If climate change is real, is it a sin to do nothing about it?

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Again: nobody’s stopping the greenies from doing or buying what they want; THEY are stopping US.

 

[lynnvinc]

I suppose that the question is not so much whether climate change is real, but also whether it is a good thing, or a bad thing, or neutral in its effects.

Increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are generally beneficial to plant life…

I actually did some 2ndary research on the impact of CO2 on food production for a paper I wrote (soon to be published) on Food Rights and Climate Change; here’s that portion of it:

What might global warming and its effects mean for food and food production? First we need to address the argument that elevated carbon dioxide levels increase crop production. Aside from this being disingenuous because the CO2 is also causing warming and other effects that could be harmful to crops, there is evidence that increasing CO2 will not help crops as much as expected, and may even harm some crops and sea life, never mind the warming (Cline 2007: 23-26). While earlier enclosed studies showed increased growth with added CO2, recent open field studies show less increase and even a decline of some crops (Long, et al. 2006, Cruz, et al. 2007: 480). Furthermore, crops were found to be less nutritious (Högy, et al. 2009), and had greater pest damage (Hunter 2001). In the real world, crop growth is affected by many factors beyond CO2, including other nutrients, water supply, climate, extreme weather events, soil moisture, toxins expected to increase with global warming, and soil acidification from CO2 (Oh and Richter 2004). So while CO2 may moderately enhance crops up to a point, these other factors are expected to limit the potential enhancement and even lead to eventual declines. When the impact of warming is considered, a nonlinear relationship regarding crop productivity has been found for mid and high latitudes – the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia, Japan and Northern China – with increased yields projected up to around 2050, after which the warming causes sharp decrease (Schlenker and Roberts 2009). A more recent study has found that climate change has already reduced some crops globally, despite CO2 fertilization and improved technology (Lobell, et al. 2011). As for sea life, an important human food supply, CO2-caused ocean acidification is having negative impacts on zooplankton (at the base of the food chain), shellfish, fish, and coral reefs, home to one-fourth of sealife (Rogers and Laffoley 2011; Doney, et al. 2009; Hoegh-Guldberg, et al. 2007; Munday, et al. 2010).

REFERENCES:

• Cline, W. R. 2007. Global Warming and Agriculture. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development and the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
• Cruz, R. V., H. Harasawa, M. Lal, S. Wu, Y. Anokhin, B. Punsalmaa, Y. Honda, M. Jafari, C. Li, and N. Huu Ninh. 2007. “Asia.” Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contributions of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. M. L. Parry, O. F. Canziani, J. P. Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden, and C. E. Hanson (eds.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 469-506.
• Doney, S. C., V. J. Fabry, R. A. Feely, and J. Kleypas. 2009. Ocean Acidification: The Other CO2 Problem. Annual Review of Marine Sciences 1: 169-192.
• Gornall, J., R. Betts, E. Burke, R. Clark, J. Camp, K. Willett, and A. Wiltshire. 2010. “Implications of Climate Change for Agricultural Productivity in the Early Twenty-First Century.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 365:2973-2989.
• Hoegh-Guldberg, O., P. J. Mumby, A. J. Hooten, R. S. Steneck, and E. G. P. Greenfield, C. D. Harvell, P. F. Sale, A. J. Edwards, K. Caldeira, N. Knowlton, C. M. Eakin, R. Iglesias-Prieto, N. Muthiga, R. H. Bradbury, A. Dubi, M. E. Hatziolos. 2007. Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification. Science 318(5857): 1737-1742.
• Högy, P., H. Wieser, P. Köhler, K. Schwadorf , J. Breuer, J. Franzaring, R. Muntifering and A. Fangmeier. 2009. “Effects of elevated CO2 on grain yield and quality of wheat: results from a 3-year free-air CO2 enrichment experiment.” Plant Biology 11: 60-69.
• Hunter, M. D. 2001. “Effects of Elevated Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Insect-Plant Interactions.” Agricultural and Forest Entomology 3: 153-159.
• Lobell, D. B., W. Schlenker, and J. Costa-Roberts. 2011. “Climate Trends and Global Crop Production Since 1980.” Science 333(6042): 616-620.
• Long, S. P., E. A. Ainsworth, A. D. B. Leakey, J. Nösberger, D. R. Ort. 2006. “Food for Thought: Lower-Than-Expected Crop Yield Stimulation with Rising CO2 Concentrations.” Science 312(5782): 1918-1921.
• Munday, P. L., D. L. Dixson, M. I. McCormick, M. Meekan, M. C. O. Ferrari, and D. P. Chivers. 2010. “Replenishment of fish populations is threatened by ocean acidification.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(29):12930-12934.
• Oh, N-H., and D. D. Richter, Jr. 2004. “Soil acidification induced by elevated atmospheric CO2” Global Change Biology 10.11: 1936-1946.
• Oschlies, A., K. Schulz, U. Riebesell, and A. Schmittner. 2008. “Simulated 21st century’s increase in oceanic suboxia by CO2-enhanced biotic carbon export” Global Biochemical Cycles 22: 1-10.
• Rogers, A. D., and D. d’A. Laffoley. 2011. International Earth System Expert Workshop on Ocean Stresses and Impacts. Summary Report. International Program on the State of the Ocean. Oxford. stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/1906_IPSO-LONG.pdf.
• Schlenker, W., and M. Roberts. 2009. “Nonlinear Temperature Effects Indicate Severe Damages to U.S. Crop Yields under Climate Change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 106(37): 15594-15598.

