World Climate Change Protests Kick Off
LONDON - Skiers, fire-eaters and an ice sculptor joined in worldwide demonstrations Saturday to draw attention to climate change and push their governments to take stronger action to fight global warming.
From costume parades in Manila to a cyclist’s protest in London, marches were held in more than 50 cities around the world to coincide with the two-week U.N. Climate Change Conference, which runs through Friday in Bali, Indonesia.
Hundreds of people rallied in the Philippines wearing miniature windmills atop hats, or framing their faces in cardboard cutouts of the sun.
“We are trying to send a message that we are going to have to use renewable energy sometime, because the environment, we need to really preserve it,” high school student Samantha Gonzales said at the rally in the capital, Manila. “We have to act now.”
In Taipei, Taiwan, about 1,500 people marched through the streets holding banners and placards saying “No to carbon dioxide.” Hundreds marched outside the conference center in Bali. At a Climate Rescue Carnival held in a park in Auckland, New Zealand, more than 350 people lay on the grass to spell out “Climate SOS.”
At the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, ice sculpture artist Christian Funk carved a polar bear out of 15 tons of ice as a memorial to climate protection.
Christmas markets throughout Germany were switching off the lights, and British cyclists pedaled into Parliament Square in London. In Helsinki, Finland, about 50 demonstrators ground their skis across the asphalt along the main shopping street, calling for decision makers to give them their snowy winters back.
Fire-eaters blew billowing clouds of flame as demonstrators in Athens and other Greek cities demanded decisive action, while protesters sang environmentally inspired songs in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.
Former Vice President Al Gore, who is in Oslo to attend the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony on Monday, did not plan to take part in the protests, his spokeswoman Kalee Kreider told the Associated Press.
In London, demonstrators braved the cold, rainy December weather to descend on Parliament Square, wielding signs marked: “There is no Planet B.” Bikers circled the square earlier in the morning to protest the city’s traffic and its effect on global warming, organizers said.
The London protest has singled out one particular target - President Bush - calling his administration the biggest obstacle to progress at the Bali talks. Organizers plan to underline the point by ending the protest in front of the U.S. Embassy.
“Bush has been forced to change his language on climate, but continues to be the major obstacle to progress,” said Britain’s Campaign against Climate Change. “We will not just stand by and allow Bush - or anyone else - to wreck the global effort to save billions of lives from climate catastrophe.”
Washington has found itself increasingly isolated at the climate talks. The U.S. position that technology and private investment - not mandatory emissions cuts - will save the planet has come in for a beating.
But Americans were just as active in planning to protest Saturday. In Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S. activists prepared to make “polar bear” plunges into icy cold bodies of water.
© 2007 The Associated Press.
Not too many protests in North America - everyone is too busy trying to keep warm. Man, its cold out there!!
I know, I know, just an anomaly right! I get it.
I think.
As always, it is the Bush nightmare that suspends and forestalls human action forward. if there was a single problem for this world in the past eight years it has been this throwback from the Jurassic period that occupies the Black House steeped in the blood of untold millions in this world both present and future.
The UN like most organizations built around the G8 nations and economics. There formulations are designed to do two things try the save humanity and try to save the world economy at the same time. I think that there will have to be some economic pain to save the Earth’s inhabitants. The formula presently given is too little too late and as time goes on the calls from the economic community for allowing more than one degree of warming will leave Wall street under water.
The problem is that Kyoto is problematic in that its policies promote continued pollution aimed at keeping the world economy afloat. If the economic and power elite, in which whose hands the problem truly rests, and if they were really interested in saving this planet the UN would do away with pollution trading altogether and institute a crash rapid change to alternative energy and an end to global toxicity. But that is the truth so let them, the public, think, as all diplomats do, that we are really interested in change.
I have talked with delegates from the UN member nations and many of them have said to me if they really said what some of us NGO’s are saying that would be recalled and never have a job again.
Most comments are very nice to hear but like the Congress they also come down beside the point as most politicians do. Like most comments from the present Congress and in the blogs avoid reality and don’t really deal with the issue head on. Most are still looking for the magic technological bullet or some disingenuous politician that will save all and we can continue on the way we are going with ever more growth and ever more and greater GDP as the bankers advise. Any candidate that does not talk about environmental issues first on the agenda, including Kucinich, betrays America and the world.
But there really there isn’t any quick fix. I am a filmmaker and have worked on the environmental change issues since 1978 so I have a fair amount of experience to speak. While LED light-bulbs is good and 40 MPG for cars is better it is not the at least the 80MPG that is necessary and refits for all existing cars rather than exporting them to the developing world which is presently being done and will pick up speed as restrictions rise in the western world. We continue to export the problem from the USA to other countries as if we don’t share this world with other people. And while Jesse Jackson talks of the black people of the world, his particular crusade its the people of the entire world at issue.
It was GE that killed the electric car not long ago who in Congress complained about that? Whether health care, big business, environment, energy alternatives, toxicity in the environment or any and all of these it comes down to who has the courage to talk about all of them rather than focusing on the head of a pin the one important issue. You want to hear about health care? The advance of environmentally based health problems by a toxic environment and air related pandemics is what we are looking at in the next few years with rising temperatures. The candidates are discussing universal health care? Try that on for the globe and all the sicknesses the policies of the USA have caused, three percent of the world’s population the USA produces seventy three percent of global toxicity. You wonder where cancer comes from?
The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do and mean to this country and the change in leadership, they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush. . . No one not even the dog catcher, at least the dog catcher has compassion for animals!
The real problem is not Kucinich as president, the problem is that he puts his emphasis on the wrong problem at the wrong time. The problem is getting him to address a credible platform of ideas, the environment being in the fron rank. I say to him while impeachment is necessary, it is unlikely. There is not enough time and the issues most pressing are again avoided, like the environment and those really important issues before the congress now like kids health care and the energy bill all of which will be the wrong decisions!
The issue of this election will affect the environment, economy and the future of the USA as no others. Yet if more than 50% of eligible voters cast their votes it will be a miracle because of regressive US election laws. It is compulsory for every one to vote in Australia. None of the candidates are really talking on the major points of the environment in association with the economy or health care and reform laws for elections.
The environmental news coming out is not new but it is very grave and keeps being pushed to more urgency as new research comes to light. If any one reading this comment cares to look at the website of NASA, the research papers of James Hansen in particular that were published long before Gore was on the scene and many since, they would understand that we really can not deal with much more than one degree to two and half degrees Fahrenheit of warming at its maximum to ward off the most serious effects of industrial societies pollution and to offset this growing catastrophe.
