It would be interesting to know whether "global warming" is taking place on any other planet and what the scientists' explanation is for that planet.
The planet Venus was subject to a runaway greenhouse effect, according to current scientific opinion.
Venus is almost the same size as Earth, but due to it being closer to the sun it was more prone to the greenhouse effect, which has turned the planet incredibly inhospitable, with sulfuric acid rain, crushing surface pressures, and active volcanoes spewing lava everywhere.
Of course what happened to Venus has no real bearing on supposed global warming here, because the Earth, though basically similar to Venus, is further from the sun, has a large moon, and life, all of which have a effect on the climate.
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incredibly inhospitable with sulfuric acid rain crushing surface pressures and active volcanoes spewing lava everywhere.
Sounds like Rotherham before the steel and iron works were closed.
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Sounds like Rotherham before the steel and iron works were closed.
Those works provided employment for a lot of grateful people. You have to take the rough with the smooth.
Edited by L'escargot on 10/12/2008 at 15:07
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Those works provided employment for a lot of grateful people. You have to take the rough with the smooth.
Indeed, lots of jobs, though mostly not well paid.
Damnable environment to live and work in, though.
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It sounds like my mother in law's house.
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Well. they reckon G/Warming is virtually out of control on venus, as the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead about 400c i think. The "Atmosphere" is 99% CO2, which is being blamed for the huge temperature, (note: no Humanly caused Greenhouse gas production here!). The probable cause is reported to be that due to its closeness to the sun, there is no water, water vapour or plant life to mop up the CO2, and so as the heat breaks down/burns more and more particles of the planets surface, more and more Carbon is released into its atmosphere. Theoretically speaking, given long enough, Venus would probably burn itself away. Thats is the Sun turning into a Red-Dwarf and consuming it first, doesn't happen.
::now puts up lead shield and awaits "incoming" from BR Astrologers:: ;-)
Billy
Ah!! beaten by a faster typing finger!!!
Edited by billy25 on 10/12/2008 at 15:01
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BR Astrologers:: ;-)
One typo can generate more incoming than any number of factual inaccuracies! :-)
Edited by GJD on 10/12/2008 at 15:24
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Yoicks! of course i meant Astronomers!! ;-) - my head was in the clouds!
Billy
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I think the predictions of astrologers are as accurate as many of the global warming ones. Perhaps we should ask Mystic Meg whether motoring taxes should increased?
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I'm with the majority on this thread. I say simply "so what?!" to Global Warming. I'm not going to be around when humans can no longer survive on the planet so I've got nothing to lose. Cut back on driving my 330ci? I don't think so!
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I say simply "so what?!" to Global Warming. I'm not going to be around when humans can no longer survive on the planet so I've got nothing to lose.
Your children and grandchildren will be obviously revere your memory for the way you place their fate so high on your list of priorities.
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Your children and grandchildren will be obviously revere your memory for the way you place their fate so high on your list of priorities.
I very much doubt whether the climate will change that much in the next two generations.
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The real environmental crisis facing us is the running out of finite fuel sources, especially oil and gas. That's what the environmetalits should be banging on about rather than the contentious global warming issue.
Re: global warming, what we have is a scientific model that shows how burning fossil fuels emits CO2 and other substances that could cause global warming. We also have a trend of gradually rising global temperatures for the last few decades. But nobody has been able to show that the temperature rise is a result of human activity and not part of a natural cycle.
Re: oil running out. It's taken millions of years to form and we've been using it in significant quantities for less than a century, so it's clearly an nsustainable fuel source.
We've already seen the writing on the wall with North Sea oil and even more with North Sea gas. The message is 'when it's gone it's gone'. Then what will we do?
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So, driving around in thirsty vehicles to satisfy one's ego or because one likes the noise their exhaust makes is in fact depriving future generations of fuel.
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The message is 'when it's gone it's gone'. Then what will we do?
I guess as it gets scarcer it will get more expensive and what are now more expensive and/or impractical alternatives will become less expensive and/or more practical as demand grows. So hopefully there will be a gradual changeover to whatever those alternatives are - wind, solar, tidal, nuclear?
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>>changeover to whatever those alternatives are - wind, solar, tidal, nuclear? <<
No, we will just revert back to minimg/burning coal. especially on the Domestic heating front, all the "smokeless" zones will go, back will come the "Smogs", the Acid Rain, Airbourne particle lung diesieses, etc etc. The cycle will be complete, and another cycle will begin, - isnt that what Nature's doing now? but on a larger scale?
