People & Power - Obama's Carbon plan - 3 Feb 09

People & Power's Samah El-Shahat is joined by guests to discuss the possible merits and pitfalls of US president Barack Obama's carbon trading plan as a way to tackle climate change.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Al Jazeera
• People and Power
• Samah-El Shahat
• obama
• carbon
• trading
• climate
• change
• peoplepower

[rawfodog75]

This is the worse reporting ever!!!

1st. Bush was not President in 1997.

2nd. People didn't lose homes due to the free market, it was government's interference with forcing banks to make loans to people who could not afford the home.

3rd. You step outside lately, there is no global warming, your premise is wrong to begin with. Also, go ask NASA about the global temperature in the past 7 years.

I bet you won't ask, because you will learn the truth and you don't want to spread that around.

[jellyblocked]

what value can you put on Pollution ? Turning it into a tradable commodity ...what an uterly dum Founded idea . How can you justify polluting the world and then make a market from it - The world is our mother would you treat you mum like we treat the world . This again is about people making money at the cost of killing the world of in the end . We humans are dumb creatures . Wake up

[AtlasObjectivist]

Global Warming + Obama + Gore + Goldman Sachs + CCX = FRAUD on a level never seen in all of history.

Cap & Trade is what Global Warming is about. A massive transfer of wealth. Once this gets out the American people will take to the streets. Obama will be impeached.

[Futuregohan14]

And I think that it is far, far more foolish to run ramshackle into these massive energy plans that could have dire effects on our economy without the whole truth, and without reasoned discussion. The fact that the pro-carbon crowd insists that the situation is "settled", despite the fact that there are still so many very valid questions worries me much more. This combined with the flat out lies just leads me to doubt the validity of this plan and the whole green movement.

[Futuregohan14]

All I'm saying is that there are many very valid questions to be asked, some of which I've brought up here. What I am saying is that there is far too much emphasis put on CO2 and humans in general, and I am seeing valid contradictions to claims made by the likes of Al Gore and Hansen, among others. I'm also seeing a lot of flat out lies(Polar bears in danger? Actually not true. Antarctic melting? Its expanding!). We're not getting the whole truth out of the pro-carbon plan crowd.

[skeeleraar]

co2 lvls did rise before the warm period...... just not to the lvl were at today....

every source i read states that there clearly is a correlation between rising co2 lvls and rising temperature.

I am aware that there are other natural causes for rises in temperature. But to just ignore the fact that we are changing earths atmosphere for the worst and then assuming that global warming is caused by something entirely different is just silly imo...

[skeeleraar]

typo, sorry... 100.000s of years was to say that co2, mainly from volcanoes saved up in atmosphere, getting to lvls that ended the ice ages.

[Futuregohan14]

Your info on volcanoes is simply wrong. Volcanoes emit about 2.3% the amount of CO2 that we do yearly. Volcanoes emit what humans emit every 43 years. They have been at it for 5 billion years, skeeleraar. We have done it for 150. Your notion that we have managed to emit more than volcanoes have even over a period of "100,000s" of years is simply false.

[Futuregohan14]

"During this medieval period, co2 lvls were nowhere near as high as they are today". Even if that were true, a crucial point remains: temperature rise occured with no correlation to CO2 levels.

[Futuregohan14]

skeeleraar, your research is incorrect. CO2 does not bring about temperature rises-temperatures have been shown to increase BEFORE CO2 levels rise. CO2 does not lead temperature changes, it follows them, sometimes by tens of thousands of years. In addition, graphs measuring the relationship over a 600 million year eriod of time show no corellation. Your vague 800,000 year period reference does not refute that.

[skeeleraar]

Since the start off the industrialisation, CO2 lvls rose to almost 400pp, 35% higher than the alltime record...

The single greatest source off CO2 in nature are volcanoes. This is the CO2 that ended the 4 major ice ages. CO2 emitted by humans is currently nearly 150 times of that emitted by vulcanoes........ And this was over 100.000s of years...