Global Warming? are humans to blame?

To say a reduction of economic activity is a bad thing is a purely subjective statement. Most of the economic activity taking place in the world is unnecessary and ought not be considered to be equal to, for example, certain other vital economic activities such as procurement of food, shelter, and basic meeds.
One third of the worlds resources are intimately tied to an inability of Americans to restrain their consumption. They are 4% of the world's population.
I can assure you that it is possible for an American to live in such a way that they only use a maximum of 4% of the world's resources. That alone would reduce world consumption by about 12%--------- by simply living like everyone else.
I have already done so.
If you ran your household like you advise we run the world, you would constantly be making things that don't last so you could make more. If your wife made four pies, one child would get three, one none, and one pie would be thrown away in order to keep her busy. You would spill garbage on the floors in order to give your children work, for which you would pay them. They would take the money and buy as many cookies as they could afford from the cookie jar. Your wife would take that cash and pay you to throw garbage on the floor. It's a perfect economy----- everyone has something to do. Everyone has a job. It makes complete sense.
I suppose you could justify virtually every decision you make in the name of the grand economy. The biggest truck or car or SUV, the biggest TV set, the longest paved driveway, the most jet trips...
Bush showed us all when he did the photo-op on television after 911, spending with his credit card on national TV to encourage people to keep that ol' economy going.
He "threw some garbage on the floor", so to speak.
Yes, it makes an enormous amount of sense.
Seriously, SB, where's the justification for too much?

Alan

 

Now that post I understood and liked it ---

 

OK, which people do we take jobs away from?

 

I'm no scientist but I've gotta buy into this. That last statement just totally sums up the human condition. People have gotta wake up that there WILL BE NO ECONOMY if we keep just using and using and wasteing and giving nothing back. Every other living thing on this planet EXCEPT FOR MAN either contributes or at least does NO HARM to the earths natural balance.

We get smaller catches of smaller seafood due to overfishing, some fish we cannot eat due to contamination,We've caused massive soil errosions and salination due to too much clear felling in forests. Most water has to be processed, clorinated, fumigated, filtered to make it fit to drink.
Repiratory diseases are more prevelent due pollution.
We waste viable growing land to "Have a nice place to build a house", there are pollutents in cows milk in green vegetables, the list could go on.
Globeing warming, one issue there are so many others. Mate that Statement of yours just sums up the arrogance of the human race. We DO NOT have anymore right to exist here then anything else but we do have the responsibility of our supposed "Superior intellect" to NOT SCREW IT ALL UP !!!!.

Mychael

 

I imagine the ones who will lose their jobs first will be the ones who make, market, and sell the things that contribute most to the pollution.
There will be a lot of collateral damage too. It will be very hard, especially for those who can't relocate.
Its effects will resonate through the entire economy.

As usual, the ones who suffer most will be the ones who are simply trying to get along.

The ones who do best will be those who already consume very little. Their life habits are already efficient and tight. They are the ones who turn off their small car in traffic jams, even in the winter. They own kayaks and bicycles, not jet-skis and four-wheelers.

Then there are all the emerging industries; wind power, hydrogen power, hybrid power, solar power, environmental workers, forest management, recycling, all with attendant educational infrastructure and enforcement.
The list goes on.

How many of the American population were farmers back in 1900? I think about half or more. Somehow, our economy grew in spite of changing vocations. It's never easy, but the alternative to acting wisely and reinventing how we live is catastrophe of an unimaginable scope.

Alan

 

Is this the way you really think? I can see how you can honestly use the term 'unimaginable' because you obviously haven't thought this through.

Assuming you became absolute ruler and were able to implement your scheme over the objections of the ignorant masses, who obviously need you to tell them what is good for them, there will be no bicycles - you've shut down the steel and aluminum industries, they emit CO2. No kayaks because you've eliminated the oil indistry, and along with it plastics. No batteries for your electric car, batteries use metal and plastic. No epoxy for fiberglass, epoxy is made from oil. No fiberglass, for that matter, glass manufacture emits CO2. Oops, no pesticides and fertilizer, either - but that's OK, we'll just let natural selection dictate who gets food and who doesn't until we can clear enough forest to replace the lost agricultural productivity.