Billy
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No we will just revert back to minimg/burning coal. especially on the Domestic heating front
Our two neighbours have already forsaken their oil-fired heating in favour of burning coal and/or wood.
........ back will come the "Smogs" ....
They're back already! One of our neighbours burns old creosoted fence panels and posts that he gets from his fencing contractor son.
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"Our two neighbours have already forsaken their oil-fired heating in favour of burning coal and/or wood."
Everyone on our street burns wood in a real fire. It has to be a particular type though, you can't burn an old creosoted fence. Most fires have a glass door that opens to throw the wood onto and the glass dictates what you can burn. E.g. we can't burn coal - it's far too hot.
There's no smog though, just the faintest wisp of smoke from the chimbleys
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back will come the "Smogs"
Most youngsters won't understand the word smog. I remember, in about 1948, that the smog was so dense that you could barely see a lit (gas) street lamp until you were literally within about 3 feet of it.
Edited by L'escargot on 12/12/2008 at 17:57
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The real environmental crisis facing us is the running out of finite fuel sources especially oil and gas. That's what the environmetalits should be banging on about rather than the contentious global warming issue.
Both are important.
But while the lack of fossil fuels would massively disrupt industrial society, it is nowhere near as serious an issue as climate change. For example, have you looked at what a 1-metre rise in sea level would do to London?
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"have you looked at what a 1-metre rise in sea level would do to London?"
Give the homeless a bath.
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"have you looked at what a 1-metre rise in sea level would do to London?" Give the homeless a bath.
And a fair few of the homed as well.
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Your children and grandchildren will be obviously revere your memory for the way you place their fate so high on your list of priorities.
We're talking about many generations - do you care about the attitude and behaviour of your great, great ...... grandfather?
Seriously though, why is it so important to preserve the human race? I couldn't care less if it dies out in the future.
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Surprisingly enough, people adapt.
Even if it means moving house when the glaciers melted.
If it was good enough for our ancestors...
Edited by madf on 11/12/2008 at 18:23
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@burpie:We're talking about many generations - do you care about the attitude and behaviour of your great, great ...... grandfather?
Yes, I do actually. One of great-great grandfathers was a scientific pioneer who handed down a lpot of vauable knowledge to future generations. Another was a farmer who drained land and planted a small forest which people still enjoy. And another fought for religious freedoms which people in that area still enjoy.
So it does matter to me that they didn't just destroy books or ancient buildings or leave the land to go to ruin, because what they did made a difference to my generation.
@madf:Surprisingly enough people adapt. Even if it means moving house when the glaciers melted. If it was good enough for our ancestors...
Our ancient ancestors were much more adaptable than our complex societies, but don't forget that many civilisations failed to adapt and were wiped out.
Those ancient ancestors lived in rudimentary huts, built from bits of trees and the stones at the edge of the field; these houses mostly didn't even last one generation. People in that era didn't rely on warehouses and office buildings and sewage systems and shops and all the rest of the infrastructure of modern life, much of which lasts several generations (such as all the victorian housing still in use), nor on long supply chains.
If you are suggesting that the inhabitants of a coastal city threatened by rising sea levels should simply take to he hills, I'm not sure you'll find many takers.
But it's interesting to see climate change refuseniks working their way around to nearly the same position as the most extreme eco-zealots who would abolish industrial society.
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NW,
"do you care about the attitude and behaviour of your great, great ...... grandfather?
Yes, I do actually."
I think you may be in a minority there - I can recall the name of one of my great grandparents and his job (tenant farmer in Yorkshire Dales). Some of the others I would have to look up from the rudimentary family tree I have done but at least 3 of the 8 great GPs I haven't a clue about. As for GGGPs - I haven't a clue - and I suspect most of the population are llike me. I suspect that a sizeable proportion of the present population don't even know who their father is and have little or no contact with him - but that's a different matter!!!
As for "climate change refuseniks" we will leave out the bit about rising sea levels since sea levels have been rising since the end of the last ice-age (and SE England has been sinking because of isostatic readjustment since then also).
What mainly concerns the people on this motoring forum is probably the extra costs they incur when motoring because they are "causing global warming".
A few simple and rounded figures (but pretty much along the right lines)
1. CO2 is not the major "greenhouse gas" - water vapour is, and we can do nowt about it - and it is responsible for about 90% of the "greenhouse effect".
2. So, CO2 is responsible for a maximum (there are other GGs) of 10% of the greenhouse effect.
3.CO2 is 97% NATURAL so man is "responsible" for about 0.3% of the greenhouse effect.
