Can’t Reverse Climate Change? Think “Climate-Neutral” Instead.

102 thoughts on “Can’t Reverse Climate Change? Think “Climate-Neutral” Instead.”

• It is something like stopping an ocean liner, it takes a while. If you don’t start early and stay with it you will hit something, then the problems really begin.

• Fear of climate change is just ridiculous.
  The climate has always been changing.
  Humans are intelligent enough to adapt.

  • This is a lie. Humans evolved during a period of quite stable climate. We are now breaking out of that band into unknown territory for us. Life is robust and has survived much greater extremes and cataclysms, even “snowball Earth”. But humans are not life. There are 7 billion of us, linked in a fragile food chain. When people like you talk of “adaptation” to radical climate change, you are accepting deaths on a scale a thousand times worse than the Holocaust.

    • That is not a lie, the world has constantly been changing. Humans have been around for a couple of million years. And have lived through many big temperature cycles according to the ice core samples. Humans live in many climates with massive temperature differences, from African deserts to frozen arctic locations. We can handle a huge variation in temperatures.

      “fragile food chain” food is everywhere because of intelligent humans, look at all the fat people around you. Food is easy to grow,put some seeds in the ground and add water and sunlight, easy.

      “you are accepting deaths on a scale a thousand times worse than the Holocaust” LMAO, and how do you know this. Are you a soothsayer? Talk about press the panic button. In fact nobody knows for sure do they.

      • Global warming is real and it caused excess burning of fossil fuels.
        It is increasing.
        Human are more adaptive than plants, animals, and insects.
        Ecosystems being destroyed with nothing to replace them.

    • James, this guy is a troll. Lets flag him.

    • Yes. Life will be fine — bacteria will do great! Unfortunately, humans are quite fragile compared to bacteria.

  • Begone foul spirit of misinformation. We cast thee out….

    • So you believe in magic instead of science?

      • Opinion and/or propaganda is neither science nor facts.

      • I believe in the scientific method. (Science is not a faith activity, but a collection of techniques used to find the most likely answer to questions.)

        I believe that we waste our time trying to reason with those who discard facts.

        I also believe that it’s time for you to depart. Please use the time we are about to save you to learn something about climate change.

    • Why because you are afraid of another point of view?

• Dissimilar to right-wing US Evangelical Christian deniers’ verbiage, it seems that the Bible – and in particular, the Carpenter from Galilee – speaks to climate change. It also seems unlikely that it is going to get better. The “distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves” of Luke 21:25 describes climate change well, with rising sea levels and weather extremes. Some megacryometeors may be a result of climate change, so it would not be a surprise if they became more frequent (cf. Revelation 16:21). Bloody red algae blooming seas, fire and floods are also mentioned (and earthquakes, too). Since the accepted cosmology of the Big Bang – that space and time(!) had a beginning – fits nicely with Genesis 1:1, I’m inclined to believe more of the Book, as well, and it says we live in a dying world.

  Given the brokenness of people (all of us) and the corruption in and ineptitude of governments – first and third world, it doesn’t seem likely that climate change is fixable, even if it were all anthropogenic. And any global financial or non-climate geophysical disaster could effectively scrap any political and unenforceable agreements.

  But, counterintuitively, perhaps, the most frequent mandate in the Bible is “Don’t be afraid” (or one of its several variations, e.g., “Fret not” and “Be anxious for nothing”). That would include not being anxious about climate change and terrorism. Father is in control, like it or not. It would be better to like it. Also counterintuitive, perhaps: he is a lovable Father.

• These are all good points, just like if people pull on a rope in just one way instead of on both ends, you get a lot more done!

• Why was my comment deleted? Was it because my view was different to your beliefs? That is called dictatorships or apartheid.
  Does free speech not exist on this website?

• The only thing true in this article is “Go vote”. This is not an issue where individuals can make a difference. This is an issue where you absolutely need the government to FORCE industries to become green. Do not take my words as defeatism. All the “little things” listed here are designed to make people feel better about themselves, but if you wanna defeat global warming, the ONLY real answer is getting government to do shit about it. Anything else is a waste of time and effort. You will never get a significant enough number of people, by telling them that through the little things they can help, to actually make a dent in the damage. It is a drop in the bucket compared to the damage the big industries are doing. But don’t just “go vote”, protest, and call representatives and get your friends and family to do the same.

