global warming.. need help please?

Question

should international efforts to deal with global warming focus more on reducing greenhouse gases or mitigating its effects (damage caused by climatic hazards and sea level rise)?
pls help me.. explanation greatly appreciated =)

Answer 1

We need to do some of both.

It's not possible to stop global warming entirely, so we'll need to cope with some of its' effects.

But unreduced global warming would be an economic and human disaster, so we need to work some on reducing it.

Here's a practical and affordable plan, worked out by hundreds of scientists and economists working together:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,481085,00.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf

AgsFan - left wing liberal wackos like these guys?

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"Pat Robertson (very conservative Christian leader) 'It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

Ford Motor Company CEO William Clay Ford, Jr. "I believe there is now more than enough evidence of climate change to warrant an immediate and comprehensive - but considered - response. Anyone who disagrees is, in my view, still in denial."

"The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

"Global warming is real, now, and it must be addressed."

Lee Scott, CEO, Wal-Mart Company

Answer 2

The bad effects of GW will come on very slowly but inexorably. Sea levels will rise, but they are not going to rise very fast---only a few times faster than they've been rising since the end of the last ice age. Seaside infrastructure will generally come to the end of its useful life before it is threatened by rising seas. Warm climatic zones will move northward, but only by a few miles per year. Most of these effects will be taken care of by normal economic activity.

The real danger of GW is that the carbon dioxide we put in the air now will be multiplied by natural positive feedback, and will remain in the air for centuries. The most important thing to do now is to make serious plans to replace our energy sources with renewable energy and nuclear power. This will prevent the most serious effects of GW in the future.

Answer 3

Imagine that you're a young father and your precious little three-year-old daughter is outside playing in the sunlight, romping through a beautiful meadow, enjoying the fresh air and maybe even dipping her toes in a clean, pure babbling brook underneath the shade of a big oak tree.

Now imagine your daughter has grown up and has children of her own. Now, your beautiful three-year-old grand daughter is bouncing on your lap while she wears a gas mask in order to protect her from the poisonous air. There isn't enough clean drinking water. The coastal cities have been shattered by massive floods, powerful hurricanes and stifling, unbearable hundred-degree heat.
Your grand daughter's eyes are weary, almost desolate. She faces an uncertain future of bleak existence, unable to rely on being driven to school in a Lexus sedan as her mother was; unable to hear birds sing because most birds have become extinct. The coal mines have been stripped of every chunk of coal, so there is no heat because our government failed to invest in alternative energy sources. All the oil wells have been sucked dry, so there is no fuel with which to power the millions of twenty-five-year-old SUVs, Hummers and Cadillacs that now simply sit on flattened tires and rust into oblivion. And as she bounces on your knee, her doleful eyes look up at you and she says, "Grandpa, why didn't you do something to try and prevent global warming from happening?" How will you answer her?
Will you tell her "global warming doesn't exist"?

Will you tell her "global warming was all a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore because he's a stupid liberal"?

Will you tell her "I didn't believe the 'chicken littles' who told me the sky was falling in"?

Will you admit that your own avarice, selfishness, gluttony, squander and hubris prevented you from facing up to the facts?

Or will you try to blame it on the industrialists who caused the air pollution with their smoke-belching factories, the car manufacturers who created vehicle emissions, and the oil drillers and coal miners who gouged out the Earth for their own profit (and your creature comforts) - all 150 years before you were alive??

The fact is we're all to blame for ignoring the fragile ecological balance between all men, plants and animals so necessary to our very survival on this Earth. Why not try to at least examine both sides of this issue so that you can at least be honest with your grand daughter and tell her you tried to do something, but didn't know what to do. It would be a shame to simply tell her you didn't believe it was happening, and you chose to let her generation deal with it...... -RKO- 08/27/07

Answer 4

There is no such thing as gw; it does NOT exist. The whole concept was created and promoted by Al Gore for his own publicity. No explanation is needed or can be reached for a nonentity. This climate cycle will be history before you know it and the left wing liberal wackos that believe everything that the mainstream media feeds them will truly be in a quandry then.

Answer 5

More effort needs to go to stopping the coal mine fires in China and India. These fires are estimated to produce as much CO2 as all the cars driven in the US. It would be easier to assist with extinguishing these fires than killing our economy by stopping our driving.

Answer 6

I would like to say this. Global warming is a FREAKEN THEORY, there still needs to be more study to determine if its real or fake, the effect(if real), when is it going to happen(if real), and good or bad news.

Answer 7

Neither. The climate is in no hazard, and the seas aren't going to rise.

You are, however, the perfect person to believe in global warming.

Answer 8

The vast majority of green house gas is water vapor. How would you suggest we go about stopping the oceans from emitting it?

Answer 9

international efforts should be focused on these idiots... er.... "experts" who claimed man made global cooling was immanent and blew it.

then focus on the same morons... er.. "experts" who now claim that man made global warming is occuring.

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Answer 10

Both.