Just to be clear, once again, for Warmists, the debate is not about a changing climate, it is about causation. Warmists say it is mostly/solely caused by Mankind, yet they won’t modify their own behavior to match their beliefs. Strange, eh? Anyhow, Tali Trigg has an interesting essay regarding “climate change” and true environmentalism
If Climate Change Was Not Real…
… there would be a lot of other environmental issues to deal with. This is no big revelation, but it’s a question I’ve been pondering recently: What is the state of the world, not counting climate change? Or rather, what if we managed to reduce CO2 emissions to necessary levels, what would our focus be on then?
Don’t get me wrong, climate change is real, and if you need a proper education on why it is, please see John Oliver’s excellent ribbing on the topic. Rather, what I am wondering here is: what are the pressing environmental issues left, once climate change is left outside the conversation?
There are two reasons for asking this question: first, perhaps climate change is side-lining other environmental issues that need urgent attention; second, perhaps there are synergies between “solving†climate change and the other issues.
Mr. Trigg notes that real environmental issues are being discussed less and less in the media.
What got me thinking about non-climate-change issues was an article in The Guardian newspaper on June 24th, showing results from a report that the global food supply might be in peril due to insecticides. This sounds like Silent Spring all over to me, and unfortunately it appears to be pretty much along those same lines. The End of Food? I hope not.
Le sigh. Getting beyond the notion of Silent Spring being a huge load of mule fritters, and responsible for millions and millions of deaths worldwide, this is one of my big pet issues with “climate change”, or whatever you want to call it today: Warmists fold all sorts of real environmental issues under the banner of their Warmist cult.
Teach –
Many climate Deniers, yourself included, argue that the Earth isn’t warming. Sometimes in the same post you’ll claim the Earth is warming but not because of human generated carbon dioxide.
There is no good reason we cannot slow carbon dioxide emissions and solve other environmental problems simultaneously. Most environmental concerns are local. Global warming is, well, global, and requires international cooperation. In addition, multinational energy companies are understandably aligned against all efforts to reduce their sale, and are investing 10s of millions of dollars to oppose efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
And let’s be honest. Most conservatives claiming that the interest in global warming is detracting from more important environmental concerns are being disingenuous. They’ll say anything to trash the theory of AGW.
What are the environmental concerns that are not being met? The author listed honeybees, deforestation and insecticides, but concludes “just because the news cycle can only focus on one item at an item, doesn’t mean we have to.”
Your offhand comment that “Silent Spring” resulted in millions and millions of deaths is another myth. DDT was only banned in the US. It is still used today for vector control around the world, although significant biological resistance has developed. Rachel Carson did not advocate banning DDT.
Don’t blame me for your kindergarten level reading and concept comprehension.
The Earth’s climate changes continually over long periods of time. It has been both much warmer and much cooler in the past. We are currently emerging from an ice age – 10,000 years ago my state (Wisconsin) was covered with a mile of ice.
I’m not convinced that anyone can in fact accurately measure a global “temperature” and define it as climate change. The best they can do is to measure and record temperatures in a region, extrapolating this to a global scale is problematic. The quality of any temperate records is also problematic – accurate records at any location only go back a short period of time, historically speaking.
My belief is also that man’s impact on the climate (if any) is so small as to be statistically insignificant.
The essence of the scientific method is that a theory (call it global warming) is used to make specific predictions that can be tested. As far as I am aware AGW has failed completely in this respect.
Beyond that, who can say what the “correct” temperature is? At what point in the Earth’s history was the climate “correct”? Any why?
If the Earth was warming, why is this considered to be a completely bad thing? Are there no positive effects, like longer growing seasons, greater amounts of areable land, increased vegetation (CO2 is plant food), more?
I like Glenn’s take on it – “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who keep telling me that it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis”. Until then, I’m not much inclined to buy into AGW.
Want to solve some real, pressing problems with attainable goals? How about affordable, efficient water purification for some of the poorest regions of the world? Clean drinking water is critically short in many regions of the globe. There’s others – food production/storage, sanitation, energy. We should be focusing on these instead of AGW.
Teach, sorry for the wordiness. I must be feeling extra crotchety tonight.
Exactly. No one can say with any certainty that the Earth should be a specific temperature. They also seem to forget that higher CO2 lags temp increases and is NOT the cause of increase.
There are many problems with the warmist:
1. The issue of the science is tied to only one solution, carbon trading, which would do nothing to the environment but would greatly enhance the power of the progressives on a world wide stage (they have already used to power to subjugate several Latin American governments on domestic issue other than the environment).
2. The peer review process is broken and no adversarial discussion is allowed. This includes thwarting the ability of unlike minded professors to unfretted professional advancement.
3. There is no published data that has not been altered. Thus uncluttered minds can not formulate their own opinion.
4. No one has established what is wrong with a warm earth. Only computer models that spell the gloomiest of futures.
There are many other points. The fact is that we are not talking science (especially when the advocates for warmist principals know nothing of the basic science involved; example, why doesn’t CO2 concentration increase at sea level where we breath? and other questions, many other questions).
Finally, Jeff, DDT is banned world wide except for local relief with significant justification. When the US bans something, it puts pressure on all other governments to do the same. Witness the stupid, progressive “war on drugs”. And, Jeff, the only resolution for slowing CO2 production (according to the left), is to unilaterally destroy the US economy and institute expensive carbon trading which is acknowledged by the left as having only minimal effect on the environment. Use of nuclear power has been thwarted by the left and no effort made to free up the confining legislation and the left does not like natural gas secondary to fracking, which has been used for 100 years with not problem.
David it was conservatives who were at the front in the war on drugs. JUST SAY NO!! came from the Reagans the term War on Drugs came from Nixon. Hardly progressives. Please don’t try and rewrite history
“Warmists” who believe in AGW are all of our military branches. Most major Christian religions.
If it is not CO2 then please indicate what it IS Other periods of the Earth warming always seem to have had a scientific explanation, what is the cause of this rapid warming ? Or many deniers seem to think important a reduction in cooling.
The continued increase in temps will produce problems, maybe not for David or Teach but for the most vulnerable humans who can barely survive under current conditions
John,
The issue with drugs started in 1913 under Wilson as part of the progressive movement. Certainly the phrase “war on drugs” started with Nixon, but the progressives were the ones that evolved on the theme and really wanted to make us have socialized medical care 100 years ago. At that time it was not a cost issue, it was to start the communistic regime that we now have.