Palm to face.
My opinion has always been that, when a scientist says something is 'incontrovertible', he is almost certainly wrong. Climate is such an uncertain thing in it's own right, than being 'incontrovertible' about it is highly dubious, I find.
Is the climate changing?
Yes. In fact, I'd find it odd for anyone to suggest that climate change isn't happening. Change is what the climate does. It's not some static and perpetual thing.
Are humans changing the climate?
It may be possible. It's definitely noticeable on a local scale with such things as urban heat islands, and artifical lakes affecting the local microclimate, which then go on to affect the world climate as a whole. (Weather is such a chaotic thing). Setting of a few nice-sized atomic bombs will probably cause a global cooling effect, and knock us back a few TL's to a point where we aren't able to have much more of an effect.
Can we stop it?
This I find rather silly. Do people have any idea how immeasurably powerful the forces at work are, or how vast the Co2 producing industry's are? Nearly every human activity on this planet produces a greenhouse gas. Most natural activities on this planet produce greenhouse gases anyway. I'm dubious about trying to reverse or mitigate the consequences of climate change, I think we'd be much better off changing with the climate, rather than trying to change the climate to us.
The 'green' idea is something that really does have trillions of dollars tied up in it. I'm not saying this is a bad thing as such. However, in certain areas I feel this may be counterproductive, and might actually be contributing to something that I feel is far more harmful to the planet on a longer term. Earth has been much hotter and cooler than it is right now. It will be much hotter and much cooler in the future. Most products these days are being sold as being 'greener' than the older models, urging people to upgrade to save the planet.
What happens to the old model?
It probably still works quite happily, but it's not as efficient. In an ideal world, it'd at least be recycled, but chances are it'll just get tipped out with the rubbish. So, all the energy and resources that went into producing that toaster, have no effectively been wasted. Mining, shipping, refining, further shipping, manufacture, more shipping and whatever else... and after three years it's junked for a model that's a couple of percent more efficient. Which has most likely been mined, shipped, refined, further shipped, manufactured and the same whole rigmarole all over again.
All the resources that go into toaster 1 are wasted. And then you have toaster 2 built more or less from scratch (Well, the steps after creation of Life Universe and Everything anyway). Which'll get junked for a model 3% more efficient than it. Recycling helps mitigate this, and is helping more and more... but it's still far from universal. There's still a resource (And Co2 if that's your poison) cost towards replacing it. A cost that most likely offsets the efficiency gains over the (probably shorter) life of the new toaster.
Marketing tells us that buying the newest, greenest appliance will save the world? Will it? I'd like to see some figures that back this up because to me, that seems a bit like bullshit. It feels counter-intuitive at the very least. It generally seems like it's better to keep something going for it's service life, rather than replace it because it's not the latest and greatest.
Anybody buying a Toyota Prius because it's more green than their current 3yo SUV is a moron. Consider all the processing that goes into building that Prius, compared to just driving the Gas Guzzler for a few more years until it finally decides it don't want to go no more. Then you buy your Prius or what have you (BMW 120d in my case. Just as efficient. More fun).
Planned obsolescence, and a consumerist culture, are far more dangerous to the environment, I feel, than just climate change. Especially since the current Climate Change craze appears to be fuelling itself of the consumerist culture, and the desire to *appear* to be greener than the neighbour. I fear it may end up being more destructive than the problem it purports to solve.
I'm not disputing that cleaner, greener cars and appliances are a good thing. They are. Electric cars are great for nipping around towns, and good fun to drive. These things have their place and their time. That time is when the car I'm currently driving as EoL'd, thank you very much, or the toaster is utterly FUBAR'd. Rather than buy a new one, I just replaced the frigging front suspension.... more than the car was worth, but cheaper than buying a new one, or a second hand one... and greener I feel.
There's also unintended consequences to consider. When we switched to CCFLs in this house from regular filament bulbs, I noticed the heating bill went up. Admittedly a bit imperical, but interesting to note.
