They could certainly help by walking the talk, and stop killing trees that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere to publish a newspaper. Oh, and go to handpower to publish, because energy usage puts out CO2. I will give them up-twinkles for at least calling it global warming, instead of climate change
IS THE FIGHT against global warming hopeless? It can seem so. The long-term threat to the climate comes from carbon dioxide, which lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, locking in higher temperatures for generations. After decades of effort, only about one-tenth of America’s energy mix comes from renewable sources that don’t produce carbon dioxide.
And the others seem to leave lots of real environmental degradation.
But two policies can buy the world more time to allow carbon-free technologies to catch up. One is aimed at greenhouse substances that clear out of the atmosphere after a few years, months or even days. Cutting back the emission of soot and ozone gases such as methane would reduce the world’s warming by as much as a half degree Celsius over the next few decades, according to a study in last month’s Science. Adding hydrofluorocarbons — another class of short-lived pollutants — to the list would help even more to delay the approach of temperature thresholds beyond which global warming could be catastrophic.
Show us the way, WP editorial board: tell us all the ways the WP has reduced it’s “carbon footprint.”
Reducing these emissions is relatively cheap, especially when the benefits to health are factored in. For example, primitive cooking stoves in developing countries produce much of the world’s soot; using more efficient ones would prevent perhaps millions of deaths from respiratory illness. Methane, meanwhile, is the primary component of natural gas — a commodity that pipeline or coal-mine operators could sell if they kept it from escaping into the atmosphere. Researchers have even concluded that global crop yields would rise.
You know what would really help in third world shitholes developing countries? Modern, reliable, and inexpensive energy. And I’m not sure what world the WP lives in where reducing these emissions is “relatively cheap.”
It will take more than American money. Regulators in the developing world must enforce stronger air-pollution rules. Since many of the health benefits will be immediate, though, some may be more eager to do so than they have been to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Nations may also add hydrofluorocarbons to the substances regulated by the Montreal Protocol, the treaty responsible for slashing the use of a related class of chemicals.
Looks like the WP is taking the old “we got ours, we’re going to stop you from getting yours” approach.
That path, however, must end with phasing out most, if not all, energy based on fossil fuels. There is reason for hope over the coming years — but not for complacency.
They never did get around to telling us whether the fight against nature playing with the thermometer is hopeless or not. But, we see what their point is: stop using energy. I’ve said time and time again, I’m not particularly enthused about coal and oil. They are dirty, and not from a CO2 point of view. All the methane released from drilling for natural gas worries me, because, in reality, while methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifespan than CO2, it is considered to be anywhere from 20-60 times more potent as a greenhouse gas. But, I’m also a realist, and understand that the world runs on energy, and the the three primary sources are coal, oil, and wood. They’re cheap, reliable, and actually work. Until the “renewables” are in the same category, they are worthless. And most have been tried for decades, if not centuries.
And then there are some like hydropower, which enviroweenies are not only blocking any new construction, but actively working to dismantle, so fish aren’t affected. Very few Warmists are embracing these “alternatives” themselves, nor reducing their own CO2 footprint. The WP should go out and replace all their vehicles with vehicles that rely solely on non-fossil fuels, which eliminates pretty much everything. Fossil fuels are needed to create the vehicles, and the electricity to run them tends to come from coal fired plants. The need lubricants, which tend to come from petroleum. Even switching to bikes requires fossil fueled lubrication. I suppose we could switch back to whale oil for that.
Until Warmists actually practice what they preach, and make major changes in their own lives, we can all infer that the anthropogenic global warming/climate change craze is simply a political policy designed to give governments more money and power over its citizens and businesses, which is what liberals always attempt to do.
Read: Washington Post Wonders If Fight Against Globull Warming Is Hopeless »
