This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
What If The World Can't Cut Its Carbon Emissions?
Submitted by Roger Andrews (of Energy Matters) via The Automatic Earth blog,
Many people, including more than a few prominent politicians, accept that global warming must be limited to no more than two degrees C above the pre-industrial mean, or a little more than one degree C above where we are now, to avoid dangerous interference with the Earth’s climate. Let’s assume these people are right, that the 2C threshold really does represent the climatic equivalent of a cliff and that bad things will happen if we drive off it.
So how do we apply the brakes?
According to the IPCC by limiting cumulative future global carbon emissions to no more than 500 gigatons, and even then we would have only a two-thirds chance of success:
To have a better than two-thirds chance of limiting warming to less than 2°C from pre-industrial levels the total cumulative carbon dioxide emission from all human sources since the start of the industrial era would need to be limited to about 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon. About half of this amount had already been emitted by 2011.
Here we will ignore the one-third chance of failure and use 500 gigatons as the “safe” emissions limit. Can we stay below it? Figure 1 summarizes the current position. The black line (data from EDGAR) shows progress, or lack thereof, in cutting global emissions since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) started the ball rolling in 1992. The red line is a projection of the black line. The blue line, which intersects zero in 2117, amounts to 500 Gt of future carbon emissions. I assumed a linear decrease for simplicity but other pathways are of course possible:
Figure 1: Current position on cutting global emissions to “safe” levels
Obviously the world is going to have to reverse course in a hurry if it is to have any chance of keeping warming below the 2C danger threshold. What are the chances that it can? Let’s look at which countries the emissions are coming from and see what the prospects are.
The world’s emitters are commonly divided into two categories – the “developed” countries, such as the US, UK, Germany and Japan, and the “developing” countries, such as Egypt, India, Malawi and Paraguay. We will look first at the developed countries, which presently emit a third of the world’s carbon. Developed country emissions for 1970 through 2012 are summarized in Figure 2:
Figure 2: Developed country emissions from fossil fuel burning, 1970-2012
The United States accounts for 16% of global emissions (the percentages given here are from 2012 EDGAR data). US emissions have been trending down since 2005 partly because of the shale gas boom and partly because of the 2008 recession. The Obama administration recently adopted rules designed to cut US emissions further but whether they will survive is uncertain, and even if they do the chances that Congress as presently constituted will agree to emissions cuts unless the developing countries follow suit are effectively zero. The 1997 US Senate rejected US participation in the Kyoto Protocol for this reason, and given the opportunity the present Senate would do the same.
The European Union accounts for 11% of global emissions. For some years the EU has been setting an example to the world by unilaterally pursuing ambitious emissions targets, although so far with little to show for it (the downtrend in EU emissions since 2006 is largely a result of the 2008 recession and the EU’s slow recovery). The realization that the EU can’t save the planet all by itself is, however, finally beginning to sink in, and as a result the EU has hardened its negotiating position, stating at the Lima climate talks that mandatory emissions targets must now be set for all countries, not just the developed ones.
Australia, Canada and Japan collectively emit 7% of the world’s carbon. All three are presently somewhat less than enthusiastic about emissions cuts and are unlikely to become greatly more enthusiastic in the foreseeable future. They won’t move unless everyone else does.
Now on to the developing countries, which emit two-thirds of the world’s carbon and are responsible for all of the growth in global emissions since the world embarked on its quest to cut them in 1992. Developing country emissions are summarized in Figure 3:
Figure 3: Developing country emissions from fossil fuel burning, 1970-2012
China, which now accounts for 29% of global emissions (according to EDGAR; other sources put the figure at 25-26%) is the key player. The UNFCCC exempts China and the other developing countries from emissions caps – in fact it encourages them to build more power plants in order to eradicate poverty – and China wants to keep it that way. China pays lip service to the need to combat climate change but considers economic development far more important, as illustrated in Figure 4. The total disregard for the “Spirit of Kyoto” is almost comical:
Figure 4: China’s emissions before and after ratifying the Kyoto Protocol
(The lip service consists of a) China’s 2005 commitment to reduce its carbon intensity – the amount of carbon emitted per unit of GDP – by 40-45% by 2020 and b) its recent commitment to make its best efforts to peak its emissions by 2030. Figure 4 shows what happened to China’s emissions after its 2005 commitment. Its latest commitment pretty much guarantees that its emissions will continue to rise for at least the next 15 years.)
India, with 6% of global emissions, makes no bones about where it stands: “The world must accept that India’s per capita carbon emissions will need to rise rapidly if it is to eliminate poverty, the environment minister said on Friday, as delegates meet in Lima for key UN climate change talks.” Economic development takes priority over the need to combat climate change in India too, as illustrated in Figure 5:
Figure 5: India’s emissions before and after ratifying the Kyoto Protocol
The position of Russia, which accounts for 5% of global emissions, is predictable. Under Kyoto Russia committed to keep its emissions below 1990 levels and its emissions are still well below 1990 levels (Figure 3). Putin has other things to worry about anyway.
The other developing countries, which collectively contribute 26% of global emissions, include some in a reasonably advanced state of economic development, such as South Korea and Chile, but otherwise are mostly poor. The poor countries are more than willing to limit their emissions provided the developed countries pay all the costs, and in 2011 the Green Climate Fund was set up to get the ball rolling. So far, however, contributions amount to only $10 billion – a negligible sum relative to the scale of the undertaking. We can safely assume that funds on the scale necessary to reverse the 3% historic annual growth rate in other developing country emissions will not be made available, or at least not quickly enough to do any good.
The bottom line is that the developed countries won’t commit to emissions cuts of the magnitude necessary to stay below the 2C threshold unless the developing countries shoulder at least some of the burden, but the developing countries aren’t going to sacrifice economic development on the altar of climate change, threshold or no threshold. The most they are likely to agree to is token measures that get good publicity but which don’t cut emissions, as China has already done. As a result the developed countries will again be left to go it alone, which as shown in Figure 6 is an exercise in futility:
Figure 6: Developed and developing country carbon emissions, 1970-2012
The conclusion is inescapable. However desirable it may be to protect the Earth from the dire consequences of a runaway climate the chances that the world will agree to cut its emissions quickly enough to stay below the 2C threshold are somewhere between zip, zilch and zero. (There’s also the question of whether cuts of the magnitude necessary would be politically, economically and technologically achievable if the world does agree, but we’ll leave it aside here.)
