Global warming?

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

In which case we would play right into the hands of those who wish us to spend billions of our GDP while they do nothing.

Dejas vu all over again.

The same alarmist rhetoric we heard in the 70s with the passage of Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, Hazardous Materials Disposal Act...

"Economic doomsday!" screamed the affected industries at every opportunity.

Didnt happen...in fact, many of those laws and environmental initiatives stimulated innovation.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

In which case we would play right into the hands of those who wish us to spend billions of our GDP while they do nothing. China is second only to the US and will surpass it in the next few years. They emit 16% of GHG. They would love nothing more than to have us spend ourselves into the third world while they have no such restrictions. Add India to the mix and the two of them emit more than the US. They are among the most rapidly growing economies in the world.

http://www.unep.org/cpi/briefs/2008M...tersFactBOXWhy



http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep...n/na-warming26



http://www.eei.org/ourissues/TheEnvi...mateChange.pdf

That's ridiculous. If we invent/build the technology to help curb the effects, then we can sell it to the rest of the world. I don't care what you may think, I KNOW we can get ourselves off of damaging technology like coal and oil and move to completely clean and green technology to generate all the power we need, both for cars and for buildings.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Get China and India on board then give us a call.

Great. Let's go ahead and destroy ourselves because someone else doesn't care? That is just stupid. That's like saying, you'll quit smoking when everyone else quits, even though you know it might kill you or make your life miserable in some other way.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Great. Let's go ahead and destroy ourselves because someone else doesn't care? That is just stupid. That's like saying, you'll quit smoking when everyone else quits, even though you know it might kill you or make your life miserable in some other way.

So everything will be lovely if we don't pee in our corner of the same pool?

[TheMercenary]

Hardly alarmist at all. Basic economics 101. People like you stick your head in the sand anytime someone points out the contributions of China and India to the global warming problems and their lack of restrictions combined with unregulated growth.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Hardly alarmist at all. Basic economics 101. People like you stick your head in the sand anytime someone points out the contributions of China and India to the global warming problems and their lack of restrictions combined with unregulated growth.

The same alarmist "basic economics 101" argument that was utterly and completely baseless in the 70s?

And, if you want to make it personal, "people like you" have no concept of the meaning of leadership by example. You are much better and it is much easier to just point fingers.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

The same alarmist "basic economics 101" argument that was utterly and completely baseless in the 70s?

And, if you want to make it personal, "people like you" have no concept of the meaning of leadership by example. You are much better and it is much easier to just point fingers.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

The same alarmist "basic economics 101" argument that was utterly and completely baseless in the 70s?

Kinda like the global cooling that "all the scientists" told us about back then.

Originally Posted by classicman

Kinda like the global cooling that "all the scientists" told us about back then.

Another myth perpetrated by the denier crowd....that "all the scientists" at the time predicted global cooling.

In fact, if you look at studies from the 70s, there were more that predicted global warming than global cooling.

But no where near the almost unanimous consensus among the world's scientific bodies that exists today, with better science and more advanced modeling, that human activities contribute to the adverse impact of GHG emissions.

added:
Study debunks 'global cooling' concern of '70s

The supposed "global cooling" consensus among scientists in the 1970s — frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds — is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era.
...

But Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends.

The study reports, "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age.

"A review of the literature suggests that, to the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking about the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales."

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/clim...-cooling_N.htm

[classicman]

The study reports, "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age.

Good point. Good thing we missed that imminent ice age.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

How anyone can think we are totally responsible is beyond me.

Originally Posted by tw

Even their own scientists said the facts are irrefutible. And they still challenged gobal warming by only trying to confuse the issue. Confused issues work especially well on those who know only because they are told how to think. Meanwhile the consenus is almost unanamous. Global warning is created by man. Only question left is how much and how destructive. Extremists fear such questions. It threatens a political agenda which include doing anything necessary (even torture) to protect *OUR* oil.

Originally Posted by Redux

Ali and Bruce....I agree that there is no consensus that human activity is the sole or primary cause of global warming.

