PCHiway wrote:Tom's question is also one of mine. There are so many disconnects in the current popular approaches to the world's poor that it makes my head spin.

To wit:

We need to prevent future climate-based dislocations of the world's poor --- but those that are being dislocated today by violence are just SOL.

To be fair it's somewhat more complex isn't it. It's not that we don't feel empathy for the poor bastards, but stability for the sake of national security and access to resources in order to foster economic growth do tend to overshadow empathy.

PCHiway wrote:Climate change will cause great disease and suffering amongst the world's poor --- that the great suffering caused by malaria today could be alleviated by some smart (read:not overuse like we used to do) use of DDT is immaterial because DDT is eeeeevil!

That's because people don't know and if you explain it to them they don't understand. After you make them understand you have to do battle with those people that in a pinch would rather have people die than some sort of bird.

PCHiway wrote:Basically...the woes that the AGW proponents want us to prevent are extant today! Well...let's go! There are displaced people in the millions in Congo, Sudan, and Columbia.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33026764/UNHC ... stics-2010

I'm pretty sure i could name the people on this forum who'd support spending money on that and those who would oppose spending tax dollars on that ...

PCHiway wrote:One of Stern's conclusions is that deforestation needs to be stopped now. Today. How do we do it? By the rich countries of the world paying the poorer countries where deforestation is happening to stop of course. And what is to keep them from pocketing the money AND chopping down the forests? Well...erm...the weight of international condemnation.

Why not outright buy it and put it in a trust. We're really really good at protectiong property, we're kinda abysmal at protecting the commons.

PCHiway wrote:Look, if you want to save some of those forests now...today...you're going to have to send in guys with guns to throw the loggers out and keep them out. Ditto if you want to solve some of these existing displacement problems.

The guys with guns would certainly be necessary, but they'd just be small part of what would have to be done.
Stop farming and export subsidies. Stop supporting dictators in order to "foster stability". Stop corruption (both offical and private sector), pay fair prices for the ressources you harvest in country.
It would be pretty expensive. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done, in fact i think it's necessary to do that. However it has to be done right and i'm afraid when we look how our politicans are reacting to the upheaval in the maghreb and the arabian countries that we really lack the balls.

Continuing...

Ever hear of the Gaia Hypothesis? In brief, it suggests that the earth is a complex system wherein life plays a key role and by its nature regulates the system such that great stability is achieved. It's controversial because some adherents have gotten carried away and not just analogized about the earth being like an organism, and not just saying it really is an organism, but even attributing to it some very anthropomorphic qualities, such as a personality.

Please forget about the words "Gaia Hypothesis". Some of it is unscientific but most of it is solid. The solid parts are now part of what's called "Earth Systems Science". A definition:

Earth system science embraces chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics and applied sciences in transcending disciplinary boundaries to treat the Earth as an integrated system and seeks a deeper understanding of the physical, chemical, biological and human interactions that determine the past, current and future states of the Earth. Earth system science provides a physical basis for understanding the world in which we live and upon which humankind seeks to achieve sustainability.

Another way to think about ESS is to simply ponder whether soil is part of the biosphere or the lithosphere. The ESS approach has been embraced by the scientific community but it's hard to get an interdisciplinary field of study established in an institutional sense. A step was taken in 2001 when these four organizations held a joint conference in Amsterdam: the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the international biodiversity programme DIVERSITAS. They issued a statement that included the five following findings:

* The Earth System behaves as a single, self-regulating system comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components. The interactions and feedbacks between the component parts are complex and exhibit multi-scale temporal and spatial variability. The understanding of the natural dynamics of the Earth System has advanced greatly in recent years and provides a sound basis for evaluating the effects and consequences of human-driven change.
* Human activities are significantly influencing Earth's environment in many ways in addition to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Anthropogenic changes to Earth's land surface, oceans, coasts and atmosphere and to biological diversity, the water cycle and biogeochemical cycles are clearly identifiable beyond natural variability. They are equal to some of the great forces of nature in their extent and impact. Many are accelerating. Global change is real and is happening now.
* Global change cannot be understood in terms of a simple cause-effect paradigm. Human-driven changes cause multiple effects that cascade through the Earth System in complex ways. These effects interact with each other and with local- and regional-scale changes in multidimensional patterns that are difficult to understand and even more difficult to predict. Surprises abound.
* Earth System dynamics are characterised by critical thresholds and abrupt changes. Human activities could inadvertently trigger such changes with severe consequences for Earth's environment and inhabitants. The Earth System has operated in different states over the last half million years, with abrupt transitions (a decade or less) sometimes occurring between them. Human activities have the potential to switch the Earth System to alternative modes of operation that may prove irreversible and less hospitable to humans and other life. The probability of a human-driven abrupt change in Earth's environment has yet to be quantified but is not negligible.
* In terms of some key environmental parameters, the Earth System has moved well outside the range of the natural variability exhibited over the last half million years at least. The nature of changes now occurring simultaneously in the Earth System, their magnitudes and rates of change are unprecedented. The Earth is currently operating in a no-analogue state.

