It has been a little while since we engaged in a healthy debate…..
I was sent a link to this video, and not expecting much more than partisan fact smearing and convenient statistical cherry picking I watched it. Yes, it’s long and there are those things, but it really got me thinking….
Do we really understand how our activities, particularly CO2 emissions, affect the climate?
Look, I am just as much for clean air, less toxins, untouched wilderness, and clean water, as the next guy who drinks organic free range happy cow milk, but based on our current level of technological advancement and limited resources, how can we balance our progress and make the right environmental choices? Seems like an easy questions, but when there are 6,789,343,428 of us, it gets a little thick.
Are we really at a crisis point? and is human activity, specifically CO2 emissions destroying the planet?
Here is the kicker:
Those arguing for a CO2 emissions tax or Cap and Trade often cite the Precautionary Principle:(The principle implies that there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the public from exposure to harm where scientific investigation discovers a plausible risk in the course of having screened for other suspected causes. The protections that mitigate suspected risks can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that more robustly support an alternative explanation.)
BUT, No one ever talks about the risks of not using CO2 emitting energy sources, especially on the peoples of developing nations.
CO2 energy sources are currently cheaper, and much more efficient than non-CO2 emitting sources. This may change, and you could argue to help promote that change, but should we hinder/slow the ascension of a majority of the world from a state of poverty and starvation based on our current understanding of CO2′s affect on the environment.
You and I are rich. Can we afford to give up a chunk of our future wealth? Of course we can. But should we? Do we have to? Do we have to do it quickly? Do we have the right to force others to? Will we, should we?
Remember, fear and images of disaster (correct or not) bring with them media coverage and oodles of research dollars.
What I find truly frightening is: not the fact that global warming will kill a chunk of the Earth if we don’t act soon, or the possibility that it is all a bunch of Bologna, it is the fact that faced with a serious scientific issue, because of political involvement, the results and ideas have been so muddied and slandered who knows what the best solution is?
Watch the videos and chime in with your thoughts….
The Great Global Warming Swindle (great vid)
An Inconvenient Truth
(Al makes you pay for his video, couldn’t find it free online)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnjx6KETmi4]
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
"should we hinder/slow the ascension of a majority of the world from a state of poverty and starvation based on our current understanding of CO2's affect on the environment" I say no we should most certainly not. I also do not think that we should have to give up a future chunk of our wealth based on debatable science. Current cap and trade legislation would have us do both. Further, it would not make a significant positive impact on the economy. Write your Senators and voice opposition to cap and trade at http://tiny.cc/pxIgi.
Look – I have not watched the videos – they are just too long, however, I have seen many of these on both "sides" of the argument. Unfortunately this is not a balanced debate. On the one hand we have the VAST majority of the scientific community telling us that if we don't act immediately we will suffer very severe consequences. On the other side of the debate is a very small minority – and I am not going to go into the question of the credibility of each "side", but I do have a personal opinion on the matter.
Yes, we could hold off and do nothing and pray, but unfortunately, hope is not a strategy. Combating global warming has multiple benefits. Yes, fossil fuels are cheap right now but that's only because we don't take into consideration all the indirect costs associated with them, e.g. transferring large amounts of money to insane regimes in the middle east and kleptocracies in the Africa and Latin America. I am not even going to go into what this costs us in terms of military adventures. In addition, fossil fuels are also very polluting in other ways, in addition to contributing to global warming. They cause health problems (e.g. smog) and reduce our quality of life.
Finally, fossil fuels are non-renewable. i.e. they are going to run out sooner or later. Why not search for a substitute now?
Bottom line, global warming is real. Some people will not admit to this until the Greenland melts and Bangladesh is under water. I prefer to take a more pragmatic approach. Yes, combating global warming has a financial price. Let's find a way to mitigate this. My opinion is that a carbon tax – one that makes consumers pay for the true cost of their fossil fuel use – is the best way to fight this war.
Normally I would have agreed with you, but after watching the video I am really beginning to question the VAST scientific agreement. There have been a VAST number of scientists working on global warming now that all the cash is flowing to it, but what many of the findings leave out is how many DISAGREE or find the results to be inconclusive. (Both pro and con videos are long, but if we are about to change our lifestyles and our country, they may be worth watching)
I agree that current energy sources are not the answer forever, they are just the answer for the foreseeable future until we come up with something else.
Bottom line Global warming may be real, But I do not believe that it is caused by human CO2 production. In the seventies when we had a Global Cooling Scare all of science agreed we were headed for the next ice age, looks like that didn't come true. I just don't believe there is a scientific consensus.
Because the issue has been politicized so much it is Taboo and heretic like to think this way.
While I have not watched this specific videos I have been following the "debate" very closely. You may not believe that there is a scientific consensus but that doesn't change the fact that one exists. While scientists may not agree on the exact scope and scale of the change – i.e. the details – there is virtually unanimous agreement that global warming is due to human activity. That is not to deny that scientists make mistakes, but on balance, I will take the word of the scientific community over that of pretty much any other community out there.
The money in this case is coming from the side of the folks who have a vested interest in denying global warming, e.g. the coal industry who only a couple of years ago released a commercial campaign saying that CO2 is life…. you want to laugh? check out there videos from the "competitive enterprise institute": http://cei.org/pages/co2.cfm