  Once again, i’m not saying you should do NOTHING, i am saying that if you’re going to do ONE thing on this list, it’s not “Take fewer napkins with your takeout” or “Make sure to do a full load when washing your clothes”, it’s VOTE. If you wanna do more – do more POLITICALLY. Everything else you’d do is just feeling good rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic.

  • This is an issue where individuals can make a difference.

    Every kWh of electricity you do not use is one less kWh that will be generated with fossil fuels.

    You, as an individual, can help educate and encourage others to cut their electricity use, install solar, switch to an electric vehicle, and vote for people who will work to move us off fossil fuels.

    • Every minute you waste figuring out how to be a more green individual and doing all the extra work that entails is a minute you are wasting not haranguing your representatives to ACTUALLY do something about it.

      Here is why it is so very important to emphasize this – there is nothing people hate more than trying to involve themselves in politics. Because it’s super depressing how little an effect you seem to have. And it’s super frustrating arguing with your opponents in political matters. So people think “Well i can’t get anything done politically but at least i can separate the recyclables.” But getting shit done politically is the ONLY thing that will bring about real change, and telling people they can make a difference with all of that little shit is distracting them from the REAL task they should be set to. It’s hard, it’s depressing, but it’s the only thing that will ACTUALLY help.

      • It takes no significant amount of time to turn off a light when you leave a room.

        It takes no significant amount of time to check the efficiency of a new TV or appliance when you leave a room.

      • Actually we need better politics. But we also need more responsible individual behavior/habits. Early adopters of stuff like PV and EVs are essential to drive the early stage technology.

        Also if you show people, that can can use half the energy they do, without feeling any pain, it might make government action seem less scary to them.

        • Sometimes the pen can carry more weight than anything else.
          I happen to know that you can get a government to backtrack, as in what they claim, when you present with the facts.
          As least in BC, Canada, do not know about the US (Fox “news”) for example and people believe what they broadcast, sadly.

          Also people can have more influence than they think, Canada again, simply by stating or joining a new political party/movement (personal experiance again).

      • Do both.

      • You make a good point, but you’re also wrongly giving short shrift to the personal behavior dimension of this problem. Some things cannot be dictated or influenced (much) by politicians and policies. You cannot “harangue your representatives” to force you to start behaving in less-harmful ways, such as flying in airplanes less, or eating less beef.

        The above list of desirable personal behaviors is weak by virtue of being so long, without prioritization. The biggest factors are air travel, animal food consumption, (especially beef), procreation, and perhaps auto ownership. If you can reduce or eliminate those things, then you can forget about most of the rest of the trivial crap (e.g. not rinsing dishes before putting them in the washer, etc., etc.).

        There are ways that politicians can support behavior change, but it will still be MOSTLY a matter of personal decisions, personal discipline. Even if they slap a high tax on meat or air travel, you will still have to decide to behave more sensitively. There’s no way around this. (Besides which, it will be a LONG freaking time before they slap such taxes on things, because of the furious resistance it would cause.)

        The biggest single thing is procreation. The environmental cost of one developed-world baby, doubly so a U.S. baby, is enormous. Should we “harangue our representatives” for a one-child policy? 🙂 That would be fine, but I won’t hold my breath.

        Personal awareness, responsibility and discipline is necessary, but it should be directed at a very short list of the truly important things. Forget about whether or not you recycle your bottles; focus on what really counts.

        I agree that the long list of behaviors is largely a waste of time. But a gloriously SHORT list of a few TRULY ESSENTIAL THINGS is not.

        • Asking people to “be better” has NEVER WORKED. You get SOME people when you moralize about shit. SOME people will be a little bit more environmentally conscious when you ask them to. We can’t rely on that. This is an effort that requires billions and trillions of dollars worth of actually doing shit and you need governments to do that. If they cut the military budget in half, and spent the rest on building renewable energy systems, we could make the united states 100% renewable in less than a decade. Then it doesn’t matter how horribly wasteful people are. We don’t need them to be “better people”. They can blast the AC and the heat AT THE SAME TIME and it wont matter because all the energy is coming from non-greenhouse gas sources.

        • Asking them to cut the military budget in half and spend the rest on building renewable energy systems has NEVER WORKED.

          Lol.

