Global growth in carbon emissions is 'out of control'

[PaulaFarrell]

The growth in global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels over the past five years was four times greater than for the preceding 10 years, according to a study that exposes critical flaws in the attempts to avert damaging climate change.

Data on carbon dioxide emissions shows that the global growth rate was 3.2 per cent in the five years to 2005 compared with 0.8 per cent from 1990 to 1999, despite efforts to reduce carbon pollution through the Kyoto agreement.

Much of the increase is probably due to the expansion of the Chinese economy, which has relied heavily on burning coal and other fossil fuels for its energy.

Dr Mike Raupach, chair of the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of researchers who compiled the latest figures, warned yesterday that emissions were spiralling out of control.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1963236.ece

[RestoreGore]

1. What will it have to come to?

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35195

As this article mentions, politicians and the public simply do not understand the urgency of this problem. I suppose the coast of Florida will have to go under water before people see the urgency of this problem. As it is, glaciers in Africa have melted and have shrunk 60% while it's horn experiences severe drought and famine, and glaciers are also now floating towards New Zealand according to reports I have read. Australia is experiencing the worst drought it has had in 1000 years, Northern China is losing land to desert at a fantastic rate, glaciers from the Antarctic to South America are melting much faster than anticipated, and Pacific Islands like Tuvalu are disappearing as this country also experiences a drought from the North to Southwest and lower water levels from the Great Lakes to rivers like the Moreau in South Dakota which is dry. I simply cannot fathom how this doesn't motivate people to action. Sometimes I just want to scream WAKE UP!

[Tellurian]

2. I believe we're almost at the point of no return...

If in fact we haven't reached that point already.
Our new representation has to lay down the law to cut emissions
drastically in the hope it will be enough to preserve what little
we have left. I heard yesterday, the Snows of Kilimanjaro have
evaporated by 60%- No telling, if we are able to reverse carbon emissions
drastically, if this will have enough of a positive impact on global warming.

The thing of it is...the Christian Evangelicals are looking forward
to Armageddon. They think all the man-made climatological changes are
entwined as an Act of God. Well, I think it's alot of hooey. The
climatological changes have occurred as the by-product of corporate greed.

[RestoreGore]

10. So many think it isn't their doing

They think no matter how much Co2 we put in the air it does no harm. They think that no matter how much poison we dump in the rivers and oceans that they are still pristine. It is out of their consciousness and that suits them fine. It is mind boggling.

[barb162]

15. Corporate and national greed

[barb162]

18. It's denial syndrome

[hatrack]

28. It'll probably take a Category 6 Hurricane leveling Miami

Short of that, I don't see this government doing anything beyond praising technology and unveililng voluntary "plans".

[kestrel91316]

3. Not to worry. The ocean can just keep absorbing all that CO2,

at least until its pH reaches oh, say, 3.5. At which point we probably won't have much to worry about anymore.

Dead plankton don't make much O2 from what I've heard...........

[elehhhhna]

4. AL GORE wants to replace all payroll taxes w/ CO2 Emmissions taxes on Companies

Truefact. Google it up. Revenue neutral, gives families and maost companies HUGE tax breaks immediately...

He proposed this a few years ago.

Our biggest co2 emitting-companies can't go offshore, either--they're comprised of power company plants and concrete maufacturing plants. Try making power and concrete in India and relaying it here.

Obviously, the affected companies will attempt to jack their prices up but that's best addressed by OUR regulatory agencies.

Eventually, as they clean up, the tax income would have to be replaced.

Meanwhile, our monopoly power co's are jamming us with extortionary rates and polluting this planet all the way to the bank.

Looks like a breakthrough idea.

[Tellurian]

14. Great idea..

just an additional point of interest.

In talking to a few (die hard) Republican friends of mine tonight. I made mention
of the seriousness of Global Warming. (their response to other demo concerns never ceased to amaze me)
They didn't disappoint. They argued, we're good for another 30 years. Trying to remain calm,
I said, where are you getting this information? The response, It's all over the news. Oh, I said
incredulously, You mean Fox and MSM? Why yes.. they said. All this Global Warming scare is about
Polar Bears dying in the Antarctic....

I can only hope FCC regulations will be reinstated while democrats have the subpoena power and before
Republicans can build up their next head of steam, forcing us down the path to self-destruction.

[elehhhhna]

20. "we're good for another 30 years" Why do Republican'ts HATE their Grandchildren?