At about two and half degrees warming which is presently in the pipeline we will be dealing with about 550 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, a rate actually above the tipping point of one and half degrees warming. This is the absolute figure to avoid the major positive feedback loops that are starting and scheduled to kick in by 2020 or earlier if nothing is done quickly. Positive feedback are starting now with Methane now being released on the tundra into the atmosphere a four times addition to greenhouse gasses and causing the poles and glaciers to melt more rapidly, or has no one noticed?
The below scenario excerpted from the climate articles here on commondreams tell us clearly without rapid change runaway climate change and their feedback loops are in reach within 10 to 30 years if nothing is done rapidly. The positive feedback loops will melt the remainder of the glaciers and perhaps dump Greenland into the sea as well. Also, the melting of additional ice-shelf’s at the poles. That means perhaps a 3 to 30 foot ocean rise by the end of this century, but the process is beginning now and in 20 years or less without rapid change in economic direction the human race will reach a point of no return. The so called news and other media continue to bend the information toward the global economic agenda thus minimizing its importance. India for example is less concerned about climate change than they are about economic production thanks to the G8, although their neighbor Bangladesh is slipping into the sea . Still in India, there are several moves in the direction of smaller is better concepts of reality.
There will be sufficient human displacement of people on this planet to bring American citizens into a nightmare scenario that makes the present Mexican border problem a walk in the park. What about the transfer of health risks as a result of this problem? Not to mention water and food related issues and the economy, always the economy.
Yet is seems the political discussion rests on the complete list of talking points in isolation, such as Clinton’s health package and its cost, rather than what is really at stake which is human survival. These folks on the stage wanting to be president rarely talk to the complete interrelated package of all these issues and more. The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level and all here are arguing about one issue or another rather than the entire package which a true leader must address. The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the money people. As a result we become unable to talk about moving radically to deal with climate change the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to economic change.
The world does not have (much later) before a more aggressive approach to all the issues beginning with climate change now! Remember New Orleans? Within next 10 to 20 years is where it all hangs. If nothing is done very soon it will mark the beginning of the end for the human race. Those appear to be the facts and no technology will stop runaway climate change once it begins, indeed if we look at the melting poles the worst case is much more apparent than formerly believed . . .it has already begun!!
Perhaps it might be too late now, according to James Lovelock, in his view it has begun. James Hansen at NASA makes a very compelling case for the time frame for action within the time in office of the next president of the USA and so does the UN. I think anyone who really wishes to be informed should go to the websites of these people mentioned here or the IPCC. It is technical information but worth taking the time to inform yourself. The answer is to start working quickly for change and vote for those candidates who speak of change and another direction and who represent ideas rather than special interests. For example the best work would be to defeat the pro-business Clintons and elect Kucinich or Obama or possibly a joint ticket while we know they have an outside chance they are the best possibility for change.
But we all know business interests will prevail with Clinton capturing the vote and a pro-business vote is a vote against the environment. No one running on the democratic side could be worse than Bush. But anyone who can think understands that the business interests control the environmental agenda and most candidates. The republicans will continue the work of burying the planet as will pro-business democratic candidates most of whom have been bought, whether by health interests or anything else concerning big money.
The facts concerning climate science is what is important. What the environmental facts really suggest is economic depression in the West in the near term. But if we are really serious about saving the planet (no one wants to hear that if they are connected to big money) it means voting for economic and environmental legislation limiting pollution and green house gasses. . .in any event that is change!
But the environment, water, energy production these are the real issues of this election campaign but no one would dare mention them in association with change in economic direction for fear of defeat. A redirection and a retooling of the global economy and of America is in order and that is not a popular issue on Wall street or people invested in Wall street. . .most everyone in one way or another.
We have to change rapidly and move to a none-stop production of environmental invention and energy alternatives for the western world and developing nations rapidly. It also means rapid technology transfer for the developing world without delay, this may save us some time. A cut of 80% of the carbon emissions within the next 10 years is in order and it must be done beginning now and well on the way before 2012 the next date for Kyoto. Kyoto is a western world fabrication to tell us we can keep polluting while where figuring a way to deal with this crisis economically.
A change of the present direction of economic production and fast move in a different direction economically is required by anyone that can think and put simple figures in context of this crisis. The world is waiting for this move by the Americans and watch the dollar rise rapidly against other currencies once this plan would be announced if ever. This is why this upcoming election is so critical and the results of it will determine whether the human race survives. . . . It is that critical!
The economic change in direction could possibly reemploy a lot of people who have lost their work in the polluting industries. This is the challenge to America to remake itself after eight years of the Bush/Cheney regime. It is equivalent to a fight for survival that required the retooling of America at the outbreak of WW 2. It requires change in the so-called war on terror, a Bush fabrication advanced by the media which is a money centered mind conditioning creation and finally, it means leaving Iraq, and using those resources to fight the real enemy to survival, the western consumer, hydro carbon based, societies of the western world.
Who knows that might mean less of an investment in China and more of an investment the western world for a healthier environment? And the Chinese might follow that example as well.
Which candidate will say this to America? Which candidate will really tell the truth? If they did they wouldn’t have a chance in this election because Americans don’t want to hear that! Any one having the courage to really tell the truth would find themselves on the next train to Siberia; they would be shouted down by the crowds of people on the stump and many on this blog. saying what the hell do you know anyway? “This is too scary for me!”
But the economy is the issues and that is determined by the war in Iraq. The illegal Bush-war that Kucinich wants to impeach Bush/Cheney for creating but takes us into another direction and one not well thought out. He is focused on the lies of Bush rather than the future of the world.
The production of alternative energy will soak up the idle job market, indeed it is doing so now! With a shift to the priority of economic production and development directed at saving this world and its equilibrium, means in simple terms a crash economic change which is vitally necessary, without that we are done. If any one thinks that we can continue with an oil economy and business as usual with a consumer based society, they are living in the world of denial which so much of the western world occupies. The below is a light message compared with what the truth really is: from UN sources of information!
“The world needs to spend 1.6 percent of global economic output annually through 2030 to stabilize the carbon stock and meet the 3.6-degree Fahrenheit temperature target. Rich countries, the biggest carbon emitters, should lead the way and cut emissions at least 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Developing nations should cut emissions 20 percent by 2050, the UNDP says.”
