Ah, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, keeping the dream alive

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/01/12/403261/tom-donohue-pushes-civilization-ending-pollution-agenda-in-chamber-of-commerce-annual-address/

"We have 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to last at least 200 years. We have 2.7 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to last 120 years. We have 486 billion tons of coal, enough to last more than 450 years—and we need to use more of this strategic resource cleanly and wisely here at home while selling it around the world."

Burning that amount of fossil fuel would generate 444 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the oil, 135 billion tons from the natural gas, and 1.258 trillion tons from the coal. To maintain a climate compatible with civilization all of humanity needs to limit future greenhouse pollution to less than 650 billion tons.
Far from “keeping the American Dream alive for generation after generation,” as Donohue claims, his promotion of catastrophic global warming would grant a diminished, deadly world to future generations.

That's the USA: Hire the best scientists in the world, then refuse to listen to them.

ETA: Some environmental crimes should be punishable by imprisonment or death. Too bad freedom of speech protects jokers like this from facing consequences for their destructive activities. This guy is an enemy of mankind. He should be rendered into biodiesel and burned for fuel.

Is that enough comment for you?

Comments

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Hi. Please amend the post as per Rule #8 (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/261191.html), thanks in advance.

6 hours should be enough I think?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

> Is that enough comment for you?

LOL.

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

He should be rendered into biodiesel and burned for fuel.

LOL some more. (I've been making Swiftian comments along these lines for quite a long while now.)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

We need all the biodiesel we can get!

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

Since one line comments are okay, I assume, at least we can kill all the whooping cranes we want!

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

pfft whooping cranes...I wanna club me some baby seals!!

[merig00.livejournal.com]

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

To be blunt, isn't there an additional problem in all this that whatever we do to forestall global warming, assuming that human action meddling with a global climatic system is either feasible or workable in a scientific or political sense, there will still be things like that Yellowstone Supervolcano that will do unto civilization more than the worst scenarios of a global nuclear exchange would have? I agree that global warming is human-caused and an inevitable threat. What I am not certain of is that any solutions can be found which are politically feasible (i.e. not as in Copenhagen demanding poor countries with enough problems often avoiding a perpetual, serial, perennial string of coups and endemic civil wars pay far higher sums than rich countries far more able to do so, and countries that continually and blatantly violate agreements adhering to them *before* telling countries that never signed the agreement in the first place to sign and adhere to the agreements not-adhered to). Nor am I certain that scientists and politicians realize what's involved in attempting to slow down a *global* climate change, which again means the effects are not limited to one part of the world but touch all species and all humans on the planet.

This might well be an enemy of mankind, yes, but how do we 1) avoid the problem of climate change, and 2) come up with a cure that's not as bad as or worse than the disease?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Answering 2) will be the toughest. There are those who would rather die than scale back our economic activity (read: gadgetry that uses power so we don't have to). Since death is likely to follow from doing nothing, and they would rather die than do without. . . .

Answering question 1) is easier for me, but then I don't drive a Hummer or Unamog.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There's also the problem that poor countries might suspect any such solution is designed to permanently enshrine the geopolitical status quo and thus stagnate humankind in the present world forever. It might have no truth at all, but does propaganda or this kind of fear need truth to build off of? And if there's seen to be the least hint of substance to this, or more instances of countries like Canada never adhering to protocols and mandating much poorer countries to do far more stringently what Canada never does at all.......

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Please. After the effects of GW kick in in earnest, there won't be many poorer countries to bitch, now will there? Most of them are close enough to sea level.

Snark aside, the reality will be to lower most of the world to the third's status. That's not such a bad thing to me. We'll see how it plays out.