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Do you think humanity will win it's battle against world ending/humanity destroying climate change?

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By *osephSamuel90 OP   Man  over a year ago

Bracknell

Do you think humanity will adjust and survive or do you think we'll alter the world's climate so severely and irreversibly that we'll end up wiping ourselves out or being reduced to a band of plucky survivors existing in a Mad Max world, or we'll manage to stop the drastic changes and progress as a species?

Personally I think if we are saved it will be by amazing technology or scientific endeavor by someone/some people who may not even have been born yet. Obviously that doesn't mean we should just go on attempting to fell the entire rainforest and pumping the atmosphere so full of Co2 that it's like a pollution cream pie, but I think the solution is in technology rather than all of us becoming vegan and living in Unabomber style cabins with no modern amenities and grounding all flights

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By *ary_ArgyllMan  over a year ago

Argyll

I think we could at least limit warming to a level which we could adapt to, I am not so confident we will manage it though. It needs all global politicians to pull together yet we have Putin starting a stupid war in Ukraine, China kicking off over Taiwan and so on. We, as a species,constantly seem to get sidetracked with crazy short term issues rather than taking the long view and acting fast enough on the major threat of climate change.

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By *otMe66Man  over a year ago

Terra Firma


"Do you think humanity will adjust and survive or do you think we'll alter the world's climate so severely and irreversibly that we'll end up wiping ourselves out or being reduced to a band of plucky survivors existing in a Mad Max world, or we'll manage to stop the drastic changes and progress as a species?

Personally I think if we are saved it will be by amazing technology or scientific endeavor by someone/some people who may not even have been born yet. Obviously that doesn't mean we should just go on attempting to fell the entire rainforest and pumping the atmosphere so full of Co2 that it's like a pollution cream pie, but I think the solution is in technology rather than all of us becoming vegan and living in Unabomber style cabins with no modern amenities and grounding all flights "

I also think we will survive through technology as we head towards level 1 civilisation.

Big subject, but worth a read if you are interested in future gains as a human race

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By *annaBeStrongMan  over a year ago

w

There’s a reason the big guys are focusing on getting into space rather than fixing the planet

The planets already fucked and we can’t stop it.

The top 1% are looking to move off this planet

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By *otMe66Man  over a year ago

Terra Firma


"There’s a reason the big guys are focusing on getting into space rather than fixing the planet

The planets already fucked and we can’t stop it.

The top 1% are looking to move off this planet "

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By *oolyCoolyCplCouple  over a year ago

Newcastle under Lyme

No, not unless serious steps are taken to reduce world population.

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By *olly_chromaticTV/TS  over a year ago

Stockport

No, I think we're fucked.

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By *otMe66Man  over a year ago

Terra Firma


"No, I think we're fucked."

I think the planet is fucked as we know it now. I think humans will adapt and progress to a future state that could mean we leave earth behind.

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By *estivalMan  over a year ago

borehamwood

As george carling said, the planet is fine human beings on the other hand are fucked

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By *rFunBoyMan  over a year ago

Longridge

No..

Read the book: The last tree on Easter Island.

We've never learnt and never will.

The damage alone to the Climate by Russia in Ukraine the last 6 months has put us back years.

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By *bernathCouple  over a year ago

Gloucestershire


"Do you think humanity will adjust and survive or do you think we'll alter the world's climate so severely and irreversibly that we'll end up wiping ourselves out or being reduced to a band of plucky survivors existing in a Mad Max world, or we'll manage to stop the drastic changes and progress as a species?

Personally I think if we are saved it will be by amazing technology or scientific endeavor by someone/some people who may not even have been born yet. Obviously that doesn't mean we should just go on attempting to fell the entire rainforest and pumping the atmosphere so full of Co2 that it's like a pollution cream pie, but I think the solution is in technology rather than all of us becoming vegan and living in Unabomber style cabins with no modern amenities and grounding all flights "

I would say it’s a combination, technology can only do so much, geo engineering is extremely limited, with a world this big , projects to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are small scale and don’t address the underlying causes fully.

You would need people to some degree to play their part also, if you want to see large scale rapid decarbonisation.

Changes don’t need to be extreme. For example, can you go meat free for one day a week? Or walk to your local shops instead of using a car? Or having one less take away a week?

Their are behaviours which past generations had that were more conducive to living within our means which we have lost because of our fast paced culture of convenience.

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By *mmmMaybeCouple  over a year ago

West Wales

No, we are fckd & it will take oddly WW3 to save us imo & I actually believe someone will start it for this very reason, though maybe not on the surface as it were. Reduce the current seven billion population by three billion over the next fifty years instead of increasing it by three billion & we might stand a chance although we might end up living in a Mad Max world either way? Although I don’t think it’ll work like that.

What I think will happen is it will be one second to midnight & a world leader summit will sit in secret. At the end of the meeting money/gold & the politicos will quietly move from a certain country or two & at a point in time it will be wiped from the face of the earth for the “good of all”.

The population is growing faster than any climate measures in place or on the horizon can deal with. At the very very best we will be standing still over the next fifty years & not improving matters no matter what we do.

For all those that spout the usual about China etc. Here’s an interesting stat from someone I know who is head of the green energy & zero carbon unit of a large multinational.

80% of the shit in the atmosphere now was produced in the first fifty years of the industrial revolution & almost 100% of that 80% came from Great Britain.

He also said the problem with big business today is shareholders & their power For instance He wanted to change every bulb in all of their offices globally. The estimated cost £2-2.5m recoup outlay time, ten years.

They refused as they said no one is interested in two years let alone ten to recoup outlay.

& therein lies the problem of expecting Capitalism to do anything good for the future of all.

With big business look beneath the surface & the reality is they are not the ones putting their hands in their pockets to solve this despite being the main culprits when it comes to the causes.

No one in power in Governments or business has the will to solve this & as we have seen from the current rising prices & complaints neither do we.

Would you still be complaining if every extra cost was going to combat climate change & you could see the slow gradual results?

Be honest you probably would & so would I as we live day to day, week to week, hand to mouth for many & my extra costs making me worry today about tomorrow to solve something long after we & probably our children & even future grandchildren are long gone wouldn’t rank that highly when people are struggling to eat & pay bills etc today.

We are much cleaner as a species now than we were just fifty years ago & where has it changed anything climate wise? It hasn’t because of the permanently growing population.

S

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By *inCity BluesMan  over a year ago

London


"For all those that spout the usual about China etc. Here’s an interesting stat from someone I know who is head of the green energy & zero carbon unit of a large multinational.

80% of the shit in the atmosphere now was produced in the first fifty years of the industrial revolution & almost 100% of that 80% came from Great Britain."

If your friend says that then he either has his head up his backside or is massively unqualified for his job (or maybe "he" doesn't really exist? Hmm?)

In the list of countries responsible for carbon emissions historically since 1750, Britain ranks 5th, with around 5% of total historical emissions, just behind Germany, but well behind the USA, China and Russia.

And "his" claim that 80% of carbon in the atmosphere was put there by Britain during the first fifty years of the Industrial Revolution? Absolute crap.

85% of total greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning have come since the end of WW2, and 50% of that 85% in just the last 30 years. For an easy to comprehend reference point, as David Wallace-Wells puts it in his book The Uninhabitable Earth, half of all greenhouse gas emissions have occurred since the first episode of Seinfeld (since the Hillsborough disaster might be a more understandable reference for us Brits).

In fact, the UK leads the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, down nearly 50% since 1990, primarily through ending coal production (thank you Margaret Thatcher!)

Contrast that with China in the same time period, up nearly 400%, India up 300%, South Korea up 130%, Brazil up 100%.

Today we produce just 1% of global emissions, which puts us at 17th in the list of carbon emission producing nations.

As for your absolving of China, it is the biggest carbon emitter in the world, producing more than twice the amount produced by the United States. And even with its comparatively late start, it is still the second biggest emitter in history, which gives you an idea of just how much carbon it outputs.


"We are much cleaner as a species now than we were just fifty years ago"

No, we are not. See above.


"No, we are fckd & it will take oddly WW3 to save us imo"

No it most definitely will not. Do you have any idea what a nuclear war, which WW3 most certainly would become, would do the planet? Ever heard of a nuclear winter? Go look it up. It might change your mind. Even a limited nuclear war, say India-Pakistan, would wreak global havoc.

