An inconvinient truth - your thoughts?

[txaglh]

chris said:

Hey, I reckon we should all by properties in the middle of Greenland, cause at the moment, given its ice cube status, it should be cheap. Then we all wait until we're seventy, then sell it all off as perfect, beachfront property. Not the fastest way to become millionaires, but hey, least its a sure thing

well, dzis plan haz a smoll draughbeck, wen dze eis get melted, hoose gonna bee interested in see-bad? wie all hoo wood sirwife, wie all will bee already sailling the pangean Thetys on New Ark... ;D

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Mankind is a part of nature, so if mankind will wreck the biosphere of this planet, it's only natural. But it's part of the experiment that we as an intelligent species possibly could get our acts together to avoid havoc.

[Nicola Damiana Aseria]

Hey, I'm just a prospective citizen, but I wanted to add my thoughts.

First of all, I think maybe sometimes politicians do need to get involved with science. I can't think of any other time but with this--global warming. If it is real (which there is a ton of evidence to say it is, leaving aside whether it is caused by humans or not), and something does need to be done about it, scientists do not really have the power to do that. Usually the politicians are best at getting the message across to the people--even if their messages should be taken with a grain of salt--and the scientists are not always, unfortunately. Granted, if something like this goes to Congress, it's a sure bet that it will take years for anything to be done, but in that case the system for change needs to be altered, not the people who do the changing. A decision on what to do needs to be decided between scientists, economists, and politicians (and probably some others) in cooperation.

As to whether global warming is caused by humans, I haven't read any of this research being talked about, but I do know that I have seen alarming evidence that levels of CO2 are much higher now than they have ever been. It is true that these levels rise and fall over time, but as far as we know they have never been this high before. Even if this is not the sole cause--or even the main cause--of global warming, you can be sure it isn't helping. So shouldn't we do something about it?

And I don't know about you, but I don't particularly enjoy the fact that winters since my father was a kid have grown steadily warmer. Maybe this is too small a period of time to actually claim a climate change, but it is something. Should we wait until winters don't exist? Even if this is just a fluke, or a natural fluctuation, or we aren't actually causing it, shouldn't we do something just in case? Our action won't hurt, and it could save humankind. I know that sounds kind of dramatic, but if the temperature continues to rise for too long (much longer than any of us to be alive for, but there is our descendants to think of), it will be too hot for us. We'd have to either adapt quickly or die.

Didn't your mother ever teach you to clean up not just your own messes, but others' too? It benefits everyone.

Just a thought.
-Nicole

[Deleted]

teleklos said:

I agree with you guys except for one thing.

You say that China doesn't care about pollution. This is somewhat unfair, mainly because China is enormous and is growing rapidly. This drastic growth will cause further emissions because more populous means more emissions, especially at their growth rate. But compared to the percentage of pollution and waste we in the US dump they have quite a constrained pollution level and they indeed do care, as we have seen they are cleaning their cities, most notably Beijing. Overall the US is the real polluter in the world because we have about 300k people and yet we dump more pollution than anyone else in the world.

The cleaning of Beijing has more to do with the Olympics than anything else.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Yeah, China doesn't give much of a damn about the environment... it's unfortunate, but it's never been part of their national dialogue. Things like the Three Gorges Dam are going to wipe out entire species there.

[Deleted]

agbdavis said:

Yeah, China doesn't give much of a damn about the environment... it's unfortunate, but it's never been part of their national dialogue. Things like the Three Gorges Dam are going to wipe out entire species there.

There is a certain problem with going Green. the sheer expense of it alone is enough to turn the national trend the other way. Right now, the size of the American economy is still rediculiously larger than say, even the whole of Europe (about twice as large). China has to play the catch up game, a lot of the underdeveloped world does. For any Country (including the US) to go green, it almost gurantees economic slowdown, stagnation, or even decline. (Which is one of the reasons why we really do not have to worry about China catching up to us in the next few decades). Not to mention it is easier to take on the burden for the developed world. But I digress, it will take some international threat that is more evidant to get people to sign onto going green, and even then, will people still have doubts. I think eventually there will come a point where countries will have to go green to compete.

