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Americans Gearing up to Fight Global Warming
TechnoGuyRob writes "Global warming has been one of the most controversial and debated issues in the political and scientific sphere. A recent poll published in the Chicago Sun-Times now shows that 'An overwhelming majority of Americans think they can help reduce global warming and are willing to make the sacrifices that are needed, a new poll shows. After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they think global warming is real.'" (Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.)
This is clearly a situation where strong federal leadership is needed. If Americans are on board with reducing global warming, then let's make reduced fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions a reality by:
- mandating higher MPGs in automobiles
- granting huge tax credits for solar heating/electric panels on private and commercial buildings
- mandating solar equipment for ALL federal buildings
- mandating a switch to ethanol or methanol biofuels for federal fleets
- grant tax breaks for anyone switching to biofuels
- aid to cities that want to build or expand public transportation
- aid to cities to convert existing buses to biofuels
- massage research into alternative energy
- end the war in Iraq to free up the funds for the above initiatives
- Wind mill farms granted more eminent domain power (e.g., to overcome NIMBY opposition by estate owners in Marblehead, Massachusetts because "it ruins the view").
Germany during World War II switched to hydrogen for its cars when its petroleum supplies were cut off. Brazil has switched to domestically produced alcohol. It's all do-able with a strong federal leadership. This is clearly a situation where the market economy is going to favor lower prices, not (necessarily) environmentally desirable results. The federal government is the agent that can mandate the conditions necessary to make this stuff a reality.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
What else can I say?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"Politicians finally came up with a cheap, last-minute solution to control Global Warming: dropping a giant ice cube from the Halley's Comet in one of Earth's oceans every now and then. This fix worked for nearly a millennium, and so by the year 3000, Global Warming was considered by many a scientific fraud, like secondhand smoke."
~The Futurama Encyclopedia
It's wonderful that so many people are willing to say they want to make a difference. That's just as good as actually doing it! Studies also show that 74% of all Americans also say they want to start excersizing regularly, continue their education, spend time with their families, and find a cure for cancer. That's a load off my mind, I'll definitely sleep better tonight.
Regardless of that, the real problem isn't with the masses, its with the elite. My father is a plumbing and mechanics inspector in one of the richest counties in America. He recalls one house he inspected that had 7 heated swimming pools joined together with hottubs. The owner would keep them heated year-round just in case a random party broke out. He also had 10 furnace and airconditioning units in his 35,000 sqft. house that I'm sure he ran the hell out of. He also had a 6 car garage, one spot for each of his SUVs.
The real problem is, there are no limits on how much gasoline, electricity, or natural gas one person is allowed to use. Supplies are being wastefully depleted and turned into greenhouse gasses, and people are blaming the average consumer.
So when gas prices go up by 80%, this rich bastard probably won't even think twice. Meanwhile, an average person is being asked to "turn thermostats down in winter by 2 degrees, caulk around windows, combine driving trips when running errands... wash clothes in cold water, turn down water heater temperature, buy energy-efficient light bulbs, buy energy-efficient appliances, and buy energy-efficient cars." And this is a solution?
It's like having some large corporation lower 100,000 sub-management employee wages by $5 an hour instead of laying off one CEO who is making $500k per year.
Whoever said one person can't make a difference. --
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
Bush has only just denied global warming is manmade.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
We've spent so long talking about global warming that I don't think anyone has stopped to consider some possibilities.
First, is it even our fault? Is global warming really a man-made disaster, or is it part of a climatic or solar cycle? It always seemed to be simply assumed that what we have documented is because of something humanity did...what if it's not? If this is a natural occurence, then wouldn't we be doing even more harm to nature by fighting it?
Second, what happens if there's nothing we can do? Action plans are great and all and we need to do everything in our power to reverse any damage we've done, but we need to get our heads out of the sand and have a Plan B. It's very possible that anything we do now will be too little too late, that we have already hit critical mass and warming will accelerate even if we climbed back up in the trees tomorrow.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
For all the BAD things the US does (ie.Iraq invasion) they are undoubtably the best in the world at selling ideas. If the US could SERIOUSLY adopt more environmentally friendly ways of living/working and in industry, is there little doubt that new technologies and practices would be exported to places such as India and China? Isn't this obvious??? And why did it take disasters like Katrina to wake people up?
