Global warming - let's settle this once and for all!

[doc_bean]

@doc_bean: "No one is really arguing this"
Ok, that's nice to hear. I was a little worried this thread would turn too political, and include heavy for and against American-bashing arguments etc.

This IS the backroom, someone is bound to take a stance like that, if only to see if they can defend it. But few if any people actually involved in the real life pollution/emission/green house debate will claim that reducing pollution/emission is not better than not doing that (if the costs were the same).

While it's true the USA refuses to take part in most deals for limiting pollution, it's also true that the pollution rights the Kyoto protocol suggested for the USA was a little tougher than for other countries, which was unfair. It's a two-edged sword.

A lot of countries want a per capita regulation, is it surprising then that the Us refuses to take part ? It's one of the thinnest populated countries in the world.

I was mainly intending a discussion about the scientific parts of it, a discussion about how dangerous the problem was.

Hard to say, cuurent theory seems to involve a 'turning' point at which the climate of earth will inreversibily change about 100 years in the future. What will happen after the turning point seems to be pretty unclear, although it probably isn't good.

If we don't lower emissions until the last minute, we get a shock, which will shake the market and create economical chaos worse than the 1930ies depression.

The last point is at least 50years into the future, even by optimistic estimates our oil supplies won't let us rely on fossil fuels that long in the same way we do now.

If we don't lower emissions until it's too late, we're doomed.

That's assuming it ever gets to be 'too late'.

If we lower emissions gradually, by passing laws on which pollution levels certain products may have, and give the market a hint some years in advance as to how these levels will develop, we create a safe, stabile market which will slowly adapt itself to the conditions reality imposes.

Funny thin is, it isn't Kyoto that is driving the market away from 'polluting' tech. It's the volatility of the oil price, the high energy prices and, for countries, the need to have some control over the energy market themselves.

It's claimed that if we'd put as much money into solar power as we're every year giving to the coal mines for them to carry on their work, we'd have developed a solar energy able to replace most of the fossile fuels in 10 years, for instance. So the cost of developing solar energy isn't really a problem. The one problem is that economists and politicans underestimate how dangerous the problem is.

Claimed...

Currently, for households in belgium, the payback term for photovoltaic cells if they weren't subsidized would be 60 years (assuming stable energy prices). Photovoltaic cells last about 30years...

Alternative energy isn't magic, it has its own specific costs and disadvantages. The oil industry, rich and powerful as it may be, isn't the only thing keeping us using oil. Oil and gas have simply been the most practical and cost-efficient source of energy in the last 50years (along with nuclear power).