Interesting Weather Record Set Today

[Wayne SW/MO]

Both the free market and government have a role but it seems clear government has to lead.

Government should lead, but they won't. Both sides of the aisle and everything in between is more focused on the present and how it relates to their future. There will always be an election around the corner as long as we have a professional legislature.

If they are going to help it will have to be in getting private industry to take the lead. We just saw private industry take a payload to the space station. I have no doubt that if the government said it would foot a big portion of any scubbers for coal fired plants the idustrial side would smell a market and a profit and act.

[Jerry Rapp]

Government can't lead. If you think otherwise, think again and do some research.

[KCRIVERRAT]

You dream of poppyseed ... I don't judge much, but that is very weird.

Guess you don't know what I'm saying poindexter...

[Al Agnew]

Government can't lead. If you think otherwise, think again and do some research.

Depends upon the government. I agree the present government has shown they can't lead in ANY important initiative. But there are plenty of examples of the government leading in the past.

But like I said before, I don't EXPECT anybody to lead, nor anything substantive to get done until it's probably too late. So I hope it doesn't HAVE to get done, or I hope I'm wrong and we'll suddenly produce some leaders instead of venal politicians.

[OzarkFishman]

It was supposed to be a joke, guess it wasn't funny ... YES, I do understand what you were/are saying.

Back to the actual conversation that is going somewhere positive.

[Tim Smith]

Yesterday I got a call from a friend about a large mangrove wetland on the edge of a coastal Caribbean town.

That friend is conducting a review of national nature reserves, providing justifications and a plan for future management. The mangrove reserve in question is under special scrutiny because the town beside it wants to expand. Most of the reserve is at or even slightly below sea level. To develop it would require significant and expensive dredging and fill, and the highest elevation that could be economically achieved would be land masses less than a meter over sea level.

Given the realities of climate change, it boggles the mind that an area which will be completely underwater in less than 100 years could be considered for a long term development plan. But that's what's on the table. Some ding-dong after a quick buck (mostly selling swampland to gullible expats from the US and Canada) is trying to wipe out a large and potentially important nature reserve rather than move 2 miles down the road and set up their project on higher ground.

That's the kind of thing that makes this debate so degrading.

Even the most simple projections based on global warming, projections with mountains of science behind them that should make the policy decisions perfectly clear are continually being set aside. Yet, according to this discussion EVERYONE accepts that the planet is warming and will probably continue to warm into the indefinite future. EVERYONE accepts that the climate is warming.

Then is it a moral or an intellectual failure that makes it necessary to explain why no one should be building housing developments in important coastal buffers at sea level?

Yes, government has to lead here. Just as government led when the interstate system was created. Just as government led in the space program. Just as government led in creating the armed forces, social security, NASA, NOAA, and a thousand other things that we use everyday. No one should be building long term projects at sea level in a hurricane zone or in flood plains of major rivers in the Midwest US and it should be the government's role to be sure we're not left holding the bag when those things end up underwater.

...but I guess it was cold one day last month. So we can just ignore all that.

[Jerry Rapp]

Everyone? This everyone doesn't accept the climate is warming.

[Tim Smith]

Everyone? This everyone doesn't accept the climate is warming.

Since you think one cold day in one spot on the globe is in anyway relevant to a discussion about climate, that's not surprising.

I know some swampland in Belize you might want to buy.

[Jerry Rapp]

is it cheap chicken little?

[Tim Smith]

is it cheap chicken little?

For you? Special price.