World's climate warming faster than feared, scientists say

[Tomdstone]

…God isn’t going to let us destroy His earth.

How do you know that? God has given man free will.

 

[CaptFun]

Meanwhile, Australia is abnormally hot, and in Central Europe it was +12C today, when -12C would be more normal.

Not arguing for Global Cooling in case you thought that. I found the experts who wore us out with the “Nuclear Winter” campaign back in the '70s just as tiresome.

It is summer in the Southern Hemisphere. That is to say our “Global” weather is quite diverse at any time due to which parts are closer to the sun … or the Equator.

I thought Gilliam, the OP (in his post #11 here) did a nice piece of scholarly work by including this graph:

The highest high does seem to have been after 2000. Yet the temperature now (perhaps even lower with the record lows of this past week added?) look to be lower than the high temperature mark back in the 1870s … toward the beginning of the industrial revolution comparatively.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut4gl/from:1708/to:2013

… and I appreciated that it went so far back in time. The headlines I posted about “historic lows” must also be tempered by WHEN the history of such record taking began.

On the chart above (thanks Gilliam) the lowest low looks like it took place in 1883 - coinciding as it would with the (non-manmade) eruption of Krakatoa.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa

Global climate[edit]
In the year following the eruption, average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F).[citation needed] Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.[citation needed] The eruption injected an unusually large amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas high into the stratosphere, which was subsequently transported by high-level winds all over the planet. This led to a global increase in sulfuric acid (H2SO4) concentration in high-level cirrus clouds. The resulting increase in cloud reflectivity (or albedo) would reflect more incoming light from the sun than usual, and cool the entire planet until the suspended sulfur fell to the ground as acid precipitation.[12][citation needed]

Global optical effects[edit]

The eruption darkened the sky worldwide for years afterward, and produced spectacular sunsets throughout the world for many months. British artist William Ashcroft made thousands of colour sketches of the red sunsets half-way around the world from Krakatoa in the years after the eruption. The ash caused “such vivid red sunsets that fire engines were called out in New York, Poughkeepsie, and New Haven to quench the apparent conflagration.”[13] This eruption also produced a Bishop’s Ring around the sun by day, and a volcanic purple light at twilight.

In 2004, an astronomer proposed the idea that the blood-red sky shown in Edvard Munch’s famous 1893 painting The Scream is also an accurate depiction of the sky over Norway after the eruption.[14]

Weather watchers of the time tracked and mapped the effects on the sky. They labeled the phenomenon the “equatorial smoke stream”.[15] This was the first identification of what is known today as the jet stream.[16]

For several years following the eruption it was reported that the moon appeared to be blue and sometimes green. Blue moons resulted because some of the ash-clouds were filled with particles about 1 micron wide—the right size to strongly scatter red light, while allowing other colors to pass. White moonbeams shining through the clouds emerged blue, and sometimes green. People also saw lavender suns and, for the first time, noctilucent clouds.[13]

Of course if we run the chart above back to the Ice Age there has been even MORE Global Warming per the highs and lows of that graph.

It is an interesting subject, but I test what I come across – and am suspicious of, or at least cautious about, WHO bears the news and WHAT their proposed solutions are. Particularly if the solution is …*** “we need to give (certain political groups) much more power”.*** Doubly so when those same groups are already in power and yet weren’t able to stop whatever (manmade) crisis is supposedly at hand.

 

[lynnvinc]

Not arguing for Global Cooling in case you thought that. I found the experts who wore us out with the “Nuclear Winter” campaign back in the '70s just as tiresome.

I remember that!

If I recall, many were worried about all out nuclear war. I think the idea was that if one didn’t die from the initial effects, such a war would kick up so much dust it would cause a “nuclear winter” and all crops would fail, etc – so we’d all died out well before we could get cancer from the radiation. Or something like that. It’s hard to even remember the background fear we lived in during those decades (50s thru 70s), then all of a sudden the Cold War was over and that fear almost immediately vaporized.

Do you remember the movie THE DAY AFTER? – re all out nuke war and the nuclear winter. They had a panel of experts discuss it at the end. All but one were talking about triage and civil defense, bomb shelters and using subway systems as bomb shelters, etc. There was one little man on the end of the dais, a philosopher, Scandinavian, I think. He spoke last and said, “You don’t understand. We can’t let this happen in the first place.” He made the most sense of them all.

