CO2 and climate change-Really ?¿

[crtreedude]

I think the most reasonable approach is to not think of the earth as a dumping ground. If you have waste, dispose of it properly and don't produce something without first thinking how you are going to get rid of the waste.

For example, if you have a sawmill - what are you going to do with all of the sawdust? If you are portable, no big problem, but if you are stationary, you could really hurt where you are from the runoff from your waste product.

It is not reasonable to think as there are more and more of us that the world can continue to be our dumping ground. Carbon Neutrality for me is just this. Try to live in a way to minimize your waste, and if you have to generate some waste, figure out a way to offset it.

Otherwise we are all like those who live on a stream and each one dumps their sewage into it - since the stream can obviously handle a little bit of sewage. But it can't if everyone acts like a slob.

Is our climate change due to our dumping of CO2 - not sure. But is it reasonable to think we can dump and dump and dump with no effect forever? Until we KNOW the limit of the earth to handle it, it would seem reasonable not to invite disaster by finding out the hardway.

When someone says that we aren't the cause but can not say at what level we would be the cause, I get pretty suspicious. Dump things in the streams and you polute the water and kill what lives in the water. Keep dumping things in the air and we probably will have the same result - or so it would seem reasonable to me.

[Geoff Kegerreis]

I think the most reasonable approach is to not think of the earth as a dumping ground. If you have waste, dispose of it properly and don't produce something without first thinking how you are going to get rid of the waste.

Absolutely.

For example, if you have a sawmill - what are you going to do with all of the sawdust? If you are portable, no big problem, but if you are stationary, you could really hurt where you are from the runoff from your waste product.

Well, even if you're portable - what affect will the dumping of that sawdust have in the location where you are dumping it?  That may seem like a negligible question, but such an action might have a considerable consequence. 

I used to have an old boss who went through WWII and lived through the depression.  He got one leg blown off in the war and lived the remainder of his days with an artificial limb.  He made millions in local real estate investment after the war.  I was walking across a parking lot with him once and he used his 75 year old good leg to support himself while picking up a penny off of the parking lot.  He made a comment about another person who used to work there who would shake his head at it - but the bottom line is every small change counts.  Now, if only everyone could live by that rule...

It is not reasonable to think as there are more and more of us that the world can continue to be our dumping ground. Carbon Neutrality for me is just this. Try to live in a way to minimize your waste, and if you have to generate some waste, figure out a way to offset it.

Otherwise we are all like those who live on a stream and each one dumps their sewage into it - since the stream can obviously handle a little bit of sewage. But it can't if everyone acts like a slob.

From a purely ethical standpoint, the stream cannot handle any sewage without affecting those who depend on it.  The natural resources belong to the whole of us...but from a legal standpoint, they do not.  The next question practically asks itself.

Is our climate change due to our dumping of CO2 - not sure. But is it reasonable to think we can dump and dump and dump with no effect forever? Until we KNOW the limit of the earth to handle it, it would seem reasonable not to invite disaster by finding out the hardway.

When someone says that we aren't the cause but can not say at what level we would be the cause, I get pretty suspicious.

Well...it's sort of like any other immeasurable quantity, isn't it...like if I say there is no God, but I can't prove it?     Would you be suspicious then?  That's the beauty of this subject, because it is immeasurable in whole and thus unprovable as an effect.  You can investigate ice cores, you can investigate aerials photos of glaciers (which by the way have means other than just heat to cause the disappearance), you can look at the tiny view of historical records and ultra small sample calculations over time which all (and more) have been/are being done, but because the problem is so expansive, we can see that the globe has heated and cooled to enormous extents (relative to the way we view our environment), but what is causing all the ruckus down here and where is it headed?: The answer is unknown, so as long as the researchers say we need to stop it to save our species from extinction, the grant money keeps pouring in.   :-[ 

Dump things in the streams and you polute the water and kill what lives in the water. Keep dumping things in the air and we probably will have the same result - or so it would seem reasonable to me.

...and me as well, but the question...the one that asks itself... is how do "the people" create a societal condition that is based on demand of products and services, but yet is not associated with the inevitable emissions produced by the manufacturing and logistics of those commodities?

As long as folks have money and the means to pollute, we'll do it while giving no more of a thought to it than the breath of air we breathe.

Heck, even "forests: a renewable resource" is only renewable to the extent of the fossil fuels we use to extract the products.  Fossil fuels are not renewable (at least not for a long, long time).

Carbon trading as it has been introduced to me is nothing more than another scam to make money - you can't "buy" the environment back to health.

[Sprucegum]

I recently read an historical novel about the tall sailing ships. When they were becalmed in the doldrums the ocean would turn brown around the ship. When it became foul enough to bother him the captain would order out the rowboats and tow the ship to cleaner water.

Nomads all over the earth move not only to find greener pastures but to leave brown. The areas left, given time, would restore and regenerate themselves.

I think we should move as soon as we can invent a better rowboat.