THNX

I do believe it is.

If my world is not very habitable in the first place and I have the option of setting fire to some rainforest to build a farm, sell me some clean air and Orangutang habitat in exchange for good karma and poverty, please.

On the other hand if I make decisions that impact hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis without much recourse to anything in particular (party line? military commanders? local clans? religious leaders?) what does a teenagers speech on the opposite side of the planet change for me? Its just completely off the playing field of making important decisions.

I hear her cry, now calm down and look for ways to actually improve the situation, please.

Suing Argentina for breaking childrens rights? Not bad, human rights cases were actually a good method to fight communist regimes in the 70s and 80s. Just a very slow grinding method.

How do you solve something that's going apeshit in another country? For starters, in the case of Ukraine and Crimea, we keep our obligations we agreed to and support them with the U.S. military from day one when Russia invaded Crimea, and again in Ukraine proper. Had we done that as we specifically and unambiguously agreed to do when they gave up their nukes in return, the "civil war" (that's clearly a foreign invasion) wouldn't have occurred. That's an Obama administration failure, one that seriously harmed our international standing and trustworthiness, imo. If we had just put 100 Marines on the borders, Russia wouldn't have risked WW3 to invade either country.
My point is human political or boundary issues are nothing compared to intentionally reengineering the makeup of the atmosphere and getting enough cooperation to implement the desired (required) changes.

If she changes policy in the west, that will impact the East....and South. What America does is more often than not mirrored, especially when we're successful.
Her impact is more for the public than governments. Sway enough of the public, get them to vote on your issue, and politics will evolve at light speed.

Her delivery is exactly what's needed. An angry, educated young woman (they called me young man at 14, so don't balk), being unpleasant about having her future stolen makes exponentially more impact to the audience she targets than a thousand dry, factual, statistic rich talks by scientists. (Those are a dime a dozen today) Kids telling their parents that when the shit hits the fan, the kids are tossing them in the swollen river, not supporting them through their old age, is exactly the kick in the face many need. Kids of today will blame adults of today for the future they live in. Adults of today clearly don't consider that enough.

Something is better than nothing, she's demanding something. She's 16, do you expect her to have all the answers? (Some feasible solutions would be nice) She's well ahead of the curve just understanding the severity of the problem. I'm sure if we listened to all her speeches she gives some suggestions of action we could take to move in the right direction, but I doubt any one person has answers that solve every major effect of climate change, much less all the secondary and tertiary effects. I certainly don't expect her, at that age, to do more than demand those in power take it seriously and find solutions....and act. Chastising a major polluter who walked away from the weak, insufficient Paris agreement is a good start if it works, but I agree it's only barely a start.

You should consider it, she got millions to March for her cause worldwide. Even if she is a willing tool for some adults, it's clear more adults are tools for her. Consider, she isn't talking to kids, she's talking to adults, and some at least are listening to her, not her parents.

Personally it disturbs me that emotional delivery like this is required for many to even consider the issue beyond "what does my political party say on this issue, that's what I say too." I wish scientific issues like climate change were immune to politics, propaganda, and emotion, but they aren't. That's why we're hosed imo, humans are too willing to be deceived if the lie is more pleasant than reality, and denying there's a problem or need for change is quite pleasant to lazy Americans, far easier than facing facts and implementing difficult solutions....until it's not at least, by which time it's far too late.

How do you easily solve something thats going apeshit in another country, big or small? There is next to nothing the west can do to help other than alleviate the symptoms. Remember the cold war? What could the west do to help the people beyond the dividing line in countries that used to be democracies before WW2? Next to nothing.

Hong-Kong is currently part of the largest... just kidding.

What is her impact in China? Russia? India? Brazil? Indonesia? On people who make decisions? This is a real question.

I dont doubt her content, she seems well prepared and I have nothing to point out as obvious propaganda. Her delivery is off-putting. unpleasant, distracting and weird. Petulant child. Also she is pointing out the obvious without thinking of implementation. Normal millenial, just wants something.

The Republican party has been a good marketing tool for the fossil fuel industry so far, yes.

Adults tools in her hands? Seriously? I havent considered that and it frightens me.

