Back in 1975 Newsday Among Others Said (1 Viewer)

famine and disaster were upon us.

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

I thought it might be fun to go back about 30 years.

I remember the hysteria about the coming ice age.

Currently, there is global warming going on that has absolutely nothing to do with man. It is absolutely certain that man has nothing to do with the global warming...on Mars.

Cosmic radiation and other forces may have more to do with our current warming than have thus far been attributed.

Pay no attention to that global warming on Mars. It is of no consequence when we are saving the planet from . . . uhhhh . . . (What decade are we in again? I need to know which "global catastrophe" I can insert here)

I agree wholeheartedly with conservation, lower pollution, renewable resources, electric cars (and motorcycles, etc.), and sustainability. But there are good reasons for those outside of global warming, which is probably happening, but may be influenced by things greater than fossil fuels.

I agree Buzz. But not at the expense of our economy or national sovereignty.

Why the rest of the world despairs at the USA: example 1.

Because we don't want to hurt our economy (ala Kyoto) while countries like China get a free pass? I don't think you'll find anyone in the USA who doesn't want clean air/water/etc. But many of us believe it can be achieved without crippling our economy or infringing on our national sovereignty.

national sovereignty is overrated

But if it can be acheived, then isn't it the same thing? Noone specifically mentioned Kyoto until you did. California is undertaking massive conservation and pollution controls on its own terms. Ever since New York understood the impact that Midwest smokestacks were having on the trees and wildlife in the Adirondacks, New York has really gotten its act together. Pataki also pushed RGGI which is now up to eight Northeast states. Schwarzenegger has also made motions toward linking the California program with RGGI. If the feds won't do it, eventually the states will.

:rolleyes

Why the US despairs at the rest of the world - They all think the "world" is a zero sum game and that in order for the rest of the world to be prosperous, someone else has to be punished.

Tell me Andrew, why can't the US reduce carbon emissions while simultaneously not effecting our economy and not giving aid to the economies of countries that are diametrically opposed to our values or have even sworn to annihilate us? Can you answer that?

Laugh all you want. I'm looking out my window at a dust storm. The air is red and choking — and getting into the house. My folks already have bronchitis. You'll be laughing real hard when my mother chokes to death. Anyway, what is national sovereignty but an excuse for violent men to shed blood?

Seriously. I mean, the US has given up its national sovereign right to protectionest tariffs. It's given up its national sovereign right to torture, its national sovereign right to continue the mexican war, its national sovereign right to conduct atmospheric nuclear tests, its national sovereign right....

I think there is a bit of a middle ground here.

The reality is, the past is full of warming and cooling periods; as recently as the Great Dustbowl, to the cooling in the 1700s & dark ages, to distant history when warming periods such as the Cambrian Era billions of years ago occurred.

What science tells us (in the long view) is that warming and cooling trends are part of any planet; and we've been able to observe that they occurred in planetary moons and other bodies.

That doesn't, however, excuse manmade causes which have different impacts. But for all the talk of X, Y, Z as a cause, the greatest causes are the most simple: population density. We are a people of terrible land management. A city the size of NY can have ten million +, whereas a state the size of South Dakota has population equal to a small subburb of that one city.

As a result, you get dead zones. These zones feature a large developed area with limited spacing between development for animal and plant life. This causes congestion. Imagine the earth as a giant engine. If I space out development and non-developed area evenly, the two work together. Wildlife/plantlife works as a more effective converter of CO2 and other gases, and provides a better vent on the system.

Instead, we spend out time crowing about preserving large, vast areas of land, while continually taking smaller areas and saturating them with heavy population eliminating the means to provide that step there.

If I took a city like Mexico City, and I took that same population, and I spread them out, where I had a significantly lower population density, it would cause greater reason to maintain and support a better land development strategy.

I think we're a long ways away from making that work - though I think the Internet could help it.

As I drive through Kansas, we have counties the size of NYC which have less then 2,000 people in them. Empty, unclaimed fields full of grass. Better land management with people there would provide a better vent on things that cause direct issues - like sewer and septic management, would sponsor planting of trees and other vegetation which is more receptive to conversion.

Kyoto and those is a neat "idea" but a big part of this if we want to claim major human development is to begin to break apart big cities. For people who buy into global warming and the idea of reflective properties of a planet and atmosphere, here's part of the reason for that:

If I have a six square mile area that is construction, concrete and asphalt, and I compare it to a six square mile area that is 5% construction and 95% dirt and grass, which one do you think retains more heat at night, or acts as a better continuous retainer of heat?