I extract to summarize: "Surprises abound."

This thread is entitled "Climate Change" but the discussion turned to the US Dust Bowl of the 1930's. That wasn't climate change - it was soil change. Man has tampered with, caused more change in, and wreaked more havoc thereby, with soils than with climate. We've altered what's growing in the soil (or not growing) even more. In the continental USA today there's not a single acre that looks as it would have if man had never found our way here. Some of the changes are HUGE. Change land use and you change runoff and erosion. Change erosion and you change sediment loads. Change sediment loads and you change river dynamics - more sediment means a river is better able to erode banks - the sediment in the water acts like sandpaper. Accelerate bank erosion and you both undermine natural levees and increase sediment loads even more. I could go on and on.

The earth is a system; you can't alter part of it without altering all of it. There's a decent chance - its far from a certainty - that every nudge away from norm makes it not just that much harder for the system to return to norm, but a multiple of "that much harder" because every change is multiplied by its ripple effects. There's a decent chance - it's far from a certainty - that bunches of "critical thresholds" as mentioned above are being approached. We may have even passed a few but just don't know it yet.

One of the problems with trying to manage or just model a system like the planet is that many "ripples" take a long time to be felt - what we do today may have irrevocable consequences that don't become apparent for years or decades or even longer. Earth's cycles can be long. The calcium cycle, for instance, includes this dynamic: various marine life forms extract calcium from water to make shells; when they die the shells sink to the sea floor and it becomes thick with calcium in storage. Due to ocean floor spreading and plate tectonics, that calcium is eventually pushed under continental edges and forced downward (picture a conveyor belt that dips down); there it is subject to great heat and changes form (and there's a theory that the new form acts like a lubricant that makes it easier for the ocean floor to slide under the continents!) and some of it ends up getting spewed back to the surface and atmosphere via volcanoes, thus making it susceptible to being dissolved in the seas where once again some life form can use it to make its shell. This takes a wee bit longer than a decade. But other cycles can be quite rapid. In one decade a molecule of water can change from liquid to gas and back many times and physically travel from the arctic to the equator and from the ocean depths to high in the atmosphere.

Human creation of greenhouse gases is just one thing we do that threatens the system. If you believe that mankind was divinely created and was part of the "plan" for the earth from the beginning, or simply entertain the vague notion that anything and everything we do is by definition "natural" at some level, then you might see us as not really "tampering" with the system because we're either why the system is there in the first place or at least we're part of it and therefore not extraordinary. On the other hand, if you recognize that our species truly constitutes a weird development in the history of the planet, then all our roads, agricultural circles, mines and cities can seem like a sort of rash on the skin of the planet; less like something in God's image and more like an infection.

End of diatribe. Please note that I have not made any policy recommendations. It's possible to recognize that man might be doing great harm to the earth (and thus himself) without getting all worked up about it. Maybe that's fatalism, maybe realism.

GMTom wrote:People move, people have moved, people will move in the future.

Let me get this straight, we suddenly care about poor people when it comes to global warming and how can we take care of them, but when they are starving we don't care? When they have other disasters, we don't care? Why does it change in this situation?

Speak for yourself, chum. I care.

I think its interesting how blithely the idea that "we'll adapt" or that "people will have to move" is spouted by the same people who think that an increase in the taxation of carbon based fuels is going to be ruinous. Unacceptable. Will destroy society.

I guess "we'll adapt" as long as I don't have to be in any way discomfited...