I don't know why you picked 1900 as an example, since it was a time of economic GROWTH. A better example of what will happen is the Great Depression. Oh, but of course you wouldn't want that example, because the only thing that brought the unemployment rate below 20%, even after 10 years, was WW2. And, of course, the USA was dragged into WW2 because the Japanese thought we couldn't be economically ready to fight a war for years.

Incidentally, the fallacy you fell into this time is called Argumentum ad Metum, Appeal to Fear. Ironic, isn't it, since history indicates the result of your vision will be WWIII.

 

Stonebreaker, ever since you googled that site on the rules of logic, you've been nothing but trouble.

I suppose a debate on the wisdom of training for those who handle explosives would also also get your hackles up since I would argue that the result of improper handling could cause a catastrophe.
Not fear, but awareness of consequences. I am sure the consequences of continued airborne and waterborne pollutants have either been mentioned here or are already known to you.
They are catastrophic. I would say that they are already becoming catastrophic, if we can agree that you can't eat fish safely anymore, and stay-inside pollution warnings are issued on certain summer days, at least in my area.
It was you who posited the example of my being the leader of the free world passing laws that would ban any burning of oil. I mention this because your strange way of debating will cause you to later argue as follows:
"So since you think it's morally acceptable to institute laws to totally ban the use of oil..."
A confusion you are suseptable to due to your difficulty in listening to what I'm saying, preferring instead that I be exactly polarized to whatever you believe. In other words, you are projecting an opposite objective view to your subjective one in order to validate the extremity of your position.

Alan

 

Incidentally, I am now remembering that it was indeed during the depression that so many were still involved in farming. The problems of that time involved the consequences of centralization of banking and commerce.
My point was that people can change how they live, not exactly how history has played out. I think you know that. It is as if you don't care at all about anything more than debate brownie points. Your sense that you are right is almost entirely dependant on your need for others to be wrong.
You do not answer the simplest of questions, such as whether pollution, unchecked would be catastrophic. I await your response to that question, and not a treatise on what latin name you've looked up that doesn't apply to the question anyway.

Alan

 

Would pollution, if unchecked, lead to eventual catastrophe?

My guess is that you lack the intestinal fortitude to actually answer that question, preferring instead to say something else.
What good is it to talk to someone who can't even answer a simple yes or no question like that? What good is it to go through life filtering out such questions?
The others here will note whether you can give a clear yes or no to the question, unqualified by an excuse that the question can't be answered, and unburdened by a return question such as would avoid the answering of my question.

Alan

 

"Awareness of consequenses"? Is that what you meant by "unimaginable catastrophe"? You're trying to weasel out of having stuck your foot in your mouth.

Incidentally, I recognize the straw man you're setting up with your next question, "Would pollution, if unchecked, lead to eventual catastrophe?" Of course it would, numbnuts, which is why we've been doing everything we can to reduce it for the last 50 years. Cars these days, for example, produce less emissions running down the highway than a 1960's car did sitting in the driveway. But what does that have to do with global warming? You still haven't shown that an extra 3% of CO2 causes global warming, nor that it harms the environment in any way.

Oh, and as far as being a pain with the logic thing, if you wouldn't make all these logical errors, I wouldn't be able to shoot down your arguments so easily, now, would I?

 

Numbnuts?

I'm not trying to prove anything about CO2. Never was, but enough telling you that. Let the other readers decide, any case.
My prediction that you would ask a question based on something I hadn't said proved accurate. It was a yes or no question, and no qualification was needed.
It would, if answered yes, be followed by another question, which is, if so, does it appear that the world in general is doing enough to reverse or even check the pollution it creates?

Please try to stop calling me names. It only makes you appear childish.

Alan

 

Back to the "position of no position", I see.

