Der wunder Doktor zitiert:

For Gore, global warming serves as today's populations last chance at a kind of universal redemption. Buy in, and, as Lomborg quotes the former vice president, get "a generational mission; the exhilaration of moral purpose; a shared and unifying cause; the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the restless human need for transcendence."

That's something more than finding an effective range of responses to global warming. Altogether, it's an approach that bears the divisive and even debilitating effect of talking about solutions in cataclysmic or messianic terms. References to war and peace, Winston Churchill's unheeded warnings and Adolf Hitler's bestiality included.

So we buy that population growth is cause of suffering #1 and in 50 years or less the whole problem will disappear, no future generations, barring "mistakes". At least no cognizant/intelligent humanity remaining and we will have a situation not unlike "I Am Legend", (pardon double negative). Evolution will have fizzled out and there won't be enough clever humans to even dicuss the situation, let alone an internet with it's contingent forums. Where is the need for redemption unless we are here specifically for the purpose of maintaining/subduing the Earth. No children makes no sense in naturalistic world view either. Who will you pass the mandate to? My point there is that no children is equivalent to nihilism and ultimately the most environmentally unfriendly action you can take.


Der wunder Doktor schrieb:

Interesting article in the [I]Wall Street Examiner[/I] Blog about the environmental costs of the Chinese "economic miracle":

Tongue in cheek "miracle":poop: very good fertilizer.

Wouldn't the necessary increase of food production tend to offset the increased CO2 emissions. I.e. conversion of CO2 + H2O into sugars and starches and proteins by addition of minerals notably sulfur and a few others.

nelson

[QUOTE=Nelson;133762]Wouldn't the necessary increase of food production tend to offset the increased CO2 emissions. I.e. conversion of CO2 + H2O into sugars and starches and proteins by addition of minerals notably sulfur and a few others.
nelson[/QUOTE]No, because food production via agriculture releases a lot of CO2, apart from the machines burning fossil fuels, one of the effects of ploughing for instance is to release the CO2 that is stored in the ground... Then the sugars and starches are ingested and the stored CO2 is released...

The case for biofuels has been ignoring a lot of the side effects for a long time, in the end it is a very low yield poor solution (if it has a positive effect at all.)

Jacob

Holy Cow!
 

The just released "Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on the United States" is much more straightforward and unfettered than I expected. It is a bit disturbing in fact. [URL="http://www.ostp.gov/"]http://www.ostp.gov/[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32738/title/Already_feeling_the_heat"]http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32738/title/Already_feeling_the_heat[/URL][QUOTE]
The new report is “a wonderful example of what happens when federal scientists are given the freedom to actually do their jobs,” says Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. The Center joined two other groups in the suit that prompted the deadline from the U.S. District Court of the Northern District California Oakland Division in August, 2007.
[/QUOTE][QUOTE]The assessment starts with the question of cause: “Studies that rigorously quantify the effect of different external influences on observed changes (attribution studies) conclude that most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations,” stated the report.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]The report, after dealing with the cause, lists changes already observed within the United States. Average temperatures have risen in both this and the last century. Increasingly more of the annual precipitation fell as rain rather than snow during the past five decades. Several droughts have been severe but the last 50 years overall saw a tendency toward decreasing severity and duration of droughts. Sea level has been rising 0.08 to 0.12 inches per year along most of the U.S Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

For the future, the report notes that most of the models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports predict average warming in the United States this century topping 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Changes in five out of the 21 models used in the IPCC report shot above 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit. The report also draws on IPCC projections of global sea level rise between 7 and 23 inches this century.[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/29/154150/521/795/525004"]New Report: Effects of Climate Change on the United States[/URL] Daily Kos web readable version of the "Summary and Findings" section of the "Fact Sheet" PDF

China Increases Lead as Biggest CO2 Emitter
 

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/world/asia/14china.html]China Increases Lead as Biggest Carbon Dioxide Emitter[/url]
[quote]China has clearly overtaken the United States as the world’s leader emitter of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas, a new study has found, its emissions increasing 8 percent in the course of a year. The Chinese increase accounted for two-thirds of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions, the study found.

