Global Warming

[drowningbitbybit]

but here in the US, our government provides grants and money for groups doing research. If not, where does this money come from? If it were a company sponsering the study, would not that study be biased or at least viewed as biased?

Now, Im not saying that the views of the 'Green Parties' and scientists arent biased, clearly they want to make their research stand out as much as possible and to generate research funding... BUT...

When a scientist does research, he has to publish it somewhere so it goes off to peer review ie the research gets sent (anonymously) to three experts in the field who aren't linked with the research author. So if they are speaking cr@p, making stuff up, or just exaggerating their findings, normally they'll get spotted before it gets published.

Governments, on the other hand, publish their own reports - therefore they can speak any cr@p they like and - unless you're an expert - you probably wont be able to tell whats science and what's politics

Companies are even worse - they have whole departments making sure that the 'tests' they do show them the 'right' results

[Phil]

US are puting $22 million into hydrogen reseach becuse it looks good on paper hydrogen comes from water so must be enviromentaly friendly, but the enrgy needed to make hydrogen will come from fosil fuels, they are planing to have hydrogen cars on the roads in the next few years but if hydrogen escapes it could build up depleting the ozone layer at the north and south poles incressing global warming, not forgeting that the by product of using hydrogen is water vapor that acounts for 60% of greenhouse gases

[Brent]

But with the subject of global warming...when it really starts to bite from about 2080 onwards and sea levels are rising a 5mm+ per year, I think the established methods of fund-seeking, reporting & doing real science as we know it on this subject will cease.
Governments will go into panic mode & collectively whole grographic regions will band together with, literally, an open checkbook to attempt to mitigate the problem. Whole economies, key coastal cities as we know them & many many millions of voters lifestyles depend on this problem being mitigated.

New Orleans is the perfect small-scale example of this now. Regardless of the financial cost, the common-sense answer (bulldoze that area of the city for good) and the likely end result (it'll fail again one day)...they're still going to do it...why, because political decisions and then funding for large-scale science/engineering works & projects to fix it are based on emotion and public desire (and the government wantng to get itself re-elected in the next election).

Astute people know now that what we do today will be reaped by our grandchildren with regards to global warming...but governments are not pleasing our grandchildren, they are pleasing the voting population today. And their goal is to preserve our lifestyle for as long as possible in it's current form. This is why we're not being taxed out of large gas-guzzling 4x4's at the moment, why we're not being forced onto public transport etc etc...

This is the whole crux of global warming, it's the first real problem humanity has faced that's inter generational. We won't live to see the end result. Nor will our current crop of politicians...

[libby]

I agree with Brent on the fact thats its intergenerational means politicians won't take it seriously, they have no incentive. I dont however think that science as we know it now will change. I think the governments will push things forward and rush things through, but science, real peer reviewed science, will continue plodding away in the background.

I also think that as people see more hurricanes etc, regardless of whether or not these are caused by global warming, more pressure will mount on politicians to be seen as proactive, and i think funding to some areas of research will increase. Others will suffer as money is focused away from them, but there are always going to be aspects of science that are "fashionable" to study.

Finally alot of our talk so far has been about developed nations, and how they will cope. However it is widely recognized that the people who will be by far the most vulnerable to global warming are those living on the edges of society, people living in poverty, those forced to live on marginal land such as river deltas (look what happens in Bangledesh when there is a cyclone)and those who rely on the land for survival. These people are going to be by far the most affected. For the developed world its a case of keeping the economy going in an unstable environment, and adapting its current scientific and technical knowledge to reduce the impacts of whatever the weather systems throw at us. For developing countries, its literally a matter of life or death.