“The science is clear: we are on a path of deadly global warming caused by anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases, most common of which is carbon dioxide.”

Anthropogenic global warming is immeasurably small.

“Already we are seeing our glaciers disappearing, which are a source for clean drinking water;”

And if they stopped melting, there would be no drinking water at all. Worse, if they started advancing, they would wipe out every village in their path.

droughts have become more common, as have flash floods.

Precipitation has been increasing, which is the exact opposite of what should be happening under CO2 induced global warming. Antarctica is accumulating ice, the sahara desert is turning green. Warmer average temperatures produce milder weather by all accounts.

“Ocean levels are rising due to melting polar caps and threaten to submerge entire island countries and coastal cities. Millions of species of fauna are under the threat of extinction due to destruction of ecosystems and shift in weather patterns.”

Oceans have been rising for over 10,000 years at an average rate of 4ft per century. Today they rise at approximately 1.8mm per year, and there has been no acceleration of sea level rise at or after the onset of the industrial revolution, period. The antarctic is not melting, no sea level rise will occur from melting of the arctic sea ice, since ice displaces its volume in water. 25 species will go extinct tomorrow, whether we do anything or not.

Green energy, isn’t.

Mike, the glaciers are melting faster than they get replenished. So yes we have water for now, but will have none in the long run.

I live in a state which is suffering from the worst drought in 40 years. And my parents live in a city that nearly got submerged in rain. And I agree some places must be becoming milder, but its probably not long term. And I live in a place which is seeing extreme heat and cold.

The Arctic will practically be gone in a decade. But I agree with your point about sea levels not rising much. My sentence is exaggerated.
Thanks for reading it fully.

I live in Australia, where we’ve been suffering through drought for about a decade,  and had our worst bushfires for more than 70 years. You might wonder why I’m not concerned. That would be because precisely, we had a worse bushfire 70 years ago, and similarly, you had worse drought 40 years ago. Increasing frequency and intensity of these events under anthropogenic global warming would suggest these extreme events should be compounded decade after decade. Indeed the data suggests that neither the intensity nor frequency of droughts, floods, wildfires, hurricanes or similar have observably changed at all since the onset of the industrial revolution. Glacial melt has also not accelerated at or since the onset of the industrial revolution.

Oceans are the primary driver of global precipitation and directly regulate climate, particularly in coastal areas. ENSO (El-Nino Southern Oscillation), is associated with warmer weather and flooding during El-Nino, and colder weather and drought during La-Nina. These two phenomenon are attributable to warm and cold ocean currents respectively. The cycle between El-Nino dominant and La-Nina dominant cycles is known as the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and has a cycle of about 20-30 years, which explains why we see these extreme climatic events every several decades, rather than compounded effects decade after decade.

There are a number of anthropogenic influences on local climate, particularly land use changes, which do have an impact. For example, the urban heat island effect can prevent clouds from precipitating over them. Pre-burning of bushlands prevents extreme wildfires. There are positive and negative effects, depending on how you look at it. However, of all the reasons to blame climate change on, CO2 is the worst.

Some very scientific comments precede mine, however simpleton that I am, I’ll just continue to crib about India.
The blog gives impetus to the societal behavior and demand shift. However, here in India, which is notorious for “why me first?”, where a shift is not just about preference and feeling greener but about paying more, do you really think it is gonna happen. The Indian youth education plan notwithstanding, people here or anywhere(except Denmark lol) do not shift in face of economic disadvantage.
Good essay, would just like a better, more watertight plan for the future.

i did not know this…. most informative

Well, maybe we are just too small to matter when it comes to long term climatic changes.Yes it is true, even worse and inhospitable turns towards climate have resulted in The Permian Era or geological history when 90% of existing species were wiped out. But should that be enough to acquit ourselves of our guilt in tinkering around with our environment (to use a less magnified word).
Why is it that 45% of variability in India’s GDP is on account of Rainfall variation? Maybe we all didn’t do this. It might just be a decadal oscillation . But still we do have a combined responsibility to amend the situation while it threatens us. One of the major points in India’s agenda for climate change is afforestation . Since there might be many who would not like to visualize such green belts as GHG reserves , there is no dispute on the fact that afforestation in the vicinity of urban centers and preservation of vegetation has a positive effect on local climate.
So even if we are going through a bad phase of global climate which is not our doing, is it prudent for us to debate whether or not we
should take measures to prevent such adversities from jeopardizing our growth?
And Mr. Mike, I may maybe be ignorant of the facts, but we were taught in our countries that extinction of a large number of indigenous species of plants and animals in Australia was anthropogenic or was it just their Karma?

