Goddamit. That's what I get for doing a quick search instead of taking the time to find the quote I wanted in the friggin IPCC report. Argh - you know what I meant, but I submit to being owned.
I didn't mean to be an @ss. By coincidence I just happen to have been reading a whole bunch of papers on the subject to the point that it comes bursting out when I should instead show a bit of tact. Sorry.
Well, the funny part is that the reason I did a quick google search instead of looking through the IPCC report (sitting on my desk, mind you) is because I am working on a paper for an environmental public policy class and a take home exam for a class in ecotoxicology. Irony so thick I could cut it with a knife.
I stand corrected - there are a few - one you brought up from 1995, and a few others all over 5 years ago. Still pretty weak, and none which are widely quoted in the media or by enviromental groups. I wonder why? Even your own quote there said "unpleasent" effects on future generations. What does that mean? How about increased unemployement and suffering? Could it trigger a global recession? The point isn't that in a 100 years there might be a benefit - a 17% reduction isn't going to stop it, it may not even dent things enough - but you're asking for people today to suffer for some hope for the future. It's not a wonder enviromentalist avoid bringing this up.
Satire obviously is beyond your comprehension. Oh yeah, I can't pretend to be Indian American when in fact I AM Indian American. But I guess that's again, beyond your comprehension. Good luck with that.
If cattle is a major source of green house gasses - doesnt it make sense to cut down on the need for cattel rather then cripple the economy? I mean, why don't environmentalist pursue that goal - which will result is less detriment to people (in fact, less red meat and milk consumption would probably lead to a healthier world and be a benefit). All I ask is that environmentalist consider the impact this will have on the poor and lower classes around the world. They will always take the brunt of policies that will reduce economic growth (and probably in fact reverse it).
They are one and the same. Cattle are a major factor of the American economy, and methane from non-wild animals fall under anthropogenic sources. Removing cows would significantly damage the economy, and preventing cows from farting would qualify as a reduction in anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses. Alternately, we could continue to grow cattle, and just attach collection sacks to their orrifices. This wouldn't reduce anthropogenic emissions, but would provide us with an energy source to free ourselves from energy dependence. On a more serious note, much of the concern about greenhouse gases comes more from the steady 4.5% increase yearly. Even if you manage to offset this years emissions completely, doing the same next year will put you in the net negative column. With anual 4.5% increases you double output in roughly 15 years.
How much of our growth economy depends on cattle? I mean, if people ate chicken instead of beef, and we subbed soy in for milk for the most part - wouldn't that be an even economic impact trade? One industry for another - except less methane? Other means - capping CO2 - would hit industry hard. With the envormentalist against nuclear power, what would they want? You could enforce less use of electricity. And increase fuel prices with a massive tax. But penalizing industry versus rewarding them - that's going to cost jobs. I'd oppose anything that would result in job losses for a cause that may be futile. Unless the environmentalists are alll willing to give up their jobs and cut out their released of C02, they can't dictate to someone that they should lose thier job for the greater good.
does anyone else think that when we are starting to talk about cattle (i.e. an animal) as a problem for green house gasses its being taken a bit far? would the mass killing of buffalo then be considered 'saving the planet'?
In 2001 the US had 236.4 billion dollars in exports which accounts for about 10% of all US exports in that year by dollar. Removing that would, by my understanding, be a significant impact. The real problem, again, is that industrial growth makes carbon emissions double in 15 years. As an off the cuff calculation, lets say eliminating all cattle would equal a 10% reduction in effective greenhouse gas emissions. In slightly more than 2 years, that sacrifice (which would be significant in my estimation) would be negated by industrial growth and then some. Your comment makes a fundimental error in that it assumes all environmental measures would be regressive forces in industry. This is not the case. For instance, replacing all new coal-fired power plants with nuclear plants would have a major impact and leave no net deficit in economic growth. I think beef is a major "quality of life" issue for most americans and its removal would cost that quality of life more than it would benefit. We are talking about relative value. I don't think eliminating all cattle would qualify as saving the planet. You do understand that wild hereford don't roam the plains of North America? Because of this all cows are there because man put them there. Their emissions, therefore, by definition are man-made. Calling something man-made doesn't by definition make it bad. It is just a descriptive term. Talk using phrases like "save the planet" is fundimentally wrong. There is no moment of saving where everything is fine and you can go back about your daily life. Think of it more as balancing the budget. When you have spare cash, proper spending can be a good thing with positive results. But every expenditure shrinks your bank acount a bit and if you spend more than you earn, you will have to pay it back later with interest. Edit: Cattle account for 20% of us emssions in 2001, so it would be negated by roughly 4 years of growth. There is 1 cow for every 5 people on the planet, far more than the number of wild buffalo that ever existed.