 

[Raskolnikov]

I suppose that the question is not so much whether climate change is real, but also whether it is a good thing, or a bad thing, or neutral in its effects.
]

It depends on the organism it is effecting. For example, if your a species of land organisms living insouthern florida, it’s pretty bad in the long term… unless you plan on evolving gills and fins over the next few generations.

Increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are generally beneficial to plant life, and of course plants are useful to people in many ways, particularly in producing the oxygen which people and animals need to survive.

Not true. More CO2 is helpful for *some *plants. More plants are negatively effected than positively effected, and many of the plants that are worst effected are very important to people, such as rice, which feeds upwad of a billion people. The issue is that most plants have evolved to optimize survival and reproduction at rather particular situation. Significant increases in temperature, acidity of water, air composition, precipitation patterns, all change the environment enough to drive many species to extinciton. Most scientific literature shows that plants in general cannot adapt to climate change nearly as fast as it is changing. Keep in mind that evolutionary adaptation usually takes many many centuries to tune an organism to its surroundings, and on that long of a scale, the climate is changing too rapidly for msot species to keep pace.

I’m certainly no expert on the issue, but the hype seems way out of proportion to the expected change in CO2 levels.

CO2 levels don’t need to increase as significantly as many might think to have a great effect on the temperature. 2% a year more than usual would be (or rather, is) enough to cause significant problems in the long run.

As for that article, I didn’t see much merit in it. The author doesn’t understand that “the poison is in the dose.” “CO2 is good because plants need it” is not a very good argument. There is such a think as too much CO2. And the issue is the effect it has on temperature. Plants won’t grow if they have all the CO2 they could want but live in an environment too warm or with too much or too little precipitation,

So he is quite qrong that plants would love a doubling of CO2. Scientific research has consistently shown far more species of plants respond negatively than positively. Any benefit from mroe CO2 is apparently outweighed by temperature, precipitation, an other variables changing as a recult of increased greenhouse gases.

The rest of the article seems to be little but ad hominems, “:the ipcc is a bunch of scoundrels, ergo we shouldn’t trust climate scientists about anything”, etc., and some rehashed old arguments like “climate has always been changing.” Indeed, and people have always been dying naturally: that doesn’t mean humans aren’t capable of killing other humans.

Correlatin does not equal causation, true. But correlation isn’t all the evidence. I’d be curious to know what the author’s alterative explanation to the greenhouse gas theory is for how the earth absorbs and retains heat. I’ve yet to see a viable alternative proposed.

