Triple price of gas to save planet, UN climate expert Thomas Stocker argues – Meet the man who wants to impose his warmist religious beliefs on you! [email protected]

Triple price of gas to save planet, climate expert argues

Source:  Copyright 2011, Calgary Herald 
Date:  June 9, 2011
Canadians may abhor the rising price of gasoline, but Thomas Stocker suggests the planet might be better off if it soared to “three to four” times its current level.

“This is scandalous, I know,” said Stocker, adding sky-high gasoline could help slow the climate change which world leaders have declared one of the greatest challenges of our time.

Much higher pump prices would help people realize there are “much smarter ways to go from point A to point B” than climbing into “three tonnes of steel and rubber” that spew greenhouse gases, said Stocker, who is in British Columbia this week to discuss the insidious effect humans are having on the global atmosphere.

The Swiss climatologist is a key player with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He and the IPCC say there is no question the climate is changing because of the huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases wafting into the atmosphere through the burning of oil, gas and other fossil fuels.

The atmosphere’s carbon dioxide level is the highest it has been in 800,000 years, Stocker said — temperatures are climbing, sea levels are rising and heat waves are becoming more common and more dire in many countries.

Stocker stressed that decisions made today — how much and what type of energy is used in transportation, homes, buildings and factories — will help shape what the future brings since emissions released today will contribute to changes felt decades from now.

“It’s not like we wait to 2049 and say ‘Oh, we’d like to have less climate change in 2050’,” he said in an interview before a public talk in Vancouver.

He compared the situation to slamming on the brakes to avoid a car crash. “You don’t wait until you’re half a metre from the wall.”

And if society won’t cut emissions, he asks “are we ready to pay the cost of adaption?” he asks, citing the prospect of seeing some Pacific island states sink beneath rising oceans.

To avoid the worst impacts scientists say warming must be kept to a 2 C increase in the average global temperature by 2100, which would mean about 6 degree C warming in the Canada’s north. That, they say, can only be achieved by slashing emissions over the …