Conservatism and the Environment

[Bacle]

I think too much focus goes into 'climate change' as a whole; I believe humans are having an impact, but what degree is debatable.

I think it would be more useful to focus on conrete regional and environmental issue that are, seperate from being lumped in with climate change, rather non-controversial.

Issues like fishery depletion, plastics in the ocean (fuck China on this), deforestation of the Amazon for farmland (vetical farms are a must for humanity in the long term, it's a simple fact), ocean acidification (all sorts of bad for oxygen producing micro-biota and sea life in general), and rapid loss of biodiversity (de-extinction and genetic sample preservation needs to be kicked into high gear), and aquifer depletion (the Midwest is super fucked if the Ogallala runs dry, and it's fed by the same snows that feed the Platte and Arkansas), just to name a few off the top of my head.

Other issue that tie into this, and why I support what Musk is doing, is that the 'environment' doesn't end as soon as you leave Earth's atmosphere. There are many ways non-terrestial phenomea (solar flares, X-Ray bursts, gamma ray burst, coronal mass ejections, and of course mundane asteriods) that could ruin our biosphere without any human input. These need addressing, and they also are why we need at least one, ideally more, genetic banks/back-ups off-planet (Mars, or Jovian moons are best bets).

People need to stop trying to change human society to fix this shit; that's a lot of effort and time wasted for little gain when we can change tech so much easier and quicker.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

There’s also proper waste disposal

My country’s capital city is so polluted that people can get cancer from breathing the air and our water is frequently gray-black

We even have entire landfills that people live near and in and said landfills poison the surrounding land even further with their presence

 

[LordSunhawk]

I think too much focus goes into 'climate change' as a whole; I believe humans are having an impact, but what degree is debatable.

I think it would be more useful to focus on conrete regional and environmental issue that are, seperate from being lumped in with climate change, rather non-controversial.

Issues like fishery depletion, plastics in the ocean (fuck China on this), deforestation of the Amazon for farmland (vetical farms are a must for humanity in the long term, it's a simple fact), ocean acidification (all sorts of bad for oxygen producing micro-biota and sea life in general), and rapid loss of biodiversity (de-extinction and genetic sample preservation needs to be kicked into high gear), and aquifer depletion (the Midwest is super fucked if the Ogallala runs dry, and it's fed by the same snows that feed the Platte and Arkansas), just to name a few off the top of my head.

Other issue that tie into this, and why I support what Musk is doing, is that the 'environment' doesn't end as soon as you leave Earth's atmosphere. There are many ways non-terrestial phenomea (solar flares, X-Ray bursts, gamma ray burst, coronal mass ejections, and of course mundane asteriods) that could ruin our biosphere without any human input. These need addressing, and they also are why we need at least one, ideally more, genetic banks/back-ups off-planet (Mars, or Jovian moons are best bets).

People need to stop trying to change human society to fix this shit; that's a lot of effort and time wasted for little gain when we can change tech so much easier and quicker.

I completely agree about 'climate change' sucking all the oxygen out of real issues facing the environment. Sound fisheries policy, sound forestry policy, economic aid to third world countries to speed them through the 'poor and polluting' phase of industrialization and get them up to more western standards of living.

Honestly, this will sound somewhat out of left field... but requiring any corporation that does business in the United States to provide *all* of their employees, globally, equal pay, benefits, workplace safety standards, etc to American standards. If you don't want to do business here you can pay your workers shit, treat them like shit, and get away with it. You want to sell here? You treat all your people like you'd treat Joe Blow in Chicago. Have compliance audits on the companies, and any that fail the board of directors will face punitive *personal* fines until such time as they are in compliance.

Why am I bringing this up in an environmental thread? Because the single biggest correlation between concern for the environment, willingness to invest in preserving the environment, and willingness to sacrifice a bit for the welfare of wildlife is economic prosperity. Raise the level of economic prosperity for people in poor countries and you will quickly see a corresponding improvement in environmental factors.

 

[Bacle]

I completely agree about 'climate change' sucking all the oxygen out of real issues facing the environment. Sound fisheries policy, sound forestry policy, economic aid to third world countries to speed them through the 'poor and polluting' phase of industrialization and get them up to more western standards of living.

