VB, to say it's a non-existent issue contradicts a lot of what you later said about how much about the science about global climate remains unknown. IMO we're better to continue to try to limit green house gas emissions because we cannot wait to see if the theory of climate change turns out to be largely correct. In the meantime we will get cleaner air, water etc. I'm sure there will be waste and ridiculous programs along the way and someone will put some money in their pocket, same old same.
Man-made global warming does not exist. Despite what people getting grants, levying taxes, and "reporting the news" are telling us. There is a natural climate cycle - some decades it warms and some decades it cools. The true evidence (not models) of history shows this to be true long before we hit the industrial age. In fact, the evidence of history shows that what I wrote about in my first post is absolutely true......... our climate is an elastic system of counterbalances. The idea that CO2, generally accepted to be .05% of the atmosphere, is pollution is absurd in the extreme, but since hydrocarbon consumption creates CO2 as a reaction by-product it was the easiest to demonize to levy more taxes and control by government. They have already taxed the crap out of the fuel - now they are going after the reaction product of the fuel with more taxes.
I agree to an extent with the rest of your post. I want cleaner air and water for my children so I am back to the second set of thoughts I posted - where do we get the bigger bang for the buck? Do we dedicate billions in wealth to very minimal (even questionable) gains here or can we spend that elsewhere in the world to make the huge gains the West made in the 70's and 80's? There are coal factories in Asia that are still belching all kinds of bad stuff into the air - things that we have not done since the last 70's - early 80's! That is my main point because I mostly see taxes, carbon credits (passed on to us by manufacturers), and lots of government regulation and red tape and nobody wants to talk about what I just said.......... if it is a problem for the planet and we are all in it together why does my idea not make sense? I believe our air and water is much cleaner today than when I was a child. I see the evidence through my own life experiences as well as the data. I also know firsthand how dirty and filthy it is elsewhere in the world and that eventually makes its way here.
The United States is a wealthy nation. Europe, Canada, Australia, and other Western nations possess great wealth. We are so wealthy that we can afford to spend great sums of money on taking care of the environment. I am okay with that, but I believe we can do it better and more effectively if we use logic, common sense, and truthfully identify the problems. However, that is not the way the world works according to the same people who told us for many months that another Clinton would occupy the White House. The claims of pending disaster by hypocrites have only been used to enrich themselves and gain power. Why else would the high priests of the movement fly Lear jets to their annual gatherings? Gore made over 100 million on his "environmental advocacy." A group of the elite in Chicago were all set up to create a "carbon trading bank" where credits could be bought and sold - there is a nice money maker! Our politicians give huge sums of money to "green donors" like Solyndra (which was an epic disaster of crony capitalism), and the beat goes on.
The models are crap. That is a proven fact...... just look for yourself at the old models and predictions made in the 90's for the early 2000's. It's a farce and it makes a mockery out of something I love very much - science. It is not science for the sake of learning - it has become some kind of religion and it is crammed down our throats continuously. I have always had an interest in climate/nature - it has been somewhat of a hobby. I love the outdoors and the beauty of nature. I sampled water for an advocacy group in college and grad school in a polluted river in one of the 8 biospheres in the world (GSM park) in the home state of Gore. I saw the pollution with my own eyes from a paper plant, yet Gore never mentioned the destruction in his home state of one of the finest natural areas in the world? Why? Why would he not scream to the top of his lungs about this? Because they were one of his largest campaign donors......... same as the other politicians in the area - follow the money. They donated to his father before him. I know all of this first-hand, but you can read about it in Newsweek from 1997 - they finally wrote this years after I was aware of the issue.
http://www.newsweek.com/gores-pollution-problem-171130
I realized as a young man that it was more about the money than research and real solutions. Now they are playing the same game thousands of time bigger with anthropogenic global warming. I have done carbon core sampling (interesting, but not all that reliable). I have read with great interest the viewpoints of both sides and I try to be as objective, yet I find most of the overwhelming evidence disproves their theories. I was a subscriber to the idea in the beginning - "because we all want clean air and water", yet all the statements of fact regarding the future that I heard and read did not come true. Over time, I became skeptical because the models and their science are wrong. They have been wrong since Gore was a skinny man who flew commercial. They keep beating the same worn out drums and we keep giving them money. They may not realize it (I have friends among them), but they have become carnival monkeys playing the same song over and over and the money continues to flow. I went back to what I wanted (and still want) in the first place...... clean air and clean water.
They don't want that............ they want to control you and tax you. Again, as I said above and not one person has commented or challenged it - if it were about clean air and clean water on our planet we would be spending the money to help the developing world reap the huge gains we made decades ago in environmental quality, but that would not enrich and empower our politicians, their friends, and U.S. academia. The U.N. is trying to milk the movement and control the spending, but that would not be any more effective than what we are doing now. However, it is indisputable to me that cleaning up a coal stack in Laos would improve air quality far more than imposing a tighter restriction on the already clean stack in "your town here" to remove a trace amount that is far less of "compound Y" than occurs naturally. That is the point we are at. Research it for yourself.
I am pretty confident in my handle on the science and politics, but it is hard to have a friendly and honest discussion about it because people are so stuck in thepolitics. I don't want dirty air. I don't want dirty water. I want the truth CO2 is not a pollutant, yet they have convinced many people that it is. It is a naturally occurring gas that is vital to life on our planet. It was here before we were and it will be here after we are gone. It is released and absorbed by nature in macro-systems and micro-systems. The earth responds (and thrives) in the same elastic fashion it always has and it does not matter if I drive a Prius or a Landcruiser.
Measurable temperatures fluctuate because of the big ball of fire in our solar system - not because of a trace gas of .05% in our atmosphere. Everything else people have brought up is insignificant next to the sun. The earth responds and life continues. I would urge everyone to do their own research. To the topic of the thread - I sympathize with folks who suck up wood smoke in a town during an inversion, but I don't live in a town and my chimney is not impacting any neighbors I have, yet there are many of the same people who tell us what the models predict 100 years from now who will come after my woodstove if we let them. Yet, they completely ignore the wildfires that have largely been made much worse (than all the woodstoves in America) from their "I know better than you" policies on forests management and opposition to the timber industry. The same people who want wind turbines poking out of the ground that kill hundreds (if not thousands) of the very birds they banned the most effective pesticide in history for - leading to possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths from malaria in the developing world.
Just things folks might want to consider and decide for themselves.
