Why do you think Global Warming is being ignored?

[Boerseun]

We should pursue a massive campaign of public education about this, and not only public, but education aimed at corporations as well.

 

For instance, people shouldn't buy into the idea of superficial solutions - they should understand the nett effect. Buying an electric vehicle is totally stupid, because all you do is to export the pollution. You charge the little car up at night in your garage, but all you achieve is to make the powerplants work harder. So, your pollution gets exported to the power station which will have to burn more coal/oil in order to charge your van. If the increased demand of these vehicles can be supplied by hydropower or windpower and the energy vendors can guarantee it, then it could work.

 

Companies should be encouraged to embrace telecommuting. There is simply no single reason why a paper-pusher has to increase the traffic load on the highways to go to work to do something he/she can do equally well at home, using the internet and the company's VPNs. For every person able to telecommute, we take a few kilograms of carbon out of the atmosphere every single day.

 

Selling 'green' products like electric vehicles without exploring the full impact won't make any difference at all - but it makes the consumer feel all warm and fuzzy for doing their bit to save the environment. I think companies pushing these products and marketing them as 'green' and 'eco-friendly' are acting unethically.

 

The saviour would be mass-education, and the emancipation of women in the Third World so that we can taper off the increasing world population, lowering the demand on resources along the way.

[emptyspaces]

Probably a few reasons. First, there are those who doubt scientific findings intuitively. Usually because they believe that the Bible really happened.

 

Second, the mass media gives almost equal weight to arguments for and against global warming...even though nearly every argument and statement of indisputable fact supports it. This creates the perception that the scientific community is "50-50" on the topic. "Just being fair and balanced," they say, but when the scientific community is nearly at a consensus the equal weight given to each side is misleading.

 

Third, companies whose interests would be compromised by the enactment of more stringent environmental guidelines are paying for junk science that debunks global warming. The most publicized case of this is ExxonMobil paying $16 million from 1998 to 2005 to discredit global warming; I doubt they're alone.

 

Fourth, politicians lack the guts it takes to enact change. Nearly all of them do.

 

It's the 500-pound pink gorilla in the room, and little is ever done about it. We'll look back on this time in 50 years and have the hardest time explaining to the current generation why this was.

[Zythryn]

... Buying an electric vehicle is totally stupid, because all you do is to export the pollution. You charge the little car up at night in your garage, but all you achieve is to make the powerplants work harder. So, your pollution gets exported to the power station which will have to burn more coal/oil in order to charge your van. If the increased demand of these vehicles can be supplied by hydropower or windpower and the energy vendors can guarantee it, then it could work.

 

Boerseun, I realize this post of yours is almost a year old, so you may have changed your opinion.

However, if you still hold this opinion there are a few things you should consider.

Even if the generation were done with refined gasoline, you will still only cause half to a third of the polution. the reason for this is the efficiency of an electric motor is many times more efficient than an internal combustion engine.

Also keep in mind most electrical generators work off natural gas which is much cleaner than burning oil/gasoline.

Electric cars are not the perfect solution, but they are far better than what we have now. Let's not refuse from bad to good because good isn't perfect:)

[Govind]

For pure economic reasons!

[Michaelangelica]

I thought global warming was rubbish three years ago too.

[BrianG]

Bad science, bad teaching, no experimental support for climate change mitigation, but plenty of advocacy.

 

Or global warming the temperature trend, problematic.

 

You asked why.

[maikeru]

Too much bunk from debunkers.

[Donk]

Because climate scientists and their supporters are aiming at the wrong target.

 

It's pointless trying to convince the great mass of humanity. They get their opinions prepackaged from the popular media. You're going to have to convince the people who set the media agenda, who (not coincidentally) also set the political and economic agenda.

 

That's all. Convince the right twenty or thirty people worldwide that Climate Change is real, serious and can be countered, or at least mitigated, and that it's in their interests to do so, and suddenly things will start happening. Until then, no chance.