IF Global Warming is in fact as bad as stated by the Consensus, why are we not:?

Question

1. Starting building inland cities above the ocean rise predicted and out of hurricane's ways that are of all new ecologically and aesthetically sound design, and move everybody from the old cities to the new, and abandon the old unsound and ugly and pollution-filled cities of now? Can be demolished for parts, or just kept as monuments to bad taste!

2. Have the plans drawn up for utilizing the newly-uncovered land as fast as the ice melts, for agriculture to feed the hungry, and clean new recreation for those who need such. The Vikings didn't wait!!

3. Put the push on to realize the plans of power from space, so we have all the clean power we need. We have the technology but are not using it. Ludditism infecting the Global Warmers?

4. I hear of the population increases; why are we not preparing to move the excess people to the moon, or L4 and L5 colonies, to ease the crunch on the earth?

COULD IT BE the Global Warmers do not actually want everybody to have a better life?

1. I do not drive an SUV, sorry. And I do replace incandescent lamps with flourescents when they will give enough reliable light. They tend to fizzle out if the atmosphere gets cooler!
2. The comment about not trying to uncover is OK, aside from what if it heads the other way and MORE land is covered? What I am saying is we should work positively to take advantage of the warming, not fight it. It is NOT a disaster! Or rather, need not be.

The plans to restrict people, less energy, more expensive this and that, new regulations on what can and cannot be done and said, by politicians, is in itself a proven recipe for disaster. Read history, don't repeat it.

3. If you do not call the "consensus" a group of people working together for their goal, what DO you call it? I see it used to describe the group of politicians, scientists, industrial leaders, and United Nations employees as the magic password that defines "correctness" these days. Oil palms and the Consensus???

Glad to see some folks are thinking, critically and factually, and not just reacting kneejerk to the Consensus.

4. When the earth is tilted to the son, the northern regions get a tremendous amount of sunlight. I see no reason why many short term crops cannot be grown well.

5. I think the point is well made of the vast cost of rebuilding NOLA, to be about as prone to disaster as before.

But, you see, that is politics in action.

6. I am glad for the folks who sound off on my alleged SUV, etc., w/o knowing me at all. Shows their prejudices in full bloom.

7. For those who balk at the high cost of space, read Ben Bova, "The High Road" clear through with an open mind, and then we can talk.

Thanks to all for the interesting inputs!

I have serious questions on dikes, if the water level rises and the hurricanes too reach anywhere near the limits GW says they will.

Holland has a lot of land tied up in tripled dikes now, and as we would build dikes taller and taller, they too would take up the oceanfront land folks seem to want, and become weaker and weaker while becoming more and more expensive.

Especially in NOLA where parts of the city are already below sea level, and of course, as we saw, what happens if the breaches in the dikes for shipping are not closed off when the storm warnings fly?

Holland has built their dikes over centuries, so the cost was distributed.

Can we afford to fully dike even one city properly in the time we have left according to GW before the oceans are much higher and the storms so much more violent?

Anybody figured what it would take to put dikes to hold off say 50 feet of ocean rise plus another 50 feet of storm surge under the winds of a size 6 hurricane? Cost and time to build?

Those who talked of the price per pound direct to the moon, or the costs of building solar energy arrays in space, need to read Ben Bova "The High Road" through seriously, as he treats good practical engineering answers to these objections, in my opinion, and shows where the money can come from now. Actually, we are about 40 years late now, but better late than giving up on mankind with a "too late" analysis.

The opposition would like us to give up and live under their jerks on our emotional buttons.

I think we should be facing that we CAN start now, we CAN do the big projects...and even now technology has those non-blowawayable homes for our cities in hurricane's way.

That could be a start to the much safer cities, and we can lay them out with trees, all the features we'd like.

Better to start to light one little candle than to sit around cursing the dark! Let us put our money into the new, warm, era. Rather than fighting the earth, move with it! While we still can!

