It doesn’t matter either way because the end of the world is coming soon.
Are you talking about Nibiru/Planet X? We’ve got, what, 5, 6 years?
That site was frightening, I kept looking for the indication it was a joke, but it appears to have been serious. How did you wander upon it?
Jim
No, I was referring to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Well, it makes sense- He was a hippie.
Again?! Geez…can’t that Jesus guy just make up his mind instead of telling his friends here on Earth that he’s coming to visit (innumerable times in the past 2000 years) and then changing his mind at the last minute?
Hah! Good one! Yours is funnier than mine!
(My husband has been debating Nibiru on a different message board, What Exit. ETA: I mean debating about Nibiru, not debating the wandering planet itself.)
That site predicts:
so it seems a little moot. 90% of earth’s population did not die in 2003. 
Sailboat
Not sure why this is in the Pit…this is actually a decent debate topic.
I disagree that we will use very drop of oil…I think we will use oil as long as it remains economically viable as a fuel (or materials) source. After that we will use something else.
I agree with the spirit of what you are saying though…global warming or no global warming we ain’t going to go back to the caves, so we need to develop viable alternatives that are not only green but are economical…or it ain’t going to happen. And most likely, awareness or no awareness it ain’t going to happen very quickly…because people need energy. We need to look into ways of dealing with what is coming.
This is simply wrong as others have pointed out. Think for a moment about it. Where did that oil and coal come from? How much CO2 is released naturally each year (methane to)? If you release C02/Methane slowly (i.e. you emit less for resource consumed) the environment can deal with it easier than if you release it all at once. 55 million years ago (IIRC) we had a HUGE out-gassing of CO2/methane and it had a rather profound effect on the planet, right?
Again, I disagree. If we ‘run out of oil’ more MAY be produced…if it is economically viable to do so. More likely (to me) is that we will switch to something else…maybe methane since there is a HUGE amount of that. Maybe hydrogen if the bugs can be worked out on producing it economically. Maybe something else.
Not sure exactly what you are saying here. Nuclear is a viable source. It is (currently) protested endlessly, but I’ve noticed that some of the old school eco-fascist types are dieing off, and the new generation seems more willing to listen without the knee jerk reaction. I think nuclear is going to be a big part of the US’s energy future, personally.
Agreed…Kyoto and things like it are not the answer. Technology is the answer…and making alternatives viable economically so they are adopted. No nation is going to cripple itself economically…we aren’t collectively going to go back to being hunters and gatherers. Energy needs are just going to keep rising…that is reality. So…we need to come up with viable ways to do this, ways that impact less on the environment.
And we need to figure out how to deal with what is coming our way, because we aren’t going to change rapidly enough to make any difference.
Well, again, I disagree. “Awareness” changes reality to one extent at least…it changes market forces. We can see this happening here in the US as we speak. One example…check out the new series of Chevy commercials. Their entire marketing campaign is oriented to their 5 (or 6, not sure) part strategy for ‘green’ vehicles. Why? Answer that and you will see that ‘awareness’ does indeed have a rather profound effect. Eventually.
That, of course, is the kicker.
Seriously…you should ask a mod to change forums on this. You really have a decent debate on your hands here IMHO.
-XT
You’re welcome to your opinion, now fuck off.
I kid, I kid. I vote it stays here. No harm in having a decent debate in the pit now and again.
When I’m 96 and Lord Humungus is telling our colony to, “just walk away” I’d like to be able to look into the eyes of my boomerang wielding great grandson and know I did everything I could.
Sometimes it happens if there are options. California has actually reduced its oil usage over the past few years, enough so that in the runup before this one we weren’t the most expensive place anymore. It might have come from the our high prices, or awareness, or whatever, but we haven’t reduced product consumption at all.
Politicians follow the will of the people and the will of the money. Witness the current debate on AMT. Do you think there is popular support for keeping a tax break for hedge fund managers? I doubt it - there is plenty of money behind it, though. AGW will have to be a deal killing issue for those with support from Detroit or the power generation companies to stop opposition.
The “Gore has a big house” whine is crap, of course. One of the ways to prevent anything from happening is to say that any solution requires us all to freeze in the dark. When I was in college many people thought we were going to be choking on pollution by now. Instead we have cleaner air and cleaner water, and we have plenty of stuff and companies that make money still. Yeah, I have to buy a car with emission controls. I had to give up spray bottles for CFCs - big deal. Sometimes it is not sacrifice, but just change, and we’ve already done a lot of it.
Cool. Is he going to bring good solar panels and hydrogen car technology?
Plus - wanna bet?
As for “wasteful”, the greenest method of generating energy is to not generate it. Insulate your house and you don’t run up gigantic AC bills in the summer and gigantic heating bills in the winter. The contention that our economy is directly dependent on cheap energy is simply false, we use half the energy per GDP that we did 30 years ago. Energy prices are much higher than they used to be, yet our economy is much larger than it used to be.
The simplest and best method for reducing carbon dioxide emissions is to impose a tax on CO2 emmissions. Increase the tax on gasoline by $0.25 every year for 20 years.
And my constant refrain for this sort of thing, we can stop subsidizing what we claim we want less of. Stop agricultural subsidies, which is where the vast majority of wasted water and such goes to. Stop subsidizing the growing of rice in semi-desert California. Stop buying oil from countries that spawn terrorists. End corporate welfare.
People will make decisions to conserve when they bear their share of the costs of not conserving. When the atmosphere is treated as a commons, is it shocking that no one has a personal interest in not dumping CO2 into the commons? The economic effects of commons have been understood for hundreds of years, whining that everybody needs to cut back on grazing their sheep on the commons isn’t going to change a thing.
The atmosphere and the oceans cannot be treated as commons any more. Rivers, oceans, and air once upon a time could be treated as infinite resources, but that cannot continue. Change the economic incentives, and like magic the problem is solved.
Gambling is sinful.
Airman Doors Homeostasis
You are likely to drink thousands of beers over your lifetime, what does it matter if you drink thousands now or spread it out over the next 50 years?
We’ve not had quite that level of increase, but that hasn’t worked here in the U.K.
Der Trihs, I’m not sure what you are claiming here. All of the predicted calamities which are supposed to follow upon global warming’s heels are already happening today, and we have been dealing with them for centuries.
The foretold evils are things like droughts, floods, hot spells, cold spells, disease, sea level rise, longer growing seasons, storms, warmer winter nights, and all the rest.
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Which of these is a new problem?
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Which of these “can’t practically be “mitigated” in any meaningful way.”?
We have dealt with and mitigated every one of these in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. We need to put more efforts into ways to protect people, particularly the poor, from these climate dangers.
And if we do so, we’ll be doing good for the world, regardless of whether a warming climate actually increases any of those dangers or not. We win, either way.
w.