Gary Rumor’s Anti-Entropic Continuum

Wealthy countries have monopolized atmospheric space according to Evo Morales of Bolivia. The USA and China produce 30% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is 390 parts per million now. The USA, Britain, France & Germany have produced most of the cumulative carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It will take until 2030 for China to produce as much carbon dioxide as the US has. It is the historical emissions that are the problem not the current emissions. The Americans reject the concept that western nations are responcible and culpable for past emissions because we did not know that we were causing climate change. But we have known for at least 20 years and there has been evidence for almost 40 years.
Normally the heads of state come to these meetings to bless the final results but instead they did not achieve any of their goals. The accord only codifies the goals of individual nations. Perhaps it would have been better for Obama to go a couple of days earlier. As it was he showed up at the last minute and was able to hammer out a partial agreement between a few states. It is not a summit wide agreement. The media gives the impression that there is a deal but in reality there is nothing in the way of an international deal.
Mark Hertsgaard is being interviewed by Terrance McNally on KPFK. It seems that there may not be an attempt to use these world wide international processes. The USA durring the Bush administration indicated it was not interested in working on climate change, and even though Obama is interested he is hamstrung by Republican obstructionism. Obama is only offering a 4% reduction and science is asking for 20 to 40% reduction. Congress needs a 2/3 agreement for ratification and it looks like the Senate will not go along.
Around the world there is a much stronger militancy on this issue. Green technology is the next big economic boom. There is no reason why this will lead to an economic slowdown. If anything it will increase their return. There is no reason not to spend the money to encourage research and development in this area. Obama could have used his executive authority with the EPA and with Energy efficiency to get at least 25% reductions. But the politicians are saying that Congress is required to make the laws because if the president does it the next president might overturn the regulations. But Hertsgaard says that if the EPA starts down a path it would be very hard for a president to reverse those rulings once the economy has responded. Already corporations are moving even it is mostly green wash, they are simply waiting for the government to set the new standards. China has invested in green energy and if the USA doesn’t get on the band wagon it will be left behind.

We have known various scenarios since the 1970’s that involved environmental devastation. The movie “Soylent Green” discussed the death of the oceans and the world was both overpopulated and polluted. Heatwaves were taking over the land and this was a 1973 movie. The Club of Rome reports came out in 1972 with extrapolations for ecological catastrophe predicted for this century although much of their predictions were based on exhaustion of resources, population was a major concern.
This is a summary of the history of the greenhouse effect.

“The Discovery of Global Warming
by Spencer Weart
The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

In the 19th century, scientists realized that gases in the atmosphere cause a “greenhouse effect” which affects the planet’s temperature. These scientists were interested chiefly in the possibility that a lower level of carbon dioxide gas might explain the ice ages of the distant past. At the turn of the century, Svante Arrhenius calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming. Other scientists dismissed his idea as faulty. In 1938, G.S. Callendar argued that the level of carbon dioxide was climbing and raising global temperature, but most scientists found his arguments implausible. It was almost by chance that a few researchers in the 1950s discovered that global warming truly was possible. In the early 1960s, C.D. Keeling measured the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it was rising fast. Researchers began to take an interest, struggling to understand how the level of carbon dioxide had changed in the past, and how the level was influenced by chemical and biological forces. They found that the gas plays a crucial role in climate change, so that the rising level could gravely affect our future.”
If you go to his website called “The Discovery of Global Warming” you will find the article with the rest of the information. It is pretty detailed.
It is time for us to get on board and create the kind of world we would like for our children to inherit. Now there is a pretty good argument on the green side. On the other hand there is a sizable population in the USA in particular that considers it their god given right to drive muscle cars, SUV’s, burn electricity like there is no tomorrow and run around in motor boats, dune buggies, and various other gas guzzling contrivances that were created to separate a man in particular and his money. That population is shrinking, but for many that is the American way. People like Dick Cheney from Wyoming who sees strip mining coal as the way for American prosperity for the next 200 years and who could care less about global warming. They see more wars and more military defense of our god given right to take resources from the rest of the world and to pollute at levels unheard of in the history of mankind as a god given right part of the American Exceptionalism they like to crow about.
I personally have felt that this was hubris and a symptom of American decay since I was a child. But then it is a matter of choices. We could put all our resources into the military and spend another decade or two with our heads in the sand. But reality will eventually bite us in the ass and that bite will only get bigger if we keep putting it it off. It is our choice.