...so they're still not going to actually DO it, just prepare and get ready? (that's the meaning of "gearing up" that I'm familiar with)
Rather than gear up, why not start right now? Sales of Hummers were up 174% from last year. If that's not going in the exact opposite direction, I don't know what is.
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And so does the Washington Times which recently reprinted this 1794 Newsweek piece. The kind of language used is eerily similar to the global warming talk today.
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production -- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.
The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas -- parts ofIndia,Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia -- where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree -- a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras -- and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.
Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 -- years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. "Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term
71% may believe global warming is an important issue but I haven't noticed
71% going out and buying efficient cars. I haven't noticed 71% of companies
switching off their lights after dark or turning down the air con / heating
a notch.
Its easy to say you're concerned about something , its quite another matter
to prove it.
"is there little doubt that new technologies and practices would be exported to places such as India and China?"
Given their current rate of industrialization, increasing demand for energy, and pollution output, I'd say there's plenty of doubt.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
From the article:
>After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they
>think global warming is real, according to a telephone survey of
>1,200 people for the advocacy group Environmental Defense
So this result has some built-in bias.
"Between 80 percent and 90 percent are willing to take these energy-saving actions: wash clothes in cold water, turn down water heater temperature, buy energy-efficient light bulbs, buy energy-efficient appliances, and buy energy-efficient cars.
70 percent are willing to drive less, and walk, bike, car pool or take mass transit."
BS. When it comes down to it, people will do what is cheapest and most convenient. It's very easy to tell some pollster you're willing to do something, but when push comes to shove, forget it. There is a social factor in polls that causes people to answer the way they want to be perceived, not the way they actually are.
I take mass transit daily (by choice), and I have lost count of all the people I know who've tried it but given it up as too inconvenient.
And as for energy-efficient appliances, the sticker shock is too much for many people, even when the appliance is cheaper in the long run.
You want real reduction in greenhouse gasses from US people? End the light-truck exemption for mileage standards. Increases mileage standards for all vehicles. Bring mass transit funding levels up to highway funding levels -- if it's pervasive enough, it WILL be convenient. Reducing consumption of power by 15% at home is not going to make near enough of a dent -- it is not enough, and it's irresponsible to let people believe it will be.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If called upon, I will undoubtedly help to reduce emissions and make an environmental difference. Actually, my family does already. We carpool, telecommute (when possible), walk when we can, recycle everything we can, and use gas-powered tools as little as possible (I love power tools, though).
I have to say that the whole media/government FUD over whether or not global warming actually exists really rings a bell with me. The dis-information campaign (about emissions and pollution) reminds me very much of the decades of time when industry and government were disseminating information that smoking hadn't been proven to cause cancers. Decades of mis-information about nicotine addiction and cancer risks was backed up by industry-paid doctors and lawyers who lulled us to sleep on the issue. The same thing has been going on WRT pollution and global warming.
Humans accelerate climate change - whether it is clear-cutting ancient forests, industrial pollution, wasteful production, or emissions... To me, the real question is, "When will we take a responsible stance/take action on helping the Earth begin to heal?"
A Passionate Independent Musician
I'm working in Kenya right now. They have massive deforestation here, with only 1.5% tree cover. Right now in the north of the country there are about 5 million people who are starving (or will be in a few weeks). These are the kind of disasters that will happen everywhere in the world if nothing is done. Desertification, crop failures, extreme weather, flooding. What are simple solutions? How about reducing soil erosion? Re-plant forests. Stop building massive houses on sandbars that trigger flooding. Use more friendly power generation to reduce smog and acid rain. ALL of these solutions would have immediate impacts and improve the quality of life not only for the earth but us humans as well. There is a reason why cancer rates and respiratory disorders are increasing. We are quickly poisoning ourselves, and if we don't ack NOW,it will only get worse. (cue Bladerunner opening sequence)...
I think it's great that so many people are interested in becoming better stewards of the Earth. However, voicing an opinion is easy. Actually living up to those convictions is much more difficult. I'd be willing to bet, just from my own anecdotal experience with people in general, that *maybe* half of those that say they want to act more responsibly actually will do it.
It's just so much easier to keep doing what you're doing. Change is hard.
Transistors and Beer!!
So how many are actually DOING any of those things? And did you notice they were good little capitalist consumption-enhancing options? Buy this, buy that. The idea is to *reduce* consumption.
