Time for a smarter approach to global warming

probe

"According to Oxfam, if rich nations diverted $50 billion to climate change, at least 4.5 million children could die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment. And what would we get for that $50 billion? Well, spending that much on Kyoto-style carbon-emissions cuts would reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years."

Wall Street Journal 16.12.2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704517504574589952331068322.html

Akrasia

This is called a false Dichotomy. There is nothing at all to suggest that if we stop spending money on global warming, that the money would be spent on anti poverty measures instead.

Also, it is extremely disengenuous for the Wall Street Journal to go about claiming that preventing global warming is a waste of money given the trillians of dollars that are being pumped into rescuing the worlds banks after they self destructed last year.
For the price of the bank bailout we could have educated every child on the planet to university level. (probably)

Screw it, for the price of the bonuses Goldman Sachs gave their own execs this year alone, we could have made massive progress on any number of massive social problems affecting the developing world. (how many irrigation programs in developing countries could 16 billion dollars pay for?)

Toiletroll

Cap and Trade Akrasia... Carbon tax and the cap and trade scheme will only make the likes of goldman even more rich and powerful. You must see that, no?

Amhran Nua

Where is Oxfam getting its numbers from? For €50 billion you could make a serious dent in vehicle emissions by promoting electrics and research in that area. Or build an awful lot of green energy production facilities.

TITAN #1

Dear me, did you see the Viking cops clubbing those jobless scaremongering tree huggers in Copenhagen.

Akrasia

Toiletroll wrote: »

Cap and Trade Akrasia... Carbon tax and the cap and trade scheme will only make the likes of goldman even more rich and powerful. You must see that, no?

Cap and trade, and it's merits or otherwise has nothing to do with whether global warming is real, or whether we should be taking measures to deal with it.

If you don't like Cap and Trade, make a case against that and argue that there ought to be a better system, but don't let your opposition to cap and trade lead to believe that we should take no action on global warming.

(It's ironic that so many libertarians are totally opposed to cap and trade considering it was invented by libertarian thinkers as a way to use market forces to price externalities into the system)

auerillo

Akrasia wrote: »

This is called a false Dichotomy. There is nothing at all to suggest that if we stop spending money on global warming, that the money would be spent on anti poverty measures instead.

Also, it is extremely disengenuous for the Wall Street Journal to go about claiming that preventing global warming is a waste of money given the trillians of dollars that are being pumped into rescuing the worlds banks after they self destructed last year.

That seems to be a non sequiter. What has the amount of money which has been pumped into banks got to do with the editorial stance of a newspaper on man made climate change?

probe

Let's re-phrase the question. If we spend €100 billion or even €1 trillion on reducing CO2 emissions, is there any evidence that temperature increases will fall by anything more than a few thousandths of a degree C over the next century?

Before making any investment, a rational investor will require some evidence that s/he is not throwing the money down the toilet.

There has already been enough money thrown down the toilet in property and other bank / investor fed bubbles to do for at least a century!

Akrasia

probe wrote: »

Let's re-phrase the question. If we spend €100 billion or even €1 trillion on reducing CO2 emissions, is there any evidence that temperature increases will fall by anything more than a few thousandths of a degree C over the next century?

Before making any investment, a rational investor will require some evidence that s/he is not throwing the money down the toilet.

There has already been enough money thrown down the toilet in property and other bank / investor fed bubbles to do for at least a century!

It depends on what we spend the money on obviously.

We're not trying to get temperatures down by the way, merely control the increase.

If it is spent well and manages to mainstream clean energy and keep the atmospheric co2 down below the 450ppm figure that appears to be the tipping point of no return (for the worst effects of global warming, we have already done some irreversible damage), then it will have been the best spent trillion dollars in the history of money

Akrasia

auerillo wrote: »

That seems to be a non sequiter. What has the amount of money which has been pumped into banks got to do with the editorial stance of a newspaper on man made climate change?

What does money pumped into the climate change have to do with money taken from aids vaccinations or anti poverty projects?

