Personally I'd rather choose to have a clean environment where we choose to work against a risk that might not exist rather than a dirty environment where we choose to ignore a risk that'd kill us. Seems like a simple choice...
Global warming doesn't exist but if we do something what do we get? A healthier, cleaner, nicer place to live...
Global warming does exist and we choose to ignore it what do we get? Painful, horrible, too warm, too cold, too dead consequences of some kind that may take generations to get here.
Personally I'd choose the first but hey to each their own.
The problem is that it's not that simple. I have no problem with taking steps to continuously clean the environment or to fight global warming if it might be a problem
as long as we don't trash our economy in the process and/or make it where you're living with the government's tongue shoved up your arse.
Global warming is as much an economic question as it is a scientific one. It is a wonderful excuse for those who want to dictate to us how to live our lives. It also has three questions:
1) Is the Earth technically warming...? That in itself is debatable (though up till now it has seemed so).
2) "Global Warming" technically refers to the release of greenhouses gases from humans that will trap heat from the sun, heating up the upper atmosphere, thus heating up the lower atmosphere. Technically, the global climate and temperature could be going up, but if it isn't from humans, it isn't the technical definition of global warming.
This is a controversial topic in itself as some say the lower atmosphere is heating up faster than the upper atmosphere, which further complicates the question.
3) If it is human-caused, or not human-caused, will the warming harm us humans?
4) If it is determined that the planet is warming, it is being caused by humans, and it will harm people, what exactly do we do?
If you are like Europe, you make sure no one can afford gas to buy any SUVs, you tax the vehicles highly (California at least does this), you implement carbon-control standards on your power plants that drives up the cost of energy and trashes the economy in the process (Europe), you get Green groups demanding all electronics be made EnergyStar, etc...I vehemently reject all of the above.
I would be much more in favor of creating free-market solutions to this, for example giving incentives to create more fuel-efficient vehicles, more energy-efficient electronics, etc...as these naturally help in that they demand less energy, can help ween us from foreign oil, etc...but I do NOT believe we need Mother Government to come and save us.
Thus, if global warming doesn't exist but we do something, we could actually make the situation worse than it would be with global warming.
Once again goofballs:icon_tong, despite the name the theory of Global Warming isn't suggesting that the world is going to become an arid wasteland devoid of life with landscapes straight out of Lawrence of Arabia. The theory of Global Warming links the climate of Earth to the model of a heat engine. Add more heat (which is energy... and we are doing exactly this, I assure you) to the system, the faster and more extreme it operates. It is true that some places will get warmer. However, other places will get colder, much more/less precipitation, and generally more severe and extreme weather events occurring at increased intervals: Hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, El Ninos, whathaveyous increasing with intensity and frequency.
This is what the global warming-advocates claim, basically to promote fear-mongering and also b/c if you show that many areas are becoming colder, they can say it doesn't refute the theory.
I do not believe in the more extreme or intense weather events such as increased hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, etc...such events are caused by a difference in the climate of the poles. If the poles become more similar in temperature, then most likely we will experience far more mild weather.
No we're not all going to die in 50 years, but a hell of a lot of people here in the US are going to be inconvenienced when we start having floods in Las Vegas and droughts in the Pacific Northwest.
So say the global warming scaremongers. I bet you in fifty years it will be no different than it was in 1950.
Remember, humanity always thrived during the warm periods, not the cold periods. Rome and the Mayans flourished during periods warmer than now. Both empires collapsed in a cold period.
Europe was frought with war, famines, poverty, disease, etc...during a cold period, and experienced great prosperity during the warm periods.
When Greenland melted down it experienced mild winters and good summers, and was settled by the Norseman (from about 1000 AD to 1200 AD). When it re-froze over (and it still is rather frozen), the Norseman left; those that stayed, starved or froze to death.
These scientists who want us all to start living minimalist lives and doing this and that to our economy need a boot jammed up their arse for not paying attention to the economics of the situation.
Economic advancement is essential to helping the 3rd World come out of poverty. Allowing weak economies around the world could actually kill more people than any natural disaster. Remember, the most lethal weapon the communists ever had wasn't their nuclear weapons, it was their economists (accidentally starved over 100+ million people in one century alone).
Strong economies are essential for handling natural disasters as well.
) topic
!