| Author | Message | ||
     Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.155.16 |
Friends of the Earth have been organising free showings of this important new film in various places. Starring Pete Postlethwaite as the last human being on earth, broadcasting from a station on stilts above the water covering London in 2055, The Age of Stupid is 90% documentary and 10% near-future SF based on mainstream scientific analysis. The basis of it is uncontestable: we have less than forty years' worth of oil left at current rates of consumption, and we have less than a decade to stabilise the change in global temperature due to consumption of fuel and other respources (combined with the destruction of rain forests). If we fail to control the rise in global temperature, the planet will not sustain human life for longer than another half-century. The point of no return is five or six years away. After that the changes will be irreversible and devastating. What this means is no more fuel-driven cars very soon, and no more fuel-driven aeroplanes from now onward. That's just a start. Except, of course, that it's so much easier to be a 'climate change sceptic' or to decide that making these changes is too 'politically correct' to be worth considering. Nor is it down to individual lifestyles – that's the film's crucial implication. The global corporations and major governments need to take the absolute necessity of these changes on board. If they won't, then we need to get rid of them. If workable solutions involving sustainable technology don't suit the interests of the rich, tough shit. Or would you rather know that there will only be one more human generation, simply because the interests of profit are not served by those choices that give us a future? The human species is in the position of a man with heart disease who reaches for another pack of cigarettes in order to prove he's not politically correct. Go and see this film. By all means ask 'What can be done?' But don't ask the question in order to pretend it doesn't have an answer. Nothing is more urgent or more important than this issue. There is nothing that can't be changed in order to give the world a chance. Because if things just carry on as they are, we will lose all of it. Very soon indeed. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Joel - I haven't seen the film, but I appreciate fully what you're saying (is it you saying this, or are you simply saying what the film is saying?). My belief is that humans have been burying their heads in the sand for far too long on this issue. Individuals can help if they ALL do something, but for every person who says "my little bit won't help" it makes things just that bit harder. But, as you say, the real changes have to be made by governments - ALL governments. And my sense of defeatism tells me I just can't see that happening. Humans will just go on in the same old selfish fashion, oblivious to where they are heading ...  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.194.119 |
Caroline, I'm summarising the film's conclusions to begin with, then going on to offer my own take on the issues. Not a unique perspective, of course. We've had enough unique perspectives. We need a radical consensus, and fast. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.90.70 |
Joel, your summation paragraph chilled me. The most enormous horror story in history is happening in front of us while most of the media treat it as a story about the weather. It's literally the end of the world and the primary focus of the leaders and media is still money. Turns out that the Greens were the hardnosed realists; the suits and scoffers were the intellectual and moral cowards. "But, as you say, the real changes have to be made by governments - ALL governments. And my sense of defeatism tells me I just can't see that happening. Humans will just go on in the same old selfish fashion, oblivious to where they are heading ..." Caroline, Arthur C. Clarke made the decision to be optimistic because there's the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the positive side, there's we have Obama, not McCain and even China has made noises recently about taking it seriously. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.90.70 |
Oops. From Friends of the Earth website: "Meanwhile, the Chinese president Hu Jintao did not fulfil a UN official's predictions that China would suddenly become a champion of the fight against global warming. Mr Hu spoke in platitudes and stressed the need for developed countries to understand developing countries. China and India are often portrayed as the villains of the global warming crisis." | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
It's not like me to be hopeful on this subject, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8iR5jb00Mo | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Bar mass excecutions, the Men in Suits aren't going to budge though, are they? I mean, as long as they can make money they see everything else as collatoral damage. I'd love to be positive regarding this, but I know human nature too well to be anything but pessemistic. As Proto said, it's the ultimate true life horror story: uncontrollable human greed leading to human extinction. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
It's somewhat comforting to note that two major American oil companies -- Chevron and Shell -- just began investing in another promising oil alternative: algae-based fuel. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
