What importance do you place on the issue of Climate Change? (CNN, suspect)
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I.M.O. better policies, less than taxes, are needed. But I am a Physics person, not a financial person.
Policies:
1. There is not much that can be done to eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere; some are working on various carbon sequestering schemes but nothing along these lines seems practical so far.
2. But solar power with flat collectors has now improved in terms of cost per produced power by a factor of around 30 over the last 15 years. (These numbers are in my head but approximate.) An impediment to really using this improvement in Solar Power in the U.S. is the desire of some power companies to preserve the status quo. In terms of heating and cooling of dwellings, even for Connecticut with less incoming solar energy than Florida, because we are encouraged to interface with the grid with solar our house now spends about half as much for electric power with our new solar panels than before, and we did not have to pay any installation fees. (There is a company that will install the whole thing --- we get our electricity at a much lower rate than before, and the installation company gets a cut of the savings. But our over all bill is less by about a half than before even after paying in additional $20 a month to the power company for grid use plus paying something to the installation company.) But in Florida, the power companies do everything in their power to prevent home solar, and because of state politics it is to their advantage to do so.
3. Because electric vehicles convert electrical power into motion with much greater efficiency than internal combustion engines convert fossil fuels into motion, one by use of electric cars emits less CO2 per mile. With hydrogen driven vehicles one has the same benefit ; the hydrogen can come from advanced electrolysis of water (which can be powered by solar). I know a scientist in this field who sometimes drives around in one of these cars and it works beautifully and safely. Here taxes and/or money would be needed to set up the infrastructure.
4. One round trip intercontinental airplane flight puts more CO2 into the atmosphere per passenger than one saves by living in a home completely powered by solar and geothermal. Such trips should be rationed by the government, when the trip is a vacation, and therefore, a luxury.
5. If nuclear plants are installed by U.S. standards in low earthquake risk zones the risk to those living close by, as well as the risk from waste burial, is so low as to be an irrational concern. Nuclear power works in France, so why not in the U.S.?
Not one bit of this will offset the combination of population increase and the number of people moving to a first world lifestyle.
The first real step would be strong immigration limits, but even the so called environmentalists support this.
I.M.O. better policies, less than taxes, are needed. But I am a Physics person, not a financial person.
Policies:
1. There is not much that can be done to eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere; some are working on various carbon sequestering schemes but nothing along these lines seems practical so far.
2. But solar power with flat collectors has now improved in terms of cost per produced power by a factor of around 30 over the last 15 years. (These numbers are in my head but approximate.) An impediment to really using this improvement in Solar Power in the U.S. is the desire of some power companies to preserve the status quo. In terms of heating and cooling of dwellings, even for Connecticut with less incoming solar energy than Florida, because we are encouraged to interface with the grid with solar our house now spends about half as much for electric power with our new solar panels than before, and we did not have to pay any installation fees. (There is a company that will install the whole thing --- we get our electricity at a much lower rate than before, and the installation company gets a cut of the savings. But our over all bill is less by about a half than before even after paying in additional $20 a month to the power company for grid use plus paying something to the installation company.) But in Florida, the power companies do everything in their power to prevent home solar, and because of state politics it is to their advantage to do so.
3. Because electric vehicles convert electrical power into motion with much greater efficiency than internal combustion engines convert fossil fuels into motion, one by use of electric cars emits less CO2 per mile. With hydrogen driven vehicles one has the same benefit ; the hydrogen can come from advanced electrolysis of water (which can be powered by solar). I know a scientist in this field who sometimes drives around in one of these cars and it works beautifully and safely. Here taxes and/or money would be needed to set up the infrastructure.
4. One round trip intercontinental airplane flight puts more CO2 into the atmosphere per passenger than one saves by living in a home completely powered by solar and geothermal. Such trips should be rationed by the government, when the trip is a vacation, and therefore, a luxury.
5. If nuclear plants are installed by U.S. standards in low earthquake risk zones the risk to those living close by, as well as the risk from waste burial, is so low as to be an irrational concern. Nuclear power works in France, so why not in the U.S.?
Let's address number 4 for a moment.
President Obama has used a small armada of heavy lift aircraft to fly nearly halfway around the globe every year so his family can sit on that special beach in Hawaii.
If Obama, who proclaims over and over that he believes in AGW, refuses to make a minor change to his lifestyle, do you thing anyone else will? Obama has access to a world class resort, Camp David, which is a Marine One ride away, yet he chooses to utilize nearly 10 large jet aircraft along with lots of military assets to go to Hawaii. If he refuses to do the right thing, do you expect many others to do it?
President Obama has used a small armada of heavy lift aircraft to fly nearly halfway around the globe every year so his family can sit on that special beach in Hawaii.
It's actually worse than that. You may recall that Obama and Michelle took separate planes to the same location so that they could leave one day apart.
President Obama has used a small armada of heavy lift aircraft to fly nearly halfway around the globe every year so his family can sit on that special beach in Hawaii.
If Obama, who proclaims over and over that he believes in AGW, refuses to make a minor change to his lifestyle, do you thing anyone else will? Obama has access to a world class resort, Camp David, which is a Marine One ride away, yet he chooses to utilize nearly 10 large jet aircraft along with lots of military assets to go to Hawaii. If he refuses to do the right thing, do you expect many others to do it?
Global air travel contributes only 2% of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Global air travel contributes only 2% of CO2 to the atmosphere.
It's always a coincidence how liberals just authoritatively claim that anything they participate in doesn't lead to climate change, but anything they dislike does. So odd!
The Earth's climate has been changing since the Earth was first formed, and will continue to change until it is ultimately destroyed.
The only people who even come close to denying that the Earth's climate is naturally in a state of constant change are the AGW alarmists, who appear to believe that a static climate is somehow normal, achievable and sustainable.
It isn’t.
Exactly.
The only way the Earth's climate would remain static is if it had no atmosphere at all.
And there's your trade-off: You can choose from between Option A and Option B.
A) If you want an atmosphere (and who doesn't? ), then you will have climate change. Period.
B) If you want zero climate change, get rid of your atmosphere.
From a general desirability standpoint...Option B is contraindicated.
It's true, so since you live in NYC, why don't all the liberals there cut down electricity consumption by 50% starting tomorrow? It's the most important issue of our time.
Well...except for the other 99 or so more important issues way ahead of it, such as crime, overregulation, runaway government spending and borrowing, corruption at all levels of government, and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
But it's close to being in the top 100 problems...I'll grant you that. If climate change works its little butt off, it could very well crack the top 100.
But it's going to take some effort and discipline on climate change's part. It has to have the desire to improve its ranking. Without that, climate change stays where it is...in the cellar.
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), then you will have climate change. Period.