          Actually, people can and do change, over time, and with the right mass messaging, it could go much faster. Look at vegetarianism and veganism, and indeed the whole health movement. People who were into that stuff were regarded as health NUTS and FADDISTS, 50 years ago. They were LAUGHED AT. Now they are a major force, and their ideas have penetrated EVERYWHERE, even on to the menu at mcdonalds. The same with numerous other ideas in other spheres, such as the green/enviro sphere. Young people are forsaking automobiles, to a modest but significant degree. Impossible? Yes, just a few decades ago. And now it is reality. Personal behaviors DO change, my friend. Not fast enough for your or my taste, but it does happen. And it could happen faster, were we not actively, massively subsidizing the opposite behaviors.

          Yes, of course we should cut the military budget in half and spend the money on pro-human things. AND we should cut out beef, and have fewer (or no) kids. These things are not incompatible, and in fact can be part of the same general thrust, with consistent, coherent messaging.

        • And one more thing: the move toward personal austerity will be given a BIG push by the oncoming dollar devaluations. The dollar will not survive with its current strength — strength which is in large part what allows everyone here to be so profligate. I give it ~10 years. Maybe less. I would prefer it to happen a different, more-voluntary way, but there it is, and it is what it is.

    • Exactly, look at the average American consumer carbon foot print versus say that of consumer in Europe or Asia.

    • There are approx 25 million households in the UK. If each house saved 0.5 kwh per day (which would be ridiculously easy for most) and we have saved 12.5 million kwh or 12.5 Gwh per day. No brainer.

  • If everyone lived as my wife and I there would be much less pollution. We use virtually all the “tricks” listed above and more. Nevertheless it is, as you say, not nearly enough. I took one of the online “tests” for our (wife’s and mine) global footprint and we’d need 1.5 earths to support a planet of people consuming at our rate.

    We need a WWII level response yesterday. That requires wise government intervention in our economy – such as we had after Pearl Harbor. Some candidates take this far more seriously than others.

    The Great Barrier Reef just experienced an enormous bleaching event from which a large percentage will not recover. This was the third, and by far, the worst (First was 1998). The dead reefs it left will no longer support sea life. It sickens me. Other reefs, around the world, supplying millions of people with food, have had bleaching events also and it’s going to get nothing but worse.

    Look for a possibly ice free Arctic this September – Winter has been one long heat wave up North and ice is very thin. Greenland had over 10% ice melting – 3 weeks earlier than previous record – which was itself a record.

  • Necro: the situation may be a little bit different for those of us with fairly large amounts of money.

    The first thing I did was to DIVEST from all fossil fuel companies, selling hundreds of thousands of dollars in oil stocks.

    The second thing I did was to start replacing all my household equipment which used fossil fuels with electric equipment. The third thing I did was to sign up to buy 100% renewable electricity.

    I believe that this sort of action does make a difference. I’m taking financing away from the fossil fuel companies, while giving one more customer to Tesla, to the sellers of electric lawnmowers, and the people running utility-scale solar farms.

    I can also pitch the virtues of electric tools / cars / etc. to everyone I meet with money. I’m not really a fan of the capitalist market system, but as long as we have it, we might as well try to use it for good.

    This does make a dent. But it’s a dent which can only be made by people with cash. 🙁 Everyone else really can’t do much other than vote and campaign and protest.

  • I disagree that individuals can’t make a difference. We are working to stop the three Massachusetts explosive methane gas pipeline projects. One has been stopped. Two more to go.

• There are fact based people, then there are believers. Fact based people use logic and reason, believers don’t need any of that.

• The Lexicon of Sustainability | The Story of an Egg
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vyU-hilrY

  • I understood during the middle ages geese were commonly used to clear out weeds in a orchard. Their droppings fertilizes the soil.

    • And they are fierce watch “dogs”.

    • Geese, ducks and chickens also eat insects, slugs, Etc.

      Best,

      D

• LED bulbs have gotten very affordable.

  • Absolutely everyone should be using LED bulbs NOW. There is no excuse for using anything else other than ignorance. (Or really weird speciality sockets, which annoy me.)

• Yes we can!

