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November 23, 2007
Despite mounting evidence from the scientific community that man-made carbon emissions are changing the world's atmosphere, it is likely that we will do the minimum to deal with the problem until we are forced to. Indeed, many of us won't do anything at all.
Yes, we are driving more fuel efficient vehicles and new technologies - from clean diesel, to gas hybrids to hydrogen fuel cells are beginning to thunder over the horzon - but it is really too little that is possible too late.
But that has always been our history in dealing with major crises - whether geographical or geopolitical let alone domestic civil and political strife. And when I say we, I mean the entire human community.
Global warming is too abstract a notion for the average person to get their head around. And the changes required to deal with it in a prophylactic fashion call for more sacrifice from individiuals, communites, nations and economic interests than can be marshalled without overwhelming evidence of imminent danger.
When I last wrote about global warming following the joint granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a number of people complained that global warming was by no means a proven threat. I had referred to them as troglodytes, which was very rude, but have to confess that debating the reality of global warming at this point is the equivalent of Nero's infamous fiddling while Rome burned.
As a recent panel of scientists from around the world recently concluded in a policy paper for government leaders to consider at a meeting next month in Indonesia, "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal."
That sets the tone of the meeting in Indonesia that will set the agenda for a round of talks on a new international treaty on controlling carbon emissions when the current measures in the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012.
Call me a doomsayer, but I do not think humankind will get serious about this problem until some fearful event occurs that is indisputably linked to global warming. Katrina, forest fires in California, flooding in Europe and S.E. Asia, drought in Australia? All are isolated and can possibly be explained by normal variations in the global climate.
An old saw has it that we humans are inferior to cats, superior to dogs and on the same level as donkeys. Why? Because only a donkey would fall in the same ditch time and time again.
Maybe that's condescending to donkeys, but the history of our kind when it comes to dealing with major crises is not encouraging. We seem to let them foster and fester until they erupt in a splurge of bloodletting and dislocation.
A history of the 20th century, with its wars and revolutions would seem to provide all the lessons we need in the tragic consequences of ignoring problems until too late. I wish I could be more optimistic, but I do not think the continuing skeptism toward this problem combined with the unwillingness of economic and political interests to make sacrifices or take responsibility or risks bode well for us all.
- Peter C.T. Elsworth
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth 
at 11:39 AM to commentary
, commentary
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You write "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal."
Are you so incapable of critical thinking that you repeat the above mantra as though it means "global warming"?
What that really says is that the *weather* is getting warmer. Understand that there is a difference between weather and climate.
Try addressing these "inconvenient" scientific facts:
Carbon Dioxide levels rise AFTER the temperature rises, not before, as Al Gore's lying propagandist movie claims. Methane is (I forget) like, 100 times more global warming than CO2. And so is water vapor.
Livestock is responsible for as much CO2 emissions as automobiles. And so is farming.
When the computer models used by the "warming" scientists is run it doesn't bring us to where we are. Thereby proving that their models are inaccurate.
There is NO connection between the CA fires and global warming. That you would pick up this misleading factually inaccurate inference that I first heard made by Nancy Pelosi speaks to your indoctrination into vast College of the Gullible. Santa Anna winds and huge fires in CA occur regularly and have since before the industrial revolution. In any case, one forest fire or volcano will probably put as much CO2 in the air as you could save in emissions for a generation no matter how draconian the restrictions. At least I suspect that, I don't have the real numbers but, shouldn't some one have those numbers? And shouldn't it be discussed when "warmists" blame CO2 emission problems as being soley the fault of human activity?
The earth has been both warmer and colder than it is now and before the industrial revolution.
The Arctic used to be a tropical climate as evidenced by the fossils found there.
If you shut off everything in the US...and I mean everything, lived in total darkness with no power of any kind, in 3 years the emerging economy of China would make up the entire difference in CO2. And, that doesn't even take into account India.
If human activity is really the cause of global warming....then is not the answer to have fewer human beings??? Not to put too fine a point on it but human beings exhale CO2 whether they drive a Hummer or not. So, the forced sterilization of parents who have had one child will eliminate CO2 emissions exponentially..less breathing...fewer people using power, etc. Should we do that?
Follow the money. If there were NOT the threat of "global warming" then there would be no research funds for those scientists who wish to research the issue.
More money. The UN is all about the redistribution of wealth. I would feel a lot more confident in their altruism if these third world nations were not trying to institute a global "carbon tax".
Are you aware that the "warmists" calculations for the hottest years has been found to be in error?
Are you aware that a judge in England has mandated that before students are shown Gore's movie that educators must disclose certain "lies" and "misleading statements" made in the movie?
Are you aware of the esteemed climate scientist at MIT who has called the global warming movement a fraud (words to that effect)?
So now we have activist judges, deciding that emissions standards for trucks were set at too low a level. Now explain to me how he arrived at a "scientific" finding like that? Either it is possible to set standards at some level..which is the purview of an agency...or it is not. Since it is indeed the purview of that agency then they should be allowed to set the standard where they choose based on their consideration of any factors they consider relevant eg, available technology, not killing the US auto industry, ensuring autos and power remain affordable to the middle class, etc. They could even decide that the current standards are too strict and roll them back (hah).
Are you aware that 30 years ago scientists were predicting that we were headed for one of our periodic ice ages? It is simply the height of hubris to assume that human beings now know everything there is to know about the planets and stars to make predictions such as these.
Posted by: arthur on November 25, 2007 10:48 AM
Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published.
