Is there anyone here that does NOT want to reduce carbon emissions?
By Taskr36
@Taskr36 (13963)
United States
July 16, 2009 5:03pm CST
Note, this is not about the cap and trade bill specifically. This is just a general question if you do or do not want to reduce carbon emissions. Just think if there were some way to simply reduce carbon emissions that would not cost a dime for consumers or businesses, would you support it?
I could be wrong, but to me, it's like the universal health care thing. Everybody WANTS everyone to have free health care. It's a beautiful, utopian idea. Cost and potential declines in service are what turns people against it.
3 people like this
3 responses
@redyellowblackdog (10629)
• United States
17 Jul 09
I do not want to reduce carbon emissions. CO2 is not warming the earth. True, CO2 is a green house gas, but at only 390 parts per million, CO2 is only a trace component of the atmosphere. You could double the amount of CO2 and it would hardly be noticeable.
You see, CO2 lags global warming. CO2 does not precede global warming. Global warming causes CO2 levels to rise. It does this by causing the oceans, which have much dissolved CO2 in them, to give up that CO2. Just as a carbonated drink gives up its CO2 as it warms, so do the oceans.
So, why would I want there to be more CO2? Why do I want to not reduce carbon emissions?
Plants live on CO2. More plants equal more food. More food equals more life. Let's all build clean burning coal plants and go on more leisurely Sunday drives. Do it for life.
1 person likes this
@N4life (851)
• United States
18 Jul 09
Having said all this, I am not opposed to looking into ways to "clean" up coal. Good things have already been done with sulfur and there are ways of chemically altering low grade coal to vastly reduce fly ash that seem promising. We have no environmentally benign ways of producing energy in the amount we need right now, so all options need to be kept on the table.
@Destiny007 (5805)
• United States
17 Jul 09
As all life on earth is based on carbon, and as the environment of the earth is based on carbon, what carbon emissions are you referencing in particular?
Which ones are you wanting to reduce?
CO2 is recycled into oxygen by the plants, which is necessary for all other life including human.... so what exactly needs to be reduced and why?
1 person likes this
@redyellowblackdog (10629)
• United States
18 Jul 09
As usual you are right. If you want to see what is the next ecological bugaboo they intend to scare us with, check out ocean acidification. I just commented on it in the response before yours.
@Destiny007 (5805)
• United States
18 Jul 09
Big lie, little lie.
That is just another meaningless argument.
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Jul 09
The last time that carbon levels were high enough to cause mass extinction, they were 20-25 times higher than they are today. It seems to me that we are likely to run out of fossil fuels long before we could ever manage to pump out that much carbon.
Still, I think alternative fuels and energy sources will eventually become readily available and economically feasible. The energy companies are not stupid, they will employ alternative fuels before the fossil fuel supply runs out.
If today, these alternative energy sources that would reduce carbon emissions could be produced widely and cheaply today, certainly I would be in favor of an immediate switch-over.
Overall, reducing pollution is a good idea. But we must carefully weigh what we do against the cost in human lives, especially in poorer countries.
@jb78000 (15139)
•
17 Jul 09
it's more urgent than that Rollo, not just a nice idea of maybe reducing pollution sometime in the future. climate change is happening quickly enough to be already causing problems and extinctions. poorer countries won't be too affected (they're also the ones suffering the most from climate changes) because it is the rich ones (in particular yours i'm afraid, but europe's not far behind) that are producing most of the carbon emissions. i really don't see how reductions could cause loss of lives. inconveniences perhaps.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Jul 09
I am sure you don't see how it could cost lives, and that is because you do not live in a developing country where you will be prohibited from using your natural resources to develop, grow and provide for the people. Of course, those in the Northern Hemisphere do not have to worry about that, they can sacrifice the third world nations to preserve what they believe is the perfect climate for them. Even if they truly believe in global warming, it is still self-serving.
Certainly you do not understand how I could dismiss the global warming (well, they call it climate change now since it's actually getting cooler and has been for nearly a decade) hysteria. I know quite a bit about the subject, having written on it and studied it for three years now.
They do not lie when they say that the stakes are high, but it is not because of runaway global warming, it is because they have so much invested in the global warming theory and the money there is to be made. Al Gore is part owner and CEO of a company that sells carbon offsets, for instance. His personal fortune depends on your belief.
Global warming is not about saving the planet, it is about money, power and control.
