What level of responsibility do you feel for the negative impacts of anthropogenic climate change?

[Kathryn_Ann]

Oh, I WISH I were able to grow my own veggies! . But no, that’s one of things I’m NOT any good at doing . But I try to do what I can. Even though, as Farsight001 stated, we as individuals can’t stop climate change - there needs to be change on a much bigger scale. But still I think we have an obligation to do what we CAN to minimize our negative impact on the planet. I’m so glad there are people like you, & 4elise, & others who get it!!

Oh, yes, :angel1:I see, you had said "other than grow my own vegetables!" But you are so right, from personal impact, we can make a difference! We used to grow lots of vegetables and may try it again. We can still do other things. Decisions we make every day might seem small, but what if everyone:yyeess: recycled and also contacted their representatives to make them know they are held accountable? I too am glad to see there are people here who care enough to do something that will make a difference! Awareness:getholy::heaven: is the best beginning.

 

[4elise]

I think this is the issue of the century that has the most potential to force humans to change the way we live. We are extremely wasteful and in many cases indifferent about the damage we are doing to the climate only because its more convenient. From the way food is sold to the kind of fuel we use this could all change. Unfortunately it will take more and more cataclysmic disasters to force change and the ones who will suffer the most are always the ones who have the least.

This is an issue that I hope the new Pope takes the lead firmly on this and advocates for it around the world and steer the church to be more vocal on environmental and animal rights issues. Its where the Catholic church is and should be.

My hope as well BigBlueCane - when I heard his name Francis I also thought of care for God’s great gift of creation! And I couldn’t have said it better 'The Church is and should be (the leader on this issue).

 

[4elise]

The problem with climate change is not because of human carbon emissions. There’s no correlation between human CO2 and atmospheric CO2 or the temperatures; most of the warming is due to oceanic temperature fluctuations. But the problem is that we’re taking away the earth’s natural ability to deal with all of the CO2, whether human or natural–through deforestation. Our destruction of the forests, especially the Amazon, is eating away at the lungs of our planet.

Deforestation is a huge anthroprogenic factor - what would you propose is the appropriate personal response to this issue?

 

[4elise]

youtube.com/watch?v=HQ5u-l9Je0s&feature=player_embedded

Thank you for the excellent topic and opportunity for discussion. The above link from the late Carl Sagan has merit, especially for me, since I’m not a scientist.

I do look to Our Lord Christ for His example of humility in all things. Because of that, I look to scientists and their research to help me. From a (scientific) layperson’s point of view, it seems that the tragedy of deforestation is key. Also key are industrial and chemical pollutions and lack of ability to get more things like electric cars (or alternative fuel use vehicles) on the road. I’m concerned for our water supplies. I’m concerned for the generations which come after us. I want them to know that I did something to help and didn’t ignore the signs. We have to work both on a personal scale and also demand more of our representatives in Congress and those who vote on a global scale.

Each person can do something on a small scale: Recycling, using the best fuel-efficient vehicle, saving water, growing vegetable gardens, buying organic foods, educating ourselves and others on the subjects of global warming and pollution are a start.

On a larger scale, we can make our elected representatives be accountable to us. Phone calls and letters as well as votes may help send a message to Washington and the world when the decision- makers go to international conferences to vote on what is and what is not acceptable as far as pollutant levels. How we deal with countries who refuse to cut back on fuel consumption is important.

Laws* can* help bring back polluted rivers and prevent more major de-forestation, but laws are made by humans, and we vote for these representatives to speak for us nationally and internationally.

We can send a message that we’re willing to sacrifice in our personal lives, and that we expect our elected officials to listen to us.

Anyone with children or grandchildren wants a better world for the generations that follow because we feel we have a personal stake in the future. Following Christ’s example of humility, we can each take some personal responsibility when we are using water, electricity and fuel for our cars. Do we carpool? Do we pay attention to our use of utilities and water?

On the larger scale, we can be activists and demand that our representatives have a plan to cut down on global pollution. Personal letters, blogs, phone calls to elected official do more than people might think. One thing we cannot do is ignore all the signs.

Well said - we have both personal responsibility and in striving to make changes on a larger scale ensure we are electing leaders who recognize the gravity of this issue.

 

[4elise]

IMO, this is certainly a good starting point that I think people could start doing something about even if they aren’t sure about whether human pollution is causing climate issues. There are so many good things that forests do for us. They provide the air cleaning, as you described, they protect biodiversity and habitats, and they are God’s magnificent and beautiful creation.
…

I love you viva el papa sign!

