Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, April 25, 2014, 12:00 AM
Town Square
Serious impact from climate change unless we act now
Original post made on Apr 26, 2014
Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, April 25, 2014, 12:00 AM
Comments (2)
a resident of another community
on Apr 26, 2014 at 12:49 pm
So who gets the money from a carbon tax? What do terms like "revenue neutral" and "recycles revenue back to households and into the economy" mean? If I am a middle-class person who is careful about how much energy I use, how much will this cost me per year?
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Apr 27, 2014 at 1:17 pm
Like most people who've bought emotionally into anthropogenic (man-made) climate-change theory, Tim Dec focuses on tying the theory into the latest bad weather event (this year's drought), downplaying the huge climate fluctuations well established to occur regardless of human activity, and calling for legislation to force the less-enlightened masses into line.
"Detractors who argue against carbon tax say it will kill jobs, drag down the economy and burden families with higher energy bills. But there is no proof that will be the case."
The climate-change model itself, though, is held exempt from any such healthy skepticism. While IPCC has promoted the theory for years (and on occasion, tweaked simulation models as needed to support its conclusions), the same "no proof" status also dogs the whole anthropogenic theory. REAL science isn't (as facile politicians pretend) some debate game that teams win or lose, it's the effort to honestly understand a single reality, and this understanding constantly evolves.
There is real evidence for anthropogenic global warming. But the reality is incompletely understood, and is associated (and often confused) with major fluctuations that have occurred since long before mankind became numerous and industrialized. Simulation models aren't "proof," and partisans of the theory delight in grasping at every potential supporting factoid to buttress a political ideology, pointedly ignoring the scientific unknowns. As one bona fide expert (and partisan of the theory) put it to me, climate science has excellent data on some essential parts of the picture, very little information about others.
Do what "advocates" don't: keep an open, inquiring mind.
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