ndbiker said:Perhaps it could be increased solar activity. Studies show temperatures on Mars are also increases. I doubt a couple of Rovers are causing green house gases. Or perhaps we are in a cyclical warming period. Scientists have shown that they occur as well. Perhaps its a result of the urban heating effect. Concrete and asphalt reflect a great deal more heat which is why most cities are up to several degrees warmer than their surrounding areas. The one thing that noone who supports the idea of a global catastrophe due to global warming has suggested is how they wish to stop it. What energy source do we switch to to reduce emissions. Do we send our global economies back to the medieval times and we can all be like the third world countries. It is easy to complain about a perceived problem and hope someone else will do something but how many are willing to give up their cars, their jobs, their central heat in order to accomplish a goal which some scientists say might occur. They said we'd all be in flying cars by now too. I'm still on terra firma.
And it's easy to say that because our energy requirements are so large that we're better off doing nothing about climate change.
The first step is to acknowledge that climate change is happening and that the cause of that climate change is emissions.
Unless each goverment buys in to this notion and takes action to reduce emissions, the problem of continued emissions will cause further damage.
Of course, you're correct in suggesting that energy demands will increase going foward, therefore how is that demand to met, and how can that demand be met without adding to emissions.
At present most of our energy is supplied through fossil fuels - and fossil fuels are the biggest source of greenhouse emissions.
Therefore, we have to find an alternative source other than fossil fuels.
And there are plenty of other energy sources - wind power, solar power, hydro-generated power, technologies which can convert hydrogen, are all alternative "clean" sources of energy which do not release greenhouse/carbon
emissions.
We can also address the emissions issue through legislation and fiscal methods.
The EU (+400 million people) has enacted legislation which will see emissions being required to drop by 20% in the next decade.
This legislation is tied in to fiscal measures and the establishment of a carbon trading system - where allocations of carbon are given to comapnies.
If companies exceed their emission allowance - they get taxed heavily.
Companies who do not exceed their emissions - can sell their unused allotment on the carbon trading index, to companies who may have exceeded their limits.
Therefore I disagree with the view that there isn't anything that we can do in terms of reducing our dependence upon fossil fuels.