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By *inCity BluesMan  over a year ago

London


"There’s a reason the big guys are focusing on getting into space rather than fixing the planet

The planets already fucked and we can’t stop it.

The top 1% are looking to move off this planet "

And where are they gonna go? They only have two choices - the Moon or Mars. Both are currently uninhabitable and the cost of making them habitable would dwarf the costs of reducing climate change to a liveable percentage and adapting to that change.

And supposing they do manage that? You can't go outside, certainly not on Mars (av temp -60C, air almost entirely carbon dioxide). You would have to stay inside, permanently, without even the stimulation of looking out the window (nothing to see but red dust and rocks).

Don't forget that people killed themselves during lockdown. Hell, even on Death Row they get some daylight and fresh air. This would be permanent lockdown, forever. The effects on their mental health would be catastrophic.

Nope, even an overheated Earth, with all the problems it will bring, will still offer a quality of life far in excess of one spent living in a capsule in a desolate rocky wasteland - especially for the 1% who have the money to insulate themselves from the worst of it.

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By *otMe66Man  over a year ago

Terra Firma

[Removed by poster at 12/08/22 14:44:25]

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By *otMe66Man  over a year ago

Terra Firma


"There’s a reason the big guys are focusing on getting into space rather than fixing the planet

The planets already fucked and we can’t stop it.

The top 1% are looking to move off this planet

And where are they gonna go? They only have two choices - the Moon or Mars. Both are currently uninhabitable and the cost of making them habitable would dwarf the costs of reducing climate change to a liveable percentage and adapting to that change.

And supposing they do manage that? You can't go outside, certainly not on Mars (av temp -60C, air almost entirely carbon dioxide). You would have to stay inside, permanently, without even the stimulation of looking out the window (nothing to see but red dust and rocks).

Don't forget that people killed themselves during lockdown. Hell, even on Death Row they get some daylight and fresh air. This would be permanent lockdown, forever. The effects on their mental health would be catastrophic.

Nope, even an overheated Earth, with all the problems it will bring, will still offer a quality of life far in excess of one spent living in a capsule in a desolate rocky wasteland - especially for the 1% who have the money to insulate themselves from the worst of it."

You are applying today to tomorrow. The move beyond earth is expected anywhere after the next 300 years.

That is when it is expected that we will have managed to create energy sufficient enough to power the requirements needed to travel into space, and power another planet.

Today does not exist tomorrow! Forward thinking creates opportunities needed to flourish, and we are curious enough to make those gains.

obviously, these are predictions that might not happen, however I feel they are more likely to occur than not.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

I think we will survive. Most of the pollution causes are due to population. I think it will stop growing at some point. If global warming becomes a bigger problem before population starts reducing, there will be some big environmental issues which will force our hands. Yes, there will be big losses. But I think humanity will survive through it.

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By *mmmMaybeCouple  over a year ago

West Wales

Sure we have reduced our emissions by loads but a large part of this is moving our emissions to foreign countries by producing in world terms “Sweet FA” & who now makes it all? Well mostly it’s China.

You cannot entirely blame it all on them while we buy all the shit they now make that we used to? Had this not have happened, if we still built what we are buying then our emissions as a country would be higher & logically China’s would be lower. Duplicate that for every other country in the world & likely China’s need for energy would be nothing like it is now as they’d have little manufacturing, but everyone else’s would be higher.

It’s a global issue & letting those that want to do nothing divert attention away from this with finger pointing saying “It’s all their fault” is harmful, dangerous & ultimately disingenuous.

Oh & I don’t believe for one moment a few hundred nukes in a pinpointed area of the world would be any match for the emissions over fifty years of six billion people.

S

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By *mmmMaybeCouple  over a year ago

West Wales

Oh, We as a planet need to stop recording emissions by country & do it by capita.

Then sure a few like China are still near or at the top but there’s more than a few surprises on there & the reason we don’t do this?

Because most western countries move up the list of “Dirtiest countries” while others drop down it & we live in the west & prefer to point fingers away, not at ourselves as it means we can do next to nothing without feeling so bad about it.

S

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By *reenleavesCouple  over a year ago

North Wales

I think, in the next 20-30 years, we'll see the tropics becoming increasingly inhospitable to humans. Droughts, wildfires, major storms.. Northern and Southern latitudes will become warmer and more temperate so well shift our crop farming to there. In other areas, subterranean farming with artificial lighting will be more common place.

Some previously inhospitable areas of Canada are already becoming better suited to growing crops.

For a take on how fleeing to space may be a (last ditch) option for humanity, have a read of SevenEves.

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By *iman2100Man  over a year ago

Glasgow

I sadly think humanity will kill itself before the planet does. The world leaders are almost all old and have little or no personal interest in suffering for the sake of persons not yet born who do not vote.

The process is all to simple.

1. Global warming will make increasingly larger areas of the world unable to sustain human life because governments run by geriatrics will do nothing to stop it.

2. The people from those areas will start mass migration or die.

3. People in still viable countries will fight the desperate migrants to keep them out; so wars will start.

4. Over time the situation will worsen and people in dying areas will equip themselves with bigger and better weaponry for the inevitable fight. Eventually nuclear weapons will be deployed.

5. Global nuclear war will wipe out humanity and the tardigrades and cockroaches will take up their rightful place as radiation resistant apex predators.

The world will survive just fine. In a few millennia it will return to a human type habital planet and life will start again.

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By *ophieslutTV/TS  over a year ago

Central

I think the evidence of recent political behaviour to being at such a dangerous position, suggests that we'll make insufficient progress against it, to prevent much greater levels of harm. We're making tiny levels of progress but still have massive levels of political resistance, including in the USA.

Assuming that unknown technology can and will save us, is wishful thinking in my view. When we don't do simple, lower cost things, like installion of homes, or making them more future-ready, I think we're stuck in the mindset of the here and now, ignoring the bleeding obvious, partly as we're too lazy.

Billions of people and perhaps the majority of species on the planet affected, isn't sufficient motivation for too many.

Earth will be better without us.

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By *icecouple561Couple  over a year ago
Forum Mod

East Sussex

I suspect that heat, floods, hunger and lack of water will cause massive migration resulting in huge pressure on habitable land. The result of that has to be a big reduction in population. How that's achieved is what concerns me.

Certain species will survive and possibly colonise the areas that humans find uninhabitable.

There will always be people who can survive under extreme conditions though.

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By *appyPandaMan  over a year ago

Kilkenny, but Dublin is more fun


"I suspect that heat, floods, hunger and lack of water will cause massive migration resulting in huge pressure on habitable land. The result of that has to be a big reduction in population. How that's achieved is what concerns me.

Certain species will survive and possibly colonise the areas that humans find uninhabitable.

There will always be people who can survive under extreme conditions though."

And don't forget that political instability will increase as things change and we'll see xenophobia rise again as we in the privileged global north start seeing huge numbers of people fleeing their lands that have become inhospitable mainly due to the growth and overshoot of the north.

We could reduce a lot of the future damage if we acted rationally, seeing ourselves and our current interconnected and interdependent complex civilisation as the species we are, organized in such an unsustainable way.

It likely won't happen because this new way of life we've taken on (including the financial insecurity due to our concept of money having become such an arbitrary all encompassing entity in itself) has become so entrenched in people's minds as reality, and benefits those in power so much, especially if the populace is divided and constantly fighting each other instead of addressing the main cause.

We're on track for a civilisation collapse like what happened in ancient Rome, and i hope it happens sooner rather than later. This way we organize ourselves as a species currently may seem to be good as it provides for our needs and desires very easily, but it's unsustainable, dependent on far too many cogs in the machine for nearly everything we treat as commonplace and is far removed from the world we adapted to which was dealing with immediate threats in clusters of a few dozen people usually. This world grew far too big too quickly, and far faster than we can evolve. No wonder we've gone a bit crazy.

A collapse of civilisation may be absolutely dreadful to deal with for those of us in it, but it would allow us to start building anew, not reliant on the global supply chains that are going to become more and more strained in the coming years.

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By *appyPandaMan  over a year ago

Kilkenny, but Dublin is more fun


"I think the evidence of recent political behaviour to being at such a dangerous position, suggests that we'll make insufficient progress against it, to prevent much greater levels of harm. We're making tiny levels of progress but still have massive levels of political resistance, including in the USA.

