Arctic temperatures at record highs

riendeer herds must be declining as I never saw one in allmost 3 years.Lot's of Caribou's though.

I don't think the change Canadian people (only 32 million, remember...) make is that significant. I don't think Canadians polute that much. Too little people on a too large landmass. The air is so much cleaner here then it is in Europe.

Canadians should relax a bit more, it is not just their doing, and they can't just solve it. Of course, all small thingies help, but don't overreact...

Brenda's right--even with a horrible "per capita" record, we're bit players in the grand climate change scenario, like we're bit players in just about every other international issue.

The resutls of climate change, if the models are correct, will be serious for Canada. Costs of adaptations will be measured not in billions of dollars but in percent of GDP. In Canada it'll be mostly dealing with the changes to the agriculture, foretsry, fisheries, construction and energy sectors. Still, we're a rich country and we'll absorb those costs--well, actually, it won't be us, it'll be our children and grandchildren paying.

The ones who'll get truly shafted are the ones that have no "fat" to absorb these types of costs, and changes to agriculture result in an immediate cascade effect leading to more food shortages, energy shortages, disease and war. Africa, in other worlds, will be once again bet over the barrel.

However---and this is what a lot of AGW supporters don't consider--Africa will suffer under almost any climate change action plan since costs will inevitable filter down to energy costs, and the effects of higher energy costs on the poor are more pronounced, and will result in the immediate cascade effect leading to more food shortages, energy shortages, disease and war.

Whether through action to prevent climate change (higher energy prices), or through deaulting to adapting to climate change (adaptation costs), the poor will suffer, and the bottom line, in my opinion, is that the only reason there is 6.7 billion people on this planet is because of the easy, cheap energy afforded by oil, and that era is coming to an end.

Grand socialistic endeavours such as Kyoto are, unfortunately, bound to fail, fo rthe same reason communism failed--because communism does not account for the inherent desire of people to maximize their own self-interest. A pure free market solution will simply result in more optimal number of human beings on the planet.

Even if we thread this needle, sqaure the circle, come up with some wonderful public policy or technological solution, the result will be that our population increases, until we hit the next wall at a world popualtion nine or ten billion perhaps. And it will likely be more serious than climate change.

As a species we are flirting with the carrying capacity of the planetary ecosystem and we can expect nature. . Net Primary Prodctivity (NPP) is the production of chemical energy in organic compounds by living organisms, primarily through photosynthesis from the sun (or in simpler terms the energy required for life on this planet). Total human appropriation of the Earth's NPP is estimated at 24%. The remianing portion is for all other life on the planet. As our appropriation of NPP goes up, the amount available for the ecosystem goes down resulting a number of effects, such as loss of biodiversity. As humans grow--in numbers and in per capita energy usage--the available NPP for teh ecosystem drops. It's teh harsh mathematical/thermodynamic reality that will limit our population.

And that's why we need to get our gene pool off this planet and move to the stars!