The above is letting you down lightly is really not what the actual projections are. The world crisis will crash in on its regional global populations is what the information below is saying. There really is no place in this discussion for a 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit degree rise in temperature. . . .this scenario painted with the these numbers below is a different planet closer to Mars not Earth. The news media play with numbers like the lottery. We can tolerate one degree and perhaps two and half degrees warming at the outside, . . .in the next 50 to 90 years. . .that’s it!!!!! An additional 3 degrees to four degrees Fahrenheit is three more degrees greater than this climate and its creatures can sustain or endure without collapse!! This quoted from the recent UN assertions here in commondreams and from the real information by scientists not political organization:
“a temperature rise of between 5.4 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (3 and 4 degrees Celsius) would displace 340 million people through flooding, droughts would diminish farm output, and retreating glaciers would cut off drinking water from as many as 1.8 billion people, the report says.” this is an understatement and conservative.
The above report is economically associated and conservative as well as misleading!!! Forget this idea of 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit of warming that is the Martian landscape because it allows for the runaway positive feedbacks to take hold. Whomever believes this world can sustain this degree of warming is either working for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank or is gathering this information from the laboratory at XXON/Mobile or its publicists!!??????
Meanwhile the group here is discussing who will give us better health care on a dying planet and impeachment of Bush a good way to avoid dealing with the truth. We can be suspect of anyone who says they have the truth. The need for understanding this current cast of characters wanting to be president is important. None of this group has the faintest idea of what we are really dealing with in terms of global warming numbers concerning the environment, and if they did they would not tell the public. They know it’s bad and their advisers are telling them they can’t deal with this issue to get elected by the masses.
The masses? Unless you have not heard, these are the people above who are worrying where their next bag of groceries comes from and the money to pay the rent! They really don’t give a damn about the environmental issues. . And have no time for thinking about 10 to 20 years from today that has no realty attached to it for most Americans or the rest of the four and half billion people on this Earth in the same situation. . . .
Or, for the rest of the population working for and controlled by big business and big money. . .that is what this election is really about and if one thinks about the complexity of all these interrelated issues we know that we can not beat the odds business will win. That means the future for humanity is limited even for the one percent that has everything.
Sure elect Edwards, Obama, or Kucinich or any combination of most of the Democrats that are not funded by big business for this election. This is the reality of this time we still live on this, still beautiful planet.
I could write a book on this subject.
Ike Kay, I read your text and admire its urgency. I think you should print it out and send it to the Kucinich campaign, because I have a feeling DK would welcome input from knowledgeable, passionate people like you. For the record, DK is not ignoring the environment at the expense of impeachment. He talks about the environment a lot and does see the earth as an interconnected system.
Here are two points from Kucinich literature outlining some of his positions on the environment. His outlook is not so alien from what ike kay is talking about, but no one person can be an expert in everything…though he can be open to change and knowledge (and I believe DK is).
From Kucinich campaign literature:
“Environmental Renewal and Clean Energy:
Clean air and water, as well as an intact ozone layer, are not luxuries, but necessities for our childrens’ future. A Kucinich administration will toughen environmental enforcement, support the Kyoto treaty on global climate change, reduce oil dependence, and spur investment in alternative energy sources, including hydrogen, solar, wind, and ocean. Clean energy technologies will produce new jobs. Tax and other incentives will favor sustainable businesses that conserve energy, retrofit pollution prevention technologies, and redesign toxins out of their manufacturing processes. The right to know (for example, when food is being genetically engineered) will supersede corporate secrecy. Globally, the US will become a leader in sustainable energy production and a partner with developing nations in providing inexpensive, local, renewable energy technologies.”
“Restored Rural Communities and Family Farms”
Agriculture, trade, and economic policies that favor agribusiness conglomerates have devastated family farmers, rural communities, and the environment. While the number of family farmers has plummeted, profits have soared for a handful of agribusiness giants that increasingly control everything from seed to shelf. A Kucinich administration will break up agricultural monopolies and restore a strong, independent farm system with fair prices for farmers and healthy food for consumers. A Kucinich administration will monitor and reduce contamination of our air, water, and food from factory farms, with strong USDA enforcement of tough new food safety laws.”
I sense a sort of hopelessness in your post ike, almost expressing your sense of futility in a hope that the shear volume of your post itself makes a statement.
Cheer up. The world will gradually wean itself off this grotesque overuse of energy. And everything will all work out just fine.
I have a question for you Ike - give me your absolute worst case senario and I will give you an opposite best case senario just as plausible as yours.
That my friend is the true beauty of science.
We will wean off, and eventually everything will be just fine? I just read several reports about global warming here just this week, and it don’t appear from what the scientists are saying that we will wean off any time soon and everything is going to be alright. I sure do ‘hope’ your ‘hopes’ about the beauty of science are correct.
Unless you mean, when all of humanity has died off, that everything will be alright.
It might be cold in some parts of the Americas, but up here in the real north it’s not half as cold as it should be. The month of November was above freezing, it’s just started to get below zero now.
I don’t think global warming will kill off humanity, well not all of us anyhow. As for reacting to the warnings of what’s about to happen, well, I do believe that the canary is quite dead; but the rich and powerful are sure that it’s just sleaping.
Too many trends are in the wrong direction. New applications for coal fired elecric plants, proposed millions for new runways and fixing air traffic control to put even more aircraft in the sky. China and India joining the fossil fuel luxury club…
The Sanders bill in the house and the Senate bill are starts, but we are all so hooked on our cars, big houses, lights left on everywhere, frozen food, fresh lobster shipped anywhere, overnight packages… a million good things made possible by fossil fuels. Combine that with the special interests that sell us our fuel, autos and electricity, and another ten years will go by with nothing but lip service.
Chances are Peak Oil, the absurd migration of manufacturing out of the US, deregulation of our financial system, and our government printing valueless money will put the world in a deep recession well before any conservation measures take hold. That might slow the rate of CO2 increase a little.