>> The basis of it is uncontestable: we have less than forty years' worth of oil left at current rates of consumption, and we have less than a decade to stabilise the change in global temperature due to consumption of fuel and other respources (combined with the destruction of rain forests). If we fail to control the rise in global temperature, the planet will not sustain human life for longer than another half-century. The point of no return is five or six years away. After that the changes will be irreversible and devastating. Joel, I don't know where you got the forty-year figure. Experts are all over the board on that estimate. In the fifties it was estimated that the world would reach peak oil in 2006. Some experts say we actually reached it in 2008. Others say it will be five or six years from now. Still others -- probably oil industry employees -- say peak oil is still decades away. There is no consensus about this at all, and therefore no consensus about long it will take the world to consume the remaining oil. As for global warming, it's certainly possible that man has caused the problem, but it's by no means the only plausible possibility. Scientists have known for decades that the earth's magnetic poles move -- even reverse from time to time. Computer analysis suggests that we are long overdue for such a reversal, which, if it were to happen, may bring severe climate turbulence. (Go here for more: http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/geomagnetic-reversal-theory-of- global-warming-an-alternative-view/) Of course I'm not saying peak oil and global warming are hogwash or that they aren't worth worrying about. But here's hoping government recalcitrance won't necessarily mean the end of the world. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
Yes caught the trailer some time back and I want to see this. Joel: 'The point of no return is five or six years away.' This might sound terrible, but in some quarters this is an optimistic estimate. Some environmentalists suggest that even if every single car and airplane and factory were simply stopped and turned off this week, we would still be tumbling towards destruction- it is already way too late, the damage has already been done:-( How I hope this is not true- No one knows what effects the massive amounts of methane already being released into the atmosphere is having as a result of ice melting at a catastrophic rate. The process is already happening. One thing I never understood as regards to the so-called sceptics is this- can we afford to take the chance if the contrary is true? Too much at stake. Also I find some of the conflicts in the world so absurd, irrational- especially from the jingoists- in fifty or a hundred years time, no one would be able to occupy whatever land the conflict is about because it would be too hot, or submerged under water, or whatever- Also there'll be 9 billion people on the earth by 2050, it is unsustainable, shortage of resources means more conflict, means less resources to avert catastrophy.It is as if humanity has this built-in error or deficiency which predisposes it towards self-destruction. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.222.21 |
Until the big companies stop being self - serving bastards - none of us are safe. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
Zed: 'the Men in Suits aren't going to budge though, are they? I mean, as long as they can make money they see everything else as collatoral damage.' ____ Not only that but according to Naomi Kline, in her book 'The Shock Doctrine, the rise of disaster capitalism', as she calls it, some parties actually profit from disaster- man-made or otherwise- more and more, as things get progressivly worse. Which is a deeply disturbing nihilistic trend which must be stopped. In areas of so-called privatized reconstruction (and private security for those doing the reconstruction), the outsourcing of labour instead of using local workforces, the adoption of caustic loans after disaster etc, further impoverishes local populations, which causes more conflict- All these trends are part of the profit disaster complex. Some parties have no interest therefore, for things to get better, on the contrary, they can make more and more money, as we get worse flooding, worse storms because of global warming- which then causes more conflict which means selling more arms to both parties etc, wasting more time and taking us away from the issues that are integral to all of our survival. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.90.70 |
"Also there'll be 9 billion people on the earth by 2050..." I bet there won't. For the worst reasons imaginable. *slap self* Stop it. Think positive. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.90.70 |
Karim, the best example of this I've seen is people planning lucrative new shipping routes over the north pole. They just can't wait until all that pesky ice is gone. The root is lack of empathy, isn't it? Sociopaths are good at social climbing. The ruthless make the decisions. There should be mandatory Voigt-Kampf tests for everyone who wants to be a politician or CEO. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.222.21 |
'The root is lack of empathy, isn't it? Sociopaths are good at social climbing. The ruthless make the decisions. There should be mandatory Voigt-Kampf tests for everyone who wants to be a politician or CEO.' So well said. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
