New Zealand Government to declare a climate emergency

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Awrrr
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#2619396 10-Dec-2020 13:03

MikeB4:

If colonising the Moon or Mars was at all possible the race to own them would be on now.

What makes you think it isn't? Look at the Chinese. The Americans are also on their way back.

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frankv

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#2619398 10-Dec-2020 13:04

tripper1000:

You can get H from H2O water, but it is a lot cheaper to steam in out of hydrocarbons.

So you can see the same peak oil that is going to affect transport, is also going a affect food (and plastics and a whole bunch of other chemicals precursors).

Even if climate change is wrong, its associated desire to conserve fossil fuels is extremely good so harness the motivation and roll with it.

As with CH4 manufacture, H is extracted from hydrocarbons only because it's cheaper that way. When oil becomes expensive, the alternative is available. Likewise bio-plastics are commonplace now. pretty much any polymer can be designed and manufactured, according to an ESR scientist whose talk I attended.

We passed peak oil in Dec 2019 according to BP. The limiting factor is demand, not supply. In terms of lifetime cost, EVs are now about as cheap as ICE cars. And the most expensive part, the battery, is only going to get cheaper.

Rikkitic

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#2619399 10-Dec-2020 13:05

networkn:

Uh, what!? We have had 14 pages of talking about how everything humans touch makes it worse. We are parasites and we certainly do not make things more liveable in the long term. I predict if we manage to spread (god forbid) we will have ruined the galaxy with enough time.

Earth is *not* better off as a result of humans.

I didn't say it was. Just that, like any good cancer, we will continue spreading.

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MikeB4

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#2619406 10-Dec-2020 13:17

Rikkitic:

What makes you think it isn't? Look at the Chinese. The Americans are also on their way back.

I feel that if or when the Chinese send a mission to land "manned" mission to the Moon the US will claim that the flag left by Apollo 11 means it's American territory, especially if a certain reality TV host is somehow still there.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

networkn

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#2619409 10-Dec-2020 13:21

Rikkitic:

I didn't say it was. Just that, like any good cancer, we will continue spreading.

We haven't made the earth more liveable, in the longer term at least. We have temporarily improved our own quality of life, at the expense of nearly all other living organisms.

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#2619412 10-Dec-2020 13:25

networkn:

Earth is *not* better off as a result of humans.

"Better" is an artificial, subjective-to-the-point-of-meaningless idea when you talk about a planet. What makes a planet "better"? How do you measure it? There's no aspect of a planet that can be said to be better (or worse) except in how it relates to people. To suggest that Earth is "better" because it can support more (or less) people in more comfort is anthropocentric conceit. To suggest that Earth would be "better" if it was more like it was 200 or 1000 or 10,000 years ago disparages every human achievement.

Same goes for "saving" the planet. There's not a lot we can do to destroy the planet, or even change it very much, so "saving" it doesn't make sense. It'll still be a rock with a thin skin of gases orbiting the Sun, no matter what we do. The worst we can do to the planet is to make it uninhabitable for ourselves (this is not worst for the planet, it is worst for us). In another 4 billion years another race of humans could evolve, regardless of how bad we make it now.

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#2619420 10-Dec-2020 13:30

frankv:

"Better" is an artificial, subjective-to-the-point-of-meaningless idea when you talk about a planet. What makes a planet "better"? How do you measure it? There's no aspect of a planet that can be said to be better (or worse) except in how it relates to people. To suggest that Earth is "better" because it can support more (or less) people in more comfort is anthropocentric conceit. To suggest that Earth would be "better" if it was more like it was 200 or 1000 or 10,000 years ago disparages every human achievement.

Same goes for "saving" the planet. There's not a lot we can do to destroy the planet, or even change it very much, so "saving" it doesn't make sense. It'll still be a rock with a thin skin of gases orbiting the Sun, no matter what we do. The worst we can do to the planet is to make it uninhabitable for ourselves (this is not worst for the planet, it is worst for us). In another 4 billion years another race of humans could evolve, regardless of how bad we make it now.

When you are making it less habitable for yourself and pretty much every other species or organism that shares that same planet, most people would be happy to accept we have not done anything to improve the liveability of the planet.

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#2619421 10-Dec-2020 13:30

Thats quite wrong. 14 pages re what we are doing to this planet, which was not known about till relatively recent times. And that we need to make it sustainable and avoid a future disaster. Thats not being a parasite. Go to Africa, you will see animals that roam and plunder, and leave it barren. Thats ok, it re grows, its sustainable, its a balanced ecosystem. We just need to make our use of resources similarly sustainable. That's all. Earth has balance with other life forms that live here, it doesn't matter if we adjust things, all life does that here. Just make it sustainable.

Animal life exhales CO2 plants inhale CO2 and exhale O Animal life inhales O Humans are part of that ecosystem. Just dont ruin it

Rikkitic

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#2619423 10-Dec-2020 13:32

MikeB4:

I feel that if or when the Chinese send a mission to land "manned" mission to the Moon the US will claim that the flag left by Apollo 11 means it's American territory, especially if a certain reality TV host is somehow still there.