Assuming that unknown technology can and will save us, is wishful thinking in my view. When we don't do simple, lower cost things, like installion of homes, or making them more future-ready, I think we're stuck in the mindset of the here and now, ignoring the bleeding obvious, partly as we're too lazy.

Billions of people and perhaps the majority of species on the planet affected, isn't sufficient motivation for too many.

Earth will be better without us. "

I tend to agree to a point. While I'm not calling for eugenics or gleefully saying humanity needs to go, we have to accept the very fact that we're the most hostile entity on this planet, invading nearly every surrounding ecosystem not because we need to, but because we live our lives under the illusion that it's all for us. I even hate the term natural resources as that portrays them as resources we are entitled to to grow this system of our own creation.

Something that worries me is what kind of short sighted and desperate plans our panicking and scared species will have just trying to cling on to this absurd normal. If things get to that point, I'd prefer us to just tear ourselves apart than for us to do worse.

While I live in hope that this planet is flourishing with new unimaginable life again in a few million years, our desperation could very well lead to the only planet we know for sure to have life on it being incapable of anything but simple microbes.

We go about thinking intelligent life is the natural result of evolution, when it's pretty much an unneeded bonus. Intelligent life is likely extremely rare in the cosmos, not only because it's special or dependent on so many specific niches to adapt to, but also because like us, it may be self destructive and too capable of advancing too fast for it's own good

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By *ebjonnsonMan  over a year ago

Maldon


"I suspect that heat, floods, hunger and lack of water will cause massive migration resulting in huge pressure on habitable land. The result of that has to be a big reduction in population. How that's achieved is what concerns me.

Certain species will survive and possibly colonise the areas that humans find uninhabitable.

There will always be people who can survive under extreme conditions though.

And don't forget that political instability will increase as things change and we'll see xenophobia rise again as we in the privileged global north start seeing huge numbers of people fleeing their lands that have become inhospitable mainly due to the growth and overshoot of the north.

We could reduce a lot of the future damage if we acted rationally, seeing ourselves and our current interconnected and interdependent complex civilisation as the species we are, organized in such an unsustainable way.

It likely won't happen because this new way of life we've taken on (including the financial insecurity due to our concept of money having become such an arbitrary all encompassing entity in itself) has become so entrenched in people's minds as reality, and benefits those in power so much, especially if the populace is divided and constantly fighting each other instead of addressing the main cause.

We're on track for a civilisation collapse like what happened in ancient Rome, and i hope it happens sooner rather than later. This way we organize ourselves as a species currently may seem to be good as it provides for our needs and desires very easily, but it's unsustainable, dependent on far too many cogs in the machine for nearly everything we treat as commonplace and is far removed from the world we adapted to which was dealing with immediate threats in clusters of a few dozen people usually. This world grew far too big too quickly, and far faster than we can evolve. No wonder we've gone a bit crazy.

A collapse of civilisation may be absolutely dreadful to deal with for those of us in it, but it would allow us to start building anew, not reliant on the global supply chains that are going to become more and more strained in the coming years. "

Not too sure what you mean by ‘xenophobia rising again’? Or indeed the ‘privileged global north’? No mention of the rampant increasing birth rate of sub Saharan Africa?

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By *appyPandaMan  over a year ago

Kilkenny, but Dublin is more fun


"I suspect that heat, floods, hunger and lack of water will cause massive migration resulting in huge pressure on habitable land. The result of that has to be a big reduction in population. How that's achieved is what concerns me.

Certain species will survive and possibly colonise the areas that humans find uninhabitable.

There will always be people who can survive under extreme conditions though.

And don't forget that political instability will increase as things change and we'll see xenophobia rise again as we in the privileged global north start seeing huge numbers of people fleeing their lands that have become inhospitable mainly due to the growth and overshoot of the north.

We could reduce a lot of the future damage if we acted rationally, seeing ourselves and our current interconnected and interdependent complex civilisation as the species we are, organized in such an unsustainable way.

It likely won't happen because this new way of life we've taken on (including the financial insecurity due to our concept of money having become such an arbitrary all encompassing entity in itself) has become so entrenched in people's minds as reality, and benefits those in power so much, especially if the populace is divided and constantly fighting each other instead of addressing the main cause.

We're on track for a civilisation collapse like what happened in ancient Rome, and i hope it happens sooner rather than later. This way we organize ourselves as a species currently may seem to be good as it provides for our needs and desires very easily, but it's unsustainable, dependent on far too many cogs in the machine for nearly everything we treat as commonplace and is far removed from the world we adapted to which was dealing with immediate threats in clusters of a few dozen people usually. This world grew far too big too quickly, and far faster than we can evolve. No wonder we've gone a bit crazy.

A collapse of civilisation may be absolutely dreadful to deal with for those of us in it, but it would allow us to start building anew, not reliant on the global supply chains that are going to become more and more strained in the coming years.

Not too sure what you mean by ‘xenophobia rising again’? Or indeed the ‘privileged global north’? No mention of the rampant increasing birth rate of sub Saharan Africa? "

Developing countries may be seen to be growing in population too much (which will likely start falling again as things get more chaotic as it's the developing and third world getting hit hardest at the moment) but overpopulation is just too much of a simplification when it comes to something so complex when different lifestyles have seriously different consequences.

Based on a 2010 study (i know it's fairly out of date currently but will see if there's been an update), the poorest 50% of the global population are responsible for about 7.2% of emissions, while the richest 10% are responsible for nearly half.

Some unimportant celebrity or useless self serving politician flying around in their private jet whenever they want is far worse than the folk at the bottom who naively think they'll be able to get this unsustainable way of life that they've been seeing on tv for decades.

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By *ust RachelTV/TS  over a year ago

Eastbourne

No chance.

When you have some countiries not doing anything to cut their pollution levels, such as India, and china, etc.

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By *otMe66Man  over a year ago

Terra Firma


"I think the evidence of recent political behaviour to being at such a dangerous position, suggests that we'll make insufficient progress against it, to prevent much greater levels of harm. We're making tiny levels of progress but still have massive levels of political resistance, including in the USA.

Assuming that unknown technology can and will save us, is wishful thinking in my view. When we don't do simple, lower cost things, like installion of homes, or making them more future-ready, I think we're stuck in the mindset of the here and now, ignoring the bleeding obvious, partly as we're too lazy.

Billions of people and perhaps the majority of species on the planet affected, isn't sufficient motivation for too many.

Earth will be better without us.

I tend to agree to a point. While I'm not calling for eugenics or gleefully saying humanity needs to go, we have to accept the very fact that we're the most hostile entity on this planet, invading nearly every surrounding ecosystem not because we need to, but because we live our lives under the illusion that it's all for us. I even hate the term natural resources as that portrays them as resources we are entitled to to grow this system of our own creation.

Something that worries me is what kind of short sighted and desperate plans our panicking and scared species will have just trying to cling on to this absurd normal. If things get to that point, I'd prefer us to just tear ourselves apart than for us to do worse.

While I live in hope that this planet is flourishing with new unimaginable life again in a few million years, our desperation could very well lead to the only planet we know for sure to have life on it being incapable of anything but simple microbes.

We go about thinking intelligent life is the natural result of evolution, when it's pretty much an unneeded bonus. Intelligent life is likely extremely rare in the cosmos, not only because it's special or dependent on so many specific niches to adapt to, but also because like us, it may be self destructive and too capable of advancing too fast for it's own good "

I would disagree with your assumption that intelligent life is extremely rare and that is does not come from an evolutionary timeline.

The very fact that evolution takes place puts your argument into doubt, then to say that conditions do not exist anywhere else in our universe for intelligent life is extremely narrow minded, when you consider the vastness and unknowns to our universe.

It is more likely we can't see intelligent life beyond our own, we are simply not that evolved. If other lifeforms have evolved to a point that they can travel through space in times that do not make it prohibitive as it is to us as humans, would mean they must be so far more advanced than us.

We are a species, that thrives on advancement, that is what makes us the top of the pecking order. Do we get it right, no, but that is because we are learning as we go.

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By *mmmMaybeCouple  over a year ago

West Wales


"I suspect that heat, floods, hunger and lack of water will cause massive migration resulting in huge pressure on habitable land. The result of that has to be a big reduction in population. How that's achieved is what concerns me.

Certain species will survive and possibly colonise the areas that humans find uninhabitable.

There will always be people who can survive under extreme conditions though."