Now imagine that you are one of the prominent politicians – Obama, Kerry, Merkel, Ban Ki-moon, Hollande, Cameron, Davey, whoever – who have publicly and repeatedly stated that climate change is the greatest threat facing the world, that the world is in serious trouble if nothing is done to stop it but that a solution is still within our reach. What do you tell people when next year’s make-or-break Paris climate talks show that it isn’t?
»
- 17136 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
By being full of shit, a result of not expelling any for his entire life, he is doing his part to avert global warming, or climate change, or whatever the latest tax-and-control fascist scam is.
Your opinion matters a great deal; now read a few books and have some quotations at hand to disturb the true believers and get them to do some research. Climate Change "deniers" are our only hope; congratulations.
It's easy - the western world (including Japan and Korea) establish values for per capita reduction of carbon emissions worldwide. Anybody who doesn't comply gets a 100% tarrif on selling their crap to us.
Note to India, China, Brazil, etc. No, your per-capita carbon numbers will not be the same as ours. Suck on it. That's what you get for inventing nothing and breeding like rabbits. If you want to do better, go invent something yourselves. Then you can have the lion's share of that.
You assume that this would force other nations to fall in line.
But, if they didn't where would the Americans get their shit from? If I'm Chinese, I would call that bluff. The pent up demand for iShit and other trinkets would be massive. A little pain for a big gain.
Nope, Apple and Foxconn would just move their assembly elsewhere. There is almost nothing China makes that can't easily be moved. Rare earth mineral supplies are the only thing that come to mind.
"Rare earth mineral supplies are the only thing that come to mind."
And thus the leverage they need. Remember when the US and Japanese went apeshit when China merely threatened to stop exports of rare earth minerals?
Newsflash fact heywood2; "rare earths are not rare". Strage, but true. There's a mine in Arkansas that's already to go, can supply the whole US Economy; can't even open; reason ? EPA. It's an open question whether we can survive the EPA' notice how effectively and easily you were lied to; and throuigh no fault of your own ended up believing a falsehood ? Thus it is; and so it is done.
Well I suppose it's really all just semantics at this point. We've also got a lot of oil underground that could be described as "rare earth" too. In prime California farmland they have "rare earth" water, all because the left makes it so.
Civilization will collapse before we find out. Mother nature knows best.
George Carlin said something to the effect that this planet will shake us off like a case of bad fleas.
Climate Scientists give science a really bad name. It's the only science that denies the hypothesis principle and claims it theory to be proven even when all its catastrophic predictions have proven false to date. I was green before green became a religion and all I feel now is shame as a scientist to be lumped in with this false religion where power money and popularity trumps data and fact and debate.
I'm not a scientist, but I am a "denier." And I'm a denier only because I've actually followed the issue closely--as opposed to merely absorbing and accepting the media's AGW blatherings and bleatings.
And as a man of the right, I am almost certainly more green (using whatever metric the environuts care to use) than all of my liberal friends and acquaintances. And since I'm not a man of faith, and don't have a god in this fight, that also makes them religious nuts by comparison.
No worries. The dipshits running(ruining) the US will sacrifice it's citizens for the world in the name of green. They will continue with their NWO plans and implement all the small detailed bullshit while they figure out how to deal with Russia AND China. And now that it looks like the fabulous EU block they worked so hard to put together is falling apart at the seams perhaps it's time for them to come to realize they need to take babysteps and turn inwards on their own country. Sorry ass motherfuckers. FUCK THE UN.
Just because a bunch of evil greedy fucks are using global warming to enrich themselves doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Humans have fucked up the seas and the land.
It would be rather odd if the atmosphere wasn't fucked up by humans too, dontcha think?
I see now why your tiny brain has been sucked in by this scam. You should try a dose of critical thinking. I know, I know, it's not as popular as it once was and certainly more difficult than simply being led around by the nose, but try it...you might like it.
I see it too; sadly, there's no cure for stupid. although silence is always a welcome option.
I heard from a global warming expert that the global warming was found at the bottom of the ocean. Is that true?
Discuss amongst yourselves.
They need it to be somewhere that can not be verified.
It's in the Mariana Trench.
All of it.
Obviously deep sea warming was the direct result of the rash of boating accidents suffered by ZH posters. I have absolutely no valid proof that this is so, which puts me in a position more or less equivalent to those pushing manmade global warming.
Please be specific. The issue is not "global warming". Sea levels have risen ~130 metres over the last 15K years. There's been a lot of global warming, including in the past century. The question is; what is causing it?
People's ignorance of earth's climate history is part of the problem.
"Sea levels have risen ~130 metres over the last 15K years."
So, it rose even before humans had any sort of impact on the climate? Amazing. I have been led to believe the climate has been stable until the past few decades (well, at least since all these same scientists claimed we were heading towards a new ice age in the 70s).
No, the climate has been perfectly stable since God created the Earth 6,000 years ago. Evil humans are fucking it all up.
So all the skeptics are bible-thumping rednecks?
I bow to your hubris.
God damn man. You couldn't misread what I've said any more perfectly.
Sorry if I missed the sarcasm. But, hey, I was perfect! So there's that.
Oh, that's what it was; I couldn't quite remember it all. (you really need the #sa tag; there's a lot of dim bulbs around here). (humorous reply to KELLY).
From Wikipedia
The term "snowball Earth" was coined by Joseph Kirschvink in a short paper published in 1992 within a lengthy volume concerning the biology of the Proterozoic eon.[7] The major contributions from this work were: (1) the recognition that the presence of banded iron formations is consistent with such a glacial episode and (2) the introduction of a mechanism with which to escape from an ice-covered Earth—the accumulation of CO
2 from volcanic outgassing leading to an ultra-greenhouse effect.
Yep, at one time the whole earth was a giant snowball and the only thing that saved it was CO2
Yep, everything in Wikipedia should be treated as scripture.
But, only for the true believers.
Water vapor is a much more important greenhouse gas than CO2, because it absorbs a wider spectrum of infrared light.
The effects of increasing CO2 decay logarithmically. Each doubling of CO2 increases temperatures by 2-3C. So if earth went from .04% CO2 to 100% CO2, it would raise temperatures by less than 25-36C.
