*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, July 12th, 2010 8:19am PDT - promote requested by enoch.

Nice, a TED talk that has some teeth. That expression of emotion during the dolphin story elevates this to one of the most inspiring talks I've heard in a while.

*important

And seriously, how much mental gymnastics does one need to do in order to believe that manmade pollution doesn't destroy this planet?

*quality *doublepromote

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by gwiz665.

Double-Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, July 12th, 2010 4:16pm PDT - doublepromote requested by gwiz665.

>> ^volumptuous:

important
And seriously, how much mental gymnastics does one need to do in order to believe that manmade pollution doesn't destroy this planet?


Well, in this case, it doesn't take much as BP is taking an active role in directly destroying it instead of just passively! In a way, it's pure innovation, way to go BP! (dies a little inside, but in the name of comedy!)

I definitely appreciated his linking the connection between BP & the oil spill with the US government bailing out big banks & Wall Street and saying corporations are buying the government out from under our feet. So True!!!

I posted this link a little while back but nobody noticed, not looking for glory just interested in your thoughts

http://videosift.com/search?q=well+to+hell

My housemate was just talking to this Catholic chick tonight who's an administrator for a non-profit that sends missionaries overseas. He made a comment that he'd love to take a cruise to Alaska and see the glaciers before they're gone. She says we can all rest easy...global warming isn't a threat because the ozone layer is repairing itself.

1. The ozone layer problem is over Antarctica, not Alaska.
2. Ozone depletion has to do with UV light and is not significant in relation to global warming.

Fuck I wish I had been there to tell her she's an idiot. This is the problem that allows banks and corporations to do whatever they want. Mass ignorance, no ability to think critically, and willful disregard of facts. Unbelievably frustrating.

sorry folks, I meant this link:

http://videosift.com/video/Salbuchi-The-Well-From-Hell-Part-1-of-2

So he asks us to feel sorry for out of work fishermen then attacks them for Over fishing?

>> ^mgittle:

My housemate was just talking to this Catholic chick tonight who's an administrator for a non-profit that sends missionaries overseas. He made a comment that he'd love to take a cruise to Alaska and see the glaciers before they're gone. She says we can all rest easy...global warming isn't a threat because the ozone layer is repairing itself.
1. The ozone layer problem is over Antarctica, not Alaska.
2. Ozone depletion has to do with UV light and is not significant in relation to global warming.
Fuck I wish I had been there to tell her she's an idiot. This is the problem that allows banks and corporations to do whatever they want. Mass ignorance, no ability to think critically, and willful disregard of facts. Unbelievably frustrating.


Well ozone depleting chemicals are also greenhouse gasses, so they aren't completely unrelated. And the north pole also sees ozone depletion and smaller holes from time to time. Global climatology isn't easy, especially for the layman. With many different political groups struggling for power, you do have to be suspect of a lot of the information out there. I prefer to remain cautiously agnostic on the matter. However I think we can all agree that dumping hundreds of millions of tons of dinosaur wine (even though Mesozoic was such a good year) into the ocean isn't a good idea!

fantastic talk, I've been waiting for someone to join the dots like this for a while.

@GeeSussFreeK

Yes, I understand it's a difficult subject for the layman...hell, I'M a layman when it comes to climate science, but I know how to learn and sift through information to determine what's bullshit. I do my own learning and I don't rely on hearsay. A subject being difficult doesn't excuse terrible logic and belief in misinformation.

How can you remain "cautiously agnostic" after statements like the following? Massive conspiracy of scientists?

"The finding that the climate has warmed in recent decades and that human activities are already contributing adversely to global climate change has been endorsed by every national science academy that has issued a statement on climate change, including the science academies of all of the major industrialized countries. With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 2007, no remaining scientific society is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change."


Even the petroleum geologists finally acknowledged it...y'know, the guys who work for the oil industry...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_of_Petroleum_Geologists#Global_warming_controversy

Just because some ozone depleting chemicals have a greenhouse effect doesn't mean that the ozone hole getting better means there can't be global warming. It's that whole if A implies B then B implies A logic people incorrectly use all the time. Also, the ozone hole over the Antarctic is expected to continue for decades, even if it is "getting better". AND, there is an expectation that as the ozone hole in the Antarctic gets better, it will actually increase the speed of warming in that area:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/science/earth/26ozone.html

The point is, "it's complicated" should lead one to "man, I'd better find out what the deal is" not, "man, I'll never understand that so I'm gonna wait for someone else to tell me what the deal is." Nor should it lead people to take small bits of evidence that logically connect to a positive outcome and then assume the outcome for the entire situation will be positive. That's exactly what the problem is with "ozone repair => no global warming" logic.

Ozone-depleting chemicals are constantly being phased out of use where possible (some are used as fire suppressants and are therefore bottled up most of the time, etc). The general public recognizes ozone-depleting chemicals as bad, and there's no political problem with discontinuing them.

On the other hand, there's a political problem with discontinuing the use of oil, so we see lots of misinformation related to climate change. Millions if not billions of people have a direct stake in oil production, refining, distribution, and consumption. That should probably lead you to believe all the controversy is generated as opposed to existing on its own as a result of collected empirical data.