@bcglorf Here's a tome for you....


It's certainly not (the only way). Converting to green energy sources stimulates the economy, it doesn't bankrupt it, and it makes it more efficient in the future thanks to lower energy costs. My solar system paid for itself in 8 years, giving me an expected 12 years of free electricity and hot water. Right wingers would tell you it will never pay for itself....utter bullshit.

Every gap in our knowledge I've ever seen that we have filled with data has made the estimates worse. Every one. Every IPCC report has raised the severity and shrunk the timeframe from the last report....but you stand on the last one that they admit was optimistic and incomplete by miles as if it's the final word and a gold standard. It just isn't. They themselves admit this.

The odds of catastrophic climate change is 100% in the next 0 years for many who have already died or been displaced by rising seas or famine or disease or lack of water or...... and that goes for all humanity in the next 50 because those who survive displacement will be refugees on the rest's doorsteps. Don't be ridiculous. If we found an asteroid guaranteed to hit in the next 50-100 years, and any possible solutions take a minimum of 50 years to implement with no surprises, and only then assuming we solve the myriad of technical issues we haven't solved in the last 100 years of trying and only if we can put the resources needed into a solution, not considering the constantly worsening barrage of smaller asteroids and the effects on resources and civilisation, we would put all our resources into solutions. That's where I think we are, except we still have many claiming there's no asteroid coming and those that already hit are fake news....including those in the highest offices making the decisions.

Every IPCC report has vastly underestimated their projections, they tell you they are doing it, only including data they are certain of, not new measurements or functions. They do not fill in the gaps, they leave them empty. Gaps like methane melt that could soon be more of a factor than human CO2, and 100% out of our control.

The AR5 report is so terrible, it was lambasted from day one as being incredibly naive and optimistic, and for not including what was then new data. Since its release, those complaints have been proven to be correct, in 5 years since its release ice melt rates have accelerated 60 years by their model. I wouldn't put a whit of confidence in it, it was terrible then, near criminally bad today. I'll take NOAA's estimates based on much newer science and guess that they, like nearly all others in the past, also don't know everything and are also likely underestimating wildly. Even the IPCC AR5 report includes the possibility of 3 ft rise by 2100 under their worst case (raised another 10% in this 2019 report, and expected to rise again by 2021, their next report), and their worst case models show less heat and melting than we are measuring already and doesn't include natural feedbacks because they can't model them accurately yet so just left them out (but noted they will have a large effect, but it's not quantitative yet so not included). Long and short, their worst case scenario is likely optimistic as reality already outpaces their worst case models.

Again, the economy benefits from new energy production in multiple ways. Exxon is not the global economy.

It took 100 years for the impact of our pollution to be felt by most (some still ignore it today). Even the short term features like methane take 25+ years to run their cycles, so what we do today takes that long to start working.

If people continue to drag their feet and challenge the science with supposition, insisting the best case scenario of optimistic studies are the worst we should plan for, we're doomed....and what they're doing is actually worse than that. The power plants built or under construction today put us much higher than 1.5 degree rise by 2100 with their expected emissions without ever building 1 more, and we're building more. Without fantastic scientific breakthroughs that may never come, breakthroughs your plan relies on for our survival, what we've already built puts us beyond the IPCC worst case in their operational lifetimes.

There's a problem with that...I'm good with using real science to identify them without political obstruction and confusion, the difference being we need to be prepared for decisive action once they're identified. So far, we have plans to develop those actions, but that's it. In the event of a "surprise" asteroid, we're done. We just hope they're rare.
This one, however, is an asteroid that is guaranteed to hit if we do nothing, some say hit in 30 years, some say 80. Only morons say it won't hit at all, do nothing.
Climate change is an asteroid/comet in our orbit that WILL hit earth. We are already being hit by ejecta from it's coma causing disasters for millions. You suggest we don't start building a defense until we are certain of it's exact tonnage and the date it will crash to earth because it's expensive and our data incomplete. That plan leaves us too late to change the trajectory. The IPCC said we need to deploy our system in 8-10 years to have a 30-60% chance of changing the trajectory under perfect conditions....you seem to say "wait, that's expensive, let's give it some time and ignore that deadline". I say even just a continent killer is bad enough to do whatever it takes to stop, because it's cheaper with less loss of life and infinitely less suffering than a 'wait and see exactly when it will kill us, we might have space elevators in 10 years so it might only kill 1/2 of us and the rest might survive that cometary winter in space (yes at exponentially higher cost and loss of life and ecology than developing the system today, but that won't be on my dime so Fuck it).' attitude.