BTW, the WSJ isn't just a newspaper, it's the bible of the bankers (or ti was before Murdock bought it). WSJ didn't have an editorial talking about aids in africa when trillions were being put into bank bailouts...

C_Stringer

Green friendly energy has to be the way of the future. If the money is well spent, obviously it's a good investment. The time lapsed since the Kyoto Conference has really shown us how "dedicated" every country was to their seemingly realistic targets.

plasmaguy

A fair amount of direct aid to governments in developing countries almost always gets siphoned off by corruption.

The whole Copenhagen conference is a bit of a joke much like Kyoto was a bit of a joke.

Global warming is today causing drought and famine in developing countries. What's a mere 100 billion going to do? There are almost a 100 developing countries, that averages just one billion each. Take out the corruption part and you are left with a few hundred million.

But it makes Western politicians look good to their electorates.

The Chinese and Indians will add several, perhaps tens of millions new cars onto the roads next year alone. The Chinese will build 40-50 new coal powered electricity stations. Their emmissions will probably increase another few per cent next year alone as it will the year after and so on.

Slash and burn will continue in the rainforest and elsewhere.

The politicians just don't have the political will to enforce anything that will affect their economies. They will promise cuts but deliver little. China and India will probably increase not decrease emmissions.

It's all a load of hot air at the end of the day.

utick

plasmaguy wrote: »

Global warming is today causing drought and famine in developing countries. .

oh come on droughts in africa have never been rare thats why the sahara deseret is there. famines have always occured to, even ireland had a famine, was that due to global warming too.

plasmaguy

plasmaguy wrote: »

Global warming is today causing drought and famine in developing countries.

Indoctrinated much? Dont care for the facts?
A hotter world will result in a stronger monsoon PREVENTING famine and drought. More warmth more evaporation.


Some homework for you on the green sahara which occurred only when temperatures were approx 3c higher than today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Subpluvial
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/green-sahara/gwin-text.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html

Yes there was NO desert there when the earth was that much warmer.

plasmaguy

Deleted User wrote: »

Indoctrinated much? Dont care for the facts?
A hotter world will result in a stronger monsoon PREVENTING famine and drought. More warmth more evaporation.


Some homework for you on the green sahara which occurred only when temperatures were approx 3c higher than today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Subpluvial
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/green-sahara/gwin-text.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html

Yes there was NO desert there when the earth was that much warmer.

I can deal with facts, no problem with that.

Global warming is today melting glaciers on mountains all over the world, glaciers which tens of millions of people depend on for frech drinking water. When the glaciers disappear which they will within a few years, we are talking massive drought and famine.Today countries like Bolivia are already seeing this shortage of fresh water because of melting glaciers.

Bangladesh will face floooding because of sea rises.

There are many more cases of developing countries suffering.

The last thing countries like Bangladesh need is more monsoons.

djpbarry

Deleted User wrote: »

Some homework for you on the green sahara which occurred only when temperatures were approx 3c higher than today

So The Earth warms by 3 degrees and, presto, a blooming Sahara? Or is it ever-so-slightly more complex than that?

SeanW

djpbarry wrote: »

So The Earth warms by 3 degrees and, presto, a blooming Sahara? Or is it ever-so-slightly more complex than that?

The theory, as I understand it, is that a higher CO2 is better for plants as it is effectively an aerial fertiliser (what with plants using CO2 in the same way we use oxygen, and all,) with the potential to increase crop yields, lengthen the growing season, and bring previously marginal lands into the play.

Of course, there are other factors affecting the Sahara such as deforestation/desertification, but increased CO2 levels should be helpful in some respects. At least according to the AGW skeptics.

silverharp

Has there been any moves to shut in production of coal for instance. A "simple" step would be to create a ban on new licences and use a fund to buy out existing reserves. Same could be said for tar sands oil, buy out the reserves, review in 50 or 100 years.
I am not in favour of carbon taxes as at the margin in ends up in the pockets of civil servents which is spent in the same way it would of been in the first place.
A bit of free market thinking wouldnt go a miss either. Privatise the road networks including urban and introduce road pricing.

