Forgot the link for the previous quote:
In essence I agree with this sustainability adviser: “Politicians who deny climate change cannot be pro-business.”
Yawn. One of your brethren wrote a bodacious headline and then proceeded to be unable to prove his assertion. May I suggest you not give lame shit like that a pass. Seriously, dude, aren’t you trying to champion “let’s think critically”?
Yeesh!
This is basically what Sam Stone has said, there’s never going to be profit out there sitting uncollected. The difference is that some want government to initiate these changes, some people want business to and others see the individual making changes … and there’s the entire spectrum of everything in between.
What can we do as individuals? Driving 55 mph saves money, and reduces carbon emissions. Turning your thermostat down and wearing a wool sweater saves money, and reduces carbon emissions. Grocery shopping once a month instead of twice a week saves money, and reduces carbon emissions.
Any other ideas?
How generous of Richard Branson, trillions of dollars of profit to be had and he’s sharing this with everybody.
Well I would read it as I did instead of claiming that it is not teelling us that business will benefit in other ways rather than just monetarily, a healthy workforce is an effective one.
Many good ideas already reported from the Danish site. And there are many rich people that are realizing now that letting the tea party dictate policy has been a horrible mistake. Not as many as the ones supporting inaction for their own gains with bad results for all, but the process is accelerating with many industrialists and executives realizing that the inaction path is not a good one. IMHO I prefer to see entrepreneurs gaining something with good results for all.
The items you mention that reflect our magnanimity to future generations are not very good examples, in my view.
They (recycling; acid rain; nuclear proliferation) are efforts to control current problems with proximately negative results.
What’s different about AGW catastrophism, aside from the fact that our inability to predict makes what’s going to really happen very tenuous, is that no proximate benefit occurs.
So, for example, it’s terrible that Miami might drown in 2100, but don’t tax me for that problem right now. I can’t even pay my current overspend. Not to mention that it might prosper instead when sea levels drop and more beach real estate becomes available b/c it turns out AGW causes so much precipitation in still-cold polar areas that land ice mass has a net increase which more than outweighs thermal expansion and seaside glacier loss. (I’m not interested in arguing the point; just creating an example.)
AGW’s gonna need catastrophes real soon now that are predicted in advance, and the nature of those predictions is going to have to be more precise than suddenly realizing after the fact that AGW can trigger a nasty polar vortex meander. If AGW is going to increase hurricane intensity by warming the ocean, we need to not have a baseline “weather” variation where the Atlantic hurricane season is almost non-existent.
Without a bunch of bad, predicted stuff now, we will not be moved to protect future generations against AGW anymore than we are moved to protect our children against paying for my hip replacement and retirement largesse.
Seems like last time you were touting Germany until you realized they are still burning firewood for energy supplements years into their solar transition.
Look; any niche entity can take up going green, even at a country level. And any country–like Denmark–can have a Plan with a long-enough horizon. Meantime the developing world is coming online, and development will be put way ahead of any niche AGW hobbies. Every time I buy something from China, that’s my carbon footprint, even though it’s costed out to them so we can boast the US carbon output is diminishing.
Population expansion numbers are astonishing ( have seen 11 Billion by 2100), and we all (including Mr Gore but perhaps excepting Mr Bagley, Jr) want to have Paul Allen’s new house. We’ll consume all energy from all sources; not replace fossils with alternate sources.
There is not a shred of evidence that we will sacrifice now for future generations. And not a shred of evidence that any plan executable at a global scale will significantly change how much CO2 is going to get pumped into the atmosphere over the next two or three decades.
The current enthusiasm for the Cause will diminish commensurate with the non-arrival of catastrophes which are obviously AGW-related, and accurately predicted. We need some–lots of 'em–and we need 'em soon. And even then, I’m not sure we’ll agree on a global-enough plan.
One other comment about Mr Gore’s 1% spending. There is a substantial difference between 1% when it’s all discretionary and 1% if you dig ditches.
You should read it again, I did not dump them at all, I still include them and you never explained away the fact they they indeed are willing to do some sacrifices for a better future.
Like if whats happening in Europe and others countries is just a figment of the imagination. No, in reality this affirmation that there is “not a shed of evidence” was already demonstrated to be wrong.
Already debunked and with examples. There are many immediate benefits to controlling our greenhouse gas emissions, mostly health related.