Of course, all this is something of a gut feeling, and something of a justification of my own actions, but it does make sense.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
My opinion has always been that, when a scientist says something is 'incontrovertible', he is almost certainly wrong. Climate is such an uncertain thing in it's own right, than being 'incontrovertible' about it is highly dubious, I find.
Is the climate changing?
Yes. In fact, I'd find it odd for anyone to suggest that climate change isn't happening. Change is what the climate does. It's not some static and perpetual thing.
Are humans changing the climate?
It may be possible. It's definitely noticeable on a local scale with such things as urban heat islands, and artifical lakes affecting the local microclimate, which then go on to affect the world climate as a whole. (Weather is such a chaotic thing). Setting of a few nice-sized atomic bombs will probably cause a global cooling effect, and knock us back a few TL's to a point where we aren't able to have much more of an effect.
Can we stop it?
This I find rather silly. Do people have any idea how immeasurably powerful the forces at work are, or how vast the Co2 producing industry's are? Nearly every human activity on this planet produces a greenhouse gas. Most natural activities on this planet produce greenhouse gases anyway. I'm dubious about trying to reverse or mitigate the consequences of climate change, I think we'd be much better off changing with the climate, rather than trying to change the climate to us.
The 'green' idea is something that really does have trillions of dollars tied up in it. I'm not saying this is a bad thing as such. However, in certain areas I feel this may be counterproductive, and might actually be contributing to something that I feel is far more harmful to the planet on a longer term. Earth has been much hotter and cooler than it is right now. It will be much hotter and much cooler in the future. Most products these days are being sold as being 'greener' than the older models, urging people to upgrade to save the planet.
What happens to the old model?
It probably still works quite happily, but it's not as efficient. In an ideal world, it'd at least be recycled, but chances are it'll just get tipped out with the rubbish. So, all the energy and resources that went into producing that toaster, have no effectively been wasted. Mining, shipping, refining, further shipping, manufacture, more shipping and whatever else... and after three years it's junked for a model that's a couple of percent more efficient. Which has most likely been mined, shipped, refined, further shipped, manufactured and the same whole rigmarole all over again.
All the resources that go into toaster 1 are wasted. And then you have toaster 2 built more or less from scratch (Well, the steps after creation of Life Universe and Everything anyway). Which'll get junked for a model 3% more efficient than it. Recycling helps mitigate this, and is helping more and more... but it's still far from universal. There's still a resource (And Co2 if that's your poison) cost towards replacing it. A cost that most likely offsets the efficiency gains over the (probably shorter) life of the new toaster.
Marketing tells us that buying the newest, greenest appliance will save the world? Will it? I'd like to see some figures that back this up because to me, that seems a bit like bullshit. It feels counter-intuitive at the very least. It generally seems like it's better to keep something going for it's service life, rather than replace it because it's not the latest and greatest.
Anybody buying a Toyota Prius because it's more green than their current 3yo SUV is a moron. Consider all the processing that goes into building that Prius, compared to just driving the Gas Guzzler for a few more years until it finally decides it don't want to go no more. Then you buy your Prius or what have you (BMW 120d in my case. Just as efficient. More fun).
Planned obsolescence, and a consumerist culture, are far more dangerous to the environment, I feel, than just climate change. Especially since the current Climate Change craze appears to be fuelling itself of the consumerist culture, and the desire to *appear* to be greener than the neighbour. I fear it may end up being more destructive than the problem it purports to solve.
I'm not disputing that cleaner, greener cars and appliances are a good thing. They are. Electric cars are great for nipping around towns, and good fun to drive. These things have their place and their time. That time is when the car I'm currently driving as EoL'd, thank you very much, or the toaster is utterly FUBAR'd. Rather than buy a new one, I just replaced the frigging front suspension.... more than the car was worth, but cheaper than buying a new one, or a second hand one... and greener I feel.
There's also unintended consequences to consider. When we switched to CCFLs in this house from regular filament bulbs, I noticed the heating bill went up. Admittedly a bit imperical, but interesting to note.
Of course, all this is something of a gut feeling, and something of a justification of my own actions, but it does make sense.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?