# The only way to stop global warming is a unified earth government, with an "Earth President". **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 5, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504 "2015-12-05T13:16:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/1 "2015-12-05T13:16:31Z")
Individual countries have become so powerful that they can singlehandedly destroy the entire ecosphere through emissions (or nukes). There is nothing wrong with that, technology is awesome and fossil fuels makes human lives better…in moderation. Humans, as a whole, have KNOWINGLY been destroying their planet’s ecosphere for 3 decades. Sovereignty, selfishness, greed, mistrust, cheating, short 2-digit human lifespans and political aversion to even slight economic pain have all prevented all countries on earth to globally reduce emissions in a fair and effective way. We cannot moderate in our present global political structures. The U.N is too weak, treaties are toothless and unenforced. We need a world emperor or world president who can FORCE any countries to curb emissions in whichever way s/he sees fit. It’s a really drastic, unprecedented step and most countries would balk at the loss of sovereignty so it’s difficult to achieve, but we need one. Even if global warming doesn’t prove catastrophic, the continually increasing destructive power countries have (we already have nukes and scarier bio weapons by the day) will lead into other situations where global, empowered leadership is needed. At this point, I’d settle for a benevolent world dictator if the alternative is rising oceans and hurricanes and tsunamis that wipe out NYC, Washington D.C, Miami, L.A, San Francisco and Seattle. At least the dictator can eventually be replaced with a democratically elected leader within a few decades. The destruction we’re causing will likely take thousands of years to reverse. Do you agree? ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/2 "2015-12-05T13:38:41Z")
No. I’ll refrains from further comment on this silly notion. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/3 "2015-12-05T13:42:50Z")
We do need a world Fascist leader, the regional shit that pops up every once in a while just hasn’t hit the spot. How about we base it on Starship Troopers. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/4 "2015-12-05T16:35:47Z")
> [@Gozu](#): > > At this point, I’d settle for a benevolent world dictator if the alternative is rising oceans and hurricanes and tsunamis that wipe out NYC, Washington D.C, Miami, L.A, San Francisco and Seattle. > > At least the dictator can eventually be replaced with a democratically elected leader within a few decades. The destruction we’re causing will likely take thousands of years to reverse. > > Do you agree? No, because while you assume that organizations like the UN are toothless, history shows that we can reach agreements that virtually all the world agrees; after all for thousands of years many nations thought that slavery was ok, not anymore, and treaties do make a difference. One of the best generalists out there, James Burke, made a BBC docudrama called “After the Warming” explaining that indeed, [not much is done until disasters pop up](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/is-a-lack-of-water-to-blame-for-the-conflict-in-syria-72513729/?no-ist), but then virtually all do agree on what is needed to do, no world dictator is needed. [http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2007/10/26/after-the-warming-the-view-fro/](http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2007/10/26/after-the-warming-the-view-fro/) > [@](#): > > Eighteen [more than 25 years ago now!] years ago British journalist/historian James Burke wrote and starred in a TV documentary on climate change. After the Warming (downloadable version available at Google Video) was presented in the guise of a future historian’s review of the events leading up to a time, in 2050, when the world had come to grips with the consequences of global warming. I gave my copy to a friend in 1994, and have been trying to find another since. This week I finally did. And watching it now is positively eerie. And depressing. > [@](#): > > Sure, some of the science he describes misses the mark. When he was writing in 1989, however, some scientists did actually believe that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouses gases could produce a temperature rise as high as 10 or 15 °F. That figure has now been revised to just 6 or 8. But since then we’ve also learned that the consequences of the lower range could be just as bad as what Burke foresaw almost two decades ago. > > Not bad for a production team that included very few scientific advisers, according to the credits, at least. In fact, the only PhD I could nail down was one Mick Kelly of the University of East Anglia. That’s a powerhouse of climate change research, although it would seem Kelly hasn’t produced much in the way of research papers for the past decade. > > Burke anticipated conflict in the Persian Gulf over oil, the imposition of inner-city road tolls (beginning in Europe), and the slow reaction of the industrialized world to take the matter seriously. He correctly identified the significance of the puzzle of the Younger Dryas event of 12000 years ago, in which a sudden influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic stalls the thermohaline conveyor and temporarily counters the warming that follows the most recent ice age. (See Gavin’s discussion of the issue just posted at Real Climate). And he nails the likely scale of sea level rise, foreseeing a stablization at just one meter of rise by 2050. > > On the other hand, he glosses over the coming battle over reviving nuclear power, describing a scenario in which the entire world abandons the technology after a spate of accidents early in the 21st century; has half the Western world working from home and telecommuting by 2020, and