Global Warming: you know we cannot *stop* it, right?
We will be out of carbon based fuels in less than 100 years. In a century, the heat levels will only raise a few degrees, then a few degrees the next. The Ice caps will, at predictable rates of melting, still be around in a few centuries.
Plus, merely the lack of a rising heat level does not mean the polar caps will stop melting. If say the average heat level in the world is 70 degrees and we prevent it from going to 71, that does not mean the caps will stop melting because the heat levels stopped increasing. Its still hot enough to melt them. All we'd be doing is slowing the process, by reducing the level the temperature is rising by less than a degree. The earth naturally heats and cools anyway, thats what the Ice Age was about.
Doesn't anyone else know this?
Answer:
To stop Global Warming we would need a reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide to less than 10% of what they are today.
This would require a world wide ban on the use of fossil fuel.
We would need the cooperation of every country on this planet.
There is no posibility that we will get the cooperation of every country on this planet and I strongly recommend against the use of military force to impose a worldwide ban on the use of fossil fuel.
We cannot even handle Iraq. We certainly do not want to be involved with the imposition of such a ban through the use of military force.
A ban on the use of fossil fuel worldwide would require that we shut down the industry, transportation systems and electrical generation systems of evey country in the world.
It is not realistic that we could ever achieve the kinds of reductions that we would need.
More recycling, hybrid cars and turning out the lights are little more than feel good public relations gimmicks so that people can feel good about themselves and be deluded into thinking that they are not causing the problem.
This permits them to believe that someone else is causing the problem.
This tactic is necessary for political support to have a group of people who think that they are not causing the problem and that it is someone else's fault.
By giving them some small simple tasks to do that do not require any real sacrifice they absolve themselves of guilt in their own minds and attack other people who they now believe are the evildoers who are causing the problem.
The fact is Global Warming and Climate Change is an inevitable result of human activity on this planet and there is nothing that we can do to prevent it, unless we are willing to force the entire population of the world to revert to a rather primitive existence.
Fortunately we can mitigate the effects of Global Warming and Climate Change.
The sea levels will rise. Areas that are subject to flooding can be protected by dike systems similar to those in Holland.
We must help poor countries with dike systems where that is appropriate.
For areas that cannot be protected by dikes, we must assist in the relocation of the populations to higher ground.
There will be stronger and more frequent hurricanes. We must help the poor countries upgrade their disaster preparedness.
There will be more droughts. We must help the affected countries with supplemental water supplies and desalination plants.
We cannot stop Global Warming but we can mitigate the effects of Global Warming if we start now.
Scientists know all about it. Here's their point.
If we don't do something about man's large contribution to global warming, the resulting coastal flooding and damage to agriculture will be huge. Rich countries will lose a lot of money, and, in poor ones, some people will starve.
If we do do something, we can greatly reduce the problem, and deal with the rest.
http://www.reuters.com/article/sciencene...
http://www.ipcc.ch/spm6avr07.pdf...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl...
http://www.ipcc.ch/spm040507.pdf...
We've got enough coal for a lot more than a century (or at least some countries do).
We've already started the process of heating the planet up (which is not natural, nothing that's happened in the past has been as quick as what we're going through) and given the thermal inertia of the oceans even if we stopped giving off CO2 right now we'd still have a bit more of an increase in temperature to deal with.
But we can do what we can to stop making things worse (and should) and we can also potentially change the climate to go the other way and cool the planet back down again (there are a lot of proposals for that, although I'd want to be pretty damn sure of what we're doing before trying any of them).
A concert of course isn't going to stop climate change, the best it could do is raise awareness of the issue and make a whole heap of people feel good about it.
A world wide change in temperature of one degree is a significant change.
Both the U.S. & especially China have reserves of coal estimated to last several hundred years - even noting that China is reported to be building several new coal-fired, electric generating plants every week.
Considering that the CO2 generated since 1950 (& which is already melting glaciers around the world) is small compared to what China and the rest of the world may well generate in the next several decades, ice cap melting & its potential for flooding coastal cities around the world is not something, perhaps, we want to "guess" about?
Also we can do something about it. There is already technical processes that can remove CO2 from the stack emmissions from coal-fired plants & storing it.
There is a cost to using this technology. There is also the potential of making it more economical if research is funded.
Right now there is no economic incentive for developing & such technology or legislation to fund research or requiring use use of existing processes.
Global warming is a hoax, UNPROVEN, based on Junk science, time will prove me right.
Those who say humans are going to *stop* Global Warming, are not a scientist, nor scientifically knowledgeable. That said, *slowing* Global Warming/Global Climate Change is extremely important, and the slower the better.
The Earth, and life here, is used to slow change. We can accommodate to slow changes. Humans have migrated to different areas over time, and will continue to. Animals as well, of course.
But plant life migrates VERY SLOWLY. In some areas, Global Warming is sending certain populations of animals to move before the plants that support their food web/food chain. This is beginning to stress certain animal populations.
Also, plant life can migrate, but it does so incrementally, bit by bit. Seeds fall in scatter patterns, or are planted in scatter by various carrier animals (birds, squirrels, etc.). From the scatter, they begin growing in higher elevations, and not begin growing on the lower elevations; begin growing farther away from the equator, and not begin growing closer to the equator.
Other issues of Global Climate Change, have to do with threshold problems. There are places where one degree warmer means the ice melts. But more importantly, there are areas that have "shifts" that are not just about the average global temperature. The West and South East of the US are experiencing terrible droughts, and fires along with them. Also terrible losses in crops. Those droughts are made seriously worse by global warming (even if some level of drought would have happened without global warming). Meanwhile, some parts of the US and the world are significantly wetter, and having flooding problems.
These things are already happening, and they are causing serious domino effects. And we can all agree that the warming is "small" yet. The scientists themselves don't even really know what will happen as the temperatures continue to go higher. But it is clear that there are some things in which small changes will wreak enormous changes. Changes in air or water currents could shift climates, leaving the average global temperature barely changed, such current shifts could turn prime farm land into frozen waste, or well irrigated into a drought ridden, dust bowl.
Historically, the 1930's Dust Bowl was specifically important in the economic breakdown of the US, and directly contributory to the Great Depression. And that only lasted 9-10 years. The situation we are moving into now wouldn't be that short lived...once it began, it would continue for an unknown amount of time.
All in all, slowing down the speed of this problem will mean that we can do what is necessary to adjust to the changes over a longer period of time. And yes, lots of people know all this. Unfortunately, advertisers will say whatever they think will sell. I didn't see or hear it myself, but if the "Live Earth" concert marketing included talking about *stopping* Global Warming, well, that is just marketing to the lowest common denominator. I guess I don't care if people think they can *stop* Global Warming, if that means they will do what is necessary to work to slow it down as much as possible.
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WE can't stop global awrming because it is a natural cycle, the earth heats, the earth cools. We cannot stop it if it is our fault because it is too far. However we do seem pretty bent on destroying ourselfes and this planet... we're just blaming ourselfes because humans need someone to blame, it's out of our control and -like kings- we can't accept that. most of us need someone to blame.
Only thinking people know these kinds of things.
I love the posts about mans large contribution when factually humans contribute a mere 1/3 of a percent of all greenhouse gases. Never let facts get in the way.
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