Is the rush to stop Global Warming going to cause far moredisasters than predicted by doing nothing?

Question

Geothermal drilling operations at multiple sites have been implicated in causing earthquakes.
http://cleantech.com/news/4935/altarock-suspends-drilling-doe-back

Answer 1

Well if it had not been for Jimmy Carter shutting down the generation and food growing parts of the space program as soon as he became president we would have 90% or the worlds electricity produced in space today and would need no oil or coal fired power planets, only a few hydro or nuclear plants to provide surge capacity occasionally. Also a large part of the worlds food would be produced in satellites instead of interfering with other agriculture needs. Altogether what screw ups Jimmy Carter and Clinton made while they were president wastes more than half the income of the citizens and government of not just the US and Canada but most of the rest of the world as well. And now I hear that Obama has shut down and scrapped the revised satellite power program Bush has spent 8 years of fighting with congress to get reinstated. Just goes to really prove just how greedy and how dumb even the so called brightest democrats really are.



http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/12/another-parallel-with-the-maunder-minimum/

http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/lisa3/beckmanj.html

http://www.deadfishwrapper.com/fish_wrapper_wont_publish_global_cooling_study

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTlhOTNiOWFlMmMzNmJkOWM3ZTk5NWJkNTU2Nzk5NWI=

http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/nasa-study-shows-sun-responsible-for-planet-warming/

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

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle

http://www.c3headlines.com/climate-change-non-co2-causes/

http://green-agenda.com/globalrevolution.html

Answer 2

You state that "Geothermal drilling operations at multiple sites have been implicated in causing earthquakes.", could you provide links to articles that elaborate on this. The link you included refers primarily to a single site where drilling was suspended blaming "geologic abnormalities particular to the formation underlying this well location." Mention is made of the Swiss Geysers project in which a series of immense underground explosions led to some people claiming they had triggered earthquakes (although they have yet to provide the evidence for this, I'm not saying it didn't happen just that I'm keeping an open mind for now).



Such things happen all the time in the mining and mineral extraction industries, it's one of the reasons that test bores are drilled before comitting to large scale operations.



If we allow global warming to continue unchecked then over half the world's population will be adversely affected. To date about a billion people have been so affected at a cost estimated to exceed 4 trillion dollars. This amount pales into insignificance when you consider that best estimates put the cost of dealing with the consequences of global warming at more than this every year by 2050 if nothing is done.



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Edit: Re your added comments.



Thanks for the link regarding the drilling in CA. When I have a bit more time I'll do some research, but as I said, for the time being I'm keeping an open mind.



Regarding the cost of global warming. The documents I have which put a dollar value on the cost are ones which need to be purchased - you may be able to find abstracts online but I doubt the full publication would be available.



However, the Stern report estimates a cost in terms of GDP. In the report Sir Nicholas (Stern) warns that the cost of not tackling climate change could rise to 20% of global GDP. According to the World Bank and the IMF the current global GDP is $61 trillion. In this respect the cost of global warming would be $12.2 trillion a year by the year 2100, thus making my figure of $4 trillion a year by 2050 somewhat on the conservative side.



There are several other reports citing similar figures but I chose to reference the Stern Report because Sir Nicholas is a highly respected and trusted economist. He's not a scientist and has remained completely impartial in respect of climate change. The full report can be obtained here http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm

Answer 3

We should always try and be careful, but since your link didn't have any description of the problem it's hard to judge whether it's a significant or minor. However oil and gas removal has also caused minor earthquakes in certain geologic structures. All energy sources have various problems and risks associated with them. Besides, dumping billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is hardly "doing nothing."

Answer 4

What rush? there've been a few experiments aimed at finding out if there are engineering solutions to mitigate global warming after it has happened, but as far as actually dealing with the greenhouse gas problem all we've seen so far are words - while the rate of emissions increases.

Answer 5

Just think of all that money would have been used to provide health care for the poor.