Global Warming Epiphany
Posted by wolfger on December 7, 2007
It doesn’t matter whether global warming is caused by cars, or by cows, or by periodic changes in the Earth’s climate. The fact is, it’s here, and we need to fucking do something about it. Blaming the problem on something other than the human race doesn’t solve the problem in any way. If farting cows caused this predicament, you *still* need to do what you can to make things better.
That is all.
Jeff, KE9V said
But what will we do? That always gets lost in this discussion. Politicos who are not in office always want those who are in office to “do something”. But what?
Had the US signed up for the Kyoto Protocol it would have caused us to shutter the remaining factories in this country as well as 20% of our electrical generating capacity. That might have been avoided because the treaty allows for the purchase of “carbon credits”. Essentially every country in the world would be permitted so many “credits”. Tahiti doesn’t need many credits — so they could sell theirs to the US which would allow us to keep pumping out the carbon — of course we would have to pay billions for those credits.
In the end, the Kyoto treaty was more about the redistribution of wealth from developed nations to the 3rd world — under the guise of protecting the planet… So stuff Kyoto, it’s nothing short of a left-wing, whacko concept for restructuring the world economy and politics.
Back to the real question — what do we do?
How about a law that caps the number of new automobiles produced annually? How about a mandatory 50mpg for all new vehicles? How about limiting Americans to only driving 200 miles per month? How about we shut down all electrical generation for one day a week and go mandatory “lights out” for all except hospitals?
These would all actually help the problem — but do you see how it might not be such a popular thing for a politician to espouse?
I’m for overhauling the passenger rail system in this country and outlawing passenger air flights of less than 500 miles. It’s idiotic beyond words that you can hop a plane in Detroit and fly to Chicago, Indianapolis or Cleveland…
We could outlaw regular light bulbs and make CF’s mandatory.
We could slap a 50% duty on all imported goods which should slow the transportation of goods. Just think, Wal-Mart’s “warehouse on wheels” truck fleet that is now clogging the interstates could be cut in half if the price on everything there went up 50%.
Whatever we do, it ain’t going to be easy — or popular.
wolfger said
What to do is a much more complicated question. I’m just tired of hearing people blame other factors as an excuse for why they shouldn’t have to do anything. “I’m not causing global warming, so I shouldn’t have to fix it.” Sure.
wolfger said
Heck, if anybody out there really believes cows are the number one cause of greenhouse gases, why are they still eating beef?
Jeff, KE9V said
I do agree with you that it makes little difference the cause — the climate is changing. For those who say that is a constant in the life of this planet the question remains: what should we do?
Just a few hundred years ago the people of North America were nomadic. If the weather changed for the worse they moved on to a better place. In our “modern” world we build a city out of concrete and asphalt and declare, “by god we will stay here forever”…
That makes no sense if you happen to live in Miami when the sea level rises. New Orleans is a good example. It’s a city built below sea-level. What brain damaged city founder thought that was a good idea?