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I read this sci-fi book once, and I wish I could remember the name. But basically this planet was naturally cooling at a rate that would kill off the intelligent people living there. So they tried to put more CO2's in the air, to increase the greenhouse effect.
The issue is not whether global warming is natural or man made, the issue is that it is harmful to us, and other creatures so intern to us again. We know this, it's not a mystery, and needs no "further investigation." We should do everything we can to reverse it, not because we "feel guilty" or because it's unnatural. We should, simply because we can and it benefits us.
We forget that we are from this earth. We are natural, therefore us warming the globe is obviously natural for us in this stage of our development.
Any time a creature becomes too dominant, it natural kills itself off simply by exhausting all of its resources. This is what we are on the cusp of doing (by cusp, I'm speaking relatively, considering how long intelligent people have been around.) The question is, have we become bright enough to navigate around this? Or are we really just dumb animals, who will use our resources, and warm the earth, until our near extinction?
But who's to say what the optimal temperature is? Personally, I like it hot, but hey. that's just me ;)
Also, sure, some species may disappear but others should get a boost. And some people will lose financially, but others will gain. By trying to maintain the status quo, you're starting to think like a conservative. Come, give in to the dark side ;)
I think the only problem with managing the environment is working ourselves into that environment, but it is also the solution.
What I mean is, when we think about managing the environment, what is most important? To us, it is anything that deals with our existance. Sure, we look at the polar bear population, and say that it looks bad, and it's probably due to global warming, but really what we are concerned about is ourselves. If the food chain falls apart, we will suffer. We try to keep things together because it might someday become a problem for man kind, not just the rest of the animals.
But then, we are taking only one natural state of the planet and trying to preserve it. Look at Mars, there are no living things there, and so far we cannot tell wether there were living things there at one point or not. There was flowing water on the surface, CO2 up the wazoo, which is great for plant life, and now look at it. It's cold as hell, and dry. It got that way naturally though. If intelligent life were to have evolved there, would they still be fighting nature to stay alive?
I think the problem is that we assume the planet was created for us rather than assuming the planet created us along it's natural cycle, and is now doing something natural, but not benificial to life.
I feel like we are all talking around the elephant in the room instead of pointing to it and saying, "There's the problem!"
The problem is not that humans release too much green house gases into the atmostphere. The problem is that there are too many humans releasing green house gases into the atmostphere.
If you want to to fix the problem, instead of trying to manage the environment, get rid of some people. You don't have to kill them (although that would be fastest way, and the way we will eventually do it, it will create drastic health problems), you could send them to a space station, the moon and/or Mars. Another way (which wont work) is to tell certain countries that they are not allowed to drive cars, burn down the rain forest, etc. What we'll probably do in the short term is try to put the squeeze on ourselves and hurt the economy even more until the technology catches up.
We know that we are contributing to global warming. What we do not know is whether we are the sole cause of global warming. Remember, the planet has gone through an ice age before, and dinosaurs didn't drive Hummers.
What should be done to fight global warming, is to levy taxes on all items that are inefficiently emitting co2 (example: cars that get less than 20 mpg), and simultaneously increase subsidies for technologies like solar and wind power.
Once solar, wind and other alternative energy technologies mature, the cost will go down, which will allow them to compete in a free market with oil.
And once alternative energies are able to compete in a free market with oil, we will be able to pass this technology along to developing countries.
I honestly don't think global warming is real. During Roman times it got even hotter then it's getting now and there were no machines. We don't even know how much co2 it takes to make the Earth heat up. It just doesn't sound logical to me.
I honestly don't think global warming is real. During Roman times it got even hotter then it's getting now and there were no machines. We don't even know how much co2 it takes to make the Earth heat up. It just doesn't sound logical to me.
Just because you don't know everything about something doesn't mean you shouldn't try. We know that CO2 emissions contribute to global warming so we can certainly cut down on those. Other methods of dealing with the issue, like trying to bring nutrient rich water to the surface of the ocean to help the growth of plankton may have negative impacts on the ecosystem and should be studied first.
In general we should be doing everything we can to use alternative sources of energy and increased efficiency to help fight global warming.
The problem is that any action you take will affect the environment and if you don't know what that affect will be you may end up doing more harm than good.
Change for the sake of change is not necessarily good. We will get a chance to witness that in the next 4 year.... but that's a different debate ;)
The bottom line, there are no free rides. Making changes to benefit something will hurt something else.
Yeah, but we know that putting more CO2 in the atmosphere hurts the planet. We already took that action. Now we can lower our output of CO2. This will almost certainly have no negative affects because the earth was fine before we started fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
Banning CFCs in order to protect the ozone layer harmed Third World people by eliminating cheap refrigerants so that their food spoiled more often.
Solar panels enable people to houses in remote wilderness areas where normally they couldn't due to lack of water and power. This endangers species that were previously unmolested.
Since the ban on DDT, 2 million people a year have died from malaria. DDT was never identified as a carcinogen.
The real question is, "Do the benefits of environmental action out weight the harm?" Because there will always be some harm done.
Welllllll.......Let's take these one at a time, shall we?
Yes CFCs may be a good cheap refrigerant but banning them was the only way to save the ozone. In the long run this would have hurt us more.
