Sometimes, when governments drag their feet, industry needs to take the lead.
Originally shared by Brian Gauspohl
May 2016 --- MIT Technology Review on how more and more companies are coming to terms with the reality of the warming climate and the consequences this has on their business models
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601429/sensing-the-inevitable-companies-begin-to-adapt-to-climate-change/
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601429/sensing-the-inevitable-companies-begin-to-adapt-to-climate-change
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LEGO Americana Roadshow: Building Across America I just checked out this traveling exhibition from LEGO and was quite impressed. The scale ... -
When we let politics trump science, people are needlessly put in harm's way. http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/self-censoring-fears...
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Thank you, Lego, for letting me simply tell you online which parts were missing from the boy's Christmas present and sending them to me,...
What happens, if we keep burning Carbon? http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/what-happens-if-we-burn-all-the-fossil-fuels/
ReplyDeleteRob Blackburn
ReplyDeleteThe data is hardly a secret http://climate.nasa.gov/ with thousands of researchers around the planet publishing their findings almost daily. There is a lot of research on climate cycles that happened thousands of years ago. This cycle is coming on faster than any previous warming cycle, and 97% of climate scientists attribute it to Human activity associated with the Industrial Revolution, fossil carbon combustion and a human population that has increased from less than 1 billion to almost 8 billion during that brief period of only three human lifetimes. Climate Change is no longer a theory, as the laws of physics are easily applied and proven. The Carbon Energy Industrial Complex is the only group trying to block progress in reversing the causes of Climate Change with contrary disinformation and fraudulent advertising. I would suggest you spend some time on the website above for starters.
Rob Blackburn
ReplyDeleteThis cycle of change is not natural, but caused by Human technology and activity. Regarding previous climate cycles, the most recent study I know of is https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130807134127.htm
Rob Blackburn
ReplyDeleteWhy we need to stop or mitigate this cycle is specifically our survival, as we are in the early stages of the Earth's sixth mass extinction event. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150619152142.htm
Rob Blackburn Are you a professional climate change denier or is this just a hobby for you?
ReplyDeleteBack in 2012, we were dumping roughly 2.4 billion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere EACH SECOND. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/carbon-dioxide-emissions-rise-to-24-million-pounds-per-second/
Read some science and learn about what dumping trillions upon trillions of pounds of carbon into the atmosphere actually does. Then see if you still think 7+ billion humans can't have an effect.
Rob Blackburn This isn't "rhetoric"...it's thousands of studies by the world's climatologists, geologists, physicists, and so on. This isn't a famous guy on TV spouting his opinion...this is the fact based on more data than have been collected on arguably any phenomenon ever studied. You clearly haven't read the research -- I have. It's just as much an indisputable fact as the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning. That some people aren't convinced is due to either (a) willful ignorance (I don't want to think about it because it might threaten my comfort zone), or (b) it conflicts with other beliefs that actually are not fact-based (i.e., religious or political idealogues). If you're neither of those and do, indeed, "just trying to understand the truth," then you'll go read the research. If you're not actually interested in the truth and just want to pretend it's a fictional concern, you'll continue to spout nonsense on the Internet. The choice is yours; sadly, the implications are shared by pretty much all living things on the planet.
ReplyDeleteRob Blackburn Many ARE making radical changes. Germany went from 5% to over 50% of its power generation being free of fossil fuels in just the past few years. OPEC is scared shitless...why do you think they're keeping the price of crude low? To delay the world shifting away from oil. My city just signed a power supply contract so that 100% of the electricity we consume is renewable... and that was publicly demanded. Hell, I went and spent more on an EV than I'd spent on all my previous cars combined! That no one in your immediate vicinity might be making radical changes doesn't mean it isn't happening. But, as one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, we won't feel the immediate effects until after other parts of the world are rioting over persistent flooding, forest fires that never end, and food shortages. And some of that is already starting to happen due to climate change. This isn't a fairy tale, my friend...it's really happening, like a slow-motion train wreck.
ReplyDeleteRob Blackburn
ReplyDeleteEconomies do not turn on a dime, and the Fossil Energy Industrial Complex is fighting for its survival. To a large degree people resist being changed. About 20% of my electricity in Florida now comes from renewable sources. More importantly, relative to Humanity's ability to affect the planet, I strongly urge you to watch the documentary "Home" to get a better feel for how we are changing the Earth. It may be the most important film you watch this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU
Rob Blackburn There are two forces at work here: 1) The threat is long-term and (for the moment) subtle. This isn't a pull-the-trigger cause-and-effect situation...things we do today don't have immediate effects on a scale that cause most people to have an epiphany that stuff has to change. It's like saving for retirement...many people don't do that, and most certainly not to the degree they'll need to be comfortable in old age. That lack of long-term thinking has undermined humans' ability to make the best decisions since humans were a thing. Our progress is despite that tendency, not because of it.
ReplyDelete2) Humans don't like change, especially when the change causes them some kind of harm in the short run. We should be dramatically cutting back on burning fossil fuels of all kinds, but are people going to gladly and easily give up air conditioning or cheap airplane flights?
You combine (1) and (2) and you're essentially asking people to give up things they like NOW for some future benefit years or decades in the future. It's exactly like a retirement account -- most people aren't willing to give up beer and pizza today in order to ensure they can afford a place to live when they're 80 years old. But that's also because a lot of people are selfish, thinking only of themselves (and their immediate pleasures) and not of future generations to come.
Immediate sacrifice for a long-term payout is not a strength of humanity, and that (perhaps in the form of climate change) may very well be our ultimate undoing.
Rob Blackburn
ReplyDeleteIt occurred to me that you may not be a US citizen and therefore unaware that we have a political Party that denies Climate Change is a problem that needs a solution. They have done everything in their power to delay or obstruct efforts of our Environmental Protection Agency to facilitate change. Their nominee for President has declared his first action will be to get the US out of the Paris Accord and promote a resurgence in drilling everywhere in and around the nation.
Rob Blackburn
ReplyDeleteIf you have watched "Home" in its entirety, then you are aware of the global scope of the problem. Yes, errors have been made in trying to clean up pollution sites, and the EPA accepted responsibility for the one you mention. The EPA was not involved in the Flint catastrophe until after the State created the problem. In fact, the State withheld information from the EPA while it was happening. The EPA, laws and regulations only exist because of past pollution events and populations harmed. The cost of industrial pollution has long been paid by the public, not the perpetrators, who have historically sought protection in bankruptcy.
There are two sides to the pollution/climate change debate. One side is heavily invested in maintaining the status quo to sustain their profitability. The other side is invested in communicating the true cost of the status quo to the future of Humanity, perhaps two or three generations in the future. Most of the world gets it. Unfortunately, in the US, much of the economy and Government is controlled by the industries that have the most to lose from a shift away from dirty technologies. The bottom line, are we, as a species, better off with more pollution or less?
Mac Baird I'm convinced Rob Blackburn is just a climate change-denier troll who is only pretending to be open-minded and legitimately concerned about finding out the truth. Either he's convinced himself that there's nothing to worry about or he's a drone for the fossil fuels industry. Either way, I'm tired of his willful ignorance and am blocking him. Sorry to ruin your fun...perhaps you can engage him on his own posts.
ReplyDeleteCraig Froehle
ReplyDeleteThanks, perhaps difficult people are a gift to teach us something about ourselves we will need in the future. The window to the mind opens from the inside, and some minds are closed to facts that do not conform to their religion.
Rob Blackburn How are you doing today? And how is everything out there. I am Seidu Mariam by name and i would like you to send me a message through this email. Mel.mike30@yahoo.com for more information's about me...
ReplyDelete