Sounds very similar to the doctrine of Richard Kemp of Operation Julie fame but you’ll have a job finding it online.

Went to see the small musical production of it last week in Aberystwyth as we live very close to where the “Action” happened back then & drink in the same pubs & know the properties involved. I have it on my phone, i’ll see if I can put it on the profile, it’s not copyrighted anyway & everyone should at least know of it & remember it was written in 1977!

S

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By *appyPandaMan  over a year ago

Kilkenny, but Dublin is more fun


"I think the evidence of recent political behaviour to being at such a dangerous position, suggests that we'll make insufficient progress against it, to prevent much greater levels of harm. We're making tiny levels of progress but still have massive levels of political resistance, including in the USA.

Assuming that unknown technology can and will save us, is wishful thinking in my view. When we don't do simple, lower cost things, like installion of homes, or making them more future-ready, I think we're stuck in the mindset of the here and now, ignoring the bleeding obvious, partly as we're too lazy.

Billions of people and perhaps the majority of species on the planet affected, isn't sufficient motivation for too many.

Earth will be better without us.

I tend to agree to a point. While I'm not calling for eugenics or gleefully saying humanity needs to go, we have to accept the very fact that we're the most hostile entity on this planet, invading nearly every surrounding ecosystem not because we need to, but because we live our lives under the illusion that it's all for us. I even hate the term natural resources as that portrays them as resources we are entitled to to grow this system of our own creation.

Something that worries me is what kind of short sighted and desperate plans our panicking and scared species will have just trying to cling on to this absurd normal. If things get to that point, I'd prefer us to just tear ourselves apart than for us to do worse.

While I live in hope that this planet is flourishing with new unimaginable life again in a few million years, our desperation could very well lead to the only planet we know for sure to have life on it being incapable of anything but simple microbes.

We go about thinking intelligent life is the natural result of evolution, when it's pretty much an unneeded bonus. Intelligent life is likely extremely rare in the cosmos, not only because it's special or dependent on so many specific niches to adapt to, but also because like us, it may be self destructive and too capable of advancing too fast for it's own good

I would disagree with your assumption that intelligent life is extremely rare and that is does not come from an evolutionary timeline.

The very fact that evolution takes place puts your argument into doubt, then to say that conditions do not exist anywhere else in our universe for intelligent life is extremely narrow minded, when you consider the vastness and unknowns to our universe.

It is more likely we can't see intelligent life beyond our own, we are simply not that evolved. If other lifeforms have evolved to a point that they can travel through space in times that do not make it prohibitive as it is to us as humans, would mean they must be so far more advanced than us.

We are a species, that thrives on advancement, that is what makes us the top of the pecking order. Do we get it right, no, but that is because we are learning as we go. "

My point is that intelligence is completely unneeded in evolution but we became more and more intelligent because our niche in the ecosystem allowed it. It depends on so many different variables in the past to progress, and while it allowed us to advance to this scale, when you recognise how short it has happened (even going 200,000 years back, we've only been on this planet for 0.0004% of the time complex life has been on it), you see how truly rare it must be and how it's not something that's a natural goal.

The trouble is that it likely allows a species to advance far more quickly than it can adapt to. We're still very similar in biological terms to the hunter gatherers we came from, mostly adapted to small groups of around 100 or so and catered to dealing with immediate threats.

You see the political strife these days, and you could surmise that maybe we really had our world grow far too big far too quickly, still clinging to our tribes obediently but now with weapons that could decimate whole swathes of the population in an instant, with a rise in mental health issues likely due to this fake world we've built up around ourselves so utterly focused on abstract concepts.

And that's saying nothing about overshoot and our advancement and growth in the last few centuries being an ecological disaster to nearly everything around us, even growing to the point where we destabilise the planet's current climate that our sensitive domestic crops adapted to. Sure look at the amount of crop failures that have already hit us this year, and we haven't even reached the new normal.

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By *rFunBoyMan  over a year ago

Longridge


"There’s a reason the big guys are focusing on getting into space rather than fixing the planet

The planets already fucked and we can’t stop it.

The top 1% are looking to move off this planet "

Isn't that how humans arrived here anyway?

Elon Musk of a now burnt out Exoplanet sent us here to screw up the next one.

Whatever happens, Earth will be still be here, humans might become extinct and the superior creatures that inherit will write books detailing how humanity became so clever, but failed to listen to warnings and ultimately destroyed itself, whether climate or nuclear.

They'll then study dinosaurs who also became extinct. One thing humans have never failed at, is fighting each other.

Its the Monkey in us - Shock the Monkey..

But the Climate, most will try but I fear it's now too late and others are willing to cut down the last tree. From here on in, it's mitigation.

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By *annaBeStrongMan  over a year ago

w


"There’s a reason the big guys are focusing on getting into space rather than fixing the planet

The planets already fucked and we can’t stop it.

The top 1% are looking to move off this planet

And where are they gonna go? They only have two choices - the Moon or Mars. Both are currently uninhabitable and the cost of making them habitable would dwarf the costs of reducing climate change to a liveable percentage and adapting to that change.

And supposing they do manage that? You can't go outside, certainly not on Mars (av temp -60C, air almost entirely carbon dioxide). You would have to stay inside, permanently, without even the stimulation of looking out the window (nothing to see but red dust and rocks).

Don't forget that people killed themselves during lockdown. Hell, even on Death Row they get some daylight and fresh air. This would be permanent lockdown, forever. The effects on their mental health would be catastrophic.

Nope, even an overheated Earth, with all the problems it will bring, will still offer a quality of life far in excess of one spent living in a capsule in a desolate rocky wasteland - especially for the 1% who have the money to insulate themselves from the worst of it."

They’ll orbit the planet to avoid climate change

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By *otMe66Man  over a year ago

Terra Firma


"I think the evidence of recent political behaviour to being at such a dangerous position, suggests that we'll make insufficient progress against it, to prevent much greater levels of harm. We're making tiny levels of progress but still have massive levels of political resistance, including in the USA.

Assuming that unknown technology can and will save us, is wishful thinking in my view. When we don't do simple, lower cost things, like installion of homes, or making them more future-ready, I think we're stuck in the mindset of the here and now, ignoring the bleeding obvious, partly as we're too lazy.

Billions of people and perhaps the majority of species on the planet affected, isn't sufficient motivation for too many.

Earth will be better without us.

I tend to agree to a point. While I'm not calling for eugenics or gleefully saying humanity needs to go, we have to accept the very fact that we're the most hostile entity on this planet, invading nearly every surrounding ecosystem not because we need to, but because we live our lives under the illusion that it's all for us. I even hate the term natural resources as that portrays them as resources we are entitled to to grow this system of our own creation.

Something that worries me is what kind of short sighted and desperate plans our panicking and scared species will have just trying to cling on to this absurd normal. If things get to that point, I'd prefer us to just tear ourselves apart than for us to do worse.

While I live in hope that this planet is flourishing with new unimaginable life again in a few million years, our desperation could very well lead to the only planet we know for sure to have life on it being incapable of anything but simple microbes.

We go about thinking intelligent life is the natural result of evolution, when it's pretty much an unneeded bonus. Intelligent life is likely extremely rare in the cosmos, not only because it's special or dependent on so many specific niches to adapt to, but also because like us, it may be self destructive and too capable of advancing too fast for it's own good

I would disagree with your assumption that intelligent life is extremely rare and that is does not come from an evolutionary timeline.

The very fact that evolution takes place puts your argument into doubt, then to say that conditions do not exist anywhere else in our universe for intelligent life is extremely narrow minded, when you consider the vastness and unknowns to our universe.

It is more likely we can't see intelligent life beyond our own, we are simply not that evolved. If other lifeforms have evolved to a point that they can travel through space in times that do not make it prohibitive as it is to us as humans, would mean they must be so far more advanced than us.

We are a species, that thrives on advancement, that is what makes us the top of the pecking order. Do we get it right, no, but that is because we are learning as we go.

My point is that intelligence is completely unneeded in evolution but we became more and more intelligent because our niche in the ecosystem allowed it. It depends on so many different variables in the past to progress, and while it allowed us to advance to this scale, when you recognise how short it has happened (even going 200,000 years back, we've only been on this planet for 0.0004% of the time complex life has been on it), you see how truly rare it must be and how it's not something that's a natural goal.