Exactly Proto. Also additional oil drilling. If you look at the biodiversity readings made around the world's mainlands today, these areas some five miles out are already basically dead. If totalitarian states are joining in on the environmental game on the world stage, then it must mean that things are seriously fucked- to put it bluntly. It's funny and absurd how some states use fear to make their populations accept mass surveillance, the stripping of basic human rights, yet there is this passivity towards the unimaginable terror of the possibility of a mass extinction event. How strange. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
"... yet there is this passivity towards the unimaginable terror of the possibility of a mass extinction event. How strange." It's a typical human psychological defence mechanism - it's just too horrible to think about, so people don't even think about it. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.83 |
To add further material clarifying Joel's original point check out the documentary 'End of Suburbia'. Also the book 'The Party's Over' by Richard Heinberg. At the time of writing this book it looks as if even Joel's conservative estimates are optimistic with regards to the point of no return. M. King Hubbert, once the world's leading geologist, and expert bar none on oil depletion, predicted, correctly might I add, each and every oil-producing country's peak of production and resources. Every country except Saudi Arabia, since relevant data was not easily accessible for all manner of political reasons. He predicted that by 2054 all country's, all, would no longer be able to fuel civilian and non-civilian forms of transport. Further analysis has shown (Heinberg to name but a few), that unless this is reversed, NOW, that we will be forced to return to a state of agrarian production. The reasons for this are plain and simple. Oil is not just a source of energy, it is possibly one of the defining ingredients to modern everyday life. We use subforms of oil in pratically all aspects of major industrial production of day to day goods. Your food, your household items, your cosmetics, the list is endless. BUT, food most of all. It is the organic foundation of mass production, and the mass consumptive article of our daily staple diet. Without it we would quite literally have to tear up the motorways, the autobahns and the highways, in order to find enough space to grow crops not dependent on oil and its derivatives as a source. Even if we were to argue its importance as an energy source, there are NO energy sources which at present could replace it. Hydrogen is not that source as reported in conservative government based journals, or as lobbied for by the international committees who have supposedly pumped billions into developing it. Why? Again, quite simple. Hydrogen is a carrier. It is not a source, or the source. I have argued time and again with people about this, and their response is why haven't we heard about it before. And this I fully understand. If it's not being shouted from the rooftops, it's easy to believe that it's nothing but scaremongering. Perhaps try pointing them to the permanent 54 bases now on Iraqi soil. Or the sudden interest in destablising Iran's nuclear program. Alas, such views though backed up by the Swiss World Science Agency, and countless other bodies without anything to gain from this, are mocked and derided by the so called conscious modern press, and at large generally ignored. Watch 'The End of Suburbia', then reference every name involved. You will find their credentials and experise second to none. The bell is tolling, and it tolls much too fast. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.226 |
The situation is terrifying. It's hard to be optimistic when so many people are still in denial about it all, and governments are failing to act to alleviate the problem (assuming that is still an option). There's some interesting info here:http://healthandenergy.com/oil_crisis.htm As Schopenhauer said, "All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." I see a lot of the first two stages in conversation both online and in the 'real world'. I worry that by the time the third stage is reached it will be too late. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.83 |
Huw - Schopenhuaer's three stages doesn't seem all that different from the stages people go through when suffering from a terminal disease like cancer. Yes, a bit of a sledge hammer analogy, but no less apt for it. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.226 |
Frank, there's another quote that I saw on that page I linked to - it's a Saudi saying: "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet plane. His son will ride a camel." | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.158 |
I like to think I'm not a stupid guy. I surely don't want to see humanity go down the drain. I know there's a lot of evidence around for what you're all claiming. I know all this... so why, truly, why don't I care?... I mean, I cannot make myself care at all about these issues. Not even slightly. I think I know what it is. I think it's because those TRULY in power, those who HAVE the power to do something meaningful here, and CLAIM to want to - people like President Obama? - clearly they don't give a f*ck. (If they do, it's hardly a crisis-level priority, it's more like a mild concern, a "Yeah, someday we should do something, maybe...."; anyone who contests this, is just plain lying.) So honestly. If the very people who CLAIM to care so much don't crisis-level give a f*ck... why the hell should I crisis-level give a f*ck?... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.158 |