Even worse, if earth’s atmosphere had almost no water (like Venus) temperatures would be much colder – like the Arctic. The excess CO2 does not begin to compensate for the lack of H2O. Water vapour accounts for 70-95% of the greenhouse effect on earth. The whole basis of the CAGW argument is that H2O feedback will overwhelm the system, yet Venus has essentially no H2O to feed back. CAGW proponents are talking out of both sides of their mouth.
Eliminate corporate pollution? YES.
Push AGW and carbon taxes? NO, NO, NO.
-----
How many people realize that almost the entire "green" population has been misdirected from fighting against corporate and government polluters... in order to promote the fraud that is AGW.
How many "greenies" realize the corporate and government polluters are now free to completely destroy the planet, because almost nobody remains to fight against REAL pollution?
Though I'm quite sure the predators-that-be love the carbon tax aspect of the AGW fraud, and also love the excuse for endless pointless regulations, they have to be laughing their butts off that they now have free reign to pollute the crap out of planet earth.
Oh, have ANY of the predators-that-be who advocate AGW cut back on their corporate or government jet flights? No? Well, what do you know? They've gotten vastly more egregious in their pollution. Just check out every Obama [and friends] visit anywhere in the world.
Oh, and years after Fukashima... the plutonium and other wonderful goodies flow into the ocean unabated. Yeah, all these predators who scream about AGW really care about the environment. Uh, huh.
How stupid can humans be? EXTREMELY.
Of course, this is the reasoned response to "sustainability" (I hate the word for how it is used to push the AGW agenda).
Somewherre there's a blog full of people who don't value reasoning and research and just love passionate off-the-cuff opinions; why don't you go there ? You stick out here like a sore thumb. (intended for Logical Man; 1+1=3)
Go build a rain barrel
When one reads these articles about warming, CO2, etc, does the following ever sink in:
Unless I have utterly failed at reading comprehension, it would appear that the ultimate goal would be to revert everything back to the Medieval age.
There are 2 possibilities.
Sustainability.
Extinction.
Sustainability=NWO=COMMUNISM..
I'd call you an arsehole, if it wasn't for the fact that all self-respecting arseholes would be offended.
Oh I am shaking now Dr.Scientist. PLease esplain why dopie us know nuffin'
Easy to explain
Dopy yoos know nothin 'cause you don't take the time to learn.
re "There are 2 possibilities. Sustainability. Extinction." :
True. The only argument is over defining sustainability. When the human population reaches 515 trillion - i.e., one person per square metre covering the entire globe, will that be sustainable? (Oh, that's right, we'll just put them in tall buildings to open up some multi-storey farmland.) It's just a starting point. Feel free to use a higher or lower number. When is the petri-dish full?
NONE of ANY of the proposed solutions concentrate on SUSTAINABILITY. "We don't care if the population doubles, as long as no-one uses any more oil." Doesn't ANYONE see a problem with that idea? Perhaps when the world gets a bit hotter we'll all run around in bikinis and so use less material to make clothing. Is that the plan?
I've already covered this. Global "Warming", the Science, vs Global Warming, the Politics. If they believed their own crap, what would they really do?
No, we'll run around naked, much to the delight of teenage boys and perverted old geysers.
Personally, I think moving away from fossil fuels is a really good idea. Carbon taxes, not so much. Hell, our goobermint has spent umpteen trillions of dollars trying to control the middle east for only one reason, to make it a safe and welcoming place for western oil companies. Imagine if half of that money had been put toward renewable energy and conservation (not that I support our scumsucking goobermint doing that either). All the while Oblammer and his lying crew are telling us we need to get off fossil fuels and tax carbon.
I logged in to ZH for the first time in years just to say; fuck you, Tyler.
I'd quite happily investigate alternative energy sources in my own time and with my own money, just for fun, if I had that much money. But I wouldn't borrow money to do it.
But that's just me.
PS. "Investigating alternative energy sources" sounds very boring. "Figuring out how to squeeze one MegaWatt of power into a car engine and a fuel tank that lasts a year" sounds very exciting but is essentially the same thing. I'd tend towards the latter. Yes, I'm probably just dreaming but it would still be fun to try. I have "won" a couple of battles in the past (nowhere near that size though), so with the right resources I might get lucky. That's why I'd rather use savings on such a venture, as opposed to borrowings. (Damn! That settles it. I really AM dreaming.)
PPS. Fossil fuels have excellent energy density and are a great store of energy. So some people are investigating this:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=turn+carbon+dioxide+and+water+back+into+petrol
On first glance, it seems dumb - second law of thermodynamics. But then if the thing was chucked in the desert and solar powered then it is only using energy that would otherwise have been wasted any way. Plus it makes fossil fuels carbon-neutral - re-use the same carbon.
What if?
Monopolists/cartels peddling either CO2-credits (in other words, big nothings) or hydrocarbons (sorry, fossil fuels) strengthen grip over world. Win for them either way.
"Now imagine that you are one of the prominent politicians – Obama, Kerry, Merkel, Ban Ki-moon, Hollande, Cameron, Davey, whoever – who have publicly and repeatedly stated that climate change is the greatest threat facing the world, that the world is in serious trouble if nothing is done to stop it but that a solution is still within our reach. What do you tell people when next year’s make-or-break Paris climate talks show that it isn’t? "
"When it gets serious you have to lie." -sputtered one or another of the so-called 'prominent politicians'.
"What Happens if the World Can't Cut its Carbon Emissions?"
The world economy continues to develop, billions are lifted out of poverty, and the politicians have to go back to the drawing boards to devise an alternative looting strategy.
O, you meant regarding the weather?
Well, it'll do the same thing it would have done absent any changes in carbon emissions - namely, who the hell knows.
Your posts are looking more valuable all the time; I'll be watching for you.
IPCC members need to be thrown into prisons for not preparing the world for the mini ice age that is already upon us. Lying fascist M'Fers. Arrest Maurice Strong. All climatologists are aware that a solar minimum is here now. The only question is whether it will last 30 or 90 years. Famine is the big problem and hardly anyone is preparing for it.
It's just a religion. Some people will get awfully rich and powerful from enforcing this religion.
Having said that, China is making a very good attempt to head this religion. So I wouldnt be surprised to see the Western powers drop the whole charade to prevent China from sharing the spoils.