[Tellurian]

21. They agree with the Armageddon theory

They are so ready to die, it's sickening.
I have 2 baby grandkids, (1) and (2) years old.
Theres no way I can leave them in a bigger mess
than what we are facing right now.

Al's idea is perfect. The poverty level people
no doubt could be exempt if they can prove their
income is at or below poverty level.

So, to me, Al's idea is a winner.

[Nikia]

22. I have wondered that too

I've been thinking about this the past few years. Why are they so short sighted? Why are the economic profits of the next 10 years or so more important than the future of the human race and complex life on the planet in general? It isn't even a distance future. It is the future of many of those alive today.
We have to take action now. We should have taken action 30 years ago. The longer we wait, the more disastorous it will become.
Tax polluters. Subsidize alternative, cleaner energies. Educate people that their future and that of their children and grandchildren depends on this.
If we do nothing, the best thing that can happen is that the worldwide industrial complex will collapse and over half the world's people will die through starvation, naturual disasters, and resulting wars. The worst thing is that humans and most other multi cell organisms go extinct.
I'm sure that Bush and his friends have taken steps to increase the liklihood that they will be survivors of the collapse, but have they no empathy?

[Tellurian]

26. The PNACers came up with this scheme of a Global Economy..

Actually, it's not new. The Founding Fathers went through it when the Constitution was created.
The anti-Constitutionalists, called The Federalists wanted to create a constitution based on Trade
with the use of man power at slave wages. (seeing there were only the Rich and the Poor) The
Constitutionalists fought this idea as they believed "All Men Are Created Equal". For peoples
protection and as an adjunct to the Constitution, they created the Bill Of Rights to forestall
a Federalists takeover.

The Federalist have been working on and off for over 150 years, waiting for the day they could
usurp the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. That day has finally arrived.

I don't know if this is a legitimate argument against it or not, but this take over was done without
notice. IOW, the breaking of the Constitution was done under fraudulent conditions, beginning with the
Patriot Act and the fraudulent Iraq War. Whether that is reason enough to roll back the breaks in the
Constitution voiding the Federalist version is for Constitutional Scholars to decide.

[Nikia]

23. This is a good idea

It acknowledges that pollution has a cost. It encourages companies to literally clean up their act since economics in the past has discouraged them from this.

[stepnw1f]

5. Thanks to the Major Polluters

most coastal cities will be underwater in 50 years. Will they then be bitching about their bottom line?

I'm doing what I can by driving a small feul efficient vehicle.

[mom cat]

6. We all need to conserve as if there is no tomorrow.

Indeed there might come a day soon when that is the case.

[stepnw1f]

7. It Will Happen

all we can do now is prepare. That means, immediate conservation is in order to lessen the brunt of what is going to happen to all of us globally. Damn... now I sound more like a "conservative" than today's "conservatives" do.

[mom cat]

9. Actually, you sound more like a realist than an ideolog.

[barb162]

16. it's pretty progressive and smart

problem is it isn't happening

[BeHereNow]

8. I can't help but think this is why the Bushies bought in Paraguay

I would just assume that they are making sure
that their family will be in the best position possible
to survive the coming global collapse.

Which would mean that they know exactly what
is looming on the horizon and therefore have no shame
in pillaging as much of America as possible because
they don't plan to be here much longer.

To hell with the rest of us, eh?

BHN

[RestoreGore]

11. It's the water

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaran%C3%AD_Aquifer
The wars for that are coming.

[Tellurian]

13. Brilliant..

Thanks so much for that insight. Everyone is under the impression the Paraguay land deal
is a haven for Bush's hasty exodus out of the country. I think someone even researched the
extradition laws at length and couldn't come to a definitive conclusion.

[barb162]

17. He can buy land at Lake Superior too

I still don't see why he is buying in South America

[gorbal]

31. That would be a perfect filed for their launching pad to heaven

And here I thought they were aliens come down to hypnotize the populous while they suck up all of our natural resources, destroy our planet, then make their way to mars to futher their evil.

[Porcupine]

12. I can't work without my pickup truck. It's old and small but still........

I have to have it to haul tools and materials around. Meanwhile there are traffic jams all across america every day at 8 am and 3 pm as kids are driven the 1-2 miles to school that they could have walked. N

Nobodies going to do shit until we are forced to by the deaths of our neighbors. I wish it were different but Katrina shows us how crappy we are at this. We KNEW New Orleans was at risk and still we didn't have trucks driving into that town the day after the hurricane hit. Hell, volunteers were kept from NO by armed troops on orders from FEMA.