Dated yesterday: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm Who do we believe?!? It's not about being stupid, it's about being legitimately confused. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.226 |
Everybody should give a fuck. It's our world, our lives, our children's lives for fuck's sake. Just because presidents and those in charge of corporations don't care, doesn't mean we 'little people' should also be apathetic. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.158 |
I do indeed give a fuck whether the world burns out in a few years, we run through all our fuel in a few years, etc. ... Is that all I have to do? Care that much? Okay, I'm there. What else? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.226 |
I'm not saying I have the solutions, just that we should all care about what happens to our planet and to future generations. I don't understand how people can say they can't care about this. I didn't mean to sound like I was cursing at you directly in my earlier post, by the way. It was aimed at the whole situation. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.229.82 |
And I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, but - just as a random example among many - read that article I've linked, and at least empathize, understand, how others might care about the planet/humanity, and still not care about these particular crises/"crises" (depending upon how you look at them).... I can clearly understand how the other side can care so greatly. Why can't your side ever understand how the other side might not? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Craig, you obviously don't have kids. They make you care about the future. Like you, I was apathetic before we had our son - now I care. I care a lot (to paraphrase Faith No More). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.253.4 |
No, that's true, I don't have kids. But it's not quite apathy, it's actually the same thing as with the state of the economy here in the States - so much conflicting data, so much contradiction in "facts," so many opposing opinions - whom do you believe?!? Now, I am going to go out on a limb and say most of the people here on the other side, are religiously minded. Because the ability to be part of a religion, is the ability to shut off the naysaying voices and data in one's head, and just go with whatever facts feel best. And if anyone here counters they're not part of a religion - reread your posts here....  | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.184.214 |
I'm not religious and I'm pretty certain Gary isn't, either. I don't want to over-generalize, but my overall experience has been that the religious are probably less likely to have faith in science than the non-religious. I think it more likely that those who deny anything is wrong are 'head-in-the-sand' type people - they don't care about anything that doesn't appear to be having an immediate effect on their daily lives. The ironic thing about that is that the stakes couldn't be higher for all of us, regardless of which 'side' we're on. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Huw's right: I'm not religious in the slightest. Craig, I don't really get what argument you're trying to make here. I'm puzzled. Regarding your first paragraph above, about the state of the economy, surely you've felt the pinch? If not, you're either living in a financial bubble (a trust fund?) or on some kind of benefits. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.206.153 |
"And if anyone here counters they're not part of a religion - reread your posts here...." If you're implying that science is a religion, there's not much point in continuing this debate. Science isn't based on belief, but on verifiable fact. There's nothing noble in adopting a position contrary to some of the greatest minds on the planet unless you have facts to base it on. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Ah...I suddenly see what Craig is getting at. Cliche city baby. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.2.101 |
I absolutely am not saying science is a religion. I'm saying that predicting what's going to happen in 50 years is not a science, it's a guess based on existing facts. Two scientists, two different opinions about the future. Who's right? Check in 50 years, and we'll see. What do we do now? Pick whatever facts work for us. But what happens when one side picks facts, ignoring others; and demands the other side adhere to THEIR definition of those facts, and how these selected facts will effect a far-flung future event? at the same time demanding everyone ignore all other conflicting predictions of same facts? Voila! You've just invented a religion. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.2.101 |
And to compound it, make it intolerant of both nay-sayers, and those who simply don't care. Religions that pound down your door and demand you adhere to their belief-systems, demand you change your life-style because of their "higher morality," are nothing less than fanatical. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
But the majority of scientists seem to agree on the core fact, Craig: we're fucked. I find your stance on this a tad...disturbing.  | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.203.38 |
