So, take a scenic drive every day. Turn on every light in your house and mow your lawn twice each week. Enjoy really hot baths. If we all work together we can use up our oil reserves faster and hasten the end of global oil domination!

tedious nonsense

Many of the anti-ACC people tend to say that we have to cut carbon emission drastically immediately , or it will be 'too late'. I don't mind the gradually-reduce-emissions w/o wrecking quality of life crowd, I'm more or less there myself. I don't see any advantage to high carbon emissions, after all.

Does Norway's carbon-neutrality include all the emissions from the oil they export? I tend to think many of these plans are the equivalent of 'creative accounting' (like offsets). I don't think the environment can be improved by cooking the books.

My argument is more like "we shouldn't cut carbon so deeply that it screws things up, since technological advancement by strong economies is the most likely route to a real solution".

"Likewise, I'm not sure that 'we should give up, because China's going to fuck everything up, anyway' is an especially effective way of addressing this issue"

Even if it's actually true? Making high carbon emissions into a competitive advantage for the developing world doesn't seem to be prudent. Besides, letting a failed attempt at control get in the way of preparing for the eventual effects doesn't seem like a good idea, either.

I guess my argument above should have a "while hedging our bets by preparing to live with the effects" clause.

-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

DaleLionel

Silver_Back

Places like those are ripe with mutants...

BlindKarma

Schwarzwald

Norway may be a marginally industrialized economy, but they've got oil rigs and coal plants burning, and if they can cut the carbon emissions standards of those down without reducing the power output, then I think that still counts as civilization.

Your argument sounds suspiciously like "we shouldn't attempt to become carbon neutral now, so that we can eventually become carbon neutral in the future."

Likewise, I'm not sure that "we should give up, because China's going to fuck everything up, anyway" is an especially effective way of addressing this issue, or any of the many other issues that that strategy could apply to.

braak

Eliminating carbon emissions will require total global cooperation, which has never happened before, to my knowledge. I only tend to believe in things that there's some evidence for the possibility of.

A recent New Scientist article points out the unlikeliness of dramatic carbon-emission reductions, anytime in the near future. [environment.newscientist.com]

I agree with you that the survival of civilization is a good thing to hope for. I have a hunch that dramatically cutting carbon emissions would seem at least as much like the collapse of civilization , as the likely near-term (next 100 years) effects of global warming. Most people (at least in the 1st and 2nd worlds)would probably think of a world where they have access to a quarter (or half, or whatever)as much electricity and only the rich have access to significant travel capability as a world in which civilization has already collapsed. It's also the sort of thing that puts a lot of people out of work.

Most of what we think of as civilization depends directly upon carbon emissions, and will for decades, even if we were to start building fission plants as fast as we can.

I tend to think that keeping things ticking along is probably the best way to come up with energy solutions for the future, and that planning to combat the effects of ACC is a better plan than trying to avoid it.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

I don't know about you guys, but for as much as I say that I'd enjoy some post-apocalyptic survival future, I'm 90% sure my blog-commenting skills aren't really going to carry over.

Moreover, if Norway and Costa Rica can put together plans to be carbon neutral, I don't think the rapid escalation of carbon in the atmosphere is not necessarily inevitable.

And, frankly, not desirable. As a science geek and a futurist, I am personally, deeply offended at a civilization that has failed to become a zero emmissions civilization. That shit is god-damned inefficient, and it pisses me off.

braak

I expect humanity would survive the equivalent event today, though I wouldn't place any bets on civilization making it.

ACC isn't anything I'd choose , but I think people panic too much about it, and I expect it's inevitable. Even if it could be avoided, the climate is bound to change all by itself, sooner or later. It's what climates do.

We get an awful lot of scare-tactics on this stuff, like that moronic Day After Tomorrow movie, and Mr. Gore's exaggerated 'documentary'. Scare tactics annoy me.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

braak

Which ones?
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

braak

tetragami

halfro

NefariousNewt

Uzbekistan I can get behind, but Turkmenistan? Fuck that shit.

braak

You should go, and bring a painters mask or something like it to help filter the air.

dead_red_eyes

Arashan

It's a pretty cool place, though. We walked around taking pictures, and even had some yokels speed by and yell at us to "get the f out of here." The municipal building at the center of "town" still had an ambulance parked in it, so I assume it was still in use. Otherwise, besides a few houses of holdouts and a memorial cemetery, it's a grid of paved streets and grass lots.

PhilR8

NefariousNewt

@Klebert L. Hall: I don't...I'm not sure why these things are comparable.

braak

Epaminondas

tetragami

Sure, it's possible - just very unlikely. Earth's climate=very sturdy. The K-T impact is estimated at 100,000,000 megatons. ACC might be the downfall of civilization if it gets really bad, but it's unlikely to make humanity extinct.

Generally speaking, not such a great thing, but also probably unavoidable.

Oh, and I wouldn't worry about there not being room for you in a Global Warming Island World - chances are, you'll be long dead before ACC causes any giant problems.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

NefariousNewt

tetragami

danwaterhouse

I have to admit, the future post-apocalyptic Morlock world has its appeal.

braak

tetragami

CSX321

@tetragami: Hey, if you'd like the same future that the primordial bacteria made for themselves, by all means, keep doing everything the same.

braak

Technology isn't a panacea, but climate change isn't going to kill us all.

Sihanouk-s-Poodle

:: goes back to dwell in his hellhole::

Project Thanatos

Emilia

tetragami

I was up there a year or two ago with my brother and the group of offroad enthusiasts he hangs out with.
Night rides through there were spooky, but fun as hell.

I was introduced to Firesign Theater's "I think we're all Bozos on this Bus" on that run.
Surreal.

strider_mt2k

braak

IrisMR

wbenetti

But yea, Silent Hill wasn't based around the town... But the filmmakers did have "Centralia" as one of their working titles for the movie. The game writers had no idea about the town though, and the movie was obviously based around the video game.

1800higgins

Jeff-Minor

vaiism

Plague

lucyjae

"Time is the fire in wich we burn."

Shiryu

mistermac2000

tetracycloide

Ignatzybanjo

CMG

Not just the film but the game(s) as well.

wassermelone

You know how much it would cost the studio if one of your cameramen fell into the door into Hell?

braak

WordMan

Speaking of coal seam fires, there's one in Australia that's been burning for somewhere around 6000 years and will probably go on for a few thousand more. It's one of the few naturally occuring coal seam fires. Its in a place called (appropriatly enough) Burning Mountain.

ShadRS

Belabras

Gyrus

Wonder if you could use this for some good ole geothermal energy?

Log1c

Stueymon

braak

I am looking on Google Maps for directions to Centralia right now.

braak