@newtboy,

"bankrupting the global economy isn't the only way to plan for asteroids, now is it? What we have done is put some money towards developing solutions that could be implemented in time, with minor exceptions for super fast unknown asteroids we likely couldn't do much about if we did have a planetary defense system."

That's precisely my point though, bankrupting the global economy to reach negative net emissions tomorrow isn't the only way to plan for climate change either.

"the probability of disastrous climate change is near 100% if you take historic human behavior into account. For many it's already hit. It's only the severity and speed that are in question, and those estimates rise alarmingly with every bit of data we use to replace guesses in the equations.

And the odds of a catastrophic asteroid hit sometime in the future is near 100% too, it's just a question of how many millions of years Earth's luck holds out. Nor has every prediction or projection underestimated future warming so far, your flat wrong on that.

More to the point, the timing and severity of the changes we face is ABSOLUTELY relevant to the actions we need to take. Similarly, knowing the benefit of reducing our emissions by X% by a particular date is also extremely relevant to the actions we need to take. Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that we have a lot of gaps and uncertainty in our knowledge on those points.

At minimum base level, we know changing global temperature on the whole will impact us negatively, that our CO2 emissions will make things warmer than they otherwise would be, and thus can easily conclude with certainty that the science dictates policies to reduce emissions are a good idea.

Now, you seem to be hell bent on demanding those policies take the shape of staring down the face of disaster 2-3 times worse than the IPCC AR5 reports absolute worst case scenario. I've got to tell you, that the uncertainties involved with that kind of prediction are too great to warrant an honest dictate that the facts support a need for economically devastating action being taken today. It's just not the case.

Even if green tech never takes over, if the next century sees us final solve fusion power and adoption of electric cars, we already get our emission outputs off the worst track scenario the IPCC projected in AR5. I honestly do believe that we will see non-fossil fuel electricity generation and electric cars as the norm in my lifetime, so I'm hopeful for a future that tracks better than the IPCC worst case. That doesn't mean we should do nothing, but it's more like we should take a similarly rational/practical approach to it like you see us doing with asteroids.

@newtboy,
"Actually, I'm selling their audience short. When real scientists present the real data dispassionately, I think the average person gets quickly confused and tunes out."

I'd argue bored maybe more often than confused. Although if we want to say that most of the problems society faces have their root causes in human nature, I think we can agree.

"I had read the published summaries of the recent U.N. report saying we had 12 years to be carbon neutral to stay below 1.5degree rise, they were far from clear that this was only a 50% chance of achieving that minimal temperature rise"

Here is where I see healthy skepticism distinguishing itself from covering eyes, ears and yelling not listening.

Our understanding of the global climate system is NOT sufficient to make that kind of high confidence claim about specific future outcomes. As you read past the head line and into the supporting papers you find that is the truth underneath. The final summary line you are citing sits atop multiple layers of assumptions and unspecified uncertainties that culminate in a very ephemeral 50% likelyhood disclaimer. It is stating that if all of the cumulative errors and unknowns all more or less don't matter. then we have models that suggest this liklyhood of an outcome...

This however sits atop the following challenges that scientists from different fields and specialities are focusing on improving.
1.Direct measurements of the global energy imbalance and corroboration with Ocean heat content. Currently, the uncertainties in our direct measurements are greater than the actual energy imbalance caused by the CO2 we've emitted. The CERES team measuring this has this plain as day in all their results.
2.Climate models can't get global energy to balance because the unknown or poorly modeled processes in them have a greater impact on the energy imbalance than human CO2. We literally hand tune the poorly known factors to just balance out the energy correctly, regardless of whether that models the given process better or not because the greater run of the model is worthless without a decent energy imbalance. This sits atop the unknowns regarding the actual measured imbalance to hope to simulate. 100% of the modelling teams that discuss their tuning processes again all agree on this.
3. Meta-analysis like you cited usually sit atop both the above, and attempt to rely on the models to get a given 2100 temperature profile, and then make their predictions off of that.

