General / Off-Topic Is man made climate change real or not? Prove your belief here.

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On the planet's capacity, this is an intersting view. On a side note, I quite like The Conversation, usually useful and unhyped academic exchange, but talking straight.

The article mentions some very important aspects, like the general lack of understanding of the exponential function and its consequences in a dynamic closed system. The main reason I even began looking at these matters was Albert Bartlett, after a friend of mine suggested that I saw Bartlett's excellent lecture on "Arithmetic, Population and Energy".

It's a "long" lecture so here's a teaser, were Bartlett gives an interesting example, using his very dry sense of humor:

Source: https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=1336

If everybody saw this video and understood it, which isn't really that complicated as Bartlett sarcastically notes, I think we would be a lot more aware of our current situation.
 
We give out plenty of benefits here in America, but it's to the people having baby's in the form of welfare. Not that Americans, statistically speaking, are part of the population "problem," just putting that out there because we all know that nobody in the areas where there are massive population booms is going to voluntarily dial it back. Every rock solid environmentalist on this thread knows darn well that population must be CONTROLLED and that it must be implemented by a governmental force "for the good of the planet." Hence my formula environmentalist>population control>police state.

You show me a single person who claims to actually think we have a climate crisis who doesn't believe population control should be implemented by some sort of one world order and I'll show you a person who doesn't have the balls to publicly stand by their convictions.
The government here in Norway and probably many other European counties are encouraging people to have more children. There is broad political agreement that this is necessary to secure economic growth and have an age balanced population.
From a socioeconomic perspective this is correct. We are on the other hand among the heaviest consumers of energy. A child born in Norway will probably consume 10 times the resources compared to a child in a really poor country. It's not a very sustainable approach.

I think the common conspiracy idea that the 'rich and powerful' want to reduce the worlds population by some sinister plan, has reality upside down. Most wealthy people and powerful politicians are mostly concerned with relatively short therm economic growth. For them it's positive with more working people and more consumers. It's not a sinister plot. It's just practicality.
 
Only a totalitarian state can control population by law. It would would require sterilizing those that has reached their quota on kids.
What you can do is to give benefits to those that keep their reproductive instincts in check.
I think that a financial taxation and the abolition of family allowances for the children who exceed the quota would be necessary to deter the egoists who do not know how to moderate themselves.
 
It's a "long" lecture so here's a teaser, were Bartlett gives an interesting example, using his very dry sense of humor:

cough cough.. I used to exchange letters with Al, still have an email from him, framed in my studio. Proud to have known him, outstanding teacher and human being!

Yes, I can not recommend these lectures enough if people did not see them before, entertaining, and perhaps an eyeopener to some. I suggest if they were an eyeopener to you, share them with 10 people you know, and ask them to do the same. Every little helps.
 
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cough cough.. I used to exchange letters with Al, still have an email from him, framed in my studio. Proud to have known him, outstanding teacher and human being!

Yes, I can not recommend these lectures enough if people did not see them before, entertaining, and perhaps an eyeopener to some. I suggest if they were an eyeopener to you, share them with 10 people you know, and ask them to do the same. Every little helps.
I have already shared it more than 10 times :)

Bartlett's simple to follow logic has been quite an eyeopener for me, and it has influenced my work ever since. I hope he can see that, where ever he is now.

A similar hero to me was M. King Hubbert. That guy was slightly ahead of his time. It took me some time to accept the consequences of what he said, because so many argue against him using demand and supply, but once you understand the way global ecology works, and start modelling the system, it becomes obvious that they are wrong to a degree that almost seems suspicious. One example is the R/P model being used:


That shows that they simply haven't understood what Hubbert and Bartlett said. You cannot assume that the future production is constant when it has been exponentially growing until now. That is an extrapolation which is criminally wrong, and it makes predictions of reserve's lifetimes dishonestly wrong.
 
I think the common conspiracy idea that the 'rich and powerful' want to reduce the worlds population by some sinister plan, has reality upside down. Most wealthy people and powerful politicians are mostly concerned with relatively short therm economic growth. For them it's positive with more working people and more consumers. It's not a sinister plot. It's just practicality.

Shortsightedness isn't practicality.

That said, I don't think there is any conspiracy, people simply don't care what happens to others, no matter how fashionable it is to pretend otherwise. This is often counterbalanced by most people tending to realize, on some level, that what's bad for others is usually also bad for them.

However, the rich are in a rather unique position. Many of the problems that will kill others en masse, and significantly degrade the standards of living of many more, will barely touch them, or could well result in opportunities to enrich themselves and their dynasties. In any eventuality short of a nuclear war they will be able to keep most negative effects entirely out of sight and out of mind, and make a killing in the process.

It's not a case of deliberately trying to damage society as much as short-selling it.
 
However, the rich are in a rather unique position. Many of the problems that will kill others en masse, and significantly degrade the standards of living of many more, will barely touch them, or could well result in opportunities to enrich themselves and their dynasties.
I think that is a common misconception. A global collapse will affect anyone under a certain age, even people that are not considered "young" today. Basically, when the manure hits the fan, everyone is to his own. You will have rights to whatever you can cling onto, while defending yourself with the other hand. That includes the rich, and it will probably be an "easier" task for someone who has been used to live on the street from whatever they could find in the garbage.

