Climate Change

[Life]

Rather than resort to the reactionary stance, I shall instead ask you to explain this point.What I agree on is that the government isn't the only one that can do something about it. However, I don't think that the ones causing the most pollution will suddenly have a change of heart and do things in a more eco-friendly way, especially if it cuts into profits. I'm willing to do what little I can, but my individual impact is relatively low.

Since it's the only non-reactionary response (all the rest were "but they're science deniers!!!"), I'll answer it.

Now, this is only based off of personal anecdote but I get a lot of engineers who come to my bar. And the general point that they stress is that they're not in the business of destroying the evironment for personal gain and their companies are the same.

The vast majority of mining engineers (example but important since Canada has decided to phase out coal mining for the sake of green energy) are environmentalists and companies go out of their way to hire these people. The goal isn't to screw the world for resources and money. It is to allow people to have access to these resources in a way that harms the environment as little as possible. Imagine eliminating oil/coal/gas entirely tomorrow in its entirety. What happens next? Clean energy isn't at a point where it can sustain the entire world entirely on a permanent basis. These resources are needed for survival currently.

Polluting the environment doesn't benefit anyone in the long run and in the Western world, companies understand this. But in the short run, you can't push for closing these industries without making sacrifices yourself.

It feels like Climate Change is something that people push to feel morally superior at this point. It's less about thinking about the practicality of society and more about being able to take the moral high ground without any effort needed.

I'm not a scientist and I don't claim to have all of the answers. But I find conversations like these to not really do anything in practicality because I don't think the people here are going to live by their principles.

[Augestein]

It feels like Climate Change is something that people push to feel morally superior at this point. It's less about thinking about the practicality of society and more about being able to take the moral high ground without any effort needed.

I don't think it's that they are pushing for some sort of moral high ground, I think it's that they are saying that companies are being relatively shortsighted. As in, they are leaving a house of problems for people later on down the line if nothing is actually changed.

And you have to look at it this way, the scientists can't make companies stop, so all they can do is research to demonstrate why people should stop, or at least retard their processes or even consider looking into alternative methods. Not that I'm calling you out on anything, but what would you have the scientists do in this case?

[Phoenix Wright]

Since it's the only non-reactionary response (all the rest were "but they're science deniers!!!"), I'll answer it.

Now, this is only based off of personal anecdote but I get a lot of engineers who come to my bar. And the general point that they stress is that they're not in the business of destroying the evironment for personal gain and their companies are the same.

The vast majority of mining engineers (example but important since Canada has decided to phase out coal mining for the sake of green energy) are environmentalists and companies go out of their way to hire these people. The goal isn't to screw the world for resources and money. It is to allow people to have access to these resources in a way that harms the environment as little as possible. Imagine eliminating oil/coal/gas entirely tomorrow in its entirety. What happens next? Clean energy isn't at a point where it can sustain the entire world entirely on a permanent basis. These resources are needed for survival currently.

Polluting the environment doesn't benefit anyone in the long run and in the Western world, companies understand this. But in the short run, you can't push for closing these industries without making sacrifices yourself.

It feels like Climate Change is something that people push to feel morally superior at this point. It's less about thinking about the practicality of society and more about being able to take the moral high ground without any effort needed.

I'm not a scientist and I don't claim to have all of the answers. But I find conversations like these to not really do anything in practicality because I don't think the people here are going to live by their principles.

i'm not one to paint these people as evil. but please try to understand the other side of the story. these corporations pay lots of money to make the public ill-informed so as to slow down the necessary actions we should be taking. because of money. these corporations sometimes pay for poorly implemented "science experiments" to try to reach for anthropomorphic climate change being incorrect. because of money. these corporations also refuse to buy things that would make their carbon footprint smaller (like scrubbers or something). because of money.

so yes, of course the engineers aren't evil people. and yes the corporations don't have an overall goal of destroying the planet. but they behave in a way that is wholly detrimental to our survival. because of money.

you know what you do to corporations that have that sort of power? you break them up, phase them out, and introduce better business via clean energy subsidies. what you refrain from doing is keeping the government out. the government is the only entity currently capable of correcting this issue.

[Lord Raven]

He says he doesn't want reactionary talk but says he wants to talk about how it feels like people are taking a moral high ground. Literally how keeping the environment from imploding is somehow not unimportant because it feels like someone is taking a moral high ground, and not because of long term weather effects.

And FYI, many of these companies do push an anti-science fact denying agenda to keep afloat through at the very least lobbyists. They're the least innocent people; at the very least they have absolutely little reason to even complain that someone else has the moral high ground.

[Excellen Browning]

One dumb truth about the engineers is also that they knew nothing of the environmental impact of their designs and know little of it today. Extracting gold from ore with quicksilver (and then just dumping that) is a good historical example, the large tracts of land around the old Dutch tin mines (which are unfit for human habitation) are another. The good old smog around London, cause of death for thousands, is perhaps one of the most extreme.