Re the “ice age” issue back then, I think the temps were dipping down over the decades – not sure why, maybe natural fluctuation, or maybe the industrial pollution “aerosol effect” such as from SO2 which is emitted from coal-burning (along with CO2), but has a cooling effect, tho its molecules only last weeks in the atmosphere, not 1000s of years like CO2.

This ice age thing seems to have gotten into NEWSWEEK (a mag we subscribed to at the time), but I don’t remember being afraid of the “coming ice age” as much as the possibility of nuke war, bec I understood that ice ages take 1000s of years to come, and people and many species obviously survived them in the past, or we wouldn’t be here. It just wasn’t very scary. At least not to me – I had read a lot of science in high school so I had a pretty good idea about ice ages and how glacially slow the process is.

Since then I’ve read that they didn’t have a lot of knowledge about the aerosol effect back in the 70s, which led a couple of scientists to think we might trigger an “ice age” – which is how the article about it got into NEWSWEEK (you know how the media are… sensationalism sells). The rest of the climate scientists at the time were still expecting global warming, (as they had for the past 200 years), not cooling – there story didn’t get told. In the 40 years since then climate science has matured greatly and they know for sure the aerosol effect will not outdo the greenhouse effect. So no ice age, maybe not ever, since the sun is slowly getting brighter and hotter on its way to self-destruction in some billions of years…

Thank God we can have heaven as our ultimate home with God’s continuous help and grace

 

[Tomdstone]

People’s ears are freezing in the northeast, with the coldest weather ever across the USA. Would this be due to global warming?

huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/03/winter-storm-brings-snow-_n_4535004.html

 

[lynnvinc]

The words “polar vortex” popped up in the news today, of which “arctic oscillation” is its index, so I looked it up on wiki – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex

They have a section on how some scientists are finding that it is linked to climate change and arctic sea ice loss, but that such trends take many decades to be sure, the science is not very certain on it yet.

Here’s an image of it:


The reason I’ve been following this issue like a hawk is our winter garden. Luckily we did not get a killing freeze last night (got down to 36F), tho we did cover up our small eggplant plants, and we’ll be back up to the 60s and 70s soon. Y’all (who are retired) are welcome to come on down and be “winter Texans” here!

 

[vz71]

People’s ears are freezing in the northeast, with the coldest weather ever across the USA. Would this be due to global warming?

huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/03/winter-storm-brings-snow-_n_4535004.html

Absolutely.
Global warming has us firmly in its icy grip.

 

[weller2]

Not arguing for Global Cooling in case you thought that. I found the experts who wore us out with the “Nuclear Winter” campaign back in the '70s just as tiresome.

Heh. You may want to reread commentaries from the era – criticisms levelled at the authors of the (in)famous TTAPS study read like they were lifted from today’s newspapers, just replacing “global warming” with “nuclear winter”. The reason was of course that the TTAPS study demonstrated that nuclear weapons are practically useless, so the nuclear establishment jumped at the authors to demonstrate that they are wrong – because if they were right, then the entire industry would have to be dismantled. Funnily enough, none of the critics of TTAPS actually produced a working alternative model of climate effects of nuclear war.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

 

[weller2]

Do you remember the movie THE DAY AFTER? – re all out nuke war and the nuclear winter.

Actually, The Day After does not show nuclear winter – it ends a few days after the attack IIRC. From what I have found, the concept was introduced to the wider audience by Carl Sagan (“S” in TTAPS) during the studio discussion after the screening.

The movie which shows nuclear winter is Threads. It makes The Day After look like a fairy tale.

 

[lynnvinc]

Actually, The Day After does not show nuclear winter – it ends a few days after the attack IIRC. From what I have found, the concept was introduced to the wider audience by Carl Sagan (“S” in TTAPS) during the studio discussion after the screening.

The movie which shows nuclear winter is Threads. It makes The Day After look like a fairy tale.

Well, my memory is very foggy. All I remember is that the idea of nuclear winter was already there, and the movie DAY AFTER came later and showed (I vaguely recall) stunned Midwestern survivors of the total nuke war walking down the road (apparently homeless and seeking help and shelter) and the sky was dark…so I may have fed in my meager knowledge of nuke winter into that, thinking those poor suckers have no chance at all with the upcoming crop failures, etc. Didn’t see THREADS.