And it is certainly true that warming and cooling does not invariably mimic CO2 changes. Nobody ever claimed it did. No climate scientist ever said, (as he assumes they did) that CO2 is the sole determinint of temperature. They merely claimed that it was one of them, and a significan one at that. So his argument on that front is moot.

 

[lynnvinc]

Again: nobody’s stopping the greenies from doing or buying what they want; THEY are stopping US.

I’ve never used force on anyone at all. My only tactic has been to tell people about the problem, tell people about the cost-effective solutions, and let them decide what to do. I don’t know of ANY environmentalist who is forcing anyone to do anything. They are pitifully powerless (even the ones off the grid ). They are generally busy making changes in their own lives – at least the genuine environmentalists are – but do feel bad that the bulk of humanity just doesn’t care anything about life on planet earth to even lift its little finger to stop the harm.

Unfortunately my 21 years of trying to get people to do the right thing through persuasion and prayer has had negligible impact – not even a drop in the ocean. But I still won’t be using any force. I was sort of hoping the response I’d get in this thread is that killing people thru climate change is a big sin so I could warn people about the supernatural repercussions they might face – but that is just not the case (and in a way I am glad – life is being lost, which makes me very sad, but not souls, which makes me very glad).

There is absolutely no penalty whatsoever for killing people through environmental harms. You can go to it with impugnity here and in the hereafter.

You win. Hands down, you win! Life on earth is the loser. Big loser.

 

[Raskolnikov]

I’ve never used force on anyone at all. My only tactic has been to tell people about the problem, tell people about the cost-effective solutions, and let them decide what to do. I don’t know of ANY environmentalist who is forcing anyone to do anything. They are pitifully powerless (even the ones off the grid ). They are generally busy making changes in their own lives – at least the genuine environmentalists are – but do feel bad that the bulk of humanity just doesn’t care anything about life on planet earth to even lift its little finger to stop the harm.

Unfortunately my 21 years of trying to get people to do the right thing through persuasion and prayer has had negligible impact – not even a drop in the ocean. But I still won’t be using any force. I was sort of hoping the response I’d get in this thread is that killing people thru climate change is a big sin so I could warn people about the supernatural repercussions they might face – but that is just not the case (and in a way I am glad – life is being lost, which makes me very sad, but not souls, which makes me very glad).

There is absolutely no penalty whatsoever for killing people through environmental harms. You can go to it with impugnity here and in the hereafter.

You win. Hands down, you win! Life on earth is the loser. Big loser.

Impunity here, perhaps. Not in the hereafter though.

 

[lynnvinc]

Impunity here, perhaps. Not in the hereafter though.

That’s what I’ve been thinking all along, and even warning people about that much hotter place if they don’t find some ways to reduce their harms, but even that has never inspired people to do the right thing. (I suppose if fear of hell was an effective force, then people wouldn’t be having abortions right and left, or doing all the other sinful things they do.)

It seems that killing ALL people on planet earth (which at least a few climate scientists believe is not only possible but quite likely if we persist in our high GHG emissions) is just not a big enough sin to cause people to go to that hot place, because (as they say) they just don’t believe they are causing the harm, so that gets them scott-free off the devil’s hook. It’s a matter of whether or not they truly disbelieve ACC is happening and causing harms – and it does seem they truly disbelieve that, no matter what the climate scientists, popes, bishops, or we tell them about it being real and dangerous.

They think we’re all a bunch of evil nincompoops out to take over the world, enslave people in a communist state, and destroy the economy. Why we’d want to go to all that trouble to take over a bunch of denialists, I wouldn’t have the vaguest idea. I have my hands full with an extreme level of work, and a bit of blogging when I get a chance. No play, no fun, no recreation. I’m looking forward to retirement, not to taking over the world.

 

[JimG]

All right, what is the optimum CO2 level for plants? What is the optimum CO2 level for animals? Has the CO2 density varied over the course of human history? How have increased or decreased levels of CO2 affect plants and animals?

I suppose these are not easy questions to answer, since using the entire planet as a laboratory is not really possible. Are increased levels of CO2 in organic greenhouses used to grow plants helpful or harmful?

