Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Climate Change Polls

Recently, a poll was conducted across a number of nations to try and determine what the average world citizen thought about global warming...how to cope? Should we change things? That kind of thing.

The results were fairly interesting.

Apparently the Russians have been left out in the cold about global warming, as only a mere 5% polled had any real knowledge of the debate and concern surrounding global warming. Those that understood it were fairly unconcerned, and some were even glad. The melting permafrost (what a stupid name...how can it be permafrost if it's melting...heh) is opening up land to possibility of agricultural expansion.

The scary number for me was 73...According to this poll, 73% of the people polled (United States, Spain, France, Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, Nigeria, Turkey, and India) believe that developing nations "should limit their emissions in return for financial aid and technological transfer from developed nations."

I'm pretty sure that developing nations aren't going to be able to develop on expensive, inefficient alternative energy sources. The world already supports and nurtures developing nations, so I'm pretty sure the fact that the "in exchange for" stipulation above is meaningless.

To complicate things a tad further, current alternative energy sources don't work well enough or cheaply enough for the dirt-poor third world to live on, let alone thrive on. Solar panels and windwills will not work at their current capability, and I'd be willing to bet that the "curb your emissions now, and in 10 years, we'll get back to you on the solar power thing" argument won't work.

If you think America's a polluting, fossil-fuel-guzzling, hog, did you know that China "builds a coal-fired power station every five days to feed its booming economy..."

Who the hell are we to tell the third world that they can't make better lives for themselves? Yes, it is going to cause more pollution, but at a fraction of what the rest of us already put out there.

Bloody hypocrites...

Hooah.

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