EMR has NEVER been able to figure out why Jim Bacon gets SO upset about Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). He has his hands full getting out Bloomergeddon, why take on this windmill?
Of course, in the end Jim is correct:
The University of East Anglia scientist’s arrogance has not DISPROVED anything,
This dispute will leave far more casualties than winners, and
There are far more current, important challenges about which there is little controversy than there are resources to address them.
In comments submitted on Jim’s post on the topic (“Cuccinelli is Right” – did not everyone know he was far right?) Larry and Waldo put the East Anglia controversy in perceptive – the helium balloon analogy is priceless.
TMT and Larry do a nice job of sorting out the ‘right to sue’ issue.
But Peter has the best (if not last) word:
Why with all the other things going on is THIS a priority for any elected official in the Commonwealth?
See for example this weekends’s WaPos on the economy, China, giving up on trying to stop radioactive shipments into the US of A… Those containers from Iran via Hong Kong will arrive in Hampton Roads, sue about that…
Here is why all the heat over AGW:
A lot of big money will be lost if something serious is done about reducing Green House Gases (GHG) – which most agree needs to be done to solve a lot of other problems including air and water pollution, the cost and security of energy supplies.
So with Business-As-Usual money at stake, fire up the opinion tanks with some extra donations to take attention off the real issues.
Here is something else to chew on. On 23 Feb WaPo published a nice colored Quake potential map and a story about the need to consider the 430 million humans now living in high risk areas – tens of millions of them poor.
Sure enough, a quake hit Chile last night. There will be less loss of life than in Haiti but the cost will be in the Trillions.
So what if the loss of ice caps (no one disagrees that glaciers and ice caps are shrinking – just how fast they are going) has a direct impact on the tectonic plates and THAT is triggering a rash of earth quakes. Just saying…
The overarching goal must be to shift human Urban agglomerations away from locations, settlement patterns and cheap construction that makes humans and their economic, social and physical well being susceptible to fire, flood, hurricanes, quakes, etc.
As the WaPo map shows, and as events of the past 50 years document, Urban settlement patterns are now vulnerable AND they are energy hogs and untransportable to boot.
Here is a thought:
Now that there is a major shift from Cap and Trade to Criteria for Energy Consumption Sectors to address GHG this is an opportunity to make clear the impact of human settlement patterns on energy, safety and happiness.
Let us turn heat to light.
EMR