Should we reduce emissions whether the Earth is warming or not?

Question

This is what global warming hysteria is already causing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/14/ccview114.xml

Answer 1

Yes, even without global warming many people die and have their life shortened from air pollution.

BTW, Don't believe Big Agriculture or the grain cartel.  Ethanol is worse for the environment as scientists have been saying for a years.

Answer 2

Yes we should G/W or not because that will have a positive effect on the environment this whole thing of global wrming is just to tell us we need to be more kind to our envirnment so in return it can be kind to us.

Answer 3

Yes, for any number of reasons, such as

1) Reducing our dependence on foreign oil

2) Improving our air quality

3) Benefitting our economy by investing in green technologies, creating new jobs

4) Avoiding the acidification of oceans which will cause many marine species to die out and also badly hurt our fishing and seafood industries.

http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/200803...

Just to name a few.  Corn-based ethanol is a poor solution, as I've said all along.  However, its failure as a solution to global warming doesn't mean that all solutions will fail.

Answer 4

Something that you should remember is that just a few years ago the US government was paying farmers subsidies to not plant grain, to keep the prices high...

In the 1970s and 80s there was so much grain stored, they had to dump it...

The UN has their own agenda, which is not for everyone..

It just means that other countries besides the US will now have to help feed the world.....

If you want to place blame , place it where it belongs, on the Saudis, who started this mess by backing terrorists..

The US is just starting to protect it's own....

Answer 5

Yes, but using food crops as a fuel source is not the answer. Our transportation system must shift from petroleum to electricity generated from renewable resources or some other source of power, but we should not use crop land to do it.

This should have started 16 years ago. It didn't. But we can start now.

Answer 6

Who gives anybody the right to use the atmosphere as a garbage can? What that article says is that the effects of global climate change is causing food shortages.  That was predicted to happen.

Answer 7

Yes!  Just to improve the air quality alone.  A lot of respiratory issues would go away.

Answer 8

What would the point of reducing emissions more than we already have?

If we do something of this nature... we should do it for the right reason not for a myth or propaganda.

-edit-

For those that think that the electric car is the way to go... The DC motor has 2 by products, heat and Ozone.

Ozone produced by electronics has long been touted to be a pollutant so you are just trading one problem for another.

Skip the man made GB B.S. and if we're going to replace gasoline with something.. make it perform as good and cost less or, at least, the same as what we have now.

Answer 9

Let the free market dictate trade.  Let it dictate the value of emission controls.  There is no system devised to date more efficient, or more fair.

Answer 10

The data clearly proves Earth IS warming, and that we need to reduce emissions to slow that down.  It's not "hysteria", it's proven science.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/a...

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/fu...

The reason there are food shortages is a combination of badly run countries and too many people.  And drought in Africa.  Global warming will make it MUCH worse.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNe...

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg2.h...

Good websites for more info:

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.a...

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sci...

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...