[barb162]

19. "due to the expansion of the Chinese economy"

For years, you see those films of the Peking CHinese walking around with the white face masks because the pollution there is so bad. And it just gets worse. They will be even more enormous polluters each year.

[gorbal]

32. The US is still the largest poluter

per capita and period.

[The2ndWheel]

24. Efficiency not actually helping anything?

Shocking.

You mean more people, using/wanting/expecting more, isn't going to push things in our favor?

This is the problem. Once someone does it, who is anyone to deny it to anyone else? This is why we won't stop voluntarily. And with any alternative fuel, there will be unintended consequences. Whatever we do, there will be that equal and opposite reaction. Which is a shame, because I can't see us doing anything other than complicating the problem. That's been our solution before, and will be again.

[Nikia]

25. How about wind generated electricity?

That seems realtively safe.
Natural gas has been cleaner than coal.
There are things that we could be doing that will only make things better, not worse as far as stopping the progression of pollution driven global warming.

[The2ndWheel]

27. Maybe, maybe not

That's why the consequences are unintended. The effect could be small, but it will still alter something somewhere. Whatever we end up doing, there will be problems. We'll attempt to solve them with increased complexity. There will then be more problems, since they stay ahead of any solutions we come up with. I'm not saying we shouldn't do this or that, I'm not smart enough. But there are issues with anything humans have ever attempted to do, that's all I know.

"There are things that we could be doing that will only make things better"

Unfortunately that isn't possible. Everything has to co-exist with its opposite. You can make some things better, but there is the other side of the scale that moves in relation that we have to watch.

[Strelnikov_]

29. We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When, But It Will Probably

look a lot like the PETM.

Based on current trends, carbon dioxide concentrations are likely to increase to 500ppm this century. The last time the planet experienced levels as high as 500ppm was about 20 or 40 million years ago, when sea levels were 100 metres higher than today.

[gorbal]

30. Things could get bad...REAL bad if we don't do something drastic

Latest research shows the Earth's climate could change quickly, and violently, writes Fred Pearce.


RICHARD ALLEY's eyes glint as we discuss how fast global warming could cause sea levels to rise. The scientist sums up the state of knowledge: "We used to think that it would take 10,000 years for melting at the surface of an ice sheet to penetrate down to the bottom. Now we know it doesn't take 10,000 years, it takes 10 seconds."

That highlights why scientists are panicky about the sheer speed and violence with which climate change could take hold. They are realising that their old ideas about gradual change - the smooth lines on graphs showing warming and sea-level rise and gradually shifting weather patterns - are not how the world's climate system works.

The conventional view holds that sea levels will start to rise as a pulse of warming works its way gradually from the surface through the two kilometre- and three kilometre-thick ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica and melts them. The ice is thick and the heat will penetrate slowly. So we have hundreds, probably thousands, of years to make our retreat to higher ground.

Recent research, however, shows that idea is wrong. Glaciologists forgot about crevasses.

more-


http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/melting-ice-turns-up-the-heat/2006/11/10/1162661895831.html

[sweetheart]

33. they sky is falling, the sky is falling

stupid humanity is out of control,
the sky is falling

[Quantess]

35. the sky is falling is usually used in a way

to reassure chicken little. However, the sky really is falling this time.

Great news.

[codjh9]

34. I haven't read all of the details, but has anyone mentioned POPULATION???

Yes, I know it's also due to big things like growing economies in formerly-not-very-affluent countries like China and India, but a hell of a lot of our problems, not just global warming, go back to TOO MANY PEOPLE, and I'm amazed at how few Democrats are even aware this is a huge problem. Just an FYI for anyone reading this, we were at about 1 billion in 1812 or 1816, 2 billion by ... 1920? ... 3 billion by the 50's or 60's, and now up to 6.5 billion. This can't, and won't, continue... as someone put it in a letter to the editor in the Austin paper a few days ago, even if we were all environmentally aware and correct, it's not enough because there are just plain too many people driving, building, creating waste, eating, etc... but at the same time, I'm not saying it's not worth 'doing the right thing', which I do myself, as do many I know; I'm just saying we've GOT to make progress on this issue or most of our other progress will be moot. End of grandstanding. Thank you very much. :^) (And by the way, don't you get f-ing tired of morons who say 'mute' when they mean 'moot'? :^)