  Put carbon where it belongs… back in the soil
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3rhjqzVrRc

• To amplify a couple of points above:

  Do not preheat your oven ..
  Also you can turn the oven heat off a couple of minutes before the
  food is fully cooked. The residual heat in the oven will do the rest.
  But, a microwave is more efficient by severalfold.
  Take advantage of natural shade and sunlight to balance home temperatures.
  If you live in a hot sunny climate with serious cooling demands:
  You can build outside “awnings” to shade your windows. Mine cost roughly
  $20 dollars of mostly wood per window. Also when its time to repaint exterior
  walls, use a lighter shade, this will lower the temperature of your outside
  surface when its exposed to the sun, and less will conduct inside. If you
  live in a hot dry climate that cools off below room temperature at night
  you can use fans to circulate cool air into your house. Precool as much as
  you can, then you won’t need the AC for several hours

  • Windows that get blasted by sunlight in the summer.

    Make up some screens with solar screen like this stuff –

    http://www.homedepot.com/p/Phifer-36-in-x-25-ft-Charcoal-Super-Solar-Screen-3021116/100552677

    There are other manufacturers and color options. This one advertises blocking 90% of the Sun’s heat.

    I had some large southwest facing picture windows that caused a previous house to bake. The AC could not keep the house below 90F on a hot summer day. Had some “screens” made for those windows and a sliding door and problem solved. Company that makes up screens had the stuff available on a roll.

    They did not change the view very much. Sort of like wearing sun glasses.

    • Yes to save us and other life on our planet we need to use energy efficiency first and just stop wasting stuff!

• This may be partly a matter of taste, but people like me are more likely to respond to “stand back and set priorities” than “try everything”. For example, recycling aluminium and glass saves significant amounts of energy. Reducing your use of paper napkins from managed commercial forests is trivial.

  The shortlist I published a few years ago had just three items:
  1. Instal solar panels.
  2. Make the next car you buy electric.
  3. Offset your flights.
  Together these account for the great majority of a typical first – world carbon footprint. For the rest:
  4. Make a fuss.

  • Where I am, I made a different shortlist.
    (1) Superinsulate your home. In the snowbelt, this is more effective at reducing your carbon footprint than *anything* else, and has the nice side effect of making your home way, way, way, more comfortable. (Switch to heat-pump electric heating while you’re at it.)
    (2) Make the next car you buy electric.
    (3) Avoid flying when possible.

    I guess solar panels should be #1 if you’re in the sunny warm areas, but superinsulation should be #1 up here in the frozen north.

• Lets look at the effort made here.
  1 PV on roof
  3 energy efficient lighting
  3 drapes on windows to cool and retain heat summer and winter
  4 windows covered in energy limiting film
  5 store rain water and use it
  6 grow vegetables herbs
  7 compost and use in vegetable gardens
  8 sparing use inverter AC when absolutely needed.
  9 only use clothes line to dry clothes or if raining under the house.
  10 most furniture made by hand by me

  • That’s a pretty good list. Except for one thing…

    Superinsulate the house. Most people don’t know how to do it. Most *insulation contractors* don’t know how to do it. Which is shocking, since the standards haven’t changed significantly since _The Super Insulated Retrofit Book_ was published in Canada in 1981.

    Your house is what I call a “half assed insulation” house, which is really very very good by American (or Australian) standards. But it sucks compared to a superinsulated house.

    A superinsulated house has:
    (1) a continuous vapor and air barrier
    (2) R-40 wall insulation and R-60 ceiling insulation and R-5 floor insulation (in the upstate NY zone; more further north, less further south)
    (3) an energy recovery ventilator to provide fresh air

    My house isn’t even properly superinsulated; it has a nasty gap in the vapor barrier on the ceiling, which I’m going to have to have fixed with vapor barrier paint sometime soon (annoying project). But it still has frankly miniscule heating requirements.

    The superinsulated house is the basis of the “Passivhaus” standards, but doesn’t go quite so far as to be fully passively heated by the body heat of the inhabitants.

    • Because i do live in the tropics my main problem is heat not cold now for cold yes admittedly double insulation glazed widows and floors have to be insulated as well as walls.
      Plus the building has to be orientated to make maximum use of solar in winter where as here it is the opposite in summer try to minimize it.
      Strangely enough most housing is now following the no eve or small eve of north american design which is absolutely useless in a high heat load situation.

      • Ah, the tropics! So heating not so much an issue. Preventing solar gain is the top issue for you.

        But the full air/vapor barrier and ERV combination is still incredibly beneficial at keeping the cold in while still getting fresh air.

        • True so orientation of building, shade creating a micro climate with trees, minimizing the heat gain is primary, however in winter once again heat loss is an issue so use of heavy drapes do help as well as insulation.
          Just added my 2 bobs worth to DRR-CCAFramework
          possibly a total waste of time however who knows.

