What do you feel is a "...what is feasible and reasonable" approach to tackling global climate change?

Question

In paragraph six, the author uses this phrase in discussing her reaction to an interview with Bjorn Lomborg. Even if you are skeptical that humans are causing global warming, what approach do you think society should be taking as we place both feet firmly in the 21st century?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debbie-boger/with-global-warming-delay_b_107576.html

Answer 1

Well, the debate is going to continue for some time before realistic approaches are arrived at, but there is no doubt that coupled with multiple developing energy crises around the world we have to move ahead on alternative sources for power and fuel.  So it doesn't much if people are in the midst of denial or think they know what is going on with the environment when not even the most learned minds in science can say with 100% certainty what is going to happen.  We are going to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, and it is more likely that we are going to do so with new technology than the old ones they espouse.

So I believe the most feasible and reasonable approach is already moving ahead at about as fast a pace as we can hope for even while the political debate continues.

Other steps will include additional incentives for big businesses to pollute less and additional penalties for businesses that pollute more.  From an environmental standpoint, that makes sense whether global warming is the key issue or not.  New technologies for cleaner production are being developed, and as those technologies come to market, the only reasonable course of action is to do everything we can to put them into use.

Finally, we need to work on overcoming the conspicuous consumption model that is used by individuals to demonstrate their success-monstrous homes, gas-guzzling luxury cars and SUVs they don't need, the belief that freedom and liberty entitles them to waste finite resources.  There is a stigma developing in that regard, I think, and hopefully it will continue so that people will, of their own accord, become more responsible as individuals.  If we don't take action on our own, government will eventually step in and do it for us-which is not the most enviable situation.  That's one of the bigger problems with the anti-warming crowd-they don't want government interference, but the whole attitude of denial and let me do what I want as long as I can afford it and it doesn't make any difference anyway practically guarantees that sooner or later laws that most of us will consider draconian will be invoked, and as usual the blame will be placed anywhere except where it squarely belongs-the irresponsible few.  Betcha ten bucks that will earn some thumbs down from people that don't even know who that person is staring them in the face in the bathroom mirror every morning when they brush their teeth.

Answer 2

I don't know...what approach was used to tackle the "global cooling" phenomena of the 70's?  Maybe we can dust it off and use that!

Answer 3

Clearly we must adapt.  We are not going to stop the sea from rising and there is no indication that we have significantly accelerated the rise either).  With the price of energy where it is, it provides great incentives for alternative fuels.  Big government is probably not going to be a reasonable solution.   Lomborg is trashed because he is logical, reasonable, and practical.  Even though he is an environmentalist himself, he is an honest one.  I couldn't say that about the author(s) of the article.  When they insist that they know any climate change will be catastrophic, you can rest assured that they don't know what they are talking about and are pushing an agenda or political position which is obviously  the case with the authors.  People that are only exposed to that kind of garbage should really get out more and learn some real science that isn't filtered by politics IMHO.

Answer 4

Ending the myth of man-made global warming

Answer 5

Adaptation is the ONLY feasible and reasonable approach to climate change.  We don't waste resources trying to prevent hurricanes from making landfall.  We design structures to withstand them.  "Climate change" in the next 100 years means we can expect to set some weather/temperature records in the coming years (we simply don't know which ones).  To be on the safe side, we'll just build structures to withstand record cold/hot/rain/wind for the region.  Life goes on.

Answer 6

Stop wasting time, money & effort on this lunacy and get at the real problem facing the earth - OVERPOPULATION

Answer 7

Shoot for a 25% renewable energy generation by 2025, 50% renewable energy generation by 2050, and a 1.5%/year improvement in energy efficiency.

The renewable energy sources should be a combination of solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, and nuclear.  Once the path down this road is started and serious government & private funding  directed toward it, we can expect significant leaps in technical efficiency and drops is price.

The key is to stop building coal power generation plants now. Let them run out their lives, but don't replace them (unless carbon is sequestered). As long as we keep ignoring the consequences of coal power, we'll never have sufficient will to fund research and capitalize on the benefits on renewable energy.

Answer 8

Considering the earth goes through changes on it's own, always has, and always will... I suggest we stop listening to the paranoid, or the people with political agendas like the democraps, and just live our lives, drill and use OUR oil or shut up and ride a bicycle, and live in harmony with each other.

Answer 9

The first thing I would do was to stop visiting sites like The Huffington Post.  They only serve to inspire hate with their slant.  Then I would use a common sense approach to global warming, which means that we would be stepping back at taking an HONEST look at what we really know about it, which happens to be very little I might add.  Any decisions we make at this point could be as harmful as helpful, as decisions usually are when based on imperfect information.  Look at the people around the world who are now starving because of the ethanol push, this is a perfect example of a rash decision gone wrong.  Granted, I would love to see us become completely energy independent because it would mean that we are no longer under the thumb of oil producing nations, but we must go about it the right way.

Answer 10

That is the CORE of the issue-- namely that correcting the temperature of the Earth is totally beyond or knowledge and completely unfeasible economically.

There are many scientific posts on the internet that basically say that a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions would not be sufficient to affect temperature in a large or meaningful way. The costs for mitigating CO2 have been placed at about 50 TRILLION dollars --- this number is beyond the combined resources of the entire world-- and spending this amount would bankrupt the planet and send us into a global depression.

Some of us believe that spending this amount of money on fresh water, starvation, and disease cures would save many millions of lives each year--- far beyond any supposed GW effects on the world population.

Answer 11

Better to play safe now than to feel sorry later. China has taken AGW quite seriously, just heard on the grapevine that Shen Zhen, a large city bordering Hong Kong, have made it mandatory for new buildings (under 10 stories) to have solar panels installed for lighting of staircases etc.