On reaching a middle ground

[lynnertic]

In a conversation with a very conservative and very dear friend about the provability or unprovability of global warming and the relevance of the Kyoto Protocol, we came across a point of agreement.


Whether global warming is provable, or real, or the result of auto exhaust or not, we agree that if air pollution were cut and water were clean, that people (think 'our children') would be healthier and happier, and live longer, and the cost of health care would go down.

Therefore, the effort going into adopting a Kyoto Protocol worldwide, is a good thing.

That's also why it's good and important to develop sustainable industry and alternative, non-polluting fuels, we agreed.


It was a good lesson I learned today, that reaching for common goals makes progress. If you hit a roadblock or intractible "talking point", seek a way around it that explains a mutual or universal benefit. Perhaps you can use similar lines of reasoning with your conservative friends and family, because deadlock and stagnation means misery and death to us all.

[El Pinko]

1. personally, I have ALWAYS driven very high-mileage cars for the sake of conservation...

...and lower emissions. My first car was a Geo Metro, 1987 - it got over 50 mpg and was a great car.

The same goes for the car I drive now, I ride a bike for short trips in the neighborhood and use transit when I can.

And it has NEVER been because of Global Warming. At least some of the warming we're having now is the continued warming following the last ice age.

Perhaps carbon emissions are speeding this - but honestly, the changes continued warming may cause are not changes that we can't adapt to.

But oil is a limited resource, and I consider it immoral to waste it when I don't have to.

Same goes for needlessly polluting the air we all breathe.

Those are the only reasons I need to conserve.

I'm not scared of continued warming, despite the scary scenarios depicted in "An Inconvenient Truth". As a matter of fact, I'd be much MORE scared if we were in a cooling period. The famine due to crop failure and deaths due to the bitter cold would be horrific.

Check out what happened in the Little Ice Age:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_without_a_summer

The unusual climatic aberrations of 1816 had the greatest effect on the American northeast, New England, the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland, and northern Europe. Typically, the late spring and summer of the northeastern U.S. are relatively stable: temperatures (average of both day and night) average about 68–77 °F (20–25 °C), and rarely fall below 41 °F (5 °C). Summer snow is an extreme rarity, though May flurries sometimes occur.
In May 1816,<4> however, frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England resulted in many human deaths. Nearly a foot of snow was observed in Quebec City in early June, with consequent additional loss of crops—most summer growing plants have cell walls which rupture in a mild frost, let alone a snowstorm coating the soils. The result was widespread localized famines, and further deaths from those who, in a hunger-weakened state, then suffered disease as well in their less resistant condition.
In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Rapid, dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as high as 95 °F (35 °C) to near-freezing within hours. Even though farmers south of New England did succeed in bringing some crops to maturity, maize and other grain prices rose dramatically. Oats, for example, rose from 12¢ a bushel the previous year to 92¢ a bushel—a nearly eightfold increase—and oats are a necessary staple for an economy dependent upon horses for primary transportation. Those areas suffering local crop failures then had to deal with the lack of roads in the early 19th century, preventing any easy importation of bulky food stuffs.

Europe, still recuperating from the Napoleonic Wars, suffered from food shortages. Food riots broke out in Britain and France and grain warehouses were looted. The violence was worst in landlocked Switzerland, where famine caused the government to declare a national emergency. Huge storms, abnormal rainfall with floodings of the major rivers of Europe (including the Rhine) are attributed to the event, as was the frost setting in during August 1816. A BBC documentary using figures compiled in Switzerland estimated that fatality rates in 1816 were twice that of average years, giving an approximate European fatality total of 200,000 deaths.



Imagine if we had a few consecutive years like that. :scared:

[murielm99]

2. I think we will have a more than a few years like that,

once we reach the tipping point.

Climate change will bring about famine and death. This is what we are leaving our children and grandchildren.

[El Pinko]

3. The world is already full of famine and death. 1/3 are starving or nearly starving

I'm much more worried about overpopulation, forest loss and general environmental degradation than I am about warming.

[lynnertic]

4. self-kick