>High-minded dreams about lighter than air machines, homeworking and
>electricity from farts does not amount to a socialist environmental
>strategy. OK, I’m caricaturing a bit now, but my serious point is: if
>as socialists you are as serious about running the world as I am, how do
>you propose to provide energy and consumer goods? My answer is: more
>technology, controlled more consciously to address human needs.
Has anyone disagreed with this? Of course we need technology to progress and of course it needs to be directed towards better meeting human needs. But that does not mean that it is possible or even desirable to have every person on the planet live the lifestyle of US citizen making $60,000 a year. Everyone does not need their own two car garage with 2 SUV's in it. You seem to believe that it is necessary for everyone to have A/C in their home. I am not saying that is impossible but we must be prepared to deal with that fact if it is shown to be impossible. We COULD run everything we currently have on 1/2 the fossil fuel we currently use with little disruption in most matters if we had the desire to do so. We do not. Why assume that we develop that desire without a serious problem forcing that type of structural change? I am not worried about running out of oil. That is quite some time in the distant future, outside my lifetime. Running out of oil in and of itself means nothing it is the inevitable unequally distributed impact of that change that is of concern. I do not have a solid answer as to what to do but rushing to make certain everyone has an SUV and A/C as soon as possible is definitely not an answer. As far as research is concerned if you wish to believe that the research of someplace like "The Information Council on the Environment" or the work of individuals like Pat Michaels, Robert Balling, Richard Lindzen or Fred Singer is up to anywhere near the standards of the IPCC or the American Institute of Physics that is your choice. MOST professions in the field of climatology (or any other physical science) will disagree with you and them but since we do not have enough of a consensus yet we better get cracking on installing A/C units and PC's in more homes in China. We can call it the "Leave No PC Behind" campaign. Have you actually read any of the papers from the two institutions I mentioned above? The IPCC does impeccable research as does the AIP. These two organizations are the tops in their respective fields. The AIP is concerned with all the physical sciences so you would have to search out their work on climate change but they have a decent body of work in this field. If someone has better researched work in this field I would be more than willing to read it and would enjoy doing so but work by hacks like those mentioned above do not fit that request. Can anyone seriously say that Sherwood and Craig Idso's pro-carbon dioxide website and research center that is sponsored by coal producers is a good source of information? When Peter Gleick, Timothy Carter, Richard Moss, David Griggs , David Viner, or Martin Manning have criticisms of their work that is anywhere near as valid as the criticism of the aforementioned quacks I'll be happy to read that too. Send me one criticism of David Griggs work that is remotely similar to the criticisms of Michaels work with it's deliberately altered IPCC charts, deliberately outdated data and occasionally fabricated data and I'll forward it to everyone I know. To pretend that there is a valid "debate" on climate is to imagine that a debate on the link between cancer and smoking is raging. While there are disagreements on specifics, as there is in any theory, to imagine that means there is uncertainty on the underlying nature, cause, and likely effects of climate change is preposterous. The medias slavish insistence on portraying an active debate about this does everyone a tremendous disservice.
John Thornton
>Engaging with you has helped me to think
>through some of these issues, regardless of changing minds. My challenge
>to you isn't to make me change my mind, but to provide
>something more substantial than the usual resource shortage/global
>warming mantra. Then at least there would be something substantial to debate.
>
>James Greenstein