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I've been reading/following these threads for awhile and I come down on the skeptic side. Many people do believe in this though but I have yet to hear someone offer a plan for what would be done as a solution if we did make a real national/worldwide effort to address it.
I'm also skeptical here, if imminent catastrophic climate change were here, I don't think we could get the entire world onboard and cut emissions to the amount the proponents of this theory say we would need to.
Essentially, a world wide return to the pre-industrial age or pretty close to it. I just don't see that happening.
I also don't see how raising taxes or lowering emissions helps unless we do it on a very drastic level to the point where we have a VERY different society and infrastructure than we do now… on a WORLDWIDE level.
If you are investing your money or have raised money to start a business, it only makes sense to have a well thought out business plan. We have been investing BILLIONS and plan to invest billions more in AGW
with the goal of saving the environment, I really have not heard a plan of attack other than "trust us, we know what's best".
Not really interested in discussing if CAGW is real or not here, there are plenty of threads for that. lets assume that it is and what is your solution? Pretend the president has appointed you as the head of a special task force to address this and there were enough support in both houses as well as among the public to enact what you feel is needed…
I don't believe that AWG will lead to "sudden" and "catastrophic" climate change, but what it will produce will be faster than most species - including humans - can handle, and it will be expensive to deal with in terms of money and lives lost. In short, not an "extinction event," but certainly a painful setback.
As for what to do, IMHO, the only way past this problem is over the hump and through. We cannot go back to a pre-industrial age, and we cannot stay on our current course forever since fossil fuel reserves are not infinite.
We MUST develop newer, better energy sources, deal with "low-hanging fruit" regarding pollution, and try to minimize waste as a society. I don't see any magic bullet that will "fix everything," but I also don't think random, higher taxes will help, either.
It won't be sudden of catastrophic in the sense I gather you're thinking it will happen.
Ideally, the goal is to slowly phase out our irresponsible use of natural resources and remove our dependency on oil. Will the whole world be on board? Not immediately. It will take years, decades, maybe a century or more. Arguable, parts of the world aren't even considered industrial.
You mentioned something about 'pre-industrialism.' That's not the goal for anyone accept maybe the clinically insane. The idea is to change how we function industry. As it is, it's changed a lot. We are considered post-industrial, since we've been fully industrialized. The idea is simply to find ways to make industrialism safer (for individuals and the environment) and more conservative, in the sense that it doesn't overuse resources and is renewable.
The end result of climate change, man made or natural, is never sudden. We can predict what is coming if we pay attention. Rising ocean levels, for example, wouldn't just one day consume the coats, it would creep up slowly and we'd notice it (ideally) before it would become a problem.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about it being man made or how severe it is, it is irresponsible to not push for technological innovation that will make our means of production and fuel sustainable and clean.
And to get the rest of the world on board, just do it really well. Technological innovation leads by example. If we do it well here, the rest of the world will see and adopt similar methods. That's how innovation works.
Heh, nothing anyone can or will do will do anything about climate change.
The climate always changes and species adapt or die.
Thus I will continue to burn my garbage, heat my shop with used motor oil, drive what I please, burn wood to heat my home and use leaded fuel to fly my plane.
So why is Obama bringing in thousands, soon to be millions from countries where temperatures are always mild and bringing them here where their carbon footprint will be much higher?
Why do liberals pretend to care about the environment when they obviously do not really care about it? Unlimited very massive immigration would make no sense as far as the environment.
We can start by building passive housing and improving public transit, using biofuels.
What is passive housing?
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