And PC, the existence of wars and conflict today ...isn't an arguement against the fact that climate change deprivations will create more...
In fact, the Sudanese conflict is caused in part because of an exodus due to long term drought.
I'd also note that Brazil has made great strides at decreasing deforestation. But in the end, it comes down to protection of property and property rights. A rightful owner has every right to protect their land from deforestation don't they? Would an investment in ownership of forests make sense? at least in countries where property rights exist and are enforced?

X, enough of the components of what we are talking about were present in the Dust Bowl that I thought it worthy of mention. Humans did things that changed their environment which resulted in mass dislocations. It's certainly not an apples to apples comparison of what AGW purports. The Dust Bowl was a regional phenomenon in that it directly affected mainly the people who had caused it in the first place. I recognize that the argument with AGW is that those who are doing the most to cause it won't bear the brunt of the consequences and the effects will be global.

I quite enjoyed your diatribe and your second posting of the sharks/fish applet. Good example of how the smallest change can have drastic effects. But the only way to keep the shark/fish cycle in harmony is to never change anything. That's obviously not an option for the world model...even if humans weren't in the equation. So the Gaia Hypothesis is a useful framing exercise for understanding the way the world's trillions of parts work together as an organism does and changing one part can cause ripple effects throughout the others...I can't disagree. The hypothesis has little utility beyond that since some changes can't be measured, timed, or corrected. Striving for utility over perfect understanding may mark me a classical Westerner....but I'm a classic western sort of guy. Even if I were a Taoist...I'd be striving to figure out my role in dynamic balance and harmonious growth rather than trying to understand how to best preserve the cosmic status quo.

And ricky, you're not understanding the point I'm trying to make. The spectres being held up by AGW proponents are 1- mass migrations and 2- the trillions it will cost us to handle them. These include the built-in assumptions that 1-The world leaps into action when mass dislocations happen because 2- Mass dislocations cannot be dealt with minus expensive, global efforts. I bring up the points that mass dislocations are happening today not to dispute that those of tomorrow will be just as bad or worse, but to show that the attendant assumptions may not be valid. That is, with apologies to danivon, the world as a whole seems to care little for the plight of those who are dislocated today as evidenced by the obvious lack of a worldwide effort to rehome and reestablish them. I suppose one can argue that the sheer numbersof people displaced in the future will force a worldwide response...but the actions of today are usually a good predictor of the actions of tomorrow.

I'll agree that the issue of global warming and its attendant climate change is bigger than any model that humans have ever had to wrap their minds around. Since we can't, we will be unable to predict locations, times, and degrees of future catastrophes. As a classical western thinker, I hate to take any actions or inactions without understanding the likely consequences. Thus defending against notional displacements, in countries that will notionally affect my own, in a notionally conceivable timeframe, using actions that may or may not work...there's too much uncertainty in that system for me to be comfortable with.

But since some change IS certain somewhere at some point...that makes a pretty good argument for countries to look out for themselves. If Ricky is right, if it does all come down to property rights, then the best game theory models show that each country should use its wealth and property for itself to prepare for the upcoming climatic catastrophes.

I like it, Speak for yourself and a claim by Ricky that, well really doesn't dispute that fact, it just rambles on?

But what have we (as a global community as the IPCC wants to act) done to stop famine, relocate people, dig deeper wells, vaccinate poor, build better homes, and so on. What have we done other than ignore the poor? How much money have our liberal pals sent themselves to these projects? They have no problem asking the entire world to suffer through drastic changes but do they send money to these efforts? Maybe some, but what, a percent or two of their income?

And why must all changes be bad? A warmer earth most certainly has some associated ills but it also has quite a few associated good things as well. Look at the freaking Sahara Desert, a huge expanse of desert and they can honestly claim this is good? A warmer earth could lead to bigger deserts but it more likely would create more rain and desert areas could well be smaller, the wasteland that is now northern Canada and Russia could suddenly grow huge amounts of food, suddenly what was nearly inhospitable becomes temperate? Yes there are problems with warming, but hows come we ignore the benefits of warming? Can we actually make a decree that it is evil if we don't look at every aspect and balance them out? Is it maybe not wiser to spend money on adjusting to the inevitable than to spend money trying to stop something that can't be stopped and possibly shouldn't be stopped? To paraphrase PC, it's better to prepare for the inevitable. And why can we assume we will care about the displaced poor people in the future when we don't give a rats ass about them today....Yeah, "speak for yourself" but what have you done to help them? a few coins here and there? Has anyone hear donated until it HURT? (as the IPCC suggests we do to the worlds economy) ...I seriously doubt it!