Solar Panels will one day help us overcome our dependence on fossil fuels and will help cut down on CO2 emissions. People are going to move and expand into wilderness so long as there are no laws preventing them from doing so. Our goal should not be to stunt innovation but to create laws that protect over development of wilderness areas.
There are other ways to prevent Malaria then DDT. In fact there were serious malaria outbreaks in the U.S. south at the beginning of the century. We solved the problem by creating mosquito proof housing. This, and mosquito nets are the best solution to getting rid of malaria. Check out this video about it:
I agree with you that we need to think first, then innovate. By managing global warming though we are making up for the fact that we didn't do this before. We are trying to undo a past mistake. A lot of time, there will be a trade off, but hey! We're a very innovative species. We can get around these problems. Not trying to fix an obvious problem, though, is irresponsible.
OK, so you're a scientist and you know for a fact that banning CFCs was the only way to save the ozone.
To protect our development of wilderness areas??!?!? That's an oxymoron! If you want to protect wilderness areas, don't develop them!
The question is which is more economically feasible for Third World countries? DDT or mosquito proof housing? Since every person would have to pay for a mosquito proof house, I would think that DDt is a cheaper solution.
The large number of people on the planet is the cause of global warming. Are you prepared to reduce the number of people on the planet in order to reduce global warming?
CFC's were causing the problem so YES banning them was the only way to solve it. If you wan an explanation of how CFC's breakdown ozone, check out this link:
I said "to protect from over development". Oxymoron? I know you are, but what am I?
Do you know how much a mosqito net costs? $10. That's pretty fucking cheap. As for houses, you don't have to buy a whole new house, you just mosquito proof current houses.
When you say a the large number of people produce global warming are you saying it's because they exhale CO2 or because they use electricity and cars which generate greenhouse gases? Either way, we can make it so that we reduce, and eventually cancel out the carbon footprint of even 10 billion humans! Just because you can't solve the whole problem immediately does not mean you shouldn't try to solve at least part of the problem eventually, and try hard.
Go to a Third World country and ask them if $10 is cheap. A mosquito net protects you at night while you sleep. What about the rest of the time? No, you don't need a whole new house, just new screen dorrs and windows. Compare that to the cost of DDT for the entire area.
Your right, for them it's not cheap, but thanks to groups like the Gate's foundation, people who have the money can help by donating money. Secondly, DDT is not harmless. It has negative affects on both human and animal health:
If you have the option between solving the problem using a) a harmful chemical or b) using reasonable means that have no negative affects. Well that's a tough choice...I'll get back to you with my answer.
The argument is not the righteousness of the past, the argument is opportunity cost. Yes, in the past, we burnt coal. We drilled oil, and we cleared land. This may have had significant environmental effects, but they also have significant social benefits. The draining of marshes alleviated malaria risk areas, the clearing of forests stimulated urban growth and subsequently cultural growth.
Moreover, consider why China and India refuse to ratify Kyoto. They know solar tech and wind tech wont power steel mills or generate enough electricity at a reasonable economic price, these immature technologies are unproven and unreliable. What coal and oil have proven however is that they stimulate economic growth, they are based on reliable, mature technologies. Fossil fuels are not burnt because of what could happen, they are burnt because of what has happened, and what has worked.
This is exactly the narrow thinking that has fucked up the earth for the past 200 years. Sure fossil fuels and oil are great if you look at only the economic benefits, but in the longterm we end up with tremendous global problems that threaten our society.
There are also significant economic benefits to investing in solar and wind energy: the price will never increase. Oil and coal will only become more scarce and more expensive, but wind and solar energy will only get cheaper as the technology advances to the point where fossil fuels are today. Right now photoelectric cells are not at the level where they can adequately compete with coal. Solar thermal power, that converts solar energy into heat, much like coal and nuclear power is on nearly equal footing.
When you say "mature technologies", what I hear is "outdated technologies." In the 1980's would you have started investing in typewriters because they were "proven?" Of course not! We are on the verge of having clean renewable power and we should be concentrating on making it more affordable and efficient so that we don't need to worry about all the negative impacts of drilling for oil, and burning coal.
As for your talk about draining marshes, sure it helped get rid of malaria in certain areas, but at the same time it destroyed the habitat of plant and animal species that lived there and more importantly made certain coastal areas less protected from flooding. Look at New Orleans as an example. They destroyed some marshland which acted as a buffer for storms and the damage was much worse.
Like I said, you can't make an omolet without breakling some eggs. Whatever solution you come up with, you will be doing some harm to something somewhere.
Lets say that we decide that the world was in equilibrium in 1970. All we have to do is reduce the human population to the point where the remaining population has the same carbon footprint that existed in 1970. But then again, who's to say when the world was in perfect equilibrium ;)
Haha, okay Joe how about this. I am against any plan that requires us to "reduce" the human population.
Come on, have some faith in humanity. We went to the moon, we cured polio, we invented a way to take shits in our houses and not have to worry about a mess. We can definitely find a reasonable solution to global warming.
Well...., maybe. I'm just so disheartened by all the stupid people I meet on the street that I just rather go to the final frontier and leave them behind.
Actually I meant benefits someone.... some.... venture capitalist. No one is going to invest in developing a technology that has a one time cost. They have to make money on selling you parts or something. Maybe they'll lease/license you the technology. There has to be a recurring cost in order for the technologies to mature.