With Obama as the US president, are you optimistic that runaway climate change will be prevented?

I'm cautiously optimistic.

It's still going to take major emissions reductions to avoid runaway global warming, over the next 40 years. And Obama will only have a 4-8 year term, so there's only so much he can do. However, he can get the country back on track after we've dragged our feet and obstructed every international climate change agreement over the past 8+ years.

In his first 2 weeks, Obama has already shown that he considers global warming a top priority, so that's the good news.

The bad news is that China seems poised to take a seriously destructive move:

"China is aiming to increase its coal production by about 30 per cent by 2015 to meet its energy needs"

http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/09/china-announ...

So among Obama's goals needs to be getting China on board with emissions reductions and prevent them from following through with these coal plants. The good news is that he got a lot of political capital with his selection of Chinese-American Steven Chu for Energy Secretary.

http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/15/steven-chu-o...

So if anyone can get us on the road to preventing runaway global warming, I think Obama is the guy.

i am in part a 'denier'. But if we are going to say things are as bad as the environmentalists etc wish to say they are, yes obama will help to a degree.

He strikes me as open minded. So if there are problems, im sure he'll look closely at them and try and fix areas where the usa really pollute.

However, as much as america is a big polluter, i think the problem will come from those countries that CANNOT change to environmentally friendly options in manufacturing /everyday life. Because they dont have money or access to these resources. So for the greatest part, things will remain unchanged.

But as you say you have researched this subject, Feel free to correct me if you think im wrong!

Even if Obama taxes us to death with CO2 taxes, it won't change a thing. China already passed the US up and if we cut back 10%, India will pass us up again.

In the US we still need to pour concrete for infrastructure, concrete production is one of the highest CO2 makers around. Every person exhales the same amount of CO2 as a car. We want good and factories to make those items and if we tax ourselves out of making things, it's good bye USA. If you do not make anything you die economically. Look at the USSR, they didn't make anything, their factories where a shambles. Now look at China and India. factories going in everyday, they are building up to over take the US is production and with production, better lives.

OH, and are you a socialist saying you will not lister to deniers, this question should be eliminated for being toxic to society.

If he ruined the economy he might get a tiny fraction of a degree of change.

" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "

Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist

Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,

and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service;

in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal

Runaway climate change? Today, the newspaper reminded us that this has been the coldest January since 1978 and of course, right now Britain is suffering with more snow than they have seen in 18 years.

Got to be that global warming bullshit or is it that the sun which has been responsible for every warming and cooling cycle is still in charge and that you give us humans too much bad press.

I mean, it is okay, you are already starving people to death in the world as we burn their food in our vehicles and Gore has made his millions. Now, you can tell the truth.

Sorry, I know you did not want to hear from me but I have this addiction to answering really stupid questions.

I am here to tell you, you haven't done your research, as evidenced by your question. Apparently, you think you understand it because you read a couple of articles. Go back and actually learn something before you pretend to preach to people. It gets old having children who don't know the first thing about science pretend they do. It also gets old having people compare skepticism that CO2 is driving the climate to holocaust deniers. If you continue to label skeptics as "deniers" you certainly won't get many kind responses.

There is no runaway climate change.

But I predict that since the ARACC (Anthropogenic runaway climate change) people helped get Obama elected, the hands that reach into the pockets of the producers of the world will dig deeply and give to the ARACC crowd to reward them for their support.

No action any person takes, president or not, is gonna effect the climate. Assuming people can change climate is like assuming people could force the sun to rise in the west. Totally irrational and illogical.

It's not down to Obama alone. Europe and UK have for a long time tried to convince Bush that something needed to be done. It's the whole of the world that will need to work together - not just one country. Europe and the USA and any other country that is behind this need to come forward with a communal plan to convince countries like China (and other newly developing countries) that they need to cooperate. I assume we will have to give them some incentives too.

First illustrate where the climate is running away. our current climate period is exceptional cold compared to all of the previous documented climate optimums to the point most climate scientists consider it only a moderation of the little ice age period and not a true optimum.