So as expected we decided not to sign on to any treaty but I was surprised that we were out there "tooting" our own horn.

Quote :

"http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/28/climate.change.ap/index.html"

Appartently greenhouse gas emissions have gone down by .8%, please note that this is "point 8" not 8%.

What I don't understand is if the president takes "global warming seriously" as his rep said at this conference then why don't we do something about our emissions?

If we account for 25% of the worlds emissions, it seems to me that we need to do more than .8% in reductions.

Besides around half of our emissions come from people just driving around and that doesn't really include the trucking industry. The president says it will harm the economy to try and reduce our emissions. How on earth would it hurt our economy to give more credits to carpooling and such?

11/29/2005 9:00:08 AM

Quote :

"What I don't understand is if the president takes "global warming seriously" as his rep said at this conference then why don't we do something about our emissions?"

many people take global warming seriously and then they all fight about the cause.

11/29/2005 9:07:42 AM

Quote :

"many people take global warming seriously and then they all fight about the cause."

Yes but I think the administration is coming around to the idea that human means are part of the cause of global warming.

We did not get in on Kyoto because we said it would hurt the economy unfairly. Our reason was never because "this is bullshit science."

11/29/2005 9:17:54 AM

Yes, he takes Global Warming seriously. Doing something about it? I hope to God not!

They were right in 1998 to say it would unfairly hurt the economy, they would be right to say it again.

Even the most draconian attempts to reduce emissions would not result in a measurable reduction in global warming. So why suffer all the costs when the benefits are slim to none?

It may be worth it if the costs of doing nothing were severe, but scientists are endlessly divided over what a warmer planet would mean. Some say hurricanes will be stronger, others say it would prevent the creation of hurricanes. Some say it will cause the ocean to rise, others say increased snow depth in Antarctica will prevent a dramatic rise. Some say a warmer planet will increase the growing season, making it easier for poor people to feed themselves, some say droughts could increase. Some say the deserts will shrink with increased rainfall, some say they will grow! What are we to believe here!?!?

11/29/2005 10:00:35 AM

^ while it's true that scientists debate the severity of global warming effects, I've yet to see evidence that deserts would decrease in size, snow depth in Antarctica would slow ocean rise, or that the growing season will lengthen.

Just because there's two sides to a story doesn't mean they're both equally likely...

11/29/2005 6:49:43 PM

i just released some emissions of my own

11/29/2005 8:19:48 PM

Quote :

"How on earth would it hurt our economy to give more credits to carpooling and such?"

That would do something on the order of 3-5% if implemented and used properly (and I'm being optimistic). They generally don't do this because it won't help business. More people in cars is a good thing for certain sectors of the economy. They would rather have people drive more efficient cars (if public opinion is that they want lower emissions no matter what, they'd rather have us drive more fuel efficient cars than reduce our consumption through carpooling. At least this way only the petroleum industry loses out as people use less gas).

They don't want to put harsh standards on everybody either, though. Putting harsh efficiency and economy standards on vehicles raises the cost to produce those vehicles, thus it becomes more expensive for businesses to purchase these vehicles. That hurts businesses because they spend more on vehicles than they did before (and I bet some of the first things that would lead to is reduced wages).

Bush's plan for reducing our emissions (I think) is to achieve zero emissions growth and to phase out older, less efficient, higher emissions technologies over time and to develop new technologies (with proper investment. Clean coal is a competition of sorts which you could consider an example of what he wants to do to reduce emissions) to reduce emissions even further. Basically you offer people money if they'll reduce the amount of emissions they make, instead of reducing their options of what they can buy to lower-emissions options (that may be more expensive, less powerful, whatever).

.8% is pretty significant. If you look here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/cdemissions_tbls.html

You can see over the past many years that it's steadily increased (excluding 2001). Assuming that this year isn't just a fluke, this could mean that we're going to be able to reduce our emissions, albeit slowly (progress is progress, and this is just the beginning), without having to resort to put heavy taxes on energy to reduce people's consumption of emissions-producing energy sources (which would lead to higher efficiency, of course, but it's a rather nasty way to do it). At the very least, we might've found a way to stop the growth of our emissions without harming the economy.

Aha, but this is all OPTIMISTIC crap. Let's just hope that this is a real show that our policy works, and not that the hurricanes just led to reduced emissions due to reduced energy consumption (due to high energy costs).

11/29/2005 10:44:59 PM

Quote :

"I've yet to see evidence that deserts would decrease in size, snow depth in Antarctica would slow ocean rise, or that the growing season will lengthen."

Well, not quite that global warming will cause such effects but that such effects are already taking place and are being correlated with global warming.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5730/1898
http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=2149

11/30/2005 12:19:09 AM

Quote :

"We did not get in on Kyoto because we said it would hurt the economy unfairly."

well, that and Kyoto was unrealistic. It was fucking pie in the sky "hey, lets all go back to being nomads. that would be great!" I don't know about you, but I aint signing on to that bull shit

11/30/2005 12:24:59 AM

Besides, the countries which are more primative than ours do much more damage to the environment in real measureable ways. Worry about emissions if you like but overall we do much less damage then we would if we lived like, well Haitans for example. In Haiti most people don't drive cars, there is almost no industry. Yet its messed up. The trees are basically gone, sanitation is scarce, the sewers are open, there are kids welding without eye protection on the streets,... of course Haiti is not in this condition due to enviromental pressures, but it serves to make a point. Those soceities which have little technological advancement tend to do much more damage (see south america or africa, it's not our emissions which are encouraging people to burn down forests and so on ) When people are very poor they will not respect enviromental regulations, it's survival. In the end the overall environment will be much better if we encourage all nations to become prosperous. The best defense against real damage to the global enviroment is a healthy global enconomy. If that means CO2 emissions then so be it.

The other solution is to get rid of all the people. No people no problems. Personally, I find this course
of logic abhorrent. I do wonder how many rabid environmentalists realize that the ultimate consequence of severely limiting industry and technology is to kill people. And of those environmentalists, how many of them welcome the depopulation of the earth.

If anything we should build more Nuclear plants, that would be a simple way to burn less fossil fuels without damaging the economy.

[Edited on November 30, 2005 at 1:01 AM. Reason : there]

11/30/2005 1:00:01 AM