I believe it when I see the first SUV manufacturer file for bankruptcy. There are practical things that *could* be done, like increasing tax on fuel to promote efficient usage, setting real requirements for home insulation, reducing coal burning. However its much easier to say you'll maybe think about buying a new SUV with 2mpg better economy, some point in the future.
Changing mindsets takes much more positive action than this - and I see no sign of a change there.
This was a telephone survey of 1200. What kind of people agree to be surveyed over the phone? I bet half of the Slashdot community would tell the pollster to get stuffed. So how valid are the results?
And besides, actions speak louder than words. Somehow I don't think many Americans are going to all stop driving their big cars and start taking the public bus any day soon, no matter what they tell a telephone pollster...
Two words:Kyoto Protocol
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
In the 1970's, Brazil's government set up an energy plan to reduce the dependence on petroleum. They kept the price of gas high to subsidize the research and implementation of new technology to combat global warming. They now have cars that run on ethanol and passed legislation to ensure that every new buliding constructed is built with solar panels for water heating. If Brazil can do it, why can't we? It took them 30 years after the government took serious action to tackle the problem.
I don't necessarily agree with all the top-down government solutions proposed. I support revising CAFE, but am leary of what/how they get things done. My wife and I put our money where our mouths are. We do this for the environment:
- Drive a high-MPG car, our Matrix gets 34-36 mpg on the hiway.
- ride bikes whenever possible.
- have 1.7kw photovoltaic solar panels on our house, piped into the grid
- other hippy stuff like compost and recycling
I'd also like to say how stupid all the NIMBYs on Cape Cod are. We desperately need wind farms in New England. They complain about the windmills blocking the view, but if there's orange smog over everything you won't even be able to see the water. I've been to Holland and the modern windmills there are elegant and non-intrusive despite the size.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
The sad fact is that since 1988, the contrarian position on global warming has been nothing more than a snow job by Republican politicians and Republican interests, especially right-wing "think tanks" paid to churn out talking points that benefit industry and politicians.
The depth of right-wing hackery is demonstrated not just by George W. Bush, but by George Will, who to this day denies that anthropogenic global warming is real. His denials read like creationists flailing their tiny fists against 150 years of consensus on evolution. "One degree might be the margin of error" -- that is quite simply false.
To see George Will, the face of modern conservatism, in full petulant splendor, you have to watch the video. All he brings to the table -- all any global-warming denier can bring to the table -- is a snow job of out-of-context quotes from the 1970s about how some scientists thought the globe was cooling, not warming. Pretty sad. But that's one of the many differences between scientists and pundits. When new facts come to light, scientists change their minds.
But there has been a Republican pattern, from 1988, when James Hansen went before the U.S. Senate to explain that he was "99 percent" certain that global warming was real and that it was to some extent caused by humans, to earlier this year when the Bush administration's appointee tried to muzzle the very same James Hansen on the very same issue. Over and over we see partisan politics as the opposition to actual science. By arguing that any action on global warming would destroy our economy (not true -- carbon emission per GDP dollar has gone down dramatically since 1970 while productivity has boomed), Republicans play the issue as a political weapon, forcing Democrats to adopt moderate positions. Remember Bush's campaign ad making fun of Kerry for even considering a gasoline tax?
And who suffers? We are already in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, and though the first effects of global warming are just beginning to be felt, it's about to slam the ecosystem like a freight train. The only hope we have is that technology will take a quantum leap soon enough to allow us to effectively change planetary climate, on a scale we can't today engineer. But that's a crap shoot, a total unknown (much like global dimming, by the way, which we also know next to nothing about, and which if part of a natural cycle may mean global warming is going to get much, much worse over the next century). We need to do something besides hope.
It seems that it's too late to halt global warming's effects, thanks largely to fifteen years of Republican dissembling, but maybe if we start now we can mitigate to some extent the horrific human death, disease and displacement that will be everyday news on our grandchildren's planet. All we can do is start now. Maybe if these poll numbers are accurate, finally, finally we may be able to help.
The sun is going to burn out in a few billion years. As it does so, it will cool and expand slowly enveloping the earth.
No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up.
It's pretentious and incorrect to think that something as insignificant as mankind is the main cause of global warming.
No; it is realistic and correct. We have already had a significant impact on the composition of the atmosphere in terms of CO2 concentration - the main source of warming.
