Exxon Scientists Predicted Global Warming in 1970’s

One of the world's largest insurance companies says that as global warming damages increase, two countries will be hammered harder than the rest: the Philippines and the U.S. Apparently, the Philippines have all of their cities close to sea level. The U.S. has a lot of cities near sea level, and has the most wealth to lose. The U.S. currently loses $97 billion a year to hurricanes and other weather events. Time for republicans to clutch their pearls and get in their gigantic SUV's to go protest against brown people.

Trump's response to GW? "Drill, baby, drill!"

One of the world's largest insurance companies issues warning about global financial threat — here's what's at stake

 

GW is the biggest hoax ever FORCED upon us. Not one prognostication that has been made since 1970 has come true.

 

Isn’t there a country that is relocating their capital to higher ground?

 

Here is the data. Looks like they came true:

 

So, what do all you global warming theorists suggest we do? Quite bitching for a few minutes and let us all know what your solutions would be. Don't start with wind and solar because we're already doing that. And that would be viable solutions, not ridiculous ideas like getting rid of all gas vehicles by 2035 or some other non-sense like that.

 

It's not so much a thoery as something that is objectively happening. The first step is getting everyone to agree to this observablel truth. If that had happened 10-20+ years ago, much more could have been done by now.

Instead we've had relentless and purposeful obfuscation of data in an effort to maintain the status quo.

Are you here to say: OK, it's happening. What can we do now? Or are you here to say: OK, it's happening, but there's nothing we can do.

 

Well, one solution is the continued development of new wind and solar, whether you like it or not. And you are correct, that is happening. As of now, it is cheaper to build new wind and solar than new fossil fuel plants, so that should continue for business reasons. But we shouldn't be taking ridiculous talking points like Donald Trump's windmill cancer stuff seriously and we need to make sure that no policies arise from such nonsense.

Second, there needs to be money invested in cleaner technologies. That has happened in the past. The growth of solar and wind benefitted from early basic research with investments from both public and private sources. Same with electric cars. We should be continuing those investments for the technologies that will develop over the next ten years (some of which will be declared "unviable" by the same people who declared wind, solar, and EVs unviable in the 00s and 10s).

Third, due to the slowness of response, we will need to develop mitigation strategies. There have been and will continue to be effects from Climate Change that can't be prevented at this stage. So we will need to develop plans as to how to deal with those. For example, you are seeing homeowners insurance rate spike in regions that are prone to fire and hurricanes. We will need to come up with ways to mitigate the impacts of more extreme weather in areas with extensive populations/infrastructure/economies. This also needs to be considered at a global level.

We should pull off tariffs and allow the most rapid spread of these new technologies through the market. For example, cheaper EVs from China should be allowed into the marketplace. Let the market decide the quality of the products. We are starting to see some evidence of technological leapfrogging due to these cheaper EVs. We should be developing technologies for sale not just in the US market but also global markets.

Finally, pressure needs to be applied to prevent particularly harmful economic activity, such as deforestation or industry or resource extraction activities that are likely to cause more climate change.

 

Good post, and all the things you mentioned are happening. They may not be happening at the rate many would like but they are happening, and I agree with you. Again, good post. I got a "Come on Man" from JMDZ but no reply with reasonable ideas. I am not going to debate the global warming issue as the earth has warmed and cooled forever. It doesn't really matter anyway. We are where we are, whether we like it or not. The fact is, we aren't getting rid of oil anytime soon, and that is what everyone wants to point to as the problem. The day a true alternate resource becomes available, with scale, that doesn't cost a fortune, and that we can use to move people, will be the day we can stop relying so much on oil.

 

I'm here to say that it seems we are in a warming trend at the present time. The true cause can be debated all day, as there have been warming and cooling cycles throughout the Earths life. So, instead of continuing the constant bitch session, let's have some of the smart people on this forum give their ideas as to what we can reasonably do to help mitigate the problem. Getting rid of oil as a resource is not reasonable at this point in time. What are some new, or even unknown but theoretical, possibilities for an alternate resource?

