I already know the answer.

The moral imperative is important. Equally important is the notion of energy independence which we can also have by fully developing renewables. Efficiency is huge, yet it gets made fun of by certain candidates. Why? Who took the conserve out of conservatism?

Whats the probability that McCain might die before the elections?

Here is more alarming call to action…
UK diplomat compares climate change to Cold War

The United States and Europe should treat the challenge of fighting climate change even more seriously than they responded to the threat from the Cold War, a British diplomat said Wednesday.

“It’s becoming better understood that this deep and rapid restructuring of the economy is essential if we are to sustain the levels of affluence that our public now takes for granted,”

Although the industrial revolution started 200 years ago, 60% of the rise in CO2 has happened in the last 50 years (320ppm to 385ppm). And the rate continues to rise exponentially. One big factor in this is POPULATION, which continues to grow both globally and in the US (200 -> 304 million in the last 30 years).

Why do all parties, even the Green party, pretend this is not an issue?

log(385/320) = 0.0792898

to compare to

log(320/280) = 0.0579702

or better

log(385/280) = 0.13830

Then 0.0792898/0.13830 = 0.5733,

about 57%. (Or is this what you approximately did? Using the ppm I get about 17%.)

Anyway, y6es the growth is approximately exponential in ppm so the warming effect grows linearly.

Something like Dean Johnson from South Dakota having a stroke. He can finish off his term as a Senator, because really they don’t do anything an. . . because he is one of a hundred instead of a president who would have to step aside.

Most of population growth is taking place in places where people use comparatively little fossil fuels and add little to the global climate problem.

Take a look at this chart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

Notice that the world birth rate is dropping toward 2.1 births per woman, the replacement level.

Current projects are that the world population will peak under 9 billion and then begin a gradual decrease. We can handle that if we don’t lose too much of our usable landscape to climate change.

No one can make even a weak argument that Palin is ready to assume the Commander and Chief role. Nor is there reason to think that she could get ready in less than a couple of years.

(And that’s assuming quite a bit of intelligence, which I’ve not seen displayed to date.)

Palin is either 1) a campaign ploy to attract attention and women’s votes, or 2) the beginning process of grooming an electable Republican for 2012 or 2016.

Either way putting Palin in as a potential Vice President is an immoral act on the part of John McCain.

Were he selected (recall 2000) to be President and then die he would be leaving the US without adequate leadership.

This choice is “Putting Republicans First”.

And a very likely president after some years.

Our species going extinct with these last Adam and Eve. A rather ironical mishap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_population_(UN).svg

This chart shows that the only part of the world where population is stable and set to decrease is Europe. Everywhere else is sharply rising, notably the US (which, despite the rumours, I count as part of the developed world).

A good part of the rise is down to life expectency. Whatever the reason all these beings have a carbon footprint, one that is expanding on a per-capita basis due to general increases in the standard of living.

Ultimately I think the human race is just doing what every other species does - expanding its numbers to fit the (artificially elevated) carrying capacity of its environment. A die off phase will inevitably follow as fossil fuel depletes and the environment degrades.

Still, for the time being lets party on and have 5 kids each.

“Everywhere else is sharply rising” is a mis-characterization of what is presented. All the curves with the exception of Africa are showing signs of reaching a peak in the not too distant future.

What we are seeing overall is that humans are not behaving like other species when it comes to population levels. Food is highly available in Western Europe but population is dropping rather than expanding to fit the carrying capacity.

When people are adequately educated and when they have access to old age security *other than lots of children* they are choosing to have fewer children. In the most ‘old age secure’ places such as Europe and Japan people are choosing to have fewer children than required to maintain our high population levels.

The least developed part of the world, Africa, is showing the most rapidly increasing population rates. As more manufacturing moves into Africa (largely via China moving factories there) we’ll likely see those rates drop as well.

(That and getting rid of our “absence only” policies.)

Remember that in rural societies children are an asset. All you have to do is to feed them and keep them alive and you can get useful very inexpensive labor from them. Create a cultural tradition and they will feed you when you get too old to provide for yourself.

In a industrialized, urban society children are a liability. You have to feed and educate them until they are (at least) young adults. There’s no benefit from having a seven year around - no eggs to collect, no goat heard to watch. Then it’s fairly common for young adults to move away from the parents for education and employment rather than stick around and provide income.