Discussion on:

Mind games on global warming

I really don't understand all the hype, and politicians trying to force the expenditure of billions of $ on expensive alternate energies is just plain wrongheaded. Climate has always changed, mankind's contribution to it is observable, but not overwhelming, and I'd submit that a warm climate is easier to deal with than a cold one. Nevertheless, it is true that fossil fuel use comes with a host of environmental contaminants and ruins vast areas. If politicians were really interested in cutting CO2 emissions (Not a pollutant, no matter what the EPA believes), they would be pushing for replacing coal-fired power plants with nuclear plants, which is the only base-load energy source that is not fossil-fuel based. Given that this is not occurring, then the only conclusion is that the politicos really don't care to do anything about our long-term energy solutions. Therefore, the best remaining solution is to let a free market in energy determine how to meet our energy requirements.

However, Satellite research showed how much the coal plants have been cleaned up - and they've been cleaned up to the tune of 77% less sulphur pollution if I remember correctly. So in the future, it may not be a factor at all.

Yes of course Nuclear energy! how could we have missed that solution .You must be a genius! Yea lets ask the Japanese and the Russians about that! Because it is so safe and clean! Give me a break is the the light bulb upstairs on at all Jheez! Don't even want to hear the crap about how that would never happen here or did we forget 3 mile island!Oh and where do you propose we stash all of that irradiated spent fuel! I guess we could put it in your back yard! Look on the bright side when the ice age comes at least you will be warm and glowing! LOL LOL LOL Lol Some people never learn!

"I don???t mean the question in the way that global warming deniers might: that climate change is an illusion or hoax. The science overwhelmingly shows that the world is heating up rapidly and, according to a study out just this week in Nature Geoscience, three-quarters of that warming is directly due to human activities."

Seriously? Let's think about what Starman35 said. Every time we hear about climate change "those people" don't talk about simple things but rather start off with "we need a tax or credits ..." Then we hear about them cooking the books and catching them saying things like "we can't let the public hear about this, because it doesn't fit our agenda" and other things like that. So you betcha we are a bunch of skeptics. If someone wants to come talk to me about fixing climate change, or are we back to calling it "global warming", for free (=$0.00) then you have my attention. When the first thing you do is call me stupid for asking the question and tell me the solution involves me first giving you money I am not interested.

I, too am skeptical when someone comes down the pike saying that the world as we know it will end, but if you fill my hand with cash, I'll fix it. But, really, if we all agree that global warming was happening, and that if we stopped using high carbon fuels like coal and fossil fuels, then we could turn it around, would you do it? If so, how are you going to do it without money, and lots of it?

I'm pretty skeptical about the politicians being able to keep their hands off money collected thru something like a carbon tax, but as I understand it, all the carbon tax does is collect the tax and give it straight back to the people to use for what they see fit. If you want to use it to install insulation and a rooftop collector, then you can; if you want to use it to buy a bigger SUV, go for it, and good luck paying for the gas. Over time, most people will wise up and use the refunded monies to finance the shift to low carbon energy sources.

It won't happen...look at who started the carbon trading scam...Gore. In the UK, guess who is raking in the Pounds Sterling? The guys who've accomplished nothing but trading credits. It's like the commodity futures, except the religion of human caused climate change (facts be damned) hasn't figured it out yet.

Carbon sequestration is too difficult to quantify. For instance, a landscape can be a carbon sink in wet years and a carbon emitter during dry years. The cap and trade system depends on an accounting system that raises the eyebrows on most everyone, while the carbon tax, if refunded directly to the consumer, is much cleaner and could end up being a powerful finance tool for a low carbon energy society.

You are just reading the things they want you to read and not investigating the context in which it was said. You're not stupid, just uninformed. If you think you can fix global warming for free you are dreaming and the longer we wait to get started on fixing it the more costly it will be.

First: Just as soon as the supposed 'knowledgeable' persons, whose first reaction is that we all watch Fox News because we don't agree with you. As well as the innane name calling which shows the closed mind of the person making the comment, all at the same time claiming that they know the truth, shows nothing but ingnorance.
Second: Science has always been skeptical. Sure you can prove some stuff, but when it comes to something as unknowable as the whole world reaction to human interaction puported as FACT, well, that has the idea of maybe we're not quite as sure as we think. Examples of this is Medicine. While the meds provided to the population is helping a percentage of people, it also hurts others. That is also the SCIENCE.
Third: 'Climate Change', 'Global warming', The Earth is heating up. The Earth is cooling down. New oil is found. New gas is found. Solar flares are detrimental. Gamma rays will kill everything if we are in it's way. Death stars. Floods of huge magnitudes. Earthquakes and Volcanoes. Meteors. Comets. Magnetic shifts. OH! MY
Fourth: Don't worry. Be Happy!

