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US Secretary of State Calls Climate Change 'Weapon of Mass Destruction'
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Arshad Mohammed reports on Reuters from Jakarta that US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Indonesians that man-made climate change could threaten their entire way of life, deriding those who doubted the existence of 'perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction' and describing those who do not accept that human activity causes global warming as 'shoddy scientists' and 'extreme ideologues'. 'Because of climate change, it's no secret that today Indonesia is ... one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth. It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire way of life that you live and love is at risk,' said Kerry. 'In a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.' In Beijing on Friday, Kerry announced that China and the United States had agreed to intensify information-sharing and policy discussions on their plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions after 2020. At home, Kerry faces a politically tricky decision on whether to allow the Keystone XL pipeline after a State Department report played down the impact the Keystone pipeline would have on climate change. However Kerry showed little patience for skeptics in his speech. 'We just don't have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation,' said Kerry. 'I'm talking about big companies that like it the way it is, that don't want to change, and spend a lot of money to keep you and me and everybody from doing what we know we need to do.'"
As a michigan resident I discovered this year that the Democrats have no interest in saving the environment. they wont even shut off the chicago river to keep the damn china carp from infesting the great lakes. Obama himself refuses to let the scientists and the Civil engineers shut it off. by the time they stop their stupid posturing it will be too late.
"by 2020" is too late, way too late to begin to start to talk about things. they need to be talking now not at a date set so that none of the current leaders have to bother with it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So, the US's Sec of State is self-admitting guilt of committing crimes against the entire planet, leaving the USA now liable in international court for the costs of AGW? I knew the US liberals were self-destructive, but this takes the cake.
Impetuous! Homeric!
Well given that the Chinese carp situation in Michigan probably should be a more important priority for the US than hamstringing human civilization in the name of global warming, I really don't see the stupidity.
Haha, it takes a special type of person to fall for such obvious smears, when they are so obviously made up whole cloth.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
That is just simply wrong. There are powerful intrenched interests with their misinformation campaign, and a bunch of sheep who think they're rebels for repeating the tortured logic of others, but that is really the sum total of the opposition to change.
And make no mistake, change is coming. The USA, Germany and China are leading the way in creating alternative sources of energy. The Germans and northern Europeans in particular are figuring out the engineering problems of using renewables on the grid. And the price of renewables is decreasing exponentially. Wind is now cheaper than every fossil fuel save gas, and will be cheaper than gas in five or so years. Solar is a little behind, but exponential is exponential.
Sure there are problems left to solve, but don't let anyone fool you into thinking that nobody cares. In fact, some of the smartest engineers and scientists in the world are figuring this out, and there is plenty of government and industry money to do "right" by the next generation.
If there's one major problem, its that the issue is a political football, but in the end, the smart money will move on, and the fluff heads will be left with wild conspiracy theories about how coal/oil was better all along, and a bunch of communists destroyed a perfectly good industry.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I guess I am if I throw another log in the wood stove today...
Burning a log is just part of the normal carbon cycle. You do know that the CO2 in the log returns to the atmosphere anyway, right? Maybe it would take 10 years instead of 5 minutes; however, the CO2 remains out of the carbon cycle only if you bury the wood underground.
The whole point is that CO2 was sequestered out of the atmosphere over billions of years, and stored underground in oil and coal. Now we're dredging that up and returning it to the atmosphere.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Alright, so driving at 120 MPH on the highway increases our chance of accidents, scientists agree.
What to do about it? Please show me the scientific and engineering studies that prove that a particular course of action is appropriate. I am tired of the knee-jerk reaction that blithely assumes reducing velocity is the way to go. There are many possible alternatives, including doing nothing at all. A proper cost/benefit analysis is needed, before we decide to make everyone walk everywhere.
you clearly have no idea what carp do to a water system. Where I live they took over in the past 30 years, 90% of the normal fish are gone, It really is a major problem and here we have a simple way to keep them from in essence destroying all the fish in our biggest natural waterways. I was actually unaware of the issue in the OPs area but as someone who knows first hand how damaging carp can be, I have to side with him. Why should we focus on the large picture when we cant even focus on the small (comparatively speaking)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The Germans and northern Europeans in particular are figuring out the engineering problems of using renewables on the grid.
Use nuclear. Problem solved.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Just because it can't be wielded doesn't mean it can't be used as a tool of warfare.
More likely, climate change will be the cause of warfare, not a weapon thereof.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I agree that correlation is not causation, but greenhouse gases do cause warming, and the increase in greenhouse gases is due to human activity. That is causation.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
So, Kerry was implying federal intervention in international affairs.
The original poster was saying the Feds wouldn't intervene in a situation involving purely national affairs.
It sounds to me like they have a solution that involves restricting the river technologically, but the Democrats don't like technological solutions, they prefer regulatory solutions and taxes.
Then why is it that the EPA is regulating carbon dioxide emissions for wood burning stoves and furnaces?
There's nothing about CO2 in there. Those regulations are about dirty and poisonous emissions. Carbon monoxide and particulate emissions; black smoke. Nothing to do with global warming. All about keeping the air breathable in densely populated areas.
An ideal wood burner would emit just water and CO2.
Wood burners can be made very efficient nowadays; by channelling the air flow in clever ways, you can get more complete combustion meaning more heat, cleaner emissions and less ash. These regulations just make sure that the wood burners you'll be able to buy do that.
[Carp] should be a more important priority for the US than hamstringing human civilization in the name of global warming
There are sound reasons why AGW is high on the Pentagon's threat list
, where as carp are not even listed, despite the political will of a number of anti-carp politicians. Sure there's politics behind the wording and positioning of threats on the pentagons list too, but that doesn't mean AGW not a serious threat to all modern civilization(s) in the form of mass migrations, water wars, global crop failures, collapse of fisheries due to coral beaching, etc, etc
A current example: If you get your news from the mass media (particularly the US branch), you can be forgiven for not noticing that the Syrian civil war was triggered by internal mass migrations. In 2009-2011, 2M people in a country of 20M abandon their farms and headed to the cites putting strain of infrastructure and employment. The cause was not some madman dictator's attempt at social engineering, nor had people suddenly work out said dictator was mad because face book had arrived. It was triggered by the worst drought ever recorded in the "fertile crescent" (historical records span several millennia in Syria since this is the same region humans invented agriculture). A US diplomat stationed in Syria at the time went so far in his warnings as to correctly predict the city where the war would start (source: Snowden cables). It's no coincidence that many of the nations who experienced "the Arab spring" had previously been experiencing high food prices and in some major cities, large food riots. The mass media story was "Facebook done it".
As to hamstrings - Did building the hoover dam "hamstring the US". If not, then why do you think this will "hamstring the US".
Every coal plant on the planet was built and sometimes re-built within my 54yr lifetime, and they will all need to be re-built in the next 50yrs. Replacing them with modern renewable plants (be they rooftop or centralised) in a similar timeframe is a no-brainer as far as the environment and public health are concerned. If not for the novelty of the "renewables" most people wouldn't really notice the transition (same as I didn't really notice them building all those power plant until the early 90's) . The people with billions invested in coal mines have seen the writing on the wall and are running the same good old fashioned anti-science propaganda techniques that the gas light companies used on Edison and Edison in turn used on Telsa. That very human behaviour is not going away any day soon.
The other side of that human behaviour is that every adult on the planet (including me) is granted to fall for propaganda, education helps, particularly in the philosophies of Science and Epistemology but as we've seen with AGW, a good education and above average intelligence do not add up to a bullshit proof suit
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.