All I’m saying is that 25 species will go extinct every day, regardless of our behaviour. Antropogenic causes of species extinction have nothing to do with CO2 emissions; it is a mistake to lump this with other anthropogenic causes such as hunting, habitat destruction, etc.

Changes in weather patterns are the norm, not the exception. When nature throws us a curve ball it is up to us to adapt, not to try and change nature. It is therefore not prudent to jeapordise your energy security for the sake of preventing imaginary causes to your problems. CO2 is not whatdunit.

Nice post, succinct.

Amazing !

Have we ever been accurate enough, in analyzing patterns and predicting results, specially of the magnitude as this? Obviously not, else Bankers at Wall street would still have owned that yacht.

Having said so, I do agree, with all the facts, reasoning that point towards us eventually leading into destroying the current stable state of our environment. Implying, it wouldn’t destroy the environment just make it unstable.

Mike said it better - “Changes in weather patterns are the norm, not the exception. When nature throws us a curve ball it is up to us to adapt, not to try and change nature. It is therefore not prudent to jeapordise your energy security for the sake of preventing imaginary causes to your problems. CO2 is not whatdunit. “

Lets face it. We need to generate electricity… shit loads of it and if not through coal, it would be done through wind mills / hydel power. These have already led to tremendous adverse effects to the ecosystem, wherever they have been implemented resulting in earthquakes, changes in temperatures etc.

My point :
1. Changing practices is needed, but we still ain’t sure what to replace it with.
2. We ain’t capable of destroying the environment nor rectifying the damage caused.

Well, climate change and its impacts have reached such a level that they cannot be reversed n near future. Its better that while talking about problems on one side, we also think how we all should try to adjust in our changed habitat.
Maldives govt. did a good thing by holding underwater cabinet meetings. Soon we all would also need to adjust to changed climate, global sea rise, etc.

@Mike & Nayak: Brilliant discussion!

A few days back, we were discussing about businesses which might be able to capitalize on the climate change instead of trying to prevent it. Mike put it brilliantly when he said “When nature throws us a curve ball it is up to us to adapt, not to try and change nature.”

Climate change would not only make currently hospitable regions inhospitable but also the opposite of it - make currently inhospitable regions hospitable. And I do believe - it is possible for us to predict these changes to a sufficient degree of accuracy so that we can plan an intra-planetary migration & revamp our resource utilization plans.

I am not sure how much effort is going in the direction of understanding the change & adapting to it. Is it even comparable to the efforts being done to spread awareness about ‘preventing’ climate change?

The ramblings of a skeptic:
by Mike

The alarmists would have us believe that climate change is something that is abrupt, out of control and a threat to humanity’s existance as we know it. There is no science or observation to support this sort of alarmist, fear-mongering doomsaying and agitators of the alarm use this as a tool to further their agendas.

The reality is, it has taken 150 years for the world to conceivably warm a paltry 0.8 degrees. The majority of this warming by the alarmist’s own admission is entirely attributable to natural until about 1970. When people talk about man-made global warming, they are talking about the warming between 1976-2009. Out of the 33 years during this period, the world has warmed approximately 0.2 degrees on average and this warming occured for just 22 out out the 33 years (1976-1998). For 11 years (1998-2009) the warming has ceased and entered a stasis.

Astronomers predict that because of the inactivity of the Sun, that we may not see warming again until 2030. If this is true, then by 2030, we will have observed 22 years of warming and 32 years of statis/cooling. Where then, is the man-made global warming? Where then is the crisis of sudden, abrupt climate change? Supposedly, when warming returns, it will return with a vengeance. How contradictory that an accumulation of carbon dioxide could trigger a step change in temperature.

It is also ironic that the alarmists point to natural causes and the sun to explain the unpredicted absence of warming, while they simultaneously claim such natural variation is completely accounted for in their models of doom, and insignificant contributers to warming.

You need only look at where the climate hysteria is heading to see that it really is all bullshit. More taxes. More power. Bigger government. Fewer freedoms. They call it “progress”, they call it a “transition”, they call it “green”.