• I agree with everything on that list, but the most important thing is to not get depressed. You can’t constantly worry about every little thing you do, it will drive you crazy and will do almost nothing to offset your neighbour that drives around in a 2 miles a gallon pickup truck while laughing madly. It is perfectly fine to do only some things and even those not every time, just do what you can. If you care about climate change and try to do something good about it, you are already a whole lot better than a whole lot of people. As Sandy said, the most important thing is to vote for someone who takes climate change very seriously.

  • Pretty difficult when everyone standing for election does not have a platform to change the present situation, however contact does help to send a message

    • Bernie Sanders put Climate Change at the top of his list for most pressing problem for US.

      • This would explain his strong following in the younger voter age group which are traditionally more idealistic

        • More idealistic or more realistic? I personally think it’s the old folks (excluding me of course) who are clinging to unrealistic ideas. Like we have time to “fix”climate change. If we stopped all emissions today, the climate would still warm to dangerous levels. HAS warmed to dangerous levels.

        • It would appear that yes there is going to be ongoing changes, however that does not give us and excuse to throw our hands in the air and give up.
          And i am sure you are not in the throw hands in air group

      • Actually it’s #6….

        https://berniesanders.com/issues/

        #4 on Hillary’s list.

        https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/

        But I don’t think that’s important. Both are putting a focus on the environment and climate change.

        • At the end of the first debate, each was asked what they considered the US’s biggest problem. Bernie said climate change.

          Hillary, until recently, was for the KXL pipeline. She pushed for fracking around the world. If you want to believe her promises rather that her past performance go ahead. She says whatever she thinks will get her the most votes. Sanders has been consistent.

          I repeat, we need WWII actions, not “focus”.

        • Hillary was “for” the KXL pipeline? Where does one find her supporting the pipeline?

          I agree to a great extent with Bernie in terms of what needs fixing. I just don’t see him as someone who, in 25 years in Congress, has managed to fix much of anything.

          But all this really doesn’t matter. Short of a bolt of lightning or something the race is basically over. Bernie would have to win almost 75% of the remaining delegates. Up until today he’s won only 80% of what Hillary has won.

        • The race is going into June. Until California votes it isn’t over.

          Remember what percentage Bernie got in Washington and Oregon? He still has a decent chance of a blowout win in California.

          He runs better in the head-to-heads against any of the Republicans than Hillary does, so I want him to win the nomination purely on electability grounds. Hillary is a weaker general election candidate and would lose to Kasich, while Bernie beats all of the Republicans. (RealClearPolitics poll averages prove it.)

          But it’s true there’s a decent chance that Hillary will win the nomination. And then there’s a decent chance that she’ll lose to the Republican, because she sucks as a candidate, regardless of how good she would be as a President. 😛

        • Washington was a caucus. He’s done good in caucuses, not as well in voting. Oregon’s primary isn’t until May 17.

          We’ve got another round of voting tomorrow. It’s pretty much Bernie’s last hope. If Hillary gets 50% to 60% then it’s almost certainly over. 50% of tomorrow would put her within 250 of the win.

        • You don’t have to speak in public to support something. Just help behind the scenes. Connections in politics are valuable. Her State Dept certainly aided and abetted TransCanada’s attempt to get the pipeline.

          http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/about-2/why-oppose-kxl/

          “The Environmental Impact Statement done of the Keystone XL pipeline was conducted by the State Department, not the EPA. Controversy erupted last fall over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ties to one of TransCanada’s top lobbyists, Paul Elliot. Elliot was one of Clinton’s top campaign officials during her 2008 presidential bid. The EIS found that the pipeline would have minimal impact on the environment, failing to properly analyze direct, indirect and cumulative impacts of the pipeline project.”
          More:
          http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/keystone-xl-contractor-ties-transcanada-state-department

          “EXCLUSIVE: State Dept. Hid Contractor’s Ties to Keystone XL Pipeline Company
          A top expert who helped write the government’s latest Keystone report previously consulted on three different TransCanada projects—a fact the State Department tried to hide.
          —By Andy Kroll | Thu Mar. 21, 2013 6:00 AM EDT”

          This was the Environmental Impact Statement. When presenting the bios of the writers – which was supposed to show whether or not there was a conflict of interest, the part where 3 of the writers were previously employed by Transcanada were redacted.

