World Bank: Time To Stop Arguing Over Climate Change, It's Real!

[MizMotown]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...sSector&rpc=43

[rb336]

Only the scientifically illiterate claim otherwise

[Jimaz]

With time-lapse photography, you can watch ice flow like a river -- and melt like butter.

'Chasing Ice': Time-Lapse Cameras Capture Rapidly Melting Glaciers

James Balog: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss

ExtremeIceSurvey.org

[jerrytimes]

News flash, the climate has always changed. This isn't anything new. Since the moment that the Earth has been a planet, it's climate has changed....

[rb336]

News flash, the climate has always changed. This isn't anything new. Since the moment that the Earth has been a planet, it's climate has changed....

news flash for you virtually ALL CLIMATOLOGISTS and GEOLOGISTS say this is VERY different. The only ones who don't are, surprise, in the employ of the fossil fuel industry or its lackeys [[like the Heartland Foundation)

[wolverine]

News flash, the climate has always changed. This isn't anything new. Since the moment that the Earth has been a planet, it's climate has changed....

Even if you don't buy the idea that climate change is the direct result of human activity, you at least have to admit that industrial and transportation activities negatively affect the health of the population and environment around those facilities.

It's not like we don't have an option to pursue more environmentally means of production or travel. "They are too expensive" is not an excuse.

[Jimaz]

News flash, the climate has always changed. This isn't anything new....

True. Except it's new since the very beginning of our species.

Global carbon dioxide in atmosphere passes milestone level

Climate warming greenhouse gas reaches 400 parts per million for the first time in human history.

That sounds like something significantly new to me.

We as a species have never survived these conditions before. We are now entering uncharted territory on this, our only, planet.

There are no lifeboats.

[wolverine]

True. Except it's new since the very beginning of our species.

Global carbon dioxide in atmosphere passes milestone levelThat sounds like something significantly new to me.

We as a species have never survived these conditions before. We are now entering uncharted territory on this, our only, planet.

There are no lifeboats.

Of course there are "lifeboats". Assuming we don't become too politically entrenched, we are an adaptive species and have the skills to create a habitable environment regardless of what Mother Nature has in store for us. We innovate on a steep curve and the technology available decades from now may prove sufficient to surviving the inhospitable effects of global warming.

[SPIRITED]

The arrogance of world leaders to tax carbon to limit its use. This will hurt the economy, limit job growth and cause inflation. And to trust government with another income source...I don't.

[rb336]

The arrogance of world leaders to tax carbon to limit its use. This will hurt the economy, limit job growth and cause inflation. And to trust government with another income source...I don't.

Will a carbon tax impact the economy? yes, it will. however most studies show the net impact to be less than 1% of GDP [[Ireland, Australia, Germany) which is temporary and mostly offset by the creation of jobs related to lowering emissions. The short-term impact is further offset by long-term increases in efficiency.

[MizMotown]

Of course there are "lifeboats". Assuming we don't become too politically entrenched, we are an adaptive species and have the skills to create a habitable environment regardless of what Mother Nature has in store for us. We innovate on a steep curve and the technology available decades from now may prove sufficient to surviving the inhospitable effects of global warming.


I wonder if that's what the dinosaurs said

[Papasito]

Why do "Environmentalists" focus on the USA and not China, where the REAL problem is?

A: Because China will tell them to go F themselves.

Global pollution maps indicate up to 2/3 of the pollution in North America comes from Asia.
The United States has strict laws to reduce pollution, as well as an Environmental Protection Agency gestapo to enforce variance from regulations, laws, and standards.

The US should be harnessing and using their own energy without judgement, because of the high standards they must adhere to.
Why would any Environmentalist want energy developed abroad where the standards are so low, and the laws so unenforced or even non existent?

http://news.msn.com/world/china-smog-emergency-shuts-city-of-11-million-people

Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China's largest cities on Monday, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country's first major air pollution crisis of the winter.
An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers [[PM2.5), reached a reading of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin, the gritty capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people.

[rb336]

Papa, environmentalists DO bitch about China, and without the "EPA gestapo" [[seriously, do you HAVE to make comments THAT stupid?) great swaths of the US would look just like the picture you linked to.

