What does 10 TRILLION gallons of water even equate to?

westend wrote:
What about the "idiot", "sucker", "a five year old", "radical", and the other instances that have occurred in this thread? I guess if you aren't on the side being demeaned, they may go unnoticed.

We can agree on this point. Obviously I looked right past those terms. Just like you looked right past it yourself by calling me sophomoric for my views in the very next paragraph.
How does money fit in all of this? It's not like climate scientists are wealthy, usually the opposite. Big Oil, on the other hand, has tremendous resources and uses it all the time to foist their agenda. To internalize these issues into an anti-USA campaign is rather sophomoric. It is a worldwide problem and that is the reason for conventions and pacts being offered and agreed/disagreed to.

When trillions of dollars are (proposed) being thrown around for the non solutions, yes it does make me think it's all about the money. One of the favorite facts that gets immediately thrown out is about the amount of energy we in the USA use. That makes us the easy scapegoat along with the fact we have money that others want. .
To continue the whole quote of Ms Figueres"..That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 - you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation."

I believe what she's referring to is the change from a society that cares little about pollution to sustaining an economy that also takes responsibility for climate change into the process. It is not an indictment about any particular economic model but a transformation of all economic models.

We disagree on that interpretation completely. I think she means exactly what she said. Especially when coupled with the other comment I quoted.

What occurs to me is that climate science is very divisive with some folks taking a strict "black or white" view of it. IME, it's involved with natural science so there is a whole lot of complexity to the overview and any predicted result. Unfortunately, lines have been drawn in the sand and objections, misinformation, and exaggeration are all at hand. That is from both sides, IMO.

. We agree yet again. Glad you see there ARE two sides of climate science.

To anyone wishing to investigate some of the immediate consequences of climate change, search for a few videos about what is happening in Greenland. The images of a Niagara Falls flowing into the usual permanent ice cap impressed me.