As you may know the US Supreme Court is going to determine whether CO2 is a pollutant and comes under the jurisdiction of the EPA this morning. By the way, the director of the EPA says no, the EPA should not regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act. The EPA director is a White House appointee--no vested interest there.
Here's the question: why is this matter even being debated? Why isn't the public calling for the EPA director to resign because he, like so many others in the admin, is incompetent?
In this country (the US), we have something called The National Academy of Sciences. What is the NAS? They are a body of eminent real objective scientists, who, in the past, were the science advisory arm for the government. Recently, they published a paper, which many noblelauriates signed, stating that:
1) Climate change is real and measurable.
2) Human activity is a significant component.
Case closed. There is no debate. Why is this in court? And why is the news media so arbitrary? Unless the public starts to take responsibility for some of these issues, we're going to find ourselves in a very bad place. The real court of consequences is not the Supreme Court, it is the court of physical reality. And it is not arbitrary.
Climate Change and CO2
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Specfiction
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:51 pm
Climate Change and CO2
Specfiction;472149 wrote: As you may know the US Supreme Court is going to determine whether CO2 is a pollutant and comes under the jurisdiction of the EPA this morning. By the way, the director of the EPA says no, the EPA should not regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act. The EPA director is a White House appointee--no vested interest there.
Here's the question: why is this matter even being debated? Why isn't the public calling for the EPA director to resign because he, like so many others in the admin, is incompetent?
In this country (the US), we have something called The National Academy of Sciences. What is the NAS? They are a body of eminent real objective scientists, who, in the past, were the science advisory arm for the government. Recently, they published a paper, which many noblelauriates signed, stating that:
1) Climate change is real and measurable.
2) Human activity is a significant component.
Case closed. There is no debate. Why is this in court? And why is the news media so arbitrary? Unless the public starts to take responsibility for some of these issues, we're going to find ourselves in a very bad place. The real court of consequences is not the Supreme Court, it is the court of physical reality. And it is not arbitrary.
Both of those conclusions are absolutely correct, and the people involved in the NAS have no vested economic or political interest in spinning the results of climate studies, there are (its true) a handful of maverick scientists who dispute the basic concepts involved in the climate change, (just like there are a handful of maverick scientists who dispute relativity theory and quantum mechanics, they may be right, but the evidence does not support them) and of course their theories are being latched onto by corporations and people with very important vested interests who basically think that having to reduce emissions is going to cost too much money and want to gamble that its all just a case of scientists being overly pessimistic. Because the staus quo profits them, its the old principal of when trying to work out who is telling the truth, take a look at what they have to lose by being honest.
This anti-science campaign is a very cynical tatic to try and confuse people and put out misinformation so as to not have to actually do anything poltically or economically difficult to deal with the problem. Just like the way tobacco companies continually disputed the scientific and medical facts about smoking with pseudo-scientific nonsense and legal sophistry for decades, even though they knew full well what the truth was, why did they do this?, because they wanted to make lots of money of course and anything that gets in the way of that was highly inconvient.
In terms of definitions of what these things are, its not that CO2 is a pollutant in the generally understood definition, is been present in the atmosphere for billions of years as its an abundant compound on planet earth, but it is definetly a greenhouse gas, (in fact if we had no CO2 in the atmosphere the earth would be a very cold place and not very nice). But the more of it we put into the atmosphere aboce what has been its natural level for the past 100,000 years, the more energy is going to get trapped in the atmosphere and the climate will change, which is exactly what is happening. Its certainly not the only thing that influences the climate, but it is a important component in the overall atmosphere and the amount of it in the atmosphere has rocketed in recent decades and is increasing to do so, which makes sense as we continue to produce increasing amounts of it every year and pump it into the same atmosphere.
