Debate Why do many (but not all) Conservatives hate the environment?

[Einstein]

@Einstein, I do not watch TV or mainstream news stations. None of it is real information to me. For example, I really don't care if Justin Bieber gets arrested for DUI. I'll stick to news sources online.

If you are correct in that global temperatures are decreasing, is it plausible to presume that if I were to contact Randall from XKCD and ask him to redo the infographic with more current temperature data, it would be different? Randall isn't after a paycheck for the information he provides, so I don't believe that to be a factor here.

Apparently accurate tmeperature data does not exist. But people are usually motivated by money. The only way you can find the truth is to go after facts. You may have to do the job yourself.

Let's presume you are correct in that global warming is a hoax. Consumption of fossil fuels is still an issue for our environment and the health of citizens living in cities of major production and fabrication. Therefore, shouldn't we hold onto the notion that global warming is real until these changes are made? Sometimes, you need a scare factor to push people to change. I've always thought that cars should have been hybrids since day 1. Imagine a fully electric car, but because battery technologies are so underdeveloped, a gas to electric conversion could be used until battery technologies catch up. Essentially the vehicle would look and operate the same to the end user. They would have to put gas in the car for it to work. But it gives the ability to remove the gas portion and replace it with a battery. Unfortunately fossil fuels were discovered as the end-all-be-all solution to energy requirements, and even people that own electric vehicles today are still powering them indirectly through fossil fuels as our entire economy and electrical grid depends heavily upon it. I'm glad Elon is doing what he's doing and working towards a greener, more sustainable future.

Your assertions come from beliefs. Are fossil fuels really dangerous for the environment? Do you have any facts to support a statement like that. We should not believe anything told to us without verifiable facts. It seems to me that mother nature has built in mechanisms to undo anything we seem to do. A wild fire would put more particulate matter into the air than the burning of fossil fuels. Yet mother nature cleans the air of all the smoke from wild fires.

The battery technologies have their own drawbacks. Lithium is a deadly poison to us. I would take the carbon over the lithium since carbon would have no ill effects on my body.

 

[jcolanzi]

 

[Pix3l_P0w3r]

@Einstein,

I just thought of something. I've seen a lot of time traveller videos and claims, and most of these purported displacement drivers, have said global warming is a big issue in the future along with overpopulation. I've also heard a couple mention that global warming was a hoax. This leads me to believe several possibilities could exist:

1) Global warming is real and we were told by a future worldline where it occurred.
2) Global warming is a hoax and we were told by a future worldline where they discovered a campaign of disinformation.
3) Global warming is something we are misclassifying

In either case, what are we to do?

1) Move away from consumption of fossil fuels which is a large economic pillar for society, and replace it with a greener alternative of renewable energy while figuring out how to displace the impact of removing fossil fuels from the fabric of society.

2) Continue to use fossil fuels in the hopes that global warming is indeed a hoax, and slowly continue to develop more efficient methods of fuel consumption due to the fact this source of energy is not renewable, and eventually move onto another source of energy that will still generate economic growth and support society.

3) Do nothing and see what happens

I believe we're at somewhat of a stalemate now and we need more information. Let's keep this debate rolling. While I don't definitely choose one side over another, I have something in common with both sides: wanting the truth, and to eventually have that truth known as a basic understanding by society.

 

[Pix3l_P0w3r]

Apparently accurate tmeperature data does not exist. But people are usually motivated by money. The only way you can find the truth is to go after facts. You may have to do the job yourself.

Let's presume you are correct in that global warming is a hoax. Consumption of fossil fuels is still an issue for our environment and the health of citizens living in cities of major production and fabrication. Therefore, shouldn't we hold onto the notion that global warming is real until these changes are made? Sometimes, you need a scare factor to push people to change. I've always thought that cars should have been hybrids since day 1. Imagine a fully electric car, but because battery technologies are so underdeveloped, a gas to electric conversion could be used until battery technologies catch up. Essentially the vehicle would look and operate the same to the end user. They would have to put gas in the car for it to work. But it gives the ability to remove the gas portion and replace it with a battery. Unfortunately fossil fuels were discovered as the end-all-be-all solution to energy requirements, and even people that own electric vehicles today are still powering them indirectly through fossil fuels as our entire economy and electrical grid depends heavily upon it. I'm glad Elon is doing what he's doing and working towards a greener, more sustainable future.

Your assertions come from beliefs. Are fossil fuels really dangerous for the environment? Do you have any facts to support a statement like that. We should not believe anything told to us without verifiable facts. It seems to me that mother nature has built in mechanisms to undo anything we seem to do. A wild fire would put more particulate matter into the air than the burning of fossil fuels. Yet mother nature cleans the air of all the smoke from wild fires.

The battery technologies have their own drawbacks. Lithium is a deadly poison to us. I would take the carbon over the lithium since carbon would have no ill effects on my body.

I feel I should clarify that the damage done to the environment by fossil fuels that I was referring to, is proven damage, not that necessarily done by purported global warming. Major oil spills that affect ocean life, localized environments, and ecosystems. We know for a fact, that certain cities in China have problems with smog due to their emissions. This affects the health of the citizens and depending on the day, the smog can be dangerous to inhale. Largely this is due to human errors and it could be improved by engineering and designing where fossil fuels don't present these types of risks to society.

I do understand mother nature has a way of staying healthy. I'm not worried about damage to mother nature, but rather us. We have the capability to damage mother nature to the point she can no longer support us. We will die out, and once the disease has been eradicated (us), mother nature will heal and return to normal. This also supports the notion that global warming doesn't exist, since whatever impact we have on our planet, is directly related to our survival, not the survival of the planet.

