The Earth On Fire: Solving The Climate Crisis

Recent disasters bringing this into sharp focus. So how to solve the Earth's warming and will it be solved?

 

Don't see how it can ever be solved when coal fired power stations are still being built and the rainforests are being destroyed. Utter madness.

This will be a good thread.

 

I thought it was interesting that the recent lockdowns provided more or less the carbon reduction the World needs to meet the 1.5%.

Factor in a ‘war effort’ on renewables/efficiency and there appears to be a decent life to be lived for all of us.

 

Air travel is also a major contributor. How the h-ll do we reign that in?

 

Slaughtering all the world's cattle would be a quick win

 

Planes can be made a lot more efficient, but ultimately the real cost of air travel has to be dumped on the consumer, including the cost needed to build and maintain airports and clean up the pollution.

People don't need to fly as much for business or for leisure. We don't need £30 flights to European capitals for a piss up. Go on the piss in your own Country or take a train/ferry.

 

A touch drastic, but yes. Meat is another addiction we need to control. That's not a moral position, humans have a wide diet. But endless cheap meat has a zillion downsides.

 

Introduce a global ban on rice growing. OK, it feeds half the world's population, but surely those that rely on it for survival can find something else to eat? After all it shouldn't be just us in the West that make all the sacrifices

 

Exactly. Why can’t they just eat Tuna or something?

 

Or avocado on rye toast with ricotta - that's an eco-friendly snack surely anyone can make

 

The UK is heading in the right direction but a lot more needs to be done.

I think we only have two coal fired power stations now on the mainland, there is one in Northern Ireland and that supplies the NI & RoI grid (there is one other in RoI). All of these will be decommissioned soon, one in 2022, one in 2023 & finally Ratcliffe on Soar to close in 2024. As well as this these stations have been used mainly as backup for quite a few years.

There are lots of places you see with wind turbines and you can see many on the horizon from a number of beaches. Along with people using smart meters and LED bulbs we are going down the right road.

Part of the problem that does need to be addressed is the amount of cheap $hit people buy for using just once. The plastic used in meat trays isn't recyclable, Pringles cans were often touted as an unrecyclable headache.

I could list many things, and I would admit I am no angel having flown to South America on a number of occasions. However without wholesale international cooperation no matter how much we do it isn't going to make a difference. Until China, USA, India & Russia scale back to being carbon neutral we are in a losing battle. And don't start me on Brazil, the current president is practically encouraging chopping down the rain forest, massive sanctions against Brazil need to be placed for them to change their attitude.

 

What abut Cuba?

 

More than anything else, renewable energy and climate change initiatives need to be profitable.

Big business will get on board when there is money to be made - and are more than happy to watch the world literally burn until that is the case.

 

Who do you think is responsible for the developments in engine technology, alternative fuel sources etc, etc, etc - the Salvation Army?

 

Wonderful!

 

UK isnt heading in the right direction at all, we have basically outsourced all our emmissions to China. Didnt I read somewhere that around 100 of the largest companies/ corporations make up for around 70% of the pollutants?

 

I'm afraid the world is doomed. Genuinely. We are all selfish and want the best for our remaining 10-50 years on the planet, and have little consideration for the state of the planet 100 years from now. Governments are elected by popular vote every 4-5 years around the world, with a few notable exceptions. Governments don't get elected on a ticket that promises to impair your quality of life now to save the planet in 100 years time, they get elected on promises of lower taxes and more schools and hospitals, and promises to hit targets emmisions 20 years away when they won't be around to be held to account. Humans are very clever, clever enough to invent iphones and pcs to improve our quality of life and to send rockets to the planets. Unfortunately we aren't smart enough to sacrifice quality of life today so that our planet survives. We will need another planet to wreck in the next 150 years after irreversable climate change destroys our atmosphere. Remember, you heard it here first.

 

Meat is a big one, tearing down rainforests to grow soya to feed cattle that take on average 2.5 years to grow to the age they’re slaughtered, all the while needing water, food and land, as well as emmitting methane gases the whole time is an insanely inefficient way to feed people. The soya needed to produce a meal for someone from a cow is something like 30X the amount of soya needed if you just ate the soya directly.

 

Agree, but also people need to stop moving to different countries to live and work. Then they wouldn't need to fly home every year to see family.
I am not making a diversity point, just the travel implications of global spread of people.

 

It annoys me when companies say they are offsetting their emissions. Shouldn't be allowed, make changes to reduce emissions not just plant trees somewhere else.

 

This version of the planet could be saved… but it won’t be saved. Because humans are selfish, stupid, and hypocritical.

Once humans have wiped themselves out, or ****ed off to another world to screw that one up, earth can start over again with another dominant species.

The end.

 

The Government was also claiming that it had both reduced emissions by 40% and grown the economy by 80% (over some unspecified timeframe). This is obvious cobblers. We haven't seen that level of efficiency yet and do most of our manufacturing abroad. On the whole doing more, consuming more is still driving climate change.

 

Throughout earths history there have been many dramatic natural climate changes, so why is this one any different? So no! Nothing we do will make any difference as this is just another natural readjustment of our planet.

 

The world will be fine.

This has never been about saving the world. It was always about saving ourselves.

We are already past the tipping point. At this point it is just a question of how bad it will be.

 

This change in the Earth's climate is different because it is not a natural change. It is far more rapid than any natural change and is down to us. Whether we will do enough to save ourselves (not save the planet....the Earth will be fine) is doubtful in my opinion.

 

Can I change my optimistic vote? I think I’ve just learned something about humans I’ve been trying to ignore.

 

Exactly so. It’a not a case of saving the planet. The planet will be fine; it’s humans and many, many other species that will perish.

 

Carbon offset schemes are a joke. But I have to say whoever came up with the idea that any company that wants to be“carbon neutral” simply tots up how much carbon it generates and pays someone else not to emit that amount of the stuff on its behalf is a bloody genius! Amazing that such a clearly bonkers idea took off. Mind you the Catholic Church has been getting away with similar for centuries

 

Corvids I reckon. Very smart, come in lot’s of shapes and sizes. They will build a beautiful shiny World.

 

The main theory regarding what wiped out the dinosaurs is an asteroid, or major volcanic eruptions. Ice ages are thought to be caused by slight changes in the tilt of the earth and the associated chan reaction that creates.

The climate crisis is entirely man made, releasing hundreds of millions of years worth of trapped carbon into the atmosphere in the space of a hundred years or so, but mostly in the past few decades. If sea levels rise by two metres and millions and millions of people are killed, it won’t be because of an asteroid or natural phenomenon, it will be entirely down to the actions of man kind.

 

Your opening three words says it all...THE MAIN THEORY

Because that's all those things are THEORIES, we do not actually know why those things happened, they could just as easily been NATURAL phenoniums, and although mankind might be partially responsible for our current situation it could also be down to natural adjustments to our planet, could it not?

 

So on the one hand, we have all the combined expertise of the world's climate scientists.

On the other hand, we have a retired postman.

Well, I'm convinced.

 

Ooya f*cker, am I on the Peloponnese? ‘Cause that burns.

 

And mostly entirely black too. Thus neatly solving two problems in one.