And how much of a temperature change is being predicted? And are the projections realistic. It’s my understanding that a lot of projections are done using computer models. And no computer program is sophisticated enough to project every possible planetary variable.

And finally, if one is to propose limiting CO2 through the use of measures which cause economic depression, keep in mind that economic depression causes poverty too. How much trade off is too much?

 

[lynnvinc]

All right, what is the optimum CO2 level for plants? What is the optimum CO2 level for animals? Has the CO2 density varied over the course of human history? How have increased or decreased levels of CO2 affect plants and animals?

I suppose these are not easy questions to answer, since using the entire planet as a laboratory is not really possible. Are increased levels of CO2 in organic greenhouses used to grow plants helpful or harmful?

Perhaps a more pertinent question, is how does increased CO2 affect food crops. There are the sources I cited, but some 23 years ago I saw a documentary, “Is It Hot Enough for You,” in which some scientists did experiments on increasing CO2 in a greenhouse, and found that, yes, the increased CO2 did increase plant growth, but they found that it increased C3 plants more than C4 plants, and they said there are a lot of C4 food crops with C3 weeds. They also found that the plants, tho bigger, were not as nutritious, so they had more insect damage (like us insects have to get their nutrition). Other studies since then, as my sources indicate, have found other problems with increased CO2, so that overall there is not as much gain from it as someone sitting in an armchair might imagine. One Japanese study I did not include in my article due to lack of space found that warming associated with doubled CO2 caused floret sterility in rice (decreasing rice production by up to 40%), which is a major food crop for much of the world.

And how much of a temperature change is being predicted? And are the projections realistic. It’s my understanding that a lot of projections are done using computer models. And no computer program is sophisticated enough to project every possible planetary variable.

The computer models are based on actual evidence (good theory & data); they run them backwards to see how well they match the actual data, then they run them forwards to make projections based on “what if X amount of GHGs are released” and even “what if there is a major volcano eruption in X decade?” They are always tweaking these models and adding in more variables to make them more and more accurate; and computer power & capabilities have increased greatly since they first started the models decades ago. However, the original projections have proven fairly accurate, despite less computing power and less variables and sophistication. What seems to be improving is a reduction in their error (confidence) bands.

Unfortunately the media back in the late 80s picked up a high-end, less likely projection (at the far end of the bell curve, so to speak) and ran with it, and now some people are totally dismissing the models. However, what happened in the next two decades or so in terms of actual climate change turned out to be very close to the most-likely, middle projection made back in the 80s – so the computer modelling is pretty good. Those guys aren’t dumb-bunnies.

And finally, if one is to propose limiting CO2 through the use of measures which cause economic depression, keep in mind that economic depression causes poverty too. How much trade off is too much?

22 years ago when I realized I had to do something about ACC, since the gov and most others just were not going to do anything, I was willing to sacrifice to reduce our GHGs. However, my husband, having lived in poverty in India as a child, did not want to do so, so that forced me to look for solutions that did not lower our living standard. At first I felt helpless as to what to do. I prayed, and searched around, etc. This was well before I had internet resources. I called up various people, like the Rocky Mountain [energy efficiency] Institute. I found many many small and some large things we could do to become more energy/resource efficient/conservative without lowering living standards, and saving money. In fact we’ve save a great deal, in the $1000s over the past couple of decades, while increasing our living standard somewhat (and that’s not even counting that we’ve always lived close to work, within a mile or two since the 1970s). When we moved to Texas, we got on Green Mountain 100% wind power, which is now cheaper than conventional electricity. And now with our Chevy Volt (which I figure will save us enough within 7 years to pay for the difference over the other cheaper car we looked at – and very greatly reduce our GHG emissions), I feel much better about our lesser harms, but still there is more we can and should do. I’ll never give up striving to reduce my harm.

 

[Nate13]

How is the Volt a good deal even with the $10,000 tax credit? What kinds of cars were you considering because $31,000 after the tax credit is ridiculous. Why not buy a couple years old Toyota Corolla or some other like car for about 13k-15k and put the 15k you saved into some other project? Buying a Volt doesn’t make a lick of sense to me whether you believe in man-made global warming or not.

