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RE: UK Bush Interview: Enviroment, Trade, Africa, Iraq

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RE: UK Bush Interview: Enviroment, Trade, Africa, Iraq
by janelane at 11:19 am EDT, Jul 7, 2005

Honestly, terratogen, you should really list your sources. At a minimum, we could use them to contrast with the ones I found below.

Finding cleaner energy sources and population control is the solution to global warming (assuming that the human influence in the equation is correct).

No energy source is entirely clean. It still takes fossil fuels to extract materials, manufacture, and transport. "Cleaner" is certainly the operative word, however it is a source of much contention. How clean is clean? Can you answer it? Can anyone? If we convert all cars to hydrogen-powered without a better way to generate the hydrogen than electrolysis in water, we'd produce 10 times the pollution we do now with our paltry gasoline fleet.* If this hydrogen comes from greener electricity, where does all this electricity come from? What has the capacity to power both our homes and cars? How do we manage the massive influx of water, the most influential greenhouse gas (an apparent, if not legal, "pollutant")? Its a infrastructure dilema; the electric grid is currently uni-directional. But changing that, of course, takes time and money.

The causes of global warming are not well understood... 98% of greenhouse gases are not produced by man and even though there is an apparent correlation to the human consumption of fossil fuels...

According to this EIA report, 95% of carbon dioxide is produced naturally. However, reports indicate that the update of CO2 by the environment is lagging production which means a net increase over time. It indicates that increasing water vapor emissions wouldn't affect the greenhouse effect, but does this include to a massive influx as in the "hydrogen solution" scenario above? Who can possibly know until we try?

...70% of the warming happened 10 years before the industrial boom. Also there is a similar correlation between sun cycles and global warming, but this has yet to be proven as a cause as well.

Actually, Wikipedia puts the industrial revolution[s] between the middle 18th and early 19th centuries. Coincidentally, that's right before the global average temperature starting to increase in 1920. Some people agree that the globe was here trillions of years before us and will survive long after we're gone...in the meantime, wouldn't it be nice to keep some of the flora and fauna we're used to alive? We've already decided that the hole in the ozone layer (and associated CFCs) are intolerable; why not carbon dioxide?

Legislation at this point would drive energy prices to INSANE, and they're already through the roof. Doing so might also have little impact on the effect of global warming since the cause is only suspected. We are likely within decades of finding an energy solution, I'm willing to bet that there is a higher chance of that having a positive effect than the chance of the world melting within that same time. Wrecking the economy for a ritual karmatic solution is silly.

I can see your on the Bush "let's through money at technology and technology at the problem" bandwagon. Consumption is the crux of the problem. No clean technology has the potential to provide the energy requirements of the U.S. (or China or India...). Period. Biodiesel cars would require a cornfield the size of Indiana. There aren't enough rivers to dam for hydroelectric, and solar cells aren't nearly efficient enough and won't be for several years. Why this abject denial that the problem should be dealt with now? Why not consider that certain industries may face hardship while other flourish? That some industries are already working to decrease waste and they are seeing both economic and PR benefits from their labors? That the United States is a gluttonous cow?

Technology is only short-term. You can use more efficient technologies, and by God research them until doomsday, but you can't use it as a crystal ball for how things might be 10, 20, 50 years down the line.

-janelane, explicitly

* Society of Automotive Engineers.

RE: UK Bush Interview: Enviroment, Trade, Africa, Iraq


 
 
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