There is a clear problem now: http://www.skepticalscience.com/poto wrote:So much urgency... must act right now or else doom! For that to be an effective argument you would have to conclusively show that there is a clear problem now. As has been stated, temperatures have been flat for more than a decade. There is not a problem at present and there may not be a problem for a very long time, so this false urgency isn't helping matters.
Great!! Sorry to force you to brag However, Moore's Law applies to the chip industry, who are driven by profit motive to develop the newest fastest technology now, before the next company beats them out. That's a lot different than saying we should worry about AGW later.poto wrote: There are real problems of deforestation, pollution of the oceans with metals and plastics, etc. There are also many people suffering, in hospice, homeless shelters, etc. that could use help right now. Those are things that do not involve speculation and are IMHO worthy of one's time and effort.
I do spend time volunteering with various charities. I don't sit around doing nothing, waiting for miracles to solve everything as you have implied. I just feel that talking about charity work would be too close to bragging, so I usually don't say anything. Above all I have been trying to put my practice first and foremost in my life. I seem to have a hard time communicating that.
What I'm saying is that one article by a technology journalist, whose goal was to draw attention to some radical ideas, is not anything like a fair analysis that trumps the time honored adage: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you have some hard evidence, I would love to see it.poto wrote:Except that I posted information that showed mitigation later would cost less. It is also a technological/economic/military inevitability that we humans will build climate control technology and deploy it globally, which will render all of this debate over climate moot. I greatly look forward to that day.Buckwheat wrote: That approach costs much, much more in the long run.
I am not against adaptation methods (per say, each method has it's own pros / cons, as does every energy generation method). From my understanding, we will need mitigation and adaptation. These are not mutually exclusive. We also need to protect the environment. We also need to feed, clothe, and educate the poor. The reasons are twofold: 1) basic humanity, 2) a healthy, educated population is more adaptable to changing conditions.