Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:25:34 +0000 From: Albert Desouza <[email protected]>
Everyone is making big noise about global warming but no one is ready to do something in this world. Global warming is caused due to excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Mario responds: To begin with, "everyone" is not making a big noise about global warming. However, the noise being made sounds like everyone is:-)) Blaming CO2 in the atmosphere is a theory that comes from noticing a correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures over selected periods of time. There is no scientific logic as far as I know that 0.039% of the atmosphere that is a clear plant food like CO2 can magically turn the entire atmosphere into a "greenhouse". For example, there was no global warming between 1940 and 1980 even though CO2 grew considerably due to accelarating industrial activity worldwide during the same period. Also, global temperatures have not grown since 1998 even though CO2 levels have. Scientists are trying to figure out why their predictions based on unverifiable mathematical models went wrong, and there are various theories being analyzed. There are many scientists who blame changes in the sun for global warming since even Pluto and Mars have been warming without the help of a single human being. A contributing issue is that even though CO2 is 0.039% of the atmosphere, only about 0.015% is "man-made". I find it hard to believe that even shutting down all the western economies, while not doing the same for all the less developed countries, is going to make any significant difference in total CO2 levels, even if CO2 is to blame which is a controversial theory among climate scientists. This is why the policy implications of the suggestions being made at Copenhagen are so serious to the primary economic engines of the world economy, especially when we also have a worldwide economic slowdown in progress. For example, according to columnist George Will in a recent Newsweek, the prescriptions suggested for the US have been estimated by the American Enterprise Institute as taking us back to a per capita emission level not seen since 1875. Does this make any sense? http://www.newsweek.com/id/221608 Excerpt: ....the crusade against warming will brook no interference from information. With the Waxman-Markey bill, the House of Representatives has endorsed reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 83 per-cent below 2005 levels by 2050. This is surely the most preposterous legislation ever hatched in the House. Using Energy Department historical statistics, Kenneth P. Green and Steven F. Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute have calculated this: Waxman-Markey's goal is just slightly more than 1 billion tons of greenhouse-gas emissions in 2050. The last time this nation had that small an amount was 1910, when there were only 92 million Americans, 328 million fewer than the 420 million projected for 2050. To meet the 83 percent reduction target in a nation of 420 million, per capita carbon-dioxide emissions would have to be no more than 2.4 tons per person, which is one quarter the per capita emissions of 1910, a level probably last seen when the population was 45 million—in 1875. [end of excerpt] This has nothing to do with being good stewards of the environment or using more renewable energy by voluntarily installing solar panels, etc. which everyone should consider. The problematic issue is when politicians take an issue still being studied and debated by serious scientists who have no axe to grind, and use it to make speculative policies that seem to make little economic sense, at least to me, which include massive government intervention in our lives. History has taught us that when a government thinks it knows what's good for everyone else better than they do, it can be economically inefficient at best and dangerous at worst.