"...make it intolerant of both nay-sayers, and those who simply don't care." Damned right. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. There's never been a war, a plague, a famine or a holocaust to approach this. This is global war AND plague AND famine in one, very much in our lifetime. And that doesn't even touch our responsibility to the millions of other species we'll be destroying. Permanently. If intelligence survives long enough on this planet, I've a feeling that the 20th century will be a black stain in the strata of the Earth's crust, like the K-T boundary. A planet permanently scarred. A fossil hammer cracking open the cross-section of the rock will reveal nothing but a thin crust of mobile phones and death on a scale never imagined. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
>> Damned right. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I'm wary of this position. The same position is held by George W Bush, Evangelical Christians, and Osama Bin Laden. No one predicts the future, even scientists. But fundamentalism is fundamentalism. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.84.201 |
Damned right. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. "Then he said to them: 'Go forth to every part of the world, and preach the gospel to all creatures. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be damned.' " --Mark 16:15-16 They come in white robes, and white lab coats. Different gods - same thuggery. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.84.201 |
There's never been a war, a plague, a famine or a holocaust to approach this. This is global war AND plague AND famine in one, very much in our lifetime. Can you tell me exactly what will happen? In a nutshell? I mean the step-by-step process of how we reach a calamity that is far removed from all previous wars/plagues/famines/holocausts? A Christian could point you to the exact steps the World will take as it comes to its end - it's all laid out very neatly in Revelation. It's easy to follow what happens there, literally (and ironically: it's only when we are determined to turn Revelation into allegory that it flubs us all up.) Surely someone here can in a paragraph sum up scientifically EXACTLY what is supposed to happen...? You know, like a recipe?... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.181.227 |
As far as global warming is concerned, this ought to equip you with some of the basic facts (and myths):http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011 You can look up info on the oil crisis etc. separately, on google or any other search engine. All it takes is a little reading. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.246.217 |
I'm sorry. I just cannot take serious an issue that is - and I quote - something that There's never been a war, a plague, a famine or a holocaust to approach this. This is global war AND plague AND famine in one, very much in our lifetime for which the solution is, on a personal level - from this very website you've linked to Huw - these four steps: -- Switch lightbulbs -- Choose smarter seafood -- Become an online emailer (i.e., activist) -- Donate money (of course) So okay: we got a crisis worse than the death camps of Nazi Germany that slaughtered over 6 million Jews, to name just one single holocaust - this one is going to be WORSE than that one by far (and leave aside grotesque measurements, when we are talking about a human evil actively exercised upon other human beings, which side-effect global warming cannot compare to [i.e., quantifying human depravity - the active desire to murder Jews was nearly as bad as actually murdering them: it's not a numbers game - isn't important, when we can simply exploit that term "holocaust" for whatever we need, whenever we want, as long as it serves our cause])... No, not only that, but all I have to do to help stop this horror from arriving on planet Earth is: change my lightbulbs, eat different seafoods, write a few emails, and send others my money. ... Does no one here see how this might all come off as a bit, uh -->  ? Again, Roman Catholicism is coming to mind, with its selling of indulgences, it's "Get out of Purgatory quicker!" coupons (Cap & Trade, anyone?)... all the ways a powerful political entity uses to enslave its adherents to ever-more-self-regulating mind-control methods, to ensure total mental domination, as the world-powers go on their merry way, exploiting the sweat of your labors, with your rewards extended to an impossible-to-be-proved future event (in this example: the afterlife; with global-warming: after we're all dead).... Did anyone say, "When there are no more gods to worship, they will fashion their own"? If not, I just did. (Btw: I use over 75% fluorescent lightbulbs, and almost never eat seafood. I will never give over my $$$ to this, but then, that's hardly going to tip any scales. My activism...? Who else here is an active activist, doing everything they can to stop the coming apocalypse?... anyone?... My actions speak for themselves, so... go ahead and arrest me, oh Ministry of Caring!) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.211 |
"... a dread disease called [global-warming-osis]...." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz3t4LcXwtE (Note ludicrous solution as sedative to utter annihilation [that implies spending your $/£ - always follow the $/£]) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.165 |
I've seen this film. I don't know what to do; it feels too big. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.165 |
Everything we do that needs our feeble raised fists feels impossible to change. Saw a book in the eighties that said we're doomed because of human nature, our sheer inability to back down. The way we talk here sort of proves that. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.181.227 |
