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Global warming.
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Post by
Squishalot
Well that's all well and good then, since most carbon tax / climate change laws penalise those who earn more anyway.
Key point is that you're willing to spend money to keep the world alive, whoever's fault it actually is polluting it (i.e. whether it's man made or not).
Post by
Tartonga
Well that's all well and good then, since most carbon tax / climate change laws penalise those who earn more anyway.
Key point is that you're willing to spend money to keep the world alive, whoever's fault it actually is polluting it (i.e. whether it's man made or not).
Even though there will be guiltier people than other, you could see that as a contribution for everyone's kids and their future. Even if the kid's father is the owner of most contaminating industry, he doesn't deserve to pay for what his father or grandfather has done.
Post by
173035
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Well that's all well and good then, since most carbon tax / climate change laws penalise those who earn more anyway.
Key point is that you're willing to spend money to keep the world alive, whoever's fault it actually is polluting it (i.e. whether it's man made or not).
Even though there will be guiltier people than other, you could see that as a contribution for everyone's kids and their future. Even if the kid's father is the owner of most contaminating industry, he doesn't deserve to pay for what his father or grandfather has done.
The point more is that even if humans aren't the ones doing the polluting, it's up to us to pay for the cost of managing it nevertheless.
One of the big arguments against carbon taxes and the like is "humans aren't screwing things up, it's the world doing it, so it's not fair to penalise us". That's not good enough, if we still want a nice place to live in.
Post by
Tartonga
The point more is that even if humans aren't the ones doing the polluting, it's up to us to pay for the cost of managing it nevertheless.
Humans aren't contaminating, but we have yet to manage it? What do you mean?
One of the big arguments against carbon taxes and the like is "humans aren't screwing things up, it's the world doing it, so it's not fair to penalise us". That's not good enough, if we still want a nice place to live in.
Facesmasher, look! You have been quoted over here!
Enough said.
What I really don't get though are the nay-sayers claiming nothing's changing. In my country we're consistently setting new temperature records and farmers are actually having trouble with their water supplies, which in the Netherlands normally happens... well, never. In winter we're also setting low temperature records, to the point where I was drawing comparisons to my time in Michigan. This in a country where you can only find thermal underwear in outdoor sports shops because in the past it's never gotten cold enough to need it for a bike ride to work.
Whether it's human in origin or not, a few generations down the line we're going to be in trouble. We
know
the sea level is rising and is going to rise more, why not start building the infrastructure we're going to need to deal with all that extra water?
Agreed.
Post by
Patty
Global warming and climate change should be a concern, and we should certainly reinforce the defences of land to prevent flooding or whatever other impact climate change will have on life on the planet. We should certainly try cutting back on pollution, because even if this is or is not entirely man-made, there's no denying that we
are
catalysing climate change to some degree, no matter how significant. Furthermore, there's the fact that we
will
end up running out of the resources that we need (namely fossil fuels) within a few generations unless we find and utilise more sustainable forms of energy.
That said, climate change is not going to happen overnight, and neither are society's attitudes towards it. Cutting back on carbon emissions, using more sustainable energy and everything else that is proposed to slow the pace of climate change will end up delaying the inevitable, yes, but I think that it's wrong for us to drain the Earth and leave mankind in 100 or 200 years living on a dried up planet with no oil, and then having to revert to older technology and standards.
My vote? Yes; we should be alarmed, but not because the world will freeze overnight if we don't do anything to stop it, but because we should sustain and preserve the resources given to us by nature for as long as possible, and proliferate the species on Earth for as long as is possible. Basically - the alarm should be used as a catalyst to make substantial changes to the running of our industries, our homes, our hospitals and our society as a whole that should not really have been necessary in the first place.
Post by
gnomerdon
We should relocate New York City, San Francisco, and other major cities to move more inland so floods won't reach them.
Post by
xaratherus
My vote: Yes, we should be alarmed at global warming.
To be honest, that's not a wholly accurate vote. My opinions:
Our usage of fossil fuels is causing an impact.
That impact is undeniably negative to the survival of human life on the planet.
The
extent
of our impact is not fully understood. It may be far less, or it may be far more; the problem is too complex to actually make an educated judgment.