God’s beautiful gift of creation can certainly be helped if deforestration is slowed down… and this is an issue on a global scale - do you think there is anything we should be doing as individuals that could make an impact?

 

[4elise]

No doubt. God somehow placed a lot of oil under the sands of Arabia, and I expect that he wants us to use it wisely, as well as the oil shale in North America and the oil in Alaska. He told Adam and Eve that they could eat of any tree in the Garden, but not of the tree in the middle of the Garden. I don’t think he put any other resources strictly off limits.

I am curious if you think that we are only subject to the limitations found in scripture?

 

[JimG]

I am curious if you think that we are only subject to the limitations found in scripture?

Not at all. The world is more complicated than that. It’s also more complicated than most environmentalists probably assume. And it is not just a closed, limited, system. Did God give us just the earth, or also the universe?

Back when kerosene was the primary fuel for lighting, wells from which it was obtained sometimes produced lighter and more volatile liquids, akin to gasoline. Those were discarded as too volatile to be useful. Then Henry Ford mass produced the automobile, providing a use for them.

Uranium can be used as a fuel, and so can other elements, artificially produced in breeder reactors. That’s a resource that was never even considered for thousands of years.
,
When we speak of protecting the environment, which environment exactly do we mean? The environment as it was in 500 BC? In 6,000 BC? The environment as it was in 1100AD? The environment as it was on the day we were born? Is it better for the planet to have average weather that is one degree warmer or one degree cooler?

Do we really think that humans have the capacity to micromanage the planetary environment, and sufficient knowledge to know that we are managing it in a beneficial rather than in a negative way? If we really want to manage the environment, ultimately, we will have to be able to stop asteroid strikes, and manage solar storms.

But if we destroy the global economy while trying to accomplish something that may or may not be beneficial, in the process reducing people to subsistence living, what will we have accomplished?

 

[jonathan_hili]

I think it’s a big wake-up call, that was a long time coming. Since the Industrial Revolution the West, and now developing nations too, have really abandoned proper stewardship of the planet for easy profits and comfortable lifestyles. I’ve been living in China for the last four months and believe me, if you want to see environmental degradation, it’s all around. Cities are so polluted, you practically choke while walking down the street, visibility is poor, and waterways are littered with rubbish.

Governments, private organisations, and individuals need to work together to improve the situation.

Even if climate change were natural or not occurring, I would still support moves to improve our environmental situation, polluting less and planting more. There is a thirst for beauty in the world and for too long we have been burying the beauty of nature under concrete, oil and steel.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh, yes, :angel1:I see, you had said "other than grow my own vegetables!" But you are so right, from personal impact, we can make a difference! We used to grow lots of vegetables and may try it again. We can still do other things. Decisions we make every day might seem small, but what if everyone:yyeess: recycled and also contacted their representatives to make them know they are held accountable? I too am glad to see there are people here who care enough to do something that will make a difference! Awareness:getholy::heaven: is the best beginning.

I don’t know that growing our own vegetables will have any kind of impact on MMGW if, in fact, it exists. It might be satisfying in other ways, however.

I am not a believer in MMGW as caused by fossil fuels, for all the reasons people give. I am at least tentatively impressed, however, by a fellow who maintains that we are creating huge “heat sinks”…bigger than the “heat sinks” that are our cities, on the grasslands of the world, through desertification.

Deserts absorb tremendous heat under sunlight and release it into the atmosphere during the nighttime. Grasses and other earth covers dramatically reduce this by shading the ground and by cooling the air through evaporation from leaves, stems, etc.

Desertification is somewhat difficult to appreciate because most of us don’t see it at all, and when we do see it, we often think it’s just natural in some places. We do know, however, that a great deal of China is undergoing desertification through improvident uses of the land. We know that during the “Dust Bowl” era, a lot of the West desertified, at least for a time.

I’m not persuaded MMGW exists in any form, but I am impressed by any efforts to conserve energy that do not cause human suffering, and by efforts to make the earth more productive that might indirectly reduce “global warming”.

And so, I was impressed by the following, perhaps particularly because I have direct experience of desertification and the differences between the “heat sink” effect of bare land versus land with generous vegetation. This man’s emphasis is not so much on global warming as it is on returning desertified land into productive land. And it’s not some crack-brained thing about irrigating the Sahara either.
ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html

 

[lynnvinc]

…Truth be told, there’s not much the individual can do.

That’s true on a material level. It’s like a meaningless drop in the bucket that we’ve reduced our GHG emissions by over 60% below our 1990 emissions (cost-effectively & laughing all the way to the bank). And we are just beginning – putting up solar panels next. But still a tiny drop of nothingness.

