Should we now direct our science funding away from global warming?

Question

and concentrate on real issues such as treating poverty and disease?

Answer 1

Yes - After all, we know "global warming" is real, we know the cause, and we know how to solve it.

There is no longer any reason to spend any more money to determine if "global warming" is happening.

We should use this money for better things, like helping to poor, or feed starving children.

Answer 2

Wow, a crack in the clouds and a little light shines through! Consensus among opponents on this issue is possible. In diplomacy, many bad situations can be defused by offering a back door for one or more parties to exit with grace and not feel defeated, preempting a major showdown or confrontation by not declaring a winner or a looser.

It's that magic middle ground we must seek, and then only the extremist of either side are left out, and the majority can move on!

Way Cool...

Compromise can be good when it comes from two sides equally, and some sort of progress is made. The best politicians are not liked very much by anyone when a solution can be found that creates no winners and no looser, becasue no ones gets everything the way they wanted.

Answer 3

Addressing global warming is necessary to preventing further poverty and disease, which is one reason why the U.N. created the IPCC process.

I agree with the Bush Administration's latest research which says global warming is very real, and heavily influenced by our activities.

Although President Bush is notoriously skeptical in public about mankind's role (he was formerly an oil industry executive), the actual science being studied across ten federal agencies reveals that our scientists are not skeptical:

http://co2conference.org/agenda.asp
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap2-2/final-report/default.htm
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/activities/AcceleratingAtmosphericCO2.htm

This was all published in the last few weeks, in late October and November 2007.

Regarding the other side of the fence, here's what the Director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. James Hansen, has to say about skepticism:

The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change. The danger is that delay will cause tipping points to be passed, such that large climate impacts become inevitable, including the loss of all Arctic sea ice, destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet with disastrous sea level rise later this century, and extermination of a large fraction of animal and plant species (see “Dangerous”, “Trace Gases”, and “Gorilla” papers).

Make no doubt, however, if tipping points are passed, if we, in effect, destroy Creation, passing on to our children, grandchildren, and the unborn a situation out of their control, the contrarians who work to deny and confuse will not be the principal culprits. The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. There is no point to joust with court jesters. They will always be present. They will continue to entertain even if the Titanic begins to take on water. Their role and consequence is only as a diversion from what is important.

The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children. The court jesters are their jesters, occasionally paid for services, and more substantively supported by the captains’ disinformation campaigns.

I am puzzled by views expressed by some conservatives, views usually expressed in vehement unpleasant ways in e-mails that I have been bombarded by in the past several days. It is a bit disconcerting as I come from a moderately conservative state, and I consider myself a moderate conservative in most ways. It is puzzling, because it seems to me that conservatives should be the first ones standing up for preserving Creation, and for the rights of the young and the unborn. That is the basic intergenerational issue in global warming and the headlong use of fossil fuels: the present generation is, in effect, ripping off future generations.

Is it possible that conservatives have been too quick to support the captains of industry? If we allow industry to continue on a path of denial, to focus on their short-term profits, to deny the rights of our children, grandchildren and the unborn, if the planet passes climate tipping points, will we not share in the infamy, the infamy of the captains of industry?

It seems to me that the present situation, with only minimalist actions to mitigate global climate change, reflects, at least in part, the “success” of the disinformation campaign that the captains of industry have at least tolerated, and, in some cases, encouraged and supported. Of course Nature will, eventually, reveal the truth, but there is potentially great harm in the disinformation, because it increases the likelihood that we will pass climate tipping points.

Answer 4

I must have missed something.

Out here, the Global Warming issue is still hotly debated. After all, it impacts on one of our major sources of money and electrical power, Coal, and may also on the oil fields that lie beneath us. And Sugar Beets could be a great crop for Ethanol production and grow well here, eliminating the problems with corn: fertilizer, rampaging food prices, other countries selling their own citizen's food for ethanol, and so on.