I remain cautiously agnostic for several reasons. I think mostly, though, is that it has never been sufficiency shown to my liking that warming temperatures are bad. Now, no one wants to become like Venus and have rivers of molten lead coursing by the house. But then again, what if 30% of the Russian permafrost melted and provided a farming area the size of 2 United States for the world? It seems more like a fear of change then a fear of anything rational. For example, the year after Katrina, they predicted no less than 4 category 5 hurricanes for the season. We didn't even have one category 4 that year. I think that was one of the main fear that I have heard about global warming is more extreme weather pattens, but I don't believe there is really any good evidence of this. Even when you look to the heavens at Jupiter and Neptune, you see extreme weather, but you see a very consistent pattern. So the argument is 2 fold for me. First I remain unconvinced that global climate has ever been truly stable, and second, that warmer temperatures are even bad.

With that said, I find pollution disgusting in its own right. Who likes smog, really! Who like finding wrappers (I misspelled this and almost left it rappers, lol) all over their town? Who likes getting sunburned because they punched a whole through the ozone? Pollution and general filth still concern me and I think we as individuals should try as best we can to change what we can. I think if you want rapid adoption of new clean technology, keep government out of it. Right now they are, once again, pushing pet programs like ethanol that are crazy ineffectual but have the backing of the corn lobby.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I remain cautiously agnostic for several reasons. I think mostly, though, is that it has never been sufficiency shown to my liking that warming temperatures are bad.

You should read up some more on the concept of climate change feedback. Ice and snow are more reflective than open ocean and land, if it all melts, it will make the planet warmer.

The polar caps are also known to have large bubbles of methane and CO2 in them, if the ice melts, they will be released into the atmosphere, adding to the warming effect.

As for government's involvement, what supposed small government people are prioritizing is making gas and electricity as cheap as possible, by trying to stop attempts to price carbon, limit pollution, and limit environmental risks by putting moratoriums on deep water drilling.

There is a big agribusiness lobby that pushes ethanol (whose environmental pluses are marginal to nonexistent), but there are much still much bigger subsidies for oil and coal.

Most environmentalists want to end the subsidies of oil and coal (and ethanol for that matter) and replace them with wind and solar subsidies -- and we're stopped by conservatives and corporatists screaming about how statist and tyrannical that would be because it would distort the market.

To really let the government get out of way, you need for the government to create a market for carbon and pollution credits and let the free market find the true price of environmental damage. Insisting that pollution should remain an unowned communal dumping ground is not a free market policy at all -- it's communism, plain and simple.

I am all for ending all subsidy of energy, oil, coal or otherwise! I would LOVE to see technology finally take government out of energy production. I would love for every house in America to be its own power generator. Could you imagine stopping off at someones house to "fill'er up"! That would be so cool to me! We still might want to keep "the grid" around, but it would fulfill a totally different function. I am hopeful that a combination of solar power + hydrogen fuel cells will give us this ability. Solar seems like such a cash crop of energy, and fuel cells give you the mobility aspect. Time will tell if this comes to be, but it seems pretty promising now with solar cells reaching 50% effectiveness!

I know of studies that talk about feedback loops for weather, and while intellectually intriguing ( I love all things dealing with Apocalypse!), it seems to be without any real historical evidence. Most mass extinction due to weather change that we have any real evidence of are due to catastrophic events such as massive volcanic activity or comets and meteors. While I don't doubt that human CO2 levels could do something that equates to those, I question if we produce the amounts necessary at this point in time. I have tried with little success to find ice and CO2 levels of the Mesozoic era. However, I have read somethings to the contrary of the capacity of the ocean to stabilize the temperature better than ice. Liquid water has a very high specific heat, by increasing the volume of water, you could have an even more effective heat dissipation system than that of reflective ice. I lack any real education into which one is more true. Interestingly enough, CO2 levels were most likely 10% higher than today during the Cretaceous period. There might be slightly more elasticity in the climate than most people have come to understand.

I disagree that the government needs to "create a market for something". If it is one thing governments are very poor at doing is creating markets for things. People do this better and faster than government think tanks. I do however support new understandings in pollution in how it interacts with property rights. If you clog my air with filth, there has to be some legal ramification to that. It is due time to assess how property is defined in terms of air, water, and the like, I welcome that conversation.

(edited: Spelling, dear god man spelling)

What I don't get about the fervent resistance against restricting greenhouse gas emissions is: We're going to run out of fossil fuels in about 60 years. You can massage the numbers one way or the other, but from what I can tell, 60 years seems like a reasonable estimate. We're going to be getting into trouble much before that, thanks to "peak oil". That means revamping, on a global scale, our entire energy infrastructure in a few decades. The solutions to both of these problems are the same: We need to develop non-fossil energy sources, fast. Even if somehow you manage to convince yourself that anthropogenic climate change is a sham, it is insane to ignore the limited nature of the fossil fuel reservers. This is not a small problem - 70-80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels, and we're ignoring that to bicker about whether or not CO2, methane etc. have an effect on the climate, and whether a warmer world would be such a bad thing at all.

My palm, it is glued to my face.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I disagree that the government needs to "create a market for something". If it is one thing governments are very poor at doing is creating markets for things. People do this better and faster than government think tanks. I do however support new understandings in pollution in how it interacts with property rights. If you clog my air with filth, there has to be some legal ramification to that. It is due time to assess how property is defined in terms of air, water, and the like, I welcome that conversation.
(edited: Spelling, dear god man spelling)


I don't mean "create a market" meaning "we're going to use subsidies and taxes to make something that isn't economically viable on its own popular", I mean literally create a market as in "we're going to stop people from taking other people's stuff".

Read up more on the theory and practice of cap and trade. For real-world results, look at the sulfur cap-and-trade they implemented in the 70's to combat acid rain.

The basic idea is that we get an independent read on how much CO2 capacity there is in the environment, and then auction off tradeable permits for emissions. The market sets the price via supply and demand.