Answer 1

Global warming is natural cyclical phenomonon. So is global cooling, ever hear of the ice age??? Carbon dioxide is plant food. Plants absorb it and create oxygen. Greenland used to be just that...GREEN! now it's a frozen tundra. The earth balances itself out and outside of an all out nuclear war we cannot destroy it. One volcano puts more stuff in the air than all the cars and cow farts in all of history combined.
Politically liberal people want you scared....they teach you to hide under your desks at school in case of a nuclear attack. (like that would work) Making DDT illegal killed more people from malaria than all the modern wars combined...and DDTis harmless to the environment. (FACT!) Any way to keep you scared, bolster big government, raise taxes and keep you dependent is what these scare tactics are all about. To think we can raise the earths temperature is BS. We can't. It's a natural earth rhythm. We are producing more food per acre of land than ever before and now thanks to scare tactics we are gonna start burning food (corn) in our cars in the form of ethanol.. while we can safely drill for our own oil in the Gulf and Alaska....but....noooooo...environmental crazies won't let us. We haven't built an oil refinery in 30+ years. So now food prices will go up...corn is a STAPLE FOOD not a fuel. The worst possible choice. The global warming zealots DO NOT want everyone to have a better life. Ayn Rand was right....it is becoming like Atlas Shrugged and people keep voting these freaks in at their own peril.

Answer 2

We must make certain that the things that we do are cost effective.

Abandoning cities and building new is not always cost effective or desirable. Many areas can be protected from rising sea levels by dike systems similar to those in Holland at a much lower cost than relocating the city.

Power from space is a very expensive proposition. Most rate payers could not afford to pay the cost of power from space.

Wind power at 4 cents per kilowatt hour is a renwable enregy source that is cost competitive with electricity generated by the use of fossil fuel.

The current cost of power from space would be measured in dollars per kilowatt hour not pennies per kilowatt hour.

Much of the land under the ice sheets is bare rock. It is not very likely that you could make cost effective farm land from it. You would have to truck in the soil. That is very expensive.

There are some peat bogs in Canada and the northern parts of the United States that will become much more productive though.

Colonizing the moon and other planets is also a very expensive proposition. Most people could not afford to live in a space colony. That would probably be a very expensive perk that only a few billionaires and rock stars could afford to pay for.

Essentially the obstacle to most of the items that you mention is money not the lack of a desire for a better life.

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Answer 3

I have very strong opinions on the subject of global warming In the 50's we had a few cold summers in Europe and the news papers were saying - it's those atomic bombs they are setting off in the atmosphere - until some eminent scientist said it is ludicrous to say that a few of those bombs could somehow diminish the power of the sun.
Acid rain is another example we used to have a serious research station for acid rain up here in Ontario . A senior scientist told me Acid rain is not a problem around here when i dropped in and talked to them 10 years ago.You see - its the media mostly . Al Gore is out to lunch with his gloom and doom. His own house uses 30 times more en erg y than the average house in north America.
Does anyone expect the climate of this planet to stay the same forever ?
It is changing no question about that but so what . We will adapt as always.There will be floods . there will be droughts humans will starve, humans will prosper.
Now having said all that --- if we can use this global warming hysteria as a motivator for our industries to clean up their act and cut back on air and water pollution I'M ALL FOR IT.

Answer 4

Governments worldwide are doing nothing about global warming for exactly the same reasons that tobacco is still legal. The scientists pointing out the problem are not the people with the power to do anything about it.

Your "COULD IT BE the Global Warmers do not actually want everybody to have a better life?" is blaming the victims.

For a list of practical solutions, which national governments are ignoring, stonewalling, or actively working against, check the reference.

Answer 5

1. No kidding. Why are we spending a dime on New Orleans, instead of BILLIONS to rebuild low-income housing BELOW sea-level? Shows the the great lengths that Democrats will go to in order to secure votes. Prime California and Florida coastal properties should be seized/condemned, homes demolished and preconditioned to invite coral reef formation.

2. You got me SO stoked for some Antarctica beach front, sun, sand, penguins...Surfin' Antartikaaaay!!!

3. Are you talking about orbiting solar panels beaming energy back to power stations? Good idea. I think we should position the stations at or near the poles, with the panels positioned above the ozone holes. This would likely increase the efficiency of the power transmission. And with Antarctica, Greenland, and Northern Canada free of glaciers, this would be the perfect location for the transmission stations. We might need to hurry up the melting - it's supposed to take over a millennium to melt all of the ice. Maybe we can keep a little ice and snow for some ski areas!