We are not
causing
a problem, but simply
hastening
its arrival. Climate change runs on a natural cycle; we are (seemingly) increasing that speed at which that change happens, the effects of which are not fully understood but which appear to be detrimental for our species.
Post by
Lenience
I dread summers in Australia every year, getting too hot.
Post by
Interest
I say Yes, but also it should be noted the climate will change anyways, regardless of human interference/intervention, so we should just be prepared to weather it.
Post by
donnymurph
The point more is that even if humans aren't the ones doing the polluting, it's up to us to pay for the cost of managing it nevertheless.
Humans aren't contaminating, but we have yet to manage it? What do you mean?
Well, we can't exactly expect the cows to pay for it. Even though they are farting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than
all forms of transport combined
(yes, including planes).
I dread summers in Australia every year, getting too hot.
Are you Australian too?we should just be prepared to weather it.I've got a long response coming, but my break finishes in 10 minutes so I'll post it later.
Post by
xaratherus
Well, we can't exactly expect the cows to pay for it. Even though they are farting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than all forms of transport combined (yes, including planes).
This is why I mentioned that we're speeding up a seeming inevitability, not actually causing the problem ourselves. Let's say that the ecological balance of the world was set around a million cows all passing gas at once, and at that rate, it would take a million years for the climate shift to occur.
Now we come along and start propagating, and eventually invent the internal combustion engine. So we've had a shortening effect on that climate change. Our vehicles are contributing as much as the cows? Well, now it's the equivalent of 2 million cows, which means that the shift occurs in 500k years instead.
But that doesn't factor in that we're also probably forcibly breeding more livestock to feed ourselves, so now instead of a million cows, we've got 2 million cows and vehicles that are equivalent to another million - and we've just pushed the climate shift to 250k years.
That's ridiculously simplified, of course, but I hope my point is clear: We are having an impact on our ecology, in that we're speeding up its natural cycle; the question is exactly how detrimental (if at all) that will be on our species.
Post by
Interest
I've got a long response coming, but my break finishes in 10 minutes so I'll post it later.
This I'd like to see.
Post by
Meggie
Western people will get black. I wonder racists will kill themselves :D
Post by
Skreeran
Voted "I don't know."
It's real easy to dismiss it as "Part of the planet's natural warming and cooling cycles" or say "There's no reliable data that the planet is warming at all" (
my Dad
actually insinuated--perhaps jokingly--that the drought in Texas is being caused by Godlessness), but that's no reason to stop trying to get the answer. An "inconvenient" truth is right. Human-caused climate change is a big deal. A really big deal. I would love it if humans weren't changing the climate, but if it is, we need to find out and do something about it.
Ultimately,
this
is basically my opinion.
Post by
91278
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
238331
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pezz
Voted "I don't know."
It's real easy to dismiss it as "Part of the planet's natural warming and cooling cycles" or say "There's no reliable data that the planet is warming at all" (
my Dad
actually insinuated--perhaps jokingly--that the drought in Texas is being caused by Godlessness), but that's no reason to stop trying to get the answer. An "inconvenient" truth is right. Human-caused climate change is a big deal. A really big deal. I would love it if humans weren't changing the climate, but if it is, we need to find out and do something about it.
Ultimately,
this
is basically my opinion.
Massive props to you, fellow DMitchell viewer.
Every time I think Netflix is awful, I find something like That Mitchell and Webb look and it reinvigorates my faith in on-demand television.
Post by
Morec0
Personally, I think that the whole 'global warming' shtick is merely a part of the earth's cycle, maybe sped up a little by human activities but I don't think it will kill us all.
Post by
Skreeran
I just love David Mitchell... :P
Personally, I think that the whole 'global warming' shtick is merely a part of the earth's cycle, maybe sped up a little by human activities but I don't think it will kill us all.And what I'm saying is that even if that proves to be the case, we really should investigate it, rather than saying "Well, it's probably natural, let's just forget about it."
And what if it's completely natural but it
does
present a threat to human wellbeing? Just because it might be completely natural doesn't mean we shouldn't worry about it. Asteroid collisions and mass extinctions are also completely natural, but if one of those were on its way it would be foolish to just say "Well, I'm certain it's natural and not human-caused, so I don't have to worry about it."
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