Anyway, just saying, even for those who love to blame corporations, if you really believe people have heavy responsibility for this, then you have to look at our land management and urban blight as a far bigger factor then anyone perceives. Then again, that's not as popular as saying "if we just give up coal.." and so on. Because it's a lot easier to believe it's the problem with some company burning fuel A vs. people liking to live next door to a Papa Johns and have their city grow.. because you can convince someone that Exxon is evil; convincing them that living in the boondocks makes a big impact isn't nearly as easy. Too inconvenient for them directly. It's easy to ask to inconvenience a company... but ask someone to live where there isn't a starbucks? That's asking too much.

Nonsense. You don't need a car in a city. You do in a less densely populated area.

Jeremy-

There have been countless studies on it.. you are assuming "people have to drive everywhere" in a rural environment. Nonsense. I grew up in a population 800 community. I walked to school every day. While my parents did drive to work, that was a one trip a day effort.

There are numerous impacts cities have on the environment far beyond just driving.

Some studies on land management as an ecological footprint:

http://eau.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/18/2/275

European studies also point this out:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/urban/home_en.htm

Cities may have tons within walking distance, but they also, due to population, have fewer means to disperse and control pollution through natural means (not as many trees/plant life to act as an absorption barrier). Moreover, large scale city development centralizes human use of common items and waste. In other words: your septic output in a low-population area can be effectively managed easily with less chemicals and less environmental damage then dealing with tens of thousands of tons of s(& and waste every day in a city environment.

The City of Seattle heavily believes in this, as a result, it's put mandated "land breaks" around it's city and in many areas to act as a buffer and to provide not just a simple park here and there, but a fair break in between major communities in an effort to prevent what many studies call "overgrowth".

Overgrowth is a large area in which heat retention and pollution creation extends without a land break.

And while city individuals think that hey, everything is close, I don't need a car... many don't need a car because of common transport in areas (which is good) but there is an impact to those as well, and larger use of "always on" combustion engine sources (think cabs) negate much of that.

The City Mayors Association calculated that there were a few thousand cabs "always on" the road in NYC. Very few people, even if they need to commute, leave there car running 24/7, again where there is little vegetation to vent.

The best study of this is ongoing, in the Mexico City Population Study.

People who think cars are even a "major" source of environmental impacts are fooling themselves. It's a drop in the bucket compared to many other factors.

Continuous power to street lights, to traffic lights. Etc. As a result, cities, which make up .04% of all landmass, and 29% of global population represent up to 79% of all CO2 released and 64% of total energy use. (Source: UN-HABITAT report, 2006).

I've travelled a lot. I enjoy living in a city now. I have anyone I want come to me with stuff. And I've enjoyed major cities I've been in. But there is something to be said - and is backed up by facts and experience. Spend a night out on NYC or LA, breath the air, enjoy the nightlife.

OK, now, take a trip to.. hmm. Let's say Concordia, Nebraska. Go out on the town, you can walk anywhere you want to go, there aren't traffic lights and just a few stops in town. Breath in the air.

Putting aside the convenience, do you think you're lungs notice the difference I'll tell you I sure do (which is why the rate of Asthma in Mexico City is 39.7 TIMES the rate of Asthma in rural Mexico, as an example)

I suppose that's true-- poor planning in fairly high density neighborhoods may mean that many commuters idle the day away, stuck in traffic.

In the early 1800s, back when the UK was top dog, we debated long and hard about abolishing slavery. All the arguments were made then that if we abolished it, the economy would be crippled, etc, etc. In the end we abolished the slave trade because it was morally the right thing to do. And in spite of the revisionist historian claims that this was ultimately done for economic reasons, later research has shown that abolition did damage the UK economy. *But* the world was a darn sight better for this move and the process it set in motion. Similarly, the UK could have stayed out of World War II, kept her empire more or less intact, and watched as Hitler developed rockets that could reach the USA. We didn't, and in the process not only lost our empire and a vast amount of our economic power but also drew up phenomenal debts to the USA (only finally paid off last year).

Some times things have to be done that transcend economics.

I'm not saying that all Americans are ignorant of the need for change any more that the rest of the world is stocked with 100% environmental saints. But the world looks to the USA, as the world's powerhouse, to take action. The excuse that 'other countries aren't going to do it, so why should we' just doesn't hold water. A lot of other countries oppress free speech, but you wouldn't do the same, would you?

Yeah, maybe we were wrong during the Cold War, too. Just because the Soviet Union wouldn't agree to a total disarmament treaty shouldn't have stopped us from getting rid of all of our nuclear weapons. Eventually, once we disarmed, they would have seen how virtuous our act was and followed suit... Boy did we screw up.

It's not a question of "giving up rights", but of acting against our own interest. We made the rational decision that doing the things you mentioned made us better off. Global income redistribution wouldn't make us better off.