Is The World Getting Better Or Worse?

There are hundreds of millions of average people in the US who do care about carbon emissions and climate change. Trying to distract people away from this problem by pointing to other issues isn't productive. We do need to care what the government is doing because we can't lower carbon emissions without good public policy. Since Trump runs a rather large part of the government, it matters when he changes public policy based on his rejection of science.

I disagree. We can do a lot without any input from government.

Like what? How are you going to pay for 10's of billions of dollars of research? How are you going to pay for subsidies for renewable energy? How are you going to make sure that people are abiding by regulations?I don't think you have a good idea of the larger picture.

The number 1 source of atmospheric methane production is the human drilling of natural gas. Do you think Big Carbon is going to stop drilling and selling this useful poison just because it's bad for our future? I don't think so because they have already shown us they don't care.Intensive farming with all its cow and pig and sheep farts, we as a population can affect by eating less cow, pig and sheep. This would help, slightly, and should be done, but it won't help all that much in reaching our greenhouse targets for 2100.So, no, like our CO₂ problem, our methane problem, which is a huge contributor to the CO₂ problem, I do not see being effectively addressed in our lifetime. For decades there have been all kinds of good effective remediation proposals for our global warming problem already available just waiting to be instituted. The problem, Faith, is Big Carbon knows these will cost them hundreds of billions of $$$ and they have actively bought off the governments of the world from instituting them. They don't care. The governments don't care. The pols need their elections which Big Carbon can give them. Hell the USA doesn't even attend the global environmental conferences any more. They don't care!As individuals we can and should do all in our power to remediate what and where we can but even if our whole global society halved our individual carbon footprints starting yesterday the biggest baddest carbon polluters, the global industrial capitalist mega machines, are still out there and they don't care!It's already bad. It's going to get worse. We can lessen it a wee bit here and there by individual action, but Faith ... we're already fucked and Big Carbon is only going to make it worse still.

Conspiracy theories about entities such as "Big Carbon" characterized as having no concern at all for the future of the planet, aren't persuasive to me. You can't just point to "Science" to justify such accusations since there are too many other possible ways of thinking about all the effects you are talking about. I know you'll just say this is the science and the other science isn't science and it really is just unconscionable Big Carbon that is killing the Earth, but that can only leave me mystified and without any basis for action.While there are plenty of environmental problems that should be addressed, the overarching Climate Change analysis just sounds like hysteria and the usual blame game. That's why I was hoping to stay away from the climate change bogey. I don't know what to believe about it and I'm aware that there are different scientific assessments of it, none of which I'm in a position to judge.I think we need a lessening of the hysteria though. I really don't see that predictions of a sooncoming dire future do us any good. All they do is upset teenagers, though they could also do worse and lead to the imposition of economically and socially crippling policies when there really is no need, all because the analysis may be seriously flawed. I believe THIS is a serious concern and that the conspiracy theory may be very wrong.Since I'm amazed I've lived as long as I have I'm not expecting to be around in the dozen or so years the Hysteria gives us before the world goes Poof, but who knows, I may be, and I'm not expecting it to go Poof due to global warming due to greenhouse gases. What I think is unconscionable is scaring the next generation when we really can't know enough about the causes of any given natural phenomenon to predict the future with such certainty.I'd rather continue to focus on the level of saving the bird population qwhich is a real problem and within the grasp of ordinary people.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

There was a single-frame cartoon (From the New Yorker? The artwork had that general feel) that comes to mind. The remnants of humanity are huddled around a fire in a cave listening to the stories of "Earth that was" being told by a surviving capitalist (identified by the raggedy remnants of a suit) who told the next generation: "Then even though it destroyed the environment and humanity, for three glorious quarters straight we were able to give our investors half a percent higher profits."Let's face it, Faith. You're a creationist. You hate science. For you, it's an article of faith.

A fine defense of the Hysteria plus the usual personal attack. You Lefties MUST have somebody to blame, right?. You are very good at saying nothing and blaming me for your illusions.And I don't hate science at all, what I hate is ambiguous scientific analyses that claim to understand gigantic complex phenomena with so many variables it makes the claim arrogantly ridiculous. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not some conspiracy theory, Love, a reality. See my Message 532Big Carbon is real. It is composed of the 13 largest gas/oil/coal energy companies on this planet. All the biggies, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell +

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According to the United Nations, oil and gas production needs to fall by about 20 percent by 2030 and by almost 55 percent by 2050 in order to stop Earth’s temperature rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius...

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...since 2018, major oil companies have invested at least $50 billion in fossil fuel projects like Shell’s $13 billion liquefied natural gas project in Canada and BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Equinor’s $4.3 billion deepwater oil project in Azerbaijan that would not be financially viable if the world were to meet the 1.5-degree target.

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But they also put up $6 billion in "R&D" money. As if we don't already know what the problem is or how to fix it.$50 billion in new drilling projects last year vs $6 billion in "R&D" money.Not even a nod or a wink to
"oil and gas production needs to fall by about 20 percent by 2030 and by almost 55 percent by 2050"That is Big Carbon. They just do not care that they are burning up this planet. The time for hysteria was 50 years ago but no one was interested. Today it should be full on panic but, again, no one is interested. As least no one that can actually help fix the problem.Because the climate change is slow, almost imperceptible on a human lifetime scale, it doesn't slap you in the face every time you walk out your door. And, just like you, unless it disrupts their comfortable routine, the vast majority of people don't think it's real.Big Carbon, like Big Tobacco before it, knows that if they can ignore, deny and muddy the waters enough people will ignore the science that has been revealing the truth for almost a century now and Big Carbon can go on making $billions every day. Every Day!They are succeeding and *the people*, addicted to oil like they were addicted to nicotine, don't see it and don't care to see it.This 1.5^o C by the year 2100 was seen as a politically agreeable compromise by the world's governments years ago. It is *not* a majik limit under which we will be spared disaster. The disaster trigger point has already come and gone decades ago. The 1.5^o C thing was seen as viable to keep *even worse* disaster from our door. And we are failing even that.The hysteria is real for a reason. The planet is already on fire and we just keep lighting more matches. You and I and most people alive today will not see the worst of it. Our grandchildren will. Nothing can stop it now. We can only hope to not make it worse but, again, we are failing even that.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

