This one came from the lovely FranIAm. Please visit her site to check this video out or simply stay here. Either was this is Risk Management 101 folks. It's by far the best 10 minute explanation of Global Warming I've ever heard.
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Over the years teaching at La Scuola d’Italia NY, I have learned that
children are not just students; they are careful observers of the world,
full of q...
6 months ago
You're welcome AC. She's an awesome read and an equally awesome person.
ReplyDeleteAbout 200 years ago British economist Thomas Malthus made the same dire predictions of the end of mankind due to famines following from rampant population growth. Mass death was just around the corner 200 years ago.
ReplyDeleteWe're still waiting. The world's population 200 years ago was less than 1 billion. It is now 6.5 billion and the only places on earth where food is in short supply is in countries run by brutal despots.
In the 1950s the Population Bomb came back as the most dangerous threat to the future of mankind. It was considered a far larger issue than devastation from nuclear war. In 1950 the world's population was 2.5 billion. That was enough to get the population worrywarts into high gear.
Claims about people living like sardines around the world were accepted as fact. Here we are at 6.5 billion and we don't know what to do with all the wide open spaces.
Global Warming is a pseudo-issue.
For those who believe we are doomed by a slight temperature change and accept the video-charlatan's solution that we need a culture change to save ourselves, to you I say that to force the necessary change on all of Earth's residents would require the most comprehensive, powerful and repressive dictatorship the world has ever known.
Forcing the changes demanded by the Chicken Littles would lead to more misery and destruction of life and civil society than anyone could ever imagine.
You can keep thinking that anonymous, but the logic of this man's argument still stands. The science and evidence behind the idea of "climate change" is solid, but even the narrator admits it is by no means exact. If you had bothered to pay attention to the video, the central question he addressed is risk. His point is that one's belief that climate change is yaking place or not is irrelevant to the risks associated with taking action upon the premise you choose to believe. Clearly, the consequence of the climate change being true and taking no action is dire versus the consequence of taking action and the premise being false (i.e, a bunch of blood leeching stockholders losing money).
ReplyDeleteWhat's more important to you (no_slappz)anonymous, getting a bigger quarterly dividend or having a livable environment?
The climate-change argument presented in the video begins and ends with a false and horrifying assumption.
ReplyDeleteLet's assume the temperature of Earth will rise a degree or two in the coming century.
The argument assumes that man can undertake changes that will neutralize the effects of the warming.
The madness of the argument surfaces at two points. First, the impact of a little warming. Water levels would rise if all the glaciers and all the polar ice caps melted. All that ice represents a vast quantity of fresh water -- the stuff that is NOT available in sufficient quantities in much of the world.
This year, in Africa alone, over a million people will die because they lack clean fresh water. A million people will die. This year. They will die from diseases contracted from dirty water.
A warmer planet would increase the amount of fresh water available to those regions that currently lack needed supplies. Of course, all the extra clean water would extend the life spans of Africans and increase food demands.
Second, and more influential, is the fact that Prosperity is the cause of increasing energy consumption. It is energy consumption that is identified as the cause of the warming.
Thus, to reduce the warming humans must reduce the spread of prosperity.
That means it's better for the poor to remain poor and unable to purchase energy-consuming products like cars, trucks, airplanes, homes, heaters, air conditioners, etc.
Meanwhile, every new person on Earth increases overall global energy consumption. Worse, for your argument, is Prosperity. As poverty is replaced by prosperity, energy consumption rises.
Thus, by increasing the prosperity of Earth's 6.5 billion residents, we will see increasing energy consumption.
Higher efficiency means nothing. If we doubled the miles-per-gallon of every car on Earth, but tripled the number of cars on the road, energy consumption would rise. That's prosperity in action.
Then there is the growing population. Demographers say we will see a population of 9 billion by 2050. That's an increase of 2.5 billion in about 40 years. I think the estimate is low. Those new Earthlings will arrive in a world where prosperity is increasing faster than ever. China and India are moving ahead at astonishing rates.
In short, there is no possible method of reducing energy consumption -- unless the world's population decreases.
More people equals more energy use. Fewer people MIGHT use less energy. Maybe.
But once again, advancing prosperity is defined by rising per-capita energy consumption.
So which people will agree to consume less energy? Which country?
Who will subject themselves to the repressiveness of a government aiming to reduce prosperity?
Obviously such lunacy would require a reduction in life spans. Africa would become the model. Let diseases run rampant and allow the average person to die before age 50. That would help.
Meanwhile, the idea of a global reduction of energy consumption is more accurately defined as the creation of a global marxist state. One where the government rations your energy consumption and enforces poverty wherever possible.
Since an increase in population equals an increase in energy consumption, this repressive world government would limit reproduction. China has its limits -- one child per family. And of course in China and a few other areas aborting females is common as a result of family-planning policies.
Thus, your worry about global warming means your reproductive rights will disappear. The state would dictate life. Maybe you would not object, but the state would disapprove of Catholicism because it is a religion that encourages large families, opposes abortion and opposes most birth control.
In short, the goals and strategies for fighting global warming are the foundation of the worst government action the world could inflict upon the human race.
Like they say in New Hampshire, Live Free or Die. In the Brave New World of Global Temperature Control, we'd live without freedom and die young anyway -- if we even continued to reproduce.
Prosperity is rising. India is about to become a nation of car-owners, and hence, major contributors to global temperature change. No one is going to stop them.
ReplyDeleteAutomaker Unveils World's Cheapest Car
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ,AP
Posted: 2008-01-10
NEW DELHI (Jan. 10) - India's Tata Motors on Thursday unveiled its much anticipated $2,500 car, an ultra-cheap price tag that brings car ownership into the reach of tens of millions of people.
With a snub nose and a sloping roof, it can fit five people - if they squeeze. And the basic version is spare: there's no radio, no passenger-side mirror and only one windshield wiper.
While the price has created a buzz, critics say the Nano could lead to possibly millions more automobiles hitting already clogged Indian roads, adding to mounting air and noise pollution problems.
The chairman insists the car will meet safety standards and pollute even less than motorcycles, averaging about 50 miles per gallon.
Chief U.N. climate scientist Rajendra Pachauri, who shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize, said last month that "I am having nightmares" about the prospect of the low-cost car.
The basic model will sell for for 100,000 rupees - $2,500.
The company has said they expect the car to revolutionize the auto industry, and analysts believe the Nano may force other manufacturers to lower their own pricing.
For now, the car will be sold only in India, but Tata has said it eventually hopes to export it. The Nano could become the basis for other similar super-cheap models in developing markets around the world.
As rising middle class incomes drive demand for cars in India, automakers expect the ranks of car owners in the country to expand dramatically in coming years.
In 2005, Indian vehicles released 219 million tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.
By 2035, that number is projected to increase to 1,467 million tons, due largely to the expanding middle-class and the expected rise of low-cost cars, according to the Asian Development Bank.
"The cheaper and cheaper vehicles become, the quicker those pollution levels will increase," Leather said.