The theme here, is cumulative error and an underlying assumption of 'all other things being equal' for all the cumulative unknowns and errors. You can NOT just come in from all of that, present the absolute worst possible case scenario you can squeeze into and then declare that as the gold standard scientific results which must dictate policy...

Edit:that's very nearly the definition of cherry picking the results you want.

I am actually doing just fine simply completely ignoring her hysteria. First time I listened to her is this video.
What is her impact in China? Russia? India? Brazil? Indonesia? On people who make decisions?
Perhaps in the USofA hysteria can have an impact on future elections (I am actually doing just fine simply completely ignoring the current administration) but will global ecology really be a big (or medium..) election theme in the USofA in the near future, like 20 years?

Im washing out those plastic bottles and sorting trash and keep my car serviced properly and fly rarely. But if this type of hysteria is randomly aimed against nuclear power, attempts to talk to women in the workplace, and eating meat regularly on other days, could we please not go that way... too late.

What can be done to move the 6 countries mentioned at least slightly in the direction of Europe on pollution? To stop China building coal power stations all over Africa? Brasil and Indonesia deforesting? What has (or can) Grrreta really do to help there? This is like trying to shame Saddam Hussein to give up those WOMD he hid so well. How dare you Saddam? Bad boy!

Also how dare three quarters of us not just lie down and die without children to save the planet? Or are we evil and not mature enough to forego making money to buy food for our families? Which in most places on the Earth means polluting like hell. Vicious cycle. Maybe people should be more modest, maybe rich white kids should not be the ones saying that.

Grreta so reminds me of west european academic communism in the 60s. CND in the 70s. Greenpeace. And so on. Should find out more about people, now that she has read all those encyclopediae. Everyone has to eat and f*@k or we die out in one generation.

Safest...of those we discussed, maybe. It's certainly not safer than well designed solar, wind, micro hydro, wave/tidal, etc.

Some in Fukushima have seriously elevated risk for cancers, but no one died of radiation poisoning that I've heard of (but many still can't go home). Not true in Chernobyl. I've not seen claims of thousands dead since the very early days, but a short investigation shows estimates vary widely, from 4000-60000 early deaths from radiation related cancers, and even the lowest estimates are unacceptable. Direct radiation related deaths seem to be around 100 there.

It does seem that today the evacuations cause more deaths, likely because of safety measures required after Chernobyl and the fact that most are only exposed for extremely short times because they evacuated and are not allowed to return until exposure levels are low.

There are real, honest health concerns involved, including indirect impact caused by evacuations or shelter in place stress. That said, there's plenty of exaggerated fear mongering too.

Statistically nuclear is by far the safest means of energy production, even when it goes wrong the main impact is people panicking. No one died from radiation in Fukushima and there isn't expected to be any statistically detectable radiation health effect.

The figures that say Chernobyl killed thousands are extrapolations based on the LNT model, which assumes cells are unable to repair DNA damage. In fact the cell DNA repair mechanisms are a well established fact these days. Yet we still use LNT as a model, even though at low doses there has never been any real world data to support it.

Deliberate scaremongering is basically what it is.

Almost as stupid as holding the producers of the toxic product AND the misleading or outright false information about it's hazards blameless. Because they actively misled their customers, I give them the vast lions share of blame, but maybe not 100%. There's plenty to go around.

You don't have to live in poverty to abandon fossil fuels.
Not.
Even.
Close.
I bought solar 10+- years back...it paid for itself in 8. It's lifespan is 20+-. I get 12 years of free electricity for abandoning that portion, with no blackouts, no brownouts, and no rate increases.

True, the video could be better at sharing the blame, but it stayed on topic instead, that topic being major polluters greenwashing their mage. I didn't take it as assigning ALL blame to one source, just not allowing the worst offenders to shirk all responsibility for their products.