Craig, those are just a few simple things that 'regular' people can do that might make at least a little bit of a difference, if enough people made the effort. Obviously much, much more than that needs to be done by those in power: the shortsighted and greedy governments and corporations. It may sound like hyperbole, but I think what Proto is getting at is that if things continue to deteriorate, the situation could end up becoming a global catastrophe on an unprecedented scale. Most scientists seem to agree that unless something is done fast, things will get worse and worse, and there may well be no turning back. Obviously, as individuals we can't do a whole hell of a lot (although collectively we can help), but surely acknowledging there is a problem and trying to at least do something is better than not giving a damn? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
The best way to save the world is to kill and eat all vegetarians as they're a bunch of evil sods who are trying to destroy the planet. Look at the facts. Animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Plants "breathe" in Carbon dioxide and "breathe" out oxygen. We need to reduce the amount of CO2 so therefore we need to eat as many animals as we can and leave the plants alone. Add to this the fact that pulse-eating vegetarians fart more - releasing toxic methane into the atmosphere in catastrophic amounts - it's clear that global warming is all a veggie conspiracy - so we might as well get rid of them all as well while we're eating all the delicious cows and pigs and chickens. See, mindless violence can save the world when applied correctly. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.250.210 |
"Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves" -- Matthew 7:15 Huw, I've just always been very skeptical of Chicken Little-isms. We're going through one in the States right now, maybe you've got it in the U.K...? It's called the "Swine Flu." And I'm going to be honest: more wary am I than of the Chicken Little-isms, am I of those who are playing the roles of the Chicken Littles. You can say one thing about the original Chicken Little: the little bugger went nuts and scrambled around to everyone he knew, desperately struggling to change the situation. Todays Chicken Littles like to sit in their armchairs and rant in-between episodes of "Lost." But what I really can't tolerate, are the Chicken Littles who sit in their armchairs and during commercials for "Lost," put the TV on mute, and signature another pogrom for the Chicken Little-unbelievers out there. All of the above is a type of: hyperanalogizing. The twin-sister to Weber's Swiftian satirizing (let's cross our fingers and hope - never know, with Weber). | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.165 |
'Todays Chicken Littles like to sit in their armchairs and rant in-between episodes of "Lost."' I know it's wrong, but that really made me laugh. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
This thread is getting more and more depressing. If the thought of what we're doing to the planet isn't depressing enough, the sight of people sticking their heads in the sand like ostriches and saying "It ain't my problem" is even more depressing. Makes me realise why the film which this thread is about is called "The Age of Stupid". | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.165 |
Caroline; I feel the same, but what depresses me more is my inability to know what to do. I don't drive, I recycle, i try to download music more than buy cds, I try to buy second hand. I'm on the brink of growing an allotment any day now - I even have chickens. But it doesn't feel enough, and I don't think I have it in me to do more. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
It sounds to me, Tony, that you're doing all you can as one individual. Don't despair - we CAN make a difference. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
If you combine the greenhouse gas output of every car on the planet it accounts for somewhere in the region of 2% of the total. Cows farting accounts for more than 10 times that amount. Another reason to eat the damned things. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
.. and what about humans farting? (ie. should we eat those too?) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.26 |
Tony, look over your own posts, and the posts above... how very much this whole discussion is like a head-pounding ORGANIZED RELIGION. Creating sins you never knew existed, and then selling you the way out of those sins with special indulgences; the frantic end-is-coming crisis of it all; the insane insistence of FAITH over WORKS; the desperate despair the struggling individual feels, never able to satisfy the requirements of the Law; the intolerance of those who don't adhere to the new belief system; etc. Surely I'm not the ONLY one here who sees this, on this thread alone?!? And it all began with... et tu, Joel?... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.233.137.188 |
There's not much you can say to someone who refuses to accept the very concept of expertise. Moving on. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
