Conference of the Parties 26 - COP26

Correct. And indeed climate change according to what we understand has eliminated entire species from the face of the planet.

The conversation in this area some time back was about global warming, however the conversation has shifted significantly for the past twenty years, and the term climate change has been used. I am neither manic the subject, however I do believe that with privilege comes responsibility. We have been entrusted with dominion of creation, and I believe with that great privilege comes the responsibility to care for and nurture the ecological system and cares for and nurtures our species. So, in a fundamental way I see the stewardship of creation as part of our sacred duty to God.

I find it sad that this issue should be so polarising.

For the past thirty years the Anglican Communion has noted that the 5th mark of mission is

5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth​

For me the critical issue is to start with faith and theology, and for that to inform my political position. As a result I am not a 'greenie' and I don't normally vote 'green', I am probably a lighter shade of green. the traditional ecological balance in the system was the carbon emitted was dealt with in the system by trees and the process we learned about in school called photosynthesis. Since the industrial revolution, and our increased population, urbanisation, and expanse of transport, power generation, and manufacturing we have greatly increased our carbon emissions manifold, and at the same time we have engaged in deforestation, on a mammoth scale, dealing a double whammy to the ability of the planet to remain in balance, and some of the results we see are human engineered repercussions in the climate of the planet.

All I am saying is that our love and respect for God should be able to be be seen in the way we care for his gift which is creation.

I don't believe it is hubris. The question is do we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?

And all I offer is to God, not to the cult of climate.

 

No, it does not, and I am not sure why you keep repeating this. It's not true. We have known that CO2 has a net heating effect since the middle of the 19th century:
https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm

 

Well, now you're contradicting what the NASA report said:

“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”​

So apparently 19th Century science was more accurate than 21st Century science in your view.

 

This is pseudo-science, and has been thoroughly debunked:

Give it up already. Some of your claims don’t even make sense. For example:

What does this even mean? You’re telling me that if, for example, water can absorb X many joules, if I add more water to a pot of boiling water I can increase the mass of the water without increasing the amount of energy it can absorb? Come on… Any high school physics student will tell you that’s nonsense.

CO2 has both reflective and absorptive properties, just like water, steel, and a whole host of other materials. CO2 reflects heat away from above, but traps heat from beneath. And since it traps more than it reflects away, the net effect of an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, ceteris paribus, is increased surface temperatures. We know this has already occurred elsewhere in the solar system (e.g., Venus).

This is what happens when people allow their political convictions to dictate how they deal with science. It leads to bogus explanations, denialism, bad policy, and actual harm to real human beings.

 

My only thought (more of a complaint, really) about the conference is that if they took the climate change cause seriously, they would have held a Zoom web-conference instead of sending an army of elites in private jets from all over the globe to hang out in luxury suites and make symbolic statements, nap, and mug for the cameras. Very carbon unfriendly and highly hypocritical IMHO. Until the issue matters enough to change the elites' habits, it shouldn't become the burden of us plebeians.

 

We perhaps this article from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration might help clear the matter up.

https://www.climate.gov/news-featur... dioxide,causing Earth's temperature to rise.

If you don't want to read the hole article, read this bit.

Why carbon dioxide matters
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas: a gas that absorbs and radiates heat. Warmed by sunlight, Earth’s land and ocean surfaces continuously radiate thermal infrared energy (heat). Unlike oxygen or nitrogen (which make up most of our atmosphere), greenhouse gases absorb that heat and release it gradually over time, like bricks in a fireplace after the fire goes out. Without this natural greenhouse effect, Earth’s average annual temperature would be below freezing instead of close to 60°F. But increases in greenhouse gases have tipped the Earth's energy budget out of balance, trapping additional heat and raising Earth's average temperature.

Carbon dioxide is the most important of Earth’s long-lived greenhouse gases. It absorbs less heat per molecule than the greenhouse gases methane or nitrous oxide, but it’s more abundant, and it stays in the atmosphere much longer. Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are responsible for about two-thirds of the total energy imbalance that is causing Earth's temperature to rise.

Another reason carbon dioxide is important in the Earth system is that it dissolves into the ocean like the fizz in a can of soda. It reacts with water molecules, producing carbonic acid and lowering the ocean's pH (raising its acidity). Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the ocean's surface waters has dropped from 8.21 to 8.10. This drop in pH is called ocean acidification.