but still, i think we are going too far when animals are the problem. do you know what i mean? who knows how many buffalo/wildabeast/elephants/etc would be on the earth if humans hadnt greatly diminished their populations.
Alright - so in 20 years, carbon emissions will double because of industry. WHat specific aspect is causing this 4% growth? Cars? Power? I'm all for nuclear power....but good luck getting environmentalist to support that. Also, merely capping current emission levels doesn't do the job. If emissions are causing global warming, we're still going to be warming right? We need to reduce emissions somehow. So you need both. No more cows, and no more increases. How on earth that's going to happen without major negative impact - I don't know. I don't know what the source of emissions by industry is. I don't know how it will impact our economy. Frankly, I don't think anyone really knows. It's all very hard to predict. What I do know is that there are a lot of people who call themselves environmentalist who don't care - and just think we have to reduce emissions at all costs no matter what impact it will have and not knowing what good it will do. And that's what I struggle with.
My unterstanding is that the biggest emitters are power plants and most of the growth is actually in power plants Eastern Europe, India, and China at around 20-35% anually. Pulling a number out of the air, I seem to remember that US growth rates are closer to 2%. No disagreement. That doesn't mean that it isn't the best course of action. I was talking with someone who works for Westinghouse who said they had 3 or 4 new plants being developed in China, and the French have done nuclear for years, but nobody in the US will touch it. There is no other solution with current technology anywhere near as effective as reducing human emissions so much with so little economic impact. It couldn't be more difficult to get the environmentalsist to support nuclear than the oil companies to support environmentalism, could it? Perfectly reasonable and I agree that there are plenty of whackos and bad ideas out there. I appreciate why you would say this. When it comes down to it I wouldn't necessarily describe them as 'a problem' either. They do constitute a input condition which is not (for the most part) subject to feedback regulation like wild populations of animals who are subject to die offs. This makes it important to treat them differently (as external variables). At least, that is my understanding of why they are treated differently.
It's very easy for Europe and Japan to abide with Kyoto because they are so high in nuclear. Were we get 5% of our power from Nuclear, Europe is probably ten times that at least. Indeed, Carbon Dioxide emissions in Europe subsided significantly in the last quarter of the 20th century. I totally support alternative energy development - wind power, solar, etc. Regardless of global warming, renewable energy will eventually become more cost efficient. And I've done some more thinking, and realized the one thing that bothers me about Kyoto and all this CO2 causes global warming stuff is this: CO2 levels have increased 10% in the last one hundred years. Granted, small increases can have a large effect since water vapor is a greenhouse gas and therefore any warming has a potential for large scale positive feedback. However, methane in the atmosphere has more then doubled. And Methane has 10 times the warming impact that CO2 has. What if it's not the increase in CO2 that's driving warming, but it's been the increase in Methane? Then Kyoto will not have any impact at all....the planet will continue to warm, the oceans to rise, and we'll be left a failed policy. Everyone is so focused on C02 emissions - but how does anyone know which greenhouse gas is the actual culprit? I say - go after methane. At least with the same fervor as Co2. Of course, since rice field feed 1/3 of the world, and there are over 2 billion livestock burping up a hundreds of billions of pounds of Co2, you'd think we need to go after that industry....that's why I brought it up here. Can't say let's focus on co2 and not methane.
Cow burps and farts are methane, so we kind of have been talking about it. CH4 is about 20x as effective a greenhouse gas as CO2, but even adjusting for that its impact is a fraction of that of CO2 because the actual emission numbers are so small.
