Palin Right of Bush on Environment - Palin Wrong for America

Wow, take any opportunity to vent your hatred for an entire religion in a discussion about the environment. Incredible.

There is no Christian doctrine detailing, or even suggesting, what you described.

I'm a "certain hardcore Christian-type" and donate over 6 figures a year to Defenders of Wildlife, among others.

How do you know I'm venting hatred for an entire religion? It's a distinct sentiment among certain self-described Christians that takes the 'subdue the Earth' passage very seriously.

How many of them are there? Surely, you must have it written down somewhere.

In reality, major problems occur when policies concerning the environment are institutionalized by the government.

Example (From SourceWatch.com):

"When communist governments took control of Eastern European nations in 1949, they embraced the Marxist ideology on natural resources - that natural resources have no intrinsic value; their sole purpose is to serve humans. At the same time, the governments promoted heavy industry to feed their military apparatus. The combination was devastating to the environment."

This philosophy could also be one embraced by "capitalist ideology" as well, if left to its own means.

Uh huh, that's all fascinating... are you really arguing with me over this tangent?

Canis you seem to be an unhappy person that is always looking for an argument....sigh

[Dick Cheney's] canned hunts where the quail are thrown up into the air in fornt of the "hunter" to be slaughtered

I had read that the quail have their wings clipped, and are kept confined in a large pen ... can you believe that?

Where Cheney shot his lawyer friend the quail are farm-raised and have zero fear of humans. Then just before the "hunters" start to cross a pre-arranged field the clumps of bushes are seeded with the birds (the birds are tossed into the bushes). As the "hunters" come near, the quail are driven into the air right in front of them by dogs trained to do it.

From what I have heard, Palin is a big fan of hunting from helicopters, which isn't very sporting. I'd say they only less sporting (and fair to the animal) form of hunting is where big game hunters can shoot animals over the internet.

Smitty,

The fact that the ice caps on Mars are also shrinking is evidence that there's a whole lot more going on here than we know.

SC Smitty--something for you to consider when estimating man's impact upon the Earth: we have mined hundreds of cubic miles of coal and burned it (currently, the major part of our electricity comes from coal-fired plants); also, we have extracted billions of petroleum from the Earth and burned it. When these hydrocarbons burn, they remove oxygen from the atmosphere and the products of combustion include CO2 as well as water. So when you say:

I think our impact is typically overstated and exaggerated.

I have to disagree !!!

Canis--what has Mar's ice caps got to do with Earth??? And, please provide some data to substantiate that the Mar's ice cap is shrinking (in some unusual way, so as to be noteworthy).

RETLAW - Compare those emissions to the eruption of Mount Saint Helens....a single, almost instantaneous, natural occurrence. Again, I'm not saying humans don't impact our environment, or that there aren't a lot of things we should and could be doing to better ourselves in that regard. I'm saying our impact is overstated and exaggerated. And, it is. When someone says human beings are the cause of global warming, there are a lot of other factors involved. It is an exaggerated misstatement. And, like I said, it is certainly not a license to pollute.....but let's keep it in perspective.

SC--when Mt. St. Helens blew up, it ejected a couple of cubic miles (at most) of already oxidized and hot pyroclastic media that settled to earth at varying rates based upon density and size. None of it came down as a gas. While there may have been cubic miles of hot gases, most of which stayed in the atmosphere, relatively little of it was CO2.

When someone says human beings are the cause of global warming, there are a lot of other factors involved.

This may be true, but, as I pointed out above, human beings have been burning fossil fuels for centuries and at an increasing rate. The Chinese have been building coal-burning power plants at an increasing rate. This is now the major source of CO2. The impact from this source is not overstated, although you may choose to disagree if you wish. What we need to keep in perspective (and daily) is that our atmospheric CO2 rate (plus a couple of other 'greenhouse gases') have been increasing over the past fifty years. A National Geographic magazine may be still available to you to explain how this has been determined-I refer you to it. The magazine sets forth a CO2 level, which scientists believe if exceeded may result in irreversible damage to our one and only home. I'm not one to dismiss their conclusions-too much is at risk (ex. my life) so I am doing what I can to reduce my carbon footprint. Whatever you do, please don't fill in the CO2 void that I am working to create !!! Thanks

RETLAW - Points duly noted. You are incorrectly placing too much focus on CO2 and too much stock in CO2 data you are being fed. I've been working as an environmental engineer for over 10 years now, and I am intimately familiar with how the data is generated.....heck, I have to make regular submissions to the State and Federal governments concerning such data.

