You also shouldn't expect deniers or people like me, who think that there is little that can be done to prevent climate change, to be impressed by that footage.
Edit: Wait. What? You said you are someone "who think[s] that there is little that can be done to prevent climate change"
What makes you think that? Since humans are a leading cause of the existing change, almost by definition we are capable of working to prevent further damage. Sure, it's going to be extraordinarily difficult and near-impossible, but we can do it. Why would you think otherwise?
Assume you buy that human emissions are driving enough of climate change that if we removed that driver things would stay "cool enough". China has already markedly surpassed the U.S. as the largest total CO2 emitter, and they're not even close to the U.S.'s per capita emissions. Even if they can manage to continue to industrialize while only emitting per capita as much as the nuclear-heavy French, you're still looking at an increase of 15-20%, and I think that's optimistic. AFAIK, the Chinese are building coal fired power plants as fast as they can.
And that's just China. India and Africa would like to enjoy a Western quality of life as well.
I am extremely skeptical that CO2 emissions can be substantially curtailed, short of a world economic collapse that would make 2007-2009 look like a walk in the park.
But I am more than willing to be convinced. I think it would help the alarmed AGW folks immensely if they would unify around a politically impractical "if we ruled the world" plan. One sufficiently detailed that it could be analyzed for its climatic, economic and social effects, as well as publicized, criticized and modified until it becomes practical. A starting point might be, "Tax fossil fuel extraction at the source at levels sufficient to reduce emissions the necessary N%". But then you have to figure out what to do about the facts that this sort of plan would likely never be accepted by Russia or China, and that it's a massively regressive tax on the world's poor. There are solutions to these issues. Figure them out, add them to the plan, lather, rinse, repeat. If something like this already exists, I haven't seen it.
Bring something similar to the low-end market. Bring it at a competitive price. Make it more desirable than the existing stuff and people will switch because they desire it. Not because some law says they have to.
Do the same for everything else. Invent better cheaper and more eco friendly housing, energy, food production, transportation. Like the Tesla it must be more desirable and better in nearly every way then its competition.
IMO that's the only way forward. As you pointed out there's no way to get the entire world to follow some eco laws. Especially when most of the world is wants a better quality of life. If we give them that quality of life or better but with affordable and better eco-tech / eco-design we'll solve the problems.
I don't see why that follows at all. I understand that if everybody thought and acted as you and I probably do, and would build nuclear plants, maybe the effects of GW can be mitigated, but that obviously is not the case.
I'd argue the other way around: the best evidence that there is little that can be done is that there is little that is being done. The Chinese don't even care if you can't see your own hand before your eyes in Peking today, what hope do I have that they care about remote places in 50 years?
Doing something individually against GW is at the far far far bottom of my TODO list. Because it is not an effective use of my time. Maybe the most effective would be working for a Geoengieering company if I had the opportunity.
How much did the glacier retreat 1000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period? And how much did it grow back 400-500 years ago during the Little Ice Age?
100 years of data is not enough to understand what's really going on.
This is not a direct response to you, but it's a fact that few people seem to realize when discussing ocean levels and global warming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
edit to fix link
I don't follow.
I'd think ulterior motives would be all but implicit in any case where there's even a perception of money / power to be gained/lost.
I am not "truly" amazed that people can mentally delete the human population in whole or in part and claim to know what the Earth's climate should be like without mankind (or at least the "unnaturally" large number of them) as if the totality of human existence were an input to a computer model to be optimized for some target value.
My point is that it is easier to deny than work towards finding a solution.
The ones in power do, but the followers accept plenty of concepts because they run contrarian to what various "authorities" state and believe.
It follows with plenty of subjects, not just "What do scientists know, anyway?" but plenty of "What does medicine know?" and other fields.
I think that the only ulterior motives deniers have is to refuse to face a simple fact: 8 billion people and all the cattle needed to feed them is probably something that earth cannot widthstand for very long. So either we all start eating insects (they are way more environmentally friendly than cattle) or we start limiting birthrate.
I know that it is estimated that total world population shall go down by 2100 or so but I'm not sure we can wait that long.
One kid per couple. Boom. Problem solved.
But who wants to hear that?
This video is simply staggering in it's immensity. For the life of me, it is these events that make me seriously question whether the climate change deniers have ulterior motives. The fact that the calving scale has so dramatically increased in the past 10-20 years is terrifying and how anyone can pass it off without concern is beyond me.