To start now, we need conservation and the technologies that are available now and in the near future. Not all of us will like the game plan:
Freeze coal and oil consumption immediately. Then mandate a 10% per year reduction. Ration gasoline. Employ tax incentives for home and business insulation and industrial waste heat recovery. Curtail/ration/tax air travel. Schedule and complete replacement of coal and oil fired electric generation with nuclear power(or natural sources where feasible). No arguments, jfd it. Complete development and commercialization of new generation nuclear power and replace old LWR reactors with fast reactors. Start building high speed rail, local electric light rail/trolley. Largely replace air travel with high speed rail and nuclear powered ships. Essentially, convert to an all electric or electric/hydrogen economy based on nuclear and natural(wind,solar, geothermal, tidal…) power. Only use oil to make specialty chemicals, drugs, recycleable materials and for agriculture, not for transportation and heat. As with most tough solutions to tough problems, almost everybody is going to have a problem with this one.
I believe we will avoid the unpleasntness of draconian solutions and leave it to the forces of nature and the “market”. I feel sorry for our childen.
Revolution Time.
Overthrown the fascist right wing and we may have YET a chance to save our planet!
Jonas the Prophet
California
USA
http://geocities.com/gwlinx
A PEOPLE’S PLANETARY ALLIANCE anyone?
We are in an emergency situation on this fragile planet we call home.
If we wait around for Dinosaur-style governments to address the global problems of environmental degradation and eventual collapse of life-supporting ecological systems, our numbers will have catastrophically dwindled in the not-too-distant future, and the very viability of the earth itself, inclusive of all her living things, will be in dire jeopardy.
Dinosaur governments have devolved to or have never gone past a juvenile level of fragmented factions and actions. Hindered by limited thinking and vision, and all too frequently stuck at a place of GIMME or else … and GOTCHA!, dinosaur governments have led us to the precipice of our collective doom … and we sure have helped, in many instances, by our apathy.
Too many in these governments and bureaucracies are too busy counting their money, mentally polishing up both their crowns and the latest of high-tech weapons to use on others, and giving us phony-baloney palaver, constantly adjusted for their electability and/or security of office. They cannot envision an earth of harmonious cooperation and the kind of common-ground equality that at the very, very least ensures that no one on this planet goes hungry, lacks water, shelter, clothing, and medical care.
Overall, perhaps a mere thousand individuals with wealth, power and the desire to control hold sway over 6.5[+or-] billion of us. That’s pure-d NUTZ! considering what is being done to or not being done for too many of us and the planet earth itself which is our collective singular home in this lifetime. So let’s NOT TAKE IT ANYMORE. Let’s unite … WE THE PEOPLE … and begin to reclaim our home and our lives.
It is time for people everywhere to step up to the plate.
If you can vision wholistically and want to talk about a PEOPLE’S PLANETARY ALLIANCE of interconnected plans of action–many already in place and many that can be initiated–plans of action that people can participate in, individually and collectively, at any level of their current abilities: CeeMiraclesPPA@aol.com
Happily, many of us “we the people” have the incredible communicating and organizing tools of The Internet that can help to turn things around before it is too late.
So talk to me, those who are interested in transforming the dire picture now before us all … to a vision and real possibility that harmonious cooperation and coordination, and concerted effort can and will save our planet; that we the people, billions strong in numbers, can do this. Anything is possible … so why not a PEOPLE’S PLANETARY ALLIANCE? a true BIOCRACY valuing all of LIFE? There’s never been one, to my knowledge.
Seems like a good time to start, especially with the numbers we have going for us. … Let’s create the opportunity to fulfill Gandhi’s well-known mantra: LET US BE THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE. … Let us unite and believe that WE CAN DO IT! … for ourselves as human beings, for all of the earth’s living things, and for the planet itself that is our collective HOME.
Talk to me: CeeMiraclesPPA@aol.com Let us begin.
This has been the most inteligent discussion about what I consider to be the most important issue that our planet faces today. Thank you to tech2 for getting this going. One thing that I would like to add is the contribution that population has on this equation. It was so simple when there was only 2.6 billion people on the planet, in the year that I was born. Now we’re approaching 7 billion and suddenly many people in the developing countries have the ability to live just like Americans. It’s pretty simple math. I suggest that more emphasis be placed on educating people to have fewer children as well as conservation and implementation of renewable energy. Nature has a way of finding the balance, and I hope that is doesn’t come to that.
The problem exists as the center, the center of government and the center of corporations (central planning units). The solution lies in decentralized methods, you and I. The internet enables decentralized but coordinated thinking and action. The vision is always in the process of change but cannot change until the majority of participants change. Then a new vision emerges etc. So what we are doing now, talking about alternatives needs to be put into action quickly. Those actions showing promise can then be adopted by everyone and improved by creative applications in the process. There is no reason not to move forward now, individually and collectively. The sharing of our success stories and new ideas is critical to the process. Our leaders have failed us, so ignore them, we don’t need them to change. We must do it ourselves.
GLOBAL WARMING ARROGANCE
The US rejections of Kyoto, and now the Bali Conference, underscore the dangerous control that special interests exercise over this administration’s policies. Their distortions of scientific data typifies their unconscionable war on science. Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Special interests argue that the current warming trends follow historic warming cycles, and hence reflect natural weather patterns–but they omit obvious differences: The earlier warming trends developed at slower rates which permitted the ecosystems to adapt. Morever they resulted from temporary natural events, which allowed transitions back to normal temperature patterns–by contrast, the current warming patterns result from artificial causes that will only intensify unless mitigated.
By all indicators, global warming will self perpetuate as the melting ice sheets absorb rather than reflect heat, as the melting permafrost releases more CO2 & methane, and the list goes on. Inundation of low lying areas, spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, sea life destruction from changing ocean chemistry, & currents, are only some potential consequences.
Often overlooked is the fact that, the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were no issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
Contrary to right wing assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our rejection of Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our participation in international efforts, China & India could no longer use our non-compliance as an excuse for their non-participation.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution can only worsen if we allow this administration, guided special interests, to continue their war against our planet.
Why does it have to be either/or? Why can’t technology and private investment AND mandatory emissions cuts be used, all at the same time, to save the planet?
Oh yeah, because mandatory emissions cuts will cut into profits. D-uh.
I took a peek at the aforementioned “crowd” of 1500 people in Taipei yesterday. To be honest, it was pretty sad. In a city of 3 million people, a measly 0.0005% could be pried away from their lives to show up. Meanwhile, despite the fact that it actually is “winter” (temps in the upper fifties on a “cold” day) here, buses still have their air conditioners on, and people still go about their wasteful lives as though nothing’s wrong.
