Motion: “Are we doing enough to stop global warming?”
Presented by Cristina González Blanco
Nowadays it is very common to hear lots advice, news, reports, etc… about the big problem that global warming is.
I am sure that most of us do recycling, but apart from this, do you think we are doing enough to “save” the planet and reduce the emission of poisonous gases as CO2? For instance, switching off the lights, minding about water consumption, taking public transport or walking
instead of our own car…
Do you consider we are in time of doing something useful since the fact that the polar icecaps are melting, the level of the sea is increasing and the seasons are not as they are supposed to be? Note that we are already suffering problems like extreme weather, lack of water supply in several regions, and as a result of this, increase of raw material prices and consequently, the prices of products are rising up.
Therefore, do we have time and are we doing enough or simply we don’t care because we will not experience the consequences of our bad habits?
Comments»
Definitely NO!!!!.
In my opinion most citizens are doing something but not enough.I would like to talk about traffic,one of the main reason of emissions.
There are lots of examples to demostrate this,I try to undestand why people use cars for nonsenses,to get the bread or the paper.You can see hundred of cars with an single occupant,you can see lots of enormous and stupid SUVs (todoterrenos) or similars in our highways.The emissions are the double than a standar car,about 300-400 g CO2/km.
But for the love of God,no one need this monster to get to the job center.They never use it to run in paths,what an stupidity!!!!.
In Madrid or Barcelona must be forbidden the use of cars for particular use and achieve an efficient public transport.Is a difficut decision but the time is getting over.
I will continue…
I think that we are not doing enough to stop global warming because it is true that everyday that passes the situation is getting worse. That is because the amount of pollution is increasing a lot and we used too much energy. So the only way of stop the global warming is forcing the population to save energy and fining everyone who don’t do it.
In my opinion there are too many conferences,meetings,documentaries and all this things but there aren´t enough actions or work to improve the situation because a conference with Al Gore showing us bart charts is not the solution.Don´t you think so?
I’ve recently read a piece of news about the benefits of global warming. The author defended that the phenomenon could avoid a new freezing.
Who is telling the truth?
I’m fed up of recycling rubbish at home and telling others of the advantages of reducing emissions and the dangers of global warming.
I’m fed up because I feel I’m the only one doing this while big corporations do nothing and some countries (the USA, mainly) refuse to follow international agreements.
So, I do declare my objection to continue working against global warming while big countries and corporations do nothing.
By the way, could somebody please tell Al Gore to stop using his private jet to travel around the world as a anti global warming Messiah? He is producing excessive CO2 emissions and, please, do you trust him? Remember he is a former vice-president of the USA
I´m absolutely agree with you The nerd because do you trust in someone who says a thing and does the opposite?and if our enviroment needs help(why not an economical help to support campaigns,for example)Does he spend the money he receive for his conferences on “his´´cause?I´ve got my doubts.
Well, the first thing I have to do is to ask Cristina if she really knows what global warming is. I mean, when did CO2 become poisonous? And how does water consumption affect global warming?
Apart from that I must say that we live in an overpopulated world, we consume more and more energy and resources. That’s a big reason for global warming but, above all, the real reason is money.
Oil gives so much money to oil companies that they don’t want alternative energies or combustibles to be developed, so they buy them with their dirty petrodollars. If we had run out of petrol before, now we would be using non-polluting energies.
I tried to avoid thinking in this because I’m so afraid about it. I’m sure that sooner than we think, we will have strong problems…
Of course we are doing nothing! definetly we are wasting the little resources we have and the governements only think in money, but what on hert are we going to do with many money but no hearth! The planet has being suffering since the Industrial Revolution and now, is telling stop but…
Ancient Greeks used to say that if you hurt the Earth,you’re hurting yourself.A famous theory called ‘Gaia’ explained that we are part of this world and we’re ought to take care of it.I strongly agree with this feeling…
We`re definitely NOT doing enough to stop global warming.I`m probably a bit fussy but it really annoys me when somebody tells me that recycling is wasting my time.I do know I can’t change the world but each ‘pinch of sand’ is important.Old people are not concerned about Global Warming bat the fact is that neither are the young!!We’re destroying our planet…what a sad ending for a world that has brought us everything we have.
I don’t know whether we are doing enough things to stop global warming or not but I consider that lots of people are taking advantage of the current situation to be catastrophic and alarm us. There is something which is not returnable, the Earth is in the middle of a natural climatic change. We have to be aware about this because this is the mattress of lots of problems. It seems that some human actions help to develop this change faster and faster, and I suppose that these are the actions in which we are meant to do something. But, in my opinion, we have to be practical and not demagogic. I’ll put an example of what I mean: we want new energies such eolic, solar, etc. I completely agree about that, let’s invest money on new energies to build centrals and plants . What I don’t understand is that some people, which are wanted to be called ecologists want to close all the nuclear, thermic plants and hydraulic factories suddenly and live only with new energies. They don’t realise that nuclear energy is the base of our electrical system. What is more, they are so utopic that they don’t care about their own money. If nowadays, we have to import a high percentage of energy form abroad, what would happen if we close all these plants?.It would be dramatic. So we have to do things to try to reverse the acceleration of the climatic change, but we have to be a bit conscious about what we say , and we have to take things seriously from a realistic point of view.