Honestly, this will sound somewhat out of left field... but requiring any corporation that does business in the United States to provide *all* of their employees, globally, equal pay, benefits, workplace safety standards, etc to American standards. If you don't want to do business here you can pay your workers shit, treat them like shit, and get away with it. You want to sell here? You treat all your people like you'd treat Joe Blow in Chicago. Have compliance audits on the companies, and any that fail the board of directors will face punitive *personal* fines until such time as they are in compliance.

Why am I bringing this up in an environmental thread? Because the single biggest correlation between concern for the environment, willingness to invest in preserving the environment, and willingness to sacrifice a bit for the welfare of wildlife is economic prosperity. Raise the level of economic prosperity for people in poor countries and you will quickly see a corresponding improvement in environmental factors.

This reminds me of a video I saw of farmers/workers in some west African country trying chocolate for the first time.

They'd farmed the cocoa beans all their lives, but hadn't tasted so much as a Hersey bar before. After one taste, I remember one remarking 'So this is why white people are so fat'.

Yes, requiring US companies to treat all workers, no matter their nationality, by US labor standards would do a lot to alievate poverty in developing countries.

 

[Lanmandragon]

This reminds me of a video I saw of farmers/workers in some west African country trying chocolate for the first time.

They'd farmed the cocoa beans all their lives, but hadn't tasted so much as a Hersey bar before. After one taste, I remember one remarking 'So this is why white people are so fat'.

Yes, requiring US companies to treat all workers, no matter their nationality, by US labor standards would do a lot to alievate poverty in developing countries.

It'd make it less attractive to outsource jobs to. Which is always a good thing for folks.

 

[Marduk]

economic aid to third world countries to speed them through the 'poor and polluting' phase of industrialization and get them up to more western standards of living.

This becomes a massive kerfuffle and not necessarily a healthy lasting involvement in some of less than exemplary (in culture and governance) third world countries. Namely, dealing with corruption, hostilities of all sorts, cultural problems...
I'd say advise those willing to listen, make mutually beneficial deals with those that can be trusted, tell the rest it's their land and if they screw it up they will suffer from it.

Honestly, this will sound somewhat out of left field... but requiring any corporation that does business in the United States to provide *all* of their employees, globally, equal pay, benefits, workplace safety standards, etc to American standards. If you don't want to do business here you can pay your workers shit, treat them like shit, and get away with it. You want to sell here? You treat all your people like you'd treat Joe Blow in Chicago. Have compliance audits on the companies, and any that fail the board of directors will face punitive *personal* fines until such time as they are in compliance.

If some US politician managed to do that, the CEOs of German, Chinese, Japanese and many other corporations would be erecting freaking shrines to him in their offices.
Unfortunately economic competition on global level is unavoidable.

Why am I bringing this up in an environmental thread? Because the single biggest correlation between concern for the environment, willingness to invest in preserving the environment, and willingness to sacrifice a bit for the welfare of wildlife is economic prosperity. Raise the level of economic prosperity for people in poor countries and you will quickly see a corresponding improvement in environmental factors.

Is it, really? It's more directly correlated to western culture in general, and the more extreme side of it, to few very new mutations of it in particular. We don't have a massive sample size of major rich countries that don't have even a bit of that, but...
The few Asian ones don't seem as bent on it as EU average.
The two obvious ones definitely don't seem to be on the climate change panic bandwagon.

South Korea Ranks As One Of The Worst Countries For Climate Change | 10 Magazine Korea

Recent reports state in the fight against climate change, South Korea ranks near the bottom, in terms of what it is doing for prevention.

10mag.com

Japan and climate change -- leader turned laggard

Abe government must refocus on carbon emissions, taking its cue from private sector pioneers

asia.nikkei.com

 

[CarlManvers2019]

It'd make it less attractive to outsource jobs to. Which is always a good thing for folks.

And hell, its not just good pay, they need to make sure workplaces are good

Both for a moral and practical reason, the latter because it’d be less likely for accidents that disrupt work to occur and maybe increase production

Though there is a point when pay would be too high to apply for every employee, so that needs to be negotiated and reviewed per basis

 

[Sol Zagato]

Just one thing to point out. While the climate science activists and the media would love it if you only cared about CO2 and maybe methane, both gases are actually the smallest component of the actual greenhouse theory. The most powerful greenhouse gas of them all? Water vapor. By several orders of magnitude. However water vapor is also the most self-regulated of the greenhouse gases, as when it's concentration reaches a certain point it tends to precipitate out of the atmosphere in a lovely shower of rain.