The trouble is that it likely allows a species to advance far more quickly than it can adapt to. We're still very similar in biological terms to the hunter gatherers we came from, mostly adapted to small groups of around 100 or so and catered to dealing with immediate threats.

You see the political strife these days, and you could surmise that maybe we really had our world grow far too big far too quickly, still clinging to our tribes obediently but now with weapons that could decimate whole swathes of the population in an instant, with a rise in mental health issues likely due to this fake world we've built up around ourselves so utterly focused on abstract concepts.

And that's saying nothing about overshoot and our advancement and growth in the last few centuries being an ecological disaster to nearly everything around us, even growing to the point where we destabilise the planet's current climate that our sensitive domestic crops adapted to. Sure look at the amount of crop failures that have already hit us this year, and we haven't even reached the new normal."

The very little time we have been around, surely indicates that lifeforms other than our own could be billions of years ahead of us. Lifeforms could have thrived and died, before we became a species.

Intelligence is a key driver in evolution, it will be intelligence that takes us to the next step of our journey, and with it we will evolve again. I have faith in the human race, it is going through the most significant amount of change it has ever had to deal with, and it shows in our society today, but humans will learn by mistakes and learn to overcome the challenges of an unstable environment.

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By *exanthemMan  over a year ago

North

Humans are born to suffer - not met anyone who isn’t happy or not having mental, physical or financial suffering. But we take birth and die, between these two we try to stay alive, some barely manage to survive. That’s exactly is happening with Mother Earth. It is trying to stay alive before it gets broken into pieces again. have humans or no humans on this planet, we cannot stop the inevitable, yes we can prolong it by doing our bits, but it is like keeping someone on ventilator before they die. Before humans arrived on this planet, life was there, not in the form of humans but in another form, breathing, roaming, not generating carbon emissions, still earth suffered. Everything got destroyed, but after every destruction comes the new beginning, and we( humans )arrive. brutal fact is - no is worried about Mother Earth, but how we keep humans alive on this planet forever. This is the biggest misunderstanding of modern days humans.

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By *ustintime69Man  over a year ago

Bristol

There’s an interesting podcast called the fall of civilisations which has a recurring theme of environmental disaster caused by humans inability to work sympathetically within their surroundings….it seems very prescient

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

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By *ovebjsMan  over a year ago

Bristol


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030 "

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2

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By *mmmMaybeCouple  over a year ago

West Wales


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2 "

Sorry, but people need to blow this bullshit out of the water & stop letting the “Users” bullshit their way to oblivion.

Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject.

Basically, stop measuring emissions by country & start measuring it by capita. Then go see who is making the biggest drive to renewables. Give you a clue, it’s not the capitalist west!

S

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By *inCity BluesMan  over a year ago

London


"They’ll orbit the planet to avoid climate change "

When the world is burning / starving / drowning, I don't think that people will tolerate any government or individual building themselves an off-world life raft, especially one that would be filled with them and their rich cronies.

And even if they did get away with it, they'd still go mad from cabin fever.

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By *inCity BluesMan  over a year ago

London


"Oh, We as a planet need to stop recording emissions by country & do it by capita.

Then sure a few like China are still near or at the top but there’s more than a few surprises on there & the reason we don’t do this?"

Because it would be utterly ridiculous, over-stating the emissions of countries with tiny populations and letting the REAL polluters - China, USA, India - get away with it.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a 2018 top 5 list of the biggest CO2 emitters when measured per capita:

Pelau, Curacao, Qatar, New Caledonia, Trinidad and Tobago

Which, of course, is ridiculous. Four of those produce negligible emissions, and even Qatar only produces a quarter of one per cent of world emissions. Apply the per capita measurement to the world’s three largest emitters, and India goes from 3rd largest emitter to outside the top 100, the USA slips from 2nd largest to 17th, and your beloved China goes from being the world’s biggest polluter by far - more than double the emissions of the USA, the EU and India combined - to being 45th , just behind that industrial powerhouse that is the Cayman Islands.

No wonder China and their apologists want us to use it.


"Oh & I don’t believe for one moment a few hundred nukes in a pinpointed area of the world would be any match for the emissions over fifty years of six billion people."

Hope you don’t mind but I had a peek at your profile, because I figured that someone making such a daft claim would be in their twenties with no knowledge of the realities of nuclear war. But now I see that you’re sixty, you have absolutely no excuse.

Aside from the immediate casualties - estimates for an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange are an initial death toll of around 125 million - “a few hundred nukes in a pinpointed area of the world” would send an estimated 5 trillions grams of soot into the atmosphere, cooling the planet by around 5C, leading to temperatures not seen since the last Ice Age.

“Hoorah” I hear you cry, an end to global warming. Yes, at least temporarily. It would also devastate the world’s food production capacity and would cause a GLOBAL famine that would last a decade and kill an estimated 2 billion people by starvation.

And by the way, it's wayyyyy worse for a nuclear exchange between Russia and the USA. Basically the end of the world.

Who's making these claims? Climate scientists at Rutgers University who spent years researching the effect of nuclear war on the environment.


"Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject."

Errrrrmmmmmm… I think I’d rather stick with the real scientists than trust some bloke on YouTube.

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By *ovebjsMan  over a year ago

Bristol


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2

Sorry, but people need to blow this bullshit out of the water & stop letting the “Users” bullshit their way to oblivion.

Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject.

Basically, stop measuring emissions by country & start measuring it by capita. Then go see who is making the biggest drive to renewables. Give you a clue, it’s not the capitalist west!

S"

So please tell us just how many new coal power stations China are planning to build then ?

The uk needs to stop listening to the foreign funded greenies and get fracking now and also get building nuclear power stations asap so we can get rid of this dependence on unfriendly countries and I’m not just taking about Russia

There are plenty of them a lot closer to home

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By *ottom charlieMan  over a year ago

washington


"As george carling said, the planet is fine human beings on the other hand are fucked"
is that the same guy that makes tasteless cheap lager,,??

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2

Sorry, but people need to blow this bullshit out of the water & stop letting the “Users” bullshit their way to oblivion.

Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject.

Basically, stop measuring emissions by country & start measuring it by capita. Then go see who is making the biggest drive to renewables. Give you a clue, it’s not the capitalist west!

S"

Yes, Capitalism is driving the increase in renewable energy and we all know the best kind to use is Nuclear, which no country is pushing, Communist or otherwise.

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By *ob198XaMan  over a year ago

teleford


"There’s a reason the big guys are focusing on getting into space rather than fixing the planet

The planets already fucked and we can’t stop it.

The top 1% are looking to move off this planet "

They aren’t There are still plenty of options that beat a dangerous life in a new and untested extra earth colony, trapped inside a sealed enclosure

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By *ob198XaMan  over a year ago

teleford


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2

Sorry, but people need to blow this bullshit out of the water & stop letting the “Users” bullshit their way to oblivion.

Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject.

Basically, stop measuring emissions by country & start measuring it by capita. Then go see who is making the biggest drive to renewables. Give you a clue, it’s not the capitalist west!

S

So please tell us just how many new coal power stations China are planning to build then ?

The uk needs to stop listening to the foreign funded greenies and get fracking now and also get building nuclear power stations asap so we can get rid of this dependence on unfriendly countries and I’m not just taking about Russia

There are plenty of them a lot closer to home "

Even those with the most optimistic assessments of UK fracking potential don’t consider it would make any significant impact on our energy supply

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By *ovebjsMan  over a year ago

Bristol

Germany to demolish village for coal, despite phaseout plans.

You literally could not write the script

Meanwhile back in the UK the country is tying itself in knots chasing the net zero nightmare

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Germany to demolish village for coal, despite phaseout plans.

You literally could not write the script

Meanwhile back in the UK the country is tying itself in knots chasing the net zero nightmare

"

Why is net zero a nightmare?

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By *ovebjsMan  over a year ago

Bristol


"Germany to demolish village for coal, despite phaseout plans.

You literally could not write the script

Meanwhile back in the UK the country is tying itself in knots chasing the net zero nightmare

Why is net zero a nightmare?"

Because people cannot afford it

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Germany to demolish village for coal, despite phaseout plans.

You literally could not write the script

Meanwhile back in the UK the country is tying itself in knots chasing the net zero nightmare

Why is net zero a nightmare?

Because people cannot afford it "

Renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuels and doesn't cause climate change, and would leave us energy independent.

