Conservatism and the Environment

[Bacle]

Yeah, he did, he's just ignoring it and is going to insist on repeating what the alarmists have been saying to get us to go along with what the globalists want.

No, I am not ignoring it at all.

I am saying it shows historical cycles, before the industrial age.

If you extend that sort of graph backwards, you will see those cycles are part of the normal background.

But you all just want to throw shade at me here for daring to voice an view outside the Far-Right Overton window of this site, so I'll get dogpiled.

Then again I no longer expect to convince people here of this, and with the GOP Climate Caucus now a thing, I no longer need to worry whether my concerns are shared by others on the Right, even if those people aren't here.

 

[Captain X]

Dude, I'm hardly far-right on anything. As far as getting dog-piled, this is no different than everyone jumping on @Zachowon over his boot-licking when it comes to law enforcement or any of the intelligence organizations, like the NSA. Just as those are his blind-spots, this is one of yours. You've bought into leftist propaganda and need to recognize this fact.

 

[Bacle]

Dude, I'm hardly far-right on anything. As far as getting dog-piled, this is no different than everyone jumping on @Zachowon over his boot-licking when it comes to law enforcement or any of the intelligence organizations, like the NSA. Just as those are his blind-spots, this is one of yours. You've bought into leftist propaganda and need to recognize this fact.

No, what I have done is actually get an education that allowed me to understand the intricacies of the environment and the lies/brainbugs of both side's narratives regarding the environment.

I was one of the few right-leaning people in the program, pointed out the climate has always been changing even if we can affect it (and got accused of being a climate denier for my trouble), and was pretty much the only nuke friendly person there.

But no, it's all just Lefty lies to people here.

The GOP Climate Caucus was formed because more younger Right Wing people accept environmental data, even if they are still pro-2A, pro-Life, and support the GOPs main goals.

I do not need to convince anyone here anymore, because there are now people in power in the GOP who share my views. They want to push sane, non-rad-green options/ideas, for dealing with environmental problems.

 

[Captain X]

So you went to a course that was specifically designed to convince people of the left's narrative on climate change, and you don't see that as being you accepting of their propaganda. I'm hardly ignorant as a mechanical engineer, dude. And again, I'm hardly far-right or even really right-wing. It just stuns me that with everything that's been going on and how the leftists have been proven to be lying on so many things, including on climate change, yet you seem to want to give them the benefit of the doubt on it. If you really even understood the dynamics involved, then you'd at least know why the leftists' focus on CO2 is so boggling, yet you seem to be right on board with them on that.

 

[Morphic Tide]

I am saying it shows historical cycles, before the industrial age.

The industrial age's supposed inflation rather closely mirrors the previous rising pattern and has not yet actually surpassed the Roman or Medival Warm Periods.

 

[Zachowon]

So you went to a course that was specifically designed to convince people of the left's narrative on climate change, and you don't see that as being you accepting of their propaganda. I'm hardly ignorant as a mechanical engineer, dude. And again, I'm hardly far-right or even really right-wing. It just stuns me that with everything that's been going on and how the leftists have been proven to be lying on so many things, including on climate change, yet you seem to want to give them the benefit of the doubt on it. If you really even understood the dynamics involved, then you'd at least know why the leftists' focus on CO2 is so boggling, yet you seem to be right on board with them on that.

It sounds like me and my defense of LEO'S and the NSA

 

[LordsFire]

It sounds like me and my defense of LEO'S and the NSA

With you, the problem is generally your blind repetition of arguments and simply insisting 'it's not like that!'

With Bacle, he's just refusing to ignore the fact that forty years of lies have consequences in how willing conservatives are to believe the left about anything when it comes to the environment. Literally everything they've pushed has been fraudulent.

'The world is cooling!' became 'The world is warming!' just in time for 'the big pause.'

'If we don't do drastic things right now Manhattan will be underwater in X years!' Predictions like this have been made multiple times over and we've passed every single one of their prediction dates without noticeable change to anything.

'There are holes in the ozone layer that are killing us with UV radiation!' No, there are seasonal holes at the arctic and antarctic sometimes which have no meaningful effect given nobody lives there.