However, something Mother Teresa said and my own Carmelite spirituality inspired me to develop “the Little Way of Environmental Healing.”

What Mother Teresa said is, “It does not matter how much or how little you do, as long as you do it with love, because your love makes it infinite.” And Teresa of Avila said in Interior Castle, “The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works, as at the love with which they are done.”

It’s sort of a spiritual calculus that makes no sense in the material world. But I’ve seen it work in practical terms, as well. Here’s a little story: in 1972 my husband needed me to type his 350 page dissertation – I could hardly type, and he couldn’t type at all. If he had presented me with 350 pages I would have balked and refused, but what he did was give me some 2 or 3 pages at a time, and it was a real struggle for me (out of love for him and wifely duty) to type them on our manual typewriter, with me typing less than 10 words a minute. He did that for months and months. At the end there was his dissertation AND I had learned to type!

So we have to start with baby steps – what is easy, what we can do without much effort or cost, even things that save money. That’s how we started mitigating ACC back in 1990. There have been times of frustration and back-sliding, but with this little prayer, I kept forging ahead:

“My God, I offer you this day all I think and do and say, to unite it with what on earth was done by Jesus Christ Your Son.”

It sort of helps break the ice. It’s like “carbon-offsetting,” with God getting all the credits.

…Unless we as a society become more conscious about it, nothing is going to change because so many rules prevent progress. A bill was even just proposed in Kansas that would make it illegal to give financial assistance to companies building buildings with sustainability. So not only are people denying the very real danger before us, but they are beginning to actively fight against it. (and with no real reason, either)

Very demoralizing, and I think perhaps the work of Satan or just fallen human nature. And I think there ARE reasons. Check out if Koch or ALEC (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALEC & thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/02/475270/alecs-top-five-anti-environment-model-laws/) money or influence or other such sources are behind it. I’ve also heard about such attacks throughout the country – someone like ALEC has convinced many town halls across the nation that if they do anything to help the environment – like creating bicycle lanes or making cities more energy/resource efficient/conservative, etc. – the communists will take over.

But we just have to keep on the “Little Way of Environmental Healing,” with the hope that good will triumph over evil. We have to be good, even if others around us are not.

Bless you for your help and insights.

 

[lynnvinc]

No doubt. God somehow placed a lot of oil under the sands of Arabia, and I expect that he wants us to use it wisely…

And He also put a lot of rocks on earth, which we used to make spears, arrowheads, and axes for nearly 2 million years. But we didn’t give up making tools out of rocks because we ran out of rocks, but because we found other, better, more effective and efficient materials.

Likewise, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain [energy efficiency] Institute claims that we won’t be giving up on oil and coal because we run out, but because there are better ways to accomplish the same ends more efficiently, conservatively, and with much less harm to the environment and ourselves – right now and off-the-shelf. He figures we can reduce our national energy use by 75% cost-effectively & without lowering productivity, and has many examples of industries doing just that.

I think we are on the brink of a new and better energy/resource/economic system that will drastically reduce our environmental harm – if we can get past the dinosaur fossil fuel industry influence that is blocking our efforts to forge ahead. They won’t stop vigorously fighting against every good step we take – that’s now apparent – but we need to have courage and be bold to forge ahead on a much better, much-less-harmful-to-life path. God will help, if we call upon Him. The greatest need is for prayer.

 

[JimG]

And He also put a lot of rocks on earth, which we used to make spears, arrowheads, and axes for nearly 2 million years. But we didn’t give up making tools out of rocks because we ran out of rocks, but because we found other, better, more effective and efficient materials.

Likewise, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain [energy efficiency] Institute claims that we won’t be giving up on oil and coal because we run out, but because there are better ways to accomplish the same ends more efficiently, conservatively, and with much less harm to the environment and ourselves – right now and off-the-shelf. He figures we can reduce our national energy use by 75% cost-effectively & without lowering productivity, and has many examples of industries doing just that.
I think we are on the brink of a new and better energy/resource/economic system that will drastically reduce our environmental harm – if we can get past the dinosaur fossil fuel industry influence that is blocking our efforts to forge ahead. They won’t stop vigorously fighting against every good step we take – that’s now apparent – but we need to have courage and be bold to forge ahead on a much better, much-less-harmful-to-life path. God will help, if we call upon Him. The greatest need is for prayer.

And if that’s the case, industries will certainly continue to do that, just as they switched from kerosene to electricity for lighting.