        • There were many irregularities in NYC voting.
          http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/04/21/board-of-elections-official-removed/

          Independents are getting to be a bigger and bigger percentage of voters. They couldn’t vote in NYC primary. They WILL be voting in the actual election.

          Until NYC there was a very small difference in delegate totals; I think both were over 1000 and her lead was 200 + or -.

          Clinton has an unfavorable rating only exceeded by Trump. In poll after poll, Sanders does better against Republicans than Clinton.

          The Dems had better start thinking about winning the election.

        • “I just don’t see him as someone who, in 25 years in Congress, has managed to fix much of anything.”

          Please, Bob. You’re much too smart to be mouthing such a foolish argument.

          And as for “the race is basically over”, newsflash: Bernie has already won, because it is not about Bernie the man or the politician. He represents (for a short time, in one sphere), and has done his part to further foster, a resurgent progressive movement, starting approximately with the OWS episode, which will grow over time and eventually transform politics and government in the U.S. Either that, or we will descend into an ugly overt fascism. It will be one or the other.

        • Alan, I spent time reading what I could find about Sander’s legislative record. For someone who has been in Congress for 25 years I just didn’t see a lot. I’m not impressed by naming post offices and authorizing commemorative coins.

          I agree with every goal Bernie has (that I’ve heard about). But I do not see any signs of the skillset needed to achieve those goals. Sorry.

          Now, the race is basically over. As of last night Clinton needs only 219 more delegates. Sanders is 1,028 short. Out of a remaining 1,246.

          Sanders would have to win 82.5% of all remaining delegates. That is a great example of “basically over”.

          Bernie did manage to get some of the youngs excited. Hopefully they will stay excited and move the country forward once they become old enough to start voting regularly. In the meantime let’s hope Clinton blows Trump away and has strong enough coattails to retake the Senate and put the House into a position for retaking in 2018.

          It would be really nice if the youngs would find time to make it to the voting booth. If they had we might have avoided six years of a Republican Congress and many of the problems that upset them today might have been fixed years ago.

    • We have one candidate for president who actually has a long environmentally friendly track record.

      • Yep, Bernie Sanders.

        • You sure?

          I just read through Bernie’s legislative history for the 25 years he’s been in the House and Senate and I don’t find his involvement in any environmental bills other than one dealing with lead in drinking water.

          https://www.congress.gov/member/bernard-sanders/S000033?q=%7B%22bill-status%22%3A%22law%22%7D&pageSize=250

          I don’t recall Bernie being active in any sort of environmental groups. Don’t recall reading anything he wrote (prior to this campaign).

          What are you basing your claim on?

        • Here’s a listing of their history on environmental issues:

          http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Environment.htm

          http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Bernie_Sanders_Environment.htm

        • It took very little effort for me to find this, which shows Sanders has been a strong climate hawk for years.

          http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/05/bernie-sanders-greenest-presidential-candidate

          A quote:

          “The Democratic presidential primary race got its second major candidate recently, and its first true climate hawk: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, self-described democratic socialist. Sanders has one of the strongest climate change records in the Senate. In fact, according to rankings released by Climate Hawks Vote, a new super PAC, Sanders was the No. 1 climate leader in the Senate for the 113th Congress that ended in January.

          Climate Hawks Vote measures leadership, not just voting records, tabulating actions like bills introduced, speeches given, and so forth. In the 112th Congress, Sanders ranked third behind Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). In the last Congress, he edged out Whitehouse by one point.”

          The link also mentions this legislation (along with 5 others):

          “In 2007, he cowrote with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) the Green Jobs Act, which allocated funding for clean energy and energy efficiency research and job training. This did pass, as part of a big 2007 energy bill.”

        • “Number 1 climate leader” — just as one would expect. Hillary, the opposite.

        • Bernie has not been an environmental activist, but that’s not the point. Bernie has his weaknesses, to be sure. But the salient point is that Bernie can be counted upon to take increasingly progressive sides on key issues, while Hillary can be counted upon to take increasingly corporate/fascist sides on the same issues.

        • That’s bullshit, Alan. Hillary has spent her life working to improve things for those who have the least power.

          There are two types of progressives:

          1) Those who want the Moon and want it right now.

          2) Those who want the Moon but realize that the way to gain the Moon is by working through all the steps it takes to get there.

