Wrong With This Picture? The Viewpoint Being

¶ … wrong with this picture?

The viewpoint being espoused expresses some wonderful ideas but fails to take into consideration the basic selfishness of man. Expecting the kind of cooperation and dedication that would be necessary to accomplish what is being suggested in this scenario is highly idealistic. It would require the putting aside of both national interests and personal interests on a scale much larger than that necessary for the United Nations to operate. Suggesting that this might be possible is unrealistic. Rather, the more reasoned approach is to allow the natural markets to develop.

In the short-term, the world's energy supply system will remain essentially as it is for the next several decades except that the demand in growth will continue due to sustained modernization in China, India and elsewhere. This means that new sources of oil and other energy sources need to be developed alongside strides in energy efficiency. This is a reality that most experts acknowledge and many nations are willing to address but expecting a successful worldwide effort in this regard is impractical. Such an effort would demand the full cooperation, at a minimum, of every large industrialized nation and such cooperation is not even possible in the United States. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there are large segments of American society that deny that an energy crisis exists or that there is any problem with the ozone (Armitage, 2005). If solidarity on these issues is lacking in the U.S., how can the solidarity necessary to develop the energy plan being suggested herein have any chance at success? At the present time, the only method that will work is to allow the market place to determine supply and demand and hope that the market place will also eventually the controls necessary to provide adequate conservation as well.

The scenario presented also assumes that the large industrialized nations would acquiesce in some form to the needs of the developing nations and, further, that the smaller, less powerful nations would be willing to delay their economic development in exchange for assisting in minimizing global warming or, more ideally, eliminating it as a factor. Again, such position is unrealistic due to its inherent idealism. Energy consumption and energy use are symbiotic. In today's economy it is essentially impossible to develop economically without utilizing extensive energy. For the industrialized world, which uses far more than its fair share of the available energy to expect those countries just beginning to enjoy the benefits created by industrialization is unfair. The smaller, less affluent nations deserve to enjoy the same quality of life that the industrialized nations have known for years and to expect these nations to now delay or forestall their development in the interest of conserving the world's available energy is an example of the same arrogance and selfishness that characterizes how the world's large industrialized nations amassed their fortunes in the first place.

2b. Whether carbon emissions are resulting in global warming and climate change?

Despite claims to the contrary, global warming is perhaps the most complicated and serious issue facing the world today. The scientific community has almost universally proclaimed that the evidence points to the rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of greenhouse gases due to human related activity (Adger, 2001). As economies throughout the world continue to grow the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of the world's forests continues which contribute the rising dangers. Global emissions continue to climb while the nations of the world continue to debate whether a problem exists and, if the problem exists, how best to confront it. The United Nations has attempted to organize discussion initiatives to discuss how to address the problem but the debate between developing nations striving to move their economies forward and the needs of the larger industrialized nations continues in earnest. Meanwhile, only incremental progress is being made toward any real solution. The fact that the world's scientific community is in near agreement as to the existence of the problem should be sufficient evidence that a problem exists.