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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (599937)	2/4/2011 7:32:58 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570498

The main upside is not having to incur the massive costs needed to avoid it. Other potential upsides are more complex and much more uncertain, and would if they occur, be mixed in with downsides. For example if global warming occurs in a significant way, the effect of the warming would likely be negative, but some of the effects would be positive. Having winters that are less cold makes things more comfortable for people during the winter (less comfortable during the summer, but cold temperatures are more likely to kill than warm weather). Extra CO2 will have some positive effects on some plants. If significant warming does occur the main downside might be higher ocean levels causing flooding. This can in many cases be prevented or mitigated, but the cost to do so will be very high (although likely not as high by itself as the cost to greatly reduce CO2 emission). Another issue is whether a hugely expensive change, disrupting our economy to slash CO2 emissions, would if necessary, be sufficient. If the disasters some global warming alarmists present are actually seriously likely prospects, then the cuts that can be achieved, even at a huge cost, might not be enough to make much difference. This is particularly true because even if the US really does slash CO2 production by 80% (which is extremely unlikely), the rest of the world won't do the same. China and India for example will likely continue to increase their CO2 emission, and may in fact do so to an even larger degree if we cut, partially because they would be trying to free ride on our cuts, but mostly because such cuts would drive heavy industry to places with less draconian CO2 restrictions.