would have us belief that a “Planetary Management Authority” could be overseeing carbon trading and emissions-tax distribution by 2000. His optimism is almost bizarre, from our point of view. But I suppose it’s not that wild, if you assume we only get our act together after a series of devastating droughts and environmental-refugee crises trigger a sea change in public opinion. Which is probably what it will take. Actually Burke was also very prophetic about nuclear disasters early in the 21st century and the sight of several nations abandoning the technology. (IMHO they are wrong for dropping nuclear energy, but advances elsewhere tells me that it is not going to stop change) So with that I do want to say that there is no need for a dictator, but as I concluded a long time ago, it will be thanks to the misbehavior of international corporations and fossil fuel ones that are acting like one that we will get a world government. To counter the modern robber barons we will get what it will look as a world government, but **only** regarding a few items that affect the global commons. One should really check the BBC program of James Burke over here: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE8wBReIxw) ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/5 "2015-12-05T16:53:05Z")
In answer to the OP: Yes I agree. At least with the part of “president”, not so much with the “dictator” idea. In fact I think it is obvious and inevitable. Tribes join together with other tribes to create super-tribes, that is what evolution is doing. Cells join with cells to create bigger organisms, these organisms join with others etc etc. Intellectually we’re also moving from an ethnocentric (pre rational) world view to a wold centric (rational) one. Instead of just “me and my tribe” some people now view all humans as part of their tribe. Instead of “us and them” it’s “all of us”. That is the future, that is were evolution leads us, and if we don’t fuck up too much on the way (nuclear war) then that is where we should arrive. I’d be perfectly happy voting for Obama as Earth President by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/6 "2015-12-05T17:11:39Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/7 "2015-12-05T17:42:58Z")
So we’re boned? Good to know. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/8 "2015-12-05T17:56:38Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > In fact I think it is obvious and inevitable. Tribes join together with other tribes to create super-tribes, that is what evolution is doing. Cells join with cells to create bigger organisms, these organisms join with others etc etc. I think this analogy, as an inevitability, is too simplistic. Tribes cooperate together when it is mutually beneficial, but the whole point of having a tribe is to be separate in some way, for other advantages, and it often goes the other way, as with Czechoslovakia, East Timor, South Sudan, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/9 "2015-12-05T18:53:07Z")
I’d rather have “global warming”, thanks. You’re the doctor prescribing a gun shot to the head as a cure for pneumonia. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/10 "2015-12-05T19:16:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’d rather have “global warming”, thanks. You’re the doctor prescribing a gun shot to the head as a cure for pneumonia. …Which might not actually be pneumonia, but just a routine cold and go away on its own. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/11 "2015-12-05T19:24:17Z")
Yeah, okay, I’ll take the job. What does it pay? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/12 "2015-12-05T19:31:18Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > …Which might not actually be pneumonia, but just a routine cold and go away on its own. To extend this analogy, you’re not feeling well and go to several doctors – about 99% of the doctors you see tell you it’s a serious illness which will require costly and difficult treatment, but one doctor and a bunch of random internet people (including several who tell you that God would never have made you sick) tell you that you’re fine and it will go away on its own. So yeah, there’s a chance it will go away on its own. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/13 "2015-12-05T19:33:18Z")
Theoretically, following this type of reasoning, you would think the communist Soviet Union would have had a vastly better environmental record than Western Europe (Western Europe being filled with greedy industrialists). The reverse is true. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/14 "2015-12-05T19:39:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > To extend this analogy, you’re not feeling well and go to several doctors – about 99% of the doctors you see tell you it’s a serious illness which will require costly and difficult treatment, but one doctor and a bunch of random internet people (including several who tell you that God would never have made you sick) tell you that you’re fine and it will go away on its own. > > So yeah, there’s a chance it will go away on its own. I was going to respond, but after reading your post, I don’t have to. Well played!! ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/15 "2015-12-05T19:48:19Z")
The various countries of the world were able to figure out and work together a solution to ozone depletion (a work still in progress, but at least partially successful). People just have to be convinced that it’s real and in their best interest. Eventually that’s going to happen with respect to global warming, although I hope that’s sooner rather than later. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/16 "2015-12-05T21:18:11Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I was going to respond, but after reading your post, I don’t have to. Well played!! Thank you sir! ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/17 "2015-12-05T23:34:28Z")