The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, is an annual study. Last year, for the first time, the researchers found that China had become the world’s leading emitter, with its volume of carbon emissions 7 percent higher than the United States in 2006. In 2007, China’s emissions were 14 percent higher than those of the United States.

But last year’s results were not so clear-cut as those of Friday, and many experts were skeptical of the earlier findings. The International Energy Agency continued to say only that China was projected to overtake the United States by the end of 2007. Now there is little doubt.

“The difference had grown to a 14 percent difference, and that’s indeed quite large,” said Jos Olivier, a senior scientists at the Dutch agency. “It’s now so large that it’s quite a robust conclusion.”

China’s emissions are likely to continue growing substantially for years to come because they are tied to the country’s strong economic growth and its particular mix of industry and power sources, the researchers said.

China is heavily dependent on coal for its energy and has seen its most rapid growth in some of the world’s most polluting industrial sectors — cement, aluminum and plate glass.

Twenty percent of China’s emissions come from its cement kilns, essential for the country’s construction boom and likely to be working overtime this year as the country prepares for the Olympics and rebuilds after a devastating earthquake.

The Dutch agency’s findings were based on recently published information on energy use from the oil company BP and on cement production.

The United States still maintains its vast lead in carbon dioxide emissions per person. The average American is responsible for 19.4 tons. Average emissions per person in Russia are 11.8 tons; in the European Union, 8.6 tons; China, 5.1 tons; and India, 1.8 tons.[/quote]
[Actually, the last paragraph is factually incorrect - Australians are in fact the largest per-capita CO2 emitters, by a modest margin over the U.S. But there's a lot fewer of them than there are Americans.]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;135862][url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/world/asia/14china.html]China Increases Lead as Biggest Carbon Dioxide Emitter[/url]

[Actually, the last paragraph is factually incorrect - Australians are in fact the largest per-capita CO2 emitters, by a modest margin over the U.S. But there's a lot fewer of them than there are Americans.][/QUOTE]I think you''ll find that the champion per capita CO_2 emitters are actually the Brits. The Ozzies, followed by the Yanks, are the current [i]instantaneous[/i] per capita emitters.

We've been producing industrial quantities of CO_2 for much longer than you johnny-come-lately colonials.


Paul

Wikipedia disagrees with all of the above figures.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita[/url]

Also of interest is not just CO2 but all the "greenhouse gasses".

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita[/url]

[QUOTE=xilman;135864]We've been producing industrial quantities of CO_2 for much longer than you johnny-come-lately colonials.[/QUOTE]Typical 'white man' thinking. The 13 million plus natives that were in area of the USA at the time of Cristobal Colon were out stripping the 6 million Brits (BBC est). The burnt grass lands and some forrests, had plenty of campfires, etc. Some were even wearing pants at a time when British men were wearing something more resembling dresses.

Again the subcontinent, I think, likely out produced UK in the 1490's.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;135873]Typical 'white man' thinking. The 13 million plus natives that were in area of the USA at the time of Cristobal Colon were out stripping the 6 million Brits (BBC est). The burnt grass lands and some forrests, had plenty of campfires, etc. Some were even wearing pants at a time when British men were wearing something more resembling dresses.

Again the subcontinent, I think, likely out produced UK in the 1490's.[/QUOTE]You failed to include the portion of my posting where I stated
"I think you''ll find that the champion [b]per capita[/b] CO_2 emitters are actually the Brits." (emphasis added).


Paul

[quote=xilman;135891]You failed to include the portion of my posting where I stated
"I think you''ll find that the champion [B]per capita[/B] CO_2 emitters are actually the Brits." (emphasis added).


Paul[/quote]
How has per capita emission varied over the past 300 years?

[QUOTE=xilman;135891]You failed to include the portion of my posting where I stated
"I think you''ll find that the champion [b]per capita[/b] CO_2 emitters are actually the Brits." (emphasis added).[/QUOTE]Had assumed that , since they were seperate paragraphs, they were seperate points (per capita vs. industrial quant).

[QUOTE=davieddy;135898]How has per capita emission varied over the past 300 years?[/QUOTE]

I'd guess roughly from "breathing + cooking fire" levels to the current-industrialization ones listed in the above links.