Much of the annoyance directed at the notion of remediation is its popularity among the very folks who've seamlessly gone from saying that global warming isn't happening to saying that it's not our fault, and that it's beneficial anyway. Even then, I don't think they've actually talked much about remediation except in the comfortable abstract, with little mention of the Netherlands, much less Bangladesh.
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This is an important and often overlooked insight (indeed, it was overlooked here).
It reveals why several of my (relatively recently) climate concerned leftie friends accuse me of parroting the 'now we're green!' propaganda campaigns of General Electric, Exxon/Mobil and fellow travelers.
They incorrectly believe that I'm either minimizing the problem or, as is the case with my hair trigger colleagues here, misunderstand my position to be built upon 'fatalism' or 'collapsism'.
Which is a pity because I'm no late bloomer when it comes to this topic.
I've been researching, talking and thinking about climate change since the very early 1980's when the initial theoretical work analyzing C02's interaction with the atmosphere came to my attention via a NOVA program (NOVA, for those non-US listmembers who may not know, is an American television program about science).
I remember riding my bike to the main branch of Philadelphia's Free Library to hungrily take in the relevant publications from NASA, which delighted my teachers (and the librarian) even if at the time, they, like most people, thought it was all rather far fetched.
Although I was only a boy, the implications of this work were quite sobering.
It was immediately clear to me that two, interlinked actions were required: we must stop depending upon our old friend combustion and, we must remake our built environment - using techniques not unlike the sorts of things done in the Netherlands (as you mentioned) and Japan and S. Korea in response to environmental problems - to prepare for more powerful storms, altered growing seasons and other projected changes.
This is a multidimensional challenge, no doubt the single greatest one our species has faced in quite some time. The relevant components are political, social and technological. An astoundingly broad and deep array of talents are required - the very best science, the smartest activism, the keenest sort of political savvy. In the process of engineering remediation and emission reduction, we will build a different world (I have no idea if it will be better but it will surely be rather different).
This is what I've been saying for over 20 years - from late childhood to now. I'm disappointed that amongst some of my comrades it tends to activate the denouncement gene which manifests as false charges of corporate sympathizing, do-nothing fatalism, mindless technophilia and other types of thought crimes.
Wearying.
Andy F wrote:
Remember that the very people who have plotted out a certain amount of inevitability of a coming crisis have also emphasized the urgency of preventing the worst case scenarios -- Jim Hansen's ten years, a year or so ago.
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Again, an important and often overlooked point.
I strongly recommend that everyone read Jim Hansen's (head of NASA's Institute of Space Studies and perhaps the premier American scientist in this field) presentation, "Can we defuse the global warming time bomb?"
A link to a laymen version:
<http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh.html>
Summary: All glaciers in America's Glacier National Park are retreating inexorably to their final demise. Global warming is real, and the melting ice is a portent of potentially disastrous consequences. Yet most gloom-and-doom climate scenarios exaggerate trends of the agents that drive global warming. Study of these forcing agents shows that global warming can be slowed, and stopped, with practical actions that yield a cleaner, healthier atmosphere.
And if anyone would like to read the full PDF file, go to:
<http://monroelab.net/docs/hansen-2003.pdf>
.d.