What importance do you place on the issue of Climate Change?

[PedroMartinez]

Originally Posted by phetaroi

And what would be the reason?

Control and revenue.

[curiousdddd]

If the CO2/temperature hypothesis were actually a functional scientific theory (i.e., one that has some predictive value), the temperature line and the CO2 line on the attached chart would both be moving upward more or less in tandem. Yet, they are not, for reasons the proponents of this hypothesis have yet to plausibly explain.[/quote]

The published temperature data in the plot has too coarse a scale in the ordinate. I suggest the following careful comparison to CO2, volcanic emissions, and temperature changes from the historical records.

Go to

Berkeley Earth

See either third or fourth graph from the top, under the label "Human Effect".....

[hifijohn]

not very much, If we are causing it then there is very little we can do about it, if it is natural then there really is nothing we can do about it.

[curiousdddd]

1. Nuclear power works in France. So why not in the U.S? Because we have a particularly bad case of NIMBY or "not in my back yard". People tend to be totally irrational about nuclear radiation. All of us already get as much radiation from cosmic rays, granite in rocks, dental and medical x-rays, and radioactive potassium in our bodies to significantly increase our lifetime chance of getting cancer.

2. There is too much push back from the Sierra Club and others of their ilk....we could install large fields of solar panels in the Mojave Desert, and if some rare animal thereby goes extinct, then that is the price one pays.

3. International air travel should be carefully rationed. If such rationing would apply to everyone then people would be willing to go along with it.

4. One could go with obligatory phasing out of SUVs and muscle cars. Really small cars are dangerous to drive because there are too many big cars on the same road. But people would then be able to buy really small cars and these could be made to be extremely efficient.

5. Electric cars and hydrogen powered vehicles, even assuming the source power ( to separate the hydrogen from water and to drive electric cars) came from burning fossil fuels. This is because the efficiency of the internal combustion engine is inherently much worse than that of an electric motor and modern electrolysis methods can produce the hydrogen. I know someone who works for a successful company that has a high efficiency method of generating and storing hydrogen. My friend drives around in a hydrogen powered vehicle and it is reliable and safe.

6. If folks want to go to Europe despite the airplane rationing one could make practical nuclear powered cruise ships. I tease my super green friends by calling this the "Go as you glow" option.

7. The biggest problems with solar are (1) Political opposition in certain states, such as Florida and (2) the foot dragging of power companies. There should be fields of solar panels in all the sunny states, but even in California there is major lobbying against this from power companies. Solution: Nationalize the power grid!

8. For less than the cost of the Iraq war, one could install a smart grid that would make it much more practical to use wind power.

[PullMyFinger]

It's butt cold and I'm fresh out of beer!