[Vision2020] Scientific Consensus: Global Warming: Skepticism & Replicatability

[Joe Campbell]

Paul,

A few things. 

First, the folks who see the problem -- primarily scientists -- are not the folks 
who make the laws.

Second, I don't think folks are suggesting that we'll see the kinds of effects
you suggest in our lifetime. The climatologists I've talked to say it likely won't
happen until our grandchildren, or their children, reach our age. It is 
hard to predict but what seems certain is that once the real problems start
it will proceed at an exponential rate and we won't be able to do anything. 

This reminds me of the Crabtree debate about when we'll run out of water.
Suppose it is 200 years, as Krauss suggests. How is that NOT a problem NOW?
Do we have to wait until we are close to running out to do something about it?
Likewise, you would be hard pressed to find a climatologist who does not
believe that global warming is due, in part, to human behavior -- despite what
Pat says. Why not do whatever we can NOW before it becomes a problem?

Joe

----------------------------- 
 
Message: 4 
Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:20:58 -0700 
From: Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> 
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Scientific Consensus: Global Warming: 
	Skepticism &Replicatability 
To: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> 
Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com, J Ford <privatejf32 at hotmail.com> 
Message-ID: <471B8A7A.1060201 at yahoo.com> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed 
 
This is what I don't get.  If the problem is as bad as they are saying, 
which from what I can gather means that I will die of heat prostration 
or drowning sometime before my natural lifespan would normally arrive, 
then why are we talking about carbon pricing, low-carbon technologies, 
and curbing deforestation?  If it's that bad, outlaw coal power plants 
tomorrow.  Hell, give those companies that own them free money to 
replace them with the power plant of their choice that uses 
hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, or whatever other kind 
of greener power plants there are available.  Mandate a total ban on the 
internal combustion engine starting ten years from now.  Make it illegal 
to buy a new one, and illegal to import one.  Sign the damned Kyoto 
protocol and tell the non-complying countries that we'll be nuking their 
worst polluting plants in 20 years, if they don't dismantle them first.  
One a day, with the schedule posted on the Internet.  As an added bonus, 
the particulates sent into the upper atmosphere will help cool our 
planet down. 
 
Or could it be that it's not that bad - but there is a lot of money in 
crowing about it?  We've been over this ground before, but our biosphere 
is a complicated set of interacting variables that I don't think we can 
model that precisely.  However, I would be happy to have our government 
take every penny that we plan on throwing at Iraq next year and throw it 
at electric car research instead.  If nothing else, it will make the 
impact of the Middle East on our country decrease instead of the steady 
increase we've seen.  Saving our lives later would just be a bonus. 
 
Paul