I certainly hope there are more "ridiculous rules" to curbing our reckless pollution in pursuit of profit, regardless of our offspring!!! There is no problem proving it's getting hotter, just not everyone accepts our role in it - poor sods that they are...
Foolish people will argue against Global Warming, it is a fact no point in arguing about it. The key point is why, that's the complex issue.
It's difficult to discuss Man-Made Global Warming without dragging politics and ideologies into the discussion, but I'll do my best. Man-Made Global Warming is a wealth redistribution scheme. When the perps who are most fond of redistributing wealth (you know who they are) got caught manipulating and fabricating data, they quickly changed the name from Man-Made Global Warming to Climate Change. This isn't the first time I've seen this particular demographic change names when their agenda or social engineering experiment blew up in their faces. As an example, experts agrees Busing was an abject failure. Did this particular demographic learn from their mistakes and choose a different path? Absolutely not. Busing continues today under the name of School Choice, much like Man-Made Global Warming continues under the name of Climate Change.
@ServicePack2: One helluva first post. I couldn't agree more. When are people going to realize that this "Carbon Footprint" minimization (bulschitt) initiative is nothing more than a scheme to milk more taxes out of an already overtaxed people? And the same people who are screaming "SAVE THE TREES" will be screaming bloody murder when the cost of bottled water or other plastic products triples or quadruples because of more regulations on the petro-chemical industry. And once again, Joe Average gets skrewed over by the "Johnny in your pocket" politicians who figured out another way to fleece us. Save the trees...Wipe your A$$ with a spotted owl. :MJ
@R29k: I am -NOT- Mitt Romney. He lives better than you or I do by a far amount. I'm just somebody who is financially eeking by; somebody who doesn't want to see the cost of goods and services become artificially inflated because we allow ourselves to be duped by a political agenda. Just like the Lottery in New York State, whose profits were supposed to go to education, and the Cigarette tax, whose profits were supposed to go to health care, nobody benefits from a Carbon footprint tax with the exception of the politicians. The sad reality is, there are just too many people in the world. And nobody wants to deal with -that- elephant in the room. It's okay though ...Nature is already dealing with the problem. We're becoming immune to Antibiotics. People have already started to die from infections which were easily curable not 10 years ago. And the pharmaceutical companies will -NOT- do research because it's simply not profitable. Oh ... They will once their Viagra-consuming base market dries up from infection related death. And, apparently, no one has figured out that the next bacterial infection could very well be an extinction-level event for Mankind. Since this sounds like a rant, I thought I'd back it up with some "facts". http://www.businessinsider.com/how-...-resistant-infections-be-in-the-future-2015-6 The CDC itself http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/ The WHO http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/ :MJ
Thank you. You're not so crazy after all, Lady. "Save the trees...Wipe your A$$ with a spotted owl." Absolutely freakin hilarious
It's all about the money. A product or service for a profit to please the investors and board. Are you going to change it, odds are no ! The best way to change it if your government isn't listening is to hold a revolt.
@R29k: No, we can't change it. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't accept responsibility and take stewardship of the earth. But We need to get our priorities sorted out. If we as a species do not survive because of a corporate decision, it'll be the most hilarious extinction ever recorded in history. Save the trees, but save the people first. :MJ
@R29k: Some of them are okay. The single greatest invention in the world today would be biodegradable plastics. They're what's killing our wildlife and polluting our oceans. If We can do it with algae, or even soybeans, that would reduce our need for petrochemicals by a substantial amount. Of course, certain types of medical plastics would still be irreplaceable, and certain chemical products would still have to be stored in petrochemical made plastic containers, but that's the residual that we'd have to accept. Plus, more strict -international- legislation is needed to force manufacturers to clean up their processes, as well as to prohibit them from immediately passing their upgrade costs to the consumer. We also -need- to make it illegal to do business with countries who have a bad track record where human rights are concerned. If they don't care about their own people, how can they operate with the safety of the rest of the world in mind? :MJ
In my opinion, global warming is a only by-product of the real problem: Due to our ever increasing demand for energy, we are using the earth's resources at a rate that is unsustainable. I see only three outcomes to the problem. Highly unlikely to impossible scenario: We develop a large fleet of spacecraft for the sole purpose of relocating a large portion of humanity to colonies on the Moon and Mars. This would lessen our overall need for energy here on Earth. In order to have a significant impact, at least 25% and perhaps up to 50% of the human population would have to be relocated. The " BIG IF" scenario: "IF" we manage to develop an alternate source of energy that is friendly to the environment (i.e. zero carbon emissions and non-polluting - such as cold fusion) and wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, then we could stay put here on Earth. For this to work, the alternate energy source would have to use an element or substance that is both cheap and very abundant, such as hydrogen or sea water. The most likely scenario: The human population of Earth is reduced by about 60-80% as a result of a worldwide nuclear war over the finite resources we have left, effectively bringing us back to living during the Dark Ages, or perhaps even earlier. Or there could be a widespread pandemic, such as the Black Plague of the Middle Ages, where roughly 40-60% of the human population died in a very short period of time. Or perhaps mother nature would provide us with another mass extinction event similar to the Permian extinction that occurred 250 million years ago, where about 90% of all species perished, never to return. We'd just have to hope that not all of humanity is completely eradicated in such an event.
@John Sutherland: There is a possibility that a war may break out because of dwindling resources, but My money is on the pandemic, simply because we have developed a tolerance to antibiotics. This will most likely be what ends up "culling the herd". As more people die, the carbon footprint will shrink, and nature will have cleaned itself up enough to sustain life on Earth. Those in the coldest places on earth will probably die last, or not die at all. The former Soviet states will most likely survive because of their research in Phages, a treatment that has been shown to work as well as or better than antibiotics on many types of bacterial infection. :MJ
The hottest July since measuring began - but there is no global warming... It's all in our imagination... Resources are plentiful but how we appropriate them and distribute what we do with them is another matter... What we really really need (not 'want') is revolution. Without it - we'll cut the branch we're sitting on and you can quote me on that!
What we need is a major disaster that will wipe out all philosophers so there won't be so much hot air heating the atmosphere with their talks of revolts.