@Alligator Ed

including all non-avian dinosaurs.

Not quite.

The most successful survival story among all dinosaurs isn't the avians (of whom no pre-Chixhulub species has survived intact), but the crocodilians, all of which species survived intact to modern times from dinosaur days. Today's alligators and crocodiles are the same as the ones before the impact.

#1 #1 When one says that the world has never seen such rapid climate change is patently false. I will cite but two examples, out of presumably many, when climate changed rapidly over a very short time.

1. The eruption of the super volcano Karakatoa in the year 1883 cast a volcanic pall over the entire planet due to the huge amounts of fine volcanic debris injected into the stratosphere. This eruption caused darkening of the skies of the entire planet:

The combined effects of pyroclastic flows, volcanic ashes, and tsunamis had disastrous results in the region and worldwide. The death toll recorded by the Dutch authorities was 36,417, although some sources put the estimate at more than 120,000. There are numerous documented reports of groups of human skeletons floating across the Indian Ocean on rafts of volcanic pumice and washing up on the east coast of Africa up to a year after the eruption. Average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F) in the year following the eruption. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.

2. The meteor which landed in the gulf of Mexico near the Yucutan, called the Chicxulb crater impact, affected world-wide climate changes and

Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named.[5] It was formed by a large asteroid or comet about 11 to 81 kilometres (6.8 to 50.3 miles) in diameter,[2] the Chicxulub impactor, striking the Earth. The date of the impact coincides precisely with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary), slightly less than 66 million years ago,[3] and a widely accepted theory is that worldwide climate disruption from the event was the cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs.

Q.E.D., your statement that earth has never seen such rapid climate change is easily challenged by only two events, of which there are surely more which have occurred in recorded history. Unfortunately, my saurian predecessors did not know how to write, else we have multitudes of other examples.

@Alligator Ed
but how can an object from space cause climate change when you've proven it's caused by volcanoes? That's like saying radon causes lung cancer when we all know it's caused by cigarettes.

The fact that there are other causes of global climate change has nothing to do with whether CO2 increasing during the industrial age has a major role in this one. What is relevant is it was predicted in advance and change is actually faster than predicted.

#1 #1 When one says that the world has never seen such rapid climate change is patently false. I will cite but two examples, out of presumably many, when climate changed rapidly over a very short time.

1. The eruption of the super volcano Karakatoa in the year 1883 cast a volcanic pall over the entire planet due to the huge amounts of fine volcanic debris injected into the stratosphere. This eruption caused darkening of the skies of the entire planet:

The combined effects of pyroclastic flows, volcanic ashes, and tsunamis had disastrous results in the region and worldwide. The death toll recorded by the Dutch authorities was 36,417, although some sources put the estimate at more than 120,000. There are numerous documented reports of groups of human skeletons floating across the Indian Ocean on rafts of volcanic pumice and washing up on the east coast of Africa up to a year after the eruption. Average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F) in the year following the eruption. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.

2. The meteor which landed in the gulf of Mexico near the Yucutan, called the Chicxulb crater impact, affected world-wide climate changes and

Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named.[5] It was formed by a large asteroid or comet about 11 to 81 kilometres (6.8 to 50.3 miles) in diameter,[2] the Chicxulub impactor, striking the Earth. The date of the impact coincides precisely with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary), slightly less than 66 million years ago,[3] and a widely accepted theory is that worldwide climate disruption from the event was the cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs.

Q.E.D., your statement that earth has never seen such rapid climate change is easily challenged by only two events, of which there are surely more which have occurred in recorded history. Unfortunately, my saurian predecessors did not know how to write, else we have multitudes of other examples.

@Alligator Ed @Alligator Ed globally in terms of income. This sounds shocking, but it is true according to Investopedia. The minimum income to qualify as being in the top 1% worldwide is $32,400 per year.

However, when it comes to net worth,most Americans would not be in the top 1% globally. It takes about $770,000 in net worth to qualify to be in the top 1% worldwide.

After watching the video, it is not just the ultra wealthy (top 1%) that would need to scale down their lifestyles, but those of us in the top 10-20% of world wide wealth. I suspect that definitely would include a lot of us here at C99.

The term “top 1 percent” of global income may sound like an exclusive club, but it’s one to which millions of Americans belong. It’s a reminder of just how prosperous developed countries are compared to the vast majority of other people who share our planet.