 

[lynnvinc]

How is the Volt a good deal even with the $10,000 tax credit? What kinds of cars were you considering because $31,000 after the tax credit is ridiculous. Why not buy a couple years old Toyota Corolla or some other like car for about 13k-15k and put the 15k you saved into some other project? Buying a Volt doesn’t make a lick of sense to me whether you believe in man-made global warming or not.

If I could have bought a cheaper car that I could run (95%+ of the time) off my wind-generated electricity, I would have done so. Actually the purely EV Leaf is cheaper, and has a 100 mile range, but I felt the Volt was better for our needs. Occasionally we do drive more than 100, like when we go to Houston or San Antonio once in a blue moon; and after retirement, we figured we might travel a bit more (or not). I was willing to sacrifice in this case, but halleluia, I calculated and found the Volt’s savings (over another car we considered – feeling squeezed was a deal -breaker for hubbie, so we were considering more mid-saized cars) would pay for the difference in 7 years, so I’m singing, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Hallelu-halleluia!”

 

[lynnvinc]

…And finally, if one is to propose limiting CO2 through the use of measures which cause economic depression, keep in mind that economic depression causes poverty too. How much trade off is too much?

Another story. At one point I was developing a course on “Business and The Environment,” and I found lots of resoures, newstories, etc about how businesses doing the EC (environmentally correct) things found themselves saving money and increasing profits…to their utter surprise (and mine, too).

A plating co in MA knew tougher water regs were going to kick in back in the early 90s, so the manager tried turning down the water use (they use and pollute a tremendous of water in their business), but it didn’t get the pollution down enough. Finally, they invented a closed-loop system, whereby they would recycle the water, taking out the pollutants (which turned out to be valuable) and reuse the water – they figured the system would pay for itself within 2 years, then go on to save. However, the city water main broke a few months later and was off-line for 3 days, and they were able to stay in business, saving them $150,000 for those 3 days, paying for their system right away. (Note that water takes energy to pump, so reducing water usage also typically reduces GHGs.)

I got a tape from 3M about their 3P program – Pollution Prevention Pays. They too were faced with tougher regs kicking in, so they put it to everyone in the company (linemen, custodians, engineers, etc) to come up with least costly ways to reduce the pollution. To their utter surprise the workers came up with lots and lots of solutions that ended up saving them $millions, rather than costing them anything. The CEO asked why they hadn’t come up with such profitable solutions before, and they said that the problem hadn’t been put to them that way (re environmental solutions).

There is a great book I recommend for those interested in how saving the environment could be the best business decision ever made: NATURAL CAPITALISM, by Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins, see natcap.org . In it they talk of “tunneling through,” like reducing the energy reqs so much, that they can get a much smaller motor or dispense with it altogether (e.g., some piping laid in a straight way with less resistance, instead for with lots of elbow joints around the huge motor).

The various bills before Congress re reducing GHGs (which are basically dead on arrival and will NEVER pass), would simply increase a tad the cost of energy and thereby inspire people to start realizing the vast savings to be had in energy/resource efficiency/conservation…and I’m quite sure people would end up saving $$ without lowering productivity or living standards. The best of those bills (which is also DOA) is “a fee and dividend” – collects fees on each barrel of oil and ton of coal at it comes from the ground or into the port; and the money collected would be then divvied up among all Americans equally (everyone with a SSN), so they can either help pay the resultant higher energy bills, or use it to become energy efficient/conservative and really be on the road to properity.

Personally, I’d be ecstatic if they would just end (or at least reduce) all subsidides and tax breaks to the fossil fuel industries, never mind Cap&Trade or Fee&Dividend. It grieves me to be paying on April 15th for other people to go around polluting up the place, harming and killing people, including unborn children.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Interesting topic. Let’s take the emotionalism of the specific issue out and discuss the general principle at work. How serious a sin is it to KNOW an action is wrong, but to continue to commit it and fail to warn other believers about it.

Answer: Quite serious. Probably mortal.