Even with our regulations, the US produces 20% of global greenhouse emissions compared to China's 23%. We produce 87% of the emissions that China produces with only 23% of China's population. China has mandated renewable energy targets, the US has a much weaker program. The European countries and China are subsidizing development of alternative energy technology. Right now, a huge chunk of what we do here relies on technology imported from Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and...China while we continue to provide huge subsidies to Big Oil.

[Danny]

I told you all Global Warming is here and its going to lead to Global Ice Age in about 2,000 years. This time it would last over 1 million years.

[Papasito]

HEY ... what do you know?
Al Gore was WRONG!

A U.S. government agency predicted the melting of the polar ice cap in the year 2030. However, climate guru Al Gore said at the U.N. climate conference on Monday that new computer modeling indicates this could happen as soon as 2014.

Almageddon Didn't Happen!!
And just think about all the money the carbon credit scheme took in!!

[Papasito]

Even with our regulations, the US produces 20% of global greenhouse emissions compared to China's 23%. We produce 87% of the emissions that China produces with only 23% of China's population.

Pollution causes Global Warming, right?

You need to realize the measurements in North America are skewed due to pollution from Asia aka China migrating to the United States.

Yu and his colleagues measured the trans-Pacific flow of pollution in teragrams, a unit of measurement of the mass of pollution aerosol [[1 teragram is about 2.2 billion pounds). Satellite data confirmed 18 teragrams -- almost 40 billion pounds -- of pollution aerosol was exported to the northwestern Pacific Ocean and 4.5 teragrams – nearly 10 billion pounds -- reached North America annually from East Asia over the study period.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fea...n_measure.html

According to measurements taken with a satellite instrument, vast quantities of industrial aerosols and smoke from biomass burning in East Asia and Russia are traveling from one side of the globe to another. Explosive economic growth in Asia has profound implications for the atmosphere worldwide. Data collected by a NASA satellite shows a dense blanket of polluted air over the Northwestern Pacific. This brown cloud is a toxic mix of ash, acids, and airborne particles from car and factory emissions, as well as from low-tech polluters like coal-burning stoves and from forest fires. This image generated by data from NASA’s instrument called MODIS [[Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) onboard the Terra satellite demonstrates how large and pervasive this transport phenomenon is across vast areas.

How about this?! :

the view got a bit clearer this summer with the publication of the first long-term global map of PM2.5 in a recent issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. Canadian researchers Aaron van Donkelaar and Randall Martin at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, created the map by blending total-column aerosol amount measurements from two NASA satellite instruments with information about the vertical distribution of aerosols from a computer model.

Their map, which shows the average PM2.5 results between 2001 and 2006, offers the most comprehensive view of the health-sapping particles to date. Though the new blending technique has not necessarily produced more accurate pollution measurements over developed regions that have well-established surface-based monitoring networks, it has provided the first PM2.5 satellite estimates in a number of developing countries that have had no estimates of air pollution levels until now.

So, with this data, is it fair to see the United States as the evil polluter in chief, while Asia is a proven source of not only their pollutants but a large portion of what the US is measured at, too!?
Mapping shows the USA quite clear, while Asia and much of the Middle East and South Asia is terrible!

[Zacha341]

^^^ That photo of the folks all gagged up in China is the real deal...

A friends husband just returned from one of the central provinces in China on business. A trip cut short due to his going into a serious respiratory response brought on by the intense, visibly thick pollution described as something you could 'taste' as well as see.

The pollution level is not debatable there, only given a pass.

We may have our issues and contributions but China is up way up there.

Having little 'future orientation' regarding the matter, they're playing a fast catch up, damage control game to get on board with basic emission standards and other reforms. Talk about 'kicking the can down the road'. They cannot even see the can before them...

[[Side issue) And now China wants to import chicken to the US for consumption? Do we really need their sooted-up fowl?

[NickCharles]

"...import chicken to..." ??

[Johnnny5]

"...import chicken to..." ??

I think you know what he meant, but I do have to give you credit for the worst 1st post ever! Welcome to DYES....

[NickCharles]

I think you know what he meant, but I do have to give you credit for the worst 1st post ever! Welcome to DYES....

I must respectfully refuse to accept said award, as the post was not my first.