'Carbon is driving the temperature shift!' Actually the shift comes before carbon.

'Wind power is environmentally friendly!' Actually it kills birds, costs more to build than it generates, and gives us massive unrecycleable refuse to deal with.

'Nuclear power is bad for the environment!' Actually it's the type of energy generation with the least impact on the environment.

'Electric cars and hybrids are good for the environment!' Actually, the processes involved in making batteries made them net-increasers in pollution for decades, and maybe now they're drawing par with regular ICE engines.

'We're losing dozens of species to extinction in a day!' turns out to be sourceless alarmist claims with no substantiation whatsoever.

'Overpopulation is going to cause overuse of Earth's resources and there'll be mass starvation by the 90's as a result!' Was so incredibly wrong it's painful.

And this is all just off the top of my head.

Literally everything the left has pushed on this has been a lie. There is no reason to trust them at all, about anything when it comes to the environment. They have used this excuse for power grab after power grab, up to and including making it a felony to install a toilet with a 3 gallon flush.

Yeah, that's definitely going to save the environment.


Actual real pollution problems are things like local smog in urban areas, which have largely been dealt with, dumping too much garbage into rivers and lakes, a lot of which has been dealt with and efforts are ongoing still, or things like people just dumping their trash in random places. The thing is, all of these are problems that can actually be solved through direct action, so they aren't politically useful for watermelons who want to take control of every facet of your life.

Which is why they aren't the 'causes' that the left keeps 'championing.' (Though to be fair, some liberals have pushed for sensible things as well as the nonsensical.)

If they want us to take them seriously, they need to start living like ascetics themselves first, instead of trying to live the lives of extravagant social elites, while insisting the rest of us need to live like primitives in order to save the environment.

 

[Bigking321]

Co2 isn't bad for the planet. Plants love it and it increases their growth rate. Which contributes to expanding green regions of the planet. Which eventually removes the co2 from circulation. Which causes the green regions to shrink again. Repeat as needed.

Earth has its own way of controlling and moderating excesses in the environment.

 

[Zachowon]

With you, the problem is generally your blind repetition of arguments and simply insisting 'it's not like that!'

With Bacle, he's just refusing to ignore the fact that forty years of lies have consequences in how willing conservatives are to believe the left about anything.

It is all I got!

 

[Bear Ribs]

CO2 is somewhat overhyped.

An acre of trees abosrbs about 2500KG of CO2 a year.
There are 9.6 billion acres of trees on the Earth.

So the trees should absorb about 24 billion tons of CO2 a year. Further, about two-thirds of the carbon absorbed is stored in the ground and won't be released even if the forest burns.

Algae, meanwhile, is complete BS when it comes to absorption and currently soaks 45-50 billion tons of CO2 a year (same link as the percentage of carbon stored underground by trees).

So altogether just trees and algae as they are can scrub around 69 billion tons of CO2 a year. Up to a third of that might be released since it's stored above ground (Algae actually doesn't since it tends to sink into silt when it dies but go with it) so adjusting for maximum re-release, we're looking at trees and algae removing about 45 billion tons of CO2 a year. That's besides what gets absorbed by grass and the like.

Total emissions of CO2 worldwide were 36 billion tons last year. Something doesn't add up there.



That said there's plenty of environmental damage to fix, it's just that carbon really isn't the big problem. F'rex I recall living in the Appalachians when a textiles factory caught on fire, and the water trucks washed all the chemicals into the river. Years later there were still no fish to be caught in that river or downstream for as far as I cared to drive. That was a pretty severe environmental tragedy and I'd love to see Conservative support for making sure something like that never happened again. Dumping garbage in the oceans and getting it right back as mercury in our fish isn't pleasant either, much less microplastics.

 

[Captain X]

Just the fact that their touted models have never been able to predict climate conditions in even the short term, or to recreate past conditions using known data should be enough to make one at the very least very skeptical of the climate change narrative, and the proposed "solutions" to climate change that they propose should only add to that.

