Thangs to COP15
Well it’s here, Folks! The biggest climate change party of the year (and typically US Democrazy wasn’t even invited).
Yesterday, Monday, December 7, the 2009 U.N. Climate Change Conference opened its doors to 15,000 delegates from 192 countries. The goal of this meeting is to form a global agreement to combat greenhouse gases.
So what’s the problem with greenhouse gases?
Well, as this great video from the BBC shows, we humans have been gassing away for awhile now. Most scientists agree that this increase in greenhouse gases is causing a rise of global temperature.
To combat this rise in temperatures many have called for global action. None have been louder (or more Nobel Prize winning) than that of former VP Al Gore.
Mr. Gore, writing at the Huffington Post, states that the time has come for action as the US is currently
trapped in a dangerous cycle—borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf, and then burn it in ways that destroy the planet.
The US Environmental Protection Agency agrees. Yesterday the agency announced that greenhouse gases are a health hazard.
We are told that this EPA announcement is a big deal…
Marc Ambinder, at The Atlantic explains,
the executive branch now believes it has the power to unilaterally impose carbon and greenhouse gas emissions caps on industry in the United States
especially if the US Congress fails to act.
Still, this is a global summit.
To be a success, the world needs to take action together and as Lisa Lerer points out in an article for Politico
China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has long resisted adopting binding emissions limits. Its position has made reaching a deal extremely difficult because the United States is reluctant to act unless China takes some serious steps.
Greenhouse gas restrictions are not applauded by everyone. George F. Will, in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, thinks this is all nonsense.
With such resistance to a climate change treaty at both home and abroad, is this Climate Summit doomed??
The New York Times
Doesn’t expect a planet-saving agreement from the negotiations that begin this week in Copenhagen aimed at reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases.
They do add a hopeful note that
there is a good chance for at least an interim deal, mainly because the United States and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, have promised to reduce or slow their emissions and their two leaders have agreed to attend.
So are we going to see a climate treaty at this meeting? Is a global greenhouse gases a real threat?
We don’t have a clue, do you? If you do hve an opinion on this subject, we’d love to read it (and even if you don’thave an opinion… feel free to post your thoughts anyways).
I will continue to drive my 12mpg Jeep until someone pries it from my cold, dead hands.
Considering the miniscule amount of time (compared to the span of Earth’s history) that we have been industrialized, we simply can not have caused global warming, but in the 40 years since someone came up with global warming, we have moved increasingly towards allowing ourselves to become subject to oppressive legislation that will undoubtedly impact economies around the world. Carbon is a natural byproduct of life on earth and important aspect of carbon emissions is that we did not have the technology to measure them in the past. Blindly following data with no comparison to history, while making drastic claims is not scientific at all.
While I do 100% believe in reduce, recycle, reuse, and that reducing emissions and pollution are all extremely important, I do NOT believe that Humans in the industrialized countries are capable of changing something as HUGE as a global climate. In fact, we know that the global climate does have cycles (Warming for the 2 centuries before the black plague at which time a drastic cooling trend occurred), and certainly back then people probably thought that the warming was caused by their actions, too (Although more likely linked to a deity).
I think before the countries of the world sign their souls away, the 30,000 scientists (9,000 PhDs) who do NOT agree with the general consensus on global warming should have a forum. [Remember, there was once a general consensus in science that the world was flat and that if you sailed too far you would fall off.] While 30,000 scientists is not a huge number on a global scale, keep in mind that (at least in the USA) scientists loose their funding if they do any research against global warming). If they are wrong, and those that disagree do not have science to back it up, what is the harm? But if global warming science doesn’t hold up to criticism, WHY would our leaders sign a restricting pact that would effect industry and economy for YEARS to come?
Until I see climate change advocates account for sources of CO2 from beneath our feet and heat/radiation from sources external to the earth, this is another get rich scam off of junk science! Stick a CO2 srubber on a volcano or gas vent below the ocean and see if you stll think man is major contributer. Damn shame to guilt trip people for the sake of making money…