Face it, nothing substantial is going to be done about climate change until it is too late

[MadHound]

The sad fact of the matter is that we've put long term health of this Earth into the hands of people who are, by their very nature, short term thinkers and planners. Politicians don't think, or act, on results twenty, thirty, one hundred years out. They think two, four, or at most a decade out. Their actions are always done with at least one eye out for their political good.

While some might make some pious noise about tackling the problem of global climate change, and a few might even take a stab at minor corrective actions, the broad scope and seriousness of the problem is never going to be fully addressed as long as we leave it in the hands of elected officials.

We should have started building a green energy infrastructure thirty years ago, and yet it is just within the past decade that such an infrastructure was even brought to the public debate. We have a president who says he wants to steer this country towards green energy, yet presented with a golden opportunity to create green energy jobs, he is instead limiting his job creation proposals to infrastructure.

Sad to say, but whatever is going to be done to alleviate global climate change is going to have to be done by individuals, you and I. Government is going to do little, if anything about the problem, and outside a few noble and notable exceptions, neither is corporate America. Instead, we're going to continue whistling past the graveyard, burning more and more fossil fuels, enduring more and more natural disasters as the temperatures start to rise at an accelerated rate. The only time when something major is going to be done is when it is far too late.

So I suggest you make your preparations for such disasters, and even more strongly I suggest that you do whatever you can to alleviate global climate change. For it is up to you and I as individuals to get this done, since inherently government is not going to do this for us.

[Pisces]

1. It is already too late. We will wait to figure out how to counter global warming.

People don't want to discuss that prevention is no longer an option, now we will need to spend money on how to counter the inevitable.

[MadHound]

2. I disagree,

Yes, we're going to experience some effects of global climate change, but we can mitigate the severity and amount if we would start now on a crash program of going green.

Not to mention the fact that waiting figure out how to counter it is incredibly stupid. Again, something we need to start that sort of planning and work now.

[ThomCat]

8. But we're not going to start a crash program of growing green.

That would require political will that neither part has.

It would require businesses to all support the effort by all being suddenly, totally green, and that will never happen. If it costs money they will fight it tooth and nail. Many companies will spend far more money that going green would cost to avoid going green just because the executives are personally hostile to the whole concept of going green.

A crash program of going green would require a massive education program to get a critical percentage of the population involved, so that they can persuade the rest of the population to follow. That isn't happening, and I don't see it being allowed to happen. It would need to be implemented as a integrated part of all levels of formal education, and even a theme in entertainment programs so that it reached everyone.

We aren't going to do nearly enough to stop the damage and turn this problem around.

[jwirr]

10. You are right. I often think that oil depletion will be the only thing that

can save us from our own idiocy. Many of the actions that are making global climate change worse will not be possible then - mostly because we are also putting alternatives to oil, coal and nukes on hold until it is too late.

[Overseas]

21. And unfortunately, depletion includes fracking. More and more desperate measures

to squeeze out the last drops of oil.

[jwirr]

23. Exactly. We are building a whole new problem - not only climate

change, oil depletion but also a world we are destroying when we try to continue the status quo. It is going to much harder if we destroy the very globe we live on. What are we going to replace water with? Clean soil is vital. Clean air?

I have a lot of faith in our ability to survive climate change and oil depletion but NOT if we have actually destroyed the planet we depend on.

[truebrit71]

35. Nope. I have to disagree. If everyone on the planet stopped driving their cars, and shuttered...

...every single coal-fired power plant across the globe, we would STILL increase the temperature of the planet for at least the next 30 years...

What we are seeing now, is the effects of pollution from 30+ years ago...before India and China became massive industrial spewers of carbon...

We need to prepare on how to survive in a post- climate-change world, because the one we are living on today is already gone...

[BOHICA12]

28. Correct -we need to figure how to take advantage of the changes

Water capture, pipelines, longer growing seasons, seawalls, levies, etc.

On the wild side - Learn how to harness wind events, lightning events, flooding opportunities - it's time to make lemonade because we have the lemons now.

