This is a multi-generational, multi-party, and multi-country failure. Of course, some have contributed more than others and there's no excuse granted to those who have knowledge of the problem yet do nothing or little of consequence. That includes just about every politician over the last 20 years.
Yea I have relatives who live in Mauritius. Lets just say they're having a hell of a time with these rising ocean levels.
"There's a lot of differing data [about global warming], but as far as I can gather, over the last hundred years the temperature on this planet has gone up 1.8 degrees. Am I the only one who finds that amazingly stable? I could go back to my hotel room tonight and futz with the thermostat for three to four hours. I could not detect that difference." -Dennis Miller
This is just stupid. A few degree rise, imperceptible to Miller can flood cities with a high percentage of our population.
Yeah! I remember the great flood of 08', when all the residents of New York surfed to Philly! woo hoo!!!
so here's an idea. how about we just use a big fat heated steel plate and vaporize all them glaciers causing all these worries?... ...alright i'll shut up now.
Even if we acted now, the damage is mostly done from years past. Those giant ozone holes we have now is the byproduct of CFCs released 25-50 years ago....
My wife is second generation Dutch, whose mother immigrated here in the '30s. Don't think the people of the Netherlands aren't following this closely, as should we all. I agree that several administrations of both parties in the States haven't done nearly enough, but the environmental record of the Bush Admistration is particularly odious, in my opinion. The United States should be taking the lead in doing what it can in our country, and giving both scientific and monetary aid to other countries that have had a rapid increase in pollution and other areas that could be having an impact, instead of calling for endless studies designed, in my opinion, to put off a truly serious effort here at home and abroad. Working jointly with the rest of the world in a leadership role should be an obvious thing to do. Keep D&D Civil.
GREAT IDEA (I'm sure you're kidding but anywho), it takes energy to melt ice so instead of absorbing heat from the enviroment (phase change is an endothermic process) we'll just use fossil fuels to melt the ice and have the water return to the ground as rain. now, if you want to build a nuclear reactor that is an order of magnitude more powerful that anything yet build and connect it to a giant, super effecient freezer you may and I stress, may take some heat from the enviroment. The reactor itself would have to be extraordinarily efficient and by the time you dispose of the radioactive waste and truck in supplies and workers you are probably looking at very little in the way of net heat absorbed... especially on a global scale. A better idea might be to just use a huge reactor to pump water the air into a natural, steady wind source and use the high latent heat absorbtion of water... Either way, it would take a VAST allocation of resources to even approach negation of the energy released by cars, power stations, curing concrete, etc... The only real option imo, is finding effecient energy sources and hoping people can cope with the way Earth reacts. Earth isn't going to fall apart, and we won't exterminate all life on the planet. On a geological timeline the only thing we threaten is humanity.
Ah, then lets not bother. Screw it. I'm gonna go turn on my car right now in the driveway, quit my job and have sex with anything that moves. Here's what gets me with the naysayers: WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG? As a risk/reward analysis goes, the risk doens't get much higher than the termination of humanity. So if you say global warming isn't real! What if you are wrong? So if you think its too late to act to counter-act global warming! What if you are wrong? How can we blame global warming on GWB? Because in 5 years in office, he has actively discredited the mere existance of global warming ...much less enacted ANYTHING to even help. So I say to GWB about global warming ...what if you are wrong?
They get their cheap crap, die (then go to their christian heaven fo eternal bliss), while leaving the mess for other generations to worry about.
It is an opinion among a significant percentage of evolutionary biologists that a global temperature change of about 2-3 degrees changed northern Africa from a lush temperate savannah into deserts, triggering migration to Asia and Europe. The 1.8 degrees (if that's actually the number) is a global year round average. It becomes normalized by seasonal fluctuations or effects in one area being countered by another. It seems like a tiny number on the surface, but if you dig deeper, it is more ominous than it sounds.
It was a joke people. I think I read that the world now is not the hottest it has been in human history though. The middle ages were hotter than now, IIRC. Also, climate change happens all throughout the history of the planet, and the changes have been far more significant that what we have seen from human activity. I am all for trying to reduce our impact on the environment, when given the choice between good and evil, we should always choose good, but let's not act like driving to work is going to bring about the end of the human race, we can adapt. On this very board I have advocated for a switch to solar power (which I believe is the future). What else do we do the same now that we did 100 years ago? So why are we still using the same means of power production?
The Kyoto Protocol isn't good enough. I don't see any real momentum for Kyoto's sucessor when Kyoto expires. It might not be too late to change global warming trends. Human nature and politics give the pattern that we'll only react when things reach to the point where everyone feels its effects. By then, we'll look to those snooty scientists or crooked politicians for the quick fix. Even so, the enormous costs and impacts needed to implement change will still be there. So yeah, quitting your job and living well off from savings for the next 20 years might not be such a bad idea if you can do it. Humanity won't end though...just the lifestyle as you know it. ...and if you want to see a real joke in action, check out previous agreements out of former UN environmental summits.
