Is Global Warming real trouble, or a business opportunity.......?

Climate change is real, but we're too far down the road to change anything. You can't re-grow tropical rainforests, and you can't stop India and China from destroying global air quality. The only reason they blame American energy consumption is to suck a huge amount of money away from American taxpayers! Whenever you hear or read the words "global warming" ask yourself who's trying to grab the money.


Is it real, or only a business opportunity?

Is Global Warming real trouble, or a business opportunity.......?
Who's to say what is propaganda and what isn't?
Reply:This is an excellent example of stupid questions on this forum.





He chooses someone that doesn't answer the question because he doesn't want to advertise that the opinion he presents in his question is wrong.





WELL DONE, BIG GUY!





Epic failure. Report Abuse

Reply:1. You can regrow tropical rainforests (they.... 'grow on trees'!!)





2. You can't "stop" India and China, etc but you can encourage, facilitate and assist them to become part of the solution (starting by being part of the solution yourself first - the developed world is still doing more to 'destroy global air quality' than India plus China)





3. Who is the "they" who is blaming American energy consumption to "suck money"? I (and not a few others) blame American energy consumption because, per capita, it is the biggest contributor to AGW. This is like saying the only reason why you don't like the guy who is punching you in the face is because you want the insurance money...





4. Whenever I hear or read the words "global warming" I do ask who's trying to grab the money and I get:


Old, established, environmentally unfrendly industries owned by Western shareholders;


Coal, oil, mining and other resource extractors owned by Western shareholders;


Unresponsive and environmentally unfrendly auto makers such as GM, Ford and Chrysler;


George Bush and the industrial elitists running the USA;


Yep, look at who is trying to grab the money!





P.S. Something can be real AND a business opportunity; they are not mutually exclusive. Fact is, someone who tries to make a business out of something that isn't real goes bankrupt in the end!
Reply:Its an issue of responsibility, being the dominant force on this planet we have a responsibility to save what we can and not "restore" but conserve what is left which is still an amazing amount if diversity.





we are far down the road yet change can occur, things can be saved and ultimately we need to other wise we wont have much resources for society/recreation.





Money is going to be made from what ever situations arise and it will always be easy to slog it to the people making it with their cheesey gimmics.





The facts are real and the evidence is present, intense weather, hurricanes, rains, floods, fires, droughts rising water levels and loss of sensitive plant and animal species is occuring everywhere.
Reply:its real. we hope that if we can set the trends as americans then maybe other countries will follow.





we are looking generations down the line, for all human kind
Reply:BOTH
Reply:The danger is real--but we can change it. It is ALSO a business opportunity--one of the biggest in history.





Why? Because its a problem--and solving problems is worth a lot of money.





Consider:


%26gt;Nuclear power , using modern technology, is safe--and cheaper than coal for producing electricity.


%26gt;Solar and wind power are already borderline in cost effectiveness--and in another 5 years will be far chheaper than coal.


%26gt;electric cars already outperform gas-powered vehicles. And the costs are comprparable--the only reason electrics are stilll a little more expensive is the small volume.


%26gt;we can cut our current oil sue in half simply by insisting Detroit build fuel efficient cars and start expanding mass transit


%26gt;


every one of thos e promises to create business opportunities, save consumers mony, and promote job creation and economic growth.





China, India, and the rest will follow--because alternative will give us a competitive advantage they will have to imitate.





Look--I don't want to be offensive--but whining "there' s nothing we can do" is pure BS. America was built by people who saw problems and solved them. You can either get with it--or sit around wondering why everyone else is making all the money fixing the problems a few years from now.





Your choice: decide you can be a winner and do something--or choose to be a loser who can't do anything.
Reply:Unfortunately, Asteroid, climate change and the rest of the world's troubles are also business opportunities.





Look at CNN, for example, which was a small news station that was dwarfed by big agencies. Then Iraq invaded Kuwait, and CNN was able to get some of the most intimate photos of the war that ensued. Now CNN is one of the largest news agencies in the world.





How about Halliburton? Halliburton, among other contractors, such as the Louis Berger group, are currently in the works to try and rebuild the post-war Middle East. These companies are using the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure as a business opportunity.





Blackwater security agents in Iraq are another example.





Hell, the drug trade is probably one of the best I can think of.





The Y2K scare created a huge IT boom...





And, of course, in each of those situations you will have good people and bad people.


It's no different with climate change.


There are the swindlers that want you to buy their "gasoline additives" and to invest in their green energy research, without any real environmental merit; then there are also firms of environmental professionals, as well as academics, that make their living by seriously fighting the troubles of not only climate change, but things like water contamination, land planning and conservation. In fact, I'll bet if you were to ask all of those people seriously fighting for the environment, they would all rather starve than see the world descend into the abyss it's headed towards.





Now the real question is this, if scientists are the driving force behind the climate change front (and they are), then who is on the other side pushing back? Rush Limbaugh... George Bush... Dick Cheney... to name a few. The next question is, how much money do scientists make by asking you to change your current energy habits? None. How much money do people on the other side have to lose if you do change your energy habits? Think about that.





Now then, you CAN regrow tropical rainforests. Starbucks has already shown this in Costa Rica with their reclamation efforts for bird friendly coffee, and you can see the hopes of secondary forest reclamation here:


http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1119-inter...





Countries like India and China can be helped, but so long as we think of dealing with these countries with our cheque books instead of with our children in mind, we cannot do anything. China, for example, has a large amount of legislation in place for environmental controls, but current enforcement of these policies is so lax, that they might as well not exist. We tolerate their pseudo-compliance by purchasing their products, when we should really not be importing products that fail emission ratings or with life cycle analyses that indicate they are heavy contributors to the greenhouse effect currently troubling our planet.





The reason that American energy habits are brought to the table isn't because anybody wants to suck money out of you. It's because, currently, the US is in the best position to do something about this problem, and yet it is the greatest consumer of oil and the greatest greenhouse gas contributor.





I'm an environmental engineer, and frankly, I don't want your money. I just want for all of us to leave a legacy of care for our children so that this planet is here for as long as possible for every species that inhabits it.





But somehow I don't think this is what you want to hear, is it?