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Bridging the gap between left and right. I came across this clip showing Glenn Beck and Samantha Bee, and thought that this SoylentNews story / comment thread should be stickied till the new year so we have an ongoing conversation. It's a short clip from her show where Glenn Beck is a willing guest; the key point is they are trying to find common ground. Beck points out that Bee is following some of his own patterns of crying "catastrophe" but they really don't provide much insight beyond the significance of their little coming together moment.
The divide is clear and present on this site as most everywhere else, I would like to see a meta discussion where we fact check each other and drill down through the rhetoric until we get some straightforward lists and proposals on how we can move forward together. What are the fundamental blockers? Which ideas do we consider to be too outrageous for credibility? Many here are guilty of attacking each other — can we try and Spock it out for about a week?
I'll start us off with my supposition:
Climate change is real and human activity has an important effect on it. We must agree on this point in order to move forward, and social/economic issues must be handled after needed environmental changes."
If you post as AC — try and behave as if you were logged in — reduce the flames for better quality discussion.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:57AM
Not really, we can't afford to give up much land to climate change while still having enough food to feed the planet. Especially if the current wars don't get any better.
If you look at the areas that are and aren't being used for agriculture, I'm curious what areas in the latter category you're expecting us to be able to miraculously start farming and why you assume that it's going to be close enough to a 1:1 swap that we can make it work.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:09AM
The areas that are too cold now. Soon, very soon, northern Canada's gonna be a farming powerhouse.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:15AM
Nope. Canada may warm enough, but they don't get enough light. Plus the growing season will be rather short. That's before we consider the other aspects like rainfall.
The probably will be able to grow some new things that they couldn't, but they're not going to be a powerhouse anytime soon. And probably never as the light issues are hard to fix.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:24AM
If you look at the areas that are and aren't being used for agriculture, I'm curious what areas in the latter category you're expecting us to be able to miraculously start farming and why you assume that it's going to be close enough to a 1:1 swap that we can make it work.
You could have made that argument several centuries ago and be just as wrong as you are today. We have a pretty good track record at farming new land and making it productive.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:07PM
Several centuries ago the population was a 6th of what it is now. If we hadn't managed to figure things out, the population would have already peaked at some lower number. There's no reason to believe that we can continue to innovate our way around this problem when we don't even know what land is going to be available between rising oceans and changing weather plans.
What's more, most of the areas that aren't being used for farming currently are either places like the farth north and far south where they have very little light compared with the areas we're currently farming or are either in conflict zones or built up.
Not to mention desert regions which can't be counted on as they haven't got the water to appropriately farm.
So, while we might find a way of making it work, it's definitely not a sure thing and it's definitely not more economical than just biting the bullet and doing something about climate change now before such extreme measures are necessary.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:53PM
There's no reason to believe that we can continue to innovate our way around this problem when we don't even know what land is going to be available between rising oceans and changing weather plans.
Except the obvious rebuttal that we've figured it out so far and we're pretty good at the innovation thing (not that we need the innovation! Current agriculture is already up to the task). And not knowing what land is available is at best a minor problem. It doesn't take a great of lead time to turn wilderness into farmland.
What's more, most of the areas that aren't being used for farming currently are either places like the farth north and far south where they have very little light compared with the areas we're currently farming or are either in conflict zones or built up.
In other words, not a very big deal.
Not to mention desert regions which can't be counted on as they haven't got the water to appropriately farm.
Unless you bring it there. Water is one of the more plentiful materials on the surface of Earth and easy to transport. Irrigation is yet another solved problem.
it's definitely not a sure thing
We have it nailed down already. I'm sorry, but this is yet another overblown concern. The real risk here is bad agricultural practices. If best practices don't get applied on a large enough portion of agriculture, then you will have problems no matter what the climate does.