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monolith
climber
state of being
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A 'revenue neutral' gas tax means the tax comes back to the payers in some way, like reduced fica or social security tax, or some other way.
Since the poor are not the primary consumers of gasoline, if one were to just get back the average tax, the poor would wind up paying less for gas than before.
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clifff
Mountain climber
golden, rollin hills of California
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With present arctic warming exceeding all the worst case scenarios and humans actually increasing CO2 production, it looks like we are headed toward a Permian type extinction event where 95% of life perished. Where the oceans turned anoxic and hydrogen sulfide poisoned the air. A cruel irony, as these were the times that the Earth created the deposits of oil. The Earth will be producing more oil but we will be dead.
Extinction Overview
If you’re too busy to read the evidence presented below, here’s the bottom line: On a planet 4 C hotter than baseline, all we can prepare for is human extinction (from Oliver Tickell’s 2008 synthesis in the Guardian). Tickell is taking a conservative approach, considering humans have not been present at 3.3 C or more above baseline (i.e., the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, commonly accepted as 1750). I cannot imagine a scenario involving a rapid rise in global-average temperature and also habitat for humans. Neither can Australian climate scholar Clive Hamilton, based on his 17 June 2014 response to Andrew Revkin’s fantasy-based hopium. According to the World Bank’s 2012 report, “Turn down the heat: why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided” and an informed assessment of “BP Energy Outlook 2030” put together by Barry Saxifrage for the Vancouver Observer, our path leads directly to the 4 C mark. The conservative International Energy Agency throws in the towel on avoiding 4 C in this video from June 2014 (check the 25-minute mark). The 19th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 19), held in November 2013 in Warsaw, Poland, was warned by professor of climatology Mark Maslin: “We are already planning for a 4°C world because that is where we are heading. I do not know of any scientists who do not believe that.” Among well-regarded climate scientists who think a 4 C world is unavoidable, based solely on atmospheric carbon dioxide, is Cambridge University’s Professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics, Dr. Peter Wadhams (check the 51-second mark in this 8 August 2014 video), who says: “…the carbon dioxide that we put into the atmosphere, which now exceeded 400 parts per million, is sufficient, if you don’t add any more, to actually raise global temperatures in the end by about four degrees.” Adding to planetary misery is a paper in the 16 December 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluding that 4 C terminates the ability of Earth’s vegetation to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. According to a story in the 6 December 2015 issue of the Washington Post: “With no government action, Exxon experts … [said] average temperatures are likely to rise by a catastrophic (my word, not theirs) 5 degrees Celsius, with rises of 6, 7 or even more quite possible.”
http://guymcpherson.com/climate-chaos/climate-change-summary-and-update/
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-worst-case-and-unfortunately-looking-almost-certain-to-happen-scenario.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/oceans-on-brink-of-catastrophe-2300272.html
http://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/tag/rate-of-climate-change/
http://www.google.com/#q=worst+case+climate+warming+anoxic+oceans&start=0
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Buy a Tesla. Elon Musk's grand vision is to wean us off oil. I fully support him.
But even he doesn't realize that the greenies will complicate his life because lithium (for his batteries) is a mined element, and mining is evil, m'k?
So are iron, moly, aluminum, copper, and the countless other elements that go into cars. All of which are under attack by environmentalist that don't understand where anything comes from or how it is produced.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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The battery problem could (?help me Ed Hartouni) be addressed by using hydrogen for energy storage once the boom factor is figured out. We can do this right?
I'll answer the OP question by answering:
The bigger picture, if there can be one, is that we need to stop degrading our planet.
At it's most simple, we could address the vast majority of our consumption through conservation. Waste is our enemy and we are its slaves. From the watersheds, through every field and filling our ocean. Design can solve this. Progressive, intelligent design.
Finally, as far as I can tell, we are caught in fringe debates that are in place to keep us distracted from proactive intelligent progress. It seems that the biggest brains have resigned themselves to the sad reality that the willfully ignorant (aka sheeple) are too entrenched in their anti-intellectual self interests to change( oh, the humanity) and will inevitably drag the rest of the world off the edge and we're gunna die.
Have a Nice Day🐏
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Well, at least we can console ourselves that once we've triggered the next big extinction and are gone Mother Nature will be just fine and carry on without us.
Have a nice day! 🌈
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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https://www.wunderground.com/climate/PETM.asp
easier to read it on the link
the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which occurred around 56 million years ago, is the most recent event that we can compare today's warming to. The PETM is now thought to have been caused by greenhouse gas emissions, similar to how the earth is warming today. 56 million years ago, at the end of the Paleocene epoch, the supercontinent Pangaea was in the final stages of breaking apart into the continents as we know them today. As the land masses split apart, volcanoes erupted and molten rock bubbled toward the Earth's surface, literally baking carbon-rich sediments and releasing the greenhouse gas into the air. During this time, atmospheric temperature probably increased by a couple of degrees.
The initial increase in temperature triggered events that led to more greenhouse gas emissions and more warming. Climate scientists generally agree that the feedback with the most impact on the atmospheric temperature increase was the melting of methane hydrates in the ocean seabed.
