Plus, the Earth IS coming out of an ice age now... call me totally crazy, but it seems that when an ice age ends, ice might tend to um... I don't know... MELT, maybe?
Global Warming to be worse than expected
- Thread starter BCI
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All Seeing Eye
Admiral
I've argued this before....... whether global warming is true or false the path we are taking because of it is the correct one. We're turning to greener energy production, reducing our need for fossil fuels, releasing the grip that OPEC has on us and cleaning the air, water and land for future generations.
Yeah, I agree on that. I've been a supporter of alternative fuels and technologies since at least the early 1980s.
But where I diverge from the socialists is on HOW IT SHOULD BE FUNDED. Funding and impetus for alternative fuels and techologies should be funded by the PRIVATE SECTOR by PRIVATE COMPANIES.
All the government should do is be the cheer leaders on this -- on the sidelines. Not manipulating the marketplace and forcing it to comply through some kind of social engineering. Well, I say this...they could provide pro-corporate tax incentives (as in TAX CUTS) to corporations who actively engage in the development of these technologies. Other than that, the government should stay out of it.
Companies should, however, want to do it on their own without government pressure or involvement at any level (with the exception being pro-alt fuel technology tax credits and pro-business incentives). The public clearly wants the new technologies -- mostly on the basis of weening ourselves off foreign dependency. One of the big problems is that corporations have been complacent on developing the new technologies. And it should be realized that not all current new energy technologies are right for every given area. Wind, for example. Wind power generation and solar power generation still does not have the output of traditional methods -- such as clean coal.
Even the Chinese understand this, and have been building coal plants (albeit NOT clean coal plants) at an incredible rate and are reaping the returns via huge power generation.
The issue of investment vs return (vis-a-vie, huge power output) is the primary one as far as I can tell (although I do not claim to be an expert). We still have that hurdle to jump.
And nowhere is this more in evidence than the electrical power cell currently available for electric cars. We still have yet to make a power cell available to the public that can move a car the same distance without filling up or recharging as one using traditional combustion. Add to that, there are no (if there are, please correct me) recharge stations for electric cars.
My point is, we still have a long way to go if we want people to actually USE these technologies and the government has NO BUSINESS getting involved beyond playing the cheerleader role and talking it up.
Still, "global warming and climate change" ARE bogus pseudo science. Climate change is the change in weather that occurs naturally over a period, of days, weeks, months, years and centuries. In other words, it's normal.
Any effort to join some kind of Kyoto nonsense will simply drive global economies even FURTHER into the toilet.
Kyoto is a form of oppression that would be forced on industrial nations while third world countries get off scot-free. Countries like China (one of the worlds TOP polluters) or Mexico (another renouned polluter) will never agree to anything like the Kyoto treaty and even if they did they would not abide by it.
The United States already has one of the cleanest environments in the world with very high standards already in place. We don't need additional laws in the books. Just enforce the ones already in place.
Also, we DAMNED sure don't need idiotic "carbon taxes" -- anywhere -- considering the state of the US and global economy!
We need the technologies, but the private business sector should be leading on this...and using their OWN capital or private contributions to meet this end.
Which means TAX CREDITS and other PRO-CORPORATE incentives to make this happen. If they get taxed into oblivion then they'll not only NOT have the disposable income to invest in new techologies, but we can kiss the workforce goodbye and say hello to them in the unemployment line (witness what's going on now).
An anti-business/anti-capitalist attitude completely poisons the well for everything in a supposedly free and capitalist society!
Meanwhile, unless you want energy costs to go through the roof -- and you and I will be paying for them (with WHAT, if we're all out of work -- I don't know) -- we need to continue traditional oil and gas exploration AT HOME and developing nuclear and clean coal as well.
We can't just summarily end the traditional methods while wishing the new stuff was ready to go.
It's not.
We can fix that, but it will take creating the right economic environment to do it. Taxing companies and individuals out the ass is not going to create that economic environment.
Everything is tied together. One thing impacts the other. We don't live in a magic world where you can just wish for something and it magically appears.
Only unbridled capitalism and a robust free market economy can ensure we get those new technologies so we can ween ourselves off oil -- both foreign and domestic -- at least with regard to energy production.
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Notice the repeating pattern and how the area of ice is upticking again....
Graph: Global Sea Ice Area--1979-present
You SEE for yourself at http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Graph: Global Sea Ice Area--1979-present
You SEE for yourself at http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
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Quote from that site "record setting Northern Hemisphere sea ice minimum of 2007"
A
Amaris
Guest
Hey Justafriend, could you shrink that please?
My monitor is 1440x900, and that image just flies way off the page.
Plus, hotlinking isn't allowed. You'll have to host the image yourself.
J.