Also, believe me, I am doing more than my part to reduce my, and many other people's for that matter, "carbon footprint". I work for a fairly large company that has facilities all over the world, and my primary responsibility at our site (1000 employees, 80 acres - mostly forest) is reducing - and eliminating where possible - emissions, releases, and source generation of pollutants. You would be blown away at how much we've reduced such pollutants in the past decade. I'm not tooting my own horn, we SHOULD be doing these things. (Other companies should, too, and are.) I believe in doing them, and I've committed my life to environmental protection. It's the right thing to do.

The CO2 numbers you see in the US are grossly overstated. Truth be known, actual releases of CO2 by Title V facilities in the US is probably about 1/2 (or less) than published numbers. The same is true for other criteria pollutants as well as with HAPs and TAPs. The main reason being that many publications state PTE emissions, not actual emissions.

Additionally, CO2 is not as bad as you've been told. Too much is not good, don't get me wrong, but it's not that bad either. Seawater and plant life have an amazing way of regulating CO2 levels (while water itself is significantly responsible for regulating the overall temperature of the Earth).

And, the Earth is not as susceptible to temperature fluctuations due to CO2 as you think. It's more a function of continental positions, oceanic circulation, solar-energy fluctuations, and Earth's orbital cycles. This is typically why the Earth has cyclical ice ages and warm spells....we'll before we were here, I might add. Solid science tells us that the Pleistocene period alone saw some 20 glacial cycles. And, the peak of the Wisconsinan glaciation (about 18,000 years ago) saw tremendous glaciation as well. We are still seeing the remnants of it, and are still coming out of it.....naturally.

The other reason for glacial fluctuations is excessive particulate matter in the atmosphere. I think we should be more concerned about particulates than we are. That's one reason I mentioned Mt. Saint Helens. This and other volcanic eruptions spew tons of ash and dust into the atmosphere. Much more so that humans ever have or will.

There are a number of toxic pollutants more detrimental to our environment than CO2, ie: sulfur dioxide, methane, fluorinated gases; as well as others contained in particulates such as lead and mercury.

Did you know that just in the 1980 eruption of MSH 1.5 million tons of sulfur dioxide was released in a few days? When MSH recently started erupting again several years ago it was releasing about 150 tons of SO2 per day! My limit at our facility is 10 tons per YEAR. Also, MSH's eruption in 1980 was releasing about 1/2 ton of mercury per day. I am not allowed to emit mercury from my facility at all....and I don't.

I think it's great that you are doing all you can to be environmentally conscientious, we all should be. It is our responsibility as "users of the Earth". I think we are headed in the right direction though. Much still needs to be done, of course, but much already has been. And unfortunately, that work as well as other facts tends to be easily overlooked while the semi-ficticious and exaggerated threat of total global devastation due to human influences and subsequent negligence remains front and center.

SC--I retired from a position as an earth scientist with a regulatory agency (air, water and groundwater). So I am aware of what emissions some industries are allowed. But your perception of CO2 is not as innocuous as you contend. That glaciation periods have come and gone over the last couple of million years is well known. What the real driving force for these advance/retreat periods is not definitely known. However, that volcanoes all over the world have emitted ash and gases is known, and not quantified, but that they are substantial is no reason that mankind should not curtail or diminish our input. What is evolving is that global warming is happening and that CO2 is a known greenhouse gas (with methane and others). What is also known is that the PPM level of CO2 has been measured since 1955 and has been shown to increase every year. I refer you to the National Geographic magazine on Global Warming.

Volcanoes also emit mercury and other trace heavy metals. Nothing man can do about it, but, again, we can reduce our emissions. To do anything less is irresponsible. To be sure, many industries at home and abroad have acted responsibly. But, emission of toxic compounds from other countries (notably China and India) are continuing unabated. Perhaps we humans are not the responsible custodians of this planet, our home, that we should be.

RETLAW - Honestly, I couldn't agree with you more. Just because we are doing good things (environmentally speaking) doesn't give us a license to pollute or be negligent. Question though, how accurate do you think the 1955 readings were? I do have an issue with some of this old data collected because I think our instruments are so much more accurate now. Even if old instruments were a few percentage points off, it could skew our trends significantly.

I'm going to ask the newsviners here to clarify my line of thinking, but I do recall a comment I heard a while back that end times religions support Israel because of something about "when god's chosen people return to their homeland, the end times will come." I am not even a tiny bit religious so I'm repeating something I'mnot entirely sure about, however, I thought it was an interesting point in relation to greengal's.

Can anyone clarify this?

Because if I understand it correctly, there are religious people in government who are consciously hastening the end of the world because of their religious views. (I don't believe any of it, but I do resent being subject to such a government, if this is the case.)

Thanks for the Dominionist Sect information - I am going to do some research- that sounds creepy.