Science and environmentalism, the two biggest casualties to this perverse hysteria, have been hijacked by those pushing climate change hysteria. From the corruption of the peer review process to the diversion of attention from real environmental catastophes; we live a state ruled by the word of “experts” and the “environmental activist”, but whose interests are they really serving? They certainly aren’t doing it for us, and they certainly aren’t doing it for the planet, even if they think they do. The end result tells all.

Everything about the climate change hysteria, no matter where you turn or what you do, they ladle you with guilt; the guilt of your dirty carbon sins, the guilt of some poor person in poverty suffering from drought, the guilt of your children’s children’s future being jeapordised by your actions. Then they tell you that it’s ok, that all you have to do is “go green!”.

What is green? Green like the grass, or the green in my wallet? “Green energy”, “green cars”, “green lightbulbs”, “green buildings”, “green lifestyles”, “green” this and that, it’s all enough to turn your face… green. When they say “green” what they really mean is “more efficient”, because having more efficient light bulbs and appliances use less energy which in turn emit less CO2. Is it really that simple? Everything has a cost, and apparently, the cost of living “green” is beyond prohibitive for 80% of the people living on this planet.

Is it any coincidence that everything “green” is always more expensive, if not the most expensive option? Solar energy, “green”, but expensive. Wind energy, “green”, but expensive. Hybrid cars, electric cars, “green”, but expensive. And not just a little expensive, but 3-10 times more so. Starting to sound like they really were referring to the green in my wallet.

And it’s not just the “costs” of going green. Promoters always downplay the hidden costs. They will setup a small island in the middle of nowhere, put 20 wind turbines on it and go, “here’s the model guys, now let’s do it to the whole planet!”. Each wind turbine is about 500 tonnes of steel. The island I’m talking about in particular is Samsoe, with a population just over 4000. Each turbine is then effectively servicing 200 people. There are then 6.8 billion people on the planet. That’s 34,000,000 wind turbines. That’s 6.8 billion tonnes of steel. That’s more than 10 times the world annual production. That doesn’t include the infrastructure costs. Then there’s land. Each turbine has to be spaced apart by 500 metres in all directions to effectively use the wind energy properly. That’s 8.5 million square kilometers, or 6% of the entire planet’s land surface. To put this into perspective, urban areas only account for 1.5% of the planet’s land surface. This does not take into account the unreliability of wind power nor does it account for geographical limitations. The turbines must also be placed close to where the energy is used to minimise energy loss through transmission.

Part 2:

An analysis of everything else “green” quickly comes to the same conclusion: They are not viable, and they are not “green”. The agitators would be quick to dismiss such an analysis by pointing out the fallacy of appling wind turbines as a silver bullet solution. They would ignoring the fact that the other alternatives suffer the exact same problems as wind power. The only one that doesn’t is geothermal, however it has the downfall of being the most expensive renewable technology by far and has substantial technological and geographically limitations.

The other aspect of “green” mentality is that of “sacrafice”. The whole “you must sacrafice your ways for the greater good”, for that poor peasant who’s about to drown from rising sea levels, which incidentally, aren’t rising. At least, they aren’t rising any faster now than they were 200 years ago. No one is going to drown from a 1.8mm rise per year in global sea levels.

According to promoters of climate change hysteria, almost everything must be sacraficed: Electricity, gas, oil, coal, nuclear, planes, cars, food, houses and more. And before that, they want you to make many “small” sacrifices and chores before the big “necessary” sacrifices later down the line such as: turning of the lights, switching your light bulbs, taking 3 minute showers, walking instead of driving, meatless mondays, turning off your heating, turning off your air conditioner, turn off your applicances at the switch, and thousands of other little things you can do so you can feel “green”.

The promoters of the climate change hysteria believe that a “solution” can be achieved in a few decades. What a joke! It took 150 years to industrialise half of the planet. It will take another 150 years to industrialise the second half, not because we don’t have the technology or the resources, but because of the environmental activist. Any transition to a “green economy” as the alarmists see it would not take decades, but centuries. Yet the alarmists claim we must reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, lest we be doomed to “irreversal, catastophic climate change”. We have about as much ability to “reverse” climate change as we have to reverse time. That is how utterly rediculous the concept is.

Correction in part 1: 17 billion tonnes of steel, not 6.8 billion tonnes. More than 13 times world production.

