If only you could convince the deniers of that. Speaking from a US perspective, they seem to think that the "libs" just want to hobble our economy because they hate "success" and "strength" and don't actually believe there is an existential crisis at hand.

The US has lowered it's CO2 emissions 10% since 2000. Thanks to the "right" and fracking. 16% in the EU.

If you eliminated US/EU production of CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would still rise. The slight warming that would take place as China and India modernize their life will still happen.

If you eliminate US/EU production of CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would rise 24% slower. If you added in a carbon tax that it levied on imports from countries that don't implement an equivalent system you can bet that China would lower its emissions too. If you're very fancy you can also offer to install alternative energy in foreign countries at cost price.

>If you eliminate US/EU production of CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would rise 24% slower.

Thank you for confirming my point.

>If you added in a carbon tax that it levied on imports from countries that don't implement an equivalent system you can bet that China would lower its emissions too. If you're very fancy you can also offer to install alternative energy in foreign countries at cost price.

So the pitch here is... Let's risk war with a Nuclear power with a tariff stick and for a carrot offer a way to a worse standard of living then US/EU. This sounds real viable.

The alternative is risking war with a nuclear power for food and land that can be used for agriculture.

If anything, increased CO2 and temperatures is going _expand_ the amount of available land for agriculture. CO2, it's the gas plants crave my friend.

It might expand the available land for agricultural use, but that land is not going to be in the same spots as our agriculture is now. What do you think China will do when agriculture becomes harder in China, but there is all this Russian wilderness that used to be frozen and is becoming fertile? Or the US with Canada? Where do you think hundreds of millions of Africans will go when equatorial regions become uninhabitabe without AC?

Everyone I know that supports Trump is also a climate change denier. Concerns about climate change are liberal propaganda that progressives are trying to use to raise our taxes. It is very very very much political.

If you dig down into it politics is about finding solutions to physical problems like limited resources/land/etc, preventing violence, and how to cooperate in order to do more than one human can do alone. That climate change exists and is a physical problem is not political. Solutions to this problem will need to be political in some way or another.

It always has existed, and the problems are largely imaginary. Hence the politics.

How are the problems of melting permafrost, rising sea levels, and volatile weather patterns "largely imaginary"?

These are going to occur anyway (along with freezing permafrost, lowering sea levels, stable weather patterns). These are ordinary problems that we adapt to.

The problem I'm talking about is the idea that these are preventable. They're not. It's an imaginary problem. The US , for example, can _eliminate_ CO2 production and those things are still going to happen. The imaginary problem is that climate change is a problem to solve.

> These are going to occur anyway

How on earth do you know that?

> These are ordinary problems that we adapt to.

You make it sound like we've been through this before.. When?

> The US , for example, can _eliminate_ CO2 production and those things are still going to happen.

So, we cranked up the emissions, and these things just RANDOMLY started happening at the same time? Even though our environmental models and knowledge of physics agree with our observations??

Like.. it's just MAGIC or something? What is causing it if it's not CO2?

Climate is not static.

For example permafrost thaw - we have no idea how widespread it is. The areas we do observe have a valid, natural explanation for thaw via gas cavities. Some of these cavities get enlarged thermal-erosional piping, which can expand the cavity due to seasonal temperature changes, which can make the cavity large enough prevent re-freeze.

This isn't magic. It's science.

Neither is my car, but something has to happen to make it move.

You addressed none of my questions. What, in your opinion, is the trigger for the shift?

Edit: You edited in the part about permafrost. I did some quick googling because I had never heard of the causal link of gas cavities causing the melt. I've only seen the papers on the melt causing gas to escape which then exposes underground cavities... Still can't find any sources on cavities causing surface temperature to rise - care to share some sources? That sounds interesting!

The thing to worry about is the rate of change. I'm a fan of the visualization that XKCD did here: https://xkcd.com/1732/ When the rate of change is too fast, life struggles to adapt. Feedback loops are so tight that it accelerates even more. For instance, a slow permafrost melt means some trees die and rot, but new ones grow to replace them at similar rates. A fast permafrost melt means all the trees die and rot quickly. Their carbon is added to the atmosphere. The other plants and animals that depended on them lose all their habitat.

Think of climate like a car going 100 MPH. Climate change is changing the speed of the car. Do you want to be in a car that goes from 100 to 0 in 0.5 seconds, or in 20 seconds? The climate is changing quickly and we don't even have proper seat belts for everyone.

That xkcd comic should go back 400,000 years instead of just 20,000.

Eh, it's really about the relevance of temperature fluctuation to civilization. Sure humans existed earlier, but we know less about their relationship with the world around them the further back we look.

That might be what it was about, but it could've been about more. I don't think anyone claims humans were significant to CO2 or temperature more than 200 years ago, why go before that to 20,000 years and stop there?

Also US CO2 emissions are down since 2000, thanks to fracking. When you go to bed fearing climate change, thank a Republican for lowering US CO2 emissions.

Fracking might be helping with CO2, but it's also releasing a ton of methane which might not be as bad in the long term but is really really bad in the short term. If we've got a few decades before the point of no return... great! If not.. oh well, it's been a good run I guess?

Not to mention the absolute havoc it's wrecking on local environments.

It's also only good if it's a stop-gap for renewables.. so I'll thank a republican once they stop blocking measures to improve and subsidize solar, wind, and other clean energy solutions.

Fracking is not a viable path to net-zero emissions, so it doesn't count as a solution.

Solar is not a viable path for powering the energy needs for the world, it doesn't count as a solution.

Fracking isn't renewable and causes massive local environmental problems.

Solar needs better batteries.

One of these things is not like the other.

Solar, wind, and storage technology is a viable path for powering the world according to the people who study such things.

You're banking on unlikely materials engineering breakthroughs to get solar and wind energy density to be 1000 times more than what it is today.

Not 2x improvement, not 10x, not 100x. 1000x improvement before renewables are as efficient as natural gas. Good luck.

Do you have any source for the 1000x? What do you even mean with "efficient"? Because I'm just proposing to cover 2-5% of the land with wind turbines and solar panels while improving overall energy efficiency through building insulation and a switch to heat pumps and electric cars.

Stating the current effects of climate change (and any future effects) !== [x] socio-economic and political system is the answer.

How is for example a carbon tax and rebate system socialism? Sounds like a market driven solution to me.