Mike Mainer
Carbon Trading Won't Stop Climate Change
07 Aug 2009
But the problem is one that involves spans and scopes – time spans and power scopes. Let’s start with time spans. Since the question of global warming is a planet-wide matter, there are many time spans involved. The first problem is the true span involved in reaching or not reaching a 2 degree rise takes too long. The clock toward that disaster is ticking – tick, tick, tick – but it doesn’t seem to be ticking and, therefore, why worry about that, there are plenty of other deadlines to worry about or focus on.
Let’s look at the last planetary challenge that had a really short time span. For the USA and its citizens that was the Second World War and the time span was the time it took the first Japanese bomb to leave its aeroplane and hit an American battleship lying quietly at berth in Pearl Harbour in Honolulu, Hawaii. The time span was instantaneous, war was declared on Japan and America’s war effort was total. Men and women enlisted or were drafted. Companies stopped making cars and started making tanks. Gasoline and sugar were rationed. Blackouts were observed.
But global warming isn’t like that. The clock keeps ticking, the causes of global warming keep going and there is no total all out effort to win that ecological war, and yet the effect will be worse than being invaded by Japan or some other dreaded possibility.
Add your comments. Create an Profile to add your views.