 
You cannot assume that the future production is constant when it has been exponentially growing until now. That is an extrapolation which is criminally wrong, and it makes predictions of reserve's lifetimes dishonestly wrong.

Oh, they can assume a lot indeed ;) even grab a nobel price for wrong assumptions, in fact they assume all day long!

Myron Scholes, Robert Merton, John Meriwether, LTCM, Long Term Capital Management for example.

I have little to zero time for most Economists from a scientific perspective, to me they are the high priests of a quasi religious cult, dawdling in the halls of power, armed with their bibles of Hayek or Keynes adn Adam Smith, and essentially they are the system shills and brought us into the situation we all will face now.
 
I think that is a common misconception. A global collapse will affect anyone under a certain age, even people that are not considered "young" today. Basically, when the manure hits the fan, everyone is to his own. You will have rights to whatever you can cling onto, while defending yourself with the other hand. That includes the rich, and it will probably be an "easier" task for someone who has been used to live on the street from whatever they could find in the garbage.

I don't think it's a misconception at all.

The crappier a time or place, the better off the rich are relative to the poor, generally speaking. When the manure hits the fan, it's the wealthy that will have stock piles of resources to trade, people beholden to them for survival, and who will already be squatters on the best real estate.

Someone's who has had to live on the streets will be sharing those streets with that many more and they'll be fighting over less. The rich will still have their ivory towers, will still be able to arm and feed their security forces, will still be able to buy loyalty (with food, shelter, and protection rather than dollars), and will have fewer systems around keeping their power in check.

Even if money vanished off the face of the Earth, tangible wealth would not. What someone with real resources can cling onto and their capacity to defend it, are vastly higher than the overwhelming majority of individuals.
 
Shortsightedness isn't practicality.

That said, I don't think there is any conspiracy, people simply don't care what happens to others, no matter how fashionable it is to pretend otherwise. This is often counterbalanced by most people tending to realize, on some level, that what's bad for others is usually also bad for them.

However, the rich are in a rather unique position. Many of the problems that will kill others en masse, and significantly degrade the standards of living of many more, will barely touch them, or could well result in opportunities to enrich themselves and their dynasties. In any eventuality short of a nuclear war they will be able to keep most negative effects entirely out of sight and out of mind, and make a killing in the process.

It's not a case of deliberately trying to damage society as much as short-selling it.
The poor are always complaining about something.
 
It seems weird to me that so many people picture an environmentally linked "collapse" as something that's going to be like a switch being thrown, as opposed to a long, steady grind where Morbad's point makes some sense. The scenarios where things happen quickly effecting "rich and poor alike" are going to be something along the lines of an apocalyptic meteorite strike, or a global pandemic, not the climate crisis (God, I cringe even writing that in such a way that makes it look like I think there will actually BE one in the near future).
 
This nice observation is true - up to a certain point. What mankind will face in a not so far future is far beyond most people's imagination. All your resources and defences will be moot by then. And if your life in a bunker is still be worthy to live is another question. This will be the time where you also will hear the riches crying, while the poor ones are somehow used to suffer.

Being poor doesn't make someone more resilient to misfortune, it makes them more vulnerable to it. At every conceivable level, they have less to fall back on. Fewer social support systems, fewer tangible resources, lower mobility, and, should it come to it, even fewer stored nutrients to fall back on when the going gets really rough.

When things get bad enough to threaten the creature comforts of the wealthy, the poor are already eating each other, or laying dead from famine. Doesn't matter how used to suffering one is; stoicism has a calorie content of zero.

Look at the historical death rates of any disaster of attrition by demographic; by and large, it's not the wealthy that die. Plague was occasionally the exception (though malnutrition certainly makes the poor more vulnerable to disease), but since the germ theory of disease, even that occasional equalizer is no more.

I can't say for certain how bad things will get, but I do know that those with the most resources will stand the best chance of weathering whatever comes, and those with nothing will be the first to die.
 
I think that is a common misconception. A global collapse will affect anyone under a certain age, even people that are not considered "young" today. Basically, when the manure hits the fan, everyone is to his own. You will have rights to whatever you can cling onto, while defending yourself with the other hand. That includes the rich, and it will probably be an "easier" task for someone who has been used to live on the street from whatever they could find in the garbage.

That’s why it’s always a good idea to be self sustainable, you don’t need to be rich to do that, it’s also a good idea to be armed 😀

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Rant mode on:
I think that the OP's opening question is flawed.

"Prove your belief here" in itself is textbook living-death oxymoron.

That being said, the longer I listen and observe the discussions around climate change in the greater public, the more I am reminded to the heretics vs. conformists.

To me personally, I have no need to prove anything that I know to be objective and verifiable, reliably accounted for, hence factual, all the rest is down to individual perception, always, hence the next person will perceive planck time different than I. ;)

Belief in contrast is a faith based system, and should not be brought into the equation when we wish to exchange on the issue of climate change in my opinion.

In the heretics vs conformists mindframe, curvature of spacetime could be considered a heretic belief thus to be eradicated by the inquisitors by all means. The conformists now would ask the heretic for prove of his belief, and the heretic dumps a 20 pound granit on the conformists foot, stating this to be an example for curvature of spacetime. Result ---> Heretic burning at stake! ;)

This is the current level that I perceive in the public discussion, and it is hyped by media and of course the forces at play that wish to deflect from accountabilities by playing the heretics card.

Rant mode off
 
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