My monitor is 1440x900, and that image just flies way off the page.
Plus, hotlinking isn't allowed. You'll have to host the image yourself.
J.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? It sounds like some kind of freak fringe gaia-ist nonsense.
What did Sir Nicholas Stern say? "The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay"
The markets have failed.
A tax on the use of energy could encourage lower consumption and be used to develop better technology.
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise we cannot eat money...
Taxes don't work. Socialism definitely doesn't work. It's failed everywhere it's been tried to one degree or another. Oppressive taxes in this global economic situation (a depression is coming unless solid free market principles are immediately implimented.) are going to eventually send a great many people to the soup kitchen.
At which point, I doubt you'll care much about trees or rivers. With regard to alternative fuels and new technology, only my approach would work.
Putting food in your belly and survival will become a much higher priority.
Even now, people do not have the money to pay higher and more taxes.
Government can't tax and spend it's way out of anything...and what's more, the people won't allow it.
That's why you see the stock plunge every other day. No one has confidence in Socialism because it's a FAILED system of government.
At which point, I doubt you'll care much about trees or rivers. With regard to alternative fuels and new technology, only my approach would work.
Putting food in your belly and survival will become a much higher priority.
Even now, people do not have the money to pay higher and more taxes.
Government can't tax and spend it's way out of anything...and what's more, the people won't allow it.
That's why you see the stock plunge every other day. No one has confidence in Socialism because it's a FAILED system of government.
Your entire analysis is absolutely infected with socialist hysteria. Stocks are plunging because that is the inertia, although republican doomsaying is certainly helping the stocks fall to some extent. But the clearly overall inertia is not based on a socialist bogey-man, it is based on economics.
We're going to be hearing a lot of this socialist hysteria over the next year, as it's going to take a year and more for things to dig in.
Socialism is socialism. Hysteria is hysteria.
In this case, neither do the two meet.
All the evidence I need is presented by the stock market every other day -- and yes it's current tanking is based on economic alright. It's based on the recognition of failed socialist economics by Wall Street. These guys recognize socialism when they see it as much as I do. Don't blame it on Republicans. The socialists are in charge and were going to provide miracles. Where are they, huh?
Hence, the zero confidence in the socialist policies by said stock market. Again, FAILED SOCIALIST wealth redistribution policies of the past.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled topic...
In this case, neither do the two meet.
All the evidence I need is presented by the stock market every other day -- and yes it's current tanking is based on economic alright. It's based on the recognition of failed socialist economics by Wall Street. These guys recognize socialism when they see it as much as I do. Don't blame it on Republicans. The socialists are in charge and were going to provide miracles. Where are they, huh?
Hence, the zero confidence in the socialist policies by said stock market. Again, FAILED SOCIALIST wealth redistribution policies of the past.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled topic...
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Well I think one way we can look at the environment is in terms of equilibrium. Before humans, the earth was in equilibrium. Maybe not year to year -- because there are tides and cycles to everything in nature. But all in all, there was equilibrium. But humans have made changes... principally, large scale deforestation and combustion. One way or another, we've created an imbalance, and the eco system will react to that until the eco-system finds a new equilibrium.
JustAFriend, as J. Allen said, hotlinking is not allowed. Please convert it to a link or I'll do it for you.
And can we please try to dial back the "freak fringe" and allegations of drug use stuff? I realize it's a bit of a hot button topic, but I think we can have a civilized, intelligent discussion on the subject without resorting to name calling. Come on, guys, we're better at this than that.
And can we please try to dial back the "freak fringe" and allegations of drug use stuff? I realize it's a bit of a hot button topic, but I think we can have a civilized, intelligent discussion on the subject without resorting to name calling. Come on, guys, we're better at this than that.
Which makes sense - many scientists have been aiming low so that climate change deniers won't be able to say 'You said there would be a two degree rise and there's only been a one degree rise. Global warming is a load of hogwash."
I've just been assuming that the worst predictions will come true.
...and Leon is getting Larrrrrrger!
Neither do they meet? Everything you've just said is hysteria. The President is a DEMOCRAT. You can run around parroting "socialism" for the next 4 years, as I'm sure many of your ilk will. Just as the word "fascism" followed GW Bush. People need their demons.
At the end of the day, anyone who matters says it is a pro-growth budget, and the next one will be tighter. And that this is going to be a process. No one promised an overnight fix! Certainly not the DEMOCRAT who took office.
I once thought like this, but oddly I feel much more comfortable about the issue being paranoid that humanity has affected the natural development of this planet. Any argument that the Earth has constantly been changing and there Earth has been through all of this before is true....
It is illogical to assume that human activity could not have a major impact on ecosystems of this planet. Yes the Earth has been through this before....but human civilization has not.