Is this all a coincidence? I think its unlikely in the extreme. Like you I am unsure of why that is even being questioned, its a fact plain and simple, though I certainly know why its being resisted, I'm amazed how many barefaced lies people in authority in many countries are prepared to spout about this, and how easy it seem for them to get away with it. There is certainly a lot we don't know yet about how the climate works, but we do know about the role of CO2 and have for years, and unless we do something about reducing CO2 emissions very very drastically in the next 20 years I think we are heading for an environmental diaster. There is evidence that many of the mass extinction events in the past were linked to widespread climate changes of one kind or another, I really, really hope we are not looking at another one.
Here's the question: why is this matter even being debated? Why isn't the public calling for the EPA director to resign because he, like so many others in the admin, is incompetent?
In this country (the US), we have something called The National Academy of Sciences. What is the NAS? They are a body of eminent real objective scientists, who, in the past, were the science advisory arm for the government. Recently, they published a paper, which many noblelauriates signed, stating that:
1) Climate change is real and measurable.
2) Human activity is a significant component.
Case closed. There is no debate. Why is this in court? And why is the news media so arbitrary? Unless the public starts to take responsibility for some of these issues, we're going to find ourselves in a very bad place. The real court of consequences is not the Supreme Court, it is the court of physical reality. And it is not arbitrary.
Both of those conclusions are absolutely correct, and the people involved in the NAS have no vested economic or political interest in spinning the results of climate studies, there are (its true) a handful of maverick scientists who dispute the basic concepts involved in the climate change, (just like there are a handful of maverick scientists who dispute relativity theory and quantum mechanics, they may be right, but the evidence does not support them) and of course their theories are being latched onto by corporations and people with very important vested interests who basically think that having to reduce emissions is going to cost too much money and want to gamble that its all just a case of scientists being overly pessimistic. Because the staus quo profits them, its the old principal of when trying to work out who is telling the truth, take a look at what they have to lose by being honest.
This anti-science campaign is a very cynical tatic to try and confuse people and put out misinformation so as to not have to actually do anything poltically or economically difficult to deal with the problem. Just like the way tobacco companies continually disputed the scientific and medical facts about smoking with pseudo-scientific nonsense and legal sophistry for decades, even though they knew full well what the truth was, why did they do this?, because they wanted to make lots of money of course and anything that gets in the way of that was highly inconvient.
In terms of definitions of what these things are, its not that CO2 is a pollutant in the generally understood definition, is been present in the atmosphere for billions of years as its an abundant compound on planet earth, but it is definetly a greenhouse gas, (in fact if we had no CO2 in the atmosphere the earth would be a very cold place and not very nice). But the more of it we put into the atmosphere aboce what has been its natural level for the past 100,000 years, the more energy is going to get trapped in the atmosphere and the climate will change, which is exactly what is happening. Its certainly not the only thing that influences the climate, but it is a important component in the overall atmosphere and the amount of it in the atmosphere has rocketed in recent decades and is increasing to do so, which makes sense as we continue to produce increasing amounts of it every year and pump it into the same atmosphere.
Is this all a coincidence? I think its unlikely in the extreme. Like you I am unsure of why that is even being questioned, its a fact plain and simple, though I certainly know why its being resisted, I'm amazed how many barefaced lies people in authority in many countries are prepared to spout about this, and how easy it seem for them to get away with it. There is certainly a lot we don't know yet about how the climate works, but we do know about the role of CO2 and have for years, and unless we do something about reducing CO2 emissions very very drastically in the next 20 years I think we are heading for an environmental diaster. There is evidence that many of the mass extinction events in the past were linked to widespread climate changes of one kind or another, I really, really hope we are not looking at another one.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
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Specfiction
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:51 pm
Climate Change and CO2
You are absolutely right that CO2 is naturally occurring--we breath it out every time we take another breath. However, it is also true that for most of the history of the earth, the atmosphere was incompatible with life today--a noxious brew of methane, CO2, acidic hydrocarbons--stuff spewed out by volcanic activity. But if we are interested in maintaining life today and in the future, we must, as voters educate ourselves as to the facts of some of these contentious issues. Absurd rhetoric that sounds good to those whose intuition is faulty due to a lack of factual understanding could have some very dire consequences for the ecosystem that has been so hospitable for so long.