G'day redewenur,
You're right it is abhorent. It is amazing the amount of people that say the debate should be over yet there are a number of greatly respected scientists such as Dr Singer, that do not agree with pretty much all of the mainstream views relating to global warming. They might be a minority but they aren't idiots or even zealots. As far as I can tell with the senior climatalogists that do not agree the debate should be over, they base their arguments on sound science and the belief that science should be forwarded by sound research.
I have children too, by the way. Five plus three. I would rather their world was better than mine and that includes environmental issues. But there are some things that despite sounding callous or as you said abhorent, there just isn't alternatives, and I'm one of those that ascribe to the theory that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I just haven't seen anything in the way of a achievable solution, even if I agreed that carbon was such a big bogeyman and I really don't. But having more efficient cars, much cleaner coal power stations etc can only be a very good thing. I'm all for it for sensible reasons.
So if you think my comment is abhorent how about suggesting something, anything, that could practically and politically be achievable. By the by, such steps as turning air conditioning off, using energy efficient lighting, and even suddenly swapping to cars that are say three times as efficient would have almost no effect on the increase on carbon emissions now or ever. Our government has decided that all incadescent lights should be banned from 2009. Bugger the fact that there are serious environmental concerns for the fluorescent ones and they simply are not pratical in some locations. If every light was changed what would be the effect. The calculation was that it would be .0014% of Australia's carbon output. Now that is just ridiculous and this is from someone that actually has replaced all but two or three lights throughout the house with energy efficient ones.
So tell me redewener, what do you suggest? Oh and by the way, Global Warming or even a return to a glaciation should not effect your children providing your country does not get invaded because it is safe from the effects. The tropics do not warm up even in the past periods where the poles completely melted. And my children should be OK as well because the effect on the Southern Hemisphere would be perfectly manageble, unless you have an ocean front house and we certainly do not have that.
From paleo-climate evidence, even if the poles melted, the world would still be habitable. C02 has been many many times what it is currently or what it will be in 2100 with the earth closer to the sun and still not all that much happened. It was not a time of a major extinction event and a major glaciation occurred despite the fact that the earth had managed to get much hotter than all but the most absurd predictions. The dislocations would be huge. Vast tracts of the planet would go underwater such as Bangladesh, Netherlands and this would cause huge problems. But agriculture would be available over more areas than now and growth would be astonishing compared to today.
I'd prefer it didn't happen and suggest that it won't. My worry remains that some idiot or government such as Gore deciding to run, getting into power and funding the massive seeding of chorides or some other cooling chemical into the air, causing massive environmental problems and sending us into a glaciation. Now that is likely to kill your children. Actually not likely, almost certainly. Not because they will be cold but because the food supply would be sufficient for about 1% of the planet and it would take three to five years to get it back to a a level that would support large populations, assuming the industry remained in place to allow for the relocation of most of the earth's agriculture. For instance Australia's dry wheat belt would get way too much rain at the wrong times and other crops such as rice would have to be grown instead. That takes time.
It is the "big gesture" solution that terrifies me, not the carbon credits, the plans to replace coal with wind etc. Wind power can replace about 5% of coal stations based on current technology with problems that rarely get mentioned. No power is free. Solar power requires rare earth minerals and there just isn't enough to use this to replace all that much. Mirrors in Central Australia or desert parts of the world could supply energy but again way too little to do all that much.
One of our MPs wants to replace all coal power stations with thermal power from a massive hot water aquifer. The equations suggest it could replace a couple of percent but the risk is high that the energy transfer could trigger earthquakes etc.
I actually saw a "serious" proposal to use methane instead of petroluem to power cars. Oh what a terrific idea. Methane is a greenhouse gas about 40 times the effect of Carbon and there isn't a method invented that could burn methane cleanly. So it seems that the bogeyman has been selected as carbon to the point where, if you accept the damage greenhouses gases do, a more dangerouse greenhouse gas is offered up to reduce carbon.
To me, all the ideas so far, far from lighting a candle in the dark, are akin to lighting a candle in a hurricane. Doing nothing is the hardest thing man can ever do. Our brains are not wired for this but I would really like if scientists that came up with ideas that could effect large regions or the planet or even the economy should have to take an oath starting with the same beginning as the hypocratic oath, "First do no harm".
Regards
Richard
