A recent interview on CNN with the founder of the Weather Channel (a climate change skeptic) by Brian Stelter, who appears to have lost a lot of weight lately.
We were able to avoid famine because of the Green Revolution coupled with mass manufacturing, both of which increased food production, goods, and services readily. Both with sanitation systems also led to infant mortality rates plummeting, in turn leading to increasing life expectancy rates. That, in turn, led to world population tripling in only three decades: the graph looks like that of CO2 ppm, i.e., unprecedented in hundreds of thousands of years. Meanwhile, combinations of environmental damage and resource crunch threats remain: global forest cover, fishing harvests, freshwater pollution, arable soil, air pollution, plant and animal species disruption, etc., and we have difficulty reversing these because they are connected to making and growing things that we need or want. In short, they are connected to the same Green Revolution and mass manufacturing. And we need more goods and services because up to 7 out of every 10 people worldwide live on less than $10 daily and want to live on more, and the other 3 or more want them to do that because their own income and returns on investment are based on continuous and steady economic growth, which means more goods and services made. Which means more pollution, which in turn is connected to more CO2 ppm, and so on. Meanwhile, living on more means growing prosperity, which in turn means lower birth rates, which in turn threatens economic growth that needs more consumers and workers. In the end, most don't realize that the world is much more complex than they imagine: we are looking at bifurcations across the board from which we don't know what will happen next.
I'll try to this simple to cut through the nonsense from both sides of the issue. The climate is in fact changing. It has never stopped changing. It is also a fact that there is nothing mankind can do to change it, it's the natural evolution of our planet. To think that huge amounts of tax money can alter it is as ridiculous as trying to stop the earth's rotation.
I'll say it again and think I should print up a T-shirt. Neither my car nor my cow caused the end of the Ice Age! Climate changes!
I recently read that they are now able to make "recyclable" turbine blades for windchargers. They convert them into gummy bears for children--not a joke! Soylent Green anyone???
The question isn't whether or not climate is changing but the effects of increased CO2 ppm. As pointed out earlier and elsewhere, for the last 600,000 years CO2 ppm went as low as 170 ppm and as high as 280 ppm, and always tracked surface temperature anomaly. Today, it's 414 ppm. The last time it reached and exceeded that was around 800,000 years ago, and before that, it took a thousand years for it to go up by 35 ppm, or .035 ppm each year. Now, it's going up by 1-2 ppm every year, or at least 28 times faster. What will be the effect of that? The NAS, the top science review group in the states, reports that CO2 ppm has both a feedback and forcing factor. The latter has likely been kicking in, which is why scientists have been recording over 50 positive feedback loops the last two decades. Deniers and skeptics funded an independent study--Berkeley Earth--to come up with what they argue is the final say on the matter. Their study ended up confirming what the NAS reported. Finally, the Department of Defense, the U.S. military, various multinational banks, Lloyds of London and various insurance groups, and others have been issuing reports for clients and personnel warning about the effects of both climate change and a resource crunch, particularly peak oil. The mainstream are ignorant of this because they cannot accept such a future, which is why businesses and governments have been reporting on "game changers."
Not sure we are ignorant. But we see the solution differently and maybe the cause. The destruction of the rain forests, the disposable packaging destroying our oceans (made from oil), incorrect farming practices. The lack of thought with regard to green technology recycling, which we are not ready for nor is it ready to be deployed with as much energy as we need. Of course you are right about the money being behind it all. But if China and India do their own thing, why punish the US until it is ready? As I have said, I was one of the first in my area to install solar in the 80's and it did not work, as such, in Wisconsin. But the gov't handed out rebates like candy at the taxpayers expense. We are not there now either. If we were, we would not need the gov't to buy it except to get kickbacks at election time.
apparently you actually believe that the planet is 800,000 years old and that we have the ability to determine ages that good.
Increased pollution, including air and the use of plastics, are connected to CO2 ppm increase as the former involve fossil fuels. I don't know if there is such a thing as green technology recycling, as solar panels, etc., require fossil fuels for mining, manufacturing, and even shipping, and I don't think there are substitutes for petrochemicals used for tens of thousands of applications. But in relation to this topic, I find the argument that climate change is a hoax but pollution isn't bewildering, as the two are connected to each other.
I didn't argue that the planet is 800,000 years old. What I said is that the last time CO2 ppm exceeded 300 was over 800,000 years ago. That time, it took a thousand years for it to go up by 35 ppm Now, it's rising by 1 ppm a year, or 28 times faster. There is nothing natural about that.
What I mentioned is what scientists discovered. If I'm not mistaken, it was also mentioned in this thread. What wasn't is that the rate of increase in ppm was around 0.035 per year vs. 1-2 today.
Research done on the ice caps suggest climate change is normal and warming is always proceeded by mini Ice Ages. I don't know id its HARP or nature. We have to deal with it no matter what causes it.