[deutsey]

34. Unfortunately, that's what I'm hearing more and more people saying

:evilfrown:

[SharonAnn]

3. Nowadays, we always wait until we're "past the point of no return".

We don't plan, vote, or act ahead of time.

We're just not capable of it any longer. What a disappointment.

My parents would really be disappointed with today's electorate. They grew up during the Depression, served during WWII, built careers and raised families while gladly paying taxes to support schools, roads, and defense. They new that many of the things they were paying for were not so much for them as for the future society they were trying to build.

Some of us still think like they did, but I run into more and more people who just can't seem to link the future reality of anything to actions we could/should/do take today.

[MedicalAdmin]

7. Winston Churchill once remarked that Americans will always

have the best, most effective solution to any given problem ... after trying every other solution first.

We have never been a proactive nation. And we won't be in this crisis. Leadership will come from somewhere else.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

4. Relevant quote:

~Man is a strange animal, he doesn't like to read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.~

Adlai Stevenson

[WCGreen]

5. Looking back at history, you can see it happening time after time..

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. Stevenson really got it...

[Fumesucker]

9. I always liked this line from Stevenson..

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to him, "You have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson called back, "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"

[progressoid]

32. And that's still true today.

[Javaman]

11. read this...

CLIMATE SHOCK: UC-Berkeley Scientist, Dr. John Harte, Puts the World on Notice

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltobias/2011/08/29/climate-shock-uc-berkeley-scientist-dr-john-harte-puts-the-world-on-notice/

>snip<

John Harte (JH): Climate science calculates what the future climate will look like using the basic laws of physics. The most trusted and largest group of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), summarizes the results of these calculations and concludes that under “business as usual” trends in fossil fuel consumption, by 2050 the planet will on average have warmed between 3 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit.

[pscot]

13. By then, large parts of the planet

will be uninhabitable. Texas is almost there already.

[Scuba]

12. I'll bet there's some defense contractors out there with some very expensive ideas. n/t

[bananas]

14. Joe Romm's expectations: "In phase 2, 2030 to 2050, after countless climate Pearl Harbors..."

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/01/10/207320/the-full-global-warming-solution-how-the-world-can-stabilize-at-350-to-450-ppm/

<snip>

Also, I tend to view the crucial next four decades in two phases. In the first phase 1, which I now expect begins circa 2020, the world finally gets serious about avoiding catastrophic global warming impacts (i.e. Hell and High Water). We increasingly embrace a rising price for carbon dioxide and a very aggressive technology deployment effort.

In phase 2, 2030 to 2050, after countless climate Pearl Harbors and the inevitable collapse of the Ponzi scheme we call the global economy, the world gets truly desperate, and actions that are not plausible today “” including widespread conservation “” become commonplace (see “Veterans Day, 2030” for a description of what that collapse might look like).

<snip>

As you said in the OP, "So I suggest you make your preparations for such disasters..."

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LoZoccolo]

16. People should not have voted for Ralph Nader. n/t

[bananas]

18. The failed presidency of Barack Obama

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/11/04/206982/the-failed-presidency-of-barack-obama-2/

The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2
By Joe Romm on Nov 4, 2010 at 4:26 pm

He let die our best chance to preserve a livable climate and restore US leadership in clean energy — without a serious fight

The country can only contemplate serious environmental legislation when we have the unique constellation of a Democratic president and (large) Democratic majorities in both houses, an occurrence far rarer than a total eclipse of the sun.

That’s from “One brief shining moment for clean energy,” my piece on the passage of the House climate bill last June.

Obama hasn’t merely failed to get a climate bill. Given the self-described (and self-inflicted) “shellacking” the president received Tuesday, he has made it all but impossible for a return to such an alignment of the stars this decade.

Indeed, he has, arguably, poisoned the well for the next president, not merely because of the “shellacking,” but also by his failure to use his bully pulpit to be an unabashed defender of climate and clean energy action. Team Obama helped create the broad-based misperception that those issues are political losers, in spite of every poll to the contrary, in spite of the fact that in the one place where a broad coalition combined with political leaders who were genuine climate hawks, Californians won the clean energy and climate trifecta, including a stunning 20-point win preserving their landmark cap-and-trade climate bill.