I’m absolutely for the opinions which Maroto and The nerk gave: those who could do the most to avoid Global Warming don’t do anything. I’d say: they do the opposite. Economic reasons: the more they have, the more they want (quo plus habent, eo plus cupiunt, ancient Romans said). Who are they? Great corporations, countries as USA, China… Yes, we can do something. In fact, we’re doing something. But we have the feeling that we are not enough strong to get something effective.
By the way, I got touched by the comment about the ancient Greeks, by Águeda. Wise men those ancient Greeks and Romans. And, yes “Gaia” will have her revenge. Nowadays Mägo de Öz have taken that Gaia, whose lyrics expressed exactly what Águeda has written.
I’m absolutely for the opinions which Maroto and The nerk gave: those who could do the most to avoid Global Warming don’t do anything. I’d say: they do the opposite. Economic reasons: the more they have, the more they want (quo plus habent, eo plus cupiunt, ancient Romans said). Who are they? Great corporations, countries as USA, China… Yes, we can do something. In fact, we’re doing something. But we have the feeling that we are not enough strong to get something effective.
By the way, I got touched by the comment about the ancient Greeks, by Águeda. Wise men those ancient Greeks and Romans. And, yes, “Gaia” will have her revenge. Nowadays Mägo de Öz have recorded that Gaia I, whose lyrics expressed exactly what Águeda has written.
I am very pessimistic about the future. Perhaps the most developped countries could agree about policies to stop the warming, but what will happen with other countries, China or India for example; they have the right to improve their standard of living and today, that means warming
To MAROTO:
When did CO2 become poisonous?.
CO2 is a gas which in any case is not poisonous when the range of concentration is small,it depends on the dose.CO2 isn´t an inert gas.Can we breathe it?.Apart from this the word pousinous in this case refers to the effects of this gas in the future.
Nowadays we are extracting the Carbon of the nature,it is contained in trees,petrol,…and this process which has been happening since 4500 million years is being destroyed in approximately 200 years.Mars is a dead planet and the atmosphere is compound by CO2.Percentage:95.%.
How does water consumption affect global warming?
Water comsuption is effectively asociated with climate warming.Some examples:Everytime you open the faucet there is a motor and a boiler which use fossils fuels to run.The water rises to your home and is warmed by fuel.
A question to finish:
What do you think about “Desaladoras?
I tried to write a few reasons,there are many more reasons.
It isn’t my fault… It isn’t my fault… It isn’t my fault… It’s always someone else fault. I can do nothing about global warming…, I can do nothing about world starvation…, I can do nothing about nothing. For God’s sake, we have to be more critical with ourselves. Don’t blame always big corporations and Americans. They waste lots of energy and resources, of course much more than us, but to be honest our way of life should be criticised too
The idea for a debate about a climate change and if we do something to fight against this big problem, it is a good idea.
My opinion about it is that we aren’t doing enough effort to avoid the final disaster. We think that all the resources that the Earth has, are inexhaustible but we are wrong.
We have the obligation of learning that working on little things make us to get big things, so spending less water, less electricity or less gasoline could be an important beginning against the global change.
These days we have on the news the important issue of sharing water from the Ebro’s river with Barcelona or not. They say that they don’t have enough water to put up with until 2009, I don’t know if it is true or not but if this is the real argument the answer is yes, they can use this water, but if the real argument is another quite different as in Valencia or Murcia, where their politicians ask for water only for their golf resorts and so on.
Another point quite important is to convince the biggest countries as EEUU for accepting the laws about reducing the level of contamination, if the politicians don’t have enough responsibilities about it, how citizens can do the right thing?
If we don’t take part quite actively, we couldn’t stop the climate change. Everything is in our hands.
I am pretty sure that everybody knows what global warming is, and what does it mean. The point is that if we think that we can do absolutely nothing, we will not achieve the purpose of taking care about natural resources. We will turn into spendthrift persons…
It is true that from all over the Earth history, there have been several climate changes. Of course we can’t fight against that, and we can’t solve the problem simply recycling, or cutting down the waste of energy. Also, it is unfair for the environment and for the rest of human being to say that if governments do nothing, neither we… We are not aware about this problem, and we don’t mind about releasing toxic substances, but we must start doing something useful, don’t you think so?
