I agree with the statement:
"...And the politicians love to paint themselves as the saviors of the world. They also love to promise things that no one will be able to verify during their careers."
No kidding. Just like economic policy.
The author continues:
"You know, if someone promises 80% reductions of CO2 by 2050, that's just an irrational vacuous babbling, a nonsense analogous to promises that we will colonize Jupiter by the year 3000. Cheap politicians, presidents, lawmakers, and university presidents often promise such absurdities to be elected by a very low-quality segment of the electorate.
But this babbling is not the last part of the story.
Incidentally, here's a post about global warming on other planets from the same site and another here.
And I was naive enough to believe that such reasonning had gone out with Dubbya. Of course fighting climate warming will hurt. Exercising also hurts at times, no reason to stop though because the consequences are worse.
ReplyDeleteOur north is fast melting, our fauna and flora are fast depleting and whole villages and airport installations are sinking in the melting permafrost that is no longer perma. But hey do nothing because it will hurt.
Come on man. Of course, for the short term at least, having Miami weather, minus the hurricanes naturally, would be nice in Montreal..but where would we go skiing?
Hey, at least we'll have access to natural resources up in the arctic.No wonder European nations, Russia and USA are angling for a piece of it.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what if something positive comes of it? Why is there a "negative" impact of it? Hasn't this sort of natural upheaval always happened in history?
I no longer ski - mind you I cross country.
Anyway, the author feels the cost of taking action may be greater than what global warming actually brings. Is he wrong?
I notice he's from the Czech Republic - where Vaclav Klaus is President. Klaus is not very tolerant of what he feels is environmental terrorism.
Yes that cycle has been going on forever. The big difference now is the speed with which it is happening. Until the late 1850s geological records show that climate swings took thousands of years. For instance the last glaciation in North America ended some 20 000 years ago and took 35 000 years to build up. Over the last 100 years we have warmed up more than over the last 1000 years. That is the worrying trend.
ReplyDeleteEven as I write this some Pacific island nations are on the verge of being flooded out of existence in the next fifty years or so by rising ocean waters fed by fast melting ice shelves and glaciers and a whole way of life of our northern people is compromised.
In the past, people, beasts and plants had time to gradually adjust to those changes, it was called evolution. These days it is all going so fast that they do not have that opportunity. Herein lies the negative effect and it could seriously outweigh any positive ones.