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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (25737)	11/12/2009 2:49:45 AM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Quarter of a century ago I suggested [to my boss] that a solution to The Greenhouse Effect problem, if there was actually a problem, would be a carbon tax with an offsetting cut in other taxes which would encourage "good" things [not a cut in tobacco or booze taxes or other "bad" things]. <waiting to take on the warming emissions problem is just going to make things much worse so it would seem, logically, the safe to do would be to start to implement measures the Green side recommends gradually and monitor the hell out of them--all without busting our budgets. > Heck, even if there isn't a problem with CO2, carbon tax might be a convenient way to collect lots of money rather than nickel and diming little things with high collection costs and easy avoidance. Governments do that already with petrol taxes [which are high in NZ and higher in Europe]. But they could get into coal, and imported crude oil too. Better still would be to cut government spending which is largely waste. Unfortunately, the "Green side" comes up with some bad ideas. They are in favour of cap and trade for example, which will be a huge swindle with insiders getting favours and Enron or Goldman Sachs or some other crowd making a fortune in transaction fees, contracts and financial finangling. Surely there has been enough of that recently. I don't see why incumbents should get rights to pollute which I can't have. If there is a problem with The Greenhouse Effect, it's such a long term problem that there's no apparent reason to start doing much about it yet. So far, the extra CO2 has been a good thing, not a bad thing, namely improved plant growth, drought resistance and less irrigation needed. It might turn out that there is no problem whatsoever and in fact we are heading into reglaciation. We'd look really stupid if in 50 years CO2 levels have dropped a lot but the northern hemisphere is buried in 50 metres of ice from Vladivostok to Vancouver in summer. Some things have to be done immediately, urgently, like now, such as fleeing a tsunami, dodging an incoming bolide or moving out of the way of a volcano. Others such as dodging sea level rise due to global warming can be done in a decade or six. Even the slowest moving person won't drown due to global warming sea level rise. Mqurice

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (25737)	11/12/2009 5:37:38 AM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Reducing greenhouse gases may not be enough to slow global warming WASHINGTON: A new research by a scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology has determined that reducing greenhouse gases may not be enough to slow down global warming, and policymakers would need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change. The scientist in question is Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone. According to Stone, as the international community meets in Copenhagen in December to develop a new framework for responding to climate change, policymakers need to give serious consideration to broadening the range of management strategies beyond greenhouse gas reductions alone. "Across the U.S. as a whole, approximately 50 percent of the warming that has occurred since 1950 is due to land use changes (usually in the form of clearing forest for crops or cities) rather than to the emission of greenhouse gases," said Stone. "Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole - a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change," he said. "As a result, emissions reduction programs - like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress - may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming," he added. According to Stone's research, slowing the rate of forest loss around the world, and regenerating forests where lost, could significantly slow the pace of global warming. "Treaty negotiators should formally recognize land use change as a key driver of warming," said Stone. "The role of land use in global warming is the most important climate-related story that has not been widely covered in the media," he added. Stone recommends slowing what he terms the "green loss effect" through the planting of millions of trees in urbanized areas and through the protection and regeneration of global forests outside of urbanized regions. Forested areas provide the combined benefits of directly cooling the atmosphere and of absorbing greenhouse gases, leading to additional cooling. Green architecture in cities, including green roofs and more highly reflective construction materials, would further contribute to a slowing of warming rates. Stone envisions local and state governments taking the lead in addressing the land use drivers of climate change, while the federal government takes the lead in implementing carbon reduction initiatives, like cap and trade programs. "As we look to address the climate change issue from a land use perspective, there is a huge opportunity for local and state governments," he said. economictimes.indiatimes.com

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (25737)	11/12/2009 5:44:53 AM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

UN chief to link food, global warming at FAO summit UN chief Ban Ki-moon will prod world leaders to step up the fight against global warming and hunger when he attends the UN Food and Agriculture Organization summit in Rome next week, a spokesperson said Wednesday. "The secretary-general will open the food security summit to promote broad based action on food security," deputy UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. "This is an important opportunity following significant advances under the L'Aquila initiative on global food security chaired by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi" in July in Italy, she said. "Given the close interrelationship between food security and climate change, the secretary-general will engage world leaders to advance both agendas together," she added. Non-governmental organizations Wednesday called on the Group of Eight developed nations to keep their promise made in L'Aquila to fund a 20-billion-dollar world food aid program. They lamented, however, that none of the G8 leaders will be at the FAO summit. Ban's November 15-17 visit to Rome will include a tribute at FAO's headquarters to five UN employees killed last month in a suicide bombing of a UN World Food Program compound in Islamabad, Okabe said. news.asiaone.com