Study: $45 trillion needed to combat warming

[mattkime]

cbelt3 - i find your critique of the cap and trade approach extremely confusing. there are certainly faults with such plans (currently in operation!) but they're entirely unrelated to your statements.

You mention that we should spend $45 trillion to fix the problem. Carbon credits are simply a way of charging those who pollute the most and rewarding those who don't (such as through generating clean energy) so that the burden is shared properly.

[cbelt3]

Makk, "Carbon Credits' are simply a global tax plan masquerading as an 'environmentally friendly reallocation of wealth' plan. It's the concept of a global network of middlemen that get the gelt INSTEAD of the programs that will actually solve the problem that has my back hairs up and my ears back and down. Those middlemen are traders and governments who have no actual ability to do anything useful. Why should they get a penny ?

When you think about the amount of money we spend making movies about experimental energy, and the actual amount of money we spend ON experimental energy programs... well, I think Hollywood actually spends more. And that makes me sick.

DOE funding of solar power ? DOE funding of fusion research ?

not much, my friends. not much.

Fortunately the Senate version of this plan just died with a stake through its heart. Unfortunately nothing better is coming up in its place.

[karsen]

Is global warming really such a bad thing? Seems like global cooling would be much worse. Crops grow better in the heat than the cold. Colder temperatures and longer winters would mean less food for everyone. I drive a gas guzzler with high emissions because I care about the starving kids.

[davester]

[quote shadow]The only thing we can say with 100% certainty about the climate is that it is always changing.
Nonsense! Talk about the classic straw man argument. Nobody said that except you. If you ACTUALLY LISTEN OR READ pretty much any published discussion of the rationale for the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, you will find that 1) a significant anomalous global warming event on the time scale of the industrial revolution is absolutely 100% certain; and, 2) the evidence that the warming anomaly is primarily anthropogenic (resulting from industrialization) is never cited as "100% certainty", though as time goes on and more data comes in, the certainty has increased tremendously. There is very little contradictory data...the only contradictions come from political propagandists and oil company executives (except that the oil companies with the largest research braintrusts [e.g. shell, BP] have changed their colors and now concede that the anthropogenic hypothesis is almost certainly correct.

[quote shadow][quote incognegro]How come the forecast for the next few days in PA is almost 100, in early June?
You mean just like it was in 1899, 1914, 1925, 1933, 1959, 1984, and 1999?
Congrats. Incognegro was technically incorrect in his flippant implication that local weather trends have anything to do with global warming, but rather than correct him by saying that local weather trends are not meaningful in this regard, you jumped in and threw out your own irrelevant observations.

[davester]

[quote karsen]Crops grow better in the heat than the cold. Colder temperatures and longer winters would mean less food for everyone.
Where were you when science and US history classes were in session? Ever heard of "desertification" or "the dust bowl"? Crops respond primarily to solar energy, water availability and nutrients. Cold only enters the equation in any significant way if freezing temperatures start to shorten the growing season at northern latitudes (not where most food production comes from). Warming the climate won't do anything to alter solar energy input, but it will help reduce the availability of water, perhaps on a massive scale. There is little doubt that continued global warming will cause even more significant droughts and crop failures than it has already.

[freeradical]

This obsession with global warming is puzzling. Why not concentrate on the tangible benefits of reduced petroleum use such as cleaner air? If we make our cars more fuel efficient, there will be less smog. Nobody is opposed to that. If more people use public transportation, the roads will be less crowded, and we will not have to spend as much money maintaining our highways. If we can seriously reduce our petroleum use, we might not have to park aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. These are much simpler sells.

[kj]

>>This obsession with global warming is puzzling.

It's not really that puzzling. People are going to milk it for all it's worth ($$). True environmentalists should be just as critical of those looking for the payoff as anyone else. Maybe more. kj.

[karsen]

[quote davester][quote karsen]Crops grow better in the heat than the cold. Colder temperatures and longer winters would mean less food for everyone.
Where were you when science and US history classes were in session? Ever heard of "desertification" or "the dust bowl"? Crops respond primarily to solar energy, water availability and nutrients. Cold only enters the equation in any significant way if freezing temperatures start to shorten the growing season at northern latitudes (not where most food production comes from). Warming the climate won't do anything to alter solar energy input, but it will help reduce the availability of water, perhaps on a massive scale. There is little doubt that continued global warming will cause even more significant droughts and crop failures than it has already.
Thanks Mr Wizard, I was joking.

[Lux Interior]

[quote freeradical]This obsession with global warming is puzzling.
What obsession? Is it like the obsession with evolution? If observing the natural world and drawing conclusions based on the data is an "obsession" so be it.

I prefer to call it "Science".

[shadow]

[quote davester]1) a significant anomalous global warming event on the time scale of the industrial revolution is absolutely 100% certain;
Really? Funny how the only way to get a result that supports this conclusion is to cherry-pick data.

[quote davester]2) the evidence that the warming anomaly is primarily anthropogenic (resulting from industrialization) is never cited as "100% certainty", though as time goes on and more data comes in, the certainty has increased tremendously.[/quote davester]

Yeah .... they never say "100% certainty", they just take it for granted. The media paints a picture that cutting CO2 output will "fix" or at least partially alleviate global warming. This presupposes that the theory of AGW is true.

[quote davester]There is very little contradictory data...the only contradictions come from political propagandists and oil company executives
I think you mean to say "contradictory conclusions". There is actually very little data on the subject, it is all interpretation. It wouldn't be so bad if the interpretation process was transparent. However, authors of all the "big" GW studies refuse to publish the exact process as to how they came to a conclusion for a given data set. Reconstruction of such processes reveal questionable statistical processes (cherry-picking, unsupported weighting practices, etc).

[quote davester] (except that the oil companies with the largest research braintrusts [e.g. shell, BP] have changed their colors and now concede that the anthropogenic hypothesis is almost certainly correct.
You honestly believe they've had an actual change of heart because of data and studies? You don't think that it's because their PR/marketing departments have told them what to say? I have a bridge here that I am practically giving away...

[quote davester]Congrats. Incognegro was technically incorrect in his flippant implication that local weather trends have anything to do with global warming, but rather than correct him by saying that local weather trends are not meaningful in this regard, you jumped in and threw out your own irrelevant observations.
Sounds like you read more into what I wrote than what was actually there (a big surprise for a AGW supporter). The posted comment was that a single forecast represented global warming. I posted data that it has all happened before and a sarcastic comment poking fun at such a supposition.

People need to be taught conservation for the sake of conservation, not because of a questionable theory. For when the day comes that the theory is proven false, people will instantly revert. I don't want to sound all new age, but I prefer to have cleaner air (which includes "natural" CO2 levels ) and to live in harmony with the environment to the downright abuse that is currently taking place. There is no reason that we cannot have a comfortable, modern standard of living, while at the same time, limit our impact on the Earth.