EarthDogg probably believes that either:

1) global warming ain't no thang and it's not our fault

or

2) it is a thang and it is our fault...and the market will solve everything.

And he's not alone.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 1:53 AM. Reason : sss]

2/27/2007 1:52:18 AM

^^^ And that is where we have consistently parted ways: You seem to believe that society's problems are best solved by more government; I believe that those same problems are best solved by less government. And never the twain shall meet.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 1:55 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 1:54:06 AM

Quote :

"without the government stepping in and forcing certain changes onto us, "

I see the global warming issue as dangerous only in that politicians will use it to get more and more control over our lives. Good intentions combined with gov't control usually results in more of what you don't want.

Let's assume that the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are all correct. By their own computer models, they predict a constant warming of about 1.8C from 2000 to 2100. It isn't increasing, just a steady rise. But is this a reason to hand over more control of our lives and behaviors to gov't politicians?

According to Science magazine, Greenland is losing about 0.4% of its ice per century. It would take about 1000 years of carbon concentrations 3 times what they are today to melt most of Greenland's ice. Politicians will be all-too-happy to grab more power if environmental groups succeed in scaring everyone to the bosom of gov't.

2/27/2007 2:02:32 AM

i say we just put our heads in the sand and let our children deal with it

2/27/2007 2:04:46 AM

^^^Explain the no government solution to this.

There are already smoggy days during the summer where parents of children with asthma are advised to keep them inside. And we still haven't changed shit.

Corporations are going to continue doing what they do for maximum profit, and people are going to continue buying what they can cheaply, regardless of whether or not they got some activisit pamphlet in the mail reminding them only to buy from a select group of eco-friendly retailers. And we're all just supposed to sit back and wait for people to invent solutions and market them when the government could do that and get the ball really rolling towards eco-ethical business and development.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 2:06 AM. Reason : sss]

2/27/2007 2:05:36 AM

it should be noted that a lot of the stuff that gore talks about has nothing to do with the government at all, just personal actions

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 2:10 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 2:10:12 AM

I haven't seen his movie, by the way, or heard him speak on this matter but just a little.

2/27/2007 2:11:33 AM

Quote :

"let our children deal with it"

Do you think we will still be on fossil fuels 100-200 years from now?

2/27/2007 2:15:06 AM

^^^^ I didn't post "no government"; I posted "less government." The government should provide for the national defense and protect property rights--and a few other things, too. I mean, I can't go completely laissez-faire, and I want safe meat (after all, I did read The Jungle).

And your stuff about corporations is typical. Did you forget that those corporations are run by people? Is the CEO going to be happy when his or her little daughter can't breathe the air or his or her grandchild can't drink the water? No! As JFK said, and I'm paraphrasing, what connects us all is that we inhabit the same world.

When the people of any society truly believe that they are threatened, they will eventually act. Hell, Gore isn't really worried--look how he's emitting C02! And "offsets" aren't the answer. If they were, all we would have to do is purchase a bunch of offsets--global warming solved! Government can and should play a limited role in a number of society's problems, but the only lasting answers will come from within us.

PS: Before anybody tries to "educate" me about offsets:

Quote :

"A carbon offset is a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases. A wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common [emphasis added]. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits."

I have to go. I'm going to go plant a bunch of trees so I can emit C02 anytime I want--just like Al Gore!


[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 2:31 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 2:16:38 AM

Quote :

"Do you think we will still be on fossil fuels 100-200 years from now?"

And here it all boils down to the difference between libertarians and the real world. One seems to expect people to do sensible things all on its own all of the time, and the other thinks that they occasionally need to be prodded, perhaps with the business end of a rifle. I won't deny which one I am.

2/27/2007 2:24:35 AM

^ And some say citizens no longer need the right to bear arms! Ha!

2/27/2007 2:36:06 AM

Quote :

"libertarians and the real world. "

As much as it bugs political elitists, people want to do what they feel is best for themselves and their families. That is one of the key elements of libertarians favorite system: capitalism.

If the ice in Greenland melts in 1000 yearsm how does that affect you and yours? To think our technology will be unable to come up with something better to replace fossil fuels by then is laughable.

Getting people to do things at the point of a gun will eventually destroy any faith they might have in gov't. Can you name me a gov't program that achieved its goal without unintended negative consequences and threatened force if the citizenry didn't comply?

2/27/2007 3:04:17 AM

Quote :

"There are already smoggy days during the summer where parents of children with asthma are advised to keep them inside."

What the fuck does this have to do with global warming?