        • THAT is bullshit, Bob. The Clintons (and I consider them a team, with largely the same outlook and orientation) have an incredibly notorious, ugly record, from imperialistic neocon foreign policy (resulting in the unnecessary deaths of millions, and lesser harm to many millions more), to selling American workers down the river with bum trade deals, to imprisoning FAR more people than any other nation on earth (as well as, inexcusably, turning the prison system into a for-profit venture), to having a major role in financial deregulation that caused the subsequent collapse (still unresolved, btw), to… oh, so much more! The Clintons, and Hillary individually, are utterly indefensible and without progressive content. They are, at best, center-right Republicans.

          NO ONE, Bob, is talking about “the moon right now”. We’re talking about not going in a more-radically fascist direction than we’ve already been going for the last several decades. That’s really all it is. All we want is to stop the slide into fascism. If that is “asking for the moon”, then… ok, I plead guilty, but with the understanding that the world in which I have to plead guilty is wildly skewed right.

          There is NOTHING “far left” or “highly idealistic” or “unrealistic” about what Bernie has suggested. He is just a moderate centrist, by global standards. A middle of the road kind of guy. The CLAIMS that he is “unrealistic” or the like accept as normal that which is an aberration.

        • Well, Alan, your guy is losing. You aren’t going to get your perfect pony next Christmas. We’ll all have to muddle through.

        • Yes, HE IS LOSING. The MSM has been very successful in pushing that line and indeed is constructing that reailty. Take a look:
          http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511822102

          He has already won that which is truly important. Winning the WH would be very nice icing on the cake, but whatever. This movement will not be stopped.

        • Sanders has not won because Sanders did not get enough votes.

          I think he has provided a service because he has given more voice to the problems we need to address. I hope the movement will not be stopped.

• I’m sure that humanity can not only become carbon neutral but carbon negative if they want.
  One of the best ways to do it is by plant a lot more trees and reduce a lot the size of the deserts.
  At the same time, coal and most fossil derived fuels must goes near zero.
  The sum should be clear carbon negative until forests reach it’s full potential.

• How ironic that using less energy as individuals only produces less pressure to urgently build the renewable energy (RE) infrastructure we all know we need.

  And how retrograde is the idea of sacrificing quality of life in order to use less energy when there is an infinitely inexhaustible supply all around us basically free for the harvesting. Suffering to save energy is the product of a fossil fuel mentality and will hold little to no currency in our renewable energy-rich future.

  The fact is – our RE future is a Federal government-sized project. It is also properly their @*!&’ing responsibility. Not the responsibility of the corporate sector. Nor the responsibility of individuals.

  I agree in very large part with Necro Nomakon. At this point, turning off lights, etc – while definitely helpful to stop some CO2 from going into the atmosphere – is EXACTLY like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It is a symptom of a psychopathology that beleaguers well-meaning folks: doing something, anything to keep busy. To take one’s mind off of existential despair.

  The problem is that it reinforces a fatal category error – that it is the responsibility of individuals to solve AGW. It is not.

  • Now if only half the people reading this article understood that. Yes, if even HALF of the 7 billion people in the world did this (and that half being in “first world” countries of course, as we’re by far the most wasteful) then we’ll start making a minimal impact. However, the pollution pumped out by Chinese coal plants alone is doing more harm than can be offset by turning off an extra light in every home. Mass polluters are the problem. Government-backed carbon relocation is also a problem (ethanol currently creates more pollution than it prevents). Slowly, government support for mass-scale renewables (solar, wind, etc, not ethanol) is making its way in, but they need to ramp up their efforts. Government intervention to prevent things like Nevada’s solar collapse is one thing in particular. If they’re not going to help the cause, they should at least prevent corporations from outright blocking and attacking it.

    • Perhaps use mr google to search for
      childhood without seeing white clouds and stars

    • Childhood without seeing white clouds and stars
      9 part series

  • When in doubt, row. Tedious blog post on the ethics here.

    http://www.samefacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa2.jpg

  • I appreciate your posts, Roger, but I take exception here.

    Yes, “there is an infinitely inexhaustible supply all around us basically free for the harvesting”. However, it will take at least 50 years to get it all up and running, and meanwhile god knows how many gazillion megatons of GHGs will have been emitted. We’re passing through a bottleneck and it is by no means assured that things will be smooth sailing. During that bottleneck period (50-100 years) we’ll need all the effort we can muster, and personal awareness and commitment in the form of behavioral discipline is one DIMENSION of what needs to be done. No one in their right mind would claim that AGW is simply and only the responsibility of individuals. And yet, there is an individual dimension. There’s no way around this. See my post above, posted a few minutes ago.

