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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (77543)	6/23/2006 6:00:49 PM
From: Orcastraiter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

Nadine, I agree with your assessment of global warming. No one knows for sure what the cause is. What most are in agreement on is the problems we will be facing if warming continues, glaciers continue melting and oceans continue to rise. One thing that is clearly needed is additional study and focus on the problem of global warming. Much more funding of the study of global warming is needed. If cutting the amount of emissions doesn't help reduce global warming, there might be additional health benefits and energy policy benefits to be derived from a policy which focuses on the reduction of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Nothing wrong with cleaner air in my book. Nothing wrong with energy independence either. Bush Cheney have definitely missed the boat on the environment and on energy. We have fully vested ourselves in big oil and wars to protect the strategic supplies. By developing alternative energy from renewable sources, we help to wean ourselves off oil. We reduce the demand for oil. We reduce the use of oil. We reduce world tensions over oil reserves, reduce the need for wars and reduce pollution. The goals of reducing greenhouse gasses are completely congruent with many national goals and desires. Therefore I think many of the suggested cautionary moves, in case we are the cause of warming, will in the long run strengthen our nation. That would be a good thing indeed. Orca

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (77543)	6/24/2006 12:12:45 AM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

>>What's "this"? That there is warming, or that temperatures are going to shoot up and cause major problems? There is little disagreement on the first, but quite a bit on the second. The models do not agree. The systems at work are non-linear and complex. Nothing I have seen makes me think that science has a handle yet on the mechanisms at work. That being the case, I don't want to waste energy pushing some policy that is likely to be both costly and ineffective.<< Nadine - Here's another angle on this question. Why is it that we assume that it's going to be costly and ineffective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? I'm reminded of a bill that was before the Senate just around the time Schwarzenegger was taking office in California. The bill was going to require the installation of catalytic converters on two-stroke engines of the type used in lawnmowers, leaf blowers and the like. Such engines are known to account for the majority of air pollution in the State of California and elsewhere, despite there being relatively few of them. They're just so damned dirty it's amazing. The Senator from Idaho objected to the bill, and in fact was very near getting it killed in committee. Why? Because Briggs and Stratton, the only U.S. manufacturer of such engines, claimed that the installation of such converters would be so costly as to put them out of business, costing Idaho thousands of jobs. Interestingly, Asian makers of such engines said it would cost just a few dollars per unit, and that they were ready to comply if such a law were passed. In one of his first acts as Governor of California, Schwarzenegger called the Senator from Idaho and asked him to reconsider, because these engines really were creating a huge amount of pollution. The Senator did reconsider, the bill was passed, and guess what? Briggs and Stratton is still in business. It only costs them a few bucks per engine to put the converters on. And the air all across our country will be cleaner as a result. The moral of this story is that big business always cries "Foul!" and raises the spectre of massive layoffs whenever you try to make them act in an environmentally friendly way, but that doesn't have much to do with real business issues as much as it does with the fear of change. Businesses that adopt environmentally friendly policies often find that it ends up saving them money. Another example is the Detroit auto makers, who claim that forcing them to improve gas mileage in their cars will be far too costly. They say that they can't build cars American will buy if they're forced to make them more fuel efficient. I, for one, find it hard to understand why the Japanese can do it if the American car companies can't. - Allen