Edited for typos and to include additional information.

#2 Here is the underpinning of the neoliberal climate change industry, shown brilliantly by the two speakers. This reinforces my view that the climate change industry is farcical and self-serving. The global elites, who proportionately outgas way more carbon than the rest of us, push the burden of CO2 reduction on the poor--neoliberalist hypocrisy at its finest.

I have prepared a slide show abstracted from the conference to illustrate points. By way of introduction, let me clarify my definition of "climate change industry". This is an effort, so far successful, in passing the burden of CO2 reduction onto the poorer population. The elites are unwilling to reduce their own CO2 emissions--let's see if Jeff Bezos or Oleg Deripaska sell off their planes and yachts. Ain't gonna happen.

Getting the top 10% of income owners to do their part, would lower CO2 emissions 1/3 globally--source is the video. Will they do it? Piss on you, peasants. We NEED our yachts, seven homes and 4+ jets.

The top 20% of wealth holders cause emissions totaling 68% of global CO2 annually. Note, the poorest 50% produce only 10% of world CO2 emissions--yet they are the ones being squeezed by "carbon taxes", which are nothing more than neoliberal extortion to force the poor to subsidize the profligate excesses of the rich.

Here's a snapshot of an elitist, showing deep concern for fellow citizens, aka peasants:

https://i.imgur.com/MCf2w2W.png

Once the elites have gone on to stroke various parts of their own anatomy, many show interest in other topics.

Let's get real, here.

So, 1.5˚C is an allowable upper limit situation whereby the planet doesn't incinerate? In a comment above, the impact of the Yucutan asteroid lowered global temperature 1.2˚C practically over night, killing off 3/4ths of living things. So why is 1.5C now the goal, when a much lower rapid change (in a negative direction) was catastrophic. Have any studies been done to show the effects of rapidly increasing temperature, according to the long geophysical time scale which should be considered? Have there been even localized events of that magnitude recorded previously?

Climate models: there as many climate "models", all of which are guesses, as there are automobile models. Some prove to be lemons from the outset, whereas more breakdown with a little use, i.e., testing by historical record.

@Alligator Ed

The top 20% of wealth holders cause emissions totaling 68% of global CO2 annually. Note, the poorest 50% produce only 10% of world CO2 emissions--yet they are the ones being squeezed by "carbon taxes", which are nothing more than neoliberal extortion to force the poor to subsidize the profligate excesses of the rich

The initiative to raise gas/diesel taxes hit independent truck drivers, low income renters and home owners; other members of the moyen classe.

What is particularly striking is that the wealthy persons and corporations at the same time were/are given more tax breaks and regulating the messes caused by getting or using fossil fuels is also borne by the lower income (salaries) wage type earners.

That is what started the protests in a nutshell. Well said.

#2 Here is the underpinning of the neoliberal climate change industry, shown brilliantly by the two speakers. This reinforces my view that the climate change industry is farcical and self-serving. The global elites, who proportionately outgas way more carbon than the rest of us, push the burden of CO2 reduction on the poor--neoliberalist hypocrisy at its finest.

I have prepared a slide show abstracted from the conference to illustrate points. By way of introduction, let me clarify my definition of "climate change industry". This is an effort, so far successful, in passing the burden of CO2 reduction onto the poorer population. The elites are unwilling to reduce their own CO2 emissions--let's see if Jeff Bezos or Oleg Deripaska sell off their planes and yachts. Ain't gonna happen.

Getting the top 10% of income owners to do their part, would lower CO2 emissions 1/3 globally--source is the video. Will they do it? Piss on you, peasants. We NEED our yachts, seven homes and 4+ jets.

The top 20% of wealth holders cause emissions totaling 68% of global CO2 annually. Note, the poorest 50% produce only 10% of world CO2 emissions--yet they are the ones being squeezed by "carbon taxes", which are nothing more than neoliberal extortion to force the poor to subsidize the profligate excesses of the rich.

Here's a snapshot of an elitist, showing deep concern for fellow citizens, aka peasants:

https://i.imgur.com/MCf2w2W.png

Once the elites have gone on to stroke various parts of their own anatomy, many show interest in other topics.

Let's get real, here.

