As a fellow brazilian I must say you´re intelligent and argumentative, but risks to be classified by the timberites (or by any average people as well) as a boring person, or worse, as a troll. That´s usually what happens to people that try to kidnap the flow of the discussion as you do _ and the above 73 comments in a thread of 185 (186 now) comments are a impressive testimony of this. Curb your enthusiasm. :)

166—The authors move directly from an extreme statement by Lovelock to the “consensus of climate scientists” —will most readers know that these are NOT the same thing?

167— They state that buying meat cancels buying a Prius—without remembering the previous paragraph, when the old farts had been driving to the store at 10 miles a gallon. And they don’t mention that methane farts, while being far more powerful a greenhouse gas, have a tiny “atmospheric half-life” by comparison with CO2. The authors SHOULD know this, since friends always stand near each other, and always discover this sort of thing.

167—“And think how hard the cattle ranchers would lobby Washington to ban kangaroo meat.” No, really—this is printed there, on that page. This is a big problem coming, babes.

168—Suggests that the economic models are in better shape than climate models—oh no don’t get me started, who in hell is running this damned internets exactly. this would take a book to examine. does everybody have to write a book back?

169—Suggests that a terrible case scenario kicks in at 10 degrees Celsius. But no: probably at around 1 or 2 degrees Celsius, if species attempt to migrate from diminished and fragmented ecosystems, for their own reasons of temperature or moisture, and then run into various human barriers, causing cascades of localized species extinctions of those organisms not compatible with humans. But of course! the terrible case 10-degreewise is from Economists, who are infamously ignorant of Ecology, and so I suppose we shall have to let it pass just one more boring time. How long ago did Weitzman write it anyway?

170—Here again, Lovelock’s call for a “sustainable retreat” appears to be imputed, by an unclear segue, to be the opinion also of the “patron saint” Al Gore—who as far as I know isn’t calling for that. I think Gore is in favor of growth, but along different avenues. I haven’t read all the way through Earth in the Balance, though. Did he go on to express “belief?” I hardly doubt it were not Christianphilic. Yes, I know these sorts of comments are longer than tweeps.

171—Externalities are adumbrated in a curious manner, as heretofore animadverted. (77 characters)

I am discontinuing my preference to do this, for now. If there is demand for more of this sort of sad pallbearing, I suggest you hire an advertiser to correct the incentives! Perhaps we have found another book which shall have to be excused upon principles of literary genre? Well you might have expected this sort of thing, in a science fiction future.

Finally, world population will stabilize and begin to decline as late as 2050 or latter.

That’s why I’m rather sceptical we’ll achieve Stern Review’s reduction target of at least 25% by 2050.

And—alas—ambiental claims have not the same weigth in the South as they have in the North, because people here are still trapped in quite unsatisfactorily (“unacceptable” being an even better word) standards of life.

Finally, world population will stabilize and begin to decline as late as 2050 or latter.

That’s why I’m rather sceptical we’ll achieve Stern Review’s reduction target of at least 25% by 2050.

Cutting to the chase, I think you can discriminate two large groups of people, as they believe (or not) that the reversion and decrease of carbon emissions just mentioned are
(or not) feasible.

Cutting to the chase, I think you can discriminate two large groups of people, as they believe (or not) that the reversion and decrease of carbon emissions just mentioned are
(or not) feasible.

As for me, I suspect that we will be capable of reducing the rate of increase but not the absolute emissions per se, as Third World Countries—first and foremost BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) but others as well—are as a general rule increasing their pace of economic growth and countries in the middle range of economical development tend to be the most polluting—a trend that recede as these countries become more technological-intensive and services-oriented. Until then, however, it is very difficult to imagine that they will actually reduce their emissions.

Besides, economic growth brings new patterns of consumption. Meat become more importante on the daily diet and people star to buy their own cars. That’s what is happening in China, India and Brazil at the last fifteen years, at least, and I think this trend will actually spread widely to other Third World Countries.

And—alas—ambiental claims have not the same weigth in the South as they have in the North, because people here are still trapped in quite unsatisfactorily (“unacceptable” being an even better word) standards of life.

Finally, world population will stabilize and begin to decline as late as 2050 or latter.

That’s why I’m rather sceptical we’ll achieve Stern Review’s reduction target of at least 25% by 2050.