In this motion, we all agree that nothing but becoming worst is being done, there are different opinions about how to solution it and I am not able to talk about it because of my ignorance in science but I can’t stop thinking in why are the States so calm? Is it because they are thick-skinned or are they completely stupid and the believe that nothing happens?? I can’t understand why is the State expending so little in investigation to save us, while the expenditure on stupid things in contrast is far bigger!
If we all know that the big things to improve the situation are not in our hands, why don’t we practice the points that are reachable for us?. Recycling, for example, is something that helps to do something, in order to reuse daily things and materials such as paper or plastic. We don’t need to spend more time discriminating paper from organic rubbish , than throwing everything in the same bag to the bin ,so?. Therefore, it’s free, paying is not necessary. There are several more things that we should practice to be more ecologic and save resources, such as not wasting water when having a bath/shower, or cleaning our teeth, not leaving the lights switch on all around our houses, etcetera. On the other hand, what we can’t expect to change is the regulations about gasses’ emissions to the atmosphere , the position of the developed countries such as the USA or China against climatic change and pollution and all this things. We can’t expect to fix this because we don’t have the power. I think that the governments are the only institutions that can do something and that have the main possibilities , meaning money. In my opinion we should put in practice the pieces of advice that we all are aware about , and not trying to change the world by ourselves because is not possible.
I’m quite disappointed about what we are doing to stop global warming. After reading your comments I still think we are too insignificant to make any impact on climate change.
People are recycling more, using less water and paper and children are taught in school about these ideas, but I still believe things will not improve until all governments in the world (mainly USA, China, India, Brazil) take this seriously.
I agree with MNT009 about the small things we can do to help.
Most of us blame the governments for the situation, but we don´t consider the idea of putting into practice those things in order not to make things go worse.
It is quite easy to sit and complain about the way things are going. In fact, that´s what we always do, but it is high time we started doing something to help! And if would be a great idea to save water at home, or taking care of the lights, etcetera.
Maybe small actions will became bigger if we all participate
I’m the kind of person that tries to do all that I can to help the environment. That’s the reason why I get really frustrated when I go walking through Uria street and you see ondulations in the air that goes out from shops, or when I realise the large quantity of street lights we have in Oviedo, and so on.
It’s not just people’s fault, but also governments’. Why don’t they develope more alternative energies, or even nuclear power?
We have a very very big problem, and we all must do something to remove it.
So, the thing is: to stop complaining about what we are doing or not, and start taking part in this big job that Mother Nature deserves from us, since that fact that we are living in “its” home. In addition to this, we shouldn’t act in a certain way according to how our governments are working, as I think it is not fair to have such behaviour for the environment
Are we doing enough to stop global warming? Obviously no, we aren’t. The evidence is that global warming goes on.
All of us are aware of the problem and we know how to reduce pollution or to avoid wasting natural resources. I’ve been reading all the comments, and some of them suggest that big companies are guilty. Well, it’s easy to blame others, but we shouldn’t forget that companies produce goods like cars, computers and other kind of machines. We are the last users of these products, but how many of us are willing to renounce all these things which make our life easier? Global warming is a consequence of our standard of living. For this reason, we need to choose between the current way of life or the future of the Earth.
There are two actions which are the main causes of global warming:
- Combustion of fuel and other natural resources to produce energy
- Deforestation
The first one includes the use of cars which burn fuel to work. I agree with Panda when she/he says that people use car for nonsenses. Everyday thousands of people take their car to cover a distance which will take them only a few minutes on foot. I agree too about the necessity of developing an effective public transport in order to reduce the use of personal cars and, as consequence, the reduce of CO2 emissions
It isn´t the first time that I´ve heard a theory like the one that nerd talks about. A few months ago I also heard that thanks to global warming the Earth is producing much more ice in the Poles than 50 years ago and, although currently the glaciers are melting on the other hand more ice is being generated. This makes me come to the conclusion that I must rely on the opinion of experts because I´m not sure of the consequences of the global warming. For this reason a scientific gives me more confidence and credibility than a politician. These last ones try to distract us with good speeches about recycling, responsible consumption and things like that but they don´t practise what they preach; they allow to build without control, they promote the property speculation, they don´t punish the devastation of coasts and forests. But when they have the interest of getting votes they use the environment problems to adorn their speeches.
Maroto, I am sorry but your suggestion about using nuclear power is so risky. Have you thought about all the contamination that it creates???
The other day I had an argument with one of my friends; I was so surprised how a scientific person could be in favour of building nuclear power stations. The only slightly positive thing about it is that it doesn’t generate contaminant gases in the process of creating energy. But if the meltdown has a fissure, the consequences in our nature and in our health could be a disaster. The other negative thing is the huge amount of toxic waste that it creates. There isn’t a useful way of recycling them because nowadays, they are thrown into the ocean with the possibility of generating radioactivity.