    Eventually, (50-100 years), with luck, we will arrive at the utopia you envision, and we will no longer need personal discipline or austerity with respect to energy use. EVENTUALLY. It is meanwhile that I’m talking about.

    Said personal discipline might be an important aspect of getting to that utopia at all. Keep in mind the wild variance of, e.g., projections of sea level rise by the end of this century… everything from a fraction of a meter, to tens of meters — the latter surely spelling the collapse of civilization. It is maddening that there should be such a wide range of possibilities, but there it is. And as long as the extreme high figures are possible, we are called to do everything we reasonably can to reduce risk. That includes… some personal discipline with respect to the most-intense behaviors. Again, see my post above.

• We’ve got to not only drop our CO2 emissions to zero, we’ve got to go below zero and figure out how to pull some of the CO2 back out of the atmosphere.

  Right now the most agreed on goal seems to be to hit zero CO2 by 2050 and then go negative. We don’t yet have a usable plan to go below zero, to re-sequester large amounts CO2.

  The ocean? We’ve already overloaded the ocean with extra CO2. We’ve changed the ocean’s acidity and are risking destroying much of its food producing ability.

  • Thanks for informing about that but is there any other way for becoming carbon negative other than tree plantation and carbon capture?Both of these seem to be unsustainable because you can’t just keep on planting trees and there aren’t that many places where you can store carbon.Will we be able to reach desired CO2 levels before those options are finished?

    • Here’s a Wiki page that lists a bunch of ideas. I don’t think any of them will be ‘the’ answer. We might use some of each/most as much as feasible.

      The problem is immense. A single coal plant can burn 200 rail cars of coal per day. Thousands of coal plants have been burning coal for ‘a hundred years’.

      • Well you forgot to post the link but thanks for giving me an idea of where to search for it.

        • Sorry, I copied it and then must have had a senior moment…..

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration

        • Bob could you post link to CO2 information i seem to be not able to

        • Not sure what you are asking. Something other than the wiki link in my comment that starts “Sorry”?

        • No i am sorry bob because my link to the videos was being moderated i thought i was not allowed to post in answer to a questioner it is all good the links i gave to noaa etc are now showing i gave 4 at least.

        • You shouldn’t have a problem posting links in the future. I put you on the ‘whitelist’.

        • Thank you i think the 4 links are fairly good although the last one was using 2008 information so is not current

    • Mass growth of algae will capture a lot of carbon very fast.

      It’s vitally important to leave peat bogs intact, as well; they capture carbon quite efficiently.

      I know of two carbon-negative industrial processes for making concrete (magnesium concrete and iron concrete).

      • Carbon negative concrete is sooo important, but concrete is concrete, so it can’t succeed like EVs and solar by offering more bang for buck. Legislate it, or carbon tax it. This is crucial. Once done, we can actually build our way out of the crisis.

        I know you know neroden. This comment is for the wider audience.

• Forests would be a net sink if we weren’t cutting them down (Congo, Amazon) and setting fire to what’s left (Indonesia). Net reafforestation is entirely possible. Brazil has achieved it in the coastal Mata Atlantica, though not in the more important Amazon rainforest.

• We actually have to remove the CO2 from the oceans too. CO2 in the ocean is *worse* than CO2 in the atmosphere — look up “ocean acidification” for why.

• Perhaps one of these links
  https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/
  http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
  http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

  http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

• Just about every one of these ideas is about reducing the sources of greenhouse gases. Just about none of them is about increasing the sinks for such gases. It’s a systems dynamics problem and how can you solve it if you concentrate on only one side of the dynamic?

  • Well, I can’t figure out how to commercialize Novacem or Ferrock. Both of which should have happened already. Speaking of carbon sinks.

  • I am putting together a submission to both major parties to sit down and not look at the next election but the future outline which basically has to outline how to move from a carbon economy to a sustainable economy which yes will have carbon but not be a net contributor to the equilibrium

• The “natural” world (before industrial revolution) kept CO2 levels around 230 PPM for, like 100’s of thousands of years; sinks in balance with emissions.

  We’ve increased CO2 levels to 400 PPM in 200 years. It’s not only our emissions; we’ve also destroyed some of the sinks (like rain forests). Why we have to do what Bob_Wallace says.

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