At least if it was recognized as a religion, the rest of us could sue the regulators on the basis of separation of church and state.
As it stands, it's religion masquerading as science.
The jews know the oil thing has run it's course and is eventually going to go down now since they have been butt raping us for 100 years with the oil game and are loosing money they decided to invent an oil boogeyman "global warming" ahh alas a new fucking jew tax to continue the raping a bit longer all appealling to the idiot "green communists" chearing save the planet while demanding their own deaths how fucking ironic ...toxic foods polluted waterways and ground over flowing landfills and yes a CO2 tax will save us all more zanax and SSRI's for the masses it's all working as planned few more years of drug induced stupidity via vaccinations and they won't have to take firearms the monkeys will be shooting each other and themselves ... on another note ...
The same folks that brought you the shale miracle are the same folks cheering on global warming !!
Now stop the madness and turn israel into a fucking sheet of glass along with the shitty little oppressive nation of DC US
"Runaway climate"
Right now, arctic sea ice is above where it was in the early nineteen seventies and global sea ice is near average for the last 30 years.
Funny they don't mention that in our daily diet of propaganda. Fuck you, Tyler.
http://polarbearscience.com/2014/12/26/polar-bear-habitat-more-arctic-se...
"The conclusion is inescapable."
Really? Only if one were to accept your cherry picked premises...
3rd Paragraph "According to the IPCC"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IPCC!
Just another way to tax and redistribute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ocCh5yDaqs&list=PL00u99IRraJtn38lgAequU...
Ice age info
Well global warming is real and man created emissions probably responsible, no matter how much the majority of ZH posters dislike this. Also shows how irrational some have become, instead of applying any sortof intelect it is the dog whistle barking response you would expect from sheeple.
Nevertheless...being real or not.....the fact of global warming will result in no action that deals with it, that is for sure. WHAT countrie like China and Russia (and USA if it can expel its bankster parasites) will be doing is planning to remain successful in a different world. How to feed themselves especially.
No, "global warming" is not real. But brainwashing is.
So is the need for "page clicks". Just sayin. This is a commercial enterprise, you know.
Good point. I bet these articles get a lot of clicks!
That's why they post em. They know the primates will lock horns.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/548516/North-South-poles-not-meltin...
CLIMATE CHANGE IS FRAUD.
CLIMATE CHANGE IS FRAUD.
CLIMATE CHANGE IS FRAUD.
Yes, ZH prints articles with "alternate viewpoints". But seriously, AGW is just about as valid as "the earth is flat". So where is equal representation in ZH for the flat earth society?
The earth IS flat.
and the map of the world hanging on my (flat) wall proves it.
and the sun sets in the west.
You repeated it three times - IN CAPITALS!!!
You must be right!
Oh go Fuck Yourself. (to reply on a level you can understand).
More carefully thought out comments!
I didn't think you were that clever.
Pushing AGW is not an alternate viewpoint, it's the everyday propaganda of the main stream corporate media.
The climate change crowd is simply the old Communists disguised as environmentalists. Green on the outside, red on the inside. The solution is always that WE have to limit everything and have our rights restricted while THEY live like gods, following absolutley nothing they tell us we have to do. Finally, absolutely NONE of what they have predicted has come true. No cities under water. No food shortages. No runaway population leading to apocolyptic scenarios, no running out of gas, water, minerals or anything else. No rampant disease or desert wastelands or missing icecaps or lack of winter. Nothing.
Just lots of rampant authoritarianism and stupidity. Oh damn! Do you think increasing CO2 causes rampant authoritarianism and stupidity? Uh, oh! /sarcasm.
If mankind can't cut it's carbon emissions, than the poor green plants that we depend on for our existence will just have to get healthier, and healthier, and more disearse resistant, and more productive; as indeed, is already happening. The Giant Redwood Trees in Northern California that were in a state of "hibernation"; have sprouted new green shoots and are growing again; the co2 level must have been critical for the green plants; we better not let it droop so low again.
My Province has enacted legislation that makes building new construction more costly due to better energy use. We can have 29% window areas at max. Plus an R20 wall has to be R20 and not just the rating on the insulation.
A ZH global warming comment thread:
20% facts, 30% theories, 50% insults, and a complete waste of time.
I have been meaning to speak to you Meat Hammer on wasting time here in the ZH Zone !!!
Hey 20% fact is better odds than you get outta any newspaper or magazine...
20% Facts, and you're complaining ? Dude, if you can get 20% facts on the table at a Chemistry Faculty Meeting at a major University, you're doing really well. I wish i was kidding.
Cut off all manmade carbon emissions.
To kill off all of the weak pussies who support doing so.
Then turn it back on.
FULL BLAST!
They can't even come up with a decent battery.
All of this idiocy is very entertaining. Slowly but surely, all of their chickens are coming home to roost.
We shall have excellent barbeque to celebrate their demise.
BEST Response EVER,,,, to carbon emissions climate change BULLSHIT propaganda. EVER!!!!!!!
Toss some extra wings to poco!
CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT!
You're goddam right it isn't It's what green plants live on. and the EPA is dlinically insane; but that shouldn't be surprising.
"Check please".
nice troll zh
Look, I have no problem recycling plastic, aluminum, cardboard, etc that my family produces in waste each week. I believe we should keep it out of landfills if possible. I also do a bit of composting too. From an economically selfish standpoint, I have replaced almost all the lights in our house with LED bulbs and this past summer I put in two rain catch barrels outside. I use the free rainwater as a source to water my plants and bushes now. Again, I did these things to save myself money over time, not because I feared the ice caps were melting away. When I see these morons (Al Gores of the world) flying to and fro about the globe telling us all how we are choking the earth out, I want to give them a good dose of Shaken Baby Syndrome, and then run their limp bodies through a wood chipper. That's just me though....
Rain barrels? Average cost of water in the US is $1.50 per THOUSAND gallons! You will never see a payback in your lifetime or that of your grandchildren's. But if it makes you feel good...
I will help you shake Al Gore.
That's for the chlorinated water. Never touch the stuff, wouldn't even let my fish fuck in it.
Require birth control with ebt.
That bitch at mcdonalds released enough hot air in ten minutes to kill a polar bear.
The fur color was her happy meal prize.