 

[lynnvinc]

And if that’s the case, industries will certainly continue to do that, just as they switched from kerosene to electricity for lighting.

Not really. You’d be surprised at how unaware businesses in general are of financially helpful environmental opportunities.

I was preparing for a Business & Environment course about 15 years ago. 3M sent me a video of their 3P (Pollution Prevention Pays) program – which has saved them $millions while greatly reducing their pollution well below EPA standards.

What happened was some new EPA standards were going to kick in within a few years, so the CEO sent out a message to all employees from managers, to engineers, line-workers, janitors, etc to find the least expensive ways to meet those standards – figuring meeting those reqs was going to cost 3M big bucks to meet.

Well, they came up with solutions that actually saved 3M a great deal of money. When the CEO asked why they hadn’t come up with those solutions earlier, since they just made plain old economic sense, they responded that the question had not been put to them that way.

I have other examples as well of businesses striving to meet new enviro regs actually coming up with measures that not only greatly reduce their pollution, but also save them a bundle.

Then there are companies who go out of business due to competition bec they couldn’t, for instance, save 1 penny on a gal of ice cream; and they could have saved much more if they had become energy/resource efficient/conservative, if they had only known or put their mind to it.

People and business just are not looking in the various environmental places for great savings – at least not very much.

 

[JimG]

Not really. You’d be surprised at how unaware businesses in general are of financially helpful environmental opportunities.

I was preparing for a Business & Environment course about 15 years ago. 3M sent me a video of their 3P (Pollution Prevention Pays) program – which has saved them $millions while greatly reducing their pollution well below EPA standards.

What happened was some new EPA standards were going to kick in within a few years, so the CEO sent out a message to all employees from managers, to engineers, line-workers, janitors, etc to find the least expensive ways to meet those standards – figuring meeting those reqs was going to cost 3M big bucks to meet.

Well, they came up with solutions that actually saved 3M a great deal of money. When the CEO asked why they hadn’t come up with those solutions earlier, since they just made plain old economic sense, they responded that the question had not been put to them that way.

I have other examples as well of businesses striving to meet new enviro regs actually coming up with measures that not only greatly reduce their pollution, but also save them a bundle.

Then there are companies who go out of business due to competition bec they couldn’t, for instance, save 1 penny on a gal of ice cream; and they could have saved much more if they had become energy/resource efficient/conservative, if they had only known or put their mind to it.

People and business just are not looking in the various environmental places for great savings – at least not very much.

So they saved money by anticipating regulations. It sounds great, but I think you may have more faith in the wisdom of regulators than I do.

 

[jilly4ski]

Not really. You’d be surprised at how unaware businesses in general are of financially helpful environmental opportunities.

I was preparing for a Business & Environment course about 15 years ago. 3M sent me a video of their 3P (Pollution Prevention Pays) program – which has saved them $millions while greatly reducing their pollution well below EPA standards.

What happened was some new EPA standards were going to kick in within a few years, so the CEO sent out a message to all employees from managers, to engineers, line-workers, janitors, etc to find the least expensive ways to meet those standards – figuring meeting those reqs was going to cost 3M big bucks to meet.

Well, they came up with solutions that actually saved 3M a great deal of money. When the CEO asked why they hadn’t come up with those solutions earlier, since they just made plain old economic sense, they responded that the question had not been put to them that way.

I have other examples as well of businesses striving to meet new enviro regs actually coming up with measures that not only greatly reduce their pollution, but also save them a bundle.

Then there are companies who go out of business due to competition bec they couldn’t, for instance, save 1 penny on a gal of ice cream; and they could have saved much more if they had become energy/resource efficient/conservative, if they had only known or put their mind to it.

People and business just are not looking in the various environmental places for great savings – at least not very much.

You are praising 3M who destroyed many local eco-systems, including water and drinking sources?

startribune.com/business/174662751.html?refer=y

The state alleges in its case that 3M contaminated groundwater sources and stretches of the Mississippi River over 50 years through the release of perfluorochemicals (PFCs).

And a more informative article on the pollution. minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/12/30/swanson-suit-3m

 

[manualman]

My take on fossil fuel CO2 emissions is that the hysterical focus on this issue alone is similar to people wringing their hands and demanding laws and policies be enacted against New Orleans drunks from peeing off the levee during hurricanes since it could contribute to elevated water levels and subsequent overtopping of those levees!

In short, we’ve got screwy priorities and a false sense of certainty regarding the nature of the problem. We simply don’t understand global climatic systems well enough to be making the pronouncements that people have been making. Is something happening? Sure! How big is it, how far will it go and what are the relative sizes of the drivers? Nobody really knows.