A drop of 0.1 may not seem like a lot, but the pH scale is logarithmic; a 1-unit drop in pH means a tenfold increase in acidity. A change of 0.1 means a roughly 30% increase in acidity. Increasing acidity interferes with the ability of marine life to extract calcium from the water to build their shells and skeletons.​

It is abundantly clear that we are adding more Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere that the earth can deal with, which reducing the aggregate forest areas of the planet, a primary method in the ecological system whereby carbon is extracted from the atmosphere and converted into wood (tree growth). This is the ultimate carbon capture system.

It is clear as a species we are contributing to the problem, and we need to emit less and absorb more. I think we will excuse the squadron of private jets if they could make a decision that makes a difference. We do need more substance and less spin. Of course one of the real problems is that the rich can afford to work around these changes. The people of the Maldives have another problem.

 

Now you're quoting something that I'd deleted before you replied, thinking better of it. And in the process you ignored the main point I made. Argument dropped, argument lost.

 

The whole CO2 thing notwithstanding, the 'evidence' of rising temperatures is a farce. The numbers have been cherry-picked and the guesstimates have been distorted. I've seen evidence that there has not been a rise in temps during the last decade, but I have a life and don't intend to spend it looking back for the references, so I will leave it to others to go digging for facts. I have to get to work (real life).

 

Not a popular opinion, but I'm an environmentalist who's skeptical of thd climate change line. I am all for recycling, using sustainable products and services, reducing pollution, and promoting biodiversity. Personally, I've made the conscious decision to buy a smaller house, downgraded my car to use less gas, my wife and I made the decision to share a car so we could get rid of the extra car, we went vegetarian, and we try to buy and eat locally as much as possible.

I get frustrated by the wild claims made by climate activists which have thus far, never materialized. It undermines not only the credibility of climate change but of the environmental movement as a whole, which is a very dangerous thing imo. And I'm glad I came across this article which makes feel like I'm not alone: https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/why-i-am-a-climate-change-skeptic

It all just comes off as a power grab by governments and corporate elites. The most irritating part of it is that governments are by and large the worst polluters of all, and often exempt themselves from the environmental rules they demand everyone else follow.

Looking for solutions from the people that caused the problem (and continue to profit from it) is just dumb.

 

This is basically where I was personally until just a few years ago. Further study and the events of the last several years ultimately changed my mind on the climate change part. As of now I'm in the "very concerned, but not panicking" camp, and I do think some (but not all) of the proposed solutions would cause more harm than good. If we mandated a switch to all electric cars, for example, the increase in the amount of mining for rare earth minerals we'd have to do just to make that possible would be catastrophic to the environment, and I suspect the current infrastructure probably couldn't handle the increased power demands anyway, not without burning a lot more fossil fuels, that is. The problem is clear enough but the solutions remain more elusive than many seem to realize.

 

https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1456048962012471301?s=21
“Big news: recent CO2 emissions have been revised notably downward in the just-released @gcarbonproject dataset. The revisions – due to a major reassessment of land-use – suggest emissions have likely been flat rather than increasing over past decade:”

 

It seems staggering to think that there are something of the order of 39,500 delegates to COP26. Assuming the average delegate invests 5 working days to the project, that means an investment of 850 odd man working years. There are 31,102 verse in the Bible, so there were more delegates that verses.

To date the achievements might be considered modest. We have some commitment to reduce methane, some commitment to reduce deforestation, Some commitment to reduce the use of coal and other fossil fuels, and a commitment from the finance sector to stop funding fossil fuel projects at some stage in the future.

There is some suggestion that we have made some progress, and I thank @anglican74 for the graph. Of course people may wonder about the dip in 2020, and not to be too pessimistic, but some of that may be a covid-19 slump in emissions. None the less the graph does show that there has been a flattening of the curve. I think that establishes that we can make a difference. It probably also says we could make a bigger difference if we tried harder.

Now of course much of this is Macro and some part of that does belong to the Micro. @Lowly Layman in some ways expresses much of my thoughts as well. I am not a rabid greenie, but I am green enough to want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I think the letter from the big three (Francis, Bartholomew and Welby) gives the issue a spiritual and theological edge, rather than the simple political minefield we are all to aware of.

One Australian State Government, in fear of falling revenues from fuel taxes, is bringing legislation for a distance travelled tax on electric vehicles. To me it seems a retrograde move, but perhaps highlights the problem. We want to be green, yet we do not want to sacrifice revenue and lifestyle to achieve it. As it seems all levels of Government are addicted to revenue sources, I imagine a number of other State Governments will pick up this baton as well.

There is a looking for technology to bridge the gap, allowing us to bridge the gap and preserve our revenue and lifestyle. Ghandi's words may still be relevant, and we may need to live more simply so that others may simply live.