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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.
"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.
...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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
Spain -- Land Area: 499,542 km Population: 40,341,462
United States of America -- Area: 9,631,418 km Population: 295,734,134
That's only a land area factor of, oh, 19. Yes, the US is 19X the size of Spain, but with only 7X the population. Things are nowhere near as close to one another as they are in Europe. It's not ideal, but that's the way things are in the US. You just about have to drive to get to where you need to go in anywhere less than a day, unless you happen to be right on a bus route that goes very near where you're going. But most bus routes to where I need to go would take multiple transfers, many stops, and be at least 3 or 4 times as long.
Gas is cheap and subsidized here for a reason... we need it to get where we're going. When you can walk across the street to get your groceries, it's not so bad. But the nearest market to my house is over a mile away, and I'm not lugging a couple week's worth of food over a mile. And that's just food.
I'm not excusing waste. I drive a more efficient car, I try to drive as little as possible, walk where I can, take public transport when i can (they're on strike now... that really sucks). But Europeans seldom seem to understand the actual SCALE of the United States. It's big. Bigger than most anything you've experienced. 3 hours is not a long drive in a car. 24 hours is getting there.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
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.)