Is climate change due to human activity?

[ahinton]

With the exponential global population growths predicted today, it might be wise to make precautionary assumptions about replaceability, I think.

It might indeed, but only for the purpose of encouraging serious and constructive thought about the need for research in the direction of getting more from less; harnessing resources more efficiently and using less environmentally damaging and more sustainable ones is clearly paramount and it does not follow that adopting a "green" attitude to our use of the earth's resources must entail the making of sacrifices - indeed, considering that more than 10% of the world's population has no direct and reliable access to potable water and acceptable levels of sanitation and a substantial proportion of it is ravaged by untreated or inadequately treated disease as well as dire food shortages, it is surely already evident that much more has to be done to get more from less. Solar energy is just one of these; it's a resource available for practical deployment in many parts of the world and is not about to run out any time soon, whatever may happen to population growth; this is an important consideration, for once work has been accomplished that ensures that even two-thirds of the population have access to adequate water, sanitation, healthcare and food, humanity will require vastly more of the earth's resources than are used now and the population might well increase more rapidly.

[Sydney Grew]

The two necessary reforms are obvious - at least to me. 1) Abolish "money," exchange, and the concept of ownership. (Introduce absolute equality for every soul on the planet - that would be a relief would it not.) 2) Abolish and outlaw the evil concepts of "nation" and "border." (That way we will no longer have to worry about the Japanese navy steaming round the point one day soon looking for Lebensraum . . . That too would be a relief because there would no longer be the concepts of "them" and "us.")

If these two reforms do not take place - and it seems almost certain that they will not at first - there is bound, because of deteriorating conditions, and human nature, to be "competition" for the non-existent and impossible.

[MrGongGong]

The answer really is very simple

YES

some of it is
but as we don't know which part we should assume that it is and take steps accordingly

(though of course the Kipper folk don't "believe" in it ............ )

[Dave2002]

I have no problems with flying if it doesn't affect the environment worse than other forms of transport.
Its quite possible to argue that flying in a scheduled flight is more eco friendly than driving a car with no passengers .
I do , really, have a problem with a world where some people can afford private jets and other people can't afford to eat.
As to your point about equality and climate change....the structure of our consumer driven society where inequality drives excessive consumption at all income levels, is a big part of the problem.

I hope you didn't mean that literally. Driving to Australia for example, with the odd ship or two, would be worse than flying, but that doesn't mean that everyone should fly there. I think you meant to say if the journey was necessary, or perhaps highly desirable. Many journeys are unnecessary, so arguments based on relative merits of transport modes should be irrelevant.

[ahinton]

The two necessary reforms are obvious - at least to me. 1) Abolish "money," exchange, and the concept of ownership.

And replace them with what?

(Introduce absolute equality for every soul on the planet...)

"Equality" of what?

2) Abolish and outlaw the evil concepts of "nation" and "border." (That way we will no longer have to worry about the Japanese navy steaming round the point one day soon looking for Lebensraum . . . That too would be a relief because there would no longer be the concepts of "them" and "us.")

If these two reforms do not take place - and it seems almost certain that they will not at first - there is bound, because of deteriorating conditions, and human nature, to be "competition" for the non-existent and impossible.

But who would or could implement any of this? It would have to be done by universal global agreement if it were to work in any case; try establishing that first!...

[Sydney Grew]

. . . It would have to be done by universal global agreement . . .

There you have hit the nail on the head ahinton! It will HAVE to be done (just as the U.N. had to be set up after 1945) because things will have come to such a pass that there is NO LONGER ANY ALTERNATIVE.

[ahinton]

There you have hit the nail on the head ahinton! It will HAVE to be done (just as the U.N. had to be set up after 1945) because things will have come to such a pass that there is NO LONGER ANY ALTERNATIVE.

Sadly, I've hit nothing and do not pretend to have any kind of solution. Neither UN nor its predecessor the League of Nations ever did or could agree anything that could apply to every nation on earth; for that to be possible, you would have first to establish a United Nations that left no nations out - and then you'd have to do what no such organisation has ever attempted to do, namely persuade the United States of America, Kyrgysztan, Italy, North Korea, Scotland, the Democratic Repulic of Congo, Bhutan, Greenland, Somalia, El Salvador and around 200 other countries all to agree simultaneously not only to destroy their borders but also set up a world government, which is even less likely than Brian's Gothic Symphony and Sorabji's Jami Symphony each receiving a professional public performance somewhere every day for a decade!

[John Wright]

Sydney, those 'reforms' cannot ever happen on planet earth. Not all humans are the same, I mean they speak different languages, have different complexions, and millions of them have selfish and criminal intentions that could never be 'taught out of them', and so, 'being human', never ever would 6 billion people be capable of living without a 'them' and 'us' mentality.

