Global Warming Response posted by Ben

In the comments section of my last post on global warming,

Kender said...

Have you considered that maybe the problem with the snowpack is simply a cycle that the earth is going through, and WA is simply in a drought stage?

I know that alot of people have fallen for the global warming thing and hate to think that maybe there are cycles that are so far apart that record keeping started AFTER the last cycle, but that fact remains.

Not to mention that the Kyoto mess punishes the US much harsher than anyone else.

Historically, of course we have had cycles, most recently the little ice age that lasted for over four hundred years in the last millennium.

The science and analysis behind this stage of global climate change, however, has been conclusively linked to human emissions, at least according to mainstream scientific consensus. Check out this document or this web page for a primer.

Another type of record-keeping to check out is that very recent data gathered from deep arctic snowpack and ice, specifically the measurements of historical carbon dioxide levels. Eras with very high levels have been identified, including their causes. In the absence of the natural global warming causes that have historically induced major climate change on our planet, and with the presence of verifiable linked human causes this time around, and with verifiable evidence of the relationship between our emissions and warming of the oceans, and with the evidence in the natural historical record of how similar conditions have wreaked havoc with our planet's environment in the past, to continue to deny that our actions are contributing to global warming is a choice that has much less to do with real science than it does with buying into corporate utilities-funded fake science. Allow me to repeat a paragraph that I quoted in an earlier post about creationism:

"One of the bedrock principles of any scientific activity is that ideas are accepted as proven true if they cannot be proven false. After all, anyone can prove anything if they put their minds to it for even a short while, but the trick is to come up with an explanation that cannot be demolished by a counter-argument. If an idea isn't open to the possibility of being disproven, it therefore can't be proven and lies outside the bounds of that collection of procedures and rules we call science."

Which side of the fence does your argument fall on?

As for 'punishment' of the U.S., let's take a look at where and how the major consumptions of resources and major pollutions are taking place. If I might take an example from Jerrod Diamond, author of Collapse, when you compare the money that entered the Montana economy due to mining to the money going out of Montana because of the environmental messes that the mining created and their adverse effects on other key portions of the Montana economy, you'll find that the long-term harm to Montana's economy from harmful mining practices far outweighed the short-term economic benefits. Had the mining companies operated with an eye toward sustainability, many of those problems could have been avoided. However, that would have cost more money. The net effect? Dismissing environmental impact because it could reduce profits ultimately caused far more long-term economic harm.

Seems to me that we're in the same boat with emissions and the need to limit them today. Is it punishment to want business to succeed on a long-term basis, rather than act in ways that might increase short-term profits but will hasten their own economic collapse? Sounds less like punishment than it does good business. Unless, of course, we're talking about CEOs and Boards of Directors who only care about quarterly profits and will be long retired when the results of their choices destroy their former companys' economic viability.