My house is lit almost exclusively by high efficiency bulbs.
Over the last year I have insulated 60% of my house (built in 1890, when wood was plentiful and insulation was non-existant.)
I have recently purchased a VW Golf TDI. It is a diesel that gets 47+ mpg Highway and can run on Biodiesel with no conversions (a kit is required for veggie oil though).
The nice thing about steps like these is that it saves consumers money! With my Wife and I switching most of our driving to the new VW we are saving ~$170 a month in gas. The extra insulation has saved us a ton in heating costs. And those low power consumption bulbs will pay for themselves in savings long before they burn out.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Build more nuke plants. The US and Russia literally has tons of old bomb cores that could be made into many more tons of reactor fuel.
There are already MASSIVE subsidies for biofuels. Ethanol is not that much of an improvement of gas since a lot of fossil fuels are used to grow the corn used to make the ethanol. Methanol is usually made from coal, oil, and or natural gas.
BTW as far as NIMBY goes I agree. I have a nuclear power plant in my city. I like it a lot more than a coal, gas, or oil plant.
Solar is a good but it is not a total solution. It needs to be added to the mix. Wind I have a lot less faith it. I worry that wind will be the hydroelectric dams of the 21 century. They seem clean and green but really are not. I worry about what happens when you extract huge amounts of energy from wind systems. Wind is good for pumping water and very remote sites but massive wind farms seem like a bad idea.
The real issue is that it really isn't simple.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
First of all, DoD spending is indeed massive within the United States. Second of all, neither Social Security nor Medicare revenue is eligible to be spent by Congress. It's not part of the general budget. This was done to keep Congress from raiding the social programs so that they could cut taxes on those who didn't need the social programs.
Some data:
Social security, medicare, and other retirements: 36% (and can't be touched by Congress in the budget)
National Defense and veterans affairs: 23%
Net interest on the Debt: 7%
Physical, human, and community development (nat'l parks, education, job training, NSF, NASA, etc): 10%
Social Programs: 21%
Law enforcement: 3%
So yeah, cutting back on the Iraq war (and the rest of the 31% == 23%/(100%-36%) of discretionary spending Congress spends on the military) would indeed leave quite a bit available for alternative energy research, spending on public and mass transit, pollution enforcement mechanisms, and other ways to reduce global warming.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Even in the 2004 federal budget, military spending that is disclosed to the public (not counting all the CIA and NSA bullshit, and all the other shadow-ops shit) was nearly 20% of all federal spending; the only thing the federal budget spends more on is Social Security. So no, it's not small potatoes compared to medicare (11.7%), or social welfare (8.4%), or medicaid (7.9%), or anything else, not to mention when compared to the rest of the world.
And no, the elected Republicans are not indistinguishable from socialists, which is why more and more americans are finding themselves below the poverty line; they are far from socialist in any respect, unless you count meddling in people's lives when not asked to, but that's more of a totalitarian/authoritarian aspect.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Try a pretty picture.
Here's another.
Or, go to the source. HUD is $44b, health and human services is $697b, social security is $624b, military spending is $541b (DoD is $504b plus $37b for veterans' care).
So even by the official figures, it isn't "small potatoes", it's comparable to the entire social security or health budgets. And then there's the deficit interest payments...
Not that I'm against cutting corporate welfare. Far from it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Is what caused global warming...
It's not clear what you are replying to, but you have your facts garbled.
Human activity has increased CO2 concentrations from 280 ppmv to 380 ppmv, far faster than any natural change could achieve. Anthropogenic emissions are 15 times larger than the volcanic activity to which nature has equilibrated, and still increasing. Residence time of excess CO2 in the atmosphere is about 1000 years.
So while the amount added every year is rather small, it keeps adding up.
mt
General Motors did a study to determine at what point gas prices would influence consumers' demand for SUVs. According to customers who purchased GM SUVs, 87 octane (regular unleaded) gas would have to sell for $5.00 per gallon in order to influence their choice to drive a Soccer-Mom-Assault-Vehicle. I'm all for government influencing consumer choice, but the only way I'd support that level of taxation is if all the money went to building "green" public transportation. And you know that wouldn't happen, we've got a war against Eurasia to fund!