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

The theory, as I understand it, is that a higher CO2 is better for plants as it is effectively an aerial fertiliser (what with plants using CO2 in the same way we use oxygen, and all,) with the potential to increase crop yields, lengthen the growing season, and bring previously marginal lands into the play.

It might, depending on other limiting factors, such as water availability. But of course, regional climate changes must be taken into consideration; a rise in temperature, for example, would undoubtedly have an influence, stunting the growth of many species of plants and trees in the warmer regions of the planet (such as the tropics).

Mahatma coat

well wouldnt the Meltin Ice caps sort out the availability of water issue?

Turtwig

Mahatma coat wrote: »

well wouldnt the Meltin Ice caps sort out the availability of water issue?

Less than 1% of the water on this planet is drinkable and safe.
Those melting icecaps are going to get mixed with a deadly solution of sea water and drinking that is not really advisable.

djpbarry

Mahatma coat wrote: »

well wouldnt the Meltin Ice caps sort out the availability of water issue?

I was referring to local, regional availability rather than global availability. And anyway, as Malty_T says, sea water isn't much good for irrigation.

Mahatma coat

Yeah but the Rain makin process sorts out the salinity, and anyway the ICE is Freshwater if you want to go down the route of Semantics

if ther is more water Globally then it stands to reason that most Regions will have more water, just the levels that will be different

djpbarry

Ok, I think maybe we should leave the science for one of the other threads (I appreciate that I’m as guilty as anyone else in dragging the discussion away from the topic of the OP).

auerillo

it seems impossible to discuss global waming (where it is warming as opposed to freezing? - ed), without the modern day thought police shouting down anyone who questions if it is actually warming.

Macha

auerillo wrote: »

it seems impossible to discuss global waming (where it is warming as opposed to freezing? - ed), without the modern day thought police shouting down anyone who questions if it is actually warming.

I don't see any thought police and I don't see anyone shouting but I would say that whatever about the causes of climate change, there are very, very few climate scientists who think that climate change isn't happening.

Turtwig

auerillo wrote: »

it seems impossible to discuss global waming (where it is warming as opposed to freezing? - ed), without the modern day thought police shouting down anyone who questions if it is actually warming.

A quick look through the literature will tell that you that it is still being discussed and refined. The problem is many amateur skeptics point out stuff that is on par with creationist nonsense i.e it simply isn't true.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

The theory, as I understand it, is that a higher CO2 is better for plants as it is effectively an aerial fertiliser (what with plants using CO2 in the same way we use oxygen, and all,) with the potential to increase crop yields, lengthen the growing season, and bring previously marginal lands into the play.

Of course, there are other factors affecting the Sahara such as deforestation/desertification, but increased CO2 levels should be helpful in some respects. At least according to the AGW skeptics.

Stomata size is a compromise between CO2 intake and water loss.

But desert plants mastered water loss a long time ago so increased CO2 won't really help on that score.

Might be worth looking at fertilizer in the sea to create algae blooms, but that might upset the eco-system

Mahatma coat

Malty_T wrote: »

A quick look through the literature will tell that you that it is still being discussed and refined. The problem is many amateur skeptics point out stuff that is on par with creationist nonsense i.e it simply isn't true.

Which side are you comparing to Creationists?

Blind unquestioning faith in their convictions and an unwillingness to discuss alternate theories, Hmmmm

I dont think its us

Turtwig

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Which side are you comparing to Creationists?

Blind unquestioning faith in their convictions and an unwillingness to discuss alternate theories, Hmmmm

I dont think its us

The Anti-Climatology side.
*Cough* Durkin *Cough*
There are some genuine skeptics out there but there's also a whole load of crap pseudo science.

If it's the alternate hypothesis you want, I love discussing them so by all means fire away.:)

Mahatma coat

Malty_T wrote: »

The Anti-Climatology side.
*Cough* GORE *Cough*
There are some genuine Scientists out there but there's also a whole load of crap pseudo science.

If it's the alternate hypothesis you want, I love discussing them so by all means fire away.:)

FYP :D:D