On 11 Apr 2007 at 10:09, Dan Minette wrote: > In other areas, however, such long term thinking would be costly. Japan's
It's not about future technologies, it's about using the greener alternatives avaliable today. > You stated that, given the technology we have now, the cost of going green > has dropped from 50 trillion to 35 trillion. My counter is that, given such No, I'm saying that the 50 billion figure is inflated, because it assumes zero savings from using todays green technologies. > example, for decades. Yet, solar power provides a smaller share of the US > energy supply than it did a decade ago. And will drop, if anything. Without micro-G, you cannot make cost- efficient solar pannels. Solar heaters are something else entirely, and are not doing as badly, but have a lesser impact. > But, they are still only borderline, even at these prices. Biofuel now Biofuel? Um, try "Nuclear". > >There simply has not been the political > > will in America to push for environmental protection, as you know. > > Actually, there has been. I remember what pollution was like 40 years ago > compared to now. For example, we have accepted a very significant decrease > in the efficiency of our cars in order to cut pollution. There is not the To cut certain forms of pollution, because they were a clear nuscence to the average member of the public, sure. But "global warming" is too abstract for many people to understand, where "smog" isn't. > > Yes, I'm eco-realist, but I've never thought that in the end we will > > have a soloution. This is what I believe is the answer to Fermi's > > Paradox, quite frankly. It is quite clear that our government and > > legal systems are not even remotely in step with the environmental > > and societal changes... > > My argument is that, using present day technology, the cost of stopping > global warming will be larger than the cost of cutting it as we can and > adapting to the rest. You seem to indicate that the cost of the latter is > the end of the human race. Nothing I see from reasonable sources, such as > scientific bodies, the UN report, etc. indicates that there is any risk of > that. The end of this *society*. And things like the climate reports don't speculate on what happens if we continue like this..and you have to remember recent developments such as the discovery of shallow, unstable clathrate beds. The just-in-time, consumer society of today is a fragile construct, based on supply lines which global warming will cut, and on labour who will not be able to spare effort from their attempts to save their own countries... AndrewC Dawn Falcon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