Just need to divert some of the money that goes to the fossil fuels industry and some time. Job done.

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By *appyPandaMan  over a year ago

Kilkenny, but Dublin is more fun


"Germany to demolish village for coal, despite phaseout plans.

You literally could not write the script

Meanwhile back in the UK the country is tying itself in knots chasing the net zero nightmare

Why is net zero a nightmare?"

Net zero is a nightmare as they make all sorts of future promises when what we need to be doing for 2050, when we're likely going to hit 1.5°C above preindustrial temps in the coming decade, and 2°C by 2045 and current trajectory has us flying right over what politicians thought would be safe. Look at the increase in issues we're seeing now at just 1.1°C with droughts, wildfires, changes in the hydrological system (rain and snow) and plenty of crop failures so far this year. We're also starting to trigger some of the natural feedback loops which are natural mechanisms that regulate the climate, and where we trigger them, there's no turning back.

The issue is how humans organise themselves. We're so trapped in this hierarchical system so focused on the delusion of growth and dependent on overconsumption that we can't see the real world. The real world does not revolve around humans and our silly short term problems.

The last 10,000 years have had us in the Holocene period, a somewhat stable climate with not too many extremes that allowed us to grow like crazy due to the agriculture. The new norm we haven't even reached yet will take plenty of adaptation and breaking free of the norms of now, and will need us to rethink the way we do things if we want to keep going.

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By *ustintime69Man  over a year ago

Bristol


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2

Sorry, but people need to blow this bullshit out of the water & stop letting the “Users” bullshit their way to oblivion.

Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject.

Basically, stop measuring emissions by country & start measuring it by capita. Then go see who is making the biggest drive to renewables. Give you a clue, it’s not the capitalist west!

S

So please tell us just how many new coal power stations China are planning to build then ?

The uk needs to stop listening to the foreign funded greenies and get fracking now and also get building nuclear power stations asap so we can get rid of this dependence on unfriendly countries and I’m not just taking about Russia

There are plenty of them a lot closer to home "

Fracking tests in Dorset didn’t go very well I hear - serious earth tremors and debatable productivity!

Nuclear - how many years does it take to build and commission a nuclear

plant? Granted that the Rolls Royce miniature nuclear plants may be a solution to this but once again it’s a question of how soon and if they can make a viable production model!

The world is getting hotter and more unpredictable and yet we are still not willing to give up a bit of our lifestyles to mitigate this.

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By *appyPandaMan  over a year ago

Kilkenny, but Dublin is more fun


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2

Sorry, but people need to blow this bullshit out of the water & stop letting the “Users” bullshit their way to oblivion.

Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject.

Basically, stop measuring emissions by country & start measuring it by capita. Then go see who is making the biggest drive to renewables. Give you a clue, it’s not the capitalist west!

S

So please tell us just how many new coal power stations China are planning to build then ?

The uk needs to stop listening to the foreign funded greenies and get fracking now and also get building nuclear power stations asap so we can get rid of this dependence on unfriendly countries and I’m not just taking about Russia

There are plenty of them a lot closer to home

Fracking tests in Dorset didn’t go very well I hear - serious earth tremors and debatable productivity!

Nuclear - how many years does it take to build and commission a nuclear

plant? Granted that the Rolls Royce miniature nuclear plants may be a solution to this but once again it’s a question of how soon and if they can make a viable production model!

The world is getting hotter and more unpredictable and yet we are still not willing to give up a bit of our lifestyles to mitigate this. "

While I'd be a supporter of nuclear in an ideal world, it's just not an ideal world. Too much time to build, being too centralised and don't forget the need for plenty of water for cooling at a point where droughts will become the norm.

I'm genuinely skeptical of organised human civilization at this scale and think we need to take a good few steps back, and if we need energy (we complain about green power not giving enough energy, when we should be realising we use far too much fucking energy), decentralised power sources could be useful. There's big ecological problems in the manufacturing of these energy sources (like the others) so I'm not a fan at all of just keeping current energy demand and just thinking we can replace it all with green solutions.

We're a species that adapted to live in small groups, and growing so huge overnight as we became global seems to have driven us a bit nuts. Countries are nothing but collection of diverse populations in different regions that have been convinced that the central authority has their interests in mind. Administering populations at this scale wastes a huge amount of energy too whether it's through government or by our now completely broken financial system that has seen our "money" become something so completely imaginary at this stage, giving rise to the possibility of unfathomable levels of wealth in the world.

Humanity has had many forms of civilization before, but when they become too complex, they tend to fail. We can not cling to the norms of now just because that's what we learned to do, especially when no society ever before has been so utterly complex and intertwined.

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"Renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuels and doesn't cause climate change, and would leave us energy independent."

Will you still saying this. You can't run a country on 'renewable' energy. It just isn't reliable enough.

I agree we need a lot more 'renewables'. I agree that being energy independent is a good thing. It's just that we can't get to independence without a reliable form of energy production. At the moment, if you don't want fossil fuels, nuclear is the only available option.

We're never going to become energy independent with just 'renewables'.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

The planet is doomed. I thought id live out my years before the awful effects took hold but think in about 10-years it'll be a lot worse than now. In the old proverb "you ain't seen nothing yet "rings true

I read an article years ago called ” easter island, a warning for the future"

It's about how the first settlers on Easter Island turned a lush island into a barron rock, in the space ofcabout 150 years. It's human nature

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By *usybee73Man  over a year ago

in the sticks

Honestly don't care, grapes were grown in York, Greenland was .... Green, a few thousand years before Britain was under a mile of ice with no sight of a transit van emissions ??

Earth's orbit, axis and magnetic pole shifts all the time, if you want to pay more tax and try to change it ?????? go ahead, that hasn't worked for past 5 million years ??????

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuels and doesn't cause climate change, and would leave us energy independent.

Will you still saying this. You can't run a country on 'renewable' energy. It just isn't reliable enough.

I agree we need a lot more 'renewables'. I agree that being energy independent is a good thing. It's just that we can't get to independence without a reliable form of energy production. At the moment, if you don't want fossil fuels, nuclear is the only available option.

We're never going to become energy independent with just 'renewables'."

Nuclear is a good option to invest in to get us away from fossil fuels while we work on renewables.

It's all irrelevant really, the government works in the interests of global fossil fuel companies, above the interests of the planet and of British people.

We all know what needs to be done. The government won't do it.

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Honestly don't care, grapes were grown in York, Greenland was .... Green, a few thousand years before Britain was under a mile of ice with no sight of a transit van emissions ??

Earth's orbit, axis and magnetic pole shifts all the time, if you want to pay more tax and try to change it ?????? go ahead, that hasn't worked for past 5 million years ??????"

So much wrong with this I'm hoping this is satire making fun of climate change deniers.

Fingers crossed.

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By *usybee73Man  over a year ago

in the sticks


"Honestly don't care, grapes were grown in York, Greenland was .... Green, a few thousand years before Britain was under a mile of ice with no sight of a transit van emissions ??

Earth's orbit, axis and magnetic pole shifts all the time, if you want to pay more tax and try to change it ?????? go ahead, that hasn't worked for past 5 million years ??????

So much wrong with this I'm hoping this is satire making fun of climate change deniers.

Fingers crossed. "

Didn't they have vine yards in York, why did they call it green land? ...

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Honestly don't care, grapes were grown in York, Greenland was .... Green, a few thousand years before Britain was under a mile of ice with no sight of a transit van emissions ??

Earth's orbit, axis and magnetic pole shifts all the time, if you want to pay more tax and try to change it ?????? go ahead, that hasn't worked for past 5 million years ??????

So much wrong with this I'm hoping this is satire making fun of climate change deniers.

Fingers crossed.

Didn't they have vine yards in York, why did they call it green land? ..."

You can Google why Greenland got its name if you wish. It's not part of some conspiracy.

And no clue about York. Vineyards grow in a variety of climates.

None of this is evidence that climate science is wrong.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuels and doesn't cause climate change, and would leave us energy independent.

Will you still saying this. You can't run a country on 'renewable' energy. It just isn't reliable enough.

I agree we need a lot more 'renewables'. I agree that being energy independent is a good thing. It's just that we can't get to independence without a reliable form of energy production. At the moment, if you don't want fossil fuels, nuclear is the only available option.

We're never going to become energy independent with just 'renewables'.

Nuclear is a good option to invest in to get us away from fossil fuels while we work on renewables.

