Climate Policy

[kandrathe]

It sounds like overall you are in agreement with how I feel overall. Namely that we know we've been responsible for the CO2 gain, so lets work on reducing that. In the meantime, more research will be ongoing and may bring about stronger trends on what's causing the temperature increase, but until then, we can try to do what we can, while we can.

Humans are responsible for currently about 7Mtons of CO2 release per year, and nature is gracious enough to sequester half of it. I can't just decouple CO2, or clouds, or temperature, since the topic is global warming. The interactions are many and complex involving the sun (ionization, radiation, UV) which effect the ozone layer, the troposphere, and cloud formation as well as contributing the primary source for our warmth. Human contributions of particulates, GHG's also perturb the natural balances. We really don't know how human impact affects the balance, and to what level nature will accommodate or break.

So, I agree it is wrong to mess around with mother nature and perform a science experiment with our future. My suggestion is that we deal with it directly (e.g. "We choose to go to the moon."), rather than manipulate prices and disturb financial markets to "incent" people to do the right thing.

I see at least three primary goals; 1) convert electricity generating plants to renewal energy, 2) convert vehicles to use renewable energy, 3) convert homes to renewable energy for heat and hot water. This should be the primary goal of the US Department of Energy, and rather than give a trillion dollars to "shovel ready projects", it would have gone along way toward moving the US off of fossil fuels and invested in infrastructure for our future.