A report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.
But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, the 700-page study says.
Members of the climate change religion will now have their head engulfed twice their normal size because of that study. The problem is that conclusion makes no common sense. So put your "eco-spirituality" back in it's drawer and calmn down.
Regardless of where you stand on climate change everyone has to concede that cutting carbon emissions requires some sort of sacrifice. The economy we live in depends on carbon emissions. We all drive cars. We all fly planes. We all buy goods that were transported in cars and planes. Until the internal combustion engine goes the way of the do-do any plan to reduce carbon emissions must mean that we drive less and probably consume less as well.
Just looking at the graphs they provide it appears as if they are requiring an 80% reduction of carbon emissions. That means you and I would need to burn 80% less fuel in our daily lives.
We would need to drive 80% less. We would need to buy 80% less fuel. Prices everywhere would go up as transportation became more expensive. Simple things like health care could become a world of more complicated if ambulances couldn't rush to a scene guzzling their fossil fuels.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. So how can they claim that it will cost the economy only 1% of gdp?
Mr Brown called for a long-term framework of a worldwide carbon market that would lead to "a low-carbon global economy". Among his plans are:
* Reducing European-wide emissions by 30% by 2020, and at least 60% by 2050
* By 2010, having 5% of all UK vehicles running on biofuels
* Creating an independent environmental authority to work with the government
* Establishing trade links with Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica to ensure sustainable forestry
No wonder it will only cost 1% of GDP. They aint doing a darn thing.
First they want to create more government bureaucracy - something that if anything will slow down and not speed up a darn thing. Then they want to establish sustainable forestry by making deals with Brazil? On this count I have to admit to being confused as to how saving forests in Brazil will lead to a reduction in carbon emissions. But maybe someone out there can educate me on that one.
Establishing a carbon trading market doesn't mean lower emissions. Nations will just trade carbon "credits" back and forth in an attempt to get rid of the burden. That isn't a plan for reducing emissions. It's just a plan for some countries to get out of doing it.
The only good suggestion I can find here that actually lowers emissions is the goal of having 5% of cars running on bio fuels. With the direction of most car makers already that goal I think is already well on it's way at becoming reality. But will that reduce carbon emissions by 80% over the next hundred years? My friggin' eye it will!
And of course like most enviro nutsos they have their doomsday scenarios all ready to go to get us into a frenzy:
It warns that if no action is taken:
* Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people
* Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world's population
* Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become extinct
* Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of "climate refugees"
Notice in each case they use the word "could"? That's no mistake.
Let's be honest here. Even if climate change happens over the next 100 years in the levels predicted, they will still not be higher than levels experienced during the medieval age.
And if I'm not mistaken the world didn't turn into hell overnight, the sky didn't fall, and wildlife survived. That's why they use the word "could" repetitively.
They must figure "how do we know for sure that it won't happen?" "It could happen, although not probable..." So then they rationalize deceiving people.
By the end of the century who says we will be still using the internal combustion engine anyways? The IC has only been around for the past century. Climate Change has been a phenomenon that is recent to the last century. Based on the latest trends by that time we'll all be driving cars driven by canola oil or some such thing.
Climate Change, as in were all gonna die in global floods and weird tornados is not real and is a farce of science. The fact that today's scientist plays these exageration games is a detriment to the credibility of the scientific community.
Climate Change, as in the rise of average global temperatures over the last century, is real. But it isn't the end of the world. We do have some time. We're talking centuries here not decades. And the contribution of fossil fuel consumption to it should be treated a with a very cynical eye. Variations in temperature of this level have been seen in the past - when we didn't have cars or airplanes or much of anything else.
In the end it doesn't require government meddling. If the government really wanted to help it should simply back off.
Stop giving tax payer money to make pointless studies that produce no tangible results and return that money to individuals and businesses so that the innovation needed to get rid of the internal combustion engine has nothing standing in it's way.
There isn't a shortage of so-called "green" businesses that are out there trying to sell clean energy. Those businesses don't need anymore government meddling then the next guy as far as I'm concerned.