Sent: Dec 28, 2006 5:00 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Global warming claims tropical island
For Paul, the economic argument is nonsense.
It isn't nonsense if you want 'immediate' results.
A.A. Immediate results. American cars have much worse gas mileage than Japanese cars. How long have they had to catch up? Car companies are at this very moment suing the State of California for imposing its clean air legislation on them, which means something like in 10 years they have to meet the standards that Chinese cars are meeting now. Stand back, American technology in action.
P.S. It would absolutely ruin our economy to even throttle down over a span of a decade.
A.A. Boy, do I know a bridge you can buy. Or a country you can invade. Do you swallow all the party line this whole? This is such baloney. By taking action now we can save a global recession at a fraction of what it will cost once the climate refugees and changes begin. That's been calculated, by Tony Blair's team I believe.
P.S. Of course, we could dream up something new and begin thriving again, but SHOULD we? That's the question that we really should address. It doesn't seem to me that we are.
A.A. We are a bunch of technological has beens. We couldn't if we wanted to. Fortunately, we don't want to, so we don't have to demonstrate our incompetence and ineptness.
It's what the car and oil companies argue. We can have a Manhattan project to create a bomb, but we can't have one to clean up the environment?
P.S. Clean up our environment? What EXACTLY do you mean? Please list all the 'stuff' that needs cleaning up. Then tell me who is going to do the cleaning, who is going to pay for it, and what we are going to do with all the stuff we clean up?
A.A. The air can be cleaned, the water can be cleaned. Industry (except for oil and cars) is actually ready, willing and able to cooperate. All they need is leadership.
The U.S. by itself creates most of the greenhouse gases, at least 30%.
P.S. 30% is "most"? You see, this is the kind of sentence that I just can't get past. It's not even sensible language, let alone the implicatures.
A.A. Well, when you consider that we are something like 7% or 12% (can't remember exactly) of the world's population, 30% is pretty high. I also always err on the side of conservative, so it's likely that the number is higher than 30%. I couldn't find anything on the Internet that's in chart form, but I found something narrative:
For someone who's halfway good at finding stuff, this should be pretty easy. Unfortunately, with me it's hit and miss most of the time.
P.S. and what exactly is a "greenhouse gas" and can I get some for my greenhouse to run on?
A.A. You're not an American, are you? How else can you be so ignorant? Carbon dioxide and methane are the biggest. Actually, I don't understand (right, with the oil companies in charge, I don't understand, like there's anything to understand) why there isn't technology for septic tanks to fuel homes off the methane they produce. In fact, one of the problems with outhouses is they used to explode from the methane that would build up. Now, of course, plumbing accounts for that. Imagine how much of an industry you'd get from that, what a boost to the economy it'd be? But then, literally, who would need oil or natural gas to burn in their furnaces? In the article I posted above it talks about Saudi Arabia being against anti-pollution initiatives. They're one of the four biggest polluters along with us.
And, for Andy, I have asked you twice now:
Re: your sentence "We're the ones too stupid to let it slip through our fingers, along with everything else."
Do you mean that "we are stupid and and we SHOULD let it slip through our fingers"? Because that's what the sentence says.
A.A. I've explained it twice now. If I didn't word it right the first time, hopefully it was worded better the second time. Is this the best you can do, pick on something I threw together virtually without proofreading?
P.S. If that IS what you meant to say... why are we too stupid to let something slip through our fingers, what is that thing? and should we also let everything else slip through our fingers as well? If so... what all else do you have in mind and why should we let it slip through our fingers?
A.A. We let our goodwill slip through our fingers. We let an entire continent that could have been on our side *because they wanted to be* with their resources slip away into al Qaeda's and China's grasp. 500 billion dollars and counting turned into methane in Iraq. How much goodwill, how much terror fighting could we have bought for that, instead of terror creation? Instead, we can't do better than taking the same thing that doesn't work and doing it over and over and over. I guess you can't understand that, the way you couldn't understand that maybe pharma is not entitled to loot taxpayers, etc. etc.
