[Market-farming] are you a global warming deniers?
STEVE GILMAN
stevegilman at verizon.net
Fri Sep 14 12:22:30 EDT 2007
Hi All,
Climate change has been called the Mother of All Externalities.
That's the polite term for the unpaid pollution costs generated by
business as usual. The fact is -- ALL those fossil fuels, products
and by-products used by industrialized humans that were once stored
deep in the earth have been released/pumped into the Ecosystem --
air, atmosphere, soil, streams, rivers, oceans, etc. as pollutants of
one type or another.
But humans also have the cognizant ability to create and utilize
viable alternatives that can dramatically curtail pollution, reduce
energy use and reverse the generation of greenhouse gases (and even
sequester/nullify existing greenhouse gases in the soil by a major
shift to organic farming, for example). However, the Vested Interests
and their governmental minions in almost every industry stand to have
their pecuniary oxen gored by such shifts -- hence the huge degree of
obfuscation, disinformation and denial so widely generated today.
So, even in the face of over-whelming scientific consensus there's a
lot of unverified opinions about Climate Change flying around these
days. Some people seem to believe Denial is de river that flows by
Egypt... So, you have to consider the source. Here's one of our top
Climate scientists who is routinely slammed by Deniers and Public
Relationists -- but his work and views are constantly upheld by
scientists. And, he shows that he bottom line of Climate Change is
this is really a political problem ...
Steve
This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070507/hansen
Why We Can't Wait
by JAMES HANSEN
[from the May 7, 2007 issue of The Nation]
This is an adaptation of a talk delivered February 26 at the National
Press Club. Comments relating to policy are Dr. Hansen's personal
opinion and do not represent a NASA position.
There's a huge gap between what is understood about global warming by
the relevant scientific community and what is known about global
warming by those who need to know: the public and policy-makers.
We've had, in the past thirty years, one degree Fahrenheit of global
warming. But there's another one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline
due to gases that are already in the atmosphere. And there's another
one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline because of the energy
infrastructure now in place--for example, power plants and vehicles
that we're not going to take off the road even if we decide that
we're going to address this problem.
The Energy Department says that we're going to continue to put more
and more CO2 in the atmosphere each year--not just additional CO2 but
more than we put in the year before. If we do follow that path, even
for another ten years, it guarantees that we will have dramatic
climate changes that produce what I would call a different planet--
one without sea ice in the Arctic; with worldwide, repeated coastal
tragedies associated with storms and a continuously rising sea level;
and with regional disruptions due to freshwater shortages and
shifting climatic zones.
I've arrived at five recommendations for what should be done to
address the problem. If Congress were to follow these
recommendations, we could solve the problem. Interestingly, this is
not a gloom-and-doom story. In fact, the things we need to do have
many other benefits in terms of our economy, our national security,
our energy independence and preserving the environment--preserving
creation.
First, there should be a moratorium on building any more coal-fired
power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester
the CO2. That technology is probably five or ten years away. It will
become clear over the next ten years that coal-fired power plants
that do not capture and sequester CO2 are going to have to be
bulldozed. That's the only way we can keep CO2 from getting well into
the dangerous level, because our consumption of oil and gas alone
will take us close to the dangerous level. And oil and gas are such
convenient fuels (and located in countries where we can't tell people
not to mine them) that they surely will be used. So why build old-
technology power plants if you're not going to be able to operate
them over their lifetime, which is fifty or seventy-five years? It
doesn't make sense. Besides, there's so much potential in efficiency,
we don't need new power plants if we take advantage of that.
Second, and this is the hard recommendation that no politician seems
willing to stand up and say is necessary: The only way we are going
to prevent having an amount of CO2 that is far beyond the dangerous
level is by putting a price on emissions. In order to avoid economic
problems, it had better be a gradually rising price so that the
consumer has the option to seek energy sources that reduce his
requirement for how much fuel he needs. And that means we should be
investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies at
the same time. The result would be high-tech, high-paid jobs. And it
would be very good for our energy independence, our national security
and our balance of payments.
But a price on carbon emissions is not enough, which brings us to the
third recommendation: We need energy-efficiency standards. That's
been proven time and again. The biggest use of energy is in
buildings, and the engineers and architects have said that they can
readily reduce the energy requirement of new buildings by 50 percent.
That goal has been endorsed by the US Conference of Mayors, but you
can't do it on a city-by-city basis. You need national standards. The
same goes for vehicle efficiency. We haven't had an improvement in
vehicle efficiency in twenty-five or thirty years. And our national
government is standing in court alongside the automobile
manufacturers resisting what the National Research Council has said
is readily achievable--a 30 percent improvement in vehicle
efficiency, which California and other states want to adopt.
The fourth recommendation--and this is probably the easiest one--
involves the question of ice-sheet stability. The old assumption that
it takes thousands or tens of thousands of years for ice sheets to
change is clearly wrong. The concern is that it's a very nonlinear
process that could accelerate. The west Antarctic ice sheet in
particular is very vulnerable. If it collapses, that could yield a
sea-level rise of sixteen to nineteen feet, possibly on a time scale
as short as a century or two.
