[Randito]

091207usatoday global warming.91

[drm]

[Joecreek]

The cartoon should say: What if we transfer a trillion US dollars to other nations, slash domestic growth and employment while China and India's emissions increases add 100 times more CO2 than we reduced over the same time frame? And what if we did that on a supposition about future temperatures that was false? Eh, what's a trillion between friends. At least we'll feel virtuous.

[gb]

[Randito]

[drm]

[Joecreek]

The US has CUT net emissions over the last decade. The cost of it is the increased cost of electricity, not just the subsidy to inefficient means of collection like solar and wind. Not to mention the lost opportunity cost to the economy of not having saved those dollars. Greens typically are ANTI natural gas because it's a carbon method. But natural gas is the epicenter of the real reduction in emissions. Anyhow, our embedded costs to our consumers and businesses is accelerating. We can't force consumers to buy American and we are making everything manufactured here more expensive. While others who already receive the offshoring of our work, do not harm themselves with similar restraint. From the EPA's page on emissions, here's the CO2 global trend: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data#Trends Rate of increase is steady, ours is a decrease. It's eaten and replaced by net growth. Europe has net increasing emissions despite massive expenditures: http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/03/europes-co2-emissions-keep-rising-despite-1-2-trillion-in-green-subsidies/ The trend is clear. We can spend whatever we want and the globe's emissions will increase. We make our economy weaker as we make anything produced in the US ever more expensive. We can throw 2 even 3 trillion dollars at this problem and the outcome is fixed as a global system. It may make you feel better to punish yourself for having lived in the country that led the way to modernity but your sense of guilt is the only thing being cured with this current course of action. All that and we are anything but certain what will happen to temperatures or that the increase won't be manageable in it's modesty.

[thunderhead]

[gb]

Ignorance is bliss. We likely are way underestimating the ultimate effects of climate change in terms of threats to population, strife and wars, terrorism, and many other effects.

[drm]

The planet would support a lot of life at 1000ppm but that is way beyond anything that human beings have lived in. Keep in mind that rapid changes favor those species that evolve the fastest, which are those with the shortest generation times. Bacteria and insects. There is some evidence that the last time the earth hit 1000ppm it change the chemistry of the oceans, driving much of the oxygen out and replacing with hydrogen sulfide. Living at or near the beach wouldn't be so much fun if it smelled like rotten eggs. And of course we would then lose ocean fish as a source of protein. While it would presumably take centuries to get to that level (stored carbon and methane could easily do it if we trigger that release) there is much to fear from it.

[thunderhead]

With 100s of years of artificial intelligence research, genetically engineered viruses, and hopelessly idiotic politicians in charge of nuclear weapons... even sustained global warming is a pretty minor concern compared with other elements of our industrial society. Add to that a pretty reasonable threat of at least one mass starvation due to a VEI 6+/7- volcanic winter event in that timeframe... and the normal change/collapse/war of human civilizations inherent in our history, and you get a picture in which even sustained global warming is not very high on the list of threats. And 100s of years of sustained global warming is unlikely, because we are likely to get cost effective solar/batteries and or fusion far before then, which will probably limit global warming to something utterly trivial.

[Schenk]

Wars vs. climate change, which is more of a threat? Comparing wars vs. climate change is like comparing a broken bone to incurable cancer and saying the cancer is no big deal because it will take longer to kill you.

[drm]

Taken from a different thread:

[Malachai Constant]

[thunderhead]