March 10, 2008
If I were you, I'd buy a horse by R. Moran
Carbon offsets got ya down? Worried about how we're going to reduce emissions to levels mandated by the Kyoto accords?
No worries. According to this study, we'd have to take society back to the 19th century in order to have any effect on global warming:
The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.One might think horse and buggy manufacturerers would be thrilled with this news. And you can tell your children to get their heads out of those business administration books and take up blacksmithing for a career.
Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.
Using advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.
Just think of all the things that will be making a comeback as a result of our ending industrialized civilization. Draft horses will no longer be simply pulling beer wagons. They'll be plowing fields and harvesting crops. In fact, horse breeding will probably be huge. Best get in on the ground floor there.
No more airplanes (or airports thank God) so the reintroduction of the steam engine seems logical. In fact, buy stock in steam companies of all types. Hopefully, we'll have that tiny problem with boiler explosions figured out before then.
Isn't this fun? I'm sure if you put your mind to it, you could come up with some "comeback industries" yourself. Email me and I'll post them in an update later today to this post.