Secondly, engineers as a general group know next to nothing of what happens when their workings fail, and don't understand how they can fail. Or even think of putting multiple failsafes into their designs. Or they totally ignore them. Chernobyl was a good example, every oil spill ever is a good example, lots of airplane crashes are a result of faulty safety design. A more recent example is a group investigators looking at safety locks and concluding virtually all of them can be picked with simple tools like paperclips, hairpins, and small pieces of plastic, within seconds, completely bypassing the failsafes.

Thirdly, engineers do not always care (or are paid to care) about the consequences of their products. Just look at the smog covering Beijing. There's plenty knowledge of the effects of smog, yet we did not see Chinese businesses care. Until the government stepped in, that is. Like always.

[Nobody]

I think people, like the engineers, and corporations go after money, that's completely natural, and also not a bad thing in my honest opinion.

That's why IMO the government has to do stuff like carbon taxing or funding clean energy. They go after money, which is natural and not necessarily a problem, so make it easier for them to make money while helping the environment and also harder for them to make money while negatively affecting it.

There's also another thing here. Coal is naturally decreasing and being made irrelevant. It's a very polluting sort of energy supply that isn't that efficient. YET there are a lot of politicians in the USA that pander to that industry to get their lobby support and also the coal worker vote, including mr president elect. That's not the free market making its choices. That's cronyists trying to get support of a dying industry stuck in the past.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Nooooooooooooooooooooobody

[Rothene]

One dumb truth about the engineers is also that they knew nothing of the environmental impact of their designs and know little of it today. Extracting gold from ore with quicksilver (and then just dumping that) is a good historical example, the large tracts of land around the old Dutch tin mines (which are unfit for human habitation) are another. The good old smog around London, cause of death for thousands, is perhaps one of the most extreme.

Secondly, engineers as a general group know next to nothing of what happens when their workings fail, and don't understand how they can fail. Or even think of putting multiple failsafes into their designs. Or they totally ignore them. Chernobyl was a good example, every oil spill ever is a good example, lots of airplane crashes are a result of faulty safety design. A more recent example is a group investigators looking at safety locks and concluding virtually all of them can be picked with simple tools like paperclips, hairpins, and small pieces of plastic, within seconds, completely bypassing the failsafes.

Thirdly, engineers do not always care (or are paid to care) about the consequences of their products. Just look at the smog covering Beijing. There's plenty knowledge of the effects of smog, yet we did not see Chinese businesses care. Until the government stepped in, that is. Like always.

And the sad thing is, researching into the effects of making things work as intended with the limitation of technology around us in itself is a life's work. Developing something to transcend technological limitations as we know today is a life's work, which does not necessarily cover its full practical application and effects on the environment. That's why there's the entire branch of study for environmental engineering, which are taught on effects as we know it today, and such knowledge are usually discovered AFTER the effects are showing signs of harm, not BEFORE.

The issue might lie in, why spend money on the environmental engineers? It's not even practiced in developing countries and they seem to only have a career in developed countries where for PR and legal reasons set by the community and government make certain businesses require them to avoid incurring penalties.

How many failsafe an engineer will end up putting into a design is heavily based on how much time they are able to work on the design, and to test for them is how much resource they have in their disposal to experiment with. Then how many of those failsafe designs are actually implemented is dependent on how much the final product manufacturing cost is not actually slashed by the end of the day assuming including all the failsafe would have made the cost of the design to go over the the planned pricing. Then there is the dangers of the materials used being defective for certain specimens.

As usual though, there is the sad truth about human error and negligence. When one works on the same thing for too long that it starts becoming muscle memory, rote reflexes, a tiny element outside the norm will then be overlooked. Only way around it is to have more eyes, fresh eyes, watching the project, but that means paying more people to do the work or inviting less experienced people into the project. The fact that the head engineers signature is on the blueprints and approval documents means the one to catch all the flak for accidents is them is enough incentive to do their best to prevent accidents. And at times, their best isn't enough, like how not everyone gets that perfect 100% for math exams. Doesn't absolve them of the mistake, but, it's something to think about from the engineers perspective. They are people who's drive is to make something work, the moment to see something come alive and functioning, like witnessing the birth of a perfect healthy child free of defects and full of potential.

And as usual, all decisions become clearer in hindsight. And the best we can do is document the whys so that mistakes are not repeated. It is easier, far easier to express that something is satisfactory or not, but far harder to deliver that. But the criticism is needed for improvements, just don't assume the engineers aren't thinking about the environment too.

[UNLEASH IT]

Still standing by that biogas thing tbh.

[KPOP]

this is one of the things that scares me the most ..... but people are all too self consumed to even think about this topic for a min

i hate it when i see people in their car with the engine going .... and for god knows how long, and why? because they are waiting for someone to come along? you do not need your engine to be running for you to be able to wait .... yet they stand still with an engine going for half hour or longer and causing the environment to get fkd .... and for what?

that is just one example that blows my mind.... and also,  people fkin take the car/scooter for every little thing they want to do on a daily basis
most people never walk or cycle lol i reckon  .... and you wonder why most people are so extremely fat huh

Edited October 28, 2017 by KPOP