@firenotes:
1. the sun is not heating the earth more than usual, but the earth is retaining more infra red radiation from the reflected sun rays because of the "heat islands" formed by polluting particles in the atmosphere. Land use changes also account for albedo changes. Then there's also radiative forcing from all the molecules in the air. Factor in their life time in the atmosphere and voila you get the earth's average surface temperature.
Yes, we actually learn all that stuff in atmospheric chemistry. You can look it up and decide for yourself
2. Middle class america and the "poor" in america still has it better than a lot of people in Africa. Hell they still have it better than people in Indonesia. I have been to America, i've seen the poor there in the streets on winter, but i have also been to India and yes, people are much worse off in India and Indonesia. Hell I see people living in much worse conditions everyday when i walk to work. And no, handouts don't work. Poverty is systemic for a reason. Refer to 4.
3. Saying that the federal government will knock on your door and tax you is crazy. If anything, green taxes will be billed through consumer goods per usage not per household. It's like how there is a crazy high tax on automobiles and fuel in Singapore and most of europe. Hey looky, high (40%++) tax did not sink their economies! And no, they didn't start out with such high taxes. The "old world" developed more or less the same way america and most "industrial" or "catching-up-to-industrial" countries developed through the same track. And yes, if anything an international cap and trade would basically be the industrial countries pulling up the ladder on us pre-industrial countries.
I have no say in the american political system, but seriously the GOP is spewing more crazy uneducated information than the Democrats.
4. Socialism is not necessarily a bad thing.
Take a look at the normal curve. Take a page from Malthus. Unabated, the growth of human population -because they say a holy external justification said that we should go forth and multiply- will bring forth the beginning of the end. If we don't start realizing that the world, no matter how vast it is, is still finite, we will soon burn up too much the earth will no longer be able to sustain us. And no, the final frontier is still not the solution, because sooner or later we will find that time and again that no matter how vast the universe is, it is still finite.
What we need is nothing short of a major reform on how humans look at the earth and the economic systems that we employ. And yes, that means it's time for the US and those "free-trade" promoting countries to realize that their double standard and vile sovereignty-paranoia strategies is ruining the earth and that it is time to change.
@Kari Nogashi:
yes the world has. But when those GW and ice ages happened, mankind was hardier and much smaller in population, making surviving somewhat easier because they were used to limited resources.
Sure some of the 6 billion alive today would probably survive a sudden extreme warming or ice age, but we're talking about the death of anywhere from 1 to 90 (or even more) percent of the human race.
@pollution:
as Ina said, it's basic thermodynamics. You could actually count how many molecules of CO or CO2 produced from every reaction that produces heat or energy.
-w-
PS: if you really are rooting for the poor and middle america, remind me again why you're listening to the party that is in the pockets of big oil (yes, one senator actually sympathized with BP
), big tobacco (keeping americans unhealthy forevermore), big medicine (using your high insurance fees to pay senators to be against "socialist" a.k.a affordable medical healthcare), and big automotive? And remind me why you don't subscribe to a more equitable economic system, one that is definitely not on the minds of people rooting for the GOP?
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