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Your statements belie your faith in Gaia. I do not think it is inherenlty bad that you worship "the environment", but you have to be honest that your criticisms come from a religious viewpoint first and foremost. When the science supports your religion, you will tout the science. When the science denigrates your religion, you will discount or ignore the science. That is where I have a difficulty with what you write, as I am interested in the science (i.e., observe reality and make observations and predictions based on experimentation and testing), not in your religious beliefs.
Humans accelerate climate change
This is my problem with the "Global Warming Debate". People keep conflating the question, "Is global warming real?" with "Are humans significantly responsible for global warming?" In other words, environmentalists assume that if you believe that global warming is real, then you necessarily believe that humans are significantly responsible for it. It is an illogical argument, since there may be problems with the definition of "global warming" and also the causes of global warming are in dispute.
- whether it is clear-cutting ancient forests, industrial pollution, wasteful production, or emissions...
Be honest, please. You aren't bothered about "clear-cutting ancient forests" because of global warming. You are bothered because you revere ancient trees as something holy and beautiful. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with this! In fact, I share similar sentiments to you and thing it's a very ugly thing when an ancient and beautiful tree is cut down to make room for a Wal-Mart. All I ask of you is some candor about where your grievances lie.
Your complaints about "industrial pollution" and "wasteful production" are similar. Are you upset about their nebulous link to global warming or are you more upset about dumping ugly sh*t all over Mother Earth? Speak your heart!
I would agree that emissions might contribute to global warming, but reading the science on the issue is much more difficult than parroting the talking points, isn't it?
To me, the real question is, "When will we take a responsible stance/take action on helping the Earth begin to heal?"
And that's the most honest statement you made. You want the damage done to your god to be reversed. And there's nothing wrong with that! I only ask that you stop hiding it. If your faith really is strong, worthy, and noble, then it should be able to stand on its own and not hide behind science that is, at most, a means to an end.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.htm l uses algae to remove 40% of the CO2, 86% of NO2 and produces ethanol as a byproduct!
Plus there's tons of coal about (pun intentded)
You think individual cold days disprove Global Warming, and you are calling who an idiot?
Once again a global-warming denier compares a decade of peer-reviewed scientific publications to ... well, in this case, a talk given by a novelist.
Consensus is precisely how science advances. Scientific consensus is precisely what should inform us on scientific matters. It has nothing to do with avoiding debate, it is a signifier that the debate has already been held. Go read Kuhn or something.
The problem with environmental issues is that, contrary to your assertion, the free market doesn't work unaided. It's an example of what economists would call an "externality", because it's a cost which doesn't fall on the players in the market, and hence cannot supply information to that market.
The notion that if we don't reduce our carbon emissions now then the world we be an ugly place in 50-100 years time simply can't be accounted for without giving the free market a helping hand, because unaided there's no mechanism by which that potential future event has a dollar cost for the companies and consumers involved in energy transactions today.
This is specifically the situation that governments are for - they are able to apply to a cost to something and hence influence the market in a way that accounts for this externality. For example, raising the tax on gasoline is a very direct way of applying some of that external cost into the appropriate market. The free market still does it's work, we've just made the cost of gasoline what it "should" be to take account of future global warming. The market can then decide what to do about it, whether it's building more efficient cars, taking fewer journeys, or investing in alternative fuel sources.
No need for fancy tax credits or pork barrel schemes. Just make the price of gasoline (and other carbon-emitting fuels) reflect the future global warming risk, and let the usual action of the market do it's work.
The heat of combustion of coal is about 26 MJ/kg (see here). The overall efficiency of electric power generation for coal is about 35% (see here). Therefore, eight pounds of coal would produce about 28 MJ of electricity. If a laptop uses, say, 50 W maximum, that eight-pound lump of coal could power a laptop under maximum load for about 158 hours, or about 6.5 days. That's a lot of power.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Try this. This gives the US o/p as 6000 TgCO2q ueKeyLookup/RAMR69V528/$File/05executivesummary.pd f
http://yosemite.epa.gov/OAR/globalwarming.nsf/Uni
it doesn't give the "rest of the world" numbers - That's arithmetic, but is cited uniformly by nearly all "Googlable" sources,
Then there is this
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
And this is, I reckon the authoritative source.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_nam.htm
Scary isn't it ?
"Western Europe", note emits around 1/3rd than the US, with a larger population.
Steve
Analysis of your comment:
First paragraph: knee-jerk ranting about environmentalists.
