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An Inconvenient Truth

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You speak out of your arse mate.

East Asia, including the Indian Sub-Continent and Chine emitt 22.5% of world greenhouse gasses. At the same they make out almost half the worlds population.

The US, making out 5% of the world population contribute 31%.

Furthermore, India and China got certain excemptions in the Kyoto since they are emerging economies and can be said to keeping the US economy afloat. Where is the unjustsice?

I must say, when you know nothing of a subject why on earth do you want to make a post?

Can you point to a single factual error in my post? No sir, you cannot.

I don't think India or China deserve any exemtions at all and I think their populations are irrelevant. The measure of your emmission limit should be based on GDP, not population. To base it on GDP would encourage GDP growth and at the same time efficiency in that growth since you would benefit from producing more (GDP) with less (emmissions). These are both good things for everyone the world over.

To base emmissions limits on population only encourages already overpopulated countries, like India and China, to further increase their populations. That is bad for everyone...

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:lol: you're talking to yourself. Yes a volcanic eruption (thankfully such huge ones are rare) can have a big impact, yes a teeny weeny meteorite could wpie all life out. That doesn't change anything about global warming.

edit: the above is pointed at pumpdoc, some other sneaked in with their posts in between :P

First of all this 'America bashing' is rather puerile - these are issues of more consequence than F1, they should be treated with more respect. The same goes for Chris of course.

Global warming is real. The evidence just gets more and more overwhelming by the day and I have seen a lot of sworn skeptics change sides recently. We're not going to give up our lifestyles however, and while reductions in emissions are possible, I doubt if they can sufficiently inhibit the process. There's also too much talk of renewables, there simply isn't a single form of renewable energy that is remotely viable and remember renewables are a luxury only a minority of people in the world can afford to think about - having been to places where they get electricity for about 8 hours a day, and having lived where there were 6 hour power cuts daily, I can tell you these people are (justifiably) not going to be the ones crying for renewable energy, or remotely interested in talk of global warming.

What we need is a new energy source, and it probably has to be nuclear. There are three technologies that I know of - one is the conventional fast breeder nuclear reactors that have not been nearly as successful as had been hoped. The second is another kind of fission breeder reactors, based on Thorium - unfortunately the only country really pursuing this research is India, and with less commitment than I wish. The two countries with substantial Thorium reserves are India and Australia - and Australia really aren't interested due to their massive reserves of conventional fuels and Uranium and a small population.

Uranium itself of course I forgot to mention, used in conventional unclear reactors is still available, the adoption of conventional nuclear energy can still go a lot further.

The third option of course is nuclear fusion - probably the holy grail of energy generation, the biggest effort is the ITER, I only wish more funding was thrown it's way - the current plan is supposed to be 10 billion dollars - which considering the sheer importance and potential is a pittance.

As for the public debate on global warming, the problem is it is not a matter of public debate and should not be. It shouldn't matter if 50% or 45% people are for or against global warming, it is not a matter for populism because most people are simply not capable of understanding the isues involved, and nor are most politicians. It is the pitfall of major scientific funding coming from corporations and being dictated by politicians, science should be independent of such grovelling and it should be funded sufficiently to eternity, it sohuld not be at the mercy of corporates and politicians.

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The question I really want an answer to is this: Is global warming a man made phenomenon, or not? I don't believe that anyone truly knows the answer to that. If it is natural, should we tinker with it?

By the way, Cav, I agree with your stance on nuclear power, but surely fusion is way too far into the future to have any impact. As for politicians, it all depends on which bandwagon is passing at the time.

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The evidence is rather compelling that it is man made, though climate is such a complex thing, and of course you can never prove it. When you say that correlation between CO2 emission and temperature rise does not imply that the two are related - well that is as far as proof can go isn't it, it's not exactly a testable hypothesis, you can't just say - "ok we stop burning fossil fuels for 10 years and observe the temperature". There will always be skeptics - and they will have rather more credibility than the flat earth society :P

Russ- Fusion will probably not have any impact in our lifetimes - but then oil should last out our lifetimes anyway, if that is all we care about (and persoanlly I am not at all sure if I particularly do care about anything else) we can jsut concentrate on finding more fossil fuels, and surviving about 50 years.

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The question I really want an answer to is this: Is global warming a man made phenomenon, or not? I don't believe that anyone truly knows the answer to that. If it is natural, should we tinker with it?

By the way, Cav, I agree with your stance on nuclear power, but surely fusion is way too far into the future to have any impact. As for politicians, it all depends on which bandwagon is passing at the time.

Re nuclear energy production, what's wrong with the technology we already have? I understand that the CANDU reactors my country sold to India and Pakistan, etc, aren't exactly cutting edge anymore but the French and American designs are...

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The by product of fusion is helium as opposed to any radioactive waste, and the chamber itself is clean after only 50 years (after shutdown). Surely an advantage over fission? The problem, I suppose is maintaining, or achieving and controlling, those colossal temperatures. 100 million Kelvin. Now that's warm.

Cav, isn't JET the largest fusion project?

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Ecology is a luxury that only the rich can afford. When you're poor and have to concentrate on what you're going to eat you have no time to think about ecology.....

Moreover ecology and F1 make a rather awkward couple..... :eusa_think:

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