From my point of view, we must invest money on clean energy as for example, solar power or windy power. At first time, it’s more expensive but it pays for itself in the long run. The sun and the wind are not finite resources.
I agree with my partners that we are not doing enough to stop the global warming. However, I also think the human it is not the only one who is contributing to the global warming; I have heard and I know that it is also cause because the climate in the earth has extreme changes from time to time since ever like the glaciations but I have to admit that this change is not as gradual as the other ones and I am convinced that this change will cause a lot of damage in 50 years.
I specially agree with maroto because I think that the easier solution to this problem is to develope alternative energies but in my opinion the best solution will have to bet on nuclear energy. I am sure that a lot of people would think that I am a bit crazy but this type of energy is the most efficient and safe because since we have had nuclear energy we only have had an important accident in Chernobil. Some people think that this energy contaminates a lot but other plants like electricity plants also contaminate so I think that if we want to conserv our style of life we will have to face this risk, it will be the only solution.
Palot, have you read my latest comment???????????? how you can say that the only nuclear accident was Chernobil???????? I’m sorry but you need to investigate more. Don’t you think that despite the fact that the accident has happened years ago, the population are still suffering the consecuences? In the future, the next generations will suffer them without doing anything to avoid them. I feel quite frustrated reading that kind of opinions, the consecuences of using that sort of nuclear power can eliminate the humanity from the Earth. The day when you can tell me a way of eliminate their toxic waste, then you can say that it is the best solution.
Well I agree with you in the case of the way of eliminating the toxic material but what will you if you have the necesity to continue with your actual life? You don`t have to answer me, you would vote for the nuclear energy. I think that you are exaggerating when you say that nuclear power can eliminate humanity from the Earth because there are some countries in Europe like England or France in which they have been using nuclear power for more than forty years and I have not heard anything about accidents. What is more, two months ago I read in El Pais that the Prime Minister of England,Mr Brown, will build a few nuclear plants in some years because they have energy deficiency.
Everybody seems to be aware of the problem we are facing
nowadays,but in my opinion we cannot say that what we are doing to sort out this problem is enough.
Strange as it may seem, there are people who think that this is none of their business because they will not suffer the consequences!So while this selfish way of thinking continues, the situation will not change!
I think that Mofli is right, I´m not sure but I also think that one of the main causes of global warming is the deforestation. The massive tree felling produces an increase of concentration of CO2 into the atmosphere. I also read in a magazine that a plane which crosses the Atlantic produces as much CO2 as a private car during a whole year. It´s true that the bigger damages are produced by big companies but we shouldn’t compare ourselves with big companies or governments. All of us must take our own decisions and shoulder our responsibility, and someone has to give the first step.
Population have the power to change the direction of History .The best thing that we can do is to join our forces. Please, let´s force governments to invest in reforestation.
The other day, I told you that if we want to change our way of life, we must invest money on solar power stations and wind power stations. They are the most convenient options, if we want to preserve our planet. I’m sure that I will never choose the nuclear power. I’m pretty sure what I am saying, so I am not exaggerating about I wrote the other day. The fact that you haven’t heard anything about nuclear accidents, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t happened. Don’t you think that the Chernobyl accident has shown us that this kind of energy has a big power of destruction? I’m sure that you don’t want to live near a nuclear power station because I’m sure that you don’t want to have any strange disease as malformations for your descendants or for example, cancer. The population of Ascó (Tarragona) can tell you if they live without illnesses or not. The fact that the accidents don’t appear on the news is because they hide the information as they have made in this nuclear power station, there has been a leak of radioactivity for more than four months and nobody has made anything to avoid it.
Everybody seems to be aware of the problem we are facing
nowadays,but in my opinion we cannot say that what we are doing to sort out this problem is enough.
Strange as it may seem, there are people who think that it is none of their business because they will not suffer the consequences!So while this selfish way of thinking continues, the situation will not change!
If the problem is the proximity to the central plants, you have to know that it does not matter,if there is an accident in countries like Italy or France the radiations will appear sooner or later. Last year I heard that in a village in Denmark were detected some radioactive particles from Chernobil and as you have to know Denmark is far away from Chernobil.
In my first coment in this debate, I wrote about alternative energies and I also think that this is the best solution of this very important problem.
Definitely not, we are not doing enough to stop global warming. Evidence says earth warming is alarming and we still keep with our bad habits. Global warming is a problem of everyone but at the same time big industries are the main responsible just because they are the main polluters. Therefore all of us have to make aware of this problem and change our habits but we also have to demand politicians strict rules both for individuals and companies.
Earth problems are global because involve the whole planet. A global agreement by all countries is needed. But a “right one”, not as Tokio agreement that was signed by many countries but then some of the most important ones, as USA, did not keep it.