"Great Britain's a great country, but it's not an idea ... that's how we see [America] around the world, one of the greatest ideas in human history." Bono
It isn't particularly hard for me to see why so many people have suddenly been enlightened to the concept of climate change, considering the flood of information available. The real mystery for me is how so many people, scientists especially, could think climate was ever some kind of constant. Earth's climate has never been a constant. Considering ice age after ice age through just the last 500 million years or so, one can only imagine the 'climate change' occurring during the repetitive ingress and egress of all that tundra. Sea levels would necessarily have fallen and risen each time the polar caps froze and thawed. Don't forget the wooly mammoth, who specialized to a point where he could survive the cold climates, then perished along with the last round of extreme cold. It could well be that humanity is having an impact somehow on the rate of change, but it is arrogant and short-sighted of us, as a race, to believe we are completely responsible for it. Or that we could do much about it. The lights will stay on, no matter the price, and self-flagellation will not solve anything. In short, I think it has not been determined as yet what is actually happening and, if anything unusual, who or what may be responsible for it.
With apologies, I just found the older thread on the same topic. Among other things, it included the point I was making but in much better form. Too bad it didn't end well. There are many well informed people here on both sides of most aisles, so I'll continue to spend much more time reading here than typing.....Originally Posted by Bill1584
Bill Strange
Liberals aren't interested in facts , it doesn't matter to them, what they feel about an issue is all that matters. I live in the Liberal Mecca, New York City, and deal with this mentality all the time. They're like wanna-be hippies that missed the real issues of the 60's like true equal rights, extreme institutional racism and voting opportunity for all, except they should never be forgiven on how the treated the Vietnam vets. So these ribbon wearing retreads need a cause-du-jour to latch onto to feel apart of something, anything that makes their lives meaningful to them, but especially to their friends who are as clueless as they are. They are headline readers who are given the pablem to take and just enough information to make them enjoin the conversation in Starbucks but unable to debate it with facts. Symbolism over Substance is their calling card.
The thing for me is that most of this is fairly easy to deduce, with just a modicum of research. While I don't typically involve myself in discussions involving religion, politics or other such potentially volatile subjects, this one seems to me to be really straightforward. We do not have sufficient historical data to claim responsibility. Hell, if it were a goal of ours to raise Earth's temps by X degrees C per decade, I don't know how we could affirmatively back up the claim we'd succeeded. I doubt we could. We've had many climate changes over the millennia, and some demonstrably rapid. All well before the dawn of our industrial revolution. I do think the wanna-be hippies will be bitterly disappointed when they realize that the list of down-the-road replacements for fossil fuel is much shorter than they think, and doesn't include solar or wind. But as I said, the lights will stay lit.
Man could not destroy the planet if he wanted to, yet these wackos think some exhaust and plastic bags are going to send us into auto-destruction, laughable. They hate fossil fuel vehicles and love the green electric cars, the coal burners I call them. How do they think the electric is generated? They have no clue because they are only interested in the headline information and not the particulars, the facts. More importantly, I bet a pair of panties was never found in the back of a Prius, it's like a pocket protector on four wheels.
Coal is used for 40% of worldwide electricity generation
Natural gas for 23%
Hydro (falling water) for 17%
Nuclear for 11%
Oil for 4%
"Other" for 5%
Stats found here: http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Break...rce#tspQvChart
96% of my province's generation is from renewable, clean hydro
The remaining 4% comes from 2 natural gas backup stations, 4 remote diesel generating stations, and the rest from wind farms.
No smog or pollution or global warming here from generating electricity.
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