How should the government help us with global warming?

Answer 1

What makes you think the government wants to help the public ,what is that based on.???

World leaders are not too concerned with the well being of the masses ,on the contrary .it was stated at a conference in Copenhagen,in 1998,by an American statesman , that the Agenda demanded a decrease in the world population of 60%,and you cannot achieve this if you start saving everybody.

Scientists who get paid by politicians have downplayed the facts of global warming because solutions are expensive and means change .

Change effects many peoples incomes,and upsets profit margins(especially those of the rich and powerful),so most of the world is kept in the dark of the real things that are going on.for political and economic reasons .

On top of that it disagrees with what was written,and religion today still has a lot of political and spiritual power over the masses.

On top of that Global warming is not half as destructive right now ,as what the USA is planning.
They are insane

They want to replace all the indigenous Forrest's in the world ,with mono cultures for the production of Ethanol,

Non sustainable, chemically grown ,heavily irrigated (with water needed for communities)one specie Forrest's,that have only plagues of insects as fauna which are combated with pesticides.

Killing all bio diversity,in both flora and fauna ,adding to the destruction and extinction of species ,like nothing we have ever seen before.

All in the quest for alternative energy and to save the Environment ,


The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay. "We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.

Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best and cheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investing billions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations in developing countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms. Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead of bananas.

Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel from petroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormous global thirst means millions more hectares could be converted into monocultures of oil palm. Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is very difficult.

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

"The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered by the increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.

National governments provide all the statistics, and countries like Canada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed no net change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largest producer of pulp and paper. "Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world what kind of changes have taken place there," he said.

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities, resulting in a net loss of jobs. "Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity and local people," Lovera said. Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or other plantations, it often forces the local people off the land and into nearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to grow crops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the pattern with pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, says Lovera.

Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar cane or other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared to grow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meet the ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soy prices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest into soy, she says. Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests. "Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the use of reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been a tremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for tree planting projects. Very little of this money goes to small land holders, she says. Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing a recent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in some Asian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respective natural forests. Nor has the world community been able to properly account for the value of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.

One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water. The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easily stopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery and governments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation. Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated. "Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two years in the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted. The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to the local people. This community or model forest concept has proved to be sustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a bill returning the bulk of its forests back to local communities for management, she said.

However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be little natural forest left. "Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests have enormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban on deforestation is the only way to stop this."


This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.
© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service


Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/...

And we are not even talking about people pointing misiles in what could be the prelude to a world nuclear conflict for supremacy of this planet

Answer 2

It seems you were actually how governments can help us stop it or cope with the effects.

The first thing to do is to tax the emission of greenhouse gases. Estimate how much it will cost to reverse or mitigate the effect of a ton of CO2 and then add that much to the cost of anything that releases a ton of CO2, should be enough to price coal, oil and natural gas right out of the electric power market and get money from transportation fuels that can't be easily replaced into a fund to deal with the effects.

Government might also help the nuclear industry expand because nuclear is what is going to have to take over from fossil fuels if we are to maintain our way of life without destroying the environment (a lowered standard of living is not going to be acceptable to the general voting public, deal with it Greenpeace).

I am convinced that money collected from a carbon tax should not go into general government revenue and should not be used as a subsidy for the poor or to reduce income taxes because then government will become dependant upon polluters and may have trouble raising taxes once the polluting industries have cleaned up, if one is concerned about the effect the increased prices will have on the poor then increase the top tax rate or add new higher tax brackets and then increase welfare payments or reduce other taxes for the poor.

Research is a good thing for government to fund so funding of fusion and space solar power systems should be a priority for the future as those two power sources will provide some competition for fission while clean coal research should probably be refocused on getting CO2 out of the atmosphere so that we can fix the problem we have (I don't hold much hope of clean coal ever working myself) and the politically correct power sources should be funded based on the assumption that they will only be niche markets.

In the long term I think we need to get off this planet and into space to really stop polluting but we can survive global warming without needing such drastic action (although one possible method of reversing global warming is putting a big sunshade between the Sun and Earth).

Answer 3

For one thing I think the Government would be better served to take care of problems that are real like crime, illegal immigration, etc., instead of wasting more resources on something that is pretty much a natural occurence. Even if global warming were real, by the time it gets to the critical stage the government will already have this country in such turmoil we will be better off dead.

Secondly, you have apparently not had much experience with the government if you think they can actually help us with anything. Anytime the government gets involved with something it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare, this would be no exception.

Answer 4

I am not sure we need government " help" with global warming! Probably can do it ourselves!

But the government could help put the issues into perspective by:
1. Making sure that the political approach and the scientific approaches are clearly labeled.
2. Making sure all sides are heard, and all factual material is available to all citizens
3. Making clear presentations on the economic costs for each approach, and the collective costs. Both in terms of taxes and government levies, and the consumer level economics; how much more things will be expected to cost.