4. Of that 0.3% about 30% (ie roughly 0.1%) is down to all transport (cars, ships, aircraft, trains etc).
5. ALL road transport accounts for about 30% of that 0.1%, ie 0.03% and cars about 30% of that 0.03%.
6. In other words, cars are responsible for (very roughly) 0.01% of the "greenhouse effect. (Although in reality ships and aircraft are actually far more "polluting").
Even if the exact figures are a little different (or I have mislaid a decimal point) what it means is that removing every single car from the earth's surface would have a miniscule effect on "global warming".
So the question is - Why are we motorists so targetted by "green taxes" when it will have so little effect? - whether you are a MMGW believer or denier. Why aren't shipping, aircraft and a miriad other "greenhouse gas" producers similarly targetted?
Sorry for long post!
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Even if the exact figures are a little different
They are, and note, water vapour in the atmosphere is almost unchanged by our activity - you also assume that the "greenhouse effect" is all bad, which it isn't, within limits.
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"and note, water vapour in the atmosphere is almost unchanged by our activity"
That's what I said isn't it? ( quote "CO2 is not the major "greenhouse gas" - water vapour is, and we can do nowt about it ")
Are the exact figures significantly different? Enough to justify targetting motorists specifically to ameliorate "global warming"?
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As many will have gathered, I'm one of those who make no attempt to disguise my disbelief at so called global warming (or climate change as it's more conveniently called due to recent events).
The main cause, as I perceive along with many others, is solar activity as these links may perhaps illustrate (there are many, many more):
www.newscientist.com/article/dn11650
tinyurl.com/5behbl
www.abd.org.uk/solar_activity.htm
I'm perfectly sure that many will point to other links that demonstrate exactly the opposite.
I've been using two and four wheel forms of transport for 52 years in my area of the UK and, in all that time, even during the period when vehicle emissions were very substantially higher than today, I've noticed little or no difference in my way of life environmental wise.
Mother Earth is substantially more capable of controlling the environment than anything man can achieve and the fact that land mass comprises approximately a modest 30 per cent of the earth's surface merely underlines this fact.
The real villains in the "climate change" controversy are mostly politicians with a keen eye to boosting taxes and "frightening" us into submission.
Otherwise why would measures supposedly designed to dramatically change the level of climate control not come into effect for up to 50 years ahead?
I'm well aware that I'm likely to be shot down in flames for such views, but I've always been one to look at facts logically rather than emotionally and the outcome remains the same.
As I've pointed out many times before, the hottest and coldest summers and winters in the UK were experienced long before modern times and the so-called impact of aircraft, 4x4s, Formula1 racing and whatever else seemingly bigoted people nominate as destroying the planet.
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I've been using two and four wheel forms of transport for 52 years in my area of the UK and in all that time even during the period when vehicle emissions were very substantially higher than today I've noticed little or no difference in my way of life environmental wise.
Anecdotal experiences are inadequate for assessing big systemic issues.
Emissions per vehicle may have been lower in the past, but the number of vehicles has grown dramatically in those 52 years, and the number of miles per vehicle has also grown ... so overall CO2 emissions have grown substantially.
The real villains in the "climate change" controversy are mostly politicians with a keen eye to boosting taxes and "frightening" us into submission.
Actually, the real villains are the majority of politicians, who know what needs to be done but are too cowardly to publicly seek the necessary big changes. They are followers rather than leaders.
Otherwise why would measures supposedly designed to dramatically change the level of climate control not come into effect for up to 50 years ahead?
As above, because the politicians are too cowardly to make the big changes needed now, which would require immediate sacrifice for long-term gain. Our have-it-all society has come to expect that things will only get better, and with the encouragement of the powerful vested interests that control the news media, they crucify politicians who don't promise ever-expanding candy stores.
As I've pointed out many times before the hottest and coldest summers and winters in the UK were experienced long before modern times
Look at the trends, not at individual years.
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>>Emissions per vehicle may have been lower in the past>>
It was the reverse. In fact Ford claimed that its Escort models, when catalysts were first fitted, emitted up to one-50th of the pollution compared to those without the device.
>the powerful vested interests that control the news media>>
As a retired journalist, I can assure you that I and virtually everyone else in the profession never took/take anything at face value without checking it out first.
That's why I'm so cynical about much of what is spoken and written about "climate change", which itself was quietly adopted in place of "global warming" because the climate began to change in the other direction...:-)
>>Look at the trends, not at individual years.>>
But in fact I looking at the trends and most of them involve periods without jet aircraft, gas guzzlers, steam trains etc.
