Opponents of Global Warming solutions.

UrRight wrote:

What dent in global warming would it make if we are the only ones in the U.S. doing it?

Look at all that gunfire and bombing going on over seas. You think they care?

China...the worse pollution comes from there. Do you think whatever the US does is gonna make a drop in the bucket when other countries have no clue?
The wars going on...and yeah, we're going to make a huge difference.

Unless the whole world joins hands, you can talk yourself blue in the face, and nothing is going to change, unless the whole world acts civilized.

The life of a human being is worthless to such places as Gaza; many countries continue to have babies in the third world...nothing is going to change their behavior to make life better for themselves, or for their environment.

I think the world needs to change before they can control the weather. Right now, it's just God's creation, and I don't think we can put a damn dent in it.

Global warming may exist, but the humanity behind it isn't exactly holding hands and trying to make an effort to help change it world-wide.

I posted this article on the old board:

Fred Pearce wrote:

[G]iven the scale of the increases in China, India and South America, is all this effort really worth it? The answer is an unequivocal yes. Emissions reductions are a bit like taxes: you may not like them, and your individual contribution may seem too measly to matter, but multiply that by several million and you can start to move mountains.

Scaled up to global level, these cuts become highly significant. If 100 million people in richer nations cut their CO2 emissions by 10 tonnes per year, on average, that would save a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, or around 5 per cent of the current global total. That won't solve the problem on its own, but it would create space for China and India to grow their economies and their carbon emissions for another year. Then we would need to add another 100 million people for the next year. And so on and so on, until new low-carbon technologies become cheap enough for developing countries like China and India to adopt them without undermining their economic development.

The global community would prefer not to allow the developing world to continue increasing their emissions indefinitely. Next month, diplomats and politicians will gather in Bali, Indonesia, to discuss what to do when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. Many will demand limits on the growing emissions of developing countries, including China and Indonesia, which was recently revealed to have the world's third-highest emissions - when the carbon sinks it has lost to the logging of rainforests and the draining of tropical peat swamps is taken into account. (And of course, we made sure no limits were set. -H)

Negotiating limits for China will not be easy. It may be about even with the US as the top emitter of CO2, but divide its output by its total population and the figures look rather different. The typical Chinese citizen is responsible for less than one-quarter of the emissions of the typical American: 4.8 tonnes compared to 20 tonnes. Individual Indians and Africans have emissions averaging 1 tonne or less (see Diagram).

With this in mind, a growing number of politicians are suggesting a fairer approach to cutting carbon, based not on national emissions but on setting tradeable individual carbon quotas (see "What's your quota?").

Ultimately, we will need to bring global emissions down low enough to match nature's ability to absorb them, which may be as low as 10 to 20 per cent of today's global emissions. But if a significant number of people change their ways and demand greener products, that will send a big signal to the market, encouraging the supply of green energy, low-carbon products, organic food and so on.

sparks wrote:

BTW, it's good to see you onboard.

Glad to be back... so far.

UrRight wrote:

The life of a human being is worthless to such places as Gaza; many countries continue to have babies in the third world...nothing is going to change their behavior to make life better for themselves, or for their environment.

It has little to do with "making their lives better" and everything to do with their growth based economic reality. More supply, less demand... In an ever increasing global population, people eventually become disposable.

Bill B wrote:

Sparks;
When I get time I'll try to get a link for you that doesn't require an account to access. To cut and paste the articles would take too much room.
In the meantime, here's the wikipedia entry for the author of the paper that I was reffering to. No doubt he is a controvesial figure but he has has two big pluses on his side: 1. He's not an American, 2. He is an environmental activist.
wikipedia entry

Bill, what makes you believe that not being an American is a plus for anyone involved in the debate over climate change? True science is based on research and conclusions based on data. Science is a field where an unknown researcher can challenge the work of the most esteemed leader in the field if he has the research and data to back up his theory.Not only can he challenge respected leaders in the field, but the unknown researcher can become a leader himself if he makes breakthroughs in his field. The nationality of the researcher says nothing about the quality of his work.

Bill B wrote:

...but he has has two big pluses on his side: 1. He's not an American, 2. He is an environmental activist.
wikipedia entry

The big minuses... 1. he's a social scientist, not a physical scientist (let alone publishing), and 2. he's wrong an awful lot.

Sparks, I should have said he isn't from an American institution.
What you say is correct, in theory. However as an electrician I'm sure you're aware that theory frequently doesn't stand up to practical application.
In the U.S. most academic research is funded by the US Gov't and then by special interest groups.
You could have the best research proposal on the planet, but if you can't get someone to fund it, it isn't happening.
Research bias is real and is recognized as being real by the academic community, that is why many academic journals will require that paper submissions include information about the funding for the research.
In Europe the gov't and academic institutions fund much more pure academic research lessening the bias.
Just because I don't subscribe to the church of global warming with pope algore at its head doesn't mean I don't believe in climate change. My major objections to the way the debate is framed are the closed mindedness of those that insist that man is primarily at fault, the alarmism and hysteria incited, the insistance that the evil USA is the worst offender, and the demand that the USA bear the brunt of the burden to "pay for" the "remediation."
If you think that our environmental record is so terrible, do some research on what happened in the soviet block until the '90s (and maybe is still happening) or in China. Look at the billions of cubic feet of natural gasses being burned off the flare stacks on oil wells. That could easily be captured and used for productive work instead of generating more pollution.
Munster has the right idea by installing the micro-turbines at the dump to create electricity.
There are lots of things that can be done to reduce our pollution without the drastic steps some advocate.
Many of the so-called remedies, like carbon trading, won't really do anything except punish the average American worker in the long run.

Bill B wrote:

Just because I don't subscribe to the church of global warming with pope algore at its head doesn't mean I don't believe in climate change.

"The church of global warming" and "pope algore".... I always do love that one. Have you seen my other thread yet? In particular the list of "conspirators", which highlights just how effect Darth Gore's campaign has been. Of particular interest to me was the Jason Defense Advisory Group. They authored a report entitled The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate that predicted that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would double from their preindustrial levels by about 2035 leading to an increasing in global temperatures of about 2 or 3 degrees. Now, who are these acolytes of Al Gore, you might ask? And why were they advising the military on a regular basis? Well, the Jasons are an advisory council to the military, created in 1960 and comprised of world renowned scientists, physicists mostly, and at the time the study was written in 1979 it was scientists that had previously been tapped by the American government to build a small device they called the atomic bomb. Now I have no idea why the military would employ such obvious American hating alarmists... I can only assume the military simply hadn't recognized Al Gore as the true threat that he is at the time and were unaware of his insidious nature.

Bill B wrote:

My major objections to the way the debate is framed are the closed mindedness of those that insist that man is primarily at fault, the alarmism and hysteria incited, the insistance that the evil USA is the worst offender, and the demand that the USA bear the brunt of the burden to "pay for" the "remediation."

The interesting thing about that is that it has so little to do with any of the actual science involved, and much more to do with the policies taking into consideration that science. The science of global warming is distinct from it's proposed solutions, and in no way can the latter affect the former.