Later today, when somewhere in this world begins the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the new millenium, the concert heard round the world will start, and global warming consciousness will continue to build. Now we have a pledge that all 2.0 billion likely listeners will be urged to sign. On Larry King Live yesterday, Al Gore denied this has anything to do with politics, stating that global warming is a moral issue.
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7th day of 7th month of 7th year, the world generation awakens. |
But with a pledge being presented to 2.0 billion people, and climate crisis trainer training camps in full bloom around the planet, this is not just a moral issue. This is the biggest political mobilization in the history of mankind. So the most constructive thing we can do is take what must include an incredible amount of positive energy, and help keep the juggernaut in touch with reality. To that end, here are some considerations presented as an alternative seven point pledge:
1. Gore: To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 per cent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth.
Redwood: To recognize the “climate crisis” is useful as a propaganda campaign for pragmatic interests with multiple agendas, helping to create a mob mentality that may have devastating consequences for our personal and economic freedoms.
2. Gore: To take personal action to help solve the climate crises by reducing my own CO2 pollution;
Redwood: To recognize that CO2 is not a pollutant, indeed, that plants cannot survive without it. To recognize that emphasizing CO2 emissions reduction takes the emphasis away from reducing genuinely unhealthy air pollution, such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulates.
3. Gore: To fight for moratorium on construction of any new facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;
Redwood: To recognize 90% of the world’s energy comes from burning; 80% from fossil fuel. To understand that trying to inject CO2 underground is probably not feasible, could be dangerous, and could be an incredibly expensive waste. To realize that we are burning rainforests to grow biofuel; to realize that biofuel is not carbon neutral and is not going to replace fossil fuel; to fight to stop rainforest destruction.
4. Gore: To work for a dramatic increase in energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school and transportation;
Redwood: To support energy efficiency technologies, but not through product bans or rationing. Further, to also support increasing energy production.
5. Gore: To fight for laws and policies that expand use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;
Redwood: To fight for laws that expand all sources of clean energy, and to recognize that over-regulation stifles innovation and leads to destructive waste of resources.
6. Gore: To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests;
Redwood: To plant trees, recognizing that tropical deforestation is a more significant threat to global climate than industrial CO2 emissions, especially since meaningful restoration of tropical rainforests is far more feasible than reducing CO2 emissions.
7. Gore: To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment.
Redwood: To stop demonizing businesses and to recognize that the ideology of total control of land and production that underlies radical environmentalism requires tyrannical governments.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:33 am
1. Whether or not propaganda is the method of information dissemination, the IPCC is not just a bunch of amateurs hanging out having fun. Propaganda isn’t exactly something new for our country, either. See: WWII.
2. I agree, CO2 is not a pollutant in the traditional sense of being immediately harmful to human health. However, that plants need it to live is not an excuse for leaving it unregulated, especially when evidence suggests (see: IPCC, Union of Concerned Scientists, any PEER-REVIEWED science journal) that its emissions could be harmful to our long-term health (see: climate destabilization)
3. 80% from fossil fuels? And where does this number come from? How about the large portions of uncalculated energy use. If a man living in rural Ghana burns wood in a fire to cook his food over, is this use taken into consideration? No. Global energy usage estimates and portioning like that are vague estimates that often overlook key factors.
4. I agree with both sides. However, if consumers cannot see that they do not need a Lincoln Navigator to drive to 3 miles each way to and from CVS, there is a problem. Some products should just be taxed extremely heavily to make up for the near-sightedness of many consumers. See/precedent: taxes on cigarettes
5. I agree with both sides.
6. I agree with both sides.
7. There is no ideology of total control of land and production inherent in radical environmentalism. You have no basis for this, only the fear that you won’t be able to drive your hummer down the street to your friend’s McMansion.
July 20th, 2007 at 3:19 am
As a Prius driving, CFL using scientist, let me take exception to Bob Goose’s comment number 2 above. The fact that something appears in a peer-reviewed journal does not protect it from a mob mentality among the peer reviewers, and it does not protect data from fundamental misinterpretations. The examples of this from medical journals are truly too numerous to enumerate.
The bottom line, is that the relationship between atmosperic CO2 and temperature has been demonstrated by retrospective data, and therefore it is simply not possible to determine the causal relationship between these two variables. Could rising CO2 cause warming? Possibly. Could warming cause rising CO2? Possibly. Could something else cause them both? Possibly. There is no way to know, a priori.
On the other hand, we do know (as does anyone who has opened a warm can of coke), that oceanic warming causes CO2 to be less soluble in the world’s oceans, and to come out of solution into the atmosphere. Thus we have a highly plausable argument for the proposition that warming causes increased CO2 levels. If it were also true that increased CO2 levels causes warming, then it is likely that the Earth’s temperature would have spiraled out of control a long, long time ago.
The fact that it hasn’t suggests that either increased atmospheric CO2 does not cause warming, or that there is some other factor that interferes with this effect (e.g. increased cloud cover reflecting more of the Sun’s radiant energy from the Earth). In either case, the fact of warming causing increased CO2 makes it highly unlikely that increased CO2 is anything to worry much over.
And again, I own a Prius and drive very little, and have absolutely nothing to do with any industry that would suffer from implementation of the Kyoto treaty, or anything like it. I’m just a scientist who likes the pursuit of truth for its own sake, and who secretly wishes gasoline were $20 a gallon for geopolitical reasons.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:13 am
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