Here’s some info about nuke’s winter’s effect on climate cooling: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Climatic_effects

 

[vanbrady]

And then there’s that Russian icebreaker that’s been stuck for days in the Antarctic “global warming,” as they went down to see how little ice was supposedly left.

Let us suppose for argument sake that the climate is changing, and I accept that possibility. Let us also suppose that the change can be attributed to human activity, which I don’t believe to be a significant cause. Many factors impact change that are not discussed such as sunspot activity, a shift in the earths axis, volcanic release of ash and sulfur.

Do governments that voice concern about warming truly believe that all of the countries throughout the world will come together in peace and harmony to lower their standards of living in the name of saving the planet? Certainly not! Keeping peace at home is, and will always be priority #1 for governments That is why China continues to build numerous coal fired power plants on a monthly basis.

. It is impossible to replace carbon fuels with green energy sources given the technology that exists today. You can’t store solar generated electricity. The wind doesn’t always blow, and the world is afraid of nuclear energy. The alternative is to limit the use of carbon fuel by making it too expensive to use at current levels. You limit use through taxation or simply limiting human activity. My fear is that governments may play this invented crisis with the motive of increasing revenues. Tax that bad carbon, but not too much. That’s what they do now with tobacco.

The arrogance of the global warming crowd to believe that their perceived warming can be reversed through some government regulations is laughable. The ignorance of the global warming crowd to place their belief in temperature models that span a couple of centuries, when significant patterns of change are viewed in millennium is curious at best.

 

[PLeeD]

Tax that bad carbon…

They can’t even call it what it is for fear of sounding ridiculous. It’s not carbon they want to tax. It’s carbon dioxide.

 

[TEPO]

If it’s true that the scientists are biased, then it’s also true that there is an agenda involving some type of global governance.

If the scientists are being honest, then we should honestly be looking towards some type of global governance.

Am I right or am I wrong?

 

[GEddie]

Actually, The Day After does not show nuclear winter – it ends a few days after the attack IIRC. From what I have found, the concept was introduced to the wider audience by Carl Sagan (“S” in TTAPS) during the studio discussion after the screening.

The movie which shows nuclear winter is Threads. It makes The Day After look like a fairy tale.

You are correct.

TDA was a made-for TV picture aired in 1983 and was required viewing in my ninth-grade class. It’s setting was Lawrence, Kan., several days prior to then after the nuclear war.

The salient features of the film were ITASM:

1). The rapidly deteriorating international politics prior to the war.

2). Cars stalling as people try to leave town (result of the EMP wave).

3). As the bombs go off, people turning into skeletons, then vanishing as their somas evaporate in the blast.

4). Subsequent to the attack, vegetation dying from fallout, as firing squads convene to administer rough justice.

5). In the end, life resumes at a primitive level while the radio announces that the war has ended and the USA survives.

There is a moment of personal tragedy when a boy, head facing ground zero ten miles away, is permanently blinded. However, there is no mention of nuclear winter per se.

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

If it’s true that the scientists are biased, then it’s also true that there is an agenda involving some type of global governance.

If the scientists are being honest, then we should honestly be looking towards some type of global governance.

Am I right or am I wrong?

Indeed.

If the earth is headed toward climatic convulsion, or into a runaway greenhouse effect, then human life will **need **a global government in order to take actions needed to survive.

If it is not, then the anxiety is being driven by those seeking such a government.

ICXC NIKA

 

[lynnvinc]

Let us suppose for argument sake that the climate is changing, and I accept that possibility. Let us also suppose that the change can be attributed to human activity, which I don’t believe to be a significant cause. Many factors impact change that are not discussed such as sunspot activity, a shift in the earths axis, volcanic release of ash and sulfur.

It may surprise some, but climate scientists are aware of these and many other factors. For one thing we’ve been discussing on this thread the global cooling effect from SO2… And solar activity – we’ve been in a deep solar irradiance minimum (relates to sunspots) – actually helps explain why global warming as been somewhat slow these past 15 years…along with increased SO2 emissions from all those Chinese coal-fired plants and ocean uptake of a large amount of the heat. If one combines surface temps with ocean temps the warming has not slowed at all.

Do governments that voice concern about warming truly believe that all of the countries throughout the world will come together in peace and harmony to lower their standards of living in the name of saving the planet? Certainly not! Keeping peace at home is, and will always be priority #1 for governments That is why China continues to build numerous coal fired power plants on a monthly basis.