Every one of these is the likely outcome of any anthropogenic rise over 2-3C because of feedback loops that drive us to 6-12C rise. Only the wars are likely this century, but I didn't put a timeframe on those outcomes. 140 million + will be displaced by just a 3' rise, which is all but guaranteed by 2100 under the most optimistic current projections.
That wipes out mangroves and other fish nurseries, further impacting the struggling ocean food webs. All the while it accelerates as our ability to cope erodes like the shorelines....it doesn't just halt at 3' rise.
The natural food webs on land are also struggling, and are unlikely to survive ocean collapse.

Not just from deforestation, but diatoms are near a point of collapse from ocean acidification. https://diatoms.org/what-are-diatoms. That's over 1/2....and the base of the ocean food web.


Since the IPCC (again, known for overly conservative estimates) now says at current rates we could hit as much as a 6C rise by 2100, and rates of emissions are rising as fast as carbon sinks are shrinking, they're not just a possibility, they a likelihood in the near future....but granted the hydrogen sulfide clouds are far in a worst case scenario future, far from guaranteed.

@newtboy,

If North America is to adopt the Amish lifestyle, how many acres of land can the entire continent support? The typical Amish family farm is something like 80 acres is it not? I believe adopting this nationwide as a 'solution' requires massive population downsizing...

If you want to look at the poorest conditions of people in the world and advocate that the poverty stricken regions with no access to fossil fuel industry are the path forward, I would ask how you anticipate selling that to the people of California as being in their best interests to adopt as their new standard of living...

You mention overpopulation as a problem, then invent the argument that I think we should just ignore that and make it worse. Instead I only pointed out that immediately abandoning fossil fuels overnight would impact that overpopulation problem as well. It's like you do agree on one level, then don't like the implications or something?

The massive productivity of modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuel usage. Similarly, our global population is also dependent upon that agricultural output. I find it hard to believe those are not clearly both fact. Please do tell me if you disagree. One inescapable conclusion to those facts is that reducing fossil fuel usage needs to at least be done with sufficient caution that we don't break the global food supply chain, because hungry people do very, very bad things.

Then you least catastrophic events that ARE NOT supported by the science and un-ironically claim that it's me who is ignoring the science.

You even have the audacity to ask if I appreciate the impacts of massive global food shortages, after having earlier belittled my concern about exactly that!

The IPCC shows that even in an absolute worst case scenario of accelerating emissions for the next century an estimated maximum sea level rise of 3ft, yet you talk about loss of 'most' farmland to the oceans...

Here's where I stand. If we can move off gas powered cars to electric, and onto a power grid that is either nuclear, hydro or renewable based in the next 50 years, our emissions before 2100 will drop significantly from today's levels. I firmly believe we are already on a very good course to expect that to occur very organically, with superior electric cars, and cheaper nuclear power and battery storage enabling renewables as economical alternatives to fossil fuels.

That future places us onto the IPCC's better scenarios where emissions peak and then actually decrease steadily through the rest of the century.

I'm hardly advocating lets sit back and do nothing, I'm advocating let's build the technology to make the population we have move into a reduced emissions future. We are getting close on major points for it and think that's great.

What I think is very damaging to that idea, is panicky advice demanding that we must all make massive economic sacrifices as fast as possible, because I firmly believe trying to enact reductions that way, fast enough to make a difference over natural progress, guarantees catastrophic wars now. Thankfully, that is also why nobody in sane leadership will give an ounce of consideration to such stupidity either. You need a Stalin or Mao type in charge to drive that kind change.

good video but a rather important thing he missed is, that many governments DO pay brasil to maintain the rainforest-

"Norway has followed Germany in suspending donations to the Brazilian government’s Amazon Fund after a surge in deforestation in the South American rainforest. The move has triggered a caustic attack from the country’s rightwing president.


Bolsonaro rejects 'Captain Chainsaw' label as data shows deforestation 'exploded'
Read more
Jair Bolsonaro, whose move to meddle in the environmental organisation’s governance led to Norway’s decision, reacted by suggesting that Europe was not in a position to lecture his administration.