But back to the specific issue at hand, it gets complex. Who is the mortal sinner, the AGW “denier” who still drives his SUV through the drive through or the AGW alarmist who opposes fossil fuel exploration and drives up energy costs to the point where millions of the world’s poor cannot afford safe food refrigeration, transportation access to health care or access to resources that could make them economically self sufficient?

Each person must evaluate the situation and make decisions according to his own conscience on the matter. We each are obligated to take action against immorality. This particular issue simply isn’t a clear one in terms of identifying which side is the good guys and which one is the bad guys.

I agree. As a guy who is outside a lot, in all kinds of weather, and who produces food, I am very much aware of changes in the climate, of cycles and what it takes to produce food.

I am very skeptical of the MMGW claims, for all of the reasons some have, and, quite frankly, by the “Culture of Death” that seems so pervasive now. When a government is so insoucient as this one is about the deaths from abortion, even infanticide, and sees nothing wrong with “blind bombing” in parts of the world, how do we know it doesn’t have a “die off” in its plans for world population control; a “die off” caused by lack of food; lack of food being at least partially caused by lack of energy and the cost thereof?

Having said all of that, I am going to state that, at least in the central U.S., there are long cycles. I have seen a number of them, and my parents and grandparents have told me about some prior to my birth. In my opinion, we’re entering into what could be a five-year (or so) drought/heat cycle. It even seems to be affecting South America. The main culprit seems to be the Pacific oscillation which is stuck on “cold” for the Pacific off the South American/Central American coasts. I, myself, have seen long-lasting ones before in my lifetime, and have been told about others by my parents and grandparents.

I think we’re in for a bad time from the standpoint of food supplies and costs, and it might last for years. Energy use can ameliorate some of the worst of it, but certainly not even most of the bad effect. But I think I can assure the readers of this thread that those long cycles can be very harmful, and have nothing to do with MMGW, whether MMGW is real or not.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The best of those bills (which is also DOA) is “a fee and dividend” – collects fees on each barrel of oil and ton of coal at it comes from the ground or into the port; and the money collected would be then divvied up among all Americans equally (everyone with a SSN), so they can either help pay the resultant higher energy bills, or use it to become energy efficient/conservative and really be on the road to properity.

Does this not seem just a bit like taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other and thinking one’s situation improved thereby?

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

What does the myth of anthropogenic ‘climate change’ have to do with fountain pen ink?

Bear with me.

A fountain pen ink manufacturer in Europe was, for years, the industry gold standard. And by years, I mean since 16-something… recently, the brand has had trouble with mold in their product, slime in their product, and other unpleasant things.

All because of some unnecessary government regulations about what’s ‘safe’ to use in the product and what isn’t. And these ingredients that the company was using, were in use for centuries, without causing anyone a lick of damage.

But the government can’t leave well enough alone.

The brand has all but been destroyed by Caesar’s intervention. It’s not just ink. I’m hearing the same story over and over about cosmetics, electronics, food, any product that you can imagine that CREATES JOBS AND PROVIDES NEEDED GOODS.

In the end, the climate change myth is about destoying business, and controlling the population through fear. And at the end of this chain is always, always, 'Well, too many people polluting the planet. Time for some population control!"

Margaret Sanger. Peter Singer. Why are we listening to people like that?

 

[manualman]

Lynn,

I get it. You are correct that the Volt is geared much more luxury than the Cruze. If you were shopping Cadillac CTS and decided on the Volt as an alternative, I accept that as perfectly good reasoning. It’s not exactly ascetic reasoning (i.e. Cruze/Corolla), but then I certainly sympathize with the “I’ve done my time in clunkers, now I’m due” mentality as I’m in the middle of that long routine myself and will probably get where you are someday. The luxury of innovative technology is as legitimate as more hedonistic luxury and few AGW skeptics scorn those who buy cars with electric back-scratchers and similar nonsense. Enjoy the cool toy.