[teamsaint]

I hope you didn't mean that literally. Driving to Australia for example, with the odd ship or two, would be worse than flying, but that doesn't mean that everyone should fly there. I think you meant to say if the journey was necessary, or perhaps highly desirable. Many journeys are unnecessary, so arguments based on relative merits of transport modes should be irrelevant.

I was just saying that, if a journey has to be made, with the current available options, flying is not necessarily the worst option.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Every human being is a net producer of CO2. The number of human beings is increasing at a rate similar to the rate of increase in CO2 levels.

Until we tackle population levels, pollutants will continue to rise.

[Dave2002]

I was just saying that, if a journey has to be made, with the current available options, flying is not necessarily the worst option.

Agreed, but that's not quite what you wrote. Somewhat surprisingly, cruise ships are apparently far worse - even allowing for the fact that they may go round in circles. The problem with flying is that it makes very long journeys feasible. Very few would think of driving 5000 miles in a day, but some of us have done this several times. Can this be justified? Very debatable.

[ahinton]

Every human being is a net producer of CO2. The number of human beings is increasing at a rate similar to the rate of increase in CO2 levels.

Until we tackle population levels, pollutants will continue to rise.

...unless and until we develop more efficient means of CO2 absorption; cutting down too much forest and not replanting's not the most brilliant way in which to achieve this end, but it is possible to deal with this problem (although whether sufficiently so I am uncertain).

[teamsaint]

Agreed, but that's not quite what you wrote. Somewhat surprisingly, cruise ships are apparently far worse - even allowing for the fact that they may go round in circles. The problem with flying is that it makes very long journeys feasible. Very few would think of driving 5000 miles in a day, but some of us have done this several times. Can this be justified? Very debatable.

well I think I did say that first time, but no matter !
Our travel demands , in the western world, are madness."Food Miles " are a useful indicator too.
There is a supply side issue. if more eco friendly forms of travel(especially for leisure purposes) were easier or cheaper, perhaps air travel would become less attractive.

[ahinton]

Our travel demands , in the western world, are madness."Food Miles " are a useful indicator too.

Some of the food miles instances are indeed absurd. It's OK to send items thousands of miles if they're only growable in a climate entirely different to that of their destinations (this is especially necessary in countries where it's possible to grow very little), but there's an awful lot of food miles travelled unnecessarily. That said, there's going to be a whole lot more of necessity this year, given crop failures in UK and elsewhere.

There is a supply side issue. if more eco friendly forms of travel(especially for leisure purposes) were easier or cheaper, perhaps air travel would become less attractive.

Such as? At present, no forms of long distance travel are entirely eco-friendly, though some are obviously more so than others. It could be argued that any form of travel that can accommodate hundreds of people is proportionately more eco-friendly than any other that can or does carry only one person. The problem with most forms of transport is that so little has yet been done to make them more eco-friendly. "On yer bike!", quoth Norman (now Lord) Tebbit some three decades ago - but how eco-friendly is that when so much CO2 is produced by the bike driver when struggling to keep up with other urban rush-hour traffic of other kinds? All means of transport have some degree of eco-downside in terms of their manufacture and disposal (even bikes), so a full assessment of each from an eco-friendly standpoint is possible only if such issues are factored in with the eco-friendliness or otherwise of their actual running; the same goes, in principle, for the manufacture and ultimate disposal of heat pumps, solar panels, wind turbines and the rest, especially nuclear power stations.

I don't think that this issue is so much about air travel per se but about what measures can be taken by designers and manufacturers of means of transport with a view to reducing the adverse environmental effects of each and every one of them and, as I've indicated, far too little consideration has been given to such issues until relatively recently.

On the one hand, humans have always demanded more of the planet's resuorces than have any others of its creatures but, on the other hand, there's no ingenuity like human ingenuity when it comes to finding ways to deploy those resources to maximum advantage with a view to getting as much as possible out of as little as possible; it's just down to open-mindedness, due perception of the need to do it and developing the will to do it.

[Dave2002]

On the one hand, humans have always demanded more of the planet's resuorces than have any others of its creatures but, on the other hand, there's no ingenuity like human ingenuity when it comes to finding ways to deploy those resources to maximum advantage with a view to getting as much as possible out of as little as possible; it's just down to open-mindedness, due perception of the need to do it and developing the will to do it.

Sure, we are ingenious, and able to overcome difficulties, but demand for resources is outstripping supply. Every time we make a technical improvement, so that fewer resources are needed, what happens instead is that demand increases, and quite possibly the net effect may be worse than if no improvements had been made.

Most of us seem not to understand the meaning of the phrase "non renewable resources".