No matter what anyone says, I strongly believe that science will fix the Earth before the effects of humanity destroys it. These scientists may be 100% right, but their backwards-looking pessimism and unrealistic recommendations are not helpful. If they stopped wasting their time trying to prove an obvious point, i.e. humans are destroying the Earth, then they'd have much more time to devote to developing clean-energy technology. In other words, the environment isn't going to be saved from the ground up (no grassroots campaign, please). It's going to be saved by some poindexter in a lab coat.

Fixing the climate problem (and possibly even the contradiction inherent between limits to growth and an exponential capital infrastructure development) over the next decades are likely to be as intense and prolonged an effort as fighting a major world war ...

In other words, there's going to be more than enough work for all of us. Grassroads campaigns and government action to modify the market to appropriately reward solutions, technological innovations, conservation and perhaps even some deep transitions within society. There is also plenty of room for community investment in green capital to supplement/replace our current human-made capital base. Also, green economists that learn how to properly account both human and natural capital (and services like water filtering provided in watersheds) will be of great value.

Also, climatologists are not interchangeable with the type of scientists/engineers that will develop one of our ways out of the corner. The first group is showing us what we'll have to shoot for an when. The second group is currently being educated in places like Georgia Tech.

I don't know if I'd say we're being "educated" here, odin. :-P But one thing we'll definitely need to make our jobs easier is a new administration that believes in the scientific method, and uses reason, not private conversations with Jesus, to make its research funding decisions.

And what's wrong with my lab coat? Chicks dig this look. Wanna see my slide rule?

Educated, shafted, whichever. At least I think I feel smarter after each hangover.

Last time I was out drinking, I got into a conversation with a Tech girl about calculators. She was pretty sly with the 86, but ol' 89 kept me king of the hill ...

you know what they say about pix:
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2006/12/yearinphotos_portfolio200612?slide=13

MEM, there are so many inherent contradictions in your comment, I hardly know where to start.

Your criticize the messengers when it wasn't until just LAST WEEK that the US GOVERNMENT didn't recognize global warming as a problem.

Your confidence in science to solve this problem is curious. You are supporting SCIENCE by claiming IRRATIONAL FAITH.

The distilled residue of your comment is that since science will surely fix this problem we don't have to worry, and by implication we don't have to really do anything.

I beg to differ.

"Science" will not fix this problem without "us". Pray if you want to, but recycle too.

I stand behind what I said, and it is neither irrational nor self-contradicting. I suppose I could offer one minor point of clarification: I do expect the average consumer to continue recycling, conserving, etc. etc. whenever possible.

Science WILL save us.

Take one part JerryT, one part MEM, and 10^10 parts $, and you have the solution.

Jerry, it is going to take all of us doing our thing -- e.g., accepting that it'll cost a few cents more for this and a couple bucks more for that if we choose to patronize the products and people that do right by the plant. But I also share MEM's irrational faith in mankind's capacity to do damn near anything with science if we put our cellective minds to it. Look at how quickly we went from killing people with a crappy, inaccurate V-2 buzz-bomb to packing three men in a sardine can and throwing them all the way to the moon...and back. We could fix this problem if we had the leadership that would put Apollo-level resources into it.

And speaking of Apollo, JEEZ odinseye, that 89 might make you king of some hill compared to some chick with an 86, but you ain't gonna climb any mountains with no Texas Instruments! Real babes dig the reverse Polish, baby. Look at what helped the Apollo-Soyuz docking:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/3qs/653q.jpg
And today, check out the majesty!
http://www.july.co.jp/images/hp50g.jpg
You just can't beat the satisfying clunk of an HP keyboard. And I can no longer read long formulae just left-to-right.

RPN, oh noes!!! That was a great engineering solution - don't teach machines how to think like people, teach people how to think like machines :)

Okay, it's obvious that I'm going to get out-nerded by you, Shelby. Although somehow I thought that talking about calculators at a bar would have given me some chance, but then you had to hit me with the HP goodness. With a Homestar reference thrown in, no less.

When my escape plans to the moon are finished, I'll let y'all know.

I have a fair amount of confidence that science "could" fix this, but MEM said "WILL' fix this. That takes, well, willpower, and that is what the report does, it builds willpower.

We have had a path (or several even) to deal with nuclear power/waste for many years now, but we haven't developed the will to actually "fix" it. Science hasn't ended war. Science hasn't stopped hunger, or poverty. Science may offer solutions, but we people have to take responsibility for listening to the scientists and making it happen.

I have a lot of confidence in science, it's people I'm not so sure about.

Speaking of the environment, Hey elected Dem's...here's on easy one to jump on.

Sonny Do, if you say you're going to hire "80 erosion control inspectors who would rove the state to make sure developers were keeping soil out of rivers and streams", THEN DO WHAT YOU SAY!!!

"Today, only 35 of the soil enforcement officers promised are on the state's payroll."

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2007/02/04/metsoil0204a.html
"The legislation, which was overwhelmingly approved in 2003, set up an $80 per-acre fee charged to developers. The money is split between local authorities and the state, raising roughly $3.6 million each year. But only a constitutional amendment can guarantee where the money goes, meaning it's up for grabs each year when the Legislature debates the budget."

If you say you're going to do something, and get a ton of positive press for it, then do it. Be a man of your word, and do what you say, and say what you do.

Like Rex Grossman, Sonny Do dropped the ball on this one big time...who's going to call him out on it???

Speaking of the environment, Hey elected Dem's...here's on easy one to jump on.

Sonny Do, if you say you're going to hire "80 erosion control inspectors who would rove the state to make sure developers were keeping soil out of rivers and streams", THEN DO WHAT YOU SAY!!!

"Today, only 35 of the soil enforcement officers promised are on the state's payroll."

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2007/02/04/metsoil0204a.html
"The legislation, which was overwhelmingly approved in 2003, set up an $80 per-acre fee charged to developers. The money is split between local authorities and the state, raising roughly $3.6 million each year. But only a constitutional amendment can guarantee where the money goes, meaning it's up for grabs each year when the Legislature debates the budget."

If you say you're going to do something, and get a ton of positive press for it, then do it. Be a man of your word, and do what you say, and say what you do.

Like Rex Grossman, Sonny Do dropped the ball on this one big time...who's going to call him out on it???

Update:
Richard Branson steps up to the plate.

"LONDON — British tycoon Sir Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25 million prize for the scientist who comes up with a way of extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere."

""Up until now, what has not been asked seriously on a systematic basis is, is there some way that some of that extra carbon dioxide may be scavenged effectively out of the atmosphere? And no one knows the answer to that," Gore said."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-02-09-branson-climate-prize_x.htm

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