Wide Impact of Climate Change Already Seen in U.S., Study Says

We're pretty damn sure that a lot of cities that currently sit 10 miles from the ocean are going to be seaside communities in another 100 years or so. The time to act isn't when Key West disappears.

 

Isn't there already an incentive to develop these technologies, and money being spent on it? Aren't some of the best scientific minds already working on it?

Why do we think that additional funding, at this time, will lead to some kind of breakthrough? And, who gets the money? How does it get spent? What accountability is put in place?

And, what is the cost to our economy?

 

Polluters are not internalizing the full cost of their carbon use. A carbon tax would force them to internalize the full cost of their carbon use, rather than pushing off a portion of the cost, in the form of pollution, onto the public.

If polluters were forced to pay for the full cost of their carbon use, then they would be more likely to develop new technologies. As of now, they are not properly incentivized, because their rewards exceed the actual cost of their carbon use, which they are not forced to internalize.

This is a classic market failure, and can be identified as one reason that polluting carbon users have not yet developed green technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem

 

Because the sea levels are rising (or are they falling) and the Great Lakes water levels are falling (or are they rising) and there has not been increased temps in 17 years...but that is not a long enough timeframe to study...we have to go back until we find a timeframe that proves the conclusion we already reached. The polar ice caps are melting (or are they growing) and the poor polar bears are dying because they can't swim (even though they are among the best swimmers in the word). STICK IT TO BIG BUSINESS! THAT WILL FIX EVERYTHING...EVEN THE PROBLEMS WE DON'T HAVE!

Global warming/cooling/climate change is fun!

 

You tell 'em, Butters! :

 

Cites?

 

This is why serious debate on this topic will never happen. Not here, and sure as hell not in Washington.

 

Ain't nothing ---- short of major changes in outer space, the earth's position, etc. --- going to totally reverse climate change. It was going to happen regardless; the industrial society just accelerated it.

 

Thank you Scientist Mark.

 

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We are?

 

Even if sea levels rise that much, people 10 miles from the ocean aren't going to wake up one day with sea water in their front yard. It'll be a steady creep, and people will adapt. There's a lot of towns that had thousands of people 100 or 150 years ago that are now ghost towns or small towns because of economic or geographic changes, or some combination of the two.
It wasn't a tragedy. No one died because of it. It was just change. They moved on to other places or found a way to live with the new environment.