It does look doubtful the US and China (world’s 2 largest CO2 emitters) are going to make serious strides in mitigating climate change, especially considering that the US is pretty much in the grips of fossil-fuel power, which has influence on gov (practically owns it), the media, and the educational system, etc.

It is impossible to replace carbon fuels with green energy sources given the technology that exists today. You can’t store solar generated electricity. The wind doesn’t always blow, and the world is afraid of nuclear energy.

Not totally true. The grid gets sources from various places (like our solar panels on our roof) and it’s usually windy somewhere, and more windy at night, and when it isn’t windy, it’s usually sunny.

I’m thinking we could reduce fossil fuel dependency by at least 75% thru efficiency/conservation and alt energy (solar panels have reduced 75% in price since 2008), while saving people money & helping the economy.

We’ve been on Green Mountain 100% wind-generated power for the past 12 years (cheaper than conventional) and just put up solar panels to offset half of our electricity – not because we wanted alt energy, but for investment of that money we’ve been saving over the past 25 years from energy efficiency/conservation measures. The array will be saving us about $1000 a year & pay for itself in 9 years. And we bought a Chevy Volt 2 years ago and mainly drive on our alt-energy electricity; it costs $1.23 to drive 37 miles and is saving us over $1000 a year. I’ve heard the Volt will go down $10,000 in price in 2015 (with subsidy cost about $22,500) and get more miles per charge. We drove 760 miles to and from Houston last year – and it drove beautifully. Ford just developed a concept car like it (that switches to petrol when the electric charge runs out), except it has a solar panel on the roof that produces enough energy in one day to drive it about 20 or so miles the next. Maybe we’ll get a solar water heater this year.

I’d suggest if people want to get into these money saving things they do so before they retire so they can take advantage of the gov tax credits for these, then retire in style with lower monthly expenses. But even without these tax credits these still save money long run. I would also suggest that one stay committed to one’s marriage so as to buy a home & have enough joint income to take advantage of these tax credits – also for spiritual reasons, as well as providing a better world for one’s children!

When calculating costs of fossil fuels, one needs to figure in the big subsidies and tax-breaks they get, plus the plethora of harms it generates–not only global warming impacts, but also acid rain, bitumen & coal-ash spills, chemical leaks, fresh water sources from fracking/coal-&-oil-production made unfit for drinking, etc. Local pollution that harms, kills, and causes abortions, etc.

The alternative is to limit the use of carbon fuel by making it too expensive to use at current levels. You limit use through taxation or simply limiting human activity. My fear is that governments may play this invented crisis with the motive of increasing revenues. Tax that bad carbon, but not too much. That’s what they do now with tobacco.

Or gov could simply end all subsidies and tax breaks to the fossil-fuel industry, which would have the same effect as imposing a tax on them. Also, market forces gyrate fuel prices more wildly than any tax on them. The gov could also create a “fee and dividend” on fossil fuels, with all dividends going back to the people (it would be revenue neutral for the people), who could then decide whether not to insulate their homes or hypermile and pay higher fuel prices, or invest that money in becoming energy/resource efficient/conservative, go on alt energy, and really be on the road to prosperity.

The ignorance of the global warming crowd to place their belief in temperature models that span a couple of centuries, when significant patterns of change are viewed in millennium is curious at best.

I do place my trust in top climate scientists (some of whom I know personally) than anonymous bloggers and non-climate scientists paid by fossil fuels. But that’s just me.

 

[lynnvinc]

If it’s true that the scientists are biased, then it’s also true that there is an agenda involving some type of global governance.

If the scientists are being honest, then we should honestly be looking towards some type of global governance.

As I mentioned on another thread when the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory was brought up, here is the real conspiracy theory:

It was a complex plot right from the beginning that would have taken beings with supercomputer intelligence to come up with, starting well before the time when the Dominators contracted with bin Laden to attack us, leading to grossly enhanced security measures and detracting our attention from anthropogenic global warming (AGW), also causing (or giving pretexts for) extremely expensive wars, throwing our economy into a tailspin, further detracting from AGW concerns.