 

[Einstein]

@Einstein,

I just thought of something. I've seen a lot of time traveller videos and claims, and most of these purported displacement drivers, have said global warming is a big issue in the future along with overpopulation. I've also heard a couple mention that global warming was a hoax. This leads me to believe several possibilities could exist:

1) Global warming is real and we were told by a future worldline where it occurred.
2) Global warming is a hoax and we were told by a future worldline where they discovered a campaign of disinformation.
3) Global warming is something we are misclassifying

In either case, what are we to do?

1) Move away from consumption of fossil fuels which is a large economic pillar for society, and replace it with a greener alternative of renewable energy while figuring out how to displace the impact of removing fossil fuels from the fabric of society.

2) Continue to use fossil fuels in the hopes that global warming is indeed a hoax, and slowly continue to develop more efficient methods of fuel consumption due to the fact this source of energy is not renewable, and eventually move onto another source of energy that will still generate economic growth and support society.

3) Do nothing and see what happens

I believe we're at somewhat of a stalemate now and we need more information. Let's keep this debate rolling. While I don't definitely choose one side over another, I have something in common with both sides: wanting the truth, and to eventually have that truth known as a basic understanding by society.

Personally I believe the earth is alive and sentient. It regulates itself just like our bodies do for us. We are part of the earth. So we need each other. The whole idea of pollution is pure fiction.

Trust the facts which are usually right before your eyes.

 

[Pix3l_P0w3r]

@Einstein, I agree with the statement the Earth is alive, but I'd like you to elaborate on how it is sentient. This largely depends on your definition of sentience, which is why I'm asking. A cell in your body is 'sentient' but it has no 'consciousness', if that makes any sense to you. Is what we see simply reactions, or is the planet indeed a being that can sense, feel, and perceive, and to what extent. What separates us from other forms of life we see around is, is our frontal lobe. The pinnacle of human evolution. But one setback to human thinking is that we tend to build upon past experiences and what we know to be true, yet every person has a different definition of words and phrases, and a different perception of the world. Being human is both a prison, and a freedom, and it largely comes down to choice.

At what point do you draw the line on a value of life? If everything is indeed alive, is it any more okay to kill a plant for consumption, than to kill a living creature? If not, is it right to kill any living creature as long as the purpose is for your own survival? Where is the moral line drawn? Because it seems that in today's society that the ultimate value of life is applied to our own species, which seems to be inherent nature of other living organisms; but with evolved knowledge, it presents itself as selfish behavior.

 

[Einstein]

Evidence by observation is the fact gathering tool that I like to use. Doesn't the earth manage to heal itself no matter what we do? Were you aware that there are huge pockets of CO2 at the bottom of the ocean? Enough to drastically change the atmosphere if that CO2 were to surface. Yet there is an unknown mechanism that keeps the atmosphere free from all that CO2. If a rock had sentience it would be able to heal itself. The earth seems to have a preferred state of existence that always seems to prevail. Perhaps it can even adjust its position away from the sun if need be.

 

[Pix3l_P0w3r]

Evidence by observation is the fact gathering tool that I like to use. Doesn't the earth manage to heal itself no matter what we do? Were you aware that there are huge pockets of CO2 at the bottom of the ocean? Enough to drastically change the atmosphere if that CO2 were to surface. Yet there is an unknown mechanism that keeps the atmosphere free from all that CO2. If a rock had sentience it would be able to heal itself. The earth seems to have a preferred state of existence that always seems to prevail. Perhaps it can even adjust its position away from the sun if need be.

I'd like to believe if a planet was sentient, that we'd be seeing more planets with life, yet it seems to occur only under specific conditions in which we happen to be a part of in our solar system. It's not unrealistic to think Mars could have once held sentient life on it, and it would have been a terraformed planet. If it was indeed like this at one point in time, the fact that it is a relatively dead planet now would suggest that the only way we could destroy our planet is to change the specific conditions under which it thrives, and that's a seemingly impossible task for man to accomplish. Regarding the existence of modern humans versus the lifespan of our planet, we occupy less than a fraction of a percentage of the planet's lifespan, so it's not so hard to understand that humans have a less than meaningful impact on the planet, and rather, the impact is on ourselves. We've destroyed 40% of species within the last several decades. At first glance it looks like impact to mother nature, but little do we realise, we depend on this ecosystem to survive. If we were to suddenly disappear from a massive nuclear war that wipes out all humans, the planet will recover within several hundred years. All levels of radiation will have dissipated back into the Earth's core, and creatures will start to repopulate the Earth and become the dominant form of life.

 

[Classicalfan626]

@Pix3l_P0w3r - Have you ever considered the possibility that the Earth is hollow, and that the center of the Earth is inhabited by aliens? I believe that could be true.

 

[Harte]

@Einstein, actually one of my concerns was the melting of permafrost in the north. Is it at all possible that these are natural temperature changes, but our contribution is speeding things up substantially? That could easily explain why there are two heavily weighted sides to this debate.

No question it's both.

We are still "in" an ice age right now. It is unnatural for this planet to maintain a permafrost in the North indefinitely.

Current hype about this is really saying we need to keep the Earth status quo.
Problem is, status quo for the Earth is much warmer than we experience today.

Also, there isn't really any "status quo" for the Earth. Just because we say so doesn't work. What we're actually saying is we need to engineer the Earth to maintain our own ecological niche.

Had the dinosaurs done that, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Harte