Posted by:
ificouldhietokolob
(
)
Date: April 27, 2017 10:07AM
Tall Man, Short Hair Wrote:
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> Honest question: Are you aware of any study that
> tries to quantify the percentage of human impact?
Several dozen, actually.
Here's one to get you started:
https://skepticalscience.com/Quantifying-the-human-contribution-to-global-warming.htmlif you google "quantifying human impact in climate change," you'll find dozens of others.
> We all know we're in an interglacial period which
> is marked by warming regardless of anything we do.
> And there are reliable studies showing significant
> factors like our orbital path and aerosols caused
> by sun activity on cloud cover cause warming as
> well.
As I pointed out above, that there are other factors affecting our climate isn't a surprise at all, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the human impact of dumping billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. There are also "natural" (and human-caused) factors that can and do cause climate cooling. Understanding the facts about ALL of those factors is what matters. And we're getting there, with the evidence of human-caused warming becoming clearer and clearer as we do so.
Why, pray tell, do you seem to accept all of the science detailing other factors, but completely dismiss all of the science (largely done by the same people using the same methods) detailing the human impact?
> Is it possible the natural factors are
> causing 90%, and there's no need for us to expend
> much time or money on fruitless remedies?
No, it's not. The facts clearly show otherwise.
And this is perhaps the most important part: we don't have to expend much money on remedies (that even if the climate science were wrong, which it isn't, wouldn't be "fruitless.").
Switching to non-fossil-fuel energy sources isn't very expensive to begin with, and over time is far *cheaper* than using fossil fuels. That's not "fruitless" even if the climate science is wrong. In fact, we *have* to do so eventually, because fossil fuels are a limited, non-renewable resource. Starting to switch over now, doing it a bit at a time, is economically efficient and long-term smart, as well as being a reasonable response to the climate change science. It's being proactive, not reactive as Darren pointed out above.
You should wonder why the biggest investors in "alternative energy" right now are the gas and oil companies, if your dismissal is correct. They know that their current operations making money aren't going to last, and they're investing in other energy sources -- even while some work hard to deny science in an effort to suck as much money from their current operations as possible.
>This is
> the most important question in this discussion. If
> we can be proven to be the cause of 90% of it, we
> should act.
Why the arbitrary threshold?
What if we're 50% of it -- we shouldn't act?
How about 20% of it?
If we're ANY of it, we should act, IMHO.
And we should act because it's economically efficient, economically smart, our only long-term option, and environmentally smart even if ALL of the climate science is wrong. Which it isn't.
I'm looking out my back window at a solar farm built in my valley about 2 years ago. This facility produces electricity for my community, and at a rate that is about 1/2 of the rate from my utility's natural gas-fired plant 80 miles away. It produces no CO2. It uses no non-renewable resources. And it saves me and the utility money. What's the problem? This is SMART in every possible way.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2017 10:57AM by ificouldhietokolob.