The good news is they can throw nukes at each other there, so they don't have to do it here.

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Rikkitic

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#2619445 10-Dec-2020 13:50

tdgeek:

Thats quite wrong. 14 pages re what we are doing to this planet, which was not known about till relatively recent times. And that we need to make it sustainable and avoid a future disaster. Thats not being a parasite. Go to Africa, you will see animals that roam and plunder, and leave it barren. Thats ok, it re grows, its sustainable, its a balanced ecosystem. We just need to make our use of resources similarly sustainable. That's all. Earth has balance with other life forms that live here, it doesn't matter if we adjust things, all life does that here. Just make it sustainable.

Animal life exhales CO2 plants inhale CO2 and exhale O Animal life inhales O Humans are part of that ecosystem. Just dont ruin it

This discussion is getting awfully close to a philosophical debate on the meaning of life and the nature of the Universe.

To bring it back into perspective, all life plunders in some sense. Even plants engage in violent competition for space and resources. I don't know if there is any deeper spiritual purpose to this and I don't really care. Things that are alive usually want to stay alive and will struggle to make their living conditions as amenable as possible, even at the expense of other living things. In this human beings are just creatures of nature, like all others. We can attach moral values to our depredations if we want to, but we are just doing what we were made to do. There is no good or bad to that, except to the living things immediately affected by it.

I hope we go into space in a big way and pillage our little hearts out on many other worlds. But we can only do that if we restrain ourselves on this one. It is foolish to crap in your bowl before you have another one to feed from.

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tdgeek

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#2619453 10-Dec-2020 13:59

Rikkitic:

This discussion is getting awfully close to a philosophical debate on the meaning of life and the nature of the Universe.

To bring it back into perspective, all life plunders in some sense. Even plants engage in violent competition for space and resources. I don't know if there is any deeper spiritual purpose to this and I don't really care. Things that are alive usually want to stay alive and will struggle to make their living conditions as amenable as possible, even at the expense of other living things. In this human beings are just creatures of nature, like all others. We can attach moral values to our depredations if we want to, but we are just doing what we were made to do. There is no good or bad to that, except to the living things immediately affected by it.

I hope we go into space in a big way and pillage our little hearts out on many other worlds. But we can only do that if we restrain ourselves on this one. It is foolish to crap in your bowl before you have another one to feed from.

100%. We have been too good at survival, that needs to be reigned back. Unlike most other creatures we can manage our use of resources, that's all we need to do. Not that hard to do, but there is little will. Bank account, Annual Budget, Votes, these are all more important than survival

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#2619543 10-Dec-2020 16:24

tripper1000: You might be right, or I might be right, but the fact is that it is going to take 1,000 years or more for the facts to be seen and one of us to emerge as correct.

Or we could trust the science regardless and do the right things now. Realistically the only reason we are not doing more is because there is a perception that it's hard. In fact, there are many things going in the right direction. Look at what happened when the world's advanced countries and the united states especially worked together on a covid vaccine. Can be done, doesn't have to impoverish anyone. Maybe even the opposite.

tdgeek

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#2619562 10-Dec-2020 17:39

gzt:
tripper1000: You might be right, or I might be right, but the fact is that it is going to take 1,000 years or more for the facts to be seen and one of us to emerge as correct.

Or we could trust the science regardless and do the right things now. Realistically the only reason we are not doing more is because there is a perception that it's hard. In fact, there are many things going in the right direction. Look at what happened when the world's advanced countries and the united states especially worked together on a covid vaccine. Can be done, doesn't have to impoverish anyone. Maybe even the opposite.

Its not hard, its inconvenient. Re the vaccine, the scientists worked together, no one else. To make changes with climate change you need political will, which is not there. Because it causes inconvenience, cost, votes. The political undertones are in this thread

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#2619564 10-Dec-2020 17:51

tdgeek: Its not hard, its inconvenient. Re the vaccine, the scientists worked together, no one else. To make changes with climate change you need political will, which is not there.

A significant part of the effort with Covid was pharmaceutical companies. Why not do the same with science and engineering companies? It can be done.

tdgeek

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#2619591 10-Dec-2020 18:12

gzt:
tdgeek: Its not hard, its inconvenient. Re the vaccine, the scientists worked together, no one else. To make changes with climate change you need political will, which is not there.

A significant part of the effort with Covid was pharmaceutical companies. Why not do the same with science and engineering companies? It can be done.

Fully agree. I can think of dozens of things to do, big things, small things that x the population will help.If you put scientists and engineers together, they will list everything. But CC is a large cost. Oil companies dont want CC efforts. They will one day when they buy the solar and green energy companies. Unlike a vaccine you need to make big regulatory changes. Force ICE out sooner than later, how do you get EV's in higher production, how do you tell people to buy Solar PV. When Government imposes costs on businesses and citizens, that's a problem. If a Gift said we will solve CC, pope will yell out great. When they sau we need to tax you more to pay for it, they will vote them out.

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