Then:

4. The government should put into position means to enforce proper compliance with all laws impartially.
5. The government should strictly enforce all the laws without consideration of size or political contributions of individuals and firms.

Also:
6. The government should check compliance with other countries to agreed limits and methods, and cut off economic assistance and trade with countries not living up to promises, regardless of the power of the country involved.
7. The government should withdraw all support from the UN if the UN fails to enforce all world environmental agreements and International laws promptly, impartially, and effectively.

Our government should regulate the citizens with their informed consent only and equitably.
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And the government should make sure we get our money's worth of action to enforce all international laws and agreements, or take action including possibly leaving the UN.

An educated, informed populace is what we need, coupled to a government that is open and honest with its citizens..

Answer 5

the problem I see with co2 and global warming is that plants of all kinds use this as a fuel in ther photosynthisis. if there was that much co2 in the air it would be ofset by the plant matter, they convert co2 into oxygen. whos to say that the climate that we are used to seeing in the last mellenia is the optimal type of wether the planet might just as well prefer it to be warmer infact in our past the planet has gone through cycles where its been much hotter than it is now. We might just be entering this face naturally . .. look up a phrase mini ice age it will explain something about how our climate has been for the last several hundred years. the amount of carbon gasses released from cars is dwarfed in comparison to some of the volcanos that have erupted in the last hundred years .

Answer 6

1. Sign the Kyoto Accord and live up to it.

2. Extend or expand tax credits to people who take ont he extra expense of alternative technologies, such as solar and wind power, Hybrid, electric and altrnative fuel cars.

3. Extend tax credits to corporations who use green technology or promote it's use in the consumer market (Biodiesel pumps at gas stations, the Subaru plant with it's zero-landfill status)

In other words, help offset the cost of the conversion.

Answer 7

The Government could do so much to help stop global warming, but they want more money so they won't stop anything. Cars could be run with other stuff than just gas, like water, salt water, solar powered cars, there's alot of things to stop it but, the government wants to keep getting more money.
hope this helps some

Answer 8

By not serving the selfish greedy corporations that only want money and/or power. Then by being more responsible with their policies and perhaps the most important way of all is to no longer go to war just because its politicaly and/or financially profitable.

Answer 9

Well first of all things make a law on how much coal to use annually! And to quit dumping chemicals in the water.

Answer 10

The cost of electricity generated by windpower is very close to the cost of electricity generated by coal fired power plants and is less than the cost of electricity generated by power plants fired by natural gas.

Two million windturbines with a generating capacity of 1.8 megawatts each, operating just 30% of the time, which is normal for windpower would generate enough electricity to replace all of the electricity generated by power plants fired by fossil fuel, and there would be enough electricity left over to power all of the automobiles in the United states as electric cars or provide the hydrogen electrolytically from water to power automobiles retrofitted to operate on hydrogen instead of gasoline.

The cost of installing 2 million wind turbines is approximately equal to the amount of money that was squanderd in Iraq and we would have much more to show for our money.

Not only would this reduce our production of greenhouse gases by over 90%, but it would eliminate our dependence on foreign oil and improve our balance of payments problem considerably.

It would also defund the terrorists because it would result in a dramatic reduction in the world price for oil.

It would also serve as a model for other countries to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil

This would result in further declines in the demand for oil, further reductions in the price of oil and further reductions in the amount of money available to terrorists.

We would actually have something to show for our money and we would truly change the world dramatically for the better.

I recommend that you contact your Congress person and recommend that we have a government program similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority in the Roosevent Administration during the depression to:

1. install at least two million wind turbines of 1.8 megawatt generating capacity or higher to make electricity that would be either sold on the open market or directly to consumers to replace the electric power from coal fired and gas fired power plants and to:

2. power electric cars and make hydrogen to power existing cars retrofitted to run on hydrogen.

3. the government to guarantee low cost financing or make low cost loans similar to the student loan program for people to retrofit their existing cars or buy new ones designed to run on hydrogen or electricity, and finance the equipment to generate hydrogen electrolytically at a person's home for hydrogen powered cars, and buy back existing gasoline powered cars to be recycled.

This is more than an environmental issue, this is also a national security issue and an economic issue to help solve our balance of payments problem that is destroying our economy.

It is very sad that the Bush administration squandered the money that could have been used for this program on the Iraq war. Let's not let our politicians make the same mistake in the future. The sooner we get this done the sooner we will solve some of the most vexing problems that we are facing.




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Answer 11

Since it's a natural climatic cycle and it's good for life on the planet, I don't really want government to get involved.

Besides, the government always makes things worse anyway.