“Isn’t Norway that country that kills whales up there in the north pole?”, the Brazilian president said. “Take that money and help Angela Merkel reforest Germany.”

After weeks of tense negotiations with Norway and Germany, the Bolsonaro government unilaterally closed the Amazon Fund’s steering committee on Thursday. The fund has been central to international efforts to curb deforestation although its impact is contested.

Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, said the Amazon Fund had been suspended while its rules were under discussion.

In response, Ola Elvestuen, his Norwegian counterpart, said an expected payment of about $33.27m (£27.36m) would not take place as Brazil had, in effect, broken the terms of its deal. Norway has been the fund’s biggest donor, and has given about $1.2bn (£985m) over the past decade.

“He cannot do that without Norway and Germany’s agreement,” Elvestuen said. “What Brazil has shown is that it no longer wants to stop deforestation.”

This week Berlin had said it would withhold an expected payment of about $39m. Norway and Germany questioned an initial proposal from the Brazilian government for the fund’s steering committee to be reduced in size, and had warned against any weakening of the structures of the fund.

Grave concerns about the rate of deforestation since Bolsonaro took power have been repeatedly voiced by the Norwegian government and others.

According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, the government agency that monitors deforestation, the rate increased by 278% in the year to July, resulting in the destruction of about 870 square miles."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/norway-halts-amazon-fund-donation-dispute-brazil-deforestation-jair-bolsonaro


while I do agree that for 3rd world ex colonies it is extremely tiresome to hear lectures about ecology from the US and Europe, who tore up the planet to achieve their status and continue to consume far more than 3rd world people do, Bolsonaro is dead wrong here and sadly it has to be said this is what the democracy and capitalism produce: shortsighted win-now, defer the costs decisions.

It's an extreme solution certainly, but not without merit. I doubt there'd ever be a willing acceptance of such a plan though, so a slightly more realistic solution would need to be moderated some. How's this for dystopian-but-not-quite-genocidal:
Worldwide lottery, a small percentage (total of 500M - 1B maybe) wins the right to live in what will be the new model of the world: something like what we have now, but with drastically reduced usage of non-renewable resources (until they can be replaced completely) and a target of zero negative impact on the environment as a whole. Still some version of democratic (generally at least), freedom of whatnot and such, open travel to the degree that sustainable transportation options allow, all the (again, sustainable) mod cons. I suppose different countries / regions could still run things according to their preferences, as long as the net-zero goal remains.
The other lottery entrants, the non-winners, don't need to die, hooray! They will however live on something akin to reservations, as serfs, without the right to further reproduce. These poor bastards, in exchange for not being outright murdered to save civilization, are to be consolidated into agricultural communes to do whatever they can to regrow the world's flora and fauna until they all eventually die. Their goal is not net-zero, but as far into the positive as possible. It would all be overseen according to some grand scheme(s) to be as beneficial for the overall future of humanity and life on Earth in general as possible.

Probably also unworkable, but preferable to megamurder?

Eh, I agree in theory but think that in practice it's a rather pointless endeavor. The type of person who is self-centered and entitled enough to make the "it's someone else's job to clean up my shit" argument is not the type of person who, in my experience, is remotely likely to change. Narcissism precludes negative judgments on one's self. Plus most of the time calmly explaining anything to a person who already feels you've wronged them is not going to result in the outcome you'd like. You might say that some of the time it'll have a positive impact, but I think on balance the amount of strife I'd put myself through for that rare "win" isn't nearly worth it.

I do feel this approach might work if there's a friend or family member with the offender, but even then at best it's a dice roll. Maybe the other party will point out that the asshat was in fact in the wrong, and that may alter their behavior in the future just to avoid an argument. However, if the 3rd party spends a lot of time around the entitled asshole in question then there's a good chance they either behave similarly themselves, or are well aware of the asshattery and know it's pointless to fight them on it. So... yeah. Maybe a semi-public shaming? Don't think filming would ever help things stay cool though.

*quality message
From the description I expected a dark koyaanisqatsi....that might have been more impactful and less "preachy"
*promote