@Mike: Let’s just forget about the whole climate change campaigns for a while. Consider a couple of independent facts:

1. Climate change apart - the world still has resources that are non-renewable (at least not within a matter of few hundred years… like Coal, Petroleum etc) & a few resources that are renewable (though they might be unusable presently… like wind, solar etc)

2. In our everyday lives, technology helps us be lazy in a lot of areas so that we can push harder in a few areas which we think matter (or areas the society wants us to think matters). Take a car, burn gas, keep the lights on & what not… so that we have more time to do “important stuff” (like make money?)

At the end of the day - for most of us, what’s really important & what’s not is almost always a subject of personal preference & NOT something the society needs to dictate (unless we are facing doomsday as an alternative)

NOW… looking at the above 2 facts & trying to connect them:

Till now we never faced a scarcity of non-renewable energy sources & hence it was okay to waste natural resources if it helps us make more money. But now that it’s no longer the case - wouldn’t it be saner & safer to waste more money if it helps us conserve natural resources?

All I’m saying is: technological “progress” helps us be lazy but does NOT dictate the direction of laziness. Let’s start being lazy in mining coal, petroleum & driving cars instead of being lazy to care for something that we have very little left in the world.

THE REASON WHY CLIMATE CHANGE IS BEING HYPED UP IS: It’s more effective to tell a kid - “drink milk or you’ll die of calcium deficiency” than telling him “Son, drink milk otherwise your bones become weak 70 years later in case you are not already dead by then”

Maybe it’s wrong… but maybe that’s the only language people will understand.

P.S: I’m pretty sure you’d have some statistics about how the whole ‘petroleum & coal getting over’ scare is itself a lie publicized by oil companies so that they can artificially increase their prices & get away with it. If so, curious to know the facts.

@ Amruth -

“Till now we never faced a scarcity of non-renewable energy sources & hence it was okay to waste natural resources if it helps us make more money. But now that it’s no longer the case - wouldn’t it be saner & safer to waste more money if it helps us conserve natural resources?”

No ! It aint like getting back and patching up our wrong doings !

Could you not put that same money in coming up with an alternative solution and make it look the cool thing instead of showering pity on the sad extinction of the natural resources?

@Mike: That’s precisely what I meant when I was talking earlier of businesses that capitalize on the climate change scenario instead of trying to prevent it.

But you need TIME to come up with radical innovations. A change in our lifestyles only buys us time so that our chances look better than what it would be if we continue to burn resources at the same rate.

To me ‘going green’ doesn’t mean use more expensive, high efficiency tools to do the SAME OLD things we are doing. But things like cutting down on luxuries that are more for show anyway will go a long way in buying us more time. Ex: Build simpler homes instead of extravagant or green homes.

I think that’s the TRUE intention of the climate change activists as well - but with so much politics & money pouring into the cause…. you see the same old lobbies dirtying up the playground. Sad! But doesn’t deserve undermining the whole cause as bullshit.

Correction: prev comment was @Nakul .. not @Mike

@mike I’m tackling your points about green technology and renewable energy.

Did you know the first computers occupied entire floors on buildings? Good thing we didn’t write them off.
People in the renewable energy business would be the first to tell you current turbines and solar panels are not efficient enough for the scale we need, but technology is getting better everyday.

Green today is expensive because of market forces regulated partly by laws and mostly by demand. Why is that the USA does not have a developed rail system while rest of the world does? Market forces and regulations.

Yes most ‘alarmists’ are wrong, we probably won’t touch 350ppm of co2 by 2050 or even 2100. You have to aim for the sun and land on the moon. I would compare activists to scientists working on ‘flying cars’ because they envision everybody in the future to be driving ‘flying cars’. Its a a long term vision, we probably won’t see it coming true, but working on that vision will lead us to a place with better technology and knowledge.

@amruth I agree with your thoughts in all your comments. There is hype because that will ultimately result in some kind of action that will trickle down to the society in milder ways.

@everybody On the question of science, overwhelming number of scientists agree that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are having adverse effects on our climate and environment. And none of those scientists will be quoted by Mike who has the comfortable stance of being a sceptic which just means saying everything that the rest say is wrong by quoting a handful of studies.

Renewable energies (except geothermal) are not limited by technology, they are limited by physics. Technology is not going to overcome the energy barrier needed to turn a 200ft turbine. And no matter how efficient a solar panel, only 200 W/m2 is actually hitting the earth’s surface on average. That’s maybe enough to power the lights in your house and nothing else.

As for the comment on artificial scarcity, you will find your answer in diamonds.