[Papasito]

^^^ That photo of the folks all gagged up in China is the real deal...

A friends husband just returned from one of the central provinces in China on business. A trip cut short due to his going into a serious respiratory response brought on by the intense, visibly thick pollution described as something you could 'taste' as well as see.

The pollution level is not debatable there, only given a pass.

Here's my take on this: If the Left and the "Green" movement was SERIOUS about pollution control and Global Warming, and thought that this is a serious Armageddon for humanity and the planet, they would be pushing for all that it's worth to sanction and punish nations like China, India and the like who have economic disaster running rampant. Free trade should be banned with nations like this and war would even be a viable option for the saving of our planet.

But no one is pushing for REAL change for the world's biggest polluters. China's practices are downright disgusting, hazardous to humans, environment and wildlife alike, and nations like this are the LAST PEOPLE ON EARTH the "Green" movement should have us doing business with.

Democrats are in charge right now. The Green movement never has had so much power. Do something real besides continuing to punish the USA -- a country with strictly enforced environmental laws and regulations!! Punish 2nd and 3rd world countries who are blatantly throwing this world into environmental destruction!! We are talking armageddon here - the end of days - why is it being taken so lightly?

[rb336]

Putting something in bold doesn't make it so. Environmentalists got more done under Bush than Obama [[CAFE hikes were approved under dubya, and the Republicans then bitched when Obama signed the implementation agreement).

Are countries worse than us when it comes to pollution? yes. Has the environmental movement fought for sanctions against China and India for their pollution production? yes, and they were shot down by both Bush and Obama.

Third-world countries are very minor contributors to greenhouse gas emissions - basically the entire continents of Africa, Asia [[beyond China, Japan, Russia, the Fertile Crescent countries and India) and South America [[beyond Brazil) don't equal the greenhouse emissions of China or the US. While China is the biggest greenhouse gas offender, it pales compared to the US when it comes to per capita production:

China: .0000053 megatons per person
EU: .00001 megatons per person
US: .00002 megatons per person

Yep. Europe produces twice as many greenhouse gases per person than China, and we produce almost FOUR TIMES as much.

[Papasito]

Whether you believe in climate change or not, climate change legislation is nothing but more money people have to pay the government. They have no cure or no answer to solve the issue, what are they going to do? Throw mountains of our money in the air and expect temperature change??

Meanwhile, China and India puke pollution into the air and no one does nothing, as though because it's over there and not over here it somehow doesn't count

[rb336]

Whether you believe in climate change or not, climate change legislation is nothing but more money people have to pay the government. They have no cure or no answer to solve the issue, what are they going to do? Throw mountains of our money in the air and expect temperature change??

Meanwhile, China and India puke pollution into the air and no one does nothing, as though because it's over there and not over here it somehow doesn't count

Papasito, China and India have been taken to task quite often because of their pollution issues. The US has one of the highest per capita rates of greenhouse gas emissions in the world at 23.5 tons per person per year, compared to China's 5.5 and India's 1.7. Both China and India have or are enacting regulations to cut down on greenhouse gases. Of the top economic powers, ONLY the US and Russia have no comprehensive plans.

[Zacha341]

China [NOW] declares a war on pollution [[cnn article)

Well it's about time!

China's 'numbers' may somehow be low but there are areas [[especially central China) where you can cut, taste, and box the particulate smog it's so dense. A friend recently returned from a central China province, almost dying from the poor air [[existing asthma not helping). Coughing, gasping and mask wearing is the norm for many - gunk in the air that bad.

Withstanding gloss stock, blue-sky digitally-crisp touristy photos of Hong Kong [[the mountains help keep most of the industrial mainland crap abated many days there), China's playing serious catch up in regards to their emission controls [[sic). They are not ahead of the game.

China's industrialization momentum and population growth needs demonstrated little future time orientation re. water and air quality. The shoe got kicked down the road, decade after decade -- now they're scrambling to respond. Of course we have little to say beyond a verbal critique. We owe too much money, to China.

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...lution-beijing

China air apocalypse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emqsaTT4ums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXz3ZfZDKYA

Not that we cannot do more about our own emissions and polution, but when is the last time you saw this, even in LA? [[photos from top article)