It's all irrelevant really, the government works in the interests of global fossil fuel companies, above the interests of the planet and of British people.

We all know what needs to be done. The government won't do it."

Nuclear is better than renewables that will rely on lithium batteries to hold the excess power, and when they blow up they're near impossible to put out.

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By *ebjonnsonMan  over a year ago

Maldon


"Depends if you believe we're in a climate crisis when the UN council for climate change has allowed China to increase Co2 output until 2030

And meanwhile the uk is fretting over our 1% contribution to Co2

Sorry, but people need to blow this bullshit out of the water & stop letting the “Users” bullshit their way to oblivion.

Go to YouTube, search for the channel heat geek, they have a very good vid on this very subject.

Basically, stop measuring emissions by country & start measuring it by capita. Then go see who is making the biggest drive to renewables. Give you a clue, it’s not the capitalist west!

S

So please tell us just how many new coal power stations China are planning to build then ?

The uk needs to stop listening to the foreign funded greenies and get fracking now and also get building nuclear power stations asap so we can get rid of this dependence on unfriendly countries and I’m not just taking about Russia

There are plenty of them a lot closer to home

Fracking tests in Dorset didn’t go very well I hear - serious earth tremors and debatable productivity!

Nuclear - how many years does it take to build and commission a nuclear

plant? Granted that the Rolls Royce miniature nuclear plants may be a solution to this but once again it’s a question of how soon and if they can make a viable production model!

The world is getting hotter and more unpredictable and yet we are still not willing to give up a bit of our lifestyles to mitigate this.

While I'd be a supporter of nuclear in an ideal world, it's just not an ideal world. Too much time to build, being too centralised and don't forget the need for plenty of water for cooling at a point where droughts will become the norm.

I'm genuinely skeptical of organised human civilization at this scale and think we need to take a good few steps back, and if we need energy (we complain about green power not giving enough energy, when we should be realising we use far too much fucking energy), decentralised power sources could be useful. There's big ecological problems in the manufacturing of these energy sources (like the others) so I'm not a fan at all of just keeping current energy demand and just thinking we can replace it all with green solutions.

We're a species that adapted to live in small groups, and growing so huge overnight as we became global seems to have driven us a bit nuts. Countries are nothing but collection of diverse populations in different regions that have been convinced that the central authority has their interests in mind. Administering populations at this scale wastes a huge amount of energy too whether it's through government or by our now completely broken financial system that has seen our "money" become something so completely imaginary at this stage, giving rise to the possibility of unfathomable levels of wealth in the world.

Humanity has had many forms of civilization before, but when they become too complex, they tend to fail. We can not cling to the norms of now just because that's what we learned to do, especially when no society ever before has been so utterly complex and intertwined."

Droughts will not ‘become the norm’.

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuels and doesn't cause climate change, and would leave us energy independent.

Will you still saying this. You can't run a country on 'renewable' energy. It just isn't reliable enough.

I agree we need a lot more 'renewables'. I agree that being energy independent is a good thing. It's just that we can't get to independence without a reliable form of energy production. At the moment, if you don't want fossil fuels, nuclear is the only available option.

We're never going to become energy independent with just 'renewables'.

Nuclear is a good option to invest in to get us away from fossil fuels while we work on renewables.

It's all irrelevant really, the government works in the interests of global fossil fuel companies, above the interests of the planet and of British people.

We all know what needs to be done. The government won't do it.

Nuclear is better than renewables that will rely on lithium batteries to hold the excess power, and when they blow up they're near impossible to put out."

Most renewables don't rely on batteries. The power generated is pushed straight into the national grid.

Nuclear is probably the answer to help during the transition to renewables despite the potential explosion danger.

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"Most renewables don't rely on batteries. The power generated is pushed straight into the national grid."

That's true today, because we have gas-fired power stations that can be easily throttled up and down. They are absorbing the variations in supply that the renewables inherently have.

If we are to move to having the majority of our power being generated by renewables, we'll need some form of energy storage. We'd need vast amounts of batteries to do the job.

Let's hope that something gets invented in time.

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By *melia DominaTV/TS  over a year ago

Edinburgh (She/Her)

No.

Humanity a greed self-absorbed imbeciles who don't see a good thing until it is to late...

The wallie world will be with us soon enough.

That's if we don't blow the fucking world up before then!

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Most renewables don't rely on batteries. The power generated is pushed straight into the national grid.

That's true today, because we have gas-fired power stations that can be easily throttled up and down. They are absorbing the variations in supply that the renewables inherently have.

If we are to move to having the majority of our power being generated by renewables, we'll need some form of energy storage. We'd need vast amounts of batteries to do the job.

Let's hope that something gets invented in time."

There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries.

The problems we have moving to renewables are not technology problems. They are political.

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By *ovebjsMan  over a year ago

Bristol


"Most renewables don't rely on batteries. The power generated is pushed straight into the national grid.

That's true today, because we have gas-fired power stations that can be easily throttled up and down. They are absorbing the variations in supply that the renewables inherently have.

If we are to move to having the majority of our power being generated by renewables, we'll need some form of energy storage. We'd need vast amounts of batteries to do the job.

Let's hope that something gets invented in time."

Don’t need storage wit nuclear power

Just turn the reactors up and down as demand requires.

Build build build

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries."

There are?

What are they?

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries.

There are?

What are they?"

Pumped hydroelectric

Compressed air

Flywheels

Thermal energy storage

As some examples.

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By *ovebjsMan  over a year ago

Bristol


"There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries.

There are?

What are they?

Pumped hydroelectric

Compressed air

Flywheels

Thermal energy storage

As some examples."

I think out of those pumped hydro might work but you would only get a small amount of storage from that.

There was a program I saw where they did that but the return was just enough to run the factory not much else so you would need massive plants all over the country to do it and I can’t see the environmentalists going for that

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By *ustintime69Man  over a year ago

Bristol


"Most renewables don't rely on batteries. The power generated is pushed straight into the national grid.

That's true today, because we have gas-fired power stations that can be easily throttled up and down. They are absorbing the variations in supply that the renewables inherently have.

If we are to move to having the majority of our power being generated by renewables, we'll need some form of energy storage. We'd need vast amounts of batteries to do the job.

Let's hope that something gets invented in time.

Don’t need storage wit nuclear power

Just turn the reactors up and down as demand requires.

Build build build "

It’s not quite as simple as that. You might wonder why some of the time wind turbines don’t appear to be moving when there is a reasonable breeze? The reason being that it’s easier to switch off turbines when demand is low than to shut down a reactor!

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By *eordieguy2019Man  over a year ago

Stockport

The only hope for mankind will be the realisation that capitalism does not work and never will.

Not only does it rely on the movement of digits on balance sheets it actively promotes power in the hands of sociopaths and psychopaths.

Those at the top think they will have the resources to survive the inevitable collapse of the system they have become the elite of.

There is no amount of money that will allow them to.

Unless mankind can overcome its obsession with abstract concepts thst it invented ( mainly money) concepts that were invented so that 1 person could benefit from the labours of others and the exploitation of natural resources.

Then ultimately we as a species are doomed and the planet is doomed to degrade until our species is reduced to terminal decline.

The planet will survive without us we however wont survive without the planet.

And all the money in the world wont provide sustenance.

You cant drink or eat money, and ultimately violence will become the only currency ???

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries.

There are?

What are they?

Pumped hydroelectric

Compressed air

Flywheels

Thermal energy storage

As some examples.

I think out of those pumped hydro might work but you would only get a small amount of storage from that.

There was a program I saw where they did that but the return was just enough to run the factory not much else so you would need massive plants all over the country to do it and I can’t see the environmentalists going for that "

Imagine what we could do if renewables got the investment currently pumped into the fossil fuels industry around the world.

5.9 trillion USD in 2020.

With that funding we could easily solve any technology based barriers to transitioning to renewables.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

I think our species will survive. But I also think a lot of people will suffer and die; mainly the poor.

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries."


"There are?

What are they?"


"Pumped hydroelectric

Compressed air

Flywheels

Thermal energy storage

As some examples."

Pumped hydroelectric works well, but it relies on having a mountain that's the right shape. We only have the one plant in the UK, and it doesn't store enough to cover the sort of lulls we see in renewable energy sources. With no more suitable mountains to build in, we won't see any more of that sort of capability being built here.

