That Gore would exploit distorted science to promote a political agenda is bad enough. The political agenda he's trying to promote is even worse...
Under this agreement, America would be required to cut its carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels. Myron Ebell, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, estimates this would mean cutting our current fossil fuel use by as much as one fourth. The economy runs on power--especially today's booming, high-tech information economy. So when Gore wants to slash power use by 25 percent, what he's really asking us to do is cut our prosperity by 25 percent.
Well, first of all, people don't say to cut power use by 25 percent. They want to cut fossil fuel use by 25 percent. Yeah, that means we need to use a lot of alternate sources of energy. Typical piece of sloppy reading and thinking.
Second, if the science is right, there is no real choice. Or rather, the choice to continue to increase the use of fossil fuels as we have been doing over the 30 years will only lead to disaster. I get it--you don't believe that, along with a lot of other people who inhabit this thread. Maybe the IPCC scientists are wrong--could be. But to claim that their document is a "notoriously politicized document" is, to put it politely, absurd. Yeah, I know, Linzen is quoted all the time. Yeah, you can trot out a dozen names who concur with him. But if it didn't represent a widely held view among scientists, it would be there. Or, at the very least, Exxon, Chevron et al would have enlisted a group of their own several thousand scientists who would come out with their own views, or at least a rebuttal of the IPCC reports. They've had plenty of opportunity--there have already been several reports. The best they seem to be able to do is trot out the same 3 or 4 things (like the ice in Antarctica) over and over and over.
But look, you and I aren't going to decide this here. You keep running your SUV or whatever you drive as much as you like. Keep using just as much fossil fuel as you can, and make sure your family does the same. Not to mention your friends. Time will tell us who is right. Somehow I suspect you were, along LB and prolife and others, one of the people who didn't want to find out if Saddam had WMDs by the appearance of a mushroom cloud. But if the IPCC scientists are right, the destruction that a mushroom cloud would have caused would have been nothing compared to the eventual destruction that GW will cause. The US southwest is already drying up, in case you hadn't noticed. The reservoirs are evaporating, and the Colorado River--the lifeblood of a fair portion of the southweat--has less and less of a flow. It doesn't even reach the Pacific Ocean anymore.
Oh well, we can always give it back to Mexico and take over parts of the Northwest Territories in return. Cool.... |