Have you noticed how they are taking rights away from those who are least likely to believe in climate change denialist conspiracy theories & most likely to vote for politicians concerned about AGW. Check out the Constitution-free zone – see aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone and this image:

THE CONSTITUTION-FREE ZONE (compare it to red &blue voting maps)


Well, little by little obscure, arcane laws are being put in place that on the face seem reasonable security and economic measures, but one day people living within 100 miles of the coasts and borders, including Chicago, will wake up to find themselves disenfranchised (i.e., mainly the people not buying into the climate denialist or Agenda 21 conspiracy theories). Ostensibly this is for security measures and to ensure bitumen tar sands economic prosperity to all. Who are these “Dominators,” you ask, who are spining lies that AGW is a hoax and Agenda 21 will harm not help people? Just see how utterly effective they are in “Climate of Doubt” at pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

Well, eventually the denialist industry henchmen and fossil fuel CEOs will find out the Dominators have also betrayed them when global climate reaches some 3C warming around 2050 or so, when they can no longer brain-wash the gullible public into denying AGW bec the Cat 5 hurricanes are whirling around the Arctic while Cat 7 hurricanes are bashing our coasts and crops have totally failed due to the super heat-spells, droughts, wildfires, and Noah-type floods. These denialist industry henchmen and fossil fuel CEOs will find out too late their free trip to a terraformed Mars promised by the Dominators was not actually in the works or even in the plans.

So as we head into a runaway scenario, the Dominator supercomputer robot/androids from Area 51, who look exactly like humans, will “decommission” the denialist powers-that-be and take over the oil companies and government with look-alikes (some have already been taken over), and start implementing their plans to turn all that decomposing biota (us) into oil for their fuel. Eventually when earth turns into another Venus with 480C temps and these robots are all melted into nothing, then the Zorks from Planet Bork (who created and sent the Dominators to Earth) will have the last laugh at having destroyed a potential enemy (us), since Earthlings were becoming a bit too sophisticated in their technology and space endeavors, but apparently not in their gullibility for climate denialist and Agenda 21 conspiracy theories.

The end.

 

[TEPO]

How do we know that scientists aren’t being paid high salaries to produce more and more evidence for global warming? After all, the title of this thread suggests that the previous calculations were flawed, and after all, the common trend always seems to produce worse and worse outlooks.

Has the UN ever released documents suggesting that a previous calculation was overblown? Surely there must have been an error or two in the past that turned out more extreme than it actually was.

 

[TEPO]

Also, isn’t Professor Steven Sherwood (the scientist who made this claim) on the UN’s payroll as an author for the UN’s IPCC?

…also, it’s not easy to find the yearly income for the UN between every branch of its system. I’m sure it’s in the billions. Billions of dollars that must be spent EVERY YEAR in order to continue justifying its existence.

 

[TEPO]

As I mentioned on another thread when the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory was brought up, here is the real conspiracy theory:

It was a complex plot right from the beginning that would have taken beings with supercomputer intelligence to come up with, starting well before the time when the Dominators contracted with bin Laden to attack us, leading to grossly enhanced security measures and detracting our attention from anthropogenic global warming (AGW), also causing (or giving pretexts for) extremely expensive wars, throwing our economy into a tailspin, further detracting from AGW concerns.

Have you noticed how they are taking rights away from those who are least likely to believe in climate change denialist conspiracy theories & most likely to vote for politicians concerned about AGW. Check out the Constitution-free zone – see aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone and this image:

THE CONSTITUTION-FREE ZONE (compare it to red &blue voting maps)
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/cfz_map/Image-Map.gif

Well, little by little obscure, arcane laws are being put in place that on the face seem reasonable security and economic measures, but one day people living within 100 miles of the coasts and borders, including Chicago, will wake up to find themselves disenfranchised (i.e., mainly the people not buying into the climate denialist or Agenda 21 conspiracy theories). Ostensibly this is for security measures and to ensure bitumen tar sands economic prosperity to all. Who are these “Dominators,” you ask, who are spining lies that AGW is a hoax and Agenda 21 will harm not help people? Just see how utterly effective they are in “Climate of Doubt” at pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

Well, eventually the denialist industry henchmen and fossil fuel CEOs will find out the Dominators have also betrayed them when global climate reaches some 3C warming around 2050 or so, when they can no longer brain-wash the gullible public into denying AGW bec the Cat 5 hurricanes are whirling around the Arctic while Cat 7 hurricanes are bashing our coasts and crops have totally failed due to the super heat-spells, droughts, wildfires, and Noah-type floods. These denialist industry henchmen and fossil fuel CEOs will find out too late their free trip to a terraformed Mars promised by the Dominators was not actually in the works or even in the plans.

