This might be more interesting if there hadn’t been far more catastrophic winters in the past, before there was much at all in the way of burning fossil fuels.
It might be as well if I could tell an iota of difference between past droughts and the one of 2011-2012. I have seen a lot worse years ago. And the 1930s drought was worse than any I have ever seen.
And it might be if I could tell any difference in climate or weather at all during my lifetime, other than those cyclical events that come and go. Water flow is no different except cyclically (and I DO pay attention to that because I must). Growing seasons are no different except cyclically (again, it’s critical to me to know) Temperature variations are no different except cyclically.
Nothing is different, so why should I believe that somehow it is when it manifestly is not?
Well, the scientists have found significant increases in hurricanes, droughts, floods, wildfires, disease spread, heat deaths, and harm to crops in some poor countries that can be attributed to AGW to date. If you don’t accept that, then that’s your call. I figure the scientists are usually underestimating problems (since they are striving to avoid the false positive).
Of course they are using data from all over the world, not just someone’s back yard or a few cherry picked examples from history.
Because somebody says “oh, it will be different in 2050”, so we had better make heating and cooling and refrigreration and food production much more expensive than it is now, and lose jobs overseas to the bargain? Not sufficiently persuasive to cause the suffering all of that political “mitigation” will do.
No, we should be making these things less expensive by becoming more energy/resource efficient/conservative and going on alt energy. And we have a huge way to go on that for several decades to come before we even enter the realm of “maybe we have to sacrifice a bit.”
I guess many here are gamblers. I’m not. Protestant upbringing and my grandmother didn’t even put anything in the stockmarket, bec she said that was gambling and gambling was a sin.
Except that we are not only gambling with money and wealth (that of our children and their progeny), but also human lives.
And just how do you figure making utility costs “skyrocket” will cost people less? I know and you know that it it won’t. Your only answer to that, thread after thread, is that there needs to be utility subsidies to those who can’t afford the increases. Well, why make subsidies necessary in the first place? If people can pay their utility bills now, why make it impossible for them to do so later? And food will be just as negatively affected by political “mitigation”. So are we going to subsidize that too? Is there anything we’re NOT going to subsidize in order to avoid something someone says will happen in 2050 or beyond, but can’t seem to prove?
It makes no sense, Lynnvinc.
I think we can reduce our GHG emissions cost-effectively without gov plans – we just need the will, and perhaps some low-interest loans for poorer people for some of the cost effective measures that will pay for themselves and the loans to get them
But if we are to go into some gov plan to “inspire” these already sensible actions, then I think “Fee & Dividend” makes the most sense. Put a modest fee on fossil fuels – barrels of oil and tons of coal as the come out of the ground or into port, then give ALL that money to all the adult residents of the U.S. (perhaps the way Bush gave us back some of our tax dollars some years back). See
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_and_dividend
That way people can use that money either to pay their higher energy costs or plow it into energy/resource efficient/conservative measures and/or alt energy and really be on the road out of poverty.
Why not give that a try for, say, 5 or 10 years, and if it doesn’t work we can scrap it.
Why not get out of this “can’t do” mode and into some efforts to find out how to do this with least harm, and hopefully even help in saving $$ (and lives).
