it, but who then fly on holiday each year or keep three cars outside their house.

Then there's the whole global issue of countries like ours who in the past gleaned huge economic benefits from our industrial revolutions turning around to countries like China and saying "sorry, you can't have your own industrial revolution because we've now decided it is dirty and polluting". Unsurprisingly, the Chinese (and others in a similar position) tell us to get stuffed and build another batch of new coal power plants!

Are all these people misanthropes consciously and deliberately blighting future generations, or are they simply human beings being human beings: selfless at times, selfish at others. Perhaps as an imperfect species we're pre-programmed to self-expire as many other species have before us?

I agree that not all climate crisis deniers are misanthropes, but some are, and many won't admit it until they're pushed. Including on this board, people happy to admit that they don't much care if the human race goes extinct, and by implication don't much care about the suffering caused as society and modern industrial society breaks down. I'm not sure why the rest of who do care should pay them or their opinions much attention.

I'm more optimistic about the power of humans to turn things round, certainly enough to make it worth doing. Ultimately, we're social animals, and we take our cues from those around us and how they behave. We reach tipping points, and behaviour and attitudes change. In many of our lifetimes, it's gone from being socially unacceptable not to be homophobic to the opposite. See also: most racists who feel the need to argue that they're not racists in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Because it's not socially acceptable.

Speaking as someone who is very concerned about the climate, but who nevertheless flew to the US for a holiday, I'd say it's not about a small number of people being perfect - being environmental monks - but about a lot of people doing a bit better. That all adds up.

I also don't think the main source of change will be individuals making individual choices. It'll be government policies, it'll be industry, it'll be government regulation for industry - the attempt to make individuals primarily responsible for climate change is often a pretty grubby attempt to deflect responsibility from where it really lies. We can blame individuals for their car use, or we can ask why they use their cars - is public transport not good enough or too expensive, is active travel like cycling or walking too dangerous or difficult?

There's so much government could do... the UK housing stock is very poorly insulated and very inefficient. What we need is a government programme to improve the quality of home energy efficiency. This will reduce energy use, will improve human health, will reduce poverty, and will create jobs. And most of the worst housing stock is in the poorest areas where the jobs are most needed. So many wins. It's madness that we've not done it... it's such an obviously good idea, it shouldn't be a left/right issue.

I guess I'm optimistic because when I look at all that humans have accomplished... it's pretty impressive. We can coordinate and cooperate when we need to.

I absolutely agree that we need other countries to do their bit too, and developing countries absolutely have a case when they say to the west: look, you got where you are now by polluting the planet and you're saying we can't do the same to improve our people's living standards?! Part of the answer is in giving them access to technology and cleaner ways to achieve the same objectives. The other part of the answer is taking leadership and setting an example. In the case of China, I'd also point out that a lot of China's production is actually manufacturing stuff for countries like the UK. Not all of which we need.

It may be that I'm completely wrong about this, and intransigence and "you first-ism" will doom us all. But we have to try.

[drillerpie]

The majority of that will be accounted for by the underlying, unifying principles that make up a person's worldview (or backyardview ; ) ). So it's not necessarily tribalism or propaganda. If someone's applying, say, compassion or fatalism on one issue, they're most likely to bring it to bear on all the others too.

Fair points, it could be that, but I'm not sure that explains it all. One poster has already stated he's zen about the extinction of the human race and life as we know it (climate change) but is at the same time very worried about the extinction of the human race and life as we know it (Russian nukes).

This doesn't make sense, yet I bet if you asked a large number of climate change sceptics, the vast majority would have the same position on Ukraine.

I think something more is happening here.

[drillerpie]

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.

I think you're right about it being a very American perspective. Their constitution was written in the late 1700s and is a snapshot of English political thought at the time, which was a reaction against the absolutism of the century before (the 1600s was the century of absolute rulers in France, the UK and elsewhere) so avoiding tyrannical government was very important at the time.

While it has been a constant in American politics, I think it has gone more into the mainstream in recent years, arguably with good reason on some levels. But I agree with you that people don't always take into account what small government means in practice.

Philosphers divide freedom into positive and negative freedom, which can be loosely translated as freedom from something (or everything) and freedom to (do something, or everything).

Small government (or almost no government, in the libertarian tradition) means freedom FROM pretty much everything, but it drastically reduces your freedom TO do things, because without a government giving you an education, health care, police protection, transport, you are unlikely to have the positive freedom to realise your potential in life.

[the_anticlough]

Fair points, it could be that, but I'm not sure that explains it all. One poster has already stated he's zen about the extinction of the human race and life as we know it (climate change) but is at the same time very worried about the extinction of the human race and life as we know it (Russian nukes).

This doesn't make sense, yet I bet if you asked a large number of climate change sceptics, the vast majority would have the same position on Ukraine.

I think something more is happening here.

I actually think so too. My first post was just to qualify yours a bit.

Supporting a football club is one of the most tribal things you can do. Even so, I don't wallow in that. I tell myself it's conditional (although we know it's not )

But seeing grown adults approach other more serious subjects with the same reflex tribalism (including voting in general elections) is just so wrong. Falling into line with 'our side' as if it's like supporting a football club. It's not supposed to be like that of course, we should also be using our minds and consciences to figure difficult questions out for ourselves. So yes, there should be more variance in opinions across the range of subjects and 'taking sides' as such should be left for the sillier stuff like footy