Smog and aerosol particulates reduce the greenhouse effect via global dimming.

And we already have regulations put in place to guard against excessive pollutants in the air: The Clean Air Act. Fortunately for the private sector, CO2 is not a pollutant so the EPA can't regulate it.

Quote :

"And we're all just supposed to sit back and wait for people to invent solutions and market them when the government could do that and get the ball really rolling towards eco-ethical business and development."

The government doesn't invent shit. Innovative private businesses do. And right now there are thousands of businesses specializing in green energy, "eco-friendly" development, etc. That shit is big business now.

Maybe carbon sequestration will solve this problem. Maybe we'll find an equilibrium by spraying reflective aerosols in the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space. But regulating the fuck out of the private sector before global warming has even become a problem is not the answer.


[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 3:15 AM. Reason : 2]

2/27/2007 3:07:45 AM

Quote :

"i say we just put our heads in the sand and let our children deal with it"

Baby boomers ftw.

2/27/2007 7:15:18 AM

Quote :

"And your stuff about corporations is typical. Did you forget that those corporations are run by people? Is the CEO going to be happy when his or her little daughter can't breathe the air or his or her grandchild can't drink the water? "

I just finished reading Franklin's Autobiography. I found this quote about the end of his vegetarian diet quite interesting:

Quote :

"But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, & when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelled admirably well. I balanc’d some time between Principle & Inclination: till I recollected, that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you. So I din’d upon Cod very heartily and continu’d to eat with other People, returning only now & then to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do. "

People are going to convince themselves of whatever they want to believe, even if it is irrational and ultimately self detrimental. Just take Young Earth Creationists. Self detrimental, perhaps not, but irrational, absolutely.

I think we're fucked really. People are going to ignore the environment as long as there is still a nut telling them to do nothing. And if people ever do come to their senses, I don't think using more efficient lightbulbs is going to save us.

2/27/2007 8:28:28 AM

Ok, so after my trite little post I did some thinking:

1) I don't know about you, but in the world I live in, you lead by example. This isn't a very good example. I'll grant that as the former Vice President of the United States his obligations in the private world necessitate a large house and transportation that Joe doesn't have access to, but I'd be more impressed if he used it to model efficient living. I haven't been there, maybe he does, but y'all are waaayyy too willing to give this man a pass with about the same amount of information I've got, just because he made some crappy self-promotional movie that exaggerates a very real problem.

2) Housing size has grown rapidly, especially in the last thirty years, while persons per household have declined. From the US Census bureau:

Median Household Size in Square Feet
1975: 1,645
2005: 2,434

Median Persons per household
1975: 2.94
2005: 2.57

So, by my calculations, square foot per person has increased from: ~560 in 1975 to ~947 in 2005. This does not account for the increase in total number of households over that 30 year period nor does it account for improvements in insulation and heating efficiency, but I think the point remains that houses remain one of the larger areas of largely missed energy waste. So, I think it is important that if someone is going to be a champion of the environment, he practice what he preaches . . . even if he does it in a 20 room mansion.

Finally, global warming or not, energy and natural resources are going to become more scarce as the 21st century grinds on. A lot of people smarter than I am are predicting that most conflicts in the coming hundred years will be fought not over large tracts of land, but over small pockets of land rich in one natural resource or another. I think, given our wealth, given our history of innovation, given our leadership role in the world, and - quite frankly - given the fact that we've spent 90% of our former international goodwill capital on Iraq, it would behoove us to begin setting an example not of excess - nor of energy self flagellation - but of efficiency and innovation in the future. /words

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 8:35 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 8:35:08 AM

Quote :

"I wanna know what you people do to help improve the enviroment since it's such a priority within your political party thats not a hard question to answer"

2/27/2007 8:39:40 AM

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 8:42 AM. Reason : n/m. this is stupid]

2/27/2007 8:41:37 AM

The fact of the matter is this:

The one and only time I have ever had any sort of respect for Rosie O'Donnell was in the weeks following September 11. If you recall, there were numerous celebrity telethons going on trying to raise funds. All of your usual suspects were there. They invited Rosie. She said: "not unless you charge a $1m donation for the celebrities you're inviting." The organization wouldn't comply. Rosie got angry and gave $1m of her own money and declined to do the telethon.

Her assessment was that the rich and famous of America should not be asking the peasants for pennies when not pulling their fair share.

She was right (only once in her life).


Gore is asking the average family to cut consumption, but he is obviously not willing to do so himself. Global warming must not scare him that badly.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 8:43 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 8:42:34 AM

have you seen his movie?