And there were predictions made about the drying of the west when the also predicted ice loss in the arctic was taken into account.
"declining precipitation in the American west with increases in precipitation from Oregon on northward. "
NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo… Oregon’s supposed to get LESS RAIN dammit.
Read the first sentence of the second paragraph of the OP.
The only thing that can be done is inventing methods of consumption and energy production that are less likely to do the things to the climate we do not want. Advocating some kind of negative growth model based on reduced consumption, asceticism or austerity will never work.
It’s not clear to me what Germans are actually sacrificing…when push comes to shove, like the rest of us they’ll burn firewood before they turn off lights.
Anyway, back to my “not a shred of evidence” comment.
The AGW Alarmists, when they want to show how solvable this problem is, pick and choose success stories and Plans much the way a business does for its Annual report.
May I suggest there are two good indicators of how we are doing so far, given the fact that fossil fuels are such a problem?
**Indicator 1: ** What’s going on with total CO2 in the atmosphere?
****Indicator 2: **** What’s going on with reduction in fossil fuel use?
All the rest is shinola, if you are looking at the main problem (too much CO2) and how we are doing so far.
Let me help you read some of the data here so you don’t get too excited with the fake stuff like self-reported CO2 targets and emissions, or Denmark’s 2050 Plan.
**Indicator 1: ** Atmospheric CO2 at Mona Kea. An unimpressive place to find encouragement of how we are doing.
Indicator 2: Fig 3.1 Page 33
Now that second indicator link will be especially helpful for you, Gb, because until you get to the bottom of page 33 you think we are doing great. Great! But then it turns out something is rotten in Denmark.
Notice that not only is the use of renewables a tiny fraction of total energy, what is really happening is that total energy needed to run the world is soaring. As we get out of recession, it will soar even more; as the developing world comes on line it will soar; as we reproduce our species it will soar.
The thing you should focus on is not whether or not renewables are neat, but whether or not they will reduce fossil fuels. There’s not a shred of evidence they will, because we need lots and lots and lots of energy. All the renewables PLUS all the fossil fuels.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. (Or not, if you want to contribute your bit to the cause. 
)
What to do about global warming? Well, for one thing, don’t buy beach property.
Missing the point, what I have been talking about is that your idea that this will be so onerous and cause the end of civilization as we know it continues to be mistaken.
As it is your next straw man, you have to go global to miss the point that Hans Rosling has made many times, if the developed nations can not control their emissions they have no right to demand the developing ones to change, it is essential that developed nations show the way and then the developing ones will follow. As we will have very good examples of what is possible to do with less reliance on fossil fuels. Is then more righteous and possible to pressure the developing nations to make the change or skip their very polluting stages of developing.
May I suggest to stop using so much straw in yours? Or the red herring? The evidence is there for the efforts that you denied, what you are talking about is **precisely **why we need those efforts everywhere. You do sound like a lot like the Republicans that deny that there is a problem and then dump the funding of the solutions.
One of the main reasons why I think this issue is important is that regarding the world we are not doing great. As the IPCC and virtually all organizations that investigate the issue are telling us, there is a lot of what we need to do all over the world. And we in the USA should had dumped all the deniers in congress yesterday.
In reality the world is doing better than it ever has.
Missing the point too, the efforts need to be done to make it better and to keep it that way.
Wait, which idea do I think will cause “the end of civilization as we know it”?
What I think is that we won’t be able to reduce global CO2 emissions.
This is because all energy from all sources is going to be consumed. Creating more renewables increases the total supply but does not diminish fossil fuel use.
The burgeoning population and the need for the poor to live richer ensure that.
There’s not a shred of evidence otherwise. Nor is there evidence that we’ll stop living well or consuming until the energy grid is renewable-ized so as to protect future generations from the effect of our fossil fuel use now.
Pollyannas and Ed Begley, Jr, to the contrary, we all wanna be Mr Al (“Strawman”) Gore, life-style wise. If we are rich enough to pay renewable indulgences we will; if we aren’t rich enough we won’t. But we will put our immediate comfort well above that of “future generations” just the way we approach funding our government dole-outs.
That’s why AGW is a Great Cause but a bit quixotic.
And that was not my point so thank you for letting stand the one I made that reports that developing countries can reduce emissions and not having their civilization end.