There is something like a 90% chance of getting a cap-and-trade system passed within the next two months. McCain-Warner is going up for vote in a couple of months, and if it passes then Bush is going to be under a lot of pressure to sign it since A) McCain is the Republican nominee and B) both Obama and Cinton have their own versions of a cap-and-trade system. This bill isn't perfect, but it's a pretty good start toward fixing the problem. If it doesn't get passed in two months then almost certainly it will in another year, or failing that, Obama's bill will.
It's gotten to the point where even many of the major industrial companies in the US support a cap-and-trade system. Risk costs serious money for entrepreneurs. When taking out a loan on these billion-dollar power plants their weighted average cost of capital goes up a lot since they know there are going to be new rules in place but they don't know what the rules will be. It's actually better for these companies to get the rules in place ASAP because their cost of capital goes down so they get a much better return on their investments. That's partially why Duke and Alcoa and Caterpillar and Dupont and all these companies are lobbying for cap-and-trade.
I think we are going to see more progress on this issue than anyone can possibly imagine within the next couple of years. Once a cap-and-trade system is put in place, expect solar photovoltaic to achieve price parity with coal within 24 months.
I believe the single biggest problem is that planes fligh so high they are burning Ozone which has 2 parts oxygen rather then flying lower. Since the engines run better burning ozone rather then just plain oxygen that we breath they save money flying higher and will keep doing so.
Major urban areas, such as London, can be three degrees centigrade warmer than the surrounding region partly due to dark synthetic surfaces which absorb extra energy. Dark tarmac roads cover a significant proportion of urban areas and therefore contribute significantly to this effect.
Massive decrease of earth's human population. Biological, Nuclear or Nano, pick your delivery method ... Stop worrying and learn to love the extinction event.
Global warming will be defeated by incremental increases in efficiency across the board.... think of it as the death of a thousand cuts.
Everything from better internal combustion engines, electric motors, improved solar energy technology, carbon capture to my affliction, aerodynamic drag, will make “small” but significant progress.
Combined, those incremental advances will add up to a serious threat to the threat of climate change.
Just thinking, we are told oil, gas etc. are running out and also that these items are causing global warming. Now I reckon that all the economical carbon in fossil fuels is going to be used up and is going into the atmosphere anyway so is it not just a question of timing?
If you mean "global warming", don't worry, it will be discredited soon enough, (for those who don't already know it is a pile of crap, and I mean that in the most rigorous mathematical sense).
I don't fear "climate change" as in most temperate zones climate changes every 6 months, just as it has for thousands of years.
Seasonal change != Climate change. The former is something ecosystems have had years to adapt to. The latter is a problem because it disrupts an established pattern & organisms (including ourselves) have not learned to adapt to the new environment. The loss of biological diversity as a result of human disruptions of ecosystems is the real killer here.
You examine the current mathematical climate models and determine their limitations in terms of available CPU power, RAM, disk on even the largest supercomputers.
Then you take into account the lack of any accurate model at all being available for the operation of the seas and oceans - we don't have an accurate mathematical model for even the Gulf Stream, for instance; much less the rest of the world.
Then you realize that all prediction models are so error-prone due to the above that they cannot be relied upon with a reasonable degree of certainty.
As a resident of one of our lovely northern states recently digging out of a cold winter into a colder spring, my only concern is that by the time it gets notably warmer , I'll be long dead.
It's gotten to the point where even many of the major industrial companies in the US support a cap-and-trade system. Risk costs serious money for entrepreneurs. When taking out a loan on these billion-dollar power plants their weighted average cost of capital goes up a lot since they know there are going to be new rules in place but they don't know what the rules will be. It's actually better for these companies to get the rules in place ASAP because their cost of capital goes down so they get a much better return on their investments. That's partially why Duke and Alcoa and Caterpillar and Dupont and all these companies are lobbying for cap-and-trade.
I think we are going to see more progress on this issue than anyone can possibly imagine within the next couple of years. Once a cap-and-trade system is put in place, expect solar photovoltaic to achieve price parity with coal within 24 months.