I’m particularly interested in your claims of how the global climate models are improving in their predictive ability as it contradicts some of what I’ve heard. As I understand it, the CO2 continues to climb, as have the predictions of global temperature, but that the measured temperatures in the last few years have been flat instead of the steady rise predicted. Sounds like worsening predictive capacity to me. I’m especially interested in your claims about confidence intervals tightening as the LACK of published confidence intervals in the materials I’ve read have left me quite suspicious. Can you point me to anything remotely readable by a layperson that includes enough tech details to disclose error analyses like that? I’m genuinely open to reading things that will change my mind, if well supported and reasoned.

The last truly educated outside (name removed by moderator)ut on the matter I have had from a source I consider truly unbiased (long time government climatologist (Oxford PhD) in a position NOT required to seek grant funding) opined to me in 2008 that the data so far was cause for concern, but that the confidence intervals involved made the results “interesting, but worthless” as grounds for culture changing political action. He has since retired and I lack well educated, unbiased minds to lean on regarding the matter these days.

 

[ATeutonicKnight]

Excellent question!

To me, if man-made climate change is real and is killing or will kill thousands or millions of people, it would be a huge sin if it meets the test for a Mortal Sin.

To be a Mortal Sin, the person would have to KNOW that this climate change is real, but pretends NOT to know this for some selfish reason.

Many of the people who are most vigorous in denying climate change have no scientific training and so cannot make an independent evaluation of the evidence.

They are simply following the leadership of their political movement.

So, they would not be sinning.

I don’t understand why this is still being talked about. Global warming was proven to be wrong. In fact, we have found out that barely any ice has melted, which means all of this political propaganda was just a scare tactic with no scientific evidence. So the answer is no, it’s not a sin, because it would have to exist to be a sin.

 

[Tenofovir]

Assuming anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is real and happening and harming and killing people (and others of God’s creatures), and we are all responsible for the greenhouse gases we emit (and responsible for reducing them in whatever feasible ways we can), how much of a sin would it be to deny ACC is happening, and refuse to do sensible things to reduce one’s greenhouse gases in practical and feasible ways?

The problem here is that there don’t seem to be many practical and feasible ways to reduce carbon gasses. You can buy for example, a nice new inverter compressor driven refrigerator with an AAA energy rating throwing out your equally good 5 year old fridge. Now the thrown out fridge will contribute to pollution too, meanwhile the manufacture and development plus the ad campaign for the inverter driven fridge cost a lot of CO2 too. The nett effect is probably one of increased CO2 production.

Of course one should when one can, do something for the environment, and I try to do this. I minimise my hot water use. I turn off unnecessary lights. I put in energy saver bulbs when I can although they last as long as incandescents and contain mercury! I tend to drive in higher gears. I tend to coast to the lights when they’re red and usually end up getting to the intersection when its green. I accelerate slowly. Yet I’m usually foiled by my municipality which prefers to disrupt the flow of traffic by not synchronizing lights but having them out of sync to prevent drivers from speeding or by ridiculous speed bumps which cause lost of petrol wastage as people slow down and speed up again.

The whole AGW CO2 tax thing also seems to be a money making racket. Al Gore himself uses more CO2 than George Bush on his ranch, and he jetsets around creating unnecessary CO2, instead going about things in a more humble way.

Then sometimes pro-environment interventions can be deadly for people. Take DDT for example. Millions die from malaria and those deaths could be prevented if we allowed Africans to use DDT. Millions of African children suffer while fat cat non-Africans talk of how much good they do for the environment by having banned DDT. It’s not only racism but it borders on ethnic cleansing.

 

[jilly4ski]

Then sometimes pro-environment interventions can be deadly for people. Take DDT for example. Millions die from malaria and those deaths could be prevented if we allowed Africans to use DDT. Millions of African children suffer while fat cat non-Africans talk of how much good they do for the environment by having banned DDT. It’s not only racism but it borders on ethnic cleansing.

Indeed, governmental policies designed to mitigate “global warming” are already killing people. Subsidies for ethanol and other alternative fuels have driven up food prices causing those in the third world to starve. People in forest rich areas are being made refugees or killed so they don’t clear their land for crops and farm land.
I fail to see how contributing to the death, homelessness, assault, of people now is going to mitigate any sin for a potential harm to people in the future.