First, kudos, Trader_J, for a post that at least has a modicum of substance. I'm almost shocked speechless. The idea, however, that one movie by a former Vice-President, based on a slide show he's been going around and doing for years, could possibly balance, or overbalance, as you seem to think, decades of propaganda from industry and government about how safe the petroleum industry is, from drilling to the pump, and how unneeded firm controls on that industry and the results of using it's products are, is simply absurd. You would need a hundred "inconvenient truths" with comparable impacts to even approach addressing the imbalance. D&D. Smelly Times.
I read that Methane also bring up with it water vapor when it goes up into the atmosphere, and this moisture can lead to additional warming. Furthermore, that 40% of warming is said to be the result of non-Co2. Anyway, we all know that there is some sort of warming trend going on. Whether it's natural or not we don't know. We do know it correlates with an increase in CO2, Methane, and other gases. No model can tell us for sure what the impacts of a warmer planet would be. But to be sure, the ecosystem is being affected by numerous trends. The disappearance of sharks for shark fin soup is astounding. One country is wiping out the king of the ocean, and who knows what impact that might have. Throw in deforestation, increasing toxcity, and decrease in groundwater (what are people doing trying to grow lawns in the southwest where water is scare?) - and something isn't right. Problem is that if we act incorrectly, it may do more damage to the environmental movement - leading to economic loss but no seen benefit - and that is a dangerous outcome. Environmentalists need to take a hard look at reality - and understand that they can not spew moral idealism if they are set on changing the course. I see validity in the movement - the evidence is becoming more convincing - but the proposed changes are not realistic. The movement today demonstrates a lack of human understanding and ironically - compassion. There's an arrogance of "we are better people than you" and that's not going to change the world. I think if environmentalist saw this and respected people's desire for a high quality life, and the general desire for a robust economy - there is hope for them to have success. I would totally support such an attitude that balanced environmental concerns against short-term human suffering. I'd even be willing to put my time into it.
Perhaps because any fiscal study propogated out 100 years is going to be wildly inaccurate and based on any number of assumptions. Focusing on that would just give the other side a (rightful) thing to criticize. So instead of making wild claims like that, they focus on the facts and what is known: that it's a growing problem, and we can't really know just how bad it will be until we get there. As far as the whole recession and cost to the economy thing, that's just stupid. Environmentalism is an industry in itself. If there's a commitment, for example, to designing better car engines, that requires spending on research and development. That employs people in the short term and generates new technologies in the long-term. There will be net losers and net winners, but to act like it could cripple an economy is misleading. Just as complex regulations in the tax code have helped grow the tax accounting law industries, environmental regulation develops other industries.
Population and consumption. If everyone in China lived like an American, we would need two more earths to sustain the world. The emergence of developing nations will add upon the environmental strain, so rightfully or not, the burden is upon the West to create a new standard. China has taken some steps towards sustainable tech, but their priorities is to maintain the status quo so they're using a blend of green and old technologies while emphasizing economy. The problem with nuclear is not only safety, but also its handling from cradle to grave. Energy concerns might trump environmental, but the costs of extracting raw ore and containing spent fuel have to be added in. Most environmentalists think nuclear is only a temporary, yet costly alternative. Only some support it when it's put against CO2 emissions. Which is why Kyoto was a joke from conception. There won't be a hard hitting treaty until the economic externalities of GW induced climate change becomes widely felt. Cows are energy intensive creatures and a lot of ranchers practice highly destructive models that strip the land of vegetation coverage (which eventually ruins the soil) and poison the water supply with too much waste. It's funny you mention economy since it's the beef industry's influence allows them to continue these practices. The biggest users and wasters of water is the agricultural industry. They don't have to waste, but since water is subsidized in cost, they have no reason to conserve. There's definitely a happy medium that can be worked. The technology is already available, but it's going to take some urgency to get it hammered out to scale. Like I mentioned, everyone considers themselves an environmentalist, though I share your concern that too many are focusing upon one small aspect of a larger web.
