Mr.Positive said:
I'd like to hear one anti-global warming person explain why the glaciers are melting away. Right, silence.
Interglacial period.
And media hype.
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Yes, glaciers are melting, as they will continue to do so until the next ice age.
The one variable that has changing quantifiably in the past 30-50 years is media coverage and telecommunications. We get almost daily reports of climactic events these days, whereas 50 years ago, it would be rare to hear about an event on the far side of the world unless it was catastrophic. This increase in data points doesn't necessarily point to an increase in 'unnatural' climactic occurances, it merely indicates that we are tracking them and are aware of them at an unprecedented level.
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I will concede that humans do contribute CO2 to the atmosphere, and yes technically CO2 does cause a temperature increase. Technically we ARE causing some degree of global warming. This is fact, as you say.
My contention is that the UN and IPCC models that predict 2 meter sea level rise, 5-7 degrees of temperature increase, and "apocalyptic conditions" by the end of the century, are hogwash.
We may cause 0.5 to 1 degree C temperature increase, maybe a couple centimeters of sea level rise(ice sheet melt =/= sea level rise. Only contributor is land based ice, and there is very little of that compared to total oceanic volume), and there might be 1 or two more storms per el nino, but ... Is that really worth shutting down the first world and decimating our standard of living? I'm asking you.
Industry becomes more efficient by itself, and as a result, more environmentally friendly. There is already a booming market for alternative energy sources, as well as significant spending in R&D for these things.
To me, it makes more sense to focus on real issues that are already here, such as: deforestation and illegal logging, overfishing of oceans, oceanic garbage patches, poaching, killing endangered species, etc. Why waste energy and resources on a debatable problem that elicits an emotional response more than a rational one, when there are so many more pressing concerns?
If there's some do-gooders out there who think they're stopping climate change by biking to work and having cold showers, then sure let them do it. My issue is when my tax dollar is being raised and the price of every good is being raised and our jobs are going to third world slave nations because some profiteers decided to create a scam market based on frivolity and incomplete science.
In other words: Keep it to the private market where citizens can do as they wish, and away from the public treasury where citizens are forced to do as they're told.