Democracy is founded on the principle of a well-educated public. Feeding them “hyped-up” scenarios of doomsday is not how democracy works. The ends do not justify the means. It is disgusting that you think people are too ignorant to make decisions for themselves and feel the need to “force” the matter, or that we need to rely on “experts” to tell us what to do. It’s not surprising though, since most environmental activists view humanity as a plague that is lower than dirt. Or as one of you put it, the enrichment of our lives has made us lazy. Scientists are people too.

The whole point of human development over the past 10,000 years has been to free ourselves of the hunter-gatherer mentality and achieve self-actualization.

You would call the actions of the family man working 9-5 five days a week to feed and support his family, lazy? Where do you get off on judging people like that?

“Till now we never faced a scarcity of non-renewable energy sources”

Absolutely bullshit. Our history is defined by such scarcities, and every time we have found a solution around them for that is the power of human ingenuity. When one resource becomes scarce, natural incentive drives people to look for alternatives. And these alternatives almost always turn out to be better than the originals, thus advancing human civilisation as a whole. There is no need to force that decision upon us all for imaginary problems.

Environmentalism is a luxury, don’t ever forget that. If you want to save the planet then make everyone rich. We shouldn’t save the environment to save ourselves, we should be save ourselves to save the environment.

@Mike: You’re wrong! You just don’t know it yet

1. Avg. solar energy hitting earth surface is 1kW/m^2 & much more at higher altitudes. Avg. electricity consumption per home in US is 1.2kW. It’s way lesser in developing countries & much lower in other countries.

You just need to do the math to know you’re wrong! So the problem indeed is - to harness solar energy more efficiently.

[I’m only responding to your comment. Hence not getting into other renewable sources of energy]

2. Your powers of observation continues to humour me - I said “technology helps us be lazy in a lot of areas so that we can push harder in a few areas which we think matter (in your case working 9-5”. Where did you get the idea that working 9-5 daily was the “lazy part”?

In any case, do we “really” need to work 9-5 daily to support our families? boy!... even hunter-gatherers did better.

3. Our history is defined by such scarcities - really?! I would love to hear an example where the scarcity was actually that of the resource itself & not of the technology to gain access to them.

I already invited you to share facts if you think coal/petroleum scarcity is “imaginary” in your words. Until then, you’re not justified in bullshitting the claims.

4. Make everyone rich - rich in what? rich in money?! what good is it if you don’t have electricity to run your TV or store your food in a refrigerator?

You can’t live without the environment… the environment can live without you. It doesn’t even need saving - it’s WE who need to save ourselves by saving that which is supporting our lives - OUR ENVIRONMENT.

5. I’d be the happiest person if every individual acted upon his well educated/informed beliefs. I’d also be equally happy if all passengers of an air-plane knew how to fly the plane in case of emergency. But that wouldn’t make me put them in the pilot’s seat even before they’ve educated themselves about flying a plane.

6. Self actualization?! Firstly, I think you have misunderstood what self actualization means. In any case, you can have your self-actualization to live. We want our environment. Maybe we’re too dumb to figure out how to live with self actualization without our environment to support us.

@Mike again: I was delighted to read your earlier comments. In fact, made me rethink on several notions I had about climate change. And I almost believed you were one of those folks who bothered to take an informed stance about the whole issue.

I’d love to hold on to that belief simply because there are very few people out there who can do what I thought you were doing. I hope you won’t tear apart that image by wanting to crucify all pro-environment thoughts irrespective of whether they are right or wrong.

Well I’ve exhausted myself for today, so I’ll try to answer:

1. Average solar energy hitting the earth’s solid surface is about 200W/m2, as you can see in this image. Since we don’t have solar panels suspended in space about the equator where solar energy flux is 1.34kW/m2, I don’t know why you brought that up. Now that I’ve cleared that up, next point in case is that currently, solar panels are no more than 25% efficient. So out of the 200W/m2 on average striking the surface, only 50W/m2 (on average) is actually generated. Of course, I can’t speak for future efficiencies, but that’s not as important, since the environmental activists want change to happen now.

2. Sorry, this bold text is harmful on my eyes and I misread your statement. I think lazy is the wrong word to use. I’m also responding to multiple people simultaneously and got confused.

3. I posted this in another topic, I will post it again here. So indeed, there is no scarcity in the resource itself, just the technology to dig deeper. And history repeats. If this still does not satisfy you, then please tell me what will. The reason I said you would find your answer in diamonds, is because they are a shining example of artifical scarcity to drive up prices, and sets the standard for precedent.