You can take a brain to knowledge, but you can't make it think.
You only insulted and posted nothing worth reading.. It was fun...
Knowledge without wisdom is more dangerous than the lack of knowledge. As for you, it is difficult to determine how dangerous you are. It is evident you have no wisdom. What is yet to be clear is whether you have any knowledge.
At the very least, however, you are reasonably entertaining. That said, a one note song has its limits.
The Sun and the Moon create weather on this planet.
CO2 has doubled in the last 100 years and no temp change has occurred.
Science knows this already.
Just another example of how big gubbmint is just a total fucking shit show.
CO2 increases FOLLOW warming.
The amount man produces pales in comparison to ther earth-based sources.
CO2 has been MUCH higher in the past
We're at near starvation levels for plants now.
Why is everybody going nuts?!
Let me remaind you, the article starts with:
"Let’s assume these people are right, that the 2C threshold really does represent the climatic equivalent of a cliff and that bad things will happen if we drive off it."
It ends up demonstrating that nothing will happen, since nobody gives a shit unless everybody equally gives a shit and even then most still won't give a shit.
So why is everybody here getting bent out of shape?
This all started with a theoretical assumption by an economist who derived the possible economic damage that might be caused by AGW so called. That individaul was nominated for a nobel prize but never made the cut in the end. That individual has since disappeared completely from the AGW scene and I suspect that he is ashamed of how this all has transpired.
Well, at least the author of this article seems to be misunderstood.
I see some other articles of his
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=1055&linkbox=true
where he writes:
"What follows is my attempt to condense these hypotheses into a narrative that uses observational data to illustrate how the solar cycle, ENSO events and the release of stored ocean heat, and not man-made greenhouse gases, combined to cause the recent global warming, which began, incidentally, in 1976."
One thing for certain, the sun and cosmic radiation do play a role in climate variability. The second certain thing is that governments and their crony partners in crime will move heaven and earth to get their way, by any means possible to implement a carbon tax or worse. If anyone on the other side of this debate understood how REC trading does not reduce pollutants, they most certainly would see the light.
This whole Global Warming/agw/climate change/climate disruption scam is the most outrageous bunch of shit in human history. For christs sake, it is legally a religion in the uk....
+++++
Everyone forgets the govt already has a tax on petrol. What was that supposed to do again?
Ignore all the bullshit excuses trotted out. Plenty more where they came from.
If it LOOKS like Yet Another Tax and COSTS like Yet Another Tax then it IS Yet Another Tax.
Try to remember.
Supreme Court Justice Roberts said it wasn't a tax.
But, don't let the fact that the IRS is the enforcement arm confuse your thinking.
The people who are bent out of shape are:
-----
#1: People who strongly tend to be busy-bodies who love to control others, and have been handed the "great new religion" by fraudulant hypsters.
#2: People who know that AGW is how the worst human predators on planet earth will justify total enslavement of mankind forever, including a justification for permanent massive theft to "solve" the problem that doesn't exist.
Otherwise, nobody gives a damn.
A couple amazing facts: warmer temperatures benefit mankind, and warmer temperatures will not substantially raise ocean levels. But... let's not let facts get in the way. Nobody else is.
Don't give up !! It's either Facts or Die. These are serious opponents, even tho their "Science" is non-existent. Keep speaking out and keep offering rational, well proven, contraries.
Solution: grow moar weed.
Not neccessarily a solution....
Not a bad idea, though!
The criminalization of cannabis cultivation was merely the single simplest symbol and most extreme particular example of the general pattern of social facts: SOCIETY IS CONTROLLED BY SYSTEMS OF LEGALIZED LIES, BACKED BY LEGALIZED VIOLENCE.
Both alcohol prohibition and pot prohibition were deliberately designed to put alternative, more sustainable, industries out of business, so that those could not compete with more unsustainable, but more profitable industries.
Of course, one could cultivate more cannabis, and that would be a good thing. However, what is more important is to understand the gestalt of reasons regarding how and why its was possible for the single best plant on the planet for people, (hemp for food, fiber, fun and medicine) could have been rebranded as "marijuana that is almost as bad as murder" AND THAT HUGE LIE ENFORCED WITH VIOLENCE FOR DECADE AFTER DECADE, while the war against marijuana thereby became the backbone of funding for organized crime, and the profits from that were finally ending up in banks.
The same vicious spirals in the political processes, that were dominated by the international banksters, as the biggest gangsters, were behind the criminalization of cannabis, as well as behind a host of other criminally insane sets of legalized lies backed by legalized violence. As my other comments below outlined, the problem with respect to responding to the threat of climate change requires understanding that our political economy is based on ENFORCED FRAUDS. The development of the industrial revolution was not directed by any overall rationality, but rather directed by expedient evils. For example, hemp is superior in every way to cotton. However, hemp was criminalized, while cotton was subsidized. (The very first group that began the international campaign to criminalize cannabis was the Egyptian cotton industry, back at the end of the 19th Century.)
At present, we are only getting fake "legalization" which is nothing more than a neoprohibitionist regime, or effectively Prohibition 2.0, because as long as the monetary and taxation systems stay the same, then marijuana could only be "legalized" back into those systems in the worst possible ways, because those were the systems that criminalized cannabis in the first place, due to their evil ulterior agenda.
While one might be optimistic to think that legalizing marijuana and cultivation of cannabis could be a sign of the tide turning, I doubt that, because the overwhelming vast majority of people are still mainstream morons who do not want to understand what really happened: It was BECAUSE hemp is the single best plant for people that it was completely criminalized. The truth was never that marijuana was bad, the truth was always that governments were evil. Understanding the deeper reasons for how and why those are the real facts are the same sorts of understandings which are necessary to understand why the industrial revolution developed in criminally insane ways, and why all of the bogus "solutions" for climate change promoted by the ruling classes through their mass media tend to be backwards!
I have been thinking about climate change since the 1970s, and collecting my thoughts here about Humans blamed for climate change...
In my opinion most of the comments above were too superficial to be worthwhile, since one thing for sure is that CLIMATE IS COMPLICATED!
My current belief is that nobody understands the climate, because nobody understands how the Sun works, nor understands how the Sun/Earth magnetic field works.
Although the greenhouse gas mechanisms are certainly real, most of the established climate models deliberately ignored the roles of the Solar effects, and the Sun-Earth magnetic field effects, as well as the overall context of more cosmic factors.
