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Jeffbloggs
Member
@ Sojin
You wrote my mind, word for word!! ;) Good stuff.
It seems we were on the same page all along, despite our varied opinions on some subjects!
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Jeff we might disagree about the merits of certain programs/subsidies or strategies, but I have thought for a while we had much agreement on the seriousness of the problem and the need to implement some real solutions.
I personally would be putting Nuclear power on the table today in Australia and commencing closing of older black and brown coal stations. (Germany, US, Japan, China, Russia, UK, France - etc etc etc already have it in their base load clean energy mix)
As stated elsewhere I dont have much confidence in "clean coal" but see merit in some R&D to prove or disprove its viability - but we cant wait another 20 years "doing nothing" hoping it "will work".
I would also set a simple carbon price and implement it as a carbon tax to level the playing field between fossil fuels and RE, and energy efficiency/conservation.
Our entire economies are based on "consumption" hence economic growth of 3% needs @3% of population growth (20M people, 200k immigrants = 1% from overseas, then locally born makes up the rest - ie Costello's have 1 for yourself and 1 for your country).
Cars/Goods are not "made to last", they are "made to be replaced", planned obsolence, to maintain factories/shops/sales, consumerism is trained buy luxuries not neccessities, we eat too much to keep the growers, processors, retailers, and kids flipping burgers at Macca's all "making money" and then suffer the illnesses and keep the doctors, nurses and funeral directors "employed" too.
But to stop this game of monopoly will hurt thousands of people financially and physically - around the world!
Workers (who wont vote in parties "for it") and investors (who will lobby or donate to political parties "against it") hence we blindly rush forward to Big Australia, Big World, PEAK POPULATION?
The two extremes of climate outcomes are sitting next to us for all to see.
Venus, an Earth like planet with super high temperatures due to the thick gas atmosphere trapping heat in like a pressure cooker, (of course its "natural" not a result of the "Venitian's" using too much coal.)
Mars, a planet that at one time has surface water - yes rivers, and so a level of atmosphere, now a barren dry cold dead planet, (similarly its "natural" not the result of "Martians" over grazing?)
Which one do we plan to make Earth look like, Mars after we have stripped and eaten, burnt, consumed, or built over every stick of wood and plant on the planet just like a plague of locusts, or Venus after we put enough smog, carbon and other chemical and gas emissions into the atmoshere that it starts the same green house effect here?
(You know now I come to think of it? "Perhaps" the Martians stuffed Mars, survivors moved to Venus, stuffed that too, and a few of the then Venitians escaped to Earth and they in now the process of stuffing it as well!- smiles- well it would make a good TV comedy! - Exterminate all Venitians immediately - woops they're - "US")
The Climate is clearly in delicate balance, if it is in balance at all or are we just in a pleasant period between an ice age and a dry age, but we are clearly causing man made change, with science claiming those changes will accelerate!
To agree with Rupert Murdoch just once!
"WE have to give the planet the benefit of doubt"
We can of course rely on religion or science fiction to save us!
1. God will turn up, spend another 7 days to build us a new planet to live on, and scold us for messing this "garden of eden" up! (perhaps the new planet wont be given any apple trees next time to tempt us with?)
2. Science will design the hyperdrive, or a fleet of Star Trek Enterprises, or StarGate worm holes and simply move our 9B+ population to another Earth like planet in the Alpha Quadrant -
it happens every week on TV, and todays scfi device is tomorrows IPOD isnt it - all we have to do is wait! - (perhaps the Vulcans will turn up and take us all to their place while we find a new planet to live on?)
I am intentionally being sarcastic and flippant about a very serious issue, because our lack of action is so laughable! There seems not one Government in the world who is 100% certain its a hoax, that it DOESNT exist!
And most appear to be publicly committing to some level of reductions, Kyoto etc
Yet few if any are actually delivering or achieving on them, or implementing any serious plan to do so?
By the time the climate changes are so obvious, so beyond any sceptic or serious debate, we will have already moved beyond recoverable change, we will be on the slippery slide to a less enjoyable world, and those who greedily put off dealing with it because they were too busy making money will have enjoyed their life in any case!
Simply too greedy to consider their fellow and current human passengers on the planet, let alone the future human passengers who will use this planet after us.
To the Last one aboard onto the Intergalactical Space Bus - please turn the lights out on planet earth, "we're trying to save energy, and the planet"!
regards
Sojin Muneshi