2/27/2007 8:45:40 AM

yes. And I think getting, oh you know, a climatologist would've given the movie more validity instead of power consuming, internet inventing, Al Gore.

Why don't you look up the green track record of the Clinton/Gore Administration... yeah... the environment was obviously their priority and that was probably the greatest stage Gore will ever get.

But it's all one big circle jerk and a really smart way to make money. Fear monger enough and you get an oscar and a nobel prize from the same people who have a history of doing this shit.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 8:49 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 8:48:52 AM

Just chiming in there to say that in the real world companies do consider themselves to have 0 carbon emissions based on their production and the amount that their land can suck up (trees, plants, etc). This is not a new idea and has actually been the case for many years. Anybody familiar with ISO standards and what not will know. This is one of the reasons that we didn't sign the Kyoto Accord (ie. our national forrests should count as carbon sinks).

And once again some of you need to pull your heads out of your ass and stop pretending that you know what you are talking about.

Its actually very easy to reduce "your" emission to zero, or even negative.

2/27/2007 8:52:19 AM

yeah, we were discussing that in one of the other global waming threads. its not only about cutting down on your emissions, but contributing to methods that counteract the emissions you do emit.

2/27/2007 8:56:10 AM

^^ yeah I know


thats why I was asking what people really do to help the enviroment, or are they just being political hypocrites

2/27/2007 8:59:30 AM

it's funny to see all these libertarians/republicans/conservatives basically use class warfare as their argument now.

2/27/2007 9:00:44 AM

Quote :

"Inconvenient truths about the environmental crisis Mitchel Cohen 24 February 2007 Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, raises the issue of global warming in a way that scares the bejeezus out of viewers, as it should since the consequences of global climate change are truly earth-shaking. The former vice-president does a good job of presenting the graphic evidence: exquisite and terrifying pictures that document the melting of the polar ice caps and the effects on other species, new diseases and rising ocean levels. But the solutions Gore offers are standard US Democratic Party fare. You’d never know by watching this film that Gore and Bill Clinton ran the US for eight years and that their policies — as much as those of the Bush regime — helped pave the way for the crisis we face today. Gore never critiques the system causing the global ecological crisis. At one point, he even mourns the negative impact of global warming on US oil pipelines! What it comes down to, for Gore and the Democrats, is that we need to shift away from reliance on fossil fuels and tweak existing consumption patterns. Even there, Gore and Clinton did nothing to improve fuel efficiency in the US, a topic which Gore talks about in the movie without any hint that he’d once actually been in a position to do something about it. The question Gore poses is: who can best manage the relatively minor solutions he recommends, the Democrats or Republicans? For Gore, it’s “trust US, not them, to deal with this situation because they are liars and we’re not”. Well, should we trust him? As Joshua Frank wrote in the May 31, 2006, Counterpunch, during the campaign for president in 1992 Gore promised a group of supporters that the Clinton-Gore Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) would never approve a hazardous waste incinerator located near an elementary school in Liverpool, Ohio, which was operated by WTI (Wineman Technology Inc). “Only three months into Clinton’s tenure”, Frank wrote, “the EPA issued an operating permit for the toxic burner. Gore raised no qualms. Not surprisingly, most of the money behind WTI came from the bulging pockets of Jackson Stephens, who just happened to be one of the Clinton-Gore’s top campaign contributors.” But failing to shut down toxic incinerators is just the tip of their great betrayal. In the film, Gore references the Kyoto accords and states that he personally went to Kyoto during the negotiations, giving the impression that he was a key figure in fighting to reduce air pollution emissions that destroy the ozone layer. What he omits is that his mission in going to Kyoto was to scuttle the accords, to block them from moving forward. And he succeeded. Environmentally friendly? The Clinton-Gore years were anything but environment-friendly. Under Clinton-Gore, more old growth forests were cut down than under any other recent US administration. “Wise Use” committees — set up by the timber industry — were permitted to clear-cut whole mountain ranges, while Clinton-Gore helped to “greenwash” their activities for public consumption. Under Clinton-Gore, the biotech industry was given carte blanche to write the US government’s regulations (paltry as they are) on genetic engineering of agriculture, and to move full speed ahead with implementing the private patenting of genetic sequences with nary a qualm passing Gore’s lips. You’d think watching this film that Gore is just some concerned professor who never had access to power or held hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Occidental Petroleum (driving the U’wa people off their lands in Colombia), let alone was the number two man actually running the US government! “Gore, like Clinton who quipped that ‘the invisible hand has a green thumb’, extolled a free-market attitude toward environmental issues”, wrote Frank, who goes on to quote Jeffrey St. Clair (Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature, Common Courage Press, 2004): “Since the mid-1980s Gore has argued with increasing stridency that the bracing forces of market capitalism are potent curatives for the ecological entropy now bearing down on the global environment. He is a passionate disciple of the gospel of efficiency, suffused with an inchoate technophilia.” Before Kyoto, before the Clinton-Gore massive depleted uranium bombings of Yugoslavia and Iraq, before their missile “deconstruction” of the only existing pharmaceutical production facility in northern Africa in the Sudan (which exacerbated the very serious problems there, as we’re seeing in Darfur today), there was NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. ..."

