The 15 ways to stop global warming

[gristy]

This article was posted just 2 hours ago. No one else has covered this so far. We'll see if some more news providers pick this up. I'm not optimistic.



Asian News International
Washington, August 15

A new study by researchers at the Princeton University indicates that there are enough existing resources to replace the ones that cause global warming. The researchers suggest that these resources could last us for 50 years till scientists come up with other methods to combat the climatic phenomenon.

Published in this week's issue of Science , the study has debunked earlier beliefs that new sources of energy will have to be created to stop the use of fossil fuels, which are responsible for global warming.

According to the study, there are 15 major technologies that could stop the escalation of global warming for 50 years and work on implementing them can begin immediately. These resources include wind, solar and nuclear energy to conservation techniques.

The authors also said that implementing the measures could generate economic benefits, including creating new industries, reducing the U.S. dependence on foreign oil and lessening the need for other pollution-control expenses associated with burning coal and other fossil fuels.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_949550,00040003.htm

[NMDemDist2]

1. that's what kerry keeps saying

I'll send this off to the campaign and hopefully they can make some hay with it

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Al Gore took on the press today re. global warming in a NYT bk review --

'Boiling Point': Who's to Blame for Global Warming?
By AL GORE

Published: August 15, 2004


THE blend of passionate advocacy and lucid analysis that Ross Gelbspan brings to this, his second book about global warming, is extremely readable because the author's voice is so authentic. When Gelbspan first encountered the issue as a reporter nine years ago, he writes, he had no inkling of how it would change his life. But as he put together the evidence of the global climate crisis he describes in this book, he found himself pulled inexorably to do more than simply write about it. So he now feels called to a kind of mission: to describe what is happening, to single out the specific failures and misdeeds of politicians, energy companies, environmental activists and journalists who share responsibility for our predicament, and then propose bold solutions that -- unlike more timid blueprints already on the public agenda -- would in his view actually solve the problem.

For a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the top of his game, this is a career detour requiring courage I greatly admire. Moreover, he candidly describes how, as he opened himself to the implications of what he was learning in his dogged pursuit of this story, he has undergone something of a personal transformation. He writes that it has become ''an excruciating experience to watch the planet fall apart piece by piece in the face of persistent and pathological denial.'' He describes how mountain glaciers around the world are melting, most of them rapidly. And he cites early examples of environmental refugees like those created in recent weeks in Bangladesh, vulnerable to catastrophic flooding as sea levels rise.

In the course of this transformation, Gelbspan has become a different kind of reporter, one who recalls the great reforming journalists of the first decade of the 20th century -- Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens and others -- who not only reported on political corruption and corporate excesses but connected them to larger destructive patterns that had developed in the economy and politics of their time. They agitated for policy reforms, many of which were enacted into statutes when they became part of the progressive movement's agenda: antitrust laws, the Food and Drug Administration, railroad regulation, wage and hour laws, workmen's compensation and child labor laws, to name a few.

It is in that spirit that Gelbspan pursues solutions for climate change that can ''also begin to reverse some very discouraging and destructive political and economic dynamics as well.''

Part of what makes this book important is its indictment of the American news media's coverage of global warming for the past two decades. Indeed, when the author investigates why the United States is virtually the only advanced nation in the world that fails to recognize the severity of this growing crisis, he concludes that the news coverage is ''a large reason for that failure.''...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/books/review/15GOREL.html

[mom cat]

3. Tre report is from this week's edition of Science. Ckeck out also

The Apollo Alliance that Kerry is supporting at the following:

http://www.apolloalliance.org/strategy_center/a_bold_energy_and_jobs_policy/ten_point_plan.cfm

[PurityOfEssence]

4. Stop having so damned many children

Take whatever steps necessary to stop mindless over breeding. Yes, this means confronting the primitiveness of many major religions, and it needs to be done. If it takes something radical like taxing people for, say the fourth or fifth child and over, then so be it.

I know this is an emotionally charged issue, but as the deliberate parent of two, I took even that action with a very sober responsibility. Having huge families these days is simply environmental disruption, and holding the world ransom for one's beliefs is not an adequate excuse.

Jacques Cousteau blasted the '92 Rio conference for taking discussions of this off the table when pressured by a certain large religious organization, and he was absolutely correct.

Greenhouse gasses? You're exhaling them right now.

[JDPriestly]

5. True.

Population control is the key to so many of our problems. Besides, having raised two children, I can't imagine how anyone can do a decent job with four or five in today's fast-paced world.

My husband teaches many Chinese students. China imposes draconian family planning measures. Most Chinese children grow up without siblings. My husband thinks, however, that his Chinese students are very well balanced. Chinese parents seem to be doing a good job with the one child they are allowed to have.

[Gregorian]

6. Well. Someone beat me to it.

My mantra at DU has been "overpopulation". I read this post, and was going to say that there's one major issue that I guarrantee they won't talk about. But I didn't post it, because I have had such dismal response from my pleas. And you have kids! Man, that's pretty good. So someone gets it- that it's the number of "users" that is driving it all. We have to get over the thought that this talk is impolite, or impersonal. Talking about numbers rather than humans. But the biology, or mathematics, or reality of it, is that we are faced with an extremely dangerous phenomenon. Anyone who has laid eyes on the exponential curve, will see that today we are in the deadly part of the graph. I say taxing after two children is fair. Just remember, having two kids is the same as saying that six billion is ok. And it's actually too many people by a fair factor.
Well, I've said my piece again. But it feels much better knowing that I'm not alone.
One other thing- we can only engineer our way out of the problem, so far. And if population continues to grow, then all attempts to engineer our way out of it will be futile. I believe we are already too late. China, et al. haven't even turned on the hot water yet. When that happens, which is very soon, we are in for some scary times. The results (further evidence of polar melting, and co2 concentration) will be delayed, but...

The time to act was thirty years ago. :(

[Trillo]

7. That's not the only issue,

i.e., the number of children each set of parents has, although it is certainly a factor. Things like the earlier onset of puberty also grow the population bubble, coupled with fertility drugs that allow older women to bear children. There's a ratio between childbearing years versus total lifespan that is growing closer to 1.

Is some synthetic chemical acting on our endocrine systems to lower the age of puberty?