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Global climate change should not be a major factor in US energy policy

Warming is beneficial Whether warming is beneficial or not is irrelevant. The issue of Global Climate Change (here-in referred to as "GCC") is not simply warming, it is acceleration of warming trends within a short period of time. At one point in Earth's history there were crocodiles in Canada, and at one point the equator was winterous. Whether either of these conditions is "beneficial" is not at issue here; the issue is the acceleration of warming spurred by the release of large amounts of C02 into the atmosphere. "Earth has probably never warmed as fast as in the past 30 years - a period when natural influences on global temperatures, such as solar cycles and volcanoes should have cooled us down." [http://www.newscientist.com...] During Earth's history, the atmospheric gases present were a direct result of the organisms in the biosphere. These organisms work over extremely long time-periods. Long periods allow for evolution to adjust accordingly to change. Humans obviously are able to use technology to effect rapid change that biodiversity is unable to adapt to. 1a. plants will thrive "For instance, while higher temperatures will boost plant growth in cooler regions, in the tropics they may actually impede growth. A two-decade study of rainforest plots in Panama and Malaysia recently concluded that local temperature rises of more than 1ºC have reduced tree growth by 50 per cent." [http://www.newscientist.com...] Just because plants like C02 doesn't mean they are going to thrive when all is considered. Pro states: "Because plants evolved in conditions of high CO2, they are now relatively starved." I find this very hard to believe. Of all the forests and fields of the world that are lush with vegetation, Pro would have us believe that they are actually starving for C02. Sure, we feed certain plants extra C02 in greenhouses, we keep them extra warm and humid, and we pump excess nutrients into their roots - that doesn't mean all of Earth's plants are too cold, undernourished, dry, and C02 starved. And last I checked, everything In nature is evolved perfectly into its surroundings. Citing that there was a point in history where things were different doesn't meant that things stopped evolving back then. 2. Climate Predictions are unreliable Pro states: "many now predict we are in for two or three decades of cooling" Perhaps Pro doesn't get out of the house much. We are experiencing one of the most bizarre and extreme summer heat waves on record, with thousands of records being broken and re-broken as we speak. This page outlines many of them, which are far too numerous for me to include in an 8,000 character post: [http://www.washingtonpost.com...] Pro gives sources saying that the Earth is cooling over the last ten years. At best, he's picked a small fluctuation at a convenient interval to make his assertation. At worst, he's picked a completely biased website that doesn't reflect the state of modern science at all. It appears that both of these assumptions are correct. His site claims it's getting its information from NASA, but this is what NASA has to say (notice my link is actually NASA): http://www.giss.nasa.gov... I'll let the concluding paragraph do the talking: "If we follow a 'business-as-usual' course, Hansen predicts, then at the end of the twenty-first century we will find a planet that is 2-3°C warmer than today, which is a temperature Earth hasn't experienced since the middle Pliocene Epoch about three million years ago, when sea level was roughly 25 meters higher than it is today." 25 meters > 9 inches. Perhaps the land-mass of the Earth was different back then, but I doubt that could account for the entire discrepency between the numbers NASA gave us versus Pro's claim. 3. Fossil fuel restrictions in the US will have little effect. Just because China and the developing world are going to lag behind us in cutting fossil fuel usage doesn't mean we should give up the effort. In fact, the reason why China et al. do not put any real attempts into cutting C02 is because they will be damned if they are going to cut emissions while we refrain. People in other countries have a different perspective than we do; they see America as the richest, most powerful country in the world. They see us, with 5% of the population, creating 40% of the world's waste [http://www.recycling-revolution.com...]. So it is more responsible to assert that we are one of the top-producers of C02, instead of saying "well China is 5% ahead of us," isn't it? I mean, this is similar logic to a mis-behaving child who is trashing the living room and insists on continuing simply because another sibling is slightly ahead in total damage. If the U.S. continues to decrease its C02 emissions, then China et al. will be accentuated more as the true roots of the problem. If we refrain from cutting emissions, then they will continue to hide behind our lack of effort and no progress will be made because China also has a conservative element that will use our inaction to strengthen their own denial of culpability. 4. Too expensive I reject Pro's numbers based on the fact that the resolution merely states that GCC should be a "major factor" in our energy policy. It doesn't say that we need to tear down every power plant overnight. The spirit of this debate is whether or not GCC is a serious consideration; we don't have the time or space to debate specific plans of action regarding how to address the problem. It is sufficient for me to assert that GCC should significantly affect our policymaking (based on whether or not ut is bunk science), not that it necessarily must override every economic decision we have. I have only one contention that I would like addressed: 5. The world's scientific community agrees that GCC is real and is imminently dangerous The national scientific academies from all these countries have not only acknowledged GCC as a real threat, but have explicitly urged that all countries reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to combat it: Australia Belgium Brazil Cameroon Royal Society of Canada the Caribbean China France Ghana Germany Indonesia Ireland Italy India Japan Kenya Madagascar Malaysia Mexico Nigeria New Zealand Russia Senegal South Africa Sudan Sweden Tanzania Turkey Uganda United Kingdom United States Zambia Zimbabwe For a complete list of the scientific institutions that support GCC theory reference this page: [http://en.wikipedia.org...] There are too many to count reliably, but I saw about 70 on the list. I'm sure Pro will point out that the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation have NOT signed on, but I'm hoping that these notable absences will not distract too much. The link goes on to inform: "Since 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement, no scientific body of national or international standing rejects the findings of human-induced effects on climate change. Statements by individual scientists opposing the mainstream assessment of global warming do include opinions that the earth has not warmed, or that warming is attributable to causes other than increasing greenhouse gases." So, after 30+ of the world's top national scientific academies and 70+ of the world's foremost scientific institutions formally endorsed GCC as a real, anthropologically-induced threat, Pro's concerns occupy nothing more than a footnote of rogue scientists, as well as a handfull of purely politically-motivated right-wing institutions who put out data with the sole purpose of creating a doubt in the public eye that GCC is real enough to worry about, while 99% of the scientists involved have no doubts whatsoever that it is real.