But, Proto, which experts do you believe? With very little research one can find countless scientists who deny the theory of man-made global warming. Reid Bryson, the 87-year-old considered to be the father of scientific climatology, has spoken out strongly against anthropogenic global warming theories. The following is from an interview of Mr. Bryson by Wisconsin’s Capital Times in 2007. Humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny, Bryson said. "There is a lot of money to be made in this," he added. "If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'" Just because almost all of the scientific community believes in man-made global warming proves absolutely nothing, Bryson said. "Consensus doesn't prove anything. There is very little truth to what is being said and an awful lot of religion. It's almost a religion. Where you have to believe in anthropogenic (or man-made) global warming or else you are nuts." More? http://www.theweeklyvice.com/2009/06/scientists-put-global-warming-into-deep.htm l http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=156df7e6-d490-41c9-8b1f-106fef8 763c6&k=0 http://www.cgfi.org/2008/05/27/over-31000-us-scientists-deny-man-made-global-war ming-by-dennis-t-avery/ Even scientists who believe in the man-made theory say that cutting our CO2 emissions in half only reduces our temperature increase by 0.5 degrees Centigrade, a trivial amount. I'm not saying any of these theories are true or false. I'm just saying maybe we should be a little less dogmatic about these issues. I recycle, I use energy efficient light bulbs, I don't drive often, I eat little meat. I do what I can, in other words. But if you want me to pick up my torch and pitchfork and storm the White House, I'm afraid I can't do that. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.233.137.188 |
"But, Proto, which experts do you believe?" None individually, but rather the scientific consensus. "Consensus doesn't prove anything." It's how science has always worked. The evidence is necessarily stocastic in nature, akin to that which links smoking and lung cancer. Nobody has yet "proven" the the smoking/cancer link but few doubt it's reality. At the moment the burden of proof is on those who don't believe in man-made global warming. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.233.137.188 |
Here's the consensus (this is a Wiki page but the reference it quotes, the IPCC, is reliable): "National and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 that states: "An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. A few organisations hold non-committal positions. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
>> It's how science has always worked. Agreed. (Although tell that to Galileo.) >> The evidence is necessarily stocastic in nature, akin to that which links smoking and lung cancer. Nobody has yet "proven" the the smoking/cancer link but few doubt it's reality. So why not storm the tobacco companies? Surely there's a "Holocaust" going on there, too? The truth is that contemporary science is faddish. No scientist worth his salt is currently willing to say that obesity, say, may not be all bad. (Although the results of many scientific studies suggest exactly that.) No scientist is willing to say that HIV may not be the sole cause of AIDS -- although there are studies that show that, too. Such scientists can't say such things, because they won't get funding, and admitting such things amounts to fiscal suicide. I've noticed that when science becomes newsworthy, it's usually when the results of a scientific study correlate with the views of people who want to impose moral superiority on others. And when later studies contradict the original findings, these studies are often ignored. In America, every scientific organization except one agrees that global warming exists -- and the exeption is the National Association of Petroleum Geologists. It's easy, then -- and probably accurate -- to dismiss this exception: petroleum geologists work for the oil companies; to admit that global warming exists is tantamount to fiscal suicide. Why then can we not accept the possibility that the views of other scientists can be molded by the same types of pressure? Science is not to blame. It's the way science is funded that's the problem -- that, and the way people read into science's findings a liberal or conservative subtext. Science is good at measuring things, showing change over time. Scientists are not always good at interpreting these measurements. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.233.137.188 |
"So why not storm the tobacco companies? Surely there's a "Holocaust" going on there, too?" In a way, but that's a self-inflicted one. Of course, science is not outside of society. Scientists are people, and subject to financial pressures. But none of that disproves a global scientific consensus that is open to peer review. I believe in expertise. These people know more than you or I about this subject. Actually, what you've said supports my point. Initially, it was difficult to get funding to link climate change to human activity. It was only when the facts began to stack up in a certain way that the tide turned. People sided with the evidence. That's good science in action - a peer-reviewed consensus that is open to being overturned by any relevant counter-facts. Those counter-facts are not there in sufficient numbers or cogency, and so the current theory (rightly) remains extant. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.13.206 |
There's not much you can say to someone who refuses to accept the very concept of expertise. Moving on. "By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" -- Matthew 7:16 (I keep quoting the Bible since this is a religious discussion we're having here) | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Well, maybe. But not that religion. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