4. If we can open up Greenland and Antarctica, then we should have plenty of room for all the added people.

Answer 6

I'm trying to think of a city on a coastline that has been completely relocated.... hmmm. None spring immediately to mind. Pompeii was near the coast, I suppose. But cities are not easily built by governments or relocated readily. My home is on a hill and I am 2km from the coast.. I may have bought myself a future waterfront... so OK I am a selfish person but what economic or social rationale would I have, to abandon it because someone thinks its a good idea to start building more inland cities? None.. and I think there are millions of like minded property owners. What makes one city grow while others dwindle? Prolly the prospects for living there... social, economical.. environmental. Unfortunately with individual power we don't just all decide to build a city through mass hypnotic conditioning (like a swarm of bees relocating around the queen) ... but wouldn't that be powerful town planning ~ not for a democracy mind you but an empire could try it... I am trying to think of a dictator that would relocate masses of people against their will... hmmm.

Well, OK so what does global warming do anyway? We have anacdotal evidence that it increases the high tide.. we have some skerrik of evidence that further changes in water temperature will see that the Great Barrier reef dead (so what eh? What's 18,000,000 years of constant coral reef provided us when weighing it up against the last 100 years of industrialisation)... we have increasingly violent weather patterns destroying crops and raising hell.... hmmm. Can we live with that? Can we continue to breed and feed... or do we just colonise another planet as you have suggested... let's go to live on the moon. Greener pastures made of cheese.

Who are these global warmers anyway? Perhaps I will ponder same as I snuggle in my bed replete with electric blanket, rubber pillows and plastic sheets (OK... I enjoy a bit of company at night alright .. so ease up.. saves on having to drag the matress out for airing in all this unusually wet weather we have been having)... or when I drive to work in the morning in my Hummer.... or when I concrete another 100sqm of my front yard to park my sports boat on.

It seems a lot easier to concentrate on fixing one small environmental mess than looking to solve a large one... so why not start at home even if it means that we have a better life ... but perhaps it shouldn't be one with power boats and leaf blowers.

Answer 7

You raised a lot of claims, too many for anyone to address, but I think the jist of your argument is if environmentalists are so convinced about global warming, then why isn't more being done?

The primary reason boils down to our government. All of the suggestions you mentioned require new government laws and a lot of financial investment. This can only come from national leadership. Unfortunately, since Bush took office, our efforts to deal with global warming have evaporated (pardon the pun.) The problem is people keep thinking global warming is some kind of lie or conspiracy without learning the facts for themselves.

If you don't believe me, here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6341451/

Answer 8

If you think that hasn't already been done by many you may be mistaken. The way of mans conduct on this planet was discussed and plainly laid out in the 60's when all this became a scientific interest. And then the consensus was that if man hadn't already a real time running reality like that you mentioned but not here where the chances of that activity surviving along with any humans participating in it but someplace like on the other side of the moon or maybe on one of those close to earthlike environments it would be too late if he waited too long. And if so why not just give the humans what they ask for to keep them passified by thinking there is a chance because any other way would be too out of control and caos would ensue as Americans seeing and knowing their fate jump out of five story windows and this can be worse than the slow disaster because the stench and smell of all those anticipated dead bodies and not enough infra structure to clean it up. So go ahead and come up with ideas. But so far that is as far as they get and we all keep on going, the same old in goes the good and out goes the bad mentality. The only thing that has changed to meet the reality of this is the amount of the fine the large industries have to pay to keep on contaminating. Heck, I knew of an industry that had to pay 15,000 dollars a day. That was cheaper for them than the cost of replacing all that equipment with new models. And the demand for the product never slowed down and in fact would have suffered tremendously had they shut down to make the change. Someone would have complained and some environmentalist politicion would have had to resind or get voted out of office because he wasnt making sure some consumer was happy. I mean, who runs this country anyways... the politicians or the dumb polluters who vote. So what do you think. Is it getting close to time to hop a flight off this planet?