Second paragraph: You're obviously a William Dembsky fan, notorious creationist (who uses the term intelligent design). That bastard is in a feud with the University of Texas scientist Eric Pianka, and actually *reported him to the Department of Homeland Security* while misrepresenting what he said. It is a fact that Pianka was not calling for the extermination of humans, but in fact he was warning about a danger which he sees as a reality. He brought up the Ebola virus to shock his audience into thinking about his message: airborne agents that can kill 90% of the human population are not science fiction. They exist, and few people are concerned. Another part of his message was that biological systems crash when they become overpopulated, and that humans are setting themselves up for a crash. He was not calling for the extermination of human beings, and since you're saying that he was, I'm going to state that I consider you a vile sort of liar, who lies by misrepresenting what others have said.
Third paragraph: Unreasonable faith in the free market, which treats the environment as a commons that they can use up. When a company uses the environment as a dumping ground, they are stealing from everybody else. Make the companies pay the true cost of their pollution. When pollutants are injected into the atmosphere or into the ground water, I expect to see a check in my mailbox reimbursing me for the loss of a resource that I do not have any more.
Fourth paragraph: Finally, something that can be discussed. Nuclear power is definitely something that we should consider right now.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Presuming your hovercar is the air-skirt variety, send them a "road surface cleaning" bill (for blowing the dust and dirt off) tha just happens to equal your road-use taxes. If your hovercar is of the anti-gravity type, you should be paying MORE taxes for the damage you're doing to the space-time continuum of the road area.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I agree with you in so far as the "tree huggers" did not really think nuclear energy through on a mass scale. Mostly the rhetoric stayed at alarmist levels with a veneer of science to provide frightening overtones to the whole concept of nuclear anything.
/renewable/ energy sources like solar, wind, biodiesel (which is really solar), etc. America handed billions upon billions of tax dollars to private nuclear companies in order to develop nuclear energy. While it was a ruff start, the technology is now pretty mature (except for waste management). The same type of massive national investment is needed for renewable ebergy as well.
However, what fundamentally motivated the No Nukes crowed was the shoddy corpratism that drove the early nuclear industry. The private sector was way out ahead of the reasearch that was needed in order to insure the safety of the citizenry. Money was the motivating factor more than anything else, meaning the drive for nukes was focused on the "Cheap" part of "Cheap and Clean".
Nuclear energy is also _not_ clean. Clean would be something like emitting water or cream soda. The chemistry involved in "disposing" of nuclear waste is highly toxic.
Lastly, note that nuclear energy is a limited resource, like oil. The "tree huggers" also understood this and so are pushing for
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
From "Aliens Cause Global Warming"
s _quote04.html
Michael Crichton
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeche
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therap6y...the list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
The US is actually only slightly above average in military spending. The only reason its spending in $ is so high is because its GDP is so huge. Once you normalize it to GDP, you can see that many other countries actually spend more than the US. China and most of the middle eastern countries actually spend significantly more, and "peace-loving" France spends just slightly less than the US.
It's the same argument used against the US when funding the UN. Countries are supposed to fund the UN in proportion to the GDP. "You have more money so you can pay more." Yet for some reason the same reasoning seems to escape people when it comes to military spending. You can't have it both ways. (Note: The US has been successful in trying to reduce its share of UN funding; partially understandable since GDP doesn't take into account taxation rate, so while US GDP is much bigger, the US govt gets to use less of it in its discretionary budget than socialist nations.)
A problem with the studies that affirm global warming is that they're either very speculative or based on too a very narrow data "cut".
In the first case, they're reports on the results of computation using this or that climate model, where the different climate factors, such as percent of CO2 in the atmosphere, receive very arbitrary weights. If, for instance, you attribute different weights to these factors or add more factors, such as the likelihood we're entering a new Ice Age (in the '70s tons of studies focused on this), the results vary a lot. One such calculation might conclude that no matter what humans do the world will end very cold. Other might conclude that our warming actions might actually conter balance the cold, keeping the temperatures as they are. And others will say that our actions are warming the world. Currently these last are favoured, because their results seem to coincide more or less with actual collected data, but it's possible to argue that in others, "global cooling" models, a small temperature increase for some years followed by a sharp decrease in temperature isn't unlikely. So, how can we say which of these models, weights, factors etc. are the correct ones? I don't think it's possible without many centuries of measurements.