Compressed air, flywheels, and thermal storage are all currently in use in very small scale settings. No one has yet tried to boost them up to grid scale, because no one believes that it would work. It's debatable whether any of them could hold even a fraction of what we need.

Apart from pumped hydro, the only other solution that has been tried at grid level is batteries.

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries.

There are?

What are they?

Pumped hydroelectric

Compressed air

Flywheels

Thermal energy storage

As some examples.

Pumped hydroelectric works well, but it relies on having a mountain that's the right shape. We only have the one plant in the UK, and it doesn't store enough to cover the sort of lulls we see in renewable energy sources. With no more suitable mountains to build in, we won't see any more of that sort of capability being built here.

Compressed air, flywheels, and thermal storage are all currently in use in very small scale settings. No one has yet tried to boost them up to grid scale, because no one believes that it would work. It's debatable whether any of them could hold even a fraction of what we need.

Apart from pumped hydro, the only other solution that has been tried at grid level is batteries."

Haha. What a negative nelly.

Anyway. We could easily move to generating nearly all our electricity from renewables if the political will was there.

It has the benefits of not making the planet uninhabitable, and the side benefits of energy independence and cheap electric for the population.

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"Haha. What a negative nelly."

Dismissing all the evidence against you as 'just negativity' isn't going to help you keep the lights on.


"We could easily move to generating nearly all our electricity from renewables if the political will was there."

This just isn't true. It could be done, with a significant reduction in demand, and some new technology to smooth out both demand and supply, but it won't be at all easy.

Getting solar power on every home is 'easy'. We just need to change the law, and wait 10 years for all the materials to become available. Running the country from those panels won't be at all easy.

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Haha. What a negative nelly.

Dismissing all the evidence against you as 'just negativity' isn't going to help you keep the lights on.

We could easily move to generating nearly all our electricity from renewables if the political will was there.

This just isn't true. It could be done, with a significant reduction in demand, and some new technology to smooth out both demand and supply, but it won't be at all easy.

Getting solar power on every home is 'easy'. We just need to change the law, and wait 10 years for all the materials to become available. Running the country from those panels won't be at all easy."

I'm not dismissing evidence. I'm making fun of you constantly moving the goal posts. One question is answered "but but but what about something else..."

Reduction in demand and solar are only two parts of the puzzle.

And it would be easy if the trillions handed to the fossil fuel industry were put into renewables. It's purely political. The profit is in oil, coal and gas.

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By *eroy1000Man  over a year ago

milton keynes


"There are plenty of ways to store energy without batteries.

There are?

What are they?

Pumped hydroelectric

Compressed air

Flywheels

Thermal energy storage

As some examples.

I think out of those pumped hydro might work but you would only get a small amount of storage from that.

There was a program I saw where they did that but the return was just enough to run the factory not much else so you would need massive plants all over the country to do it and I can’t see the environmentalists going for that "

I think some are looking at making hydrogen with any excess green energy. Not sure if they intend to use it to burn like gas later on or just use it as storage. I think a drawback is you loose some energy every time you convert. If the country was 100% renewable and/or nuclear, would they still sell it on the international markets or would it be sold direct to UK power companies?

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"I'm not dismissing evidence. I'm making fun of you constantly moving the goal posts. One question is answered "but but but what about something else...""

Where have I moved the goalposts? I asked you for ways to store energy, you answered, and I pointed out that your answer was inadequate. How is that changing the goalposts?


"And it would be easy if the trillions handed to the fossil fuel industry were put into renewables. It's purely political. The profit is in oil, coal and gas. "

We've had this discussion before. In the UK, the government doesn't subsidise the fossil fuel industry. It does subsidise the renewables industry.

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"I'm not dismissing evidence. I'm making fun of you constantly moving the goal posts. One question is answered "but but but what about something else..."

Where have I moved the goalposts? I asked you for ways to store energy, you answered, and I pointed out that your answer was inadequate. How is that changing the goalposts?

And it would be easy if the trillions handed to the fossil fuel industry were put into renewables. It's purely political. The profit is in oil, coal and gas.

We've had this discussion before. In the UK, the government doesn't subsidise the fossil fuel industry. It does subsidise the renewables industry."

Blimey. You asked a question, then changed the question to try to "win" some kind of perceived argument.

We did have this discussion before. The UK supports the fossil fuels industry financially. However I was speaking about the global figure.

In any case if your simply interested in trying to win some kind of semantic based argument. Fine. I'm happy for you to win. I simply do not care about it.

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By *ebjonnsonMan  over a year ago

Maldon


"I'm not dismissing evidence. I'm making fun of you constantly moving the goal posts. One question is answered "but but but what about something else..."

Where have I moved the goalposts? I asked you for ways to store energy, you answered, and I pointed out that your answer was inadequate. How is that changing the goalposts?

And it would be easy if the trillions handed to the fossil fuel industry were put into renewables. It's purely political. The profit is in oil, coal and gas.

We've had this discussion before. In the UK, the government doesn't subsidise the fossil fuel industry. It does subsidise the renewables industry.

Blimey. You asked a question, then changed the question to try to "win" some kind of perceived argument.

We did have this discussion before. The UK supports the fossil fuels industry financially. However I was speaking about the global figure.

In any case if your simply interested in trying to win some kind of semantic based argument. Fine. I'm happy for you to win. I simply do not care about it."

Don’t forget though, we can only feed eight billion thanks to oil and the ICE.

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"Blimey. You asked a question, then changed the question to try to "win" some kind of perceived argument."

If you look back, you'll see that you stated that grid storage did not require batteries. I asked you what else was available, and you quoted some stuff that won't work. That's not me moving the goalposts, that's you not knowing what you're talking about.

I'm not trying to 'win' anything, I just want you to stop claiming that going to 100% renewables is easy. Because it isn't.

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Blimey. You asked a question, then changed the question to try to "win" some kind of perceived argument.

If you look back, you'll see that you stated that grid storage did not require batteries. I asked you what else was available, and you quoted some stuff that won't work. That's not me moving the goalposts, that's you not knowing what you're talking about.

I'm not trying to 'win' anything, I just want you to stop claiming that going to 100% renewables is easy. Because it isn't."

Congratulations you win the semantic argument. I 100% concede.

Any chance of any actual discussion on the topic?

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan  over a year ago

Gilfach


"Any chance of any actual discussion on the topic?"

OK. Do I think humanity will win its battle against world ending/humanity destroying climate change?

I think the question is wrong. Humanity isn't in a battle. We put up the odd wind turbine here, a couple of solar panels there, and we pretend that we're doing something. The changes we're making are miniscule, and we aren't addressing the basic issue that we use far too much energy, and don't have any sensible method of cutting down.

On the other hand, the world isn't going to end just because it gets a bit hotter. The planet has been hotter than this in the past and it survived that. Equally, a bit more heat won't end humanity. People live in Saudi Arabia for heaven's sake, where the average temperatures are far higher than the UK sees. If they can manage to survive there, humanity as a whole will survive a few degrees of warming.

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By *ohnnyTwoNotesMan  over a year ago

golden fields


"Any chance of any actual discussion on the topic?

OK. Do I think humanity will win its battle against world ending/humanity destroying climate change?

I think the question is wrong. Humanity isn't in a battle. We put up the odd wind turbine here, a couple of solar panels there, and we pretend that we're doing something. The changes we're making are miniscule, and we aren't addressing the basic issue that we use far too much energy, and don't have any sensible method of cutting down.

On the other hand, the world isn't going to end just because it gets a bit hotter. The planet has been hotter than this in the past and it survived that. Equally, a bit more heat won't end humanity. People live in Saudi Arabia for heaven's sake, where the average temperatures are far higher than the UK sees. If they can manage to survive there, humanity as a whole will survive a few degrees of warming."

The planet will survive.

Humans may, or may not. Society probably won't.

There is a good article on the WHO website that details the impacts of climate change. IE change that is actually already happening.

Saying that people live in hot countries is grossly misunderstanding the impacts of rapid changes in the climate.

Let's cut out the. Post a link. No I'll be banned. No you won't. Yes I will. No you won't. Yes I will. No you won't.

The UN website also has a good range of info. Google "Climate Action Fast Facts UN". If you wish.

The real answer is we need to reduce consumption, reduce fossil fuel usage, develop technology to generate power without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and carbon capture tech. It will require all these.

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