Global warming and what we can do: Part 2

Here is the promised part 2 where I discuss some possible things we can do to deal with the global warming.

This leads us to the situation we are now in, the world is warming and our CO₂ emissions are the most likely cause of it.

• Will cutting back on our CO₂ emissions have any effect?

Probably not a big effect unless we can get China and India to sign on as well.

• Does this mean we should not try to cut back?

Certainly we should try to limit our CO₂ production, any reduction is better than no reduction at all.

• What about the technological ideas that might save us?

We have very little idea what any "geo-engineering" attempt to sequester atmospheric carbon will be able to achieve and how bad the side-effects will be, such as ocean acidification.

• What happens if we don't cut back on the levels of atmospheric CO₂?

Well the warming will probably continue to increase, we will continue to lose ice caps (this will happen even if levels do not increase, we have now lost about 10 ice sheets and new studies are showing that ALL of Antarctica is indeed warming) and begin to experience sea level rises. This will put a strain on our food production, if not through direct loss of arable land then by migrations of people from coastal areas.

As we live on a finite planet and have shown only finite growth in technological advances in the past, one should really plan to use the resources we have in a responsible manner.

We need to encourage investment in cleaner and renewable technologies that we have, as well as fund research into more such technologies. Particularly the government and the power generation industry needs to get into this as does much of the rest of industry.

Unless there is incentive to invest in new technologies and a disincentive to continue as is then things will not change. We cannot leave this up to the free market to adjust our behaviours.

Whether we cap and trade with a steadily reducing cap, or we carbon tax depends on how the proceeds are distributed, and how the incentives for new technologies are to be handled. For example IF the best way to induce investment in new technologies was by government funding incentives then this would probably be best to be funded by a carbon tax (where all of the proceeds of the tax go back into the new technologies).

Though I would like to point out that if businesses simply pass on all there new costs associated with either the cap and trade or the carbon tax straight to the consumers then the system will not work. In the case of petrol the costs should probably be passed on (as much as it pains my very limited budget to admit).

But for power generation, which is something that is very integral to our modern civilization, this is where the costs should be born almost solely by the corporations involved in the generation. If the costs are simply passed on to the consumer then there will be very little incentive for investment in new tech on the part of the power companies.

As for what we should do for China and India and the like, well clearly if they keep burning coal as they are particularly in China, we may all be completely f'ed. So the first world nations will need to help out, with incentives to use clean sources for energy, nuclear power being probably the first cab off the rank. Followed by the sharing of all the renewable technologies we have.

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Government Funded Woo

Here in New Zealand the ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation), which is the government funded accident compensation scheme providing 24-hour no-fault personal injury insurance cover (and yes I lifted that description off their webpage), has for a while now been funding certain "complimentary and alternative" treatments such as chiropractic, acupuncture and osteopathy.

However in The Press on Friday, we hear that the new Minister for ACC (who has been on the job for almost 6 weeks now despite our election happening after that of the US) will be reviewing this policy:

Spiralling public spending on complementary medicine will be reviewed amid concerns about the treatments, ACC Minister Nick Smith says.

The ACC spent $37 million on complementary and alternative medicine (Cam) in the 2007-2008 year up from $18.4 million in 2003-2004.

Smith said Cam expenditure had been growing significantly faster than other parts of accident compensation.

There were "legitimate questions" about the effectiveness of some alternative treatments, and the issue would be looked at as part of a broader ACC review, he said.

This was brought to my attention over the weekend via the NZ Skeptics group, along with the suggestion that we email the minister and show our support for this (and I suggest that any NZ readers here do the same, my email will be reprinted below the fold). I think this is certainly a cause for hope that reality may be setting in here, and at least some in the new government will be on our side, for example Dr Smith who is the ACC minister is also the Minister for Climate Change.

Dear Dr Smith

I wanted to thank you for initiating an investigation into the ACC funding of "CAM" treatments, many of which have been shown to have no medical validity.

I think that you should follow the position of the MoH, in that only those treatments which are shown to be effective should be funded.

Any treatment modality which can be shown to be effective under the standards used to judge modern medicine, is neither complimentary or alternative, it would simply be medicine, and as such your funding model should reflect this.

I feel that this investigation is a good thing for the country and I wish you all the best for it. A good resource to help sift the wheat from the chaff would be the excellent website http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/.

Thank you for your time

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Sophisticated Political Commentary of the Day

This is worth a look at

Sophisticated Political Commentary of the Day

Posted using ShareThis

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Its about time

It appears that Obama has finally beaten Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Why on Earth did this process take so bloody long, why can't all those little states get their acts together and vote over a time period that isn't 6 months.

Seriously they could do it all on one day (as we will see in November) but if they want to take a bit of time, why not 1 - 2 weeks, surely with all the campaigning that happened before the the first of the primaries would that not be enough time to shake some hands and kiss some babies? Or if you are a republican shake some babies and kiss some hands.

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If I were American

I saw this on The Greenbelt and decided that it would be fun just to see roughly whose policies are in line with my own. Now since I am not a US citizen this is rather pointless, and of course I have never heard of about half of them (and some of the rest by name only) but I am not too surprised at some of the names at the top and the bottom of the list.

Thank you for visiting this Selector.
For more information on this selector and your results, go to 2008 President Selector

Rankings:

1. Theoretical Ideal Candidate (100 %)
2. Dennis Kucinich (85 %)
3. Barack Obama (81 %)
4. Alan Augustson (campaign suspended) (75 %)
5. Joseph Biden (75 %)
6. Christopher Dodd (74 %)
7. Hillary Clinton (74 %)
8. Al Gore (not announced) (71 %)
9. Wesley Clark (not announced) (70 %)
10. Michael Bloomberg (not announced) (69 %)
11. John Edwards (67 %)
12. Mike Gravel (not announced) (65 %)
13. Bill Richardson (62 %)
14. Kent McManigal (campaign suspended) (55 %)
15. Ron Paul (53 %)
16. Elaine Brown (38 %)
17. Rudolph Giuliani (28 %)
18. John McCain (25 %)
19. Mitt Romney (24 %)
20. Mike Huckabee (23 %)
21. Chuck Hagel (not announced) (19 %)
22. Tommy Thompson (17 %)
23. Newt Gingrich (not announced) (15 %)
24. Fred Thompson (not announced) (14 %)
25. Tom Tancredo (14 %)
26. Jim Gilmore (withdrawn) (11 %)
27. Sam Brownback (10 %)
28. Duncan Hunter (3 %)

And all that with no real science questions asked, despite the fact that that would be one of my big priorities.

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