Senate Global Climate Change

Climate change is such a hot button topic in Florida that DeSantis and the Republican-controlled state legislature are pushing through the creation of a new agency dealing with it - while we'll see if this actually does anything, keep in mind that two years ago, state environmental employees were forbidden my Governor Scott to even mention the words "climate change".
I expect that Scott, political chameleon that he is, will change his tune if he runs for re-election in the Senate.

 

He'll have to. When your constituent's homes are literally ending up underwater, you can't keep pretending everything's okay.

 

The human fingerprint of climate change found in daily weather

But...but...

 

It's moreso than that - it's an attempt to control the narrative because events in 2019 made it impossible to continue Scott's "don't even mention the words 'climate change'" policy.
And it's working for DeSantis. Take a look at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel from March of last year - essentially "Okay, sure, this might be nonsense - but c'mon, give the new governor a break! He's trying!" That appears to be the tone of virtually all the newspaper articles. "It's a start!" "Even Scott now admits climate change is real (sort of, in an editorial where he also called it the 'religion of the Left')" "A Republican that doesn't attack climate change as a hoax? He's pratically an environmentalist!" etc.
The keyword has really been 'mitigation' - that all of DeSantis' actual funding pushes and initiatives are all dealing with results of climate change, not actually working on stopping climate change. And you are correct, this plays right into the hands of his corporate sponsors - they won't be held accountable, and the state will pick up the tab for the clean-up! Win-win!

 

I've reached the conclusion that getting people to use less power/consume less/etc is a fool's errand. (What we really should have done is built a lot more nuclear plants a long time ago... but it's likely somewhat too late for that now. There's still some hope with molten salt designs that don't require such lengthy building/engineering time... but I digress).

Eventually we just need to accept this and start massive Manhattan project level funding of geo-engineering/carbon capture/genetic engineering solutions. We may or may not find some workable solutions - but I think finding the political will to pursue these types of efforts will be much easier.

 

Yeah, I agree. I think a Green Manhattan Project is more important than a Green New Deal. The GND changes the status quo here, but the US only accounts for 15% of emissions now, and 10% by 2030. We need to come up with the technology to produce clean energy that's inexpensive enough that virtually every nation -- including those in the developing world -- would opt for it over dirty power sources.

 

What does everyone think the best shot for this is?

Better batteries, reinforcing solar and wind?
Thorium?
Space-based solar?
Something else?

 

A globally enacted plan to reduce the size of the human population by 90%

 

As I’ve stated many times, nature has just such a plan:

The Virus.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ate-change-workers-say?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Amazon employees are concerned about climate change. Meanwhile, the fires in Australia are so intense that new weather patterns are created by this nightmare.

 

It seems to me that solar + better batteries, with some wind, is the best route to take right now for power production. Solar is now very competitive with most fossil fuels, and its made that progress without any massive government support. Better battery tech is required to store power when the sun's down so that grid doesn't return to fossil fuel-based during the nighttime.

Government support for electric vehicles is another important part of the equation. Electric cars that get their juice from a coal-powered electricity are only slightly better for the environment than gas cars. They do somewhat better than that when they get their energy from a natural gas powered grid. If they get power from renewable source, they absolutely crush gas cars.

I'm sure scientists could come up with other competitive alternatives if they had this type of huge government commitment to dealing with the problem.

 

I hope she keeps doing this. If necessary, I will be among those contributing funds to her trips.

 

"Empty words and promises which give the impression that sufficient action is being taken" are all governments in their current forms have to offer. I wonder whether Greta understands the true nature of the problem. It's not that Greta is naive or that I believe she's naive. It's just that I don't know who exactly, and I mean this in the most literal way possible, would be able to live with the consequences of really fixing anthropogenic carbon forcing . The "Damage Report" guy is more naive than Greta. I like Greta. She's a global rockstar. I wonder what she'll be doing in 10 years - hopefully not starving or being shot or blown up in the mass dieoff along with the rest of us.

This would be the most merciful outcome for most of us. We should all wish to be so lucky.

 

I thought we were the virus

 

One of them, and for the moment, probably the most destructive one.

 

I am cross posting this from the politics thread. It's all political, but there's a lot of wishes here that have to do with climate change. I always want to discuss/share a little more. This is a recent tweet from my son's 6th grade teacher:


My son talks a lot about his concerns for our planet. Recently I finally took the plunge and stopped eating animals altogether. It's been way easier than I ever imagined. Tomorrow makes 4 weeks. I'm also cutting out eggs and dairy whenever possible, because I've learned that raising all these animals to feed people is taking a real toll on our earth. When I tell my son that it does not make him want to give up meant. He eats it everyday. Yet he constantly talks about the planet and climate change. It's just crazy. I know it feels like we all have to go back to living in tents and walking or riding bikes to actually make a change since things might be that bad. However, it's crazy how we aren't even doing the little things we can do. I am glad I finally found something that makes me feel like I'm doing something. And I know others are too. Just at Target I can buy plant based, butter, cheese, there's two freezers of milk that's not from animals, there's two freezers of meat that's not meat, there's a huge selection of yogurt and even Target brand ice cream made from almond milk.

Two years ago I tried to use less plastic and that felt daunting/impossible. Everything is plastic, from the razors I shave with to my toothbrush to my shampoo bottle to my yogurt containers....AHHHH.

Also some good news from progressive Fairfax County VA. Our high schools and middle schools will be getting solar power. Our school bus fleet is adding 80 electric busses next year. Change feels good.

 

A temperature above 20C has been recorded for the first time in the Antarctic.

 

So, the right wing has always accused the left of propping up Greta as an empty puppet. So what do they do?

Make a puppet

Ties to Trump, the Heartland Institute.

Edit: if you get paywalled HERE is another

 

Michael Moor sold his soul to evil

So, renewable energy is bad. He could not get anyone to show his film so he put it on youtube for free. This article is a rebuttal.

 

I don't know if another thread regarding this subject has been opened, but I haven't noticed that someone was seriously talking about it, except maybe in a few comments in other threads.

I know that we all seem busy with Covid-19 and the U.S. presidential election, as well as other societal challenges as police violence and racism. But while we are fixated by those subjects, there's still a subject that we are all forgetting: climate change and global warming. And this subject, just like Covid-19, doesn't make the difference between people, their race, their ideology or politics.

And the reason why I'm opening a thread and bringing this up is because, today, in the north of Siberia, the Arctic has hit its hottest temperature in recorded history, 38 celcius degrees, which is 20 to 25 degrees higher than its normal temperature in this time of the year. And a 38 celcius degrees was supposed to be the new "normal" in this region by the year 2100 according to scientists.

In other words: while we are struggling with Covid-19, climate change hasn't just gone away and is still happening much quicker than what we could expect.

 

@Rylo Ken

 

https://boards.theforce.net/threads...crisis-and-environmental-protection.50042171/

 

I do wonder how much Covid will slow down this years CO2 compared to last