Mrs. Hesse's Class discussion

Is it a hoax? How can it be stopped?

It's not amyth, but all current proposals to curb emissions in developed countries only cannot succeed at reducing global GHG levels.

Here's some simple math to illustrate why.

GDP projections show that China's GDP will be 5X today's levels in about 20 years, by 2030. If their greenhouse gas emissions scale accordingly, global emissions will have doubled from China alone. The minor reductions from treaties such as the Kyoto Accord and its follow-on agreements will be entirely irrelevant in comparision.

We're up about 33% above recent CO2 averages of 280ppm now, and for round numbers the current 133% of normal will become 266% of normal. Our level of global overshoot of natural levels will be 6X greater than today's imbalance (166% above normal instead of only 33% above). Bot the damage we've observed today occured as CO2 wnet form normal to +33% over 100 years, so the average was about 15-17% above normal. So the starting point in 2030 will be at least 10X above the average surplus that caused the damage we're witnessing today. So the climate change observed over the past 100 years could occur on average every decade through 2100 (10X faster), even if there's ZERO net growth in developed countries and in the other half od developing nations outside of China, and if there's no growth of emissions from 2030 on (and no acceleration in emissions growth, which is what we observe now).

Now consider what the reaction of U.S. political leaders is when we're in a crisis...

And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.'
- Sen. Dick Durbin (about 2 weeks ago)

"A recent report from Forbes magazine shows that six Senators received more than 32 percent of their campaign contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate industries. ot surprisingly, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, comes in first at 35.7 percent ($9.1 million)."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-l…

Note that the banking industry does not discriminate in terms of Democrats or Republicans... they're all equally eager to take the industry's money:

In Pictures: Wall Street's Favorite Senators
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/14/banking…

The total lobbying activity on a state by state level is $2.6 billion, but some sources attribute the influence bought in the 2008 election cycle as approaching $6 billion.
"All told, the predicted billion-dollar election actually cost $5.3 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics"
http://www.followthemoney.org/index.phtm…

All proposals to reform the banking industry are failing, Similarly, there are no proposals to regulate or reduce world greenhouse gas emissions even being seriously outlined and discussed, let alone actively negotiated.

Our blatantly corrupt system of government in the United States currently ensures that no political party or individual politician can afford to oppose corporate interests.

The one glimmer of hope is that the unprecedented participation of more than 3 million individual donors in the last election provided Obama with 48% of his campaign contributions:

"Such a broad and diverse base of donors and the astonishing percentage of small donors... have to significantly alleviate concerns about corruption resulting from the leverage that any individual donor, group of donors, or major fundraiser would hold."

"Internet intermediaries such as ActBlue.com... enabled candidates to raise money without going through the gatekeepers of the big, organized dollars -- the lobbyists and financiers -- and changed the range of issues that candidates had to respond to. "

These recent and dramatic changes in campaign financing give efforts such as the following one a reasonable chance at succeeding in influencing current politicians and future candidates towards a concern for the actual interests of most Americans:

Change Congress: Donor Strike
http://change-congress.org/?partner=cram…

This is our only chance at changing politicians' priorities from lip service to true public service. Our blatant delays and lack of action over the past 20 years on global warming is simply a symptom of this larger systemic corruption problem which must be fixed before we'll start to see fewer of these bipartisan screw-the-public, screw-the-country, screw-the-world, screw-your-children-and-your-grandchildr… issues in the future.

Umm, I think that when the polar ice caps melt, the polar bears will decide to open up a Coke factory. This Coke factory will put Coke out of business and ruin the world economy.