And Ricky, my position that people will adapt fits perfectly with my anti-carbon tax plan. Because people will adapt, why should I want to change and use that insane theory? Those who think people can not adapt are the ones who want to implement it and ruin the worlds economy. Your assertion makes absolutely zero sense in the least.

Tom, the argument from the AGW side is that we can't wait for perfect understanding before taking action. And I actually agree with them. There are some things that we should be doing now that we aren't.

But where I part company with our AGW brothers is their next step which is that we need to take every action available to us immediately in hopes that something will work. Nuclear, solar, hydro, geothermal, fusion....every one of them....now! Cap and trade, carbon tax, private and public penalties....every one of them...now! Retooling the power grids, mandating fuel efficiency, making buildings greener, no more red meat, no more fertilizer, population controls...all of that...now!

I can't see any country, or coalition of countries, adopting the pull-out-all-the-stops model. Especially not after what has (or more accurately hasn't) come out of Copenhagen and Cancun.

Let's get real folks. The Obama Administration had its shot to be the world leader on this. They passed. Therefore if you're waiting for America to hurry up and lead the world...it isn't going to happen.

PCHiway wrote:Tom, the argument from the AGW side is that we can't wait for perfect understanding before taking action. And I actually agree with them. There are some things that we should be doing now that we aren't.

Indeed. If the theories are right, then by the time they are proven by results, the changes would already have happened.

Sometimes, you do need to get off the fence and act upon something that is less that 100% known. At what point (and the usual test in stats is about 95% or more), is of course an issue.

However, PC, you seem to be aggregating what lots of people say and assume that all 'AGW brethren' say the same thing. I don't favour cap-and-trade and view Carbon Tax as an alternative.

When it comes to developing various alternative power sources, we were doing that already, and for good reason (tidal is useless for Kansas, hydro useless for the Sahara, nuclear perhaps inadvisable on fault-lines, solar not much use in Alaska...). The ultimate point there is that if we reduce dependence on hydrocarbons, there are other benefits, but there's no one 'fix' to replace oil. To say that this is some kind of profusion of mad ideas is far from reality, even before AGW we have been looking at all of them (and the 70s oil crisis increased research, as could a new wave of revolutions in the ME)

GMTom wrote:And Ricky, my position that people will adapt fits perfectly with my anti-carbon tax plan. Because people will adapt, why should I want to change and use that insane theory?

What is 'insane' about introducing a measure to account for externalities? There are all sorts of taxes on things introduced to do just that.

PC

As a classical western thinker, I hate to take any actions or inactions without understanding the likely consequences

Oh PC , how many thousands of examples are there of westerners being surprised by the consequences of their actions? Economically? Ecologically?
We can never move in any direction knowing the final path. But if we stand still we don't get anywhere.

I didn't misunderstand you PC. I really should have aimed my jibe largely at Tom.
The concept that the third world should adapt to any hellish situation, but that the first world should hesitate to give up a life style that is both unhealthy (given the latest obesity and health index findings) and unsustainable.... is profoundly greedy. And by the way, I mean unsustainable in terms of economics. Countries living on debt for 35 years, who had to go further into debt to avert complete collapse, can't afford the life styles enjoyed for long anyway.
I believe that there are all kinds of minor things that could be done to add up to major differences. If the corn subsidies stopped the move to ethanol wouldn't happen. (And I think corn ethanol is a lousy carbon substitute.) and perhaps the move to natural gas might be sped up...
Alternatively, take all those subsidies (a great example of western thinking PC?) from corn and apply them to a five year program to ramp up the production of US rooftop water tank heaters. (90% of Chinas hot water are from solar powered roof top tanks.)
Now would this cause dislocation? Corn farmers, largely big agra, might lose some profits and the price of fast food and snacks would go up. Perhaps with attendant health benefits?