 

There is a common misconception that we breathe dirty air here in the US. In point of fact, the air in the US is cleaner than it has been in over 100 years, (with a few exceptions, such as So Cal). This is one of the great success stories of the environmental movement. Environmental activists got our attention on the air pollution issue in the late 1960's. We listened to them, which led to the passage of the clean air act of 1970. This act and its subsequent amendments, has among other things, eliminated all TEL (lead) from motor fuels. It did so in four steps, completing in 1985. In the peak year of TEL use, the US released some 80 MILLION TONS:!: of lead into the air from motor fuel use. TEL is said to be responsible for >90% of all environmental lead exposure. Sure enough, within 5 years of the complete elimination of its use in motor fuel, environmental lead levels fell to background (natural, pre-industrial) levels, which is where it has remained here in the US. There is a natural level of lead in our environment, released largely by forest fires.

Contrast this with Europe, which likes to imagine that it is 'greener' than the US, which FINALLY phased out TEL from motor fuels some 20 YEARS after the US completed its phase-out.

Now the battle is over power plants, which have become by default, the largest polluters of the skies. Amendments to the clean air act made in 1977 require power plants to install modern pollution controlling equipment on any NEW power plants built after that year. But this legislation does not apply to existing power plants. Through a series of cort battles, environmental lawyers have set precedent which means that the environmental equipment must be "Sate of the Art" at the time of the new installation. By installing such equipment, a power company can be assured that it will pay the most money possible, and not see a profit on their investment for 20 years or more. So quite naturally, no power company has built any new plants, and instead just uses the old dirty ones, exempt as they are from the more stringent requirements, hence the continued pollution. This impass lasted for about 24 years.

Then comes the current administration whcih tried to break the impass. They did so by allowing power plants to install pollution controlling equipment which is mature and cost effective rather than 'state of the art'. Keep in mind that this equipment is better and cleaner than 'state of the art' equipment from the 1980's, but costs far less beacuse the technology is mature. This would allow power plants to 1) build new plants, which the US sorely needs and 2) make actual reductions in emissions without going bankrupt.

You would think that environmentalists would be elated at this, but you would be wrong! They, quite predictably spin these proposals as 'anti-environment', a weakening of existing laws (never mind that the pollution standards set forth in those existing laws have NEVER actually been realized and NEVER will without a break in this impass )

Every now and then, the environmentalists and their allies in the legislature will introduce a piece of legislation which would force power plants to make costly changes to reduce their small output of lead. Now they don't use TEL as motor fuels once did, but the heavier (less refined) fossil fuels do contain small amounts of natural lead. This legislation is not designed to improve air quality, but just to embarrass an administration whcih they do not like. Remember that environmental lead is already at background levels again, so making power plants install scrubbers would cost consumers a bunch of money on their power bill with NO AIR QUALITY BENEFIT WAHTSOEVER. When the administration or the opposition party in the legislature sensibly opposes such proposed legislation, then the envirnmentalists spin that as 'anti-environment'.

When the party favorable to environmentalists is in power again, watch and see if they re-introduce their proposed power plant lead clean-up legislation again. I bet they don't. After all, why didn't they try to introduce sometime it in the 8 years previous to the administration they don't like?

Now most people will just 'knee-jerk' react to anyone opposing ANY environmental legislative proposal. Even people like Alan, who no doubt like to imagine themselves as 'thoughtful', will generally not even take 5 minutes out of their day to do a little research on matters such as these but instead content themselves to a thoughtless, reflexive reaction.

This is how democracy 'works'.

Jimbo

 

There are facts all over the place, not all of which are accurately presented.

If I am not presenting disputable facts, why am I expected to do research--- to prove a point I have no interest in defending?
Nothing I've said is actually on disagreement with anyone's view. It is laughable, at this point, that my one point is not in dispute at all. That point was that it is encumbant on all of the people of the world to reduce pollution, or face an eventual catastrophe.

If you disagree with that exact statement, Jimbo, say so. Don't reword it. Don't extrapolate any kind of complex agenda out of it.
Show me my statement is wrong as written, and get a star on your forehead!

Alan

 

Anyway, thanks for the conversation, SB.

It's over. I apologize for messing with your head. I was sure all along you wouldn't understand what I was saying. That's not your fault.
Logic is interesting becuse it only exists in a divided state. The ultimate logic wouldn't be logic at all. What makes us aware beings in the first place is the division of our minds.
All we can do is know that and laugh, because we can never escape it.
What creates the right is the left, and the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing, so life is one big juggling act.

Alan