4. I believe this point ties in with number 3. You seem to think we will run out of resources in the near future, whereas I have strong reasons to doubt that, and faith in humanity to overcome it. You say we should save the environment to save ourselves, but at what cost? Ironically, the solutions being pushed by the alarmists will do more harm to ourselves than any natural fluctuations in climate.

5. By that analogy, I would call the plane democracy and the environmental activist as the terrorist trying to hijack the plane.

6. I was using it in the context of Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs, which I have studied as a student. We all have basic needs which we attend to before all other needs. Guess where environmentalism sits? The point is (and this ties in to point 4), that you will not mobilise people to change their ways who are preoccupied with fulfilling their basic needs. The solutions being proposed by world leaders are namely tax, energy rationing and a redistribution of wealth. This will necessarily drive up living costs. As you can see by the heirarchy, security of employment and resources rank high on the list. The proposed solutions jeapordise them. I hope this lets you better understand why I think we should save ourselves in order to save the environment, since environmentalism is a luxury. You should be relieved that there is no impending environmental crisis that should cause you concern. For me however, this concern has been replaced with the concern of what the alarmists’ agenda has in store for us, and I don’t like it one bit.

I like to think that I am informed, but I know that I must continue to search for more information (I am only 20 years old). I certainly don’t take people’s words at face value that there is some impending crisis without taking the time to look into it myself, because that’s how much I care. I took a look, and I was shocked at what I discovered. But if it will please you, I’ll be happy to continue the discussion and try to live up to your image of me.

I don’t want to crucify all pro-environmental thoughts, I just want to scrutinize them. If you feel like I made a mistake and want to correct me, I will take it all on board.

@Mike: I’ll try to keep this short:

1. Glad you’re back to a more open view. There are loads of ideas on harnessing renewable as well as non-renewable sources & it seemed too prejudiced to rule out those possibilities when it comes to renewable sources.

2. Like myself & few others also admitted - ‘alarmists’ ARE a threat. And like you said, many of them are indeed after the green in your pocket than saving the environment.

3. The reason you brought up Maslow’s hierarchy is more clear now. But there are also numerous experiments on Lab scale to natural phenomena where species which only understood & specialized for short-term gains got extinct when the environment changed & they couldn’t re-specialize into something else.

So looking purely at Today’s luxury might actually be detrimental to Tomorrow’s survival.

And often, every luxury “appears” to be a need until nature proves it otherwise. So how do we draw the line?

I think we need to keep a check on ‘over-specialization’ not just in meeting energy demands but in all aspects of our lifestyles.

4. The way I see it, much of what’s discussed here comes down to - Believing or not believing that “currently predominant sources of energy will be extinguished in the next 50-100 years”. Everything else discussed can be derived out of the belief.

Unfortunately, there seems to be research findings supporting both claims. So it presently comes down to what we “want” to believe till the issue can be scientifically settled.

5. analogy of hijack - Brilliant! But the term ‘terrorism’ in itself is pretty subjective since a country can view the entire ‘democratic population’ of another country as enemies or terrorists. A ‘cop hero’ of one group is a ‘terrorist’ for another. With that in mind, I think it’s a beautiful analogy that lets you extend it to so many scenarios that can occur in case of a plane hijack (or environmental activism)

Well, I think in at least the literal sense, they employ terror (use of extreme fear in order to coerce people) as a political weapon.

I just can’t see us running out of hydrocarbons in 50-100 years, when coal alone can supply us for at least 300 years with known reserves.

Since we were debating on data, I was digging up some stuff when I found this - A tale of two thermometers & a LOT of other similar articles.

A lot of environmental activists I know actually hate Al Gore ‘coz they believe he’s making it difficult for them to put up a good fight scientifically.

Makes me wonder if the whole episode is just a huge business fight between people who own current energy supplies & those who want to own the energy supplies of the next generation. (even though a lot of other people might be in the fight for a more environmental cause)

—
On a different note - I’m surprised how a discussion on a blog post can change your understanding of an issue by significant amounts! WoW!

I think as you rightly identify one of the key layers to move towards a low carbon and new energy economy is by altering citizen lifestyle and that is a huge mindset change which I guess has got nothing to do with facts or figures in most cases. But I feel schools/colleges can go a long way in imparting this knowledge from a very young age.

I drink milk, reading you! It is a real pleasure!