This effect can actually be easily observed in the tropics, BTW. As the temperatures rise during the day you can actually see the water vapor congealing into first rather wispy clouds, then into cumulus clouds, then by mid-afternoon into cumulonimbus clouds, and then you have your daily afternoon thunderstorm. These storms are not caused by fronts either, they are simply a cycle due to solar irradiance increasing evaporation of water, leading to the formation of the cloud, leading to the storm.

I will also note that the beneficial effects of increased atmospheric CO2 are almost always completed elided out of the discussion. You see, CO2 levels by the early 19th century were actually dropping low enough that we had started to see a transition in plant life, with species that needed less to survive beginning to proliferate while more CO2 intensive plants were beginning to die. Most crops? CO2 intensive. This effect contributed strongly to desertification (look at the extent maps of the Sahara and other major deserts over time, then correlate them to CO2 levels...). However, as atmospheric CO2 started to rise thanks to us filthy filthy humans pumping it out with our coal burning ways of the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric CO2 rose back into the happy place for most plants, and you now see the Sahara shrinking exceptionally rapidly (albeit on a longer time scale than we usually think of as 'rapid' LOL).

Again, as I am very fond of saying, when it comes to climate and the insanely complex realities of atmospheric circulations, thermal transport, cloud formation (oh, forgot to mention, all of those precious precious climate models you are supposed to believe? None of them account for clouds at all) etc we don't even fully know what we don't know. We don't know all the questions we need to ask, because we're always finding things that make us go 'WTF?' because nobody had ever conceived of the discovery. For real scientists, this would be something they'd be insanely happy over. A real scientists loves it when his experiment disproves his hypothesis, because that means he now has new data with which to form the NEXT hypothesis. An activist is married to his hypothesis and cannot permit it to even be tested, let alone disproved.

I don't know about the Sahara, but the Israelis have been observing productive growth in drier areas due to higher CO2.

One thing warmists always fail to mention is that a warmer Earth is a wetter, greener Earth overall. There are some areas that will likely be screwed (Utah, probably), but they're a minority.

 

[LordSunhawk]

This becomes a massive kerfuffle and not necessarily a healthy lasting involvement in some of less than exemplary (in culture and governance) third world countries. Namely, dealing with corruption, hostilities of all sorts, cultural problems...
I'd say advise those willing to listen, make mutually beneficial deals with those that can be trusted, tell the rest it's their land and if they screw it up they will suffer from it.

If some US politician managed to do that, the CEOs of German, Chinese, Japanese and many other corporations would be erecting freaking shrines to him in their offices.
Unfortunately economic competition on global level is unavoidable.

Is it, really? It's more directly correlated to western culture in general, and the more extreme side of it, to few very new mutations of it in particular. We don't have a massive sample size of major rich countries that don't have even a bit of that, but...
The few Asian ones don't seem as bent on it as EU average.
The two obvious ones definitely don't seem to be on the climate change panic bandwagon.

South Korea Ranks As One Of The Worst Countries For Climate Change | 10 Magazine Korea

Recent reports state in the fight against climate change, South Korea ranks near the bottom, in terms of what it is doing for prevention.

10mag.com

Japan and climate change -- leader turned laggard

Abe government must refocus on carbon emissions, taking its cue from private sector pioneers

asia.nikkei.com

Well, under my pie in the sky, utterly unrealistic and will never happen plan, those CEO's would have a major problem... they'd not be able to do any business in the US. Sometimes being the big dog does have benefits, ja?

I will caution against conflating 'cares about climate change' with 'cares about the environment'. In Japan, they have been taking significant steps towards protecting the natural environment, preserving habitat (for example, the snow monkeys) and raising air and water quality. All of which are possible because they are a wealthy society with the leisure and luxury of being able to devote wealth to things other than day to day survival.

As for the West, cui bono. Those activists and politicians are supporting this and screaming about it for their own personal benefit, not out of any genuine concern for the environment.

 

[Marduk]

Well, under my pie in the sky, utterly unrealistic and will never happen plan, those CEO's would have a major problem... they'd not be able to do any business in the US. Sometimes being the big dog does have benefits, ja?