 

Funniest post ever!

 

We are almost certainly past the point were gradually phasing out emissions and less painless things would be all that useful (though they could buy more time if we did soon). We are reaching the point where we need to basically end the fossil fuel industry if not industrial capitalism in general. If that is not to people's taste, we need to be developing crazy stuff to mitigate warming, like putting stuff in the atmosphere and ways of creating food without water-consuming agriculture. The current trajectory suggests to me that will will burn even more fossil fuels in the short term, and devolve into global chaos as mass immigration is triggered by climate collapses and various disasters in the most precarious areas, places that will no longer support habitation, farming or food production. So I suppose we could also look into building a giant wall to keep people from moving north and evacuating the coasts as they slip into the ocean. So how dystopian do you want the future to be?

 

That day is already here. The problem is politics. Byd is making a model that will move people around in an EV at scale for $12k. Chery will get you a mid-sized car for under $20k. The US is forcing it's customers to pay more for cars because Tesla doesn't want to have to try to compete with these companies and because Michigan is an electorally important state.

 

What's wrong with a gas tax? Americans are so scared of a gas tax, they aren't even willing to be taxed to pay for the roads they drive on. The federal gas tax has not changed since 1992 (still $0.18/gal). Inflation has increased the cost of everything, including highway maintenance, since 1992, by a factor of about 2.5. We should be paying $0.45/gal tax on gasoline.

Does a gas tax encourage people to conserve fossil fuels? You bet your ass it does. Ask Europe if you don't believe me. In 2008, I paid $9.19/gal for gasoline in Germany. I noticed that everyone other than the extremely rich were driving cars with small engines, with many of them being diesel cars. On my last trip over there this year, I noticed the wealthy (and many of the not-so-wealthy) were driving electric cars, and there were a lot of hybrids in the mix, along with the smaller engine cars that were prevalent in 2008.

A gas tax could also be used to help build high-speed rail in the U.S., which would further reduce congestion on both the interstate highways AND the airports, especially in the Northeast.

Once people understand that higher gas prices are here to stay, they will think twice before getting a monster SUV or a sports car. They might be more encouraged to get a hybrid or an EV. Let the people decide if whatever benefit they get from a new vehicle is worth the additional amount they would pay at the pump for it.

 

If this was really an issue, we would have banned gas a long time ago. This issue lives on due to the "there's a sucker born every second" principle.

 

Just more uninformed opinion, more sad than funny.

 

Well I’m doing my part..having solar panels installed tomorrow although admittedly it’s about cost savings than environmental impacts. Rapid expansion of nuclear could certainly help.

 

Good for you for at least admitting AGW could be real.

Lots of ideas have been put forward to mitigate our impact and pivot us away from burning our finite supply of fossil fuels. Some are being enacted, some are being tested. Are you looking for a revolutionary break through like fusion or something? What type of solution would you be happy with?

 

TRUST THE SCIENCE... IT'S MONOLITHIC AND NEVER CHANGING...when it comes to another subject that we will not discuss here in this thread.

 

I'm sorry, after all these years of global temperatures and sea levels rising and all the other evidence of global warming, saying 'Not one prognostication that has been made since 1970 has come true.' is funny as hell.

 

There are literally a legion of proposals to reduce emissions through:

• Reduction in ICE-dependent transportation
• Diversification of power sources
• Improvements to infrastructure to optimize power distribution and transportation
• Redesigning how people live/shop (see Professor Odum’s “A Prosperous Way Down)
• Reduction in waste via reuse and recycling. Why does this matter? Making less disposable stuff means less energy used.
  
• Diet modification. Contribution of methane via cow farts is a thing. I did research here when I was still at UF.

That’s off the top of my head. You can literally google this and hit a number of company’s plans from BASF to BP.