PETM Cause
Continental drift, volcanoes, methane hydrate melting, fires, permafrost melting
Current Warming Cause Anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas, etc)
PETM CO2 emissions Around 5 billion tons per year (surge lasted for 15000 years)
Current CO2 emissions At least 30 billion tons per year
PETM Rate of warming 0.035°C per 100 years
Current Rate of warming 1.5 to 4°C per 100 years - About 100 TIMES as FAST
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Flying anywhere is the quickest way to eff up your carbon footprint.
I don't know about that. You could fly a lot of miles before you would equal the impact of having kids.
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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We use biodiesel (B99) in our 2004 VW Jetta (5 speed manual, $18G new, 200,000 miles so far). See local farmers and restaurants drop off oil for production.
A friend of mine had converted his Ford truck and wife's 'Benz to run on cooking oil supplied by local restaurant(s).
90 minute commute to the studios for ten years. Never visited a gas station the whole time.
In 2012 he received a bill from the state board of equalization for $10k.
It seems he had innocently acknowledged his fuel supply in a DMV questionnaire and the B.O.E. calculated the amount of road tax he had not paid during his years of gas free road use.
He wrote the check.
I guess the message here is, do what you can to conserve, just don't tell anyone.
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gt rider
Trad climber
moscow, idaho
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All that carbon, millions of years to accumulate in the ground, burned in industrial plants and automobiles over what, maybe one hundred years? Doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math. Plant a tree, ride your bike, wear a sweater.
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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There would appear to something stronger than a coincidental connection between human activity since the Industrial Revolution and current climate change.
Unfortunately, the OP's question is beyond the majority's capacity or willingness to contemplate much less make personal or collective sacrifice to mitigate.
Although I'd like to be hopeful, I think we're f*cked and things are going seriously sideways way faster than we fear.
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Unfortunately, the OP's question is beyond the majority's capacity or willingness to contemplate much less make personal or collective sacrifice to mitigate.
Should I go vegan to save water and fumes from animal husbandry?
Stop loading the van with friends and visiting National parks?
If we all just stay home and sit still climate change will stop. Nonsense.
I bicycle whenever practical, turn off lights, keep my bikes and cars tuned, teach my kids to conserve, never litter, try to afford the most efficient appliances, use LED's whenever possible, conserve water and vote my conscience.
Collectively, I ride motorcycles everywhere.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Here is a Carbon Footprint Calculator from the Nature Conservancy. There are a lot out there to check out.
http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/
Using it my wife and I come out at around 20 (10 per person), the US average is 53, and the world average is 11.
One flight from San Francisco to Buenos Aires and back is 1.5.
Yeah, having kids has the biggest impact. Population is the elephant in the room. If we want to get real there is lowering the world population. The most proven way to lower birth rates is improve education and prosperity.
http://www.populationconnection.org
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Yeah, having kids has the biggest impact.
Get real! just like the poor haven't much impact at all on the co2's. It really doesn't add up with the percentages. i'm sick of hearing this blaming on the "population"! And even more specifically, toward the individual!! Wise UP Crackers, your being swindled by big corp. 75% of man's co2 polluting pukes through planes, trains, and scientific industrial experiment. It's only 20% of the earth's "suffrage" that's being administered by 80% of her inhabitant's.
Again, 80% of the worlds pollution comes from, OK in reality, 10% of her population
Face it! Shut that sh#t down and the plant lives!Otherwise you billion are gonna bring the rest of us 8 billion to extinct.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Wow, never been called a cracker before!
Our per capita energy consumption in the US is ridiculous. Based on some rough calculations my wife and I are around 40% of the average and that is still including road trips for backpacking, skiing, rafting, and climbing. We will be able to get a tighter figure once we get our house finished and are able to start measuring more closely.
Here is a listing of per capita carbon footprint listed by country. There are a number of countries that have a higher per capita carbon footprint. It's interesting to note that many industrialized nations have half our energy carbon consumption.
http://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country/
The numbers of people in the world is still the biggest part of the equation. If our population were 1 or 2 billion instead of 7 billion and rising we'd be in good shape for sustainability of our resources. As a reference point, in 1960 we were at 3 billion.
Birthrates are declining, however. Here is an interesting article from the Washington Post on the issue. Why? The conclusion of the article is TV.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/13/why-are-birthrates-falling-around-the-world-in-a-word-television/
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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It's a waste of time to debate climate change deniers.
They deserve zero respect, and aren't worth listening to.
Global Climate Change is Global, and it's all about Politics, as usual
There is Only One answer
We have to vote out all Republicans
They are all in total Lockstep with the FF industry.
They will keep us from doing anything UNTIL the Dems/liberals have total control of the Congress, POTUS and the SCOTUS
Sure there may be some bad Dems, but they don't work in lockstep to block everything.
Vote against all the Republicans in Federal, State and Local elections.
No one can fight global change by themselves, it takes the full force of the Federal and state Governments to do anything that will make an impact.
We can't wait for other countries to do their share, we have to do it in our Country because we are supposed to be a beacon of good will.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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as usual Ed is correct. as usual Edward is not Ed. nor is he correct.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Here is a Carbon Footprint Calculator from the Nature Conservancy. There are a lot out there to check out.
http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/
Possibly the worst Carbon Footprint Calculator ever.
A three BR detached house in CA creates 15 tons of CO2/yr. In Utah it's 48 tons of CO2/yr. In Maine, where Winter lasts 10 months, it's 25 tons.
There is Only One answer
We have to vote out all Republicans
Yeah... That's the ticket.
Get rid of the Republicans.
The planet should start cooling immediately.
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