 

[Bacle]

So you went to a course that was specifically designed to convince people of the left's narrative on climate change, and you don't see that as being you accepting of their propaganda. I'm hardly ignorant as a mechanical engineer, dude. And again, I'm hardly far-right or even really right-wing. It just stuns me that with everything that's been going on and how the leftists have been proven to be lying on so many things, including on climate change, yet you seem to want to give them the benefit of the doubt on it. If you really even understood the dynamics involved, then you'd at least know why the leftists' focus on CO2 is so boggling, yet you seem to be right on board with them on that.

I got my first degree in General Geology, and geology programs make you take nearly every type of hard science class and understand the environment in deep time. The aborted Masters program was several years later.

I had concerns about the environment before I ever hit college, though, because I could look out my window at the changing snow packs on the Rockies, and watch forest fires ravage overgrown forests that had been weakened by pine beetles, which are inhibited from spreading by sustained sub-zero weather, which is becoming rarer and rarer in the high country.

I gained additional info in my geology degree and environmental courses, but they are not the root of my passion for the environment.

With you, the problem is generally your blind repetition of arguments and simply insisting 'it's not like that!'

With Bacle, he's just refusing to ignore the fact that forty years of lies have consequences in how willing conservatives are to believe the left about anything.

It's 40 years of ever evolving understanding of our planet and the intricacies of the environment.

Some of the original data led to doomsayers who were idiots, and are why it took so long for the GOP to get serious on this, but that does not mean there are not environmental issues that need addressing.

Luckily the GOP Climate Caucus is now a thing, so the GOP can now push back against the rad-greens foolish 'solutions' more effectively.

Co2 isn't bad for the planet. Plants love it and it increases their growth rate. Which contributes to expanding green regions of the planet. Which eventually removes the co2 from circulation. Which causes the green regions to shrink again. Repeat as needed.

Earth has its own way of controlling and moderating excesses in the environment.

Yet that's not the case for the increased methane emissions, and methane traps way more heat than CO2, while not being able to be absorbed by plants.

CO2 is somewhat overhyped.

An acre of trees abosrbs about 2500KG of CO2 a year.
There are 9.6 billion acres of trees on the Earth.

So the trees should absorb about 24 billion tons of CO2 a year. Further, about two-thirds of the carbon absorbed is stored in the ground and won't be released even if the forest burns.

Algae, meanwhile, is complete BS when it comes to absorption and currently soaks 45-50 billion tons of CO2 a year (same link as the percentage of carbon stored underground by trees).

So altogether just trees and algae as they are can scrub around 69 billion tons of CO2 a year. Up to a third of that might be released since it's stored above ground (Algae actually doesn't since it tends to sink into silt when it dies but go with it) so adjusting for maximum re-release, we're looking at trees and algae removing about 45 billion tons of CO2 a year. That's besides what gets absorbed by grass and the like.

Total emissions of CO2 worldwide were 36 billion tons last year. Something doesn't add up there.



That said there's plenty of environmental damage to fix, it's just that carbon really isn't the big problem. F'rex I recall living in the Appalachians when a textiles factory caught on fire, and the water trucks washed all the chemicals into the river. Years later there were still no fish to be caught in that river or downstream for as far as I cared to drive. That was a pretty severe environmental tragedy and I'd love to see Conservative support for making sure something like that never happened again. Dumping garbage in the oceans and getting it right back as mercury in our fish isn't pleasant either, much less microplastics.

CO2 is really easy to deal with in terms of carbon capture methods.

Methane is the real bitch to handle in terms of warming the climate.

 

[Captain X]

I had concerns about the environment before I ever hit college, though, because I could look out my window at the changing snow packs on the Rockies, and watch forest fires ravage overgrown forests that had been weakened by pine beetles, which are inhibited from spreading by sustained sub-zero weather, which is becoming rarer and rarer in the high country.