It keeps bothering me that according to the climate change view enormously drastic solutions are the only possible solutions, utterly destroying our hard-won way of life, and yet we are accused of merely being selfish, greedy, stupid and so on if we can't grasp all the reasoning that supports destroying our lives. There is a mystifying total lack of sympathy for what you want to impose on us based on a science that we are not in a position to appreciate. Where is the serious and respectful consideration of our natural and understandable reaction to the horrific deprivations you are asking of us based only on an abstract science? Where is the sympathy, the respect, the concern for poor humanity on THIS side of the issue? Why are we called names for our perfectly natural skepticism and doubt? How is it those on your side of this aren't just as horrified at what is asked of all of us? There is a weird attitude of unreality in how all of this is being talked about.Why is there this talk by the Democrats of forcing a massive deprivation on us of everything we depend upon without any appreciation of our perfectly natural human reactions and human needs? There is a huge gap here. It makes this supposed reality sound even more fantastic. We're told the world is going to burn up unless we accept such extreme strictures on our ordinary life we might rightly prefer to die in such a holocaust.At the very least, given the serious nature of the problem why isn't there a huge ongoing effort to explain over and over again why we should cut back on our familiar lifestyle along the lines recommended? Where are the proposals for how to do it on a human scale in phases perhaps? But no, we get a list of things that are necessary and no respect for how hard that would be on us and no effort to try to help us ease into it. None of this makes sense if we really are facing so serious a problem.There is really a level of mystification here I can't fathom. If such a threat is real why the lack of serious, really serious, attempts to prepare for it and prepare people for it? Instead we're threatened with a social holocaust that sounds like it can't be any less horrible than the natural events it supposedly would protect us from."Big Carbon" makes its money by serving our accustomed needs. It's not some monolithic evil entity, it keeps the whole world functioning at a level of prosperity and comfort it took centuries to achieve, and just as we've achieved it now we hear we are going to have to give it up and go back to living like the wild tribes we evolved from. There is something truly mystifying about this whole mental set, and all the more suspicious when we recognize its political roots in the Left.But this never seems to get addressed. It's always just this huge threat of natural destruction that brings a teenager to tears over her supposedly stolen future, the shaming of everyone who dares to doubt the scenario, and the threat of political tyranny by the Left to take away essentially our whole lives on what sounds to some of us like nothing but hysteria or possibly even a political excuse.One thing you suggest we'll have to do is move to electricity, but electricity is powered by fossil fuels and the more we become dependent on electricity the more fossil fuel it's going to require. I haven't seen this addressed.And the wind and solar farms kill birds and the more such farms we have the fewer and fewer birds we're going to have. (It also occurs to me that if the solar farms radiate so much heat they instanteously fry to a crisp any birds passing overhead, they must also be putting an enormous amount of heat into our atmosphere that we certainly don't need if we're talking about global warming.) I don't see that addressed either. Nevertheless these alternative forms of energy continue to be touted as better than fossil fuels for the sake of the environment. Mystification.And why is it always the US that is targeted when other nations are far worse offenders than we are? We've gone farther than any of them toward minimizing the worst environmental effects, not that more is not needed but it's hard to avoid noticing the unfair fingerpointing.Forgive me but there is something fishy about all this. If the problem is really real, there is something drastically wrong with how it is being approached, talked about, presented to us etc etc etc.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Because many folk are quite simply totally out of touch with reality and prefer to remain that way.But regardless, reality WILL win.

Here is my 2 cents. Approaching this issue from the standpoint of a Bible Believer, keep in mind that you have discussed The Rapture before as if it indeed could become reality, right? Well if so, we *are* in the last days, and you can and should expect fishy things to emanate from the feverish minds of men, be they Leftists or Conservatives. The way I see it, The Leftists, by and large, want globalism and one world. (non-religious global secular humanism)The conservatives that you listen to are biblical believers, yet they too don't understand the implications of being believers. The Last Days are here. Climate change is real. There may be a Rapture. Have you ever stopped to think of the implications globally if such an event did happen? Suddenly, this whole idea that the US is being run responsibly by the conservatives in power would fall apart. None of your ideas defending the current governing of the United States would matter anymore. No righteous would be left behind!! What I'm trying to say, Faith is that global ideological conflict is inevitable, and the enemy is not the Left. The enemy is the sinfulness of man in general. Don't tell me that you dont see the arguments that Big Carbon is deceiving us! Comments?Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

Yes, I agree with you there. Have a seat and watch the Bread and Circuses commence.

Who is the accuser of the brethren? You are pinning blame on humans...but only on some of them. It is not us vs them. It is humanity versus Satan. Critics ill say that religion and religious belief are the culprits.

Reality does not conform to what you find persuasive.The 2008 recession should be a lesson for everyone. What we learned is that even the greatest minds in banking made the most basic mistakes because they were blinded by short term profits. This isn't a flaw found in just big fossil fuel companies. This is a flaw baked into human nature. When a company gets that big and is run by committee they will all too often make the wrong choices because they are blinded by short term profits. I would hope that you try to see if what they are saying is actually true.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Non sequitur.