[Prince Patrick]

The single best thing we can do to lower levels of 'carbo pollution' would be to build coal-burning power plants: lots of them: in Africa.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

That movie scared me quite a bit...I'm not saying that's a bad thing though...

Just as long as Nuclear Power Moguls don't turn Al Gore's movie into a "See! You should get nuclear power even though it destroys the environment in other ways." kind of thing.

[Brad Holmes]

A great email I got the other day. Enjoy!

For all of you out there in America and across the globe who have fought so hard to tackle the hideous enemy of our planet, namely carbon emissions and that bogus god you worship named "Man-Made Global Warming", there is some really bad news that will be very painful for you to process. But it is my duty to pass it on to you anyway.

Are you sitting down?

Okay, here's the bombshell: The current volcanic eruption going on in Iceland, since it first started spewing volcanic ash and gases a few weeks ago, has, to this point, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet. Not only that, this single act of God has added emissions to the earth estimated to be 42 times more than can be corrected by the extreme human regulations proposed for annual reductions.

I know, I know.... (have a group hug)...it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up til midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, selling your SUV and speedboat, going on vacation to a city park instead of Yosemite, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your $1 light bulbs with $10 light bulbs ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just the past few weeks.

The volcanic gases emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in the past few weeks has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And, those hundreds of thousands of American jobs you helped move to Asia with expensive emissions demands on businesses... you know, the ones that are creating even more emissions than when they were creating American jobs, well that must seem really worthwhile now.



I'm so sorry. And I do wish that there was some kind of a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the brush fire season across the western U.S.A. will start in about two months and those fires will negate your efforts to reduce carbon emissions in our world for the next two years.

So, grab a Pepsi or Coke, give the world a hug, and have a nice day!

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Not based in fact, actually. The volcano released only about 200k tons of CO2. That's only about the same amount of CO2 released in one year by an average U.S. state's coal power plants. Source A 10% reduction in usage in just the United States would dwarf the volcano emissions by a factor of five.

Also this:


Even just the amount of CO2 saved by the canceled plans was way more than the volcano's emissions.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

I would like to point at that we have 4 possible outcomes here, if I may engage in some risk management.

1. We do nothing and global warming kills us all.
2. We do nothing and nothing bad happens.
3. We risk economic trouble which stops global warming from killing us all.
4. We risk economic trouble which was pointless because global warming was not manmade in the first place.

Now, as you have all said, there is data on both sides of the argument, though it seems that popular consensus is pro-anthropogenic global warming. This means that there is a chance that climate change is real, and a chance that it is not real. Now, to look at our list. On this list of possible outcomes, #2 would be, of course, the best option, and #1 would be the worst. So, from a risk management point of view, doesn't it just make sense to switch to solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, etc. in order that we eliminate the chance that we all get killed by climate change? I'd rather have a slumping economy than be dead. As Keynes once said, "In 50 years, we'll all be dead." Just something to think about.

[Deleted]

Jun 6, 2010 21:36:10 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

Not based in fact, actually. The volcano released only about 200k tons of CO2. That's only about the same amount of CO2 released in one year by an average U.S. state's coal power plants. Source A 10% reduction in usage in just the United States would dwarf the volcano emissions by a factor of five.

Also this:


Even just the amount of CO2 saved by the canceled plans was way more than the volcano's emissions.

Great point, and I am always impressed by the inclusion of a graph.

[Deleted]

I saw a post from Tony, and thought the Weckstrom was checking back in.... Ha!

[Deleted]

hahaha Danihel.. I thought the same thing and then I saw the date.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I don't think he will show up again until the election - if even then! DPD/PDP... ppft!