Why is that? I’ll tell you why: for the Taiwanese people, America is still looked to as a leader. All of these worldwide protests are probably suffering the same fate: unless the biggest behemoth on the block changes its ways, few will follow. It’s a ridiculous situation, and I don’t mean to brush over all the good things being done worldwide, but this isn’t going to work unless America, China, Japan, and Canada take the lead.
It’s never good for one country to meddle in the politics of another, but damned if it wouldn’t be a good thing to see candidates endorsed by countries, instead of just corporations and celebrities.
The greenhouse crisis is the bill coming due for the Industrial Revolution. It’s not an accident. It’s the logical outcome of our world view - the idea that we can control the forces of nature, that we can have short-term expedient gains without paying for them, that there are no limits to exploitation of the environment, that we can produce and consume faster than nature’s ability to replenish.
-Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends
quoted by William Greider in “The Dirty Politics of the Environment”
from The Rolling Stone, 15 Dec 1988
It has become very difficult for anyone to argue that observed global warming is natural variability. We have good reason for being able to say that the world will be warmer by about a quarter of a degree in the next decade. It’s the same reason we had 10 years ago when we said that the 1990s would be warmer than the 1980s: The planet is out of equilibrium.
-James E. Hansen, chief of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies
quoted in Audubon, Nov-Dec, ‘99
Dr. Michael McElroy, chairman of Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, cites a lesson about uncertainty he learned from the early days of the ozone depletion issue. While early computer models yielded estimates of the depletion, subsequent measurements by balloons and satellites found the depletion to be far worse than the worst-case computer scenario. “Just because there is uncertainty,” McElroy said, “does not imply the reality is benign. It could easily be far worse.” McElroy’s bottom line on the climate issue is this: “We have no right tampering with an immense system we don’t understand.”
-Ross Gelbspan, History at Risk: The Crisis of the Global Climate, 1999
The political dispute over policies to avert global warming is not fundamentally about science: it is about morality. It is about a vision of the future that requires collaboration and cooperation of all peoples to ensure our global security. It is about our obligation…to help preserve the global environment and to promote health, education, economic opportunity and freedom for everyone on the planet and for the generations that follow…The time is ripe for…us to make the leap beyond narrow self-interest and understand a new reality: that we are inextricably linked together on this planet, and that the welfare of the whole is of the highest importance.
–U.S. Representative George Brown in speech at Duke University, 1995
quoted in Gelbspan, The Heat Is On, 1998
Ultimately, the question goes beyond even science and technology. Ultimately the question is one of ethics. The emergence of climate change poses a question to all of us about what kind of world we want to live in. If I had a magic wand and could transform the way we live, I would decree that all of humanity become far less wasteful, far less greedy, far less avaricious. To be frank, this is not just a North-South issue. The North has no monopoly on wastefulness and greed. It is a human problem. Ultimately, it is a question of ethics.
- Dr. Tony LaVina of the Philippines,
quoted by Ross Gelbspan in The Heat Is On
Both rich and poor nations have a common stake in policies that put the globe on a sustainable development path. The conflict is less between poor and rich countries than between the broad interests of people and the narrow interests of extractive industries. We need to find our way towards some kind of global regime that reduces emissions of the greenhouse gases, but well-off nations need to transfer the technology to make this possible, rather than viewing this shift as one more opportunity for private industry to profit.
-Robert Kuttner in report to the United Nations,
quoted by Ross Gelbspan in The Heat Is On
Can we talk?
Here’s our corporate hero Al Gore who won’t participate in the protests.
The man is useless.
But i’m being redundant here. The man is a Democrat.
Let’s not talk anymore about this Fictitious PEAK OIL. There is no such thing. I’ve been hearing that gas station bait since the 1970’s. Urban Ignorance like: Oils going up because there’s only so much of it. Oh Dear! We’re going to run out in ten years! We are going to run out in ten more years!
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Spratly Islands oil under the South China Sea has been speculated by oil companies to contain more oil than that of Saudi Arabia. Test wells were so promising, Hungry China moved in with warships and blockaded the whole operation. They now claim they own the islands of half a dozen sovereign countries. I wonder where they got that technique from? (clue: think like a Bushmonkey.) Now there is a mexican standoff between these nations: anybody starts pumping, and BLAM! end of operation. Oil companies happily withdrew here since, a shortage will only raise the worldwide profit per barrel.
Same story in Siberia. We have enough oil to turn this place into Venus (where lead melts at the surface.)
What we don’t have is thermal tolerance, since we will expire at those temperatures. This means quit rooting for dumb dumb ideas like electric cars (you know we’ll plug em into oil burning electrical outlets.) and Corn fuel (takes MORE oil to heat the distilleries up and to tend the cornfields.)
So we have to restore democracy and vote what we’re going to do. Hate your kids? Want em to Cook? Vote for cars/lights. Wanna survive as a species? Vote for mandatory mass sterilization and outlaw all slash & burn activities, and outlaw all internal combustion engines.
Nothing else is going to work.
Depressing, I know. I put the odds on us surviving the next 200years at one in eighty. Now, let me try and console you for a moment:
On the other hand….
I want you to go outside your house tonight and, if you can, look at all the billions of stars, many, no doubt, with planets like our spinning around them. The SETI project tells us, so far, that none of them are brodcasting any kind of transmission from a being.
Maybe we’re not supposed to survive.
Maybe it would be a bad thing if Republicans spread through the galaxy like locusts, destroying every star system they conquered.
Ah, that’s better. Let’s take them all out with us!
Now I can sleep soundly tonight!!!!!!
(but tomorrow I’ll need to key another Hummer!)
Cheers
pac
Of all of the major and very serious problems humanity faces, which are many, global warming is perhaps the most serious. Whether it is caused by nature, or by humanity really is not relevant. One or the other are to blame as far as the eventual outcome is concerned.
the point and question is, can we reverse it?
If it is indeed a normal cycle of nature, we will be hard pressed but not impossible to alter the inevitable. If, on the other hand, humanity is to blame, then we have a chance to correct the situation, if we put our minds to it. By the word we, I mean those who actually control the enormous funds which would be required and have the power to initiate a credible solution and insure the necessay steps are taken to avoid a ‘world wide’ disaster.
The scientific evidence is a dramatic global warming change beginning in the past 150 or some years, is caused by burning of fossil fuel,__ primarily coal and oil. That evidence has been proven by very credible scientists, who have spent their entire adult lives, takig ice core samples from the Earth’s polar ice cap locations. Their extensive and well documented studies prove beyond any reasonable doubt, that the reversal began when the industrial age began and it has accelerted in a corresponding manner as the world populations expanded.