I think the solution is tinkering with incentives to make green energy competitive to fossil powered energy. (Lombergs suggestion)
As for the private property rights? I was thinking narrowly about the deforestation of Brazil. While in Brazil, if the billionaires putting money into third world projects bought forest and hired security to protect it as their private property perhaps they'd be doing a real service with their charity? protecting a large source of CO2 absorption and protecting an environment from which many medicines are found.

Most aid is wasted. Providing aid to countries where the concept of property rights and protection thereof is not practiced generally wasted. Investing in local economies, when the investments are nurtured and protected for awhile, makes a lot of sense. Example: If in the third world that included local production of wind energy, or wave energy, in odrer to bring power to places off the grid...
The answers are in thousands of small efforts. Not a huge coordinated effort. The answers are in creating a market that rewards energy efficiency and penalizes the use of fossil fule and energy inefficiency. The markets.
But every time the price of oil goes up, who howls?

PCHiway wrote:As a classical western thinker, I hate to take any actions or inactions without understanding the likely consequences

That isn't "classical western thinking" (I'm not sure how you differentiate with other types of thinking here), it's a recipe for inertia.

I don't think you wlil find anyone who does not want a greener planet or find people who do not want to do more renewable energy and we are making rapid gains toward that end. That's great news and if this AGW "stuff" kicks us into gear, then it's a good thing. But forcing us to do things that will cause economies to falter, to cost us more in taxes, I draw the line there.
Every time the price of oil goes up, who howls? (EVERYBODY howls is the answer) but these risses are what will force change and look how it's happening all without taxes and penalties, it will work out just fine without so many levels of government control and restrictions.

The plans are indeed crazy as PC points out the alarmists want it all, the planet will blow up like a match if we don't do so NOW. And Ricky, you want to aim at me ...go for it. But so far your plea to help the poor would do nothing to help them, it would punish them further. Look at the proposals, the industrial countries would now need to spend more on energy, they would lose jobs, suddenly these 3rd worlders are getting NOTHING as far as donations since there is little to go around. And maybe they are trying to get on their own feet, trying to play catch up with the others ...not gonna happen if they need this more expensive energy and extra requirements and restrictions, more expensive cars and so on. Helping the poor? With "friends" like you, who needs enemies?

Ricky just mentioned a lot of nice programs, and has listed others here and there, and they're all quite worthy of consideration, and just because one can't fix everything at once doesn't mean one shouldn't do what one can, and if AGW's dangers aren't being overstated then it probably makes sense to get moving as quickly as possible even if that means wasting some money. But...

Will you entertain a thought experiment? Think about the world and its energy consumption as it was up until 2007 - let's say from the end of WWII. This is when humankind produced the CO2 that's already causing noticeable warming, and will continue to for some time even if humans disappeared off the face of the planet tomorrow. Now consider this graph:



"Energy Intensity" is amount used per dollar of GDP and carbon intensity is also a measure of output per dollar of GDP. I interpret this graph to say that output per capita grows so much relative to these intensity measures because standard of living is expected to increase - especially for large masses that currently make do with quite little, as in China and India. So even as we get more efficient as regards the amount of energy needed to sustain a certain standard of living, we're still going to be increasing the total amount of CO2 we put out.

So if what we've done in the past is bad, what we're about to do is worse. As you ponder what might be done about this, keep this graph handy. It's the line that represents CO2 emissions that matters. The other lines are what determine CO2 emission - we're going to have to improve the situation a lot in at least one of them. What would it take to bend that blue line downward with a rate of descent similar to the rate of increase up until now?

I think it's very unlikely that energy intensity can improve much faster than this projection shows. The reason it's gone down from 1990 to today is probably the same reason it's gone down throughout human history: technological improvements. This doesn't mean that we've learned to get more BTUs out of a ton of coal (though we have), but that we're always trying to make, as inexpensively as possible, everything that's needed by everybody everywhere. Can we simply decide to increase the rate of technological advance? Of course not. We can make some special efforts in some highly focused areas, but short of a cold fusion breakthrough I doubt we can do more than nudge that line a tiny bit even if Ricky were made dictator of the world.