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 9:03 AM. Reason : j.]

2/27/2007 9:03:10 AM

Quote :

"The task of Clinton-Gore was to push through this legislation, which not even strong Republican administrations under Ronald Reagan or Bush Sr. had been able to do. Since its inception, NAFTA has undermined US environmental laws, chased production facilities out of the US and across the borders, vastly increased pollution from maquilladoras (enterprise zones) along the US-Mexico border and helped to undermine the indigenous sustainable agrarian-based communities in southern Mexico — as predicted by leftists in both countries, leading to the Zapatista uprising from those communities on January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA went into effect. Clinton-Gore also approved the destructive deal with the sugar barons of south Florida arranged by interior secretary Bruce Babbitt, which doomed the Everglades. Early in Clinton-Gore’s first administration, they pledged they would stop the plunder of the northwest forests, wrote former Village Voice columnist James Ridgeway in August 2000. “They then double-crossed their environmental backers. Under Bush Sr., the courts had enjoined logging in the Northwest habitats of the spotted owl. Clinton-Gore persuaded environmentalists to join them in axing the injunction. The Clinton administration went before a Reagan-appointed judge who had a record as a stalwart environmentalist and with the eco toadies in tow, got him to remove the injunction, and with it the moratorium on existing timber sales.” Then, explains Frank, the Gore and Clinton administration “capitulated to the demands of Western Democrats and yanked from its initial budget proposals a call to reform grazing, mining and timber practices on federal lands. When Clinton convened a timber summit in Portland, Oregon, in April 1994, the conference was, as one might expect, dominated by logging interests. Predictably, the summit gave way to a plan to restart clear-cutting in the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest for the first time in three years, giving the timber industry its get rich wish.” Gore and Clinton sent to Congress the infamous Salvage Rider, known to radical environmentalists as the “Logging without Laws” bill, which Frank described as “perhaps the most gruesome legislation ever enacted under the pretext of preserving ecosystem health”. Like Bush’s “Healthy Forests” plan, the Clinton-Gore act “was chock full of deception and special interest pandering”. “‘When [the Salvage Rider] bill was given to me, I was told that the timber industry was circulating this language among the Northwest Congressional delegation and others to try to get it attached as a rider to the fiscal year Interior Spending Bill’, environmental lawyer Kevin Kirchner said. ‘There is no question that representatives of the timber industry had a role in promoting this rider. That is no secret.’” What the Salvage Rider did was to “temporarily exempt … salvage timber sales on federal forest lands from environmental and wildlife laws, administrative appeals, and judicial review”, according to the Wilderness Society, long enough for multinational lumber and paper corporations to clear-cut all but a sliver of the US’s remaining old growth forests. Frank wrote: “Thousands of acres of healthy forestland across the West were rampaged. More than 4000 acres of Washington’s Colville National Forest was clear cut. Thousands more in Montana’s Yak River Basin, hundreds of acres of pristine forest land in Idaho, while the endangered Mexican Spotted Owl habitat in Arizona fell victim to corporate interests. Old growth trees in Washington’s majestic Olympic Peninsula — home to wild Steelhead, endangered Sockeye salmon, and threatened Marbled Murrieta — were chopped with unremitting provocation by the US Forest Service.” Special interests The assault on nature continued with Gore’s blessing. Around the same time, Clinton-Gore appointee Carol Browner, head of the EPA, was quoted in the New York Times as having said that the administration would be “relaxing” the Delaney Clause (named after its author, James Delaney, a Democratic member of Congress for New York). Congress had inserted this clause into section 409 of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in 1958. It prohibited Food and Drug Administration approval of any food additive found to cause cancer in humans or animals. Alone among all food-related directives, this legislation put the onus on the manufacturers to demonstrate that their products were safe before they were allowed to become commercially available. A federal appeals court in July 1992 expanded the jurisdiction of the Delaney Clause, ruling that it was applicable to cancer-causing pesticides in processed food. Browner retracted her comment, claiming she’d never said it, but the proof was in the pudding. The ban on cancer-causing additives (the “Precautionary Principle”) that had held through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush senior administrations was finally removed, not by the Republicans but by the Clinton-Gore administration. Instead of expanding the Delaney clause to protect produce and other unprocessed foods, the new Food Quality Protection Act legislation permitted “safe” amounts of carcinogenic chemicals (as designated by the Environmental Protection Agency) to be added to all food. (According to Peter Montague, editor of Rachel’s Weekly, no-one knows how “safe amounts” of carcinogens can be established, especially “when several carcinogens and other poisons are added simultaneously to the food of tens of millions of people”.) Nevertheless, the Clinton-Gore administration spun this as “progress”. The Clinton administration, with guidance from Gore’s office, also cut numerous deals over the pesticide methyl bromide, despite its reported effects of contributing to ozone depletion and its devastating health consequences on farm workers picking strawberries. Much is being made these days about the need to save the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. But Clinton-Gore opened the National Petroleum Reserve — 24 million untouched acres adjacent to the refuge, home to a large caribou herd and numerous arctic species — to oil drilling. The chief beneficiary of this was Arco, a major ($1.4 million) contributor to the Democratic Party. At the same time, wrote James Ridgeway, “Clinton dropped the ban on selling Alaskan oil abroad. This also benefits Arco, which is opening refineries in China. So although the oil companies won the right to exploit Alaskan oil on grounds that to do so would benefit national development, Clinton-Gore unilaterally changed the agreement so that it benefits China’s industrial growth.” Not once in the entire film does Gore criticise this awful environmental record or raise the critical questions we need to answer if we are to effectively reverse global warming: Is it really the case that the vast destruction of our environment that went on under his watch and, continuing today, is simply a result of poor consumer choices and ineffective government policies? Is the global environmental devastation we are facing today rectifiable with some simple tuning-up, as Gore proposes? Neither he — as point man for the Clinton administration on environmental issues — nor Clinton-Gore’s energy secretary Bill Richardson (with major ties to Occidental Petroleum), nor the Democratic Party in general offer anything more than putting a tiny band-aid on the Earth’s gaping wounds, which they themselves helped to gash open. Clearly, the vast destruction of the global ecology is a consequence not just of poor governmental policies but of the capitalist system’s fundamental drive towards growth and what passes for development. Environmental activists won’t find in Gore the kind of systemic analysis that is needed to stop global warming. Instead, we need to look elsewhere for that sort of deep systemic critique. "