Some top level scientists believe we have already reached what they refer to as, The Tipping Point, or the point of no return, and we can’t correct it. It’s too late and we’re all doomed. Other esteemed scientists, believe we have ten years left to begin to correct the problem, and some give a figure of 30 to 50 years. Some others say we better get off of our asses and start tomorrow.
Then of course, some wizards claim, there is no problem and we will just have to accept the changes of nature and the weather and learn to live with it, and don’t worry about burning coal and oil. Those ice core samples readers prove those nitwits are either stupid, or Christians, who believe it is God’s will, or they don’t give a shit about the future, they’ve got theirs and won’t be around to see the atmosphere burn off anyway, or, they want to see it and have God rupture them and whisk them off in a gold plated flying saucer.
Whom to believe? ___ Perhaps it would be prudent to believe, those who say we have a spittin chance in Hell of correcting the problem, if we start workng on the matter now and to begin with a massive world wide effort to develop clean energy, wind, solar, tidal and geo-thermal and shut down every coal fired plant on the planet. In addition, stop burnng all of the rain forests that still remain, and have our auto insustries initiate a crash program to manufacture electrical powered vehicles. Cows and bulls? Well, that can be addressed after we fix the other atmosphere polluting messes.
Is it at all possible that could be accomplished? ___ Absolutely, __ but it won’t be. __ Anyone wish to argue any of this rather long winded post?
I have a hard time with this edit feature,
Raising all of humanity to a reasonable standard of living while preserving the biosphere requires an amount of resources that happens to be a small fraction of the resources misallocated/wasted by global capital.
Take the resource allocation out of the hands of global capital, and simply allocate that which raises all of humanity to a reasonable standard of living while preserving the biosphere. This allows all of humanity to reduce their work weeks to about 15 hours.
The number of hours over 15 worked per week amounts to slavery and signifies corruption in the economy. Also, if there is any poverty (there can be poverty with or without slavery) this also signifies corruption in the economy.
Reliable measures of these parameters allows appropriate action to be taken against the corrupting elements.
How do we achieve that before it is too late to correct the problem, if it is not already too late RTDRURY?
pacplyer,
You’re missing the whole point about “peak oil.” Honestly, it’s not surprising since the concept is rarely fleshed out beyond a marauding shadow. Think about the term itself: peak oil. It’s not the end of oil. You’re quite correct: there’s a huge amount of oil left to be wasted here on this blue ball. The very idea of “peak” oil (if you assume a symmetrical graph) is that when we hit “peak,” we will have only used half the oil there is.
But here’s the problem, and I wish more people understood “peak oil” to this crucial level of detail: on the uphill side of things (i.e. where we’ve traveled so far) the oil has been easy to get, and the financial benefit of pouring billions into extraction infrastructure has been wildly easy (for anyone with any business acumen, which of course excludes GWB) to attain. On the downhill side of the slope, however, extraction costs continue to increase, but the rewards reaped become less and less.
What’s this mean for you and me, presuming you’re not in the oil industry either? Skyrocketing costs at the pump, and commensurate increases in the prices of anything that depends on oil (um…almost everything in a typical modern life) to be produced and shipped. It means more desperate and more despicable acts by those whose power depends on oil, both governments, corporations, and the mutant bastard-child hybrid that has become the current paradigm of American foreign policy. Expect the same from Russia and China, and yes, even Canada.
I can tell you’re already on-board with what this all means for our society, but please please stop thinking that “peak oil” is what the media and the “gas station bait” have dressed it up as. It is a serious and well-founded concept, and if people could start to see the science instead of the propaganda surrounding it, the idea of “diminishing returns” might help motivate a few more people. Besides, there’s plenty of other boneheaded bu–sh– baloney out there to snark about: your talents (hey, I’m being honest here) need not go to waste.
Kem,
Climate change is certainly something to maintain a vigil on, it’s important, that’s for sure. But I part company with you on the concept of what to do about it.
Every planetary species has had to evolve around the environment presented to it. If a species could adapt, it moved forward, if it could not, it didn’t. I would like to think that the human species has at least the possibility of adapting to a changing climate, but I am concerned that we will get so wrapped up in finger pointing, blaming and punishment that we will neglect the primary focus of actually planning for the change at hand.
Even now, we spend an inordinate amount of time and effort either dismissing or championing AGW and spend almost zero time and effort adapting to it. Get my point?
Personally, I think the established links between the socialist/progressive movement and the AGW hardliners give conspicuous creedance to the comments of the right that we’re looking at a politically motivated hysteria here. How better to further a wealth redistribution program than by wrapping it in a global crisis?
I just don’t see how the transfer of money from one group to another will affect global temperatures; when we can plainly see that temperatures have varied in all directions over geologic history. If you look at the big picture, it’s been hotter, it’s been colder, and now suddenly we need to start confiscating wealth? What does one have to do with the other?
I’m skeptical of the motivations here, and that skepticism is fairly widespread in the general community. Especially when you put in a political context.
HEY ike kay December 8th, 2007 2:17 pm
Excellent post..
The NYTimes this morning said that candidates are paying shills to post on forums to deflect and direct discussion. Add that to corporations and spooks here and up goes the paranoia meter. How about a “Name The Shills” contest?
PDF, you asked me if I got your point. No I honstly did not grasp anything you wrote with any belief, and I read it three times.
I suggested, we perhaps shoulld listen to the scientists, who should know what they are talking about, who say we should begin workng on the global warming issue now. __You don’t agree.
I also believe it is a global problem, because every nation in the world is contributing to it, by burning coal or destroying our precious rain forests by the method of slash and burn. __ You don’t agree
I also said to eleminate burning coal and oil for energy purposes and driving vehicles that use oil for fuel and pollute the atmosphere, must be replaced with clean energy vehicles and all electric homes. ___You disagree.
I also believe we as a world community, will have to fund a massive world wide program to have clean energy to accomplish those set goals. ___ you disagree and state we don’t need to start confiscating wealth and keep the politics out of it, whatever that means.
You also state that you believe your opnions are widespread in the community and question the motivations of the solutions to solve the global warming problem which I and many others have suggested.
Since most believe golbal warming is real and humanity is causing it, and that includes all of humanity, how is that not a global problem?