And so the chances have dropped sharply of averting multiple catastrophes post-2040 — widespread Dust-Bowlification; multi-feet sea level rise followed by SLR of 6 to 12+ inches a decade until the planet is ice free; massive species loss; the ocean turning into large, hot acidified dead zones; and ever-strengthening superstorms that bring devastation to country after country that equals or surpasses what happened to Moscow and Pakistan and Nashville and New Orleans.

<snip>

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Agreed

[FirstLight]

19. yep, i agree

and i think the models are far too lenient. So far the feedback loop has been faster than anticipated...so maybe trim that end date to 2025.

Too bad peak oil doesn't come crashing down hard and stop the madness in it's tracks.

don;t know what else to say...just be ready ...start your own alternatives now. solar, water capture, etc...

sad and scary, indeed.

what sucks more is that i have two small children and i am so sad they won't get to live in the same world i grew up in. If we live that long, i will be the grandmother telling them about extinct animals, etc...

[truebrit71]

36. I agree as well...the models are far too relaxed...

...when they initially started talking about an ice-free Arctic they used 2030-2050...I believe those have been re-configured by some to reflect the potential that it will be ice-free for at least part of the year THIS decade...

In this case, the old adage rings true "government isn't the solution, it's the problem"...it will be up to us individually to be prepared because the dummies on D.C. won't act until the Potomac is lapping at the steps of the Capitol Building...

[GliderGuider]

20. "That which would have to be done to avoid the crisis will be done only as its consequence."

Climate Change;
Peak Oil;
Financial collapse;
Oceanic overfishing;
Fresh water deletion;
...

OK, our backs are against the wall. What was it that handwriting said?

[BeFree]

33. Cute, Mr. Glider, really coy.

You know what the handwriting says, so why don't you just tell us?

Are you afraid you will scare the children?

[GliderGuider]

37. The handwriting said

"Take what you need. Leave some for others. Leave the world a better place than you found it. Be nice to each other." Not much scary about that is there? It would have been nice if we'd read it before we got to the end game. Now we just have to play the hand we dealt ourselves.

[neverforget]

22. If the climate would attack us, then we'd declare war on it and spend

whatever it takes to "win".

[some guy]

25. It is attacking us.

It's just not using weapons we traditionally think of as weapons of warcraft.

eta: In Japan, it started wielding nukes to the best of its ability.

[neverforget]

30. I know. I was just saying that seems to be the only way to grab politicians

attention and spend the necessary money to fix it.

[joshcryer]

24. I've been saying that for years now to the naysayers bitching about economics.

Nothing will be done, so how hard is it, if you're a free market freak, to accept that in the end it exists?

[jwirr]

26. So the consensus in this post is that it is going to be left up to the

grassroots to do what is needed on the small local level. If we make changes the others can follow when and if they wake up. If we do not do it - who will?

[GliderGuider]

27. +1 That's exactly what I think.

If we do not do it, no one will. This will not be addressed from the top down, but from the bottom up.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

29. Before it's too late?

The view from where I'm sitting it looks pretty much like the scene from a disaster flick.

People dying from weather related events. Check.

Eminent extinction of species in the wild within the next two years. Check.

Mass destruction from weather related events. Check.

Total failure of crops. Check.

Food prices skyrocketing. Check.

Running out of potable water. Check.

In my book that qualifies as too late. :(

[anarch]

31. Here's a hint: it's too late.

Now this species needs to learn how to live in the New Environment.

[GliderGuider]

39. I've always wondered about the phrase "too late", even when I've used it myself.

"Too late" for what, exactly? Too late to stop change? Too late to stop changing? Too late to keep people from being miserable? Too late to avoid our own misery? Too late to keep from dying? Too late to live?

Just because we are in a situation we'd rather not be doesn't mean we're too late for anything. It's definitely not too late to pick up the pieces and go on.

If one really wants to suffer, wishing things were different than they are is a great way to start.

[chillspike]

38. Pretty much. Yea. (nt)