So, 1.5˚C is an allowable upper limit situation whereby the planet doesn't incinerate? In a comment above, the impact of the Yucutan asteroid lowered global temperature 1.2˚C practically over night, killing off 3/4ths of living things. So why is 1.5C now the goal, when a much lower rapid change (in a negative direction) was catastrophic. Have any studies been done to show the effects of rapidly increasing temperature, according to the long geophysical time scale which should be considered? Have there been even localized events of that magnitude recorded previously?

Climate models: there as many climate "models", all of which are guesses, as there are automobile models. Some prove to be lemons from the outset, whereas more breakdown with a little use, i.e., testing by historical record.

@Alligator Ed Since they are looking for the date in the future, whereas the actual date was sometime in the recent past.
The 2C number was never a scientific number, it was from a paper by an economist who pulled a couple of curves out of somewhere dark and stinky and decided that's where they crossed. The UN's original number was 1C above the 1750s baseline. That morphed into 2C above the 1890s baseline. Then they backed off to a "stretch" goal of 1.5C above the 1890s baseline.
And none of it reflects the aerosol masking effect.
Part of the IPCC fifth assessment was a measure of "climate sensitivity", how much warming you get from an increase in CO2 (without accounting for other GHGs). From that they determined the carbon budget going forward to stay under 2C as some hundreds of gigatonnes of carbon. But they didn't account for aerosol masking, which according to a 2011 paper by James Hansen et al. was blocking about 1.25C. Hansen called them out, saying that the carbon budget (in 2013) going forward was zero. It turns out he was an optimist.
More recent papers have the amount of masking at about 3C. They're ignoring three quarters of the warming when computing climate sensitivity.
That puts us uncomfortably close to 5C above the 1750 baseline, yet natural feedbacks are only now starting to kick in. Lag, lag, lag, and aerosols.
OMG was somewhere around the 80s most likely.

#5 I had not read this when posting my slideshow above. I do not disagree with your thoughts. However much of the conclusions are speculative based on limited human knowledge of what happened in prehistoric time. This not to say all the models predicting the "OMG" moment of which you write are incorrect. But surely many theories cannot be proven. We have no empirical laboratory except planet Earth. Humans will likely be killed by a global pandemic, such as Ebola, long before we incinerate. Talk about adaptation. The human brain has not yet adapted to the pitfalls of technology.

@Alligator Ed
are wedded to a philosophy of "more people = more exploitable economic units". they don't see us as useless eaters, they see us as consumers. their outlook is not rational. don't make the mistake of thinking that they are smart. they are not -- and even more to the point, they are not wise. they are blinded by their ideology and its nonsensical axioms (e.g., competition maximizes efficiency!). They believe their own bullshit, which is what makes them so very, very dangerous.

#6 It got you, and others, to comment. Talk all you will about consumerism, albedo, carbonification of the oceans, unfreezing of the tundra, etc., and it does no good getting us to a solution.

The engine of capitalism is population growth--more people to sell things to, including homes and autos. I am a throwback who believes Thomas Malthus was correct. This planet has and always will have limited resources. The problem now with population reduction is the conflation with eugenics. This is a real threat. The elites want to cull the herd, ridding us of useless eaters, and breeding instead faithful servants who will do their bidding unquestioningly.

@Alligator Ed
I have right now 75 Doug Fir seedlings in my back yard waiting to be planted on recently aquired acreage. My plan is to re-forest half the property and plant more trees along the salmon spawning creek for shading the water. I also have half a dozen fruit trees and will add nut trees to the mix.
Tilless organic farming will be the other half.
Clearly, I'm to old to reap the benefits of what I build there.
But my heirs will have a fighting chance to survive a calamity.
A truism I've learned in life; heirs and their cash are soon parted.

#10 I like reading conservative sites because it gives other viewpoints beside the P.S> demanded explanations. Definitely, human activity is responsible for some climate change but how much.

Here's one possible ameliorative approach. Reforest the planet starting now. In 12 years, when the OMG catastrophe is expected to visit us in full force, these new arboreal rescuers might suck up enough CO2 to compensate for this green house gas. But, as I wrote in my essay, what about other greenhouse gases not receiving their fair share of publicity? Eliminating identified other contributing factors to the climate change debate is disingenuous. Furthermore, what about possible GHG interactions which possible cancel the effects of others--or magnify them? Where's the research on that? The emphasis on CO2 and only CO2 in my opinion is solely a neoliberal plot to focus our attention to one single factor, CO2, and way from other interacting agents.