The planet has been cooling down and heating up for millions of years and much of it long before Homo Sapiens made an appearance.
From what I recall Earth is not the only planet to experience "climate change"...
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>>Emissions per vehicle may have been lower in the past>> It was the reverse. In fact Ford claimed that its Escort models when catalysts were first fitted emitted up to one-50th of the pollution compared to those without the device.
You're right, that was a mistake: I meant to agree with you taht emissions per vehicle-mile used to be a lot higher in some respects. However, catalytic convertors don't reduce CO2, they tackle other problems such as NO2 and CO, which are bad for health. (By converting CO to CO2, they may actually cause a marginal increase CO2 emissions)
But my point stands: overall emissions have been rising rapidly because vehicle-miles have increased so rapidly. Toxic emissions (lead, NO2 etc) have been massively cut through new technologies, but CO2 emissions have grown massively.
>the powerful vested interests that control the news media>> As a retired journalist I can assure you that I and virtually everyone else in the profession never took/take anything at face value without checking it out first.
Sorry, but it doesn't take much effort to see that there are huge amounts of sloppy journalism out there. My point, though, was not about accuracy, but about the stories which journalists are allowed to follow and those which they are discouraged from approaching.
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>>(By converting CO to CO2, they may actually cause a marginal increase CO2 emissions)
There's no "may" or "marginal" about it. Not only the increase via converting CO to CO2, but also the increase forced by having to burn at stoichometric, rather than running weaker are both impositions of the legislation which effectively forces the use of catalysts. Other promising avenues of engine research, like modern 2 strokes, and lean burn technology closed down almost overnight. Nice one politicians and ecomentalists!, thanks!
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>>.. but about the stories which journalists are allowed to follow and those which they are discouraged from approaching. >>
On what premise have you been able to establish that point of view?
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Even if the exact figures are a little different (or I have mislaid a decimal point) what it means is that removing every single car from the earth's surface would have a miniscule effect on "global warming".
Phil, your figures bear little relation to the figures I can find, but you also are missing some important points which render your calculations useless (they underestimate the impact by several orders of magnitude). For example, the aim is not reduce greenhouse gases to zero, just to reduce them to a lower level which will allow a steady state rather than a temperature increase.
So the question is - Why are we motorists so targetted by "green taxes" when it will have so little effect? - whether you are a MMGW believer or denier.
As above, you grossly underestimate the effect of manmade CO2. If you start from those misconceptions, the rest won't make sense.
If you accept that CO2 emissions needs to be urgently cut radically, then there two questions: where can the biggest cuts be made, and where can cuts be made most easily?
Cars are a relatively short-life source of CO2 emissions, lasting only about 10 years on average. Since they being replaced so rapidly, a reduction in the emissions of new cars will quite rapidly change the CO2 profile of the overall car stock. No new investment needed, just target the ongoing investment in a lower-CO2 direction.
By contrast, houses in the UK usually last well over a hundred years, so replacing them with zero emissions houses have a much slower impact on overall emissions.
Of course, there should be much more radical measures to reduce CO2 emissions from other sectors (such as bigscale home insulation projects), but the sloth in that respect is no reason to turn down the chance to reduce emissions from cars when they are routinely replaced.
Why aren't shipping aircraft and a miriad other "greenhouse gas" producers similarly targetted?
They certainly ought to be, but the reason why they aren't is largely politics, I'm afraid. Car taxation can be controlled at national level, but it has proven much harder to tax aviation fuel, because some powerful forces block the necessary changes to the international aviation treaties. I still think there is a lot that govts could do and aren't doing, such as massively increasing the tax per passenger (which is under national control), and dropping the daft plans to expand aviation.
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NW,
"Phil, your figures bear little relation to the figures I can find, but you also are missing some important points which render your calculations useless (they underestimate the impact by several orders of magnitude)."
"As above, you grossly underestimate the effect of manmade CO2. If you start from those misconceptions, the rest won't make sense."
OK, here are my figures in quotes from other sources rather than in my own words:-
1. "the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapour by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapour and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, ?Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,? Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).
