Wow, there are a lot of shoulder chips on this thread!
What, did you think you could change the atmosphere around here? Here, you round-up to the lowest common denominator......and you don't want to show'em your chalk!
But in order to lower the costs of living for the 7 billion plus, that doesn't calculate. I hate to think cow pies will be a thing of the past. It's enough of a reason to de-populate now. I think quite a bit about cattle grazing in pastures and think that if nobody ate them.....well, they would have any life at all. Feedlots? Don't need no stinkin feedlots!
Anyway, if you take into account the orbital and axial cycles, the fact we came out of a grand minima of solar activity coinciding with the little ice age, to the mid to late 20th century grand maxima of solar activity, then throw in fluctuations of oceanic cycles of differing frequency you can easily explain the 0.7 c global temp increase of the 20th century with only a feeble anthropogenic contribution.
This seems like you're leaving it as an exercise to the reader. That would be fine if we all had a background in this area. Hell it's typical in textbooks given that the reader has the appropriate background.
HOWEVER, very few of us here are climate scientists. For those of us that don't would/could you please fill in the details especially since you claim one can
easily explain
this? I'd like to see it spelled out with things that someone with a good undergraduate science background should be able to understand - equations, their basis, their solutions, and reasons for approximations used. Additionally if the approximations or equations are non standard please rigorously justify this. Lets say you keep it to a multivariate calculus level (you claimed it was easy, even implied trivial).
Since you claim it can be done easily you should be able to put it together as simple lecture notes in less than an hour or so...Sh#t if it's that trivial this shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes...Unless you can't, and then I wonder what that means?
Grow your own fukin food. That way you know where it comes from. Hunt, fish, provide for yourself. GMO my ass. If you rely on others to provide for your existence, you have no room to bitch
In reply to JGill's question about how the poor and middle class will pay for potential carbon taxes:
the best way is to reduce income taxes (on earned income only) so the new tax is not a new tax at all; it is revenue neutral.
Earlier I said in my opinion it would be revenue neutral; I meant it "should" be revenue neutral. That is the only way it could get through Congress anyway, since it removes the argument that it's a "new" tax.
Should we subsidize fossil fuel for anyone?: Absolutely NOT. Subsidies for special groups just ruin a simple system, people will game the system, just like carbon credits. Fuel users will need to examine the many ways to cope, and stop depending on it. We can phase in the additional fuel tax over a few years.
We do need to be aware of the offshoring of fossil fuel use. If countries such as China do not follow our lead on such a tax within 3 years, we will have to add a fossil fuel equalizer tax to all imports from such countries. That is how a workable world treaty on greenhouse gases would have to be written.
Heating oil is not a great use for oil. Build a natural gas pipeline and tax it.
Right now gasoline is so cheap that many people drive gas hogs. Most of the world drives miserly vehicles that never make it to the USA, because we won't buy many.
A typical midsize sedan today: 3300 lbs, 4 cylinder with 185 mpg, 0-60 in 7.4 sec. In 1984 a Honda Accord was about 2000 lbs, 84 hp, slow.
Today a typical 4 cylinder turbo car has 210-300 hp,
and numerous American modern muscle cars have over 400 hp.
People commute to their desk job in V8 trucks meant to pull 10000 lb toys (and that does not include heavy duty trucks that pull 20000 lbs).
More expensive fuel will help to stop subsidizing sprawl and car based living. Carpooling and E-bikes will get more popular. Road rage will decrease.
Expensive for now, but a good example for the future - VW XL1 to get about 260 mpg. http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/volkswagen-xl1-concept-first-drive-review
And on a similar note, if anyone wants to understand how diversity and statistics are (mis)interpreted, may I recommend Full House by Steven J Gould. If anyone is interested, I will give it to you for the price of shipping.
Who is it here that worked with the L.A. water issue? I'd be interested in hearing more about what worked and what didn't work for L.A.'s water conservation efforts. Clearly people LEARNED water conservation... why not energy conservation?
Let us know!