My current beliefs are that we getting a LUCKY BREAK from the more cosmic factors, which are relatively causing the Earth to be cooling, which is mostly cancelling out the greenhouse gas mechanisms from having already gone into much more serious runaway positive feedbacks.
In the longer term, the greenhouse gas mechanisms may well return with a vengeance, but, for now, they are being mitigated by the more cosmic factors.
THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL FACT IN THE BACKGROUND IS THAT CIVILIZATION IS CONTROLLED BY SYSTEMS OF LIES BACKED BY VIOLENCE, WHICH MAKES ANY COHERENT STRATEGY FOR HUMAN BEINGS TO DEAL WITH CLIMATE CHANGE PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE ...
WE ARE IN FOR ONE HELL OF A WILD RIDE!
Try looking at Poposed Solutions vs Ignored Solutions. The politics is clear.
When all you've got is the ability to tax the fuck out of everyone then every problem looks like an opportunity to tax the fuck out of everyone.
Correct, PT!
My current beliefs are that we ARE a LUCKY BREAK in terms of cosmic factors.
Assuming that, on balance, life is better than the altermative.
And, assuming that postponing the runaway feedback loops for a generation is a good idea ... allowing, once again, the current generation of older, richer, people to transfer the economic and ecological debts onto younger generations, especially including those not yet born.
... Most of the superficial comments on that article above on Zero Hedge over-generalize from the facts that society IS dominated by systems of ENFORCED FINANCIAL FRAUDS, to therefore appear to conclude that ALL the science is fraudulent. The degree to which that is partially correct has severely biased the overall discussion to become throwing out the baby with the bathwater kinds of over-reactions! The apparent levels of fraudulent and biased science has made the possibilities of coherent human responses even more practically impossible to imagine being implemented.
The same as how systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, are almost totally dominating our political economy, that also effectively means that it will be practically impossible for human beings to respond to their effects upon their environmental ecologies in any other ways that through continued evil deliberate ignorance, since almost everything else that human beings actually do is based on wide-spread criminal insanities, whose source was the history of social successes in warfare and economics based on deceits and frauds. By definition, the limits to growth are going to be changes in the human death control rates, and those limits will actually continue to mostly happen through death controls operated through the maximum possible deceits.
It would not be possible for human beings to address their real environmental ecologies in more scientific ways unless they could address the central issues found therein, which are the death controls, in more scientific ways. However, history has actually selected for the real death controls to become most socially successful when done through the ways and means of deceits and treacheries, backed by destruction, which became the foundation for the actual political economy, which is based on ENFORCED FRAUDS.
More radical truths about the relatively objective environmental problems and limits that human beings collectively face are compounded by orders of magnitude by the basic social facts that society WAS controlled by the people who were the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence. Therefore, meetings hosted by the United Nations are primarily meetings whereby the banksters' social pyramid systems pay for professional liars and immaculate hypocrites get together to debate each others' lies and hypocrisies.
It is practically impossible for human beings to integrate better understanding of human energy systems within the general energy systems of industry and nature, because those human systems were based on their most labile components controlling those systems, while those systems flowed along their paths of least resistance. In human terms that meant that human civilizations were controlled by the most dishonest and violent people, applying the methods of organized crime, which resulted in human civilizations following their paths of least morality, which they are still doing at the present time, as the article above correctly concludes.
The basic problem with the effects of climate change is that will put pressure upon social systems based on being able to back up lies with violence, which will result in those systems becoming even more criminally insane than they already are. Whatever might be the relatively more objective truths about climate changes, and the role of human activities in those changes, the deeper social facts will surely continue to be that civilization will be controlled by systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which would be headed towards times of Peak Insanities, even without climate changes to drive that to become even worse, faster.
As always, the only genuinely better realistic resolutions to human problems would require better death controls, to back up better debt controls, so that human economic activities and human ecologies could be better integrated into industrial and natural ecologies. Doing that would require a profound series of paradigm shifts, in the form of intellectual scientific revolutions in the philosophy of science. Human being would first have to face the facts about how human civilizations actually operate according to the principles and methods of organized crime, before human beings could become sufficiently scientific about themselves to put their real behaviors into a sufficiently scientific overall context of comprehension.
At the present time, the philosophy of science is almost totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, the same as all other social enterprises were dominated. It is not possible to have a better scientific understanding of human activities and general energy systems without recognizing the basic ways that when one actually does that, the results are a better understanding of how and why human civilizations actually operate according to the principles and methods of organized crime, and flow along the human paths of least morality.
Science has suffered from becoming fraudulent, the same as all other social enterprises have suffered from the history of successful warfare being based on deceits and treacheries, which then became the foundation for the financial systems to be based on successfully enforcing frauds. The article above took a rather removed attitude towards the basic facts which indicate that any realistic response to the serious threats of human beings changing the planet's climate through accumulating greenhouse gas mechanisms going out of control, into positive feedback loops, has apparently ZERO CHANCE of being implemented. However, most of the comments upon that article took a relatively superficial attitude of criticisms based on the degree to which there has been some relatively fraudulent and biased science, in ways which enabled those kinds of criticisms to over-generalize that way too much.
I believe that the greenhouse gas mechanisms are REAL, and are a genuine scientific concern. However, I also believe that those have deliberately not been put into overall better climate modeling, due to the biased terms of reference, and hidden agendas of the ruling classes, behind them promoting "solutions" to those kinds of problems which would result in those ruling classes becoming even more relatively wealthy and powerful, within the runaway social pyramid systems, which were based on thousands of years of successful applications of the methods of organized crime, in order to dominate the political processes and the political economy in general.
Any genuine resolutions of the environmental ecology problems that human beings face have to first and foremost work their way through militarism, because that is the supreme ideology. The core to the real ways that human beings will adapt will be changes in the murder systems, operating the death controls. Of course, that is why it is so extremely difficult, to the point of looking like it is practically impossible, for human beings to gain a better understanding of their possible impacts upon the climate, and how to respond to that. IF one is genuinely more scientific about that issue, then the death control systems are necessarily central to any possible sets of realistic resolutions to those problems.