So you have also bought into the idea that climate should be static? That seems to be what you're implying. People always bring up disappearing glaciers and seem to forget that much of the northern hemisphere was covered with them. The Sahara also used to be lush with plant life, and recently at that speaking in geological terms. And for all the fear-mongering about rising sea levels and coastal cities getting flooded, I can very easily point out that this has happened before to previous civilizations just by pointing out all the ancient cities that have been found off the coast of India. I know this is little comfort to the various island nations that will likely cease to exist, or all the other places that will likely get flooded unless something constructive is done to actually save them, but that's just the thing - all these climate change fear-mongers want to do amounts to charging sin-taxes and selling indulgences, which will do exactly nothing for the environment, or anything to actually save any of these places that are going to get flooded.

 

[LordsFire]

CO2 is really easy to deal with in terms of carbon capture methods.

Methane is the real bitch to handle in terms of warming the climate.

Yes, I'm sure that this time they'll actually be right. That this time the 'mistaken understanding' that means we need to turn over control of the majority of our lives to the government right now or we're all doomed won't be wrong.

This time they finally have it right!


No.


This is not 'mistaken understanding' this is flat-out lying, as scandals like the e-mail leaks from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia proved. They were lying in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, and 2010's, and they're lying now.

Pattern recognition is one of the things that separates conservatives from liberals much of the time, and it certainly is on this issue.

That said there's plenty of environmental damage to fix, it's just that carbon really isn't the big problem. F'rex I recall living in the Appalachians when a textiles factory caught on fire, and the water trucks washed all the chemicals into the river. Years later there were still no fish to be caught in that river or downstream for as far as I cared to drive. That was a pretty severe environmental tragedy and I'd love to see Conservative support for making sure something like that never happened again. Dumping garbage in the oceans and getting it right back as mercury in our fish isn't pleasant either, much less microplastics.

This is the sort of direct, tangible issue that is worthy of time and attention. X thing happened, with Y clear consequence, so we need to do something to try to mitigate or counter-act Z.

I don't know anything about local issues in your neck of the woods, but a lake in the area I used to live was a constant struggle to try to deal with, due to decades of industrial dumping a century and more ago.

 

[Bacle]

So you have also bought into the idea that climate should be static? That seems to be what you're implying.

...how is many fucking times have I type 'the climate changes naturally' in the last few pages, because I've done it at least a few time just today.

Please actually pay attention to what I type, because I've spent a lot of energy trying to explain the nuances of the issue.

People always bring up disappearing glaciers and seem to forget that much of the northern hemisphere was covered with them. The Sahara also used to be lush with plant life, and recently at that speaking in geological terms. And for all the fear-mongering about rising sea levels and coastal cities getting flooded, I can very easily point out that this has happened before to previous civilizations just by pointing out all the ancient cities that have been found off the coast of India. I know this is little comfort to the various island nations that will likely cease to exist, or all the other places that will likely get flooded unless something constructive is done to actually save them, but that's just the thing - all these climate change fear-mongers want to do amounts to charging sin-taxes and selling indulgences, which will do exactly nothing for the environment, or anything to actually save any of these places that are going to get flooded.

It's the speed and magnitude of the changes, compared to historical cycles, that is what concerns most environmentalists.

Because there are things call positive feedback loops in nature, where cycles can reinforce one another into a runaway situations if new inputs that weren't there before interact with said cycles.

What most of the Right doesn't seem to grock is that if those some of those cycles hit a runaway feedback loop, they will happen faster than we can adapt our civilization to it. At that point we either get us and genetic seeds of our ecosystem off planet, or we accept extinction.

Rad-greens would accept extinction, I want to get us off planet, and do everything we reasonably can to keep it from getting to that point. So please stop thinking I've uncritically accepted everything I've been shown about the environment.

Yes, I'm sure that this time they'll actually be right. That this time the 'mistaken understanding' that means we need to turn over control of the majority of our lives to the government right now or we're all doomed won't be wrong.

This time they finally have it right!


No.


This is not 'mistaken understanding' this is flat-out lying, as scandals like the e-mail leaks from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia proved. They were lying in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, and 2010's, and they're lying now.

Pattern recognition is one of the things that separates conservatives from liberals much of the time, and it certainly is on this issue.



This is the sort of direct, tangible issue that is worthy of time and attention. X thing happened, with Y clear consequence, so we need to do something to try to mitigate or counter-act Z.