However, if the comment implies that the "Consensus", which is in fact a great minority of scientists AND politicians and hangers-on has spoken the final word, despite the proof that Al Gore's film was a fraud, then it is NOT over.

Global Warming as a terrible problem is disproven by History, and questioned because so many scientists have had to be silenced to get the dissent "taken care of", just as the "Consensus" in the dark ages silenced its critics. And set real science back hundreds of years.

Now the Goreans are trying to make political changes to force people into poverty and put them under political controls by invoking the really brutal strictures on fuel, travel, food, home styles, etc., things the Great Leader does not adhere to himself. The Snopes investigation online shows that last very well, I think. Very much like the leadership in the Dark Ages did.

Somehow, the only thing different I see is that President Bush, under tremendous pressure, caved to an extent to Gorean pressure and implied threats from other countries who think we should have to suffer as they think they have to suffer.

But why should we suffer at all? To make Al Gore a multi-billionaire, and to enrich the shadow multinational corporations that traffic in Carbon Credits and the lives of the underdeveloped peoples? And bulldoze jungles out of existence to get more "Carbon Credits," destroying uncataloged species that could have had the secrets to cures for diseases...many others have been found as scientists cataloged the life forms. Now they are dead. Sacrificed by Al Gore's plan to make big money and control the world, at least by proxy.

We know a quick and easy and inexpensive way to set the Global temperature anywhere we want it, proven by nature and man's practical experiments both...is that what you mean? I will bet you have no idea what I am talking about, because it is a well hidden secret by the Gorean Consensus. Cleverly hidden, also.

Anyhow, yeah, let's stop all the waste on Carbon Credits and changing fuels and making everybody live in teensy houses with teensy transportation, and making Al Gore and his multinational friends world dictators living in multiple big mansions behind the scenes.

Let Global warming happen as it is trying to, and enjoy all the new land areas, more food growing, new recreational places, and IF the water levels rise, we have lots of time to rebuild new cities in safe places with new buildings and 'green' ideas, rather than keeping the old dirty crowded cities hidden behind failure-prone dams and dikes and levees! Turn science loose to innovate! Learn aquaculture!!

How about gathering up all the plastic trash in the Pacific and restructuring it into Polar Bear and Walrus islands in the Arctic! It will just freeze in place in the next global cooling episode, which seems to be due shortly!

We can really improve the world by dumping the Gorean dictatorship, and our present do-nothing politicians and doing what real science, and real history, shows is really right. And enjoy our lives and our freedoms.

I'd kinda like that!

Answer 5

I think we should keep funding it- the more we know the more we can solve. It is a real issue.

treating poverty and disease are much easier to solve- America simply chooses not to.

Answer 6

i would because they started preaching that global warming crap in the 80's and new york isn't underwater yet.

anyway, warm weather makes good for jogging and a tan. All that extra water can make some good beaches....

Answer 7

Away from converting the idiots, yes; away from solving the problem, no. While neither poverty nor disease is pleasant, treating them contributes to overpopulation and global warming. Our best hope is to attack the root causes of overpopulation, which will solve all three problems, at least to some extent.

Answer 8

I may be the only person that has not made up their mind on Global Warming. Considering the significance, I think we should take prudent actions and continue to study the issue.

Answer 9

We waste much more money on frivilous things than we spend on global warming.

Or how about using some of the more than 500 billion dollars we spend on defense (which is half our total budget) each year?

Why not act as if global warming is occurring (whether it is or isn't)? What do we have to lose? Spend money to develop alternative energy sources (which gets us off foreign oil), plant new trees for each one we cut down (which makes the environment look better), and recycle more (which is less wasteful and can be cost-efficient).

Answer 10

You can't divorce the climate change issue from the poverty issue.
Here is a link
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/issues/climate.html
Global warming is happening. There is no doubt about that. The issue is what is causing it because when we understand that we have a better chance of deciding what to do.