Global warming was: The Nine-spotted

[P. J. Alling]

Sadly most people don't seem to understand supply and demand.  It's all 
a matter of cost.  When prices rise high enough for a commodity suitable 
replacements are found, or if a less costly alternative exists the 
substitution will begin if prices simply stay the same.  Oil was 
substituted for Coal because total costs of using it for energy were 
lower.  Something will be substituted for Oil when either of those two 
conditions is met. It's quite likely that the US will go back to Coal 
for a while, (the US is the Saudi Arabia of Coal), abet with new plants 
being much cleaner than the old, but the price of Oil in real terms will 
have to be much higher than it is now.

No matter what is causing global warming, (and if it's man made, all the 
CO2 models, flawed though they may be, show that cutting back on 
emissions is way to late to make a difference in the short  to mid 
term).  Rich societies have a much better chance of mitigating any 
untoward effects of global temperature rises than poor ones, so given 
that the changes are coming and we can't stop them, it's best to not do 
anything that will make any societies poorer.  Unfortunately most if not 
all of the prescriptions to "fix" global warming will do just that.

frank theriault wrote:
> On 6/11/07, graywolf <gray_wolf at charter.net> wrote:
>   
>> Most of us agree that the world is getting warmer. It is the alleged cause that we dispute. In fact I have been doing some thinking on the matter and came up with with several possibilities, none of which seem to be enough to account for mass climate changes. However several of them happening simultaneously could well account for it.
>>
>> Solar temperature
>> Sunspot activity
>> Interplanetary dust clouds
>> Perturbation of Earths orbit
>> Earth's core temperature
>> Shifting of the Earth's core
>> Dust in the air
>> State of the ozone layer
>> Cloud cover, or lack there of
>> Vegetation cover, or lack there of
>> Water area changes
>> Weather pattern changes
>> Volcanic activity
>> fossil fuel*
>> TV news personalities use of hair spay
>> Undoubted others that I am too dumb to think of
>>
>> *Not your car, but the fact that the so called little ice age seems to coincide nicely with the use of poor grade coal as the primary heating source.
>>
>>     
>
> Well, as you said, it seems that global warming is a fact, and yes,
> there is certainly disagreement as to the cause(s) of same.
>
> I look at it like this:
>
> There are all sorts of reasons to think that exhaust and effluent from
> motor vehicles and industry is not good for us.  It smells bad, it
> causes all manner of diseases from respiratory distress to cancer.
> Personally (and I know this is highly unscientific, and likely proves
> nothing) I find it hard to believe that pumping as much of that shit
> into the atmosphere and into our various waterways as we do can be
> good for the planet.
>
> I recognize that nature has this amazing ability to clean the crap
> that we spew, but it does appear that we've long since overdrawn on
> that account.
>
> Whether or not our industrial and transportation activities are the
> primary cause, one of many causes, or only a small contributor to
> global warming, it seems a good idea to cut back on such pollution as
> a health consideration for life on this planet.
>
> In addition, there's the fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource.
>  We seem not to be able to come up with acceptable replacement
> technologies fast enough, so if we're not able to cut down on our
> reliance on them, we're simply going to run out.  That won't be
> pretty.
>
> I know there are those "experts" that tell us that we don't have to
> worry about global warming, that it's not a human phenomenon, that
> it's all overblown.  I also know that there's no "democracy on truth",
> and that we can't play a numbers game in terms of how many "experts"
> say what.  That being said, it does seem that the majority of
> scientists that speak out on the matter tell us that global warming is
> a fact, and that human activity is a major contributor to it.
>
> This reminds me of the so-called "evolution versus creationism"
> debate.  Most respected scientists come down squarely on the side of
> evolution as a fact (not a "theory"), but there are a very few that
> tell us that evolution isn't possible and that the world must have
> been created just as the Bible tells us.
>
> I know what I believe in both of these matters:  The human race has
> evolved from stupid monkeys into brilliant opposable thumb brainiacs
> who are stupidly spewing shit into the environment that will cause the
> world to burn to a crisp in a few generations.
>
> I could, of course be wrong, but I'll take a chance on trying to clean
> the air and the environment.  If it doesn't stop global warming, I
> still believe that we'll all be better off for it...
>
> cheers,
> frank
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-- 
All dogs have four legs; my cat has four legs. Therefore, my cat is a dog.