On the money issue, we can spend trillions for waging unnecessary and unjust wars world wide, mostly to control the oil we should cease to use in the manner we do, __ but to suggest we instead come together as intelligent adults and spend that money on insuring humanity can survive, you state that is not sensible and is political in your opinion.
You remind me of our president and other politicians and neo-cons talking when you say that. ___ Exactly what is it you believe should be done?
“…if Republicans spread through the galaxy like locusts”
Really now, I must take exception to this insult. What have we ever done to be compared to Republicans?
“Every planetary species has had to evolve around the environment presented to it.”
I would like to point out that the Easter islanders-subset of the human species didn’t do so well.
Response to Tech 2 request:
I think Kem Patrick’s response does it quite right in terms of your optimism. I would, we all would, like to think that your belief in technology will make it all turn out OK. However, those of us who have lived with its results and look at the energy that is required for virtually useless production in terms of global survival for the many recognize that the technological revolution, the extension of the industrial revolution, will continue the spiral of the creation of needs that require ever more energy production for their satisfaction.
Tech 2, thank you for your pat on the shoulder and your patronization of the facts presented here. However thinkers far more able than I have come to the conclusion that we have reached a state in development, where a major rethink of the society we have created and its reasons for existence are on a sharp collision course with human survival. I have written extensively on the subject above to try to help activate people, including those who share your belief that somehow technology is the fix.
Having said that, we have painted ourselves into a corner, in that for better or worse we control the environment, and out future survival. There have been some suggestions out there to employ new technologies available to reflect back the rays of the sun and so limit warming. However some are now, like me, thinking that if those sorts of solutions are employed they could wreak havoc on the weather in different places on Earth with unintended consequences.
Tech two, if you read carefully, you will note that I come down on the side of strong US action directed at conserver ethic solution for society. Since the USA is one of the major contributors of the problem that it cut green house gasses within the next 10 years and lead the way with technological invention to do just that. It means electric cars first, it means the sequestration of all CO2 from coal I the production of power, it means the end of oil and it mean s a big no to multinationals who want to continue this madness to 2050.
It means low cost technology to transfer to developing nations like CHINA who have surpassed the US in Carbon production and India who have developed an Auto centered economy on the model that the western world has provided with its Mall method of consumer credit and society based in a disposable model with its values in greed; It means the cessation of the production of meaningless goods that rob the planet and the future of its resources; It means the reduction of toxic wastes, the USA produces 73% of the worlds toxins. Is there any wonder why the population is poisoned and the cancer rates so high? Is it any wonder why the European Union has said no to the import of US genome technology?
Tech two, there are so many things wrong with the American Dream and the USA way of life, country and western world, that it requires more my article above to deal with these problems. They are all interconnected as are most of the articles on commondreams. The above is an abbreviated version of what is wrong. Dear Tech 2, thank you for holding my hand and making it all nice and comforting me. But these problems are not going away soon. We have about 10 years to deal with them rapidly. Not to do so, means that your children and grandchildren will have a planet very much different than ours. They will have a survival based different planet to deal with, that is those lucky enough to survive, if you call that luck! James Lovelock thinks humanity will live near the poles, about 500 million of us remaining and you can be assured they will not have the technology to play video games while they are waiting for things to right themselves in about 2000 years if they are lucky. Their 401 ks will be of little use. James Lovelock is a scientist Tech 2 one of your gods.
They have excellent gardens and eat quite well. Of course they are somewhat limited to being able to take long hikes or see a variety of scenery and their original gene pool was not the best. A lot of white skinned pink eyes kids there wth IQs of Bush.
It might be a very good place to have a retiremet community and a casino.
While we wait for 2day’s posts I want to elucidate somewhat on our self-image as locusts.
We don’t mind being compared to wildfires or tornadoes or earthquakes.
But we draw the line at being compared to Republicans.
That disaster is mankind’s own making.
I’d compare you to a pleasant sunrise or sunset. Both offer hope.
KEM PATRICK -
Your words are kind. I have submitted your name for selection as an honorary locust.
Sorry there will be no badges but they interfere with flying.
We hope that you and your bride get some more of that wine and cheese and peace 2day.
I wore a badge when I was flying years ago. How about a hug or a blue ribbon?
See some Paris climate demo photos at
http://www.eca-watch.org/problems/climate/Manif_Paris_8dec07/manif_climate_paris_8dec07.html
Technology will not solve any problem. People have to choose to act responsibly whether that means technology, conservation, or forgoing something that is just to damaging to the earth to be worth the momentary pleasure it provides.
We could also forgo dangerous weapons that maim, and kill, and displace people, AND waste energy, and damage the environment. We could vote for leaders who leave the world a better place than it was when they were elected. Working together we could make the world a better place!
NAH!
I’m in Nebraska, and at the moment it is 10 deg F and a foot of snow on the ground. It started 2 weeks ago and is supposed to be this way all month.
I am a farmer, and have always paid particular attention to, and been attuned with, the weather. After 52 years I know one thing about the weather: that it is unpredictable and subject to extremes. In that 52 years, I have seen 70 degree days in January, and frosts in late June. I have seen hot dry summers, wet cold summers, warm dry winters and all variations in between. Once in the month of September (1979) one day we had a winter storm watch in the Western part of Nebraska and a heat advisory in the eastern part.
My dad often talked about the year when we had the coldest snowiest winter ever recorded in Nebraska, followed by the hottest driest summer ever recorded. All this ocurred in one year: 1936.
Having said that the weather is inherently unpredictable and extreme, am deeply dubious of people who use this inherent extremity to make doomsday predictions and advocate drastic lifestyle changes.
Folks–I consider myself a progressive. I farm responsibly with a view to the environment and sustainability. I do NOT drive an SUV or hummer (a 1990 Ford Tempo and 73 F100 pickup are my vehicles). I am NOT trying to flame this group. I am just an ordinary Joe. However, I think that the whole global warming thing is is bogus. I think that it has a sinister purpose underlying it.
When I read about Al Gore’s $30,000/month utility bill, and about rockers flying in private jets to a Live Earth concert, and Hollywood stars flying in their private jets and fleets of cars: all the while telling ordinary stiffs like me that we are causing global warming and we need to cut back–I am suspicious.
I have read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”. An excellent author and also a scientific person who does careful research. Not a guy who is given to making snap judgmements. And to see him attacked viciously–not because he is wrong but because he goes against the prevailing orthodoxy–then I am suspicious.
I think that many who support it the loudest are Lexus Liberal suburban types overflowing with certitude and eco-righteousness.
