Climate Change or Chains? AG Sunday Politics

Climate change is merely a leftist subterfuge to take from the productive capitalist societies and transfer to the developing societies, most of which are lead by oppressive dictators. Idia is the notable exception. The advanced societies have done the heavy technological lifting and now the runners-up seek to confiscate our wealth under the banner of climate change. If climate change were really the threat to us all that is portrayed, the developed nations would have forced the big polluters such as China and India to comply with our emissions standards. If the world is in such desperate peril from carbon emissions, we should force compliance at all costs to include the military option – if our situation is as desperate as Al Gore (10,000 sqft homestead carbon footprint) says. If you are in a boat and someone is putting holes in it, you stop them at all costs, right?

I’ve always questioned our influence. I look at this way…How much of the world is land, and how much of that land do we occupy and of the land we occupy how much of it has pollution contributors? Seems like a very small percentage…so how exactly are we affecting things?

Thomas, that’s exactly what I am talking about. The only thing you mention is Al Gore and Climate Change.

Forget about everything else directly affected by the topic. Like the fact that we only have about 100 years of coal left to support the world and with 3rd world countries aspiring to have the American lifestyle we can significantly reduce that number.

Instead of Americans realizing that we can lead by example and putting the money to EDUCATE people on other related careers and talk about Al Gore’s huge house or the peace prize.

No, the better idea is to go to war and FORCE people to believe a certain way? Seriously.

Missy, Agreed. We should spend the money wisely for reasons that make sense. I would rather spend billions to send kids to college for free than to force other countries grow and react a certain way.

While Al Gore gets the attention for all of this he needs to be taken out of the equation/argument completely. He can not ‘save the world’. In the end its about making common sense decisions that work for each individual person. My comments were not intended to bash your post but to agree with it for the most part. I do believe that climate change is affected by us for the most part, not that we are solely the cause, but otherwise…I agree with everything. It’s about the medium ground. And yes, peace prize is worthless. 🙂

When subbing for a local science teacher, I witnessed a simplified ‘Scientific process’ by way of: What do I know–What do I want to find–What steps do I need to use to complete the process. Found this to be a great few days in the classroom [especially as I am Art & English / Speech-Drama trained]–this was an experience of ‘actuals’ not ‘theories’. If this is demanded of our Students, how much more so should it be demanded of those who create, delineate, generate, and downright ‘force’ laws / Bills on all of us. George Carlin had a great shtick on this involving dinosaurs eons, & man’s-inflated opinion of self. We have always ‘re-cycled’ in our home & have also added the ‘twisted’ bulbs, corrected roof / window / door items–to lower our energy Bills [mainly]. If in the process these steps help others live a ‘better life’ then fine / I just do NOT believe. Perhaps, someone should notify ELF and like groups that burning tires, autos, New Home construction—Not such a Good idea in the PR Department. Glad you posted this, Missy; very interesting comments too. It is always refreshing to read that others ‘out there in the land of Professionals’ share like thoughts.

I would agree with Ines that our consumptive lifestyle in this country is not sustainable. We are far to wasteful with our energy and natural resources to continue as we have. I’ll probably be labeled as a radical, berry-eating, guitar-strumming, left-wing liberal, but I do believe that it’s governments job to force a change. Missy – you expect too much out of your neighbors to make the same smart choices that you make.

Look at the use of energy in our country. Putting global warming aside, our addiction to cheap oil has us mired in the middle east — the most dysfunctional part of our planet. A school in my area put out a flag for every one of our fallen servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. At first, you see a group of flags. Turn the corner and there’s more. Keep driving and there were more and more. At the end, there was a single sign indicating what each of the 5,100+ flags represent. When you see these flags you can appreciate how big this number is. In addition to the trillion dollars that we’ve spent/borrowed over there, this is a huge price that few of us appreciate. If it weren’t for our dependence on oil, we would not have been over there.

Drive through Appalachia and see entire mountaintops leveled from coal mining so that metro DC (my area) has the power that it needs. This comes at a very high cost to the local people and environment just because we need more and more power.

As a society, we make Herculean efforts to protect and increase our current energy sources. Yet when have we ever taken real steps to use energy in a smart way? We haven’t because we don’t want to endure the pain, inconvenience and cost that comes with making the change. I can only think of two times in my lifetime when the country was focused on conservation – during the 70s oil embargo and when gas recently hit $4/gal. Any other time it’s been “filler up”.

So what do we do? I think that energy should be a lot more expensive as it is in Europe. It should be taxed to reflect its true cost. Make it more expensive and then we’ll all have a strong financial incentive to be less wasteful and to seek out more sustainable sources.

To believe that our current habits don’t have a significant impact on our environment and climate is a bit far-fetched to me. Regardless, long before the East Coast gets swamped by rising tides, our country will be bankrupt if we don’t radically change our energy policy.

I would rant more, but my vegan burger is getting cold, and my pet spotted owl can only go to sleep if I turn off the computer and put on some rain-forest inspired new age music.

Hydrogen is a dead end. It must be released from something else. It requires more energy to release it than you can get back when you use it. Eventually cars will be plug-in diesel hybrids and the electricity (all of the energy that humanity will need for millions of years) will come from nuclear fission breeder reactors.

I don’t see how anyone can argue whether or not the world is experiencing a change in climate. However, I do think it is fair to ask the question as to whether or not it is humans that are causing it. Now after all of the reading I have done I still cannot decide what side of the fence I am on when it comes to that question, but I don’t think that we need to answer it.

I personally am very confused as to why we need to have a huge brandable catastrophe to make the decision that we all would be better off without pollution. This is the bigger question in my book. Why must we see our very near demise to care about air quality? If you look at the growing (as a percentage) respiratory health issues that are being seen in larger cities how can you not see a need to do something. We are beyond a doubt polluting our world at a rate beyond what the ecosystems can clean up. This is why we need to make advances in alternative energy sources.

Well Baldguy, why don’t you tell us how you really feel? Of course we can’t change the climate…only one Person I know can, and He sits in the heavens and laughs. Psalms 2:4.

All of the global average temperatures for the entire 20th century and until the present are readily calculated with no consideration whatsoever of changes to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gas. The method uses only the time-integral of sunspot count and 32-year long up trends and down trends that have an amplitude of 0.45 C and are probably related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Data sources, a graph that overlays the measured and calculated temperatures from 1880 to 2008 and a detailed description of the method are in a new paper at https://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true . The standard deviation of the difference between concurrent calculated and measured average global temperatures is 0.064 C. There is no Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) (and therefore no human caused climate change) from added atmospheric carbon dioxide. Invoking Cap and Trade would be an egregious mistake that would have no effect on climate but would further cripple the economy.