Articles by Coby Beck
Former musician, turned tree planter, turned software engineer. Same old story... I have been blogging about climate change since 2006 at A Few Things Ill Considered.
All Articles
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‘Climate change mitigation would lead to disaster’–Not really, but this may be lesser of two evils
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: The kind of drastic actions required to mitigate global warming risk the destruction of the global economy and the deaths of potentially billions of people.
Answer: Is this supposed to mean the theory of anthropogenic global warming must be wrong? You can not come to a rational decision about the reality of a danger by considering how hard it might be to avoid. First things first: understand that the problem is real and present.
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A bit of environmental art to soften the day
Seeing as Grist likes to bring humor to environmental issues, I figure, why not art? So here is a climate-change-debate-inspired bit of original digital art. It is entitled "Global Warming on Enceladus (v. 1)."
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China and India have joined Kyoto, they just have different obligations, as is morally appropriate
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: Why should the U.S. join Kyoto while India and China haven't?
Answer: The U.S. puts out more CO2 than any other nation on earth, including China and India, by a large margin. Considering the relative populations (a billion-plus each for China and India versus 300 million in the U.S.), per capita emissions in the U.S. are many times larger. This has been true for the past 100-plus years of CO2 pollution.
For the U.S. to refuse to take any steps until India and China do the same is like the fattest man at the table, upon realizing the food is running out, demanding that the hungry people who just sat down cut back just as much as him, at the same time.
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‘Kyoto is a big effort for almost nothing’–Kyoto is only in its first phase
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: The Kyoto treaty, even if fully implemented, would only save us about a tenth of a degree of future temperature rise many decades from now. What a waste of effort! You can see for yourself here at the Junk Science website.
Answer: There are three big problems with this claim.