> [@Gozu](#): > > Do you agree? No. We just need to keep the tribbles from breeding. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/18 "2015-12-05T23:49:46Z")
> [@](#): > > We cannot moderate in our present global political structures. And yet ‘we’ are. The US has been dropping it’s CO2 for years now. Slowly, but it’s dropping. Same with Europe. Japan also I believe (though there it might be due to economic recession after economic recession). Without your draconian hammer to the head, companies and governments are already developing alternatives, implementing alternatives (though not nuclear) and generally moving us along towards lowering CO2 emissions. You can perhaps argue we aren’t lowering them fast enough, but you can’t really say we can’t do it at all without a world wide dictator. Hell, even WITH that I don’t see how any non-fictional non-fantasy dictator could basically by fiat lower global CO2 in much more meaningful ways than it’s being done already. What would you do? Order your Chinese and Indian subjects not to use fossil fuels anymore? Order the US, Europe, Japan, etc to build a shit ton of nuclear plants after literally decades of scaring people with how dangerous they are? Order Americans etc etc not to use cars anymore? Your world wide empires economy would completely melt down and you’d be looking at rebellions everywhere. And, ironically, you’d get a worse long term solution, since you’d be dictating a (probably very bad) solution to the world to implement, instead of allowing the market in conjunction with various governments to work through what’s the best thing. Oh, I could get behind making countries built a ton of nuclear power plants, but I know that, as much as it would help, you’d get so much resistance by trying to do it by fiat that it would be detrimental in the end, instead of helpful. The best way to get, say, nuclear power plants is to allow it to happen organically, so to speak (nuclear…an alternative vegetable! :p)…you need to shift public opinion on it at the grass roots and build a consensus for building the things in large quantities WITH realistic price tags and risks that the public can understand as well as weigh against the risks of GHG and global warming. You need to do the same thing with Global Warming itself, which is what’s happening right now and will continue to happen for the next decade or so. People need to be on board with what the real risks are, and what the real costs are going to be, as well as what the realistic alternatives are to the current fossil fuel paradigm. You will fail if you try to do all that by fiat, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/19 "2015-12-05T23:54:31Z")
> [@Gozu](#): > > At this point, I’d settle for a benevolent world dictator if the alternative is rising oceans and hurricanes and tsunamis that wipe out NYC, Washington D.C, Miami, L.A, San Francisco and Seattle. Is this sort of outlandish dichotomy really going to convince reasonable people? ---
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504/20 "2015-12-05T23:55:34Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > No, because while you assume that organizations like the UN are toothless, history shows that we can reach agreements that virtually all the world agrees; after all for thousands of years many nations thought that slavery was ok, not anymore, and treaties do make a difference. > [@XT](#): > > And yet ‘we’ are. The US has been dropping it’s CO2 for years now. Slowly, but it’s dropping. Same with Europe. Japan also I believe (though there it might be due to economic recession after economic recession). Without your draconian hammer to the head, companies and governments are already developing alternatives, implementing alternatives (though not nuclear) and generally moving us along towards lowering CO2 emissions. You can perhaps argue we aren’t lowering them fast enough. If we had just learned about this 5 years ago, then I would also agree with your approach. The issue is that we’ve had 3 decades for the U.N to do something and everybody to agree but **it didn’t work** with global warming and we already ran out of time to keep the planet as it was. Now we’re just talking about mitigating the disaster. We failed miserably. I’ve been tracking human efforts regarding Gwobal Wawming since the early 90s and it has been a series of crushing disappointments. I’m not going to put a positive spin on it. We done messed up, and we done messed up bad. > [@Stoneburg](#): > > In answer to the OP: Yes I agree. At least with the part of “president”. > > In fact I think it is obvious and inevitable. Tribes join together with other tribes to create super-tribes, that is what evolution is doing. Cells join with cells to create bigger organisms, these organisms join with others etc etc. > > Intellectually we’re also moving from an ethnocentric (pre rational) world view to a wold centric (rational) one. Instead of just “me and my tribe” some people now view all humans as part of their tribe. Thank you for seeing what I see. I could kiss you! 🙂 > [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’d rather have “global warming”, thanks. You’re the doctor prescribing a gun shot to the head as a cure for pneumonia. destroying our **biosphere** is way worse than any dictatorship. It’s a couple of orders of magnitude worse genocide, as a matter of fact. We really, REALLY need that biosphere. > [@PastTense](#): > > Theoretically, following this type of reasoning, you would think the communist Soviet Union would have had a vastly better environmental record than Western Europe No. not at all. the point is that each country is selfish, the USSR would have been selfish like China today. (bear in mind i’m not using the term selfish in a derogatory way, but a scientific way, as in “selfish gene”). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-way-to-stop-global-warming-is-a-unified-earth-government-with-an-earth-president/739504.md?page=2)