Could the government have done in the past something to fix the global warming?

Question

Global warming is an environmental issue on many people's minds.

Could goverments in the past had done somthing about this global warming, to prevent this problem??

Answer 1

No. Man is powerless to effect the earth's climate, for good or bad.

Answer 2

By starting a global nuclear war.  The reduction in population and destruction of polluting infrastructure would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Not much short of that would do anything.

Answer 3

Yes, there are lots of things that could have been made. For instance, Sweden has made efforts for a long time and now we're at a level of about 7 ton/year and capita of CO2 emissions each year. Compare that with the U.S. who is about three times as high. By taking small steps in the right direction we've been able to do this without lowering any standards. Still, we've only started our mission towards a more carbon neutral society.

Answer 4

No they couldn't have done anything.  Partly because there was nothing they could do and also because it is not real

Answer 5

The government is totally incapable of fixing anything.  Governement programs always result in a loss of personal freedom as well as create more problems than they ever solve.

BIG-G, you obviously have no real knowledge of the Kyoto protocol.  Just to set the record straight, President Bush did not need to sign the Kyoto protocol, it had already been signed by the U.S. during the previous administration (by Al Gore).  But, that administration (Clinton/Gore) never submitted it to the Senate for ratification.  Please check your history.  Once again, it was President Clinton that decided not to submit the treaty, signed by his own Vice President, for ratification.  It was a dead issue by the time President Bush was elected.

Answer 6

No ... Most likely not. the global warming issue did not "appear" until mid eighties and politicians has no interest in fixing anything that does not provide a lot of voters, and sins global warming was not a "hot" issue at the time - why would they ? they would just loose the next election

And fixing a problem before we know of it is a bit hard. if i remember correctly the hole global warming theory was first invented in the late seventies. and nobody took it that seriously until mid nineties

Answer 7

In the seventies they could have listened to the environmentals and melted the ice caps by seeding them with heat absorbing materials when global cooling was thought to be the problem.

Lucky for us more reasonable minds prevailed and the movement didn't gain much traction.

It is my sincere hope that this current movement doesn't gain enough traction to spring into action and make changes to our ecosystem when we cannot know what the results of those actions may be in the years to come.

Answer 8

Yes, certainly, but relying on government made it a political issue in the USA.  That blocked a lot of the obvious technical solutions.  For the last 8 years enforcement of the Clean Air Act has been "on hold" in the USA, which has made the situation worse in some cases.  Americans tend to rely on the government to do more things for them than most other countries, and tend to do less for themselves.  It's strange to need a law to tell you to do what you know you should do anyway, and surprisingly they then tend to complain about or break the laws when they do get made.

Answer 9

yes and some industrialized nations have! it's called the Kyoto treaty,and bush would not sign the treaty! neither did Howard the prime minister of Australia!

Answer 10

spoken like a true democrat. government is not here to fix the ills of the world.

Answer 11

Yes! Unfortunately,when we had a chance to really do something ,all we did was create "Earth Day"!  If the world had listened to the warnings back then,we wouldn't be in the dire situation we're in today. We were warned that the atmosphere could not be used as a sewer or garbage dump for all the chemicals created by industry. Instead of doing something,the govt. caved in to the "special interests" of the corporations. Now the corporations are actively creating the falsehood of doubt,to get the ignorant people,to be afraid of the truth.  You can see their efforts on here as snarky postings about Al Gore or how AGW is a myth just to raise your taxes!  The ever widening parameters of weather records,is the direct result of AGW.

Answer 12

Absolutely.  But most politicians prefer to focus on short-term economic gains and leave long term problems for the next generation.

The potential problems of global warming were well known by government officials in the 80's.  And even before that, during the energy crisis of the 70's, politicians had a clear wake-up call that we should move away from an oil-based energy system to something else.

Some countries have done an amazing effort of reducing their dependence on petroleum based products for energy (e.g. France with nuclear energy) without hurting their own economy.