I don't know anything about local issues in your neck of the woods, but a lake in the area I used to live was a constant struggle to try to deal with, due to decades of industrial dumping a century and more ago.

It's not up to you.

The GOP Climate Caucus is a thing now, and its existence does give me more hope for the Right in general, even if people here don't like it.

 

[Marduk]

The GOP Climate Caucus was formed because more younger Right Wing people accept environmental data, even if they are still pro-2A, pro-Life, and support the GOPs main goals.

Data is data, the problems start in interpretation, policy proposals based on them, and choice of which data to trust.

The GOP Climate Caucus is a thing now, and its existence does give me more hope for the Right in general, even if people here don't like it.

You repeat that, so let me focus a bit on this. This kind of attitude is truly a peak of naivety.
Why does it give you hope when there is so little concrete info about it beyond it existing and in very general terms agreeing with the same mainstream narrative on climate change that greens do? How do you know that their policy proposals are going to be good?
How do you know that it won't turn out exactly as the less trusting people here suspect, more moderated variant of whatever DNC wants, or that it is going to be essentially a mercenary lobby for all parts of energy and green industrial sectors, who is going to secure some GOP votes for whatever green policy the highest bidder wants?

Which points to a greater cause of disagreement you have with most of people here. You use terms like passion, hope, accepting facts...
It is beyond doubt that for you it is a greatly emotional matter of passion and conviction.
For less passionate people, it is a matter of cold calculation and great suspicion of some kind of power or money grab, for covering for that constitutes a large part of mainstream environmentalism.
On top of the suspicion, different people have a unequal level of inherent value they ascribe to all sorts of environmental causes and goals. Sometimes it may not be very high, and the mentioned cold calculation may indicate that some are not worthwhile.

You also tend to be technologically... hyperoptimistic. About things that with may work as you advertise sometime in the next couple decades. Or in some cases, a century.

CO2 is really easy to deal with in terms of carbon capture methods.

Are you kidding me?
Easy?

Cheaper carbon capture is on the way

As part of a marathon research effort to lower the cost of carbon capture, chemists have now demonstrated a method to seize carbon dioxide (CO2) that reduces costs by 19 percent compared to current commercial technology. The new technology requires 17 percent less energy to accomplish the same...

phys.org

That's quite fresh news.

At a cost of $400-$500 million per unit, commercial technology can capture carbon at roughly $58.30 per metric ton of CO2, according to a DOE analysis. EEMPA, according to Jiang's study, can absorb CO2 from power plant flue gas and later release it as pure CO2 for as little as $47.10 per metric ton, offering an additional technology option for power plant operators to capture their CO2.

47$ per ton, power plant exhaust only - that's bleeding edge tech now. And that doesn't even seem to include storage solutions, just capture.

They will continue testing at increasing scales and further refine the solvent's chemistry, with the aim to reach the U.S. Department of Energy's goal of deploying commercially available technology that can capture CO2 at a cost of $30 per metric ton by 2035.

30$ per ton - That's DoE ambition for 2035.
A ton of CO2 is the result of producing about 2.5 MWh of power from most advanced natural gas power plants, or about 1 MWh from coal, other fossil fuels falling somewhere in between.
Source:

Specific carbon dioxide emissions of various fuels

Specific carbon dioxide emissions of various fuels

www.volker-quaschning.de

1 MWh of industrial electricity in US has average market cost of about 67$, source:

Electric Power Monthly - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

As such, at current state of art rate of 47$ per ton of CO2, 1 MWh from coal would cost 67$+47$ at current rate, and 67$+30$ at the 30$ goal rate from 2035. That's about 45-70% rise, pretty much killing coal power as far as energy market goes. And that's assuming the capture process itself uses only energy produced from zero carbon sources, if this is powered by carbon sources obviously the end efficiency is going to take a considerable hit.

Ok, coal power at normal prices is not doable, lets see gas. Gas lets you have 2.5 MWh out of 1 ton of CO2 emission.
2.5MWh is 67$x2.5=167.5$. At current rate adding 47$ to that is a 28% rise in power cost, quite a kick to the economy. Even at the 30$ rate we're at 18%, which is getting close to the territory of "easy", but that's hypothetical 2035, with best tech gas power plants only.
As above, this assumes zero carbon power of market price being available to power the capture process, which is quite a tall order.
Capturing carbon from ordinary air or vehicles is obviously harder and more expensive than the best scenario of power plant exhaust.