It would effectively enforce legally solid separation between two kinds of companies - those that want to be competitive on the world market, and those that compete in the US market.
And in this scenario USA would lose quite a lot of its economic stature sooner rather than later.

I will caution against conflating 'cares about climate change' with 'cares about the environment'. In Japan, they have been taking significant steps towards protecting the natural environment, preserving habitat (for example, the snow monkeys) and raising air and water quality. All of which are possible because they are a wealthy society with the leisure and luxury of being able to devote wealth to things other than day to day survival.

Still, different priorities and motivations.
OTOH they most definitely also stray away from western environmentalist mainstream on more topics than just CO2, like ivory trade and whaling.
Going back to my first post in the thread, parts of that are bound to be universal for countries that can afford it, the non-ideological/idealist component of environmentalism - things like not wanting air and water to be meaningfully harmful to humans, that is something any society is going to be interested in, it's their own interest on the line there, there is no question that there is a benefit from doing that, the question is if it's worth the cost.
But beyond that, various societies will be inevitably going in different directions and not necessarily equally far. Spare wealth is a necessary, but very much not a sufficient condition for any such issue.

As for the West, cui bono. Those activists and politicians are supporting this and screaming about it for their own personal benefit, not out of any genuine concern for the environment.

The "footsoldiers" of these movements generally don't get material benefits out of it, quite the opposite, they are the true believers. The celebrities, leaders and sponsors are a different matter.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

The "footsoldiers" of these movements generally don't get material benefits out of it, quite the opposite, they are the true believers. The celebrities, leaders and sponsors are a different matter.

Yeah, said celebrities, leaders and sponsors who like living far away from their “footsoldiers” and spending much more money on goods and producing more waste also use their own private jets whilst lecturing the poor people about how they need to spend less

 

[Terthna]

OTOH they most definitely also stray away from western environmentalist mainstream on more topics than just CO2, like ivory trade and whaling.

The ivory trade (or at least, what Asia contributes to it, because there's still a market for it in western nations) is mostly because the Chinese have rather primitive ideas about medicine; many of them honestly still think it has medicinal properties.

As for whaling; a lot of that has to do with the Japanese not wanting to give in to terrorist organizations like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. If they had just been left alone, they probably would be doing a lot less whaling these days.

 

[LordSunhawk]

One thing I will note about whaling.

For most of the history of whaling it was actually done at a quite sustainable rate. Even the rise of factory ships didn't change that too much, since just about all of the whale had some market value and storing all of it took up quite a bit of volume. So the western and asian whaling fleets weren't doing much overall harm to the population.

Then the Soviet's joined in. You see, they wanted whale oil to use as lubricant on their armored vehicles. So they sent out their fleets. However, they were going by the good ole Soviet system of quotas. And the best way to get recognized and promoted and commended was to exceed your quota. And doing so caused the quota to go up.

And the Soviet quota wasn't 'how many barrels of oil' but rather 'how many dead whales', because that way they could have the quota be for the entire fleet in a way that worked for the hunting ships as well as the factory ships.

Soviet whalers would actually kill whales, record the kill, then just keep on going, leaving the carcass to rot in the waves. After all, once you'd filled your tanks with whale oil there's no point in harvesting anything from the dead whales, but you get another tick on your quota! And the apparatchiks that came up with the quotas didn't specify *species* of whale, any whale would do, so slaughter at will, Petrov!

And just for maximum lulz, once whaling was regulated? The Soviets ignored the treaty that they'd signed, fabricated the records they submitted, and kept right on slaughtering. When whaling was finally banned? The Soviets *still* kept on whaling, although they then pretended that the whalers were 'oceanographic research vessels' while still slaughtering whales left and right, even though they no longer used whale oil as lubricant! The production quotas hadn't been abolished, comrade!

It took the fall of the Soviet Union for this to come to a halt, finally.

Here's one source on this, and it if anything understates the problem... there are others but they are very graphic.

https://indopacificimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Illegal-Soviet-Whaling.pdf

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

One thing I will note about whaling.

For most of the history of whaling it was actually done at a quite sustainable rate. Even the rise of factory ships didn't change that too much, since just about all of the whale had some market value and storing all of it took up quite a bit of volume. So the western and asian whaling fleets weren't doing much overall harm to the population.