Which was my point, but tw has been telling us it's all our fault... doing the wacko extremist Chicken Little thing... complete bullshit, or should I say chickenshit.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Which was my point, but tw has been telling us it's all our fault... doing the wacko extremist Chicken Little thing... complete bullshit, or should I say chickenshit.

There have been extremist posts on both sides here.

Which, IMO, still begs the question:

Does anyone really believe, or is there any hard science to suggest, that spewing millions of metric tons of GHG from fossil fuels (primarily automobiles and power plants) into the atmosphere every year is healthy for the environment...or even neutral in its impact?

So what should we do about it? Nothing....just wait until the science is 100% irrefutable?

We certainly can start with a more honest discussion at every level.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Redux

There have been extremist posts on both sides here.

Which, IMO, still begs the question:

Does anyone really believe, or is there any hard science to suggest, that spewing millions of metric tons of GHG from fossil fuels (primarily automobiles and power plants) into the atmosphere every year is healthy for the environment...or even neutral in its impact?

So what should we do about it? Nothing....just wait until the science is 100% irrefutable?

We certainly can start with a more honest discussion at every level.

Most soitenly, and we can start by accepting that it's not all our fault, but what we are doing to contribute is not good, and there is much we can do to change that. On the other hand running off in 17 directions at full throttle is neither smart or likely to be effective.

Fortunately the change in U.S. leadership will probably help get a more coordinated effort going to address this issue. I hope an effort that keeps both Al Gore and Big Oil on the sidelines.

[Aliantha]

I think plenty of people are working on changing our habits at a personal level, which will only have the effect of forcing corporate responsibility sooner or later.

In the grand scheme of things, we're making changes at a remarkable rate. Possibly too slowly for some peoples liking, but change in any case. There is a limit to what people can be expected to be responsible for because ultimately, most people owe their loyalty to their family and will do what's best for them. Most people can't afford the green technologies out there, nor can most companies at the moment, but as more people come on board, these things will become more affordable for average people. It's always been the same formula.

New technology = expensive. Not affordable or cost effective
developing technology = less expensive. Affordable only to the wealthy.
developed technology = affordable
old technology = cheap

The issue we're facing now is the the old technology being fossil fuel as an energy source is about to become more expensive therefor forcing us to look to new technology which in turn will bring the price down.

It's just going to take time, and yodelling about it constantly isn't going to make it happen any faster.

Just like climate change, it's a natural progression. Regardless of what anyone believes now, we will be powering up with alternative energy sources before most of us kick the bucket. Well before I should expect.

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I think plenty of people are working on changing our habits at a personal level, which will only have the effect of forcing corporate responsibility sooner or later.

In the grand scheme of things, we're making changes at a remarkable rate. Possibly too slowly for some peoples liking, but change in any case. There is a limit to what people can be expected to be responsible for because ultimately, most people owe their loyalty to their family and will do what's best for them. Most people can't afford the green technologies out there, nor can most companies at the moment, but as more people come on board, these things will become more affordable for average people. It's always been the same formula.

New technology = expensive. Not affordable or cost effective
developing technology = less expensive. Affordable only to the wealthy.
developed technology = affordable
old technology = cheap

The issue we're facing now is the the old technology being fossil fuel as an energy source is about to become more expensive therefor forcing us to look to new technology which in turn will bring the price down.

It's just going to take time, and yodelling about it constantly isn't going to make it happen any faster.

Just like climate change, it's a natural progression. Regardless of what anyone believes now, we will be powering up with alternative energy sources before most of us kick the bucket. Well before I should expect.

Ali...I cant speak to the policies and practices in Australia.

I can say that in the US, over the last eight years, there has been a regression, rather than a natural progression, with regard to controlling GHG emissions.

From Bush's ignominiously named "clear skies initiative" which gutted critical provisions of the Clean Air Act regulating power plan emissions....to his EOs that forced many states to take his administration to court on auto emission standards (Bush lost every case in federal court but succeeded in delaying policies he opposed)....to the suppression of scientific studies within the federal government that did not support his ideology.

I can give you examples from Bush's energy policy of the massive tax breaks and incentives given to the oil industry and the pittance given to alternative energy resources.

You can call it yodeling...I call it holding our government accountable.