Since the actual death control systems evolved through human history to become most successfully based upon the maximum deceits about themselves, while everything else was, in turn, controlled by the consequences from those situations, that cascade of consequences were that the industrial revolution was directed by systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, enabling wide-spread, pervasive attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance, due to the ways that the social pyramid systems were set up to privatize the profits, while socializing the losses.
The accumulating socialization of the losses, by turning the atmosphere and oceans into free resources, into which flows of garbage and pollution could be pumped, with hardly any economic costs, while there were actually accumulating enormous ecological costs, was one of the many apparent "side-effects" of the overall ways that human civilizations were based upon being able to back up lies with violence, WITHIN human societies, in ways which made any other considerations, OUTSIDE of that, relatively unimportant.
Throughout human history, and at the present time, being able to back up deceits with destruction was always the most important consideration, while all other longer term consequences from doing that were disregarded or discounted. Climate changes are the accumulating consequences from having been doing that, more and more, faster and faster, at an exponentially accelerating rate. We are rapidly approaching the points where the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, which enabled privatizing the profits, are reaching some tipping points where the socialized losses are accumulating to become bigger than all the privatized profits.
However, at the present time, those who accumulated the most privatized profits, within the human systems of organized lies operating robberies, continue to be able to dominate the funding of the political processes, so that there continue to be runaway systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which engender attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance, within which some of the worst longer term consequences may become due to fraudulent science.
Climate science seriously suffers from necessarily operating inside of that context. Many of the previous comments on this article posted on Zero Hedge presented some fragments of scattered recognition of that situation, however, those were usually presented in over-generalized and mostly mistaken ways. The problems of greenhouse gas mechanisms heating the Earth are REAL, but those problems manifest inside of the larger context that I have attempted to outline above.
We're gonna need to tax som folks before we get this all figured out.
So here is something for you folks who don't believe adding greenhouse gases don't add energy to our atmosphere;
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/energybalance/planetary...
Venus is almost all c02 and hot enough to melt lead
I believe that humans are fucking up the planet in multiple ways and are collectively to selfish and stupid to do anything about it.
With respect, but you should search for "Climategate" and "emails."
There were two episodes of leaked emails between the schemers in scientific garb central to the "climate-scheme." Some sites publish bulleted highlights of the emails. Also some interesting stuff out there about the head climate crat at the UN.
You can actually read and watch how they collude and scheme to protect their grants and positions.
Now I must go and shovel snow during the the hottest AND coldest year on record.
The banksters need to repay us.
If Bigfoot had billions of $$$ in grants involving proving his existence, they'd find his ass right quick sitting in a Port-A-Potty in Poughkeepsie, NY.
Yeah, I agree we are run by lying bunch of scum.
No-one believes adding gases, of any kind, "adds energy"; you're a science illiterate. You're opinion is worth shit. It's a different Planet, in a different Orbit; fuckwit. If you knew nothing, it'd be an improvement over where you are now.
The sun adds the energy. I didn't think I had to explain that one to you.
....wow...just wow.
venus.....really?
The fact that venus is much closer to the sun has nothing to do with its high surface temperatures, right?
Perhaps you should study uranus for CO2 emittions?
Exactly. And if Venus is the example, explain how Mercury is so hot with no atmosphere.
Mercury is about half the temp of Venus expain that one genius.
Not true. There's only a slight temperature difference between the two planets.
Mercury - surface temp facing the sun - 800 degrees F
Venus - 864 degrees F
Of course different sites state different temperatures. One site claimed Venus had a temperature of 900 degrees F.
But, basically the reason Venus is hotter is due to the fact that atmospheric pressure on Venus is 92 times greater than on earth.
I think this article puts a dagger in your argument as to why Venus is hotter than Mercury. And its not due to green house gases.
As this article points out water vapor "accounts for 70-95% of the greenhouse effect on earth".
From the article:
" The high temperatures there can be almost completely explained by atmospheric pressure – not composition. If 90% of the CO2 in Venus atmosphere was replaced by Nitrogen, it would change temperatures there by only a few tens of degrees.
How did such bad science become “common knowledge?” The greenhouse effect can not be the cause of the high temperatures on Venus. “Group Think” at it’s worst, and I am embarrassed to admit that I blindly accepted it for decades.
Blame CO2 first – ask questions later."
Yes, the "atmosphere" is 92 time greater and consists of CO2
http://www.universetoday.com/22111/temperature-of-mercury/
Mercury orbits the Sun closer than any other planet in the Solar System, so you’d think that the temperature of Mercury is hot, and hotter. You’d be right. The side of Mercury facing the Sun can reach 700 Kelvin, or 426 degrees Celsius.
But Mercury isn’t the hottest planet in the Solar System; that’s Venus. Here’s why. Unlike Mercury, Venus is cloaked in a thick atmosphere that traps the Sun’s energy like a greenhouse. Additional energy pours in and is also trapped, and so temperatures on the surface of Venus reach 735 Kelvin, across the entire planet. No matter where you go, the temperature is always the same.
Back on Mercury, the side facing the Sun gets to 700 Kelvin, but the planet has no appreciable atmosphere. Without this atmosphere, it can’t trap in the heat. And so, the side facing away from the Sun – covered in shadow – dips down to 100 Kelvin, or -173 degrees Celsius. That makes Mercury colder than any of the inner planets, and even colder than the cloud tops of Jupiter.
There are thought to be craters at the north and south poles of Mercury where the sunlight never reaches, and these places might even be colder than the shadowed side of Mercury.
You have a rubber dagger
The classic cure for hyperventilation is to put a paper bag over your head, which increases your CO2 levels and reduces the amount of Oxygen in your bloodstream. Global warmers have been hyperventilating over CO2 on Venus, ever since Carl Sagan made popular the idea of a runaway greenhouse effect. That was when he wasn’t warning about nuclear winter.
Sagan said that marijuana helped him write some of his books.
I bought off on the “runaway greenhouse” idea on Venus for several decades (without smoking pot) and only very recently have come to understand that the theory is beyond absurd. I explain below.
The first problem is that the surface of Venus receives no direct sunshine. The Venusian atmosphere is full of dense, high clouds “30–40 km thick with bases at 30–35 km altitude.” The way a greenhouse effect works is by shortwave radiation warming the ground, and greenhouse gases impeding the return of long wave radiation to space. Since there is very little sunshine reaching below 30km on Venus, it does not warm the surface much. This is further evidenced by the fact that there is almost no difference in temperature on Venus between day and night. It is just as hot during their very long (1400 hours) nights, so the 485C temperatures can not be due to solar heating and a resultant greenhouse effect. The days on Venus are dim and the nights are pitch black.
