U.S. will take the lead…
September 27th, 2007
Politics, economics, global warming
The first upshot of President Bush’s specially convened conference on global warming is that the U.S. “will take the lead” or so says Condeleezza Rice.
This should be of real concern to us - after all we took the lead on extricating all those WMD’s (”weapons of mass destruction” - in case you might have forgotten) from Iraq. It’s been so simple - as they told us it would be.
Here in Vermont, we’re already taking the lead (see 05cv302); we’ve decided to impose carbon emission regulations on the auto makers with the result that we might reduce global warming by 0.01 degree centigrade (see Footnote #23) - maybe sometime in the future.
Climate change is real; undeniably. So too are climbing average global surface temperatures along with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. What makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable is the tunnel vision we as a society continue to adopt - not only in our politically driven policy decisions, but in our science as well.
From the climate science side of things, the issue is far from settled despite the oft referred do IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports. These “reports” are from a very special interest group - whose bread needs more butter and then some jam to top it off. For a balanced perspective, this easy on the eyes and mind article clears up the “majority” opinion. Despite our overwhelming reliance on the climate experts - believe it or not there are some who are willing to go against the current (and loose funding options, no doubt). They do not deny the problem. We don’t either.
If the science bores you to tears, this article from the BBC may be more to your liking. What it comes to is this: It’s the economy stupid!
If Vermont wants to show the U.S. the way, close the ski areas and block leaf peeping flat-landers at the “borders”- for a start. And if you have to commute more than 30 miles a day, make car pooling mandatory (and non-compliance a felony). Yea… that’ll happen. Then again… maybe.
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