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/700/36357

2/27/2007 9:03:33 AM

Everyone needs something to complain about. Gore just wants people to use less energy so his damn bill won't be as high. I don't care if you are rich if you say use less power to the american public then you yourself should use less. No special privilages should be given out.

2/27/2007 9:22:04 AM

all the "green power" stuff is going to drive up the cost of power soon


from what I've heard it's going to cost a NC electrical company $5 million to produce 2 Mw of power from the new methane gas landfill system


it's gonna be expensive, I guess we can thank 70's and 80's enviromentalists for the lack of nuclear plants

2/27/2007 9:26:37 AM

other than the nuclear part, what's your point?

Of course green energy is more expensive. If it was less expensive, this thread wouldn't exist.

2/27/2007 9:28:52 AM

^^And we can thank them for malaria for outlawing DEET. Central Americans thank you, 70s and 80s environmentalism.

Their mantra is environment at the expense of people.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 9:30 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 9:29:42 AM

^^I was just talking about the cost of this green energy

(we're gonna have to pay for it)


^ yeah, seems like people only care about the poor and downtrodden when there is a vote to be had

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 9:31 AM. Reason : ..]

2/27/2007 9:30:25 AM

^ Of course it's going to cost us.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. The cheapest route isn't necessarily the best. Without any interference, however, the market is going to go that route.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 9:54 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 9:54:13 AM

you're reading too deep into what I said

but I agree with you

2/27/2007 9:54:59 AM

I can't figure out why there hasn't been a massive push in regards to solar power. We get inundated every single day by unimaginable amounts of electricity from the great star in the sky, and here we are in 2007, not having advanced very far at all in regards to our ability to soak up this free energy.

Instead of dumping billions upon billions (trillions?) into the pipe dream that is space travel and exploration, why don't we make a similar push towards solar energy? A lot of folks do a lot of talking about all this stuff, but I don't ever see anything real and visible happening, anywhere.