In the second case, the studies are based on the behaviour of this or that factor when everything else is excluded. So, if you go study what happens in a lab experiment when there's an increase in the percent of CO2, it becomes absolutely clear that it's a warming effect, no doubt about that. But how does this effect relates with all the other climate-changing effects is difficult to say, which takes us to the above problem of the models.
Furthermore, when one takes this problem from the scientific field to the political, another question arises: a global warming is really a bad thing? I mean, from the point of view of agriculture, more CO2 means, AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong, bigger crops, bigger vegetables and the like, and so more food. And more food means less hungry people in the world. So, one might ask, without any ill intent, whether the benefits aren't worth the trouble of increased sea levels and some more extinguished species. Are they?
The above points, plus some others I haven't mentioned, don't allow me to buy the whole idea of cutting greenhouse gases as being The Obvious Good ThingTM. There're tons of questions that should be answered, and very well answered, before we're sure that going forward into changing the whole industrial world is really needed. What if we actually do it, causing all the unemplyment and lowering of living standards it'll mean, only to discover in a few decades that the whole effort wasn't needed? Who'd pay the needy for all the social troubles this move will have caused them?
This, IMHO, is a question most people who write on the subject forget to ask.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
I agree that fossil fuels don't include the external costs of global warming, and therefore are not at their correct economic price.
I'm less sure that gas taxes are the right way to deal with that, although the are certainly better than nothing. One reason this is a problem is that it's not just gasoline, but all fossil fuels that are a problem -- gas taxes alone will not prevent people from doing stupid things like burning coal to produce hydrogen or alcohol which aren't taxed.
The better way to deal with it would be determine the sustainable amount of carbon dioxide we can emit, chop it in half to be really sure, and produce tradable emission rights. If you don't have the right to the emissions, you can't emit it. The market will set the correct price for the emission rights.
The big problem with my plan is enforcement, you'd probably have to require the producers of the fuel to have the emission rights rather than the emitter.
If you were going to do taxes though, the right way is to make a law that requires 10 cent per gallon increase every 6 months for the next 50 years, so that:
1. People would know gas is going to keep getting more and more expensive and start seriously looking for ways to reduce their consumption
2. People won't be slammed by it all at once, they'll have time to change their behavior without dramatic economic impact.
Which is to say, AT BEST, that, "I'm researching these viruses, and if you don't give me any money, then 90% of humanity will be destroyed."
Lies. He's not researching the viruses. Eric Pianka is an expert on small invertibrates such as salamanders, and in many ways is the father of modern ecology.
He's also reported to be a conservative in his political views, despite the fact that he has a full and bushy hippie beard. Direct your friendly fire elsewhere, you ignorant moron.
You're a dirty liar, and you have personally charged the atmosphere in such a way that scientists not associated with Eric Pianka are now getting death threats in regard to this situation. YOU are the problem, YOU are encouraging death, YOU are encouraging terrorism, YOU are advocating the death of innocent people, YOU are the person telling moral people like me to kill themselves, YOU make me sick.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
1Km in US != 1Km in Europe? 1L in US != 1L in Europe?
...
Yes, there are large distances between different STATES, just like going from Spain (a state) to Germany (another state). But a city is a city. Or is there a "space warp" that makes travels longer in the US having the same distance than in Europe? And here the distance to a market can be the same as the place you live.
And for the bus travel you say, I had to take a subway, a train and a bus to get to work when I was working in Madrid. And where I live now (Majorca) isn't better, because there are only buses and more than half of the city is "blue zone". And if you don't live in Palma (the capital) you have to come by car and park "where Jesus lost the shoe" (spanish, don't know if it translates good) and then take a bus.
So, the problem you have is here too.
The real problem (here and maybe there too) is that public transport is a shit. Too much time between buses/subways/trains, too bad "drawn" the lines,
Better public transport = less people using private transport.
All the enviro-weenies I know are just ecstatic over hybrids and wind farms, and many are even grudgingly supportive of nuclear power.
It shouldn't even need to be said that environmentalists are not a monolithic group. But in your case, it seems an exception needs to be made. Environmentalists come in all shapes and sizes, with all sorts of preferences and agendas, with all sorts of views on modern life. It makes as much sense to say what you did as it makes for me to claim that, because you have articulated a right-wing position, you must have everything in common with those nutjobs in Alabama who were chaining themselves to the Ten Commandments to keep them from being removed.