Then the Soviet's joined in. You see, they wanted whale oil to use as lubricant on their armored vehicles. So they sent out their fleets. However, they were going by the good ole Soviet system of quotas. And the best way to get recognized and promoted and commended was to exceed your quota. And doing so caused the quota to go up.

And the Soviet quota wasn't 'how many barrels of oil' but rather 'how many dead whales', because that way they could have the quota be for the entire fleet in a way that worked for the hunting ships as well as the factory ships.

Soviet whalers would actually kill whales, record the kill, then just keep on going, leaving the carcass to rot in the waves. After all, once you'd filled your tanks with whale oil there's no point in harvesting anything from the dead whales, but you get another tick on your quota! And the apparatchiks that came up with the quotas didn't specify *species* of whale, any whale would do, so slaughter at will, Petrov!

And just for maximum lulz, once whaling was regulated? The Soviets ignored the treaty that they'd signed, fabricated the records they submitted, and kept right on slaughtering. When whaling was finally banned? The Soviets *still* kept on whaling, although they then pretended that the whalers were 'oceanographic research vessels' while still slaughtering whales left and right, even though they no longer used whale oil as lubricant! The production quotas hadn't been abolished, comrade!

It took the fall of the Soviet Union for this to come to a halt, finally.

Here's one source on this, and it if anything understates the problem... there are others but they are very graphic.

https://indopacificimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Illegal-Soviet-Whaling.pdf

Everytime I think the UdSSR has reached the bottom, they go even lower.
I wish students would learn of all these atrocities, but the freaking propaganda officiers known as professors prevent all that...

 

[tirrene]

Oh my god, some of you actually don't believe in global warming! Some of you are even saying it is a good thing! This is precious!

 

[Bacle]

Oh my god, some of you actually don't believe in global warming! Some of you are even saying it is a good thing! This is precious!

You have anything meaningful, or accurate, to contribute?

Because what I've seen is people who are concerned about environmental issues, of many flavors that don't get a lot of press, and aren't buying into the dogma of the green elite. We aren't denying there are problems, but we aren't unquestioningly following the environmental herd.

 

[tirrene]

You have anything meaningful, or accurate, to contribute?

Because what I've seen is people who are concerned about environmental issues, of many flavors that don't get a lot of press, and aren't buying into the dogma of the green elite. We aren't denying there are problems, but we aren't unquestioningly following the environmental herd.

Ah yes, the green elite, those monsters that just want our descendants to be able to live in a civilized world by manipulating the environmental herd of sheeple to believe in the scientific facts! Boy are those guys evil!

 

[Sol Zagato]

Ah yes, the green elite, those monsters that just want our descendants to be able to live in a civilized world by manipulating the environmental herd of sheeple to believe in the scientific facts! Boy are those guys evil!

Anybody can say their policies are for the good of everyone. When they're doomsayers you better check your wallet, because they could be right, but it's also a method of stopping debate to run a hustle.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Ah yes, the green elite, those monsters that just want our descendants to be able to live in a civilized world by manipulating the environmental herd of sheeple to believe in the scientific facts! Boy are those guys evil!

So are you going to post cites and sources that support your apparent stance on matters, or are you just going to drive-by post and behave like a common troll?

 

[Bacle]

Ah yes, the green elite, those monsters that just want our descendants to be able to live in a civilized world by manipulating the environmental herd of sheeple to believe in the scientific facts! Boy are those guys evil!

You mean the green elite who have been doomsaying for decades, making bank off the hysteria and doomsaying, and burying any scientific analysis or personality who dares to question the extent (not even existence) of climate issues?

I was in a Masters of Environmental Management grad program for a bit, and I can say what I say there was more idelogical virtue signaling, and not much addressing practical approaches to the problems we face. I was told even pointing out it's a verifiable geological fact that the climate has always changed, and never been static, could get me labelled a 'climate change denier'. Think about that; stating a geological fact will get you labelled a 'climate change denier' because it hurts their narrative.

There are certainly environmental issues out there, and so far no one here has denied that. What they are skeptical of is that the all-encompassing umbrella term/ideology of 'climate change' is actually helpful or accurate. It doesn't help that there are many people who have become rich off being 'climate activists' (Al Gore for one) or that many predictions simply have not come to pass.