So yeah, "easy". Maybe in 2035.

 

[Bacle]

*Snip*

I have said before I believe a Green Right is one of the best ways to counter the Left's insanity, while appealing to moderates, centrists, and disillusioned Dems. It is about passion and science, not one or the other. That this Caucus is now a thing just provides further proof I am not alone in this view, either.

The fact is that environmental policies and laws will not stop happening, and now the GOP has a better chance at having at least one of hand on the wheel to curb the worst of the rad-green insanity.

And my focus on tech is something you should be thankful for; a lot of the environmental minded people want to just go full Luddite.

 

[Marduk]

I have said before I believe a Green Right is one of the best ways to counter the Left's insanity, while appealing to moderates, centrists, and disillusioned Dems. It is about passion and science, not one or the other.

How many voters who put environmental issues (particularly climate change or other global ones) as their make or break issue for their vote are *not* the fanatical greens who want DNC precisely for their overboard green nutjob policy?

That this Caucus is now a thing just provides further proof I am not alone in this view, either.

Again, you are making a massive assumptions about this Caucus that are based mostly on your imagined ideal of what you think it should be.
Have you considered the chances that in terms of their policy and activities they will be different from your ideal in significant ways?

The fact is that environmental policies and laws will not stop happening, and now the GOP has a better chance at having at least one of hand on the wheel to curb the worst of the rad-green insanity.

Policies and laws don't "happen" like some kind of natural disaster, they are voted in by a ruling party or bipartisan coalition , or fail these votes, so yeah, they can be stopped.

And my focus on tech is something you should be thankful for; a lot of the environmental minded people want to just go full Luddite.

I know. Such people should be in a mental hospital or prison. As i said, compromising with such fanatics will not satisfy them away from their criminal wishes either.
Alternatively, if Luddite martyrdom is their fancy, they are highly encouraged to go and do their thing in China or Russia.

 

[Terthna]

I have said before I believe a Green Right is one of the best ways to counter the Left's insanity, while appealing to moderates, centrists, and disillusioned Dems.

And personally? I don't see how that works. The last thing on anyone's minds right now, that I've talked to (aside from you of course), is the environment; so from my perspective, the right going green can't be that big of a selling point.

 

[Bacle]

How many voters who put environmental issues (particularly climate change or other global ones) as their make or break issue for their vote are *not* the fanatical greens who want DNC precisely for their overboard green nutjob policy?

I would expect a growing number of the youth see environmental issues as a significant factor in who they view as representing their interests or views.

Boomers and older are no longer the main demographic the GOP is interesting in catering to.

Again, you are making a massive assumptions about this Caucus that are based mostly on your imagined ideal of what you think it should be.
Have you considered the chances that in terms of their policy and activities they will be different from your ideal in significant ways?

I have little reason to think they are closer to you than me, or closer to the Left than either of us.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's something I can accept if it comes to pass.

I know. Such people should be in a mental hospital or prison. As i said, compromising with such fanatics will not satisfy them away from their criminal wishes either.
Alternatively, if Luddite martyrdom is their fancy, they are highly encouraged to go and do their thing in China or Russia.

No, they should not be locked up for their beliefs and view anymore than people on the Right should be locked up for being pro-Life for religious reasons.

That would think they should be imprisoned or locked in mental ward for simply for having other views is rather disturbing. Your utter contempt for environmentally minded people show why very few them bother to even attempt to reach out to the Right, and mostly just focusing on sidelining the Right in environmental topics.

And personally? I don't see how that works. The last thing on anyone's minds right now, that I've talked to (aside from you of course), is the environment; so from my perspective, the right going green can't be that big of a selling point.

The new Caucus wouldn't be a thing if my views were 'rare' among the newer generations of the GOP, or if they thought environmental issues were not on the list of topics the GOP know are going to be hot button issues in the future.