I think that the global warming hysteria is the left’s equivalent of the right-wing “end times” hysteria. And both have the same purpose: to scare or persuade people to support someone’s agenda.
Sorry Locust, LoL!
Did I say Locusts?
I meant to say that maybe it would be a bad thing to have Republicans spreading through the galaxy like Christian Missionaries!
Oh Dear,
I think I stepped in number two again!
Wonderingyou: good points
ticonderoga: thanks for the laugh
everyone else: good posts
TO the farmer . . . .farmerne
A noble profession and a concerned person writes this blog. Yes farmers have watched the weather circumstances surrounding their crops all there lives. Yes it is difficult to watch concerned people who talk the environment have a large carbon footprint, but they must do the kind of works they do. To do that perhaps means to use more than they might of carbon in terms of speed to get the message out. I am certain that you have a cell phone when your out in the field plowing.
To use the measure of your life on the farm to judge this very serious circumstance of global warming does not deal with the real issue of the warming of the last 150 years caused by humanity using industry. Horses on the farm were a much better go than tractors but produce much less food. As a serious person rather than downplaying the disaster on the world scene presently, I have offered in my article 2nd from the top, places where you can go to educate yourself. I advise you to go to those sights and do just that before you criticize the findings of about 170 of the worlds best scientist.
Your view is the very local conservative point of view seems to give us a local view of a global problem. I think you must look at the global nature of the problem at the very least see Al Gore’s film before you tell us your vision for the future. Farming in itself creates a very large carbon footprint into the atmosphere, both in the production of food and the use of fertalizer. How we will deal with that is another issue being studied. . .people have to eat and there are lots of us to feed.
it is insane to believe we can turn around climate change,without the complete co-operation of the nabobs,neocons,elitists,potentates,and all the gadzillionaires from sea to shining sea.can you convince them that they dont really need new shipping lanes,broadband communications,refineries,nuclear wastes,etc. etc…..this list can go on and on,feel free to add to this list…..they are the polluters..fueled by excessive greed and PROFITS….i know they will stop ruining our earth,only when they have figured out how to make profit off the sun,wind,rain,tides and the oxygen we breathe……and they are ALREADY BUSY DOING JUST THAT !!!STEALING ALL THE FRESH WATERS…..CHARGING FOR WIND-POWERS…etc.etc..this list goes on and on also..feel free to add to it.it can be stated,correctly,that the original and only sin is;GREED…..can that be fixed ???in the meantime….you can blame yourselves(the LITTLE people)and junk your suv’s and plug in your l.e.d.’s
ike kay:
Thank you for the response to my post, and I certainly owe you the courtesy of checking out the links you mentioned.
I am not trying to muddy the waters or disparage your sincerity of your feelings on global warming, however:
While you mention about the 170 scientists supporting global warming, if you read Crichton’s book he also talks about the hundreds of scientists who do NOT believe that global warming is real.
Yes I do have a cell phone. Do I feel this is an extravegence? No! I also no longer have “line” phone. All I can say is that a cell phone in rural areas has been a godsend to me. I have been “out plowing in the field” and I cannot tell you how many times I have been so grateful to have it to call for help when there has been a tractor breakdown and I am miles from a road or home. You seem to imply that I should be ashamed for this convenience. Yet many elderly people in my rural area have cell phones in their cars or on their persons–they can summon help in situations where the “old fashioned” phone couldn’t have helped.
Yes..I have seen Gore’s film. I basically left it with the impression of seeing endless images of hurricanes and icebergs breaking and droughts with Gore’s voice booming out “catastrophe!” “disaster!” “calamity!” “ruin!”. You use many of these yourself in your post, while linking them to “weather” “climate”, etc. I remember back in the 70’s for awhile you heard the same thing, except it was all about global COOLING. I have heard this tactic so many times in my life–everything from guys trying to sell me cancer insurance to now with the people in the global warming hysteria. This is also coupled with the: “if we don’t do anything, then 10 years from now blah.blah blah”. You use this yourself in your above post.
ike kay,
I get the impression from reading your posts (and I could be wrong, please correct me if I am) that you are someone who has invested all their energy into a “top-down” solution. You seem to have nurtured this expansive world view of this issue, which I contend will end up being your own personal mental prison.
I have serious doubts about climate change, but I also have been working in the alternative energy field for over 20 years.
I agree with Robert Settgast (above) when he says that the even if global warming is a non-issue action is needed for “Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.”
Ezeflyer’s quotes of scientist who say the issue is a moral one not a scientific one are correct.
I say to you, that that moral imperative to be a good steward of the earth has been around for over 50 years.
What actions have you taken over the past 50 years, in your personal life to be part of the solution?
Here are just a few of the issues I have with Global Climate Change science:
1) climatology is not a mature science. I realize you may not understand what that means. But basically it means there are lots of theories based on many many assumptions because there just has not been enough time money and people to deal effectively with all the unknowns.
2) the catastrophic predictions are based on computer simulations and statistics which are full of assumptions and questionable use of mathematical techniques that many scientists don’t agree with
3)Within the scientific community itself there is a huge debate regarding the use of computer simulation in all fields, and these issues are not even discussed.
4) the issue has become so politicized that many scientists are afraid to say what they really think, because they don’t want to harm their careers, so they just silently shake their head, and carry on.
I do admit that there is good work being done, particularly in what I would call “real science” like energy balance(which includes radiant energy) (a la Robert Odums original research many years ago now), atmospheric studies relating to chemistry, physics of the atmosphere itself and its circulation patterns, etc… and some of it does lead to positive and negative feedback possiblities.
The history of science being very wrong about things is long and glorious.
IN CONCLUSION
As long as “climate change believers” stick to bottom-up solutions (like considering how they use transportation, how they heat their homes, how they get food, etc.. etc..) Then I am ALL FOR THEM. Great, terrific.
But the minute you start talking about legislation in regards to what is basically a MORAL issue, then I am against you.
This climate change paranoia is fertile ground for corporate and government manipulation, for the creation of more laws we don’t need, and worst of all, is fertile ground for some lieing leader to promise believers a final solution - only to lead whole countries into grief.
You know ike kay, people in the end are like sheep. But they are very very smart sheep. They don’t as a rule follow idiots, and as long as they have access to the facts, people will do the right thing.
Thats what I think anyway, and that is why I am an optimist, even if your global warming theories are partly true.