I'm not in favor of destroying "industrial society." That would require the deaths of billions of people, because it is industrial society that sustains us. I am, however, in favor of slimming it down somewhat. We need to be using fewer resources, and using them in a more efficient and more egalitarian way. So long as we put the pursuit of our own material wealth ahead of everything else, we'll continue lurching from environmental crisis to environmental crisis, destroying any remaining wilderness and slaughtering inconvenient wildlife as we go along. I don't believe we're wise enough or humble enough to hold ourselves back.
My ideal world of vegetarian diets, walkable communities, locally grown organic food, and kickass mass transit systems may not be a world you would enjoy living in. But if you have two honest brain cells to rub together, you can't compare that to calling for the elimination of industrial society.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
A police state to save the environment is still a police state.
You're closer than perhaps you realise to an awkward fact (admittedly one of many) that politicians prefer to avoid: a deep green political agenda or scenario is actually quite authoritarian, since it requires people to give up comforts that they'd otherwise choose to keep. The logic is that to avoid the "tragedy if the commons"*, people need to be protected from themselves.
* From The Economist website:
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
A 19th-century amateur mathematician, William Forster Lloyd, modelled the fate of a common pasture shared among rational, UTILITY-maximising herdsmen. He showed that as the POPULATION increased the pasture would inevitably be destroyed. This tragedy may be the fate of all sorts of common resources, because no individual, firm or group has meaningful PROPERTY RIGHTS that would make them think twice about using so much of it that it is destroyed.
Once a resource is being used at a rate near its sustainable capacity, any additional use will reduce its value to its current users. Thus they will increase their usage to maintain the value of the resource to them, resulting in a further deterioration in its value, and so on, until no value remains. Contemporary examples include overfishing and the polluting of the atmosphere. (See PUBLIC GOODS and EXTERNALITY.)
Sorry if I came off as a bit hostile, but I've been in a hundred arguments where people mistakenly identify various interpretations of military spending to justify the amount of expenditure in the States, particulary with outdated information. As I pointed out in the last post, the site you referenced claimed that the US currently spends around $277 billion, but the figure is, in fact, closer to $453 billion, strictly for the military alone as of 2004. Even in 2002, the total amount spent on defense funding and homeland security agencies (I don't believe this takes into account undisclosed funding for CIA/NSA/FBI, but I could be wrong) was $596 billion. So, one problem is that the GDP figures only take into account military expenditures and don't count funding given to the NSA and CIA for their covert ops, shill operations, and so on. The GDP is just a poor measure of defense funding in the United States, where we have a huge number multinational corporations that make the GDP skyrocket; other countries do not; there is just no other first world country that has the amount of profiteers and corporate giants that we do; not even close. Even if you go to per capita with updated figures, we spend per capita on the military branches alone more than any other nation, with Israel coming somewhat close (Update the figures from here to the $453 billion of 2004 and you have a per capita military expenditure of around $1,850).
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
No mod points, so I will just reply in agreement. My girlfriend and I bought a washer and dryer pair to go with our new house, and we found GE's Adora series for a total of under $1500.00. We've had a great experience with them, and I actually like doing laundry with them, as they have a cool interface with lots of "power user" options.
Just FYI - ethanol/methanol IS NOT a good fuel choice. Those alcohol fuels are lower energy density than gasoline, and need to be burned in larger amounts (by mass) to generate the same amount of power. They actually tend to produce MORE carbon than gasoline does. Not only that, but alcohols are harder on various components of your fuel system (such as the rubber hoses).
What we need to do is use gasoline as efficiently as possible. A car converts about 15% of the energy in gasoline to mechanical motion at the wheels. By moving to a full-electric drivetrain, with gasoline or diesel-powered generators/gensets/fuel cells and a rechargable energy storage device, far higher efficiencies can actually be achieved. The downside is that weight and cost for a vehicle will be higher.
There are interesting battery technologies being developed now, if the consumer would accept the fact that dedicated BOVs are actually an excellent choice for municipal commutes, we could see more BOVs like the EV come back into the market. I know that electricity is generated from fuel in many places in the US, however, it's far easier to manage emissions from a few power plants than it would be to manage them in a general population of automobiles.