 

[Raskolnikov]

The problem here is that there don’t seem to be many practical and feasible ways to reduce carbon gasses. You can buy for example, a nice new inverter compressor driven refrigerator with an AAA energy rating throwing out your equally good 5 year old fridge. Now the thrown out fridge will contribute to pollution too, meanwhile the manufacture and development plus the ad campaign for the inverter driven fridge cost a lot of CO2 too. The nett effect is probably one of increased CO2 production.
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That’s not entirely true. Most anthropogenic CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels, and the single greatest source of that is from fossil fuel driven vehicles. And there is no way you can claim that even close to the amount of gas Americans burn per year is necessary. Other societies with standards of living equal to ours do fine with burning far less.

Also, scientific improvements are continually being made for CO2 filters. Eventually they could be able to remove enough CO2 from the air to make drastic alterations in our lifestyles unnecessary.

The whole AGW CO2 tax thing also seems to be a money making racket. Al Gore himself uses more CO2 than George Bush on his ranch, and he jetsets around creating unnecessary CO2, instead going about things in a more humble way.

And what pray tell does that have to do with AGW? AGW=Al Gore? Does Fred Phelps=Christianity? No. The truth does not depend on the behavior of those who claim to believe it for its value.

Then sometimes pro-environment interventions can be deadly for people. Take DDT for example. Millions die from malaria and those deaths could be prevented if we allowed Africans to use DDT. Millions of African children suffer while fat cat non-Africans talk of how much good they do for the environment by having banned DDT. It’s not only racism but it borders on ethnic cleansing.

This is a tremendous falsity that has unfortunately become very popular in fringes of the blogosphere. The banning of DDT had less to do with environmentalists than you seem to think. By the 1960s and 1970s, most mosquito populations had become mostly resistant to DDT (all the non-DDT resistant ones had of course been killed, and those who acquired the favorable adaptation of resistance survived and prospered.) DDT was quickly becoming useless, and so other means were sought out. DDT alone, however, had pretty much run its course. Today, a combination of methods and chemicals (some of which are both more effective and safer than DDT) are used, much like anti-biotic “cocktails” of drugs are used to combat infectious diseases to prevent the viruses from becoming resistant to one and escaping the clearing of the immune system.

The idea that millions of Africans would not be dying of malaria if DDT were used more than it is used (it is still used some) is simply a myth. You referenced a ban on DDT, but DDT was banned in the US in 1972; not a worldwide ban. And it is not the US that has a malaria problem. Most African countries stopped using it mainly for the reasons mentioned above. They are free to resume using it if they want to, and some expect that some countries may do so in the coming years. Deltamethrin, however, is one example of an alternative that is roughly as cost efficient as DDT. Essentially, the appropriation of the cause of malaria-stricken children by anti-environmentalists is mostly nonsense.

 

[Raskolnikov]

Indeed, governmental policies designed to mitigate “global warming” are already killing people. Subsidies for ethanol and other alternative fuels have driven up food prices causing those in the third world to starve. People in forest rich areas are being made refugees or killed so they don’t clear their land for crops and farm land.
I fail to see how contributing to the death, homelessness, assault, of people now is going to mitigate any sin for a potential harm to people in the future.

Rice feeds over abillion people, and rice producers are facing increasing strains from gradual changes in the climate. Over the course of coming decades, foods that feed billions of people will continue to become more expensive, enough to make the effects of ethanol subsidies negligible.

Also, if you care so much about people in third world countries, try driving your car less, or supporting taxes on cars that consume excessive amounts of gas. Try wasting as little food and other resources as possible. These actions would be far more meaningful than ethanol subsidies.

Also note that that there is another side to your logic. If other alternative energy sources were developed more, ethanol subsidies wouldn’t be as needed. Also, if you want to blame environmentalists for high corn prices, do you blame fat people and cigarette smokers for high healthcare costs? How many people do you reckon their choices kill per year? And unlike alternative energy sources, they are not mitigate a serious problem that, if not handled, will surely kill many people in the future.