FirmhandKY
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Joined: 9/21/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: samboct
May I throw out an alternate viewpoint (and respectfully disagree with FirmKY)?
The debate over global warming is now effectively irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether it's real or not- but the economic consequences of not doing anything about are becoming abundantly clear (from the US perspective anyway.) Most of the argument around global warming is political- based on a faulty economic premise to whit: that by not signing the Kyoto protocol and largely ignoring any real attempt to displace existing power generating/fuel providing companies, the US would be in a better economic position than the countries that are spending money to combat a non-existant threat.
Sam,
Excellent post and some good research, writing and thinking. No problems with disagreeing with me.
Mind if I disagree right back?
I think one of the reasons that you may have disagreed with me is a faulty assumption.
I do not believe that global warming and our methods of energy generation or use are necessarily related, and that global warming is both a necessary and sufficient reason for changing our methods of power generation.
I do think that we should be investigating more and better ways to generate power than carbon based methods (oil, coal) however. But more for political reasons, and reasons of finite versus infinite sources of power.
Your assumption is that CO2 generation is the cause of global warming. I do not think sufficient evidence exists to make this claim.
I do prefer that the US had more research into alternate energy sources, but then again, I also do not think that a massive, expensive, disruptive adoption of developing technologies would be the best way to approach it either.
Which is what "global warmists" advocate.
I started my thoughts on this subject back in the 70s, in Carter's day, when OPEC played politics with oil. Back in the days of global cooling rather than global warming.
There was an initial strong movement to develop energy conservation and alternate energy sources at the time, and my father and I even got involved, in our own small way. He started a successful company in this area, and we investigated solar and wood burning heating technologies in a personal way. I've kept my interest in the subject ever since.
I think we would both agree that a massive drive in the 1970s to implement alternate energy technologies at the time might have been premature, because of the state of those technologies. Compared to even the state of those technologies today, a massive effort to implement them at the time would have been inefficient, costly, and offered only marginal benefit, in comparison to the disruption.
And, in hindsight, the decision not to implement them has been borne out by the fact that the world economy is still expanding merrily along its way based primarily on carbon based energy resources.
To me, the question is one of timing.
The level of human knowledge and technology is how much more advanced now than in the 1970s? Absent some driving need such as to "reduce global warming", what is the best methods and timing to introduce other energy generating technologies? What is the level of maturity of current alternate energy generating technologies?
The drive to adopt "early" technologies often carries with it a price: a price in building expensive systems that might not be as good as ones available in just a few more years. A price in social, political and economic disruption.
A valid discussion is: When is the correct time?
If global warming is primarily a man-made thing, and it can be substantially reduced or eliminated by adoption of alternate energy sources immediately, then I might agree with you that the heavy cost inherent in going to them now, immediately may be worth the effort.
But I don't believe that such a massive effort would substantially reduce global warming. Therefore a push for eary adoption of alternate energy sources would be inherently wasteful, and inefficient.thing to do.
That is the basis of my claim that "causes" are important.
FirmKY
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Some people are just idiots.
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RE: Global warming....etc. - 
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