Or try this
"The man-made causes are factories, cutting down trees, cars, and burning of fossil fuels. BUT these are only a very SMALL part of the total CO2 put into the atmosphere. Amazingly (you wouldn't know it to listen to the major media sources and movie-politicians) a whopping 97% of all CO2 added to the atmosphere comes from natural sources. These include the land and land animals, and more importantly the oceans. Many people believe CO2 to be THE major greenhouse gas, when in fact water vapor comes in at Number 1. So even though we are contributing to the gases that warm the atmosphere, 97% of the CO2 production and all of the water vapor are completely out of our control. The human portion of global change is very small indeed. "
2. "Given the present composition of the atmosphere, the contribution to the total heating rate in the troposphere (the portion of the atmosphere of most interest -- it is the region from the surface to basically the top of the active weather zone) is around 5% from carbon dioxide and around 95% from water vapor."
3."Humans can only claim responsibility for about 3.4% of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere annually, the rest of it is all natural" (IPCC).
4. "The second largest emitter is the transportation sector, which involves carrying people and goods, and accounts for about 20 percent of the CO2 emissions" Oops, sorry, I said 30%
5. OK, not sure where I got the "30% from road transport" from - it appears to be "51%" see hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/7980-TSO%20Book%20Chap%...f
6. In light of above change my statement 6 to "road transport is responsible for roughly 0.02% of the "greenhouse effect" so if you remoived every form of road transport from the earth's surface it would reduce the greenhouse effect by 0.02%"
As for your "If you accept that CO2 emissions needs to be urgently cut radically" I don't accept that - to quote another source "a worst case doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide will still only produce a total warming under 1.5 °C" - the official figures are that temp in 1880 was 14 degrees plus or minus 0.7degrees. Since then temps have apparently risen by 0.6 degrees - in other words, within the error range of the original temp used as the basis for all this "global warming" stuff.
One of the basic questions to ask is "Has any global warming actually taken place since 1880 - the year on which we base all our figures?"
The truth is that no-one is really sure whether "global warming " exists - let alone whether it justifies a whole new tax regime on cars.
Regards
Phil
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Phil, you've come closest to something approaching a scientific approach to your response, for which I thank you. But, you've ignored the elephant in the room. Only 3% of carbon emissions are human in origin per year by your figures. Fair enough, I can't argue with that. However, those 3% are in addition to the usual closed cycle that would normally operate - the other 97% is also reabsorbed per year by photosynthesis etc, and therefore the overall CO2 level would remain static.
My question is - what affect does the huge increase in average CO2 levels that is due to human activities have, given this addition to an otherwise closed loop? And what affect is the well publicised thawing of frozen methane in Arctic Canada expected to have?
It is these factors, and the addition to an otherwise stable and static system, that worries me. And as a scientist, I have seen no anti climate change arguments on here that would even vaguely reassure me. Indeed, the 3% figure is frankly terrifying.
And on that front, I must get some sleep as having flown back from Germany yesterday, I fly to the US early Sunday morning. Reality makes hypocrites of most of us at some point.
Edited by Gordon M on 13/12/2008 at 00:56
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>>..dropping the daft plans to expand aviation. >>
But if the government was so worried about so called climate change, it surely wouldn't be so supportive of expanding major airports by adding new runways at Stanstead, Heathrow etc?
>>..is no reason to turn down the chance to reduce emissions from cars when they are routinely replaced.>>
From my observations, car manufacturers make great play of the fact that they are reducing engine emissions quite substantially with virtually every new model.
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Surprisingly enough people adapt.
Indeed. From an objective point of view, one of the things that frustrates me about this whole debate is that we hear lots about whether it's happening or not, lots about whether it's man-made or not, lots about the changes we need to make to stop it but comparatively less about the alternative
I know how radically I supposedly need to change my life to do my bit to fix global warming. I don't know how radically my life might change if I continue as I am and global warming happens around me and I have to adapt.
Still speaking entirely objectively and dispassionately, if someone is convinced by the arguments that man made climate change is happening, "so what" is a legitimate question. Obviously there's lots talked about the consequences, but my impression is that the focus is more on how the problem can be fixed. Why we need to fix it is not always shouted about so much. It's sort of assumed that we know why.
I don't know why that is. Maybe to those leading the charge, the "why" question is so obvious that it can be taken for granted, and all that is left to be done is the "how". But given that there are so many people yet to even be convinced by "whether" (i.e. whether GW is happening and whether it is man-made), that seems a strange approach.
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Obviously there's lots talked about the consequences but my impression is that the focus is more on how the problem can be fixed. Why we need to fix it is not always shouted about so much. It's sort of assumed that we know why.
The Stern Review did a lot of number-crunching on the costs of inaction, and the significance of his conclusions was that remedial measures would be a lot more expensive than trying to prevent the problem: www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/stern_review_final_report.h...m
It did get a lot of coverage at the time it was published.
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