How screwed are we on climate?

[XemaSab]

Poll question: How screwed are we on climate?

:shrug:

[baldguy]

1. We've already past the point of no return.

Even if the entire human race stopped pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere right now - cold turkey - it would take 200 yrs for the climate to stabilize and a millennium to return to normal.

And we're not about to do that.

[XemaSab]

3. I heard 600

x(

[odai123]

2. I read an article by some futurist saying

That technology increases exponentially, so we should have clean energy tech in 25 years or less. Something like that. BUT, that doesn't mean everyone will adopt it immediately. I'm sure Big Oil will make a smear campaign on it (Only socialists use solar!). And yeah, that won't eliminate the existing gases.

But carbon-nanotubing seems promising for solar, so I say it's bleak, but we have a chance.

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. I've heard some great quotes about exponential curves....

To the effect of "nature never long supports an exponential curve". Tech development is dependent on an educated populous not chained to the realm of necessity, working on tech issues. A population not chained to the realm of necessity means a society with mechanization of things like agriculture, transportation etc. The mechanization of all those critical things depends on readily available energy, of which fossil fuels are still currently irreplaceable.

Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with your point, but I do believe there is something of an "urgency of now" regarding the whole situation, when the possibility of global peak oil is taken into account....

[odai123]

5. I see you point

I hadn't considered that, and obviously outside forces can affect research. And, I've heard that the world's oil supply has already peaked, and now we're declining... things look bad, but I guess shooting for an astronomical chance is better than no chance.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. The worst thing about "peak oil" is that it may cause us to burn coal faster

Things like Freeman Dyson's (Nordhaus') (in)famous "http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494">carbon eating trees" may be possible, but I'm afraid we're behind the curve here.

[dave_m34]

6. Who cares, you can't do anything about it

If human beings stop creating green house gases, nothing will change. Why? All of humanity only generates less than 1% of all green house gases if water vapor is considered, and less than 6% if water vapor is not accounted for. We can barely predict the local weather for the week, and people believe we can predict the climate over decades?

[GliderGuider]

7. OK, which one of you kids left the door open?

Now we're going to have to spray the place. :banghead:

[Nihil]

9. .

Changed my mind and decided not to pick on the retard today.

[kestrel91316]

10. You want pepperoni on that pizza?

[dave_m34]

12. Ah, name calling ...

typical response when you have no facts to back you up

[Dead_Parrot]

8. ...

[PufPuf23]

13. The complex of extinctions, water and soil degradation, loss of

intertwined ecotypes, and climate change is is sobering.

Part of climate change is larger and more intense disturbance events that then cascade.

Plus humans have out and out poisoned parts of the world and some of the poisons bio-accumulate.

There does not appear to be the political nor scientific wills much less individual wills to address environmental issues.

There is a horror movie playing in the background on my TV.