So as we head into a runaway scenario, the Dominator supercomputer robot/androids from Area 51, who look exactly like humans, will “decommission” the denialist powers-that-be and take over the oil companies and government with look-alikes (some have already been taken over), and start implementing their plans to turn all that decomposing biota (us) into oil for their fuel. Eventually when earth turns into another Venus with 480C temps and these robots are all melted into nothing, then the Zorks from Planet Bork (who created and sent the Dominators to Earth) will have the last laugh at having destroyed a potential enemy (us), since Earthlings were becoming a bit too sophisticated in their technology and space endeavors, but apparently not in their gullibility for climate denialist and Agenda 21 conspiracy theories.

The end.

Hmmm. Who do I want to control more power? The free trade coal and oil industries or the State backed environmental networks? I’ll choose neither.

 

[Tomdstone]

It may surprise some, but climate scientists are aware of these and many other factors. For one thing we’ve been discussing on this thread the global cooling effect from SO2… And solar activity – we’ve been in a deep solar irradiance minimum (relates to sunspots) – actually helps explain why global warming as been somewhat slow these past 15 years…along with increased SO2 emissions from all those Chinese coal-fired plants and ocean uptake of a large amount of the heat. If one combines surface temps with ocean temps the warming has not slowed at all.

It does look doubtful the US and China (world’s 2 largest CO2 emitters) are going to make serious strides in mitigating climate change, especially considering that the US is pretty much in the grips of fossil-fuel power, which has influence on gov (practically owns it), the media, and the educational system, etc.

Not totally true. The grid gets sources from various places (like our solar panels on our roof) and it’s usually windy somewhere, and more windy at night, and when it isn’t windy, it’s usually sunny.

I’m thinking we could reduce fossil fuel dependency by at least 75% thru efficiency/conservation and alt energy (solar panels have reduced 75% in price since 2008), while saving people money & helping the economy.

We’ve been on Green Mountain 100% wind-generated power for the past 12 years (cheaper than conventional) and just put up solar panels to offset half of our electricity – not because we wanted alt energy, but for investment of that money we’ve been saving over the past 25 years from energy efficiency/conservation measures. The array will be saving us about $1000 a year & pay for itself in 9 years. And we bought a Chevy Volt 2 years ago and mainly drive on our alt-energy electricity; it costs $1.23 to drive 37 miles and is saving us over $1000 a year. I’ve heard the Volt will go down $10,000 in price in 2015 (with subsidy cost about $22,500) and get more miles per charge. We drove 760 miles to and from Houston last year – and it drove beautifully. Ford just developed a concept car like it (that switches to petrol when the electric charge runs out), except it has a solar panel on the roof that produces enough energy in one day to drive it about 20 or so miles the next. Maybe we’ll get a solar water heater this year.

I’d suggest if people want to get into these money saving things they do so before they retire so they can take advantage of the gov tax credits for these, then retire in style with lower monthly expenses. But even without these tax credits these still save money long run. I would also suggest that one stay committed to one’s marriage so as to buy a home & have enough joint income to take advantage of these tax credits – also for spiritual reasons, as well as providing a better world for one’s children!

When calculating costs of fossil fuels, one needs to figure in the big subsidies and tax-breaks they get, plus the plethora of harms it generates–not only global warming impacts, but also acid rain, bitumen & coal-ash spills, chemical leaks, fresh water sources from fracking/coal-&-oil-production made unfit for drinking, etc. Local pollution that harms, kills, and causes abortions, etc.

Or gov could simply end all subsidies and tax breaks to the fossil-fuel industry, which would have the same effect as imposing a tax on them. Also, market forces gyrate fuel prices more wildly than any tax on them. The gov could also create a “fee and dividend” on fossil fuels, with all dividends going back to the people (it would be revenue neutral for the people), who could then decide whether not to insulate their homes or hypermile and pay higher fuel prices, or invest that money in becoming energy/resource efficient/conservative, go on alt energy, and really be on the road to prosperity.

I do place my trust in top climate scientists (some of whom I know personally) than anonymous bloggers and non-climate scientists paid by fossil fuels. But that’s just me.

A Norwegian study has “determined that ultimately, the production of these vehicles is just as harmful to the environment as that of a regular car. In fact, some evidence from the study suggests that electric cars may even have a greater negative impact than a more “traditional” car.”
greenerideal.com/vehicles/0616-are-electric-cars-really-eco-friendly/