Answer 9

Because...
#1 many of the things you mentioned will take far better technology than we have available, and we are researching them.

#2 the things you mentioned, wil take a considerable amount of financial resources to accomplish, with no guarntee of return.

#3 there is no guarantee that climate changes will remain constant rather than being highly variable.


many of the things you suggested are on the table I assure you, but no one really knows how, and how long certain areas will be effected by climate change. It would be awful sad to spend billions developing an area that the climate has changed, only to find out it hasn't stopped changing even for a little while.

Answer 10

yes that is it....global warming is just a conspiracy to make you give up your SUV.

And your statements are not logical or consistent.

We should move cities from coast for many reasons. and cities should be made more ecofriendly. I am sure it isn't the global warming people causing that....why would we plan to use uncover land when we are trying to prevent it from being uncovered? I don't know what power from space is...but it sounds wonderful...maybe we should call it solar power....who want to live on the moon? no oxygen or water...would make more sense to control the birthrate don't you think?

Answer 11

Why are we not taking action against the effects of a changing climate? In my opinion Dana1981 is partially correct. We should stop debating climate change then work out how to minimize the effects. I disagree, though, that the situation is hopeless and strongly argue that we should be making preparations and taking action for all of our futures.
It is well argued that Scientific consensus is shown over time to be wrong due to funding bias, skewed data, research anomalies etc. (http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11637).

We do not need to wait, we can take preventative action now. Jorge N suggests that we should not repeat history. That they tried to take action in the 1960s. See Baines University of Melbourne http://gemini.dpi.inpe.br/col/cptec.inpe.br/adm_conf/2005/10.14.00.49/doc/1477-1482.pdf Maybe now is the time to try again. Imagine what our world would be like now if some of those fantastic values of the 60s were in place. Society may not be in the mess it is in now. We should not repeat history though. We should make our solutions a fantastic choice. With real examples of what can be done. People want to work less, have a better quality of life, a cheaper, cleaner, more satisfying Green life. Would you give your baby a rubber duck with a health warning attached to it? We do, we have no choices. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo&mode=user&search=

We want clean power, clean products, clean environment. We now have the knowledge to make all products so that they are not harmful to health, the environment or leave waste as they return to the system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77BfxnVlyc
We use all of the elements in the periodic table. Some are poisonous to both mankind and the environment. Nature uses a small percentage of these elements. We can do this too. We know how. Jim Z you are right positive solutions are needed. Building on flood plains is ludicrous when there is an amazing stuff happening in Building and Design: City's such as China are are totally re-designing housing. See link above prefixed with We All Do. In Japan they have monolith domes that can be built cheaply and in a day that are hurricane proof see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJg7qan3Q7M. Eugene Tsui is renowned for ecologically and aesthetically sound design. http://www.tdrinc.com/architecture.html

Look at Urban Permaculture, we can reclaim and re-green the cities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g2mmqqEn08&mode=related&search= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVJtpuOyCo0 Change individual micro climates so that water soaks into fields and gardens and does not run off fields.

We have photographed and video examples of reclaiming barren land, reclaiming deserts, replanting forests with native trees, reversal of soil erosion and sustainable agriculture. Bob and Andrewondery, we can and are making land fertile again and change micro climates. Plants can thrive in those conditions. Given the right conditions the earth will heal itself. However, we have polluted so for MANKIND'S existence and comfort we need to undo some of this damage by re-greening.

Crackerboy79 Governments can be made to take issues seriously if enough people protest. Match Girl Strike 1888, Disability Rights Movement etc. You do not have to be able to think critically. Just ask yourself one question? Who do YOU want to believe and trust, Politicians and capitalists or those who are actively finding holistic solutions to your problems?

Ok Grizz, this time you win. Excellent research.

Mike where is all this bare rock in nature now? As soon as rocks are exposed dust settles, seeds in blown/brought in and soil begins to be made without any input whatsoever from man. Coastal areas are teaming with life, they have adapted to live with the conditions and thrive.