[tonycsm]

Ok Chris,
         first of all, like you I respect all views even those which differ from mine.
I am in no way defending the vast oil corporations! They obviously have their own agendas and I would actually agree with you on that point! They definitely have a vested interest in not seeing a reduction in carbon emmissions.

Regarding your point on my views of the academics who promote the GW theory. Has anyone ever thought of just how many of these would be put out of work if their government grants suddenly dried up! There is a whole worldwide industry built around it.

There are plenty of emminent scientists around the world who don't subscribe to the GW theory caused by human activity. Yes, GW obviously exists which is something I wouldn't deny, but not based on data which is deliberately intended to alarm those who are insufficiently informed!
The alarmists stifle any debate on this issue; they are supported by greens and non-knowledgable politicians who have be seen doing something!

It's about time, the less alarmist academics were allowed to put their views forward to the public and have an open debate so that each country could form it's own opinion!

I thought GW was drying up as about 18 months ago, there was a plethera of interest in the " Meteoritic Impact" another alarmist theory and there was a host of grants issued to alarmist scientists to study this but this seems to have lost favour, so there has been another increase in the GW theory!
 
As for George Bush and his resistance to the Kyoto agreement. Although I am certainly no GB lover, he is right with regard to not signing up!

By signing up to an unsustainable reduction in carbon emmission, countries which do, are giving an unfair industrial advantage to those countries which don't! In an ideal world everyone would do their best to reduce Carbon emmissions, but when the Western ecconomies start to wain and their standard of living falls due to carbon emmission reduction, then the GW theory will be redundant.
Whether or not GW is proved right with regard to man's output of carbon emmissions, the fact is that countries such as China, India, Russia and many other developing countries are not going to adhere to the Kyoto agreement because it would retard their ecconomic progress!

I am no happier than you that so much toxic material is being churned out by world industries including our own but it will take 50 - 100 years for most of the other countries to catch up to western ecconomies, so in the meantime what are we to do?
As for the oil giants, their stocks are already dwindling so they will have to diversify in order to survive!

We are spending far too much time and money on studying the cause of GW and not enough of studies on the effects even if the causation is found to be due to man's activity.
Money and time would be better spent in learning how to deal with the results of global Warming irrespective of who is right!
Tony

[VAlibrarian]

All 3 of you state your positions well. Clearly there is a complex continuum of belief on the seriousness of climate change, as well as the degree to which humans contribute to it.
I think we might actually all 4 agree in a need for accelerated research into climate change. Where we might differ is that I would not favor waiting for more results in five or ten years to take action.
I would also agree with the premise that it is too late to pretend that the human race will be able to escape all the consequences of climate change, be it natural, human-caused or a combination of both. In my opinion, the massiveness and the lasting nature of major climate changes do make it likely that we have reached a point that we must also talk about how to increase the survivability for human populations subject to these changes INCLUDING those populations in nations that lack our relative wealth. You and I can probably install air-conditioning if the summer temperature reaches 110 degrees fahrenheit. People in Bolivia do not generally have the money to do that, and their sheep and Alpacas definitely lack the money.
I still maintain that the human race has a responsibility to serve as stewards of this planet for ourselves and other life forms. If some of you are Christians, how can you argue with this position- it's in the Bible. Yes, "Dominion" means we are running the show, and we need to take credit for our mistakes. If however you are not believers in a deity, does that not also imply that we need to make good choices, as we have no backup?  Clearly I assume here what some of you do not, that our numbers and technologies now enable us to influence our planetary climate. As many perceive my convictions as alarmist, absurd, or self-important,  so I risk perceiving the convictions of my intellectual opponents as smugness, short-term thinking in a long term situation, or simply sheer inertia.
May we all find our way to a future in which our descendants will exceed our own accomplishments, rather than being mere diminished survivors. Good luck.

chris wiegard

[another_someone]

I do agree that we need to look at how human society needs to adapt to the changes that are coming.

I also agree that this has to be as much about how to protect Bolivians and Americans or Europeans.

I am not going to get into a religious debate over this, because it is an areas where we will be starting from different premises.

I suspect that getting air conditioning down to an affordable price would not be a major difficulty, but getting an infrastructure in place to provide reliable power for such air conditioning might be a bigger problem.

The bigger problems in general will be the social impact of transition, rather than the technical problems of how to survive.  Humans have successfully survived from the hottest of deserts to Arctic conditions, and have learnt to adapt to each environment; but the problem is that you cannot expect a society used to Arctic conditions to adapt overnight to tropical conditions, or visa versa.  Societies have a long term investment in infrastructure that is geared towards a particular challenge, and laying down new infrastructure is both expensive and a slow process.

Societies living in the Middle East have long designed houses, without any special air conditioning, that is designed to be cool in the heat of the midday sun; but every country has housing stock that can often be between 25 to 100 years old, and designed for conditions that were prevalent when the houses were built.  Similarly, traditional diets and customs are all geared towards particular prevailing weather conditions.  Clearly, weather has never remained constant, so societies have had to adapt, on the other hand, historically national infrastructure has been simpler and more adaptable.

The problems are not about what might happen in a decade or two, but what is happening today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3091244.stm

quote:
Poor communication and the absence of doctors on August leave were among the factors behind France's heatwave tragedy, an official report has found.
The 35-hour week also contributed, says the inquiry, set up to examine why more than 11,400 people died.
The report describes what happened as a "health catastrophe".
It found that health authorities were not fully aware of the unfolding crisis on the ground.
Many of the dead were elderly people, unable to cope as temperatures soared to 40C (104F).
It suggests better organisation of the healthcare system, liaison between weather services, hospitals and those caring for the elderly, and better provision of beds for elderly patients.
"An adequate alert, watch and information system would have allowed those involved to act more quickly in implementing measures to adapt the health care system, " said the report.
France's surgeon-general resigned last month after ministers publicly blamed his department for failing to alert them to the crisis.
On Monday, officials in the Netherlands said as many as 1,400 Dutch people died in the heatwave between June and August.
The total is up on an earlier Dutch official estimate that between 500 and 1,000 people died.
In August - the peak of the extreme heat - temperatures repeatedly topped 30C, in a country where the average would normally have been 22C (72F).

There is nothing that happened in France that could not have been avoided, if it had been properly anticipated, and appropriate measures put in place – much of it being no more than public information, so that people should know how to protect themselves against overheating, and recognise the symptoms when they do see it happening.

Although to keep things in perspective, the 11,400 deaths (later I believe revised upwards to 14,000), although greater than the number deaths caused by traffic accidents (and in most other European countries, the number of deaths caused was far fewer than the number of deaths in road accidents), is still on a similar order of magnitude, and cannot be compared to the kind of problems that AIDS or malaria provides for some parts of Africa.  Thus, while in the developed world, it must be considered a significant priority; for many countries, research into AIDS must still take priority over research into anticipating the effects of climate change.

[mark71]

if we have left it too late we are all doomed...and will need boats...get your own boats though the navy is busy at the moment...