2/27/2007 9:56:14 AM

Because, I imagine if it were that viable, they would be using it more instead of using it to power the phones on the side of the highway for stranded motorists.


THe amount of electricity we can capture from the sun just isn't enough to do more than power a phone on the side of the road. Some houses have solar panels and they're HUGE. They take up a large portion of the roof... and it does little more than power their water heater.

2/27/2007 9:58:54 AM

Did you not read?

Quote :

"and here we are in 2007, not having advanced very far at all in regards to our ability to soak up this free energy."

2/27/2007 10:02:45 AM

apparently solar power is not counting as part of the 20% green power that has to be utilized within the next few years

2/27/2007 10:10:52 AM

^^ We can't create something out of nothing.

2/27/2007 10:17:38 AM

Yeah, just keep planting trees.

Planting forests to combat global warming may be a waste of time, especially if those trees are at high latitudes, new research suggests.

Quote :

"Scientists say the benefits that come from trees reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide can be outweighed by their capacity to trap heat near the ground. Computer modelling indicates that trees only really work to cool the planet if they are planted in the tropics."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6184577.stm

Quote :

"It hardly seems reasonable--or even ethical--to assume that it is probably alright [sic] to keep driving up C02 levels."

Al Gore, Earth in the Balance



[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 10:27 AM. Reason : .]

2/27/2007 10:23:14 AM

isn't Nashville predominantly powered by hydro plants?

2/27/2007 10:23:19 AM

You didn't come close to understanding my statement. I know where the current technology stands. I know solar panels have to be huge and ultra expensive to produce enough power to run a home. There are 2 issues here of interest.

1) Is there some fundamental limit which will make solar energy impractical until it becomes absolutely necessary (ie, exhausting many other energy sources), or have we not explored this far enough?
2) Economies of scale

If we make big improvements in either of these areas, solar power becomes much more useful.

I know what the LoneSnarks are going to say. The market will get around to it when it needs to. Well, whats wrong with accelerating that path by dumping public funds into it?

And it isn't just solar panels either.

2/27/2007 10:26:48 AM

Quote :

"Well, whats wrong with accelerating that path by dumping public funds into it? "

Because we can more wisely use our resources elsewhere.

2/27/2007 10:39:49 AM

Instead of finding ways to make energy cheaper and less harmful why don't people just stop wasting energy. I mean people cut on lights during the middle of the day. Open the blinds and let the sunshine light your room. Heating and A/C is another things some people want it really warm in winter and cold in the summer so they waste electricity.

2/27/2007 10:50:34 AM

so the question i have is this....if we take gore's hypocrisy to be something worth noting, why are you making the point? i mean, the only logical conclusion one could have is that you make a person out to be a hypocrite because it then invalidates their points and their argument.

no one is pointing out hypocrisy simply because they have a need for truth, justice, and honor in our celebrities. you aren't being altruistic. it's basically ad hominem attack on someone. if his arguments about global warming have merit, they do. if they don't, they don't.

it really just seems like there are people who want to discredit the speaker so that no one will listen to his words. anyone who claims otherwise is lying IMO.

2/27/2007 10:52:41 AM

Quote :

"THe amount of electricity we can capture from the sun just isn't enough to do more than power a phone on the side of the road. Some houses have solar panels and they're HUGE. They take up a large portion of the roof... and it does little more than power their water heater. "

wow, thats a brilliant assessment of the future of solar technology I'm sure the technology will NEVER progress to a point where its providing a significant portion of our energy.

2/27/2007 10:53:47 AM

Since Al Gore says that global warming is a "moral problem" I think the following analogy is valid:

Al Gore is to carbon offsets as rich dark age Catholics were to indulgences.

2/27/2007 10:55:42 AM

Quote :

"Because we can more wisely use our resources elsewhere."

You mean the .5-1 trillion we are spending to ensure our oil supply?




[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 10:57 AM. Reason : a]

2/27/2007 10:56:29 AM

If you can talk the talk then people will listen but if you can't walk the walk then no one will follow. A man's word is one thing that no one can take away from them. If you are just talking about something then your not going to cause any change. I know Gore is honest because I have seen the Manbearpig.

2/27/2007 10:58:52 AM

a plane ride in his private jet from Los Angeles to Washington DC uses the same amount of gas as an average Hummer uses in a year

but he NEEDS to pollute more than us...why should he compromise his own lifestyle if he can convince other people to compromise theres?

2/27/2007 11:42:41 AM