The next problem is that the albedo of Venus is very high, due to the 100% cloud cover. At least 65% of the sunshine received by Venus is immediately reflected back into space. Even the upper atmosphere doesn’t receive a lot of sunshine. The top of Venus’ atmosphere receives 1.9 times as much solar radiation as earth, but the albedo is more than double earth’s – so the net effect is that Venus’ upper atmosphere receives a lower TSI than earth.
You seem to have your own branch of "science" going on there, good luck with it, you are certainly are not alone here on ZH. Have you published in papers lately?
Yeah, I publish a paper about once a day.
But, then I realize its just crap like AGW and flush it down the toilet.
LOL....good one....must have missed the /sarc
Yeah, and how much closer is Venus to the sun?
Of course that wouldn't have anything to do with it.
What would happen if say, god, extraterrestrials, or whatever, had the power to move Venus out to Mar's orbit or even further out to Pluto's orbit.
Would it still be in perpetual PMS?
If you read the "science" in the link and you "might" understand someday.
See my reply to your conjecture here doofus
I answered your lame reply with more high school science.
Are you sure you didn't reach all the way back to pre-school?
Read my reply to your reply your science is bogus.
Yes I reached for my CO2 blankie cause I know it keeps me warm at night like Venus. Have you ever noticed that planets with no CO2 blankie get really cold?
The term "snowball Earth" was coined by Joseph Kirschvink in a short paper published in 1992 within a lengthy volume concerning the biology of the Proterozoic eon.[7] The major contributions from this work were: (1) the recognition that the presence of banded iron formations is consistent with such a glacial episode and (2) the introduction of a mechanism with which to escape from an ice-covered Earth—the accumulation of CO
2 from volcanic outgassing leading to an ultra-greenhouse effect.
P.S. I think you are the one with your own brand of "science" here.
And yet, you still haven't retracted you're erroneous statement that Venus is twice as hot as Mercury.
So if that was wrong what does that say about the rest of your posts?
If you average the dark side with the hot side of Mercury it is less than half. You seem to be more worried about picking lint than the big picture. Even if you adjust for the size of each planet the total amount of energy trapped in the atmosphere of Venus kicks ass compared to Mercury (which has none).
But, that's not what you said, and I quote:
"Mercury is about half the temp of Venus expain that one genius."
Ok, Half the planet is -173c is that cold enough for you?
That's still not as cold as the witch's tit I've got in my hot little hands.
joego1: ... and for some strange reason all the proposed solutions involve people working harder and having less money and less stuff and making people feel guilty for being alive and taxing the fuck out of people but then PAYING people to have even more people.
If you don't want the bucket to overflow then TURN THE FUCKING TAP OFF!!!! Don't turn the tap on harder while drilling more holes in the bucket.
Without lots of cheap energy we can't have billions of humans living the sort of life on this planet we all want. The solution is less humans and believe me mother nature will in time achieve exactly that and most likely with human help in the form of war or other fun stuff. Personally I think humans are kind of rude to think they actually control anything about their future on this planet.
Same thing I say to all the "we need less humans" folks; you go first, Joe. I'll bring up the rear. Have a nice dark eternity.
Just sayin, sometimes the truth hurts. Hope you are lucky enough to escape the reality of this situation.
I can only assume with you're enlightened perspective that you somehow believe you'll be one of the "chosen people" to survive the great human die off.
So how many need to be culled and in what time frame?
Say three billion over ten years, a century, or longer?
More than three billion?
Will you be willing to sacrifice your family, your parents, brothers and sisters, a significant other, or any children to the cause?
Would you be willing to stand there and make the decisions as to who is to die and who is to live like a Nazi guard at a death camp?
So how many people do you think can live on this planet? I've excepted the fact that on a long enough time line my chances for survival are zero. Unfortunately I can't tell the future but someone told me that the sun would burn out someday. The war stuff is up to the 1% with the nukes to figure out. I'm sure the idea of culling the population has occured to leaders on this planet more than once.
One-Child-Policy or else the Global Warming people are liars. They can't have it both ways. Actually, yes I do believe the Global Warming people are liars. Their own ideas expose them as liars. They manufacture guilt out of thin air in order to sell tax. That simple.
The lack of the One-Child Policy is not their only "tell". Proposed Solutions vs Ignored Solutions. A little thought and the evidence is everywhere.
SAT 800: I don't want to put more people on the planet anyways. Why would I want to provide more slaves to the children of the oligarchs? Let them kids do their own work for a change. But I can easily see why my point of view is not very popular. Hell! Even I might not succeed in my aim!
Two problems: Global warming, the science, and what to do about it, the politics. Can't say I agree with the former but it's very easy to argue the latter. Fact remains that IF global warming is a man-made problem THEN the least painful solution starts with less kids. The fact that this little idea is ignored is very telling.
Gimme two cars. I can only drive one at a time. Give two kids a car each. Double emissions. (err, ignoring costs of production but that's another story). And the fact remains that every single pollution problem on the planet can be solved by having less polluters, and that growing the number of polluters while decreasing the emissions per polluter works okay for a while, but in the end is a fool's game. How can you increase the number of polluters while decreasing the amount of pollution at an even greater rate? You can only hope to delay the inevitable while having more people to suffer the consequences.
Some nut believes in Global Warming but doesn't believe in One Child Policy? He's trying to take your money. Population growth not a problem? Then neither is Global Warming.
most likely it will be a zero child policy and it will be enforced, one way or another. There is more than one way but unfortunately in all likelihood we will pursue the policy in the same old Neolithic style.
Ever seen the movie 'children of men'?
No. Sounds like I should put in on my list?
"In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child’s birth may help scientists save the future of humankind."
It's intense
Different groups of human beings attempting to kill each other even more than ever IS going to the primary response to the increasing stresses upon society from climate changes.
However, that will probably make the overall problems even worse.
It's a cold night Radical Marijuana and it took the old Ford 9N a long time to warm up. Even if a 'no child' policy was created tomorrow, we'd still have an enormous problem on our hands.