Classic problem solving is that you admit there is a problem, define the problem as well as possible and then decide to tackle the problem. The article shows several different viewpoints but what it should show is that there are a lot of people who disagree that there is a problem. Climate change has occurred several times in Earth's history, there have been several mass extinction episodes during that history.

If people can agree that climate change can happen naturally, then what kind of changes would show that the current climate change is only natural and which changes would show that this is different and why it is different. A consesus has not happened because there are some groups who need more evidence and there are some who have made up their minds that climate change is not a problem.

I would have to agree that the biggest obstacle is political cowardice and that this applies to more than one party and even more than one nation. The congress critters are doing what their constituents pay them to do, support the status quo anything else is beyond their abilities.

So, it comes down to a Dirty Harry phrase; "Do you feel lucky?" Maybe there is nothing bad that will happen if we continue to add tons of CO2 and then maybe there is still one bullet left.

Of course humans are slow to accept bad news. Just look at our looming budget crisis, the reluctance to accept that anything needs to be done to solve Social Security and Medicare beyond taxing the rich more, the total waste of devoting food to ethanol, etc. On a personal level, just look at any smoker. Often these blind spots are held by the same people who advocate massive changes to solve global warming. In fact, there's evidence that our brains are wired to discount bad news as a survival strategy.

But it doesn't help to call the opposition "deniers" and worse names. It doesn't help to tell people that only you know what's best for them. It doesn't help that there's a history of environmental collapse predictions from at least the '60s (Club of Rome, anyone?) that just never came true.

People may not want to face bad news, but even worse they just don't like being pushed around.

...just wait until we all go bankrupt and start wondering where our next meal is going to come from. Poverty has never been good for the environment.

Empty cylinder "click"..

Paradox where two opposite facts can exist side by side and equally true until the observer sees the effects.

I'll be dead sometime in the next 50-60 years...what do I care?

about your children and others who will follow you? Anyway if you live another 50 years you will certainly see and be seriously affected by the effects of global warming.

I fear that they will end up living in perma-poverty in a toxic post-industrial world (like much of Eastern Europe) where societies are struggling just to stay alive, no longer having any capability to mitigate their current environmental situation. And it will all happen because instead of fighting real environmental problems, we will have shot our wad fighting near-imaginary ones.

The same people in my life who rant about global warming think nothing of throwing away a CFL, and it's mercury, in their household trash.

I have 3 friends I will not visit at home anymore until a haz mat team cleans their house.

They are psychotic about CO2 but 3 miligrams of mercury from a dropped CFL smashed on their living room floor is no big deal.

They break out the wet/dry shop vac as I run for the door.

If they had a child I would report them to child services, but thank god they are not reproducing.

...that has tirelessly fought to free our homes of mercury-filled light switches and thermometers now mandates that we refill our homes with highly fragile CFLBs; devices that under any other scenario would require a hazmat team to be cleaned up legally.

The original piece above is valuable. Good insight on the psychological and political factors. If nothing else, most of the dozen or so comments above, just illustrate or validate some of Rennie's points. While the data about significant warming is now clear -- even to previous skeptics like Richard Muller and Bjorn Lomborg, and the physics of CO2 as a warming agent were identified in 1826 by Fourier, and predicted to warm the planet 70 years later by Svante Arrhenius, we are still confined by the human and emotional issues. Worth pondering. It is also worth noting that the extremely long lag times for climate to change, ice sheets to melt, sea level to rise make this something unprecedented in human history. Less than 1 percent of 1 percent of the population even realizes that sea level fluctuates almost 400 feet regularly in Earth's history, aside from the new heights that will occur as the ice sheets melt beyond their normal range. Our awareness is poor. Much harder to recognize than even the debt crisis, or social security. And considering climate change as just another environmental crisis belies its profoundness. This is a game changer. The 3rd generation will care, for sure. Interesting time to be alive and consider who we are, and what our options are. Really good as we enjoy holiday time with families and consider the year, and years ahead.