What about standard of living? (It's not on the graph but is implied by the line for output per capita.) Why should it keep increasing? "Sustainability" is what we need and if we can't reduce our footprint via super-charged technological improvement perhaps we'll just have to accept some stagnation in standard of living: getting along with fewer frivolous consumer goods, a level of medical care no greater than today's, no increase in leisure time or tourism, and so on. I do not think this is likely to happen even if things get really dicey. History provides us with an example of a government that attempted to hold standard of living steady while increasing GDP; they wanted to devote the extra output to different goals. They were in a good position to try - their control of the reins of their nation's economy was strong, they had total control of the media, wide acceptance of the ideology that drove the program, and superb means of coercion. I'm talking about the Soviets. Forget please that I'm a cold warrior; we're talking here only about their economic experiments and experiences. They managed a miraculous increase in heavy industry while holding the production of increasing consumer goods to a minimum - but only for a while. Eventually even they had to satisfy the people's demands for an increasing standard of living. No country on earth today except North Korea can even come close to matching the USSR in terms of ability to pull off that sort of manipulation. The Soviet people eventually became just too jealous of western standards of living; the increasing degree to which we all now share the same communications/media content means that we'll never again see such a long delay before the masses recognize they're getting the short end of the stick. People everywhere today are demanding a better standard of living. This is true even in the OECD states, which represent just 18% of the world population; imagine the urgency elsewhere.

What about population? We know that as GDP per capita increases birth rates drop, but that's already been included in the models that produced these projections. The population line in the above graph seems to be VERY slowly getting less steep. That's not bad considering that rates were increasing exponentially just off the left side of this graph's time scale. What can we do to reduce growth even more? Can't Mr. Malthus come to our rescue? Yes and no. We already are facing a looming global food crisis even without global warming. What if famine were to kill a billion or so? Two problems: 1) world population is projected to grow by two billion over the next thirty years, and 2) famine conditions severe enough to kill a billion would motivate the world's peasantry to rapidly increase rates of procreation.

That leaves just carbon intensity. Why is that line so steady? Can't we wean ourselves off fossil fuels faster? I don't know. I refer you all to THIS report regarding future demand from the US Energy Information Administration. I suspect the carbon intensity line stays fairly steady because although carbon fuels will make up less of overall fuel use in terms of relative share, total energy consumption will rise even faster. Hypothesis: if it takes X amount of increased energy consumption to bump up from $10,000 per capita to $20,000 per capita, the amount required to move from $20,000 to $30,000 isn't just X but some much larger number.

Conceptually, I have ignored (at least) one very interesting factor. What if people everywhere evolve a different ethic about sustainability? That could change everything. What I mean by "ethic" in this context is this: when I moved from Boston to Albuquerque I consciously decided to monitor and reduce the amount of water I used, even though it would make absolutely no difference to my personal economy and be an inconvenience. That was a change in ethic. (I'm just giving an example, not holding myself out as a paragon of environmental responsibility; trust me - I ain't one.) What if 80% or more of the world's people started to really alter all the things that might influence their carbon footprint? For instance, when buying a dwelling one can, for exactly the same amount of money, buy a large place in the suburbs or a smaller one in the city, or a large place with low amenities versus a smaller place with more amenities. In most places, people have an inflated desire for cubic feet of dwelling space. It's reasonable to want more, but the desire has been "artificially" supported by low transport and heating/cooling prices, taxpayer provision of roads and utility hook-ups, and the ad-hoc nature of land development in most places. What if people all over just consciously decided, whenever they might be in the market, to favor smaller structures with more amenities and a more central location? That could have a huge impact on energy use.

I guess it depends on the beliefs you might hold about human nature, or perhaps your own level of idealism. I can picture the world's energy/sustainability ethic, independent of market factors like the cost of energy, evolving - slowly - much too slowly to matter. But that's just me. Ironically, a major driver of human ethics seems to have a negative effect on this whole thing - at least in the USA. There's a positive correlation between religious belief and AGW disbelief, and if you disbelieve AGW you're certainly not going to change your sustainability ethic on its account. You might think that a belief that a deity with a propensity to be judgmental made the planet would generate a desire to be a good steward of it, but the opposite seems to be true. If you believe in God, you believe (it seems) that he's the steward, and would never let the planet do something bad to humankind. This seems a bit less than rational given all the real natural disasters and the Noah myth, but rationality and religion needn't exist in the same place at the same time.

all those pretty graphs only matter if you buy into the whole CO2 theory including it being THE cause for warming. I still don't buy it nor do I buy into us being able to do very much about it.