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Originally Posted by TSGracchus
It's not anything to write home about. The only way to solve the problem is to actually cut the greenhouse gases we're putting into the air, not increase it less quickly....
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When someone in the world comes up with a plan to
cut the rate without crippling their economy any more or other possible ramifications, then I will listen to it. No one is cutting
any emissions anywhere. We just happen to be doing a better job of moving in that direction than the others.
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.... I can't remember where I saw this, but somebody had a good article on this very subject, and she drew an analogy with someone who had a weight problem. He goes to his doctor one day and he weighs 225 pounds. He goes back six months later and he weighs 250 pounds; that's an 11% increase. He goes back six months after that, and he weighs 275 pounds. That's only a 10% increase! We've slowed the rate of gaining weight!
But the guy's still a fattie, isn't he? And there's another little tidbit buried in that math. Note that both the first 11% increase and the second 10% increase represent the same actual amount of weight: 25 pounds in each case. Add a certain amount to a big number and it represents a smaller percent increase than adding the same amount to a smaller number. Which is one reason why using "percent of increase" in greenhouse gases is inherently deceptive.
And I would also say that this explains why the U.S. emissions have increased less, measured in this deceptive way, than other countries'. We were emitting much more to start with, and therefore the increase we had represents a smaller percentage of this larger whole than that of another country that started with less.
It is simply inconceivable that the U.S. be doing better in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, either as a total or as a function of size of economy, than, say, France, when the U.S. has very poor public transportation and most people drive everywhere they go, and we get a lot of our electricity from coal plants, while France has excellent public transportation and people tend to drive less, and most of their electricity comes from nuclear (which for all its faults doesn't contribute to global warming at all). But it is conceivable that we're doing better in terms of "rate of increase" -- and that is yet another illustration of why this measure is deceptive.
The problem with any nation's "rate of increase" in greenhouse emissions isn't that it is bigger or smaller than another's, but that it is positive instead of negative. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply -- not merely slow down the speed with which we're increasing them....
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When a plan is proposed that will do just that while taking into consideration an analysis of any other ramifications, I will listen to it. In the mean time, the US fattie is doing a better job at it. Calling the numbers dishonest does not make them dishonest.
Believe it or not, this administration is not
completely bad. There are some positives for those willing to see them.
Thanks for the link. It's dated 2002, as is the official announcement of policy. Volker spoke in 2007. Does that mean someone is necessarily lying? No. It would be scarier if one's views were so dug in that they refuse to learn something new in an ever-moving area of the sciences. That may be a better explanation than the necessary lie.