Projections all come from computer models. Those computer models have thousands of (name removed by moderator)ut variables that are adjusted based on judgement and opinion so that they’ve (at last) started to come close to making past computer models project similar temperature changes to what we’ve actually seen in recent years. From there, they manage to keep a straight face and project these models forward 100 years or more and then hit the panic button (and demand massive research funding increases, of course). I once heard an Oxford Climatology phd give a presentation about the AGM model projections. He found them to be “interesting, but useless.” Journalists almost NEVER read past the executive summary in technical papers, so they don’t notice that these model projections generally include a systematic error analysis in the fine print. To date, these models are still so sloppy that the 99% confidence interval for systematic error ranges from massive global temperature increases to medium temperature DECREASES. In other words, the systematic error swamps the actual trend predicted. “Interesting, but useless.” Funny how we never hear that from CNN.

Meanwhile, most US cities still have regular incidences of combined sewer overflows into local lakes and rivers (i.e. poop in the lakes), we’re refusing permit to build safe oil pipeline with the result that much riskier train tanker cars get used, governments are requiring that stores provide 3 times as many parking stalls as they need and we think we’re being green by imposing manufacturing regulations that result in dirty manufacturing moving to China and THEN shipping it halfway across the world to your local Walmart. Our current regulatory system is so inefficient that it is often self-destructive and all we can do is clamor for more? How about we prioritize hazards we KNOW are real rather than those we imagine might be?

 

[_Abyssinia]

Climate changes all the time naturally as it done for millions of years before their were factories or cars emitting pollution

The science on this is not decided. There is mixed opinion

Climate Change Professor at Leeds University, Piers Forster says

The fact that global surface temperatures haven’t risen in the last 15 years, combined with good knowledge of the terms changing climate, make the high estimates unlikely

Met Office scale back global warming forecast

 

[manualman]

I think we are on the brink of a new and better energy/resource/economic system that will drastically reduce our environmental harm – if we can get past the dinosaur fossil fuel industry influence that is blocking our efforts to forge ahead.

Here’s where I’m with you. From where I sit, it looks to me like we need to fight a trillion dollar war about every 15 years in order to keep a “cheap oil” global economy running smoothly. And yet none of that shows up in the cost of the oil itself. This is functionally an artificial subsidy. (Yeah, yeah, Iraq was about WMDs and freedom. Tell it to the North Koreans.)

I’m not one that says we should advance “new” energy sources via subsidies and I oppose things like the hybrid tax credit and similar. But I also think that costs related to oil dependancy should be reflected in the cost of OIL so that the free markets DO eventually favor alternatives when they become viable. Our current approach artificially suppresses the cost of oil dependency and that can’t last much longer (we can’t afford the next trillion dollar war).

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here’s where I’m with you. From where I sit, it looks to me like we need to fight a trillion dollar war about every 15 years in order to keep a “cheap oil” global economy running smoothly. And yet none of that shows up in the cost of the oil itself. This is functionally an artificial subsidy. (Yeah, yeah, Iraq was about WMDs and freedom. Tell it to the North Koreans.)

One who feels this way should take comfort in the fact that Obama is turning the whole Middle East over to the Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood. Then, Europe can get its oil from Russia and China can get it from the Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood. India can get it from wherever it can.

But the U.S. doesn’t need Middle Eastern oil, and hasn’t for years and years.

 

[lynnvinc]

You are praising 3M who destroyed many local eco-systems, including water and drinking sources?

startribune.com/business/174662751.html?refer=y

And a more informative article on the pollution. minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/12/30/swanson-suit-3m

You are very right. 3M is horrendous on environmental issues, which is why even more and stiffer regulations are so important – and stronger enforcement.

Some energy & environmental experts estimate that companies such as 3M could be saving a lot more by doing the EC (environmentally correct) things, and then that money could be plowed into doing the expensive stuff to reduce their harms. Or passing the cost to consumers. I wouldn’t mind paying more for things if I though the company was doing less harm.

We customers have the choice of “boycotting” products from harmful companies. Like I don’t buy gas from Citgo, bec they’ve really done foul deeds in Corpus Christi, harming people’s health, nor from Exxon for its climate change denial campaigns. Well with our Chevy Volt I don’t really buy much gas from any company – just some 26 gallons its first year.

And we can “buycott” - buy products from companies that do less environmental harm. See naturallifemagazine.com/1004/ethical_consumerism_boycotts_buycotts.htm