The information on ice-sheet stability is so recent that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report does not adequately
address it. The IPCC process is necessarily long and drawn out. But
this problem with the stability of ice sheets is so critical that it
really should be looked at by a panel of our best scientists.
Congress should ask the National Academy of Sciences to do a study on
this and report its conclusions in very plain language. The National
Academy of Sciences was established by Abraham Lincoln for just this
sort of purpose, and there's no reason we shouldn't use it that way.
The final recommendation concerns how we have gotten into this
situation in which there is a gap between what the relevant
scientific community understands and what the public and policy-
makers know. A fundamental premise of democracy is that the public is
informed and that they're honestly informed. There are at least two
major ways in which this is not happening. One of them is that the
public affairs offices of the science agencies are staffed at the
headquarters level by political appointees. While the public affairs
workers at the centers are professionals who feel that their job is
to translate the science into words the public can understand,
unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case for the political
appointees at the highest levels. Another matter is Congressional
testimony. I don't think the Framers of the Constitution expected
that when a government employee--a technical government employee--
reports to Congress, his testimony would have to be approved and
edited by the White House first. But that is the way it works now.
And frankly, I'm afraid it works that way whether it's a Democratic
administration or a Republican one.
These problems are worse now than I've seen in my thirty years in
government. But they're not new. I don't know anything in our
Constitution that says that the executive branch should filter
scientific information going to Congressional committees. Reform of
communication practices is needed if our government is to function
the way our Founders intended it to work.
The global warming problem has brought into focus an overall problem:
the pervasive influence of special interests on the functioning of
our government and on communications with the public. It seems to me
that it will be difficult to solve the global warming problem until
we have effective campaign finance reform, so that special interests
no longer have such a big influence on policy-makers.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: s53990597461345.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 43 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/market-farming/attachments/20070914/e7d1f9ef/attachment.gif
-------------- next part --------------
On Sep 14, 2007, at 10:40 AM, market-farming-
request at lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:00:43 -0400
> From: "Sharon and Steve" <shopkins at tdstelme.net>
> Subject: Re: [Market-farming] are you a global warming deniers?
> To: "Market Farming" <market-farming at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <003e01c7f6d7$a5ddda50$1a0e8045 at your4dacd0ea75>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
>
>>
>> Are you denying the objective data showing the world's temperatures
>> are getting warmer?
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> No,and I am sure enjoying it, but the increase is minimal and the
> effect is
> more in the area of moderation in my area, I am getting a month
> frost free
> at each end of the season here.
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying the objective data that the world's ice packs are
>> rapidly disappearing?
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> No, an activity that started over 150 years ago, half of the ice
> fields were
> gone by the early 1900's.
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying the data showing the effects of burning massive
>> amounts of coal?
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Sure the main effect is a hell of a lot of electricity.
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying the effect of humans running hundreds of millions of
>> atmospheric heaters (automobile engines) each and every day?
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Here again the main effect is that a lot of folk get to and from
> places they
> want to go. as far as the heat generated: a year of it is less energy
> generated that a few minutes of a sunny day.
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying the objective data that thew world is significantly
>> warmer where humans exist in concentration (cities) as opposed to
>> where they aren't as concentrated?
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> See above.
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying that the human population has doubled in our (well at
>> least my) lifetime with the concomitant increase in heating, food
>> production, transportation, clothing, housing needs?
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Not in the least, and I think we are doing a fine job of feeding,
> clothing
> and feeding them. It is just too bad that so many have to live under
> opressive left wing governments that choose to steal the resources
> rather
> than let all prosper.
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying the millions of tons of exhaust from the massive
>> engines needed to transport the millions of large aircraft that are
>> in the worlds skies at any moment?
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Nope, have not flown in years, dont plan to.
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying the effect of the hundreds of millions of tons human
>> biological waste that are dumped into the worlds oceans and rivers
>> every hour?
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> No, it is a damn shame.
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Are you denying the effect of human activity that that modifies the
>> worlds ecosystem by
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Far enough right there, are you denying that it takes a hell of an
> ego to
> think that man can significantly (your word so assign the value of
> your
> choice)
> alter the climate of this planet? I will bet it even takes a
> bigger ego
> that lets one think thay have a way to fix it.
>
> If you intend for me to think that man has much to do with the
> recorded one
> half of one degree C increase that has occured in recent decades I
> will need
> a few answers:
>
> Why has energy recieved from the sun increased more than the
> heat generated by man?
>
> Why has the temperature on other planets in the solar system (where
> we have
> the facility to measure) increased?
>
> If earths temp increase is primarily due to natural cycles (and it
> is) in
> the earths way of doing things what gives Algore followers the
> right to mess
> with it, I dont want eco dreamers designing my weather.
>
> MAsteveINE
>
>
>
>
More information about the Market-farming
mailing list