AIBU not to buy in about all of this net zero/environmentalism?

[ShanCran]

Okay, so I understand the need to look after the planet and all that but just feel that the whole “net zero” agenda is being pushed too hard and too fast. Things like “clean air zones” in cities. Surely that’s just a money making exercise?

I recycle where I can, but not as religiously as most. I also travel about 20,000 miles per year in my (small) petrol car and in my 28 years on the planet have travelled approximately 175,000 air miles. Some will say that I am awful and totally unreasonable - but I suspect that many will agree that the whole concept of net zero is being pushed too hard and too fast.

After all, for all the environmentalist rhetoric that is preached by many politicians, the King, numerous celebrities and the likes - I don’t see any of them being principled enough to reduce their airmiles (often travelling by air for trivial things) or travel less generally. I doubt that the personal carbon emissions of many of such “celebrities” is far from net zero themselves.

If your teacher was teaching in the 90s that London would definitely be underwater by now, they were teaching it incorrectly. Or you were misinterpreting. It was considered a possible worst case scenario, not a certainty.

A small change in temperature can have huge consequences for humans. The majority of the world's population lives close to the sea, so a small sea level rise could cause huge displacements, with resulting war / refugees etc.

The staple crops that feed most of the world's population are rice, wheat, and corn. These are very sensitive to unusual weather events. Have a big enough event, and you get food price shocks and famines.

The biodiversity thing is a major worry, but a lot of that is down to building stuff and destroying habitats.

Exactly.

We're fucking the planet in so many ways. CO2 is a massive distraction.

Once my mother had a problem she thought was unsolvable, but I managed to do it.

Ozone was quite an easy fix. This is a much more complicated issue, with a lot more trade offs. Doing anything effective requires significant social discourse, but that's not allowed, so it's not going to happen.

Can you explain why clean air zones are negative? Why is dirty polluted air preferable?

Higher temperatures due to CO2 are a major driver of biodiversity loss, particularly in oceans. Corals and kelp forests are very sensitive to temperature change.

They don't show the same trend. The planet was much hotter millions of years ago because the oceans could circulate freely at the equator.

Recent temperature tends have been oscillating between ice age (glacial) and non-ice age (interglacial). The trend is rapid warming followed by slow cooling. As per the graph I shared, our current temperature is around 10°F lower than the previous (completely natural) interglacial high. This temperature is still well, well within the bounds of normal climate variation. That's a fact. To claim otherwise is anti-science.

Will we see a sudden rise in temperature due to CO2? Maybe.

But if CO2 is such a massive driver for temperatures, and our CO2 levels are now 50% higher than at any point in the past 800k years (as per the chart above), why aren't we seeing a corresponding huge increase in temperature rather than tiny incremental increases that are still completely in line with the earth's natural climate variations?

There are still so many people that believe that the ozone layer was never an issue. They say "well, they said that the hole in the ozone layer was going to be a problem, but it didn't happen". They don't understand that we solved the issue. So, we never reached accord with that, but fixed it anyway.

Yes, carbon is a bigger issue, but that just means that it is scaled up, not that it is impossible.

The same thing is happening with carbon. Yes, faster change would be better, and there will be more problems, but the rate of change away from fossil fuels in the past few years is just mind - blowing.

We are. You need to look at temperature changes since 1880.

As has previously been explained, it's not the magnitude of the change that's the issue, it's the rate of change.

Net 0 is a scam. To funnel taxpayers money to government cronies.

Not to mention that it doesn’t make an ounce of difference to global emissions if UK reaches net 0. We are less than 1% of global emissions.

There was a thread on here recently about why higher mathematics should not be routinely taught in high school. I think this thread is an excellent example of why it should be taught. People just aren't understanding the mathematics that explain these issues.

They show periods of warming and cooling, so yes, they do show the same general trend. The relevant fact is that the planet warms and it also cools. Nobody has said otherwise.

The full effects of CO2 on climate change are yet to be realized, as you have indicated you are aware. Feel free ask me why the temperature change isn't exactly the same as it was in whatever other warming period you wish to compare it to when the full effects are seen. If we're still around to argue about it that is.

I don't know that anybody has argued it's a "massive" driver of climate change, either. If it was as massive as you seem to think people are saying it is I tend to doubt we'd be alive. It is a driver and it's one we have some control over, so why wouldn't we?

You are not understanding trends. Look at how sharply those curves shift. Do you really think that fossil fuel dominance will persist in a few years? Especially given how cheap and reliable renewables have become?

Clean air zones is not really about net zero, it’s about air quality in our cities. Air polluted with particulates from diesel vehicles and old petrol cars makes people unwell.

It's good that you've mentioned 1880.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa

"The eruption caused a volcanic winter.[24] In the year following the eruption, average Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures fell by 0.4 °C (0.72 °F)"

Bearing that event in mind, do you think it is a bit dishonest to measure the cumulative increase in temperature from a decade when global temperatures were artificially low due to a volcanic eruption?

It certainly makes for good headlines, but it seems a bit desperate when you actually look a bit closer.

I don't care about the sharpness of the curve shift in the context of this discussion. The earth warms and the earth cools. That's the trend. If you want to talk about a sharpness and dullness trend I can open a thread about reality TV.

If I could predict what is going to happen re; renewables then I'd probably be offered a Ted Talk. So the answer is I don't know.

That's the daftest statement yet. Volcanic winters last a few years at most, unless you are talking Siberian traps events.

It's a hypothesis that does not in any way fit the data.

The king isn't going to be around for long enough to reap the consequences. But in your 20s OP, you are. So it's in your interest to be more militant than most.

You should care, because that graph of renewables uptake is a thing of beauty.

They don't show the same general trend. The scale on the 480 million year graph prevents it displaying the type of temperature cycles that we've seen since the collision of the North and South American continents.

The 480 million year graph completely lacks detail and is meaningless for the reasons I've already explained.

"Feel free ask me why the temperature change isn't exactly the same as it was in whatever other warming period you wish to compare it to when the full effects are seen. If we're still around to argue about it that is."

What a ridiculous statement. Humans currently thrive in Dubai and Alaska. A couple of degrees of warming isn't going to eradicate humans from the planet. It is this sort of nonsense that has resulted in the Net Zero lunacy.

Just how long do we have to wait for these Doomsday predictions to come true? At what point would you take stock and decide that maybe the theory isn't matching with reality and we can forget all about it? 20 years? 50 years? 100 years?

It's like the Jehovah's Witnesses repeatedly predicting the end of the world and then having to put the date back by 20 years.

Climate change on a human timescale: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1732:_Earth_Temperature_Timeline

Humans can thrive in extreme clomates, but a complex society of billions of people does not react well to sudden systemic changes.

The Syrian war is a result of human displacement caused by drought caused by climate change.

The bigger the climate changes we get, the more of that sort of stuff goes on.

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/syrian-revolution-story-politics-not-climate-change

I couldn’t give a rats aris about it. If I were dead and not contributing to any emissions at all, would the world be even 0.000001% better off? No. Anything I could possibly consume or do in my life will not make the slightest dent so fill your boots I say.

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/human-security