>> These people know more than you or I about this subject. You're right, but again, that's no guarantee they're right. This same consensus predicted increases in temperatures over the past decade, and yet, as Craig's link pointed out, global temperatures have not risen in that period. Whenever scientific speculation so neatly coincides with political correctness of any stripe, I begin to get suspicious. Such speculation may be completely accurate, but too many other elements -- money, politics -- hold influence. The one thing you can say about 87 year old Reid Bryson, above, is that he has no reason to lie about his beliefs. Perhaps that is what is most persuasive to me about the 31,000 scientists who signed the petition against man-made global warming, especially those who have a stake in climatology: it's difficult to believe such scientists would harm their careers just to lie about their beliefs. Again, I want to stress that I do not believe in any of these positions, necessarily. I'm just trying to be a voice of moderation. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.12.233 |
Chris has won me over! I'm always only going to go with the reasoned, non-fanatical, non-sky-is-falling as they bear pitchforks and torches and spikes for heads to raise high approach... but maybe that's just me.... Now if Chris were intolerantly exhortative, and the other side mild and deferring and humble and lacking in tyrannousness (if that's a word), well - Chris, you'd be on your own here, buddy. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.221.213 |
This discussion has highlighted a couple of striking issues beyond its initial subject. The first is the increduible passivity that our political system has induced. Throughout history, major changes have taken place through concered human action in the face of passivity and an assertion that the changes were contrary to 'human nature' – the abolition of slavery, women gaining the vote, free education, civil rights and gay rights all had to (and still have to, in parts of the world) contend not only with opposition from vested interests and entrenched prejudices, but also with a cynical 'you can't change human nature' mentality. The question of how people can be empowered to overcome the pernicious influence of global corporations and the media and politicians they own is a serious one, but the environmental crisis shows that it is one we have to address urgently. The second point that comes to mind is that the Internet is breeding its own form of passivity and insularity. Global warming is not a speculative 'theory': it's a disastrous reality that is already taking obvious effect in the melting of the ice caps and glaciers, the erosion of coastline and the prevalence of floods and hurricanes. The Kyoto Treaty was taken damn seriously by nearly every nation in the world. Only by hiding in a room with a computer screen can you convince yourself that this crisis is 'theory'. And in addition, by restricting your frame of reference to what is online, you can persuade yourself that the environmental movement consists only of a few inadequate websites created by tiny groups. When experience and the consensus of those who actually know about it says 2 and 2 is 4, but some vested interests insist it is 9, the 'moderate' view is apparently that 2 and 2 is 6. Those who insist that 2 and 2 is 4 are 'extremists' and probably dangerous. This whole discussion bears out my initial point that millions of people will die soon because not causing them to die is perceived as 'politically correct'. If something is true and important, Craig, then paying attention to it is not fanaticism. Failing to pay attention to it is cowardice, wilful ignorance and irresponsible denial. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.174.15 |
Mind you, everybody who witnesses such phenomena directly is biased, and everybody who reads about it is naive and hoodwinked. I think that was the general consensus the last time we discussed such matters here. If you speak up, you're either a wishy-washy comic liberal or a raving paranoiac who believes s/he has privileged access to the truth (yes, it's all a personality issue!!!). | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.174.15 |
Maybe I do need to add an 'irony' alert to that. It's the Internet, after all. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
<<<.. and what about humans farting? (ie. should we eat those too?)>>> The vegetarians yes. I've already said that. It makes no sense to me the arguments that because cows apparently contribute so much to greenhouse gases we should all go vegetarian. Surely if we stop eating those delicious creatures there'd be more of them because we wouldn't be killing them, so they'd still be contributing to global warming but we'd not even be getting the benefit of a nice steak dinner out of it | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
>> When experience and the consensus of those who actually know about it says 2 and 2 is 4, but some vested interests insist it is 9, the 'moderate' view is apparently that 2 and 2 is 6. Those who insist that 2 and 2 is 4 are 'extremists' and probably dangerous. Well, if that's directed at me, that's a distortion of what I've been saying. If anything, I'm merely saying that we should hesitate to jump to conclusions. I never said anything about "extremists," and I certainly haven't argued against the reality of global warming. (Has anyone on this thread been arguing that?) I'm not saying climate change doesn't exist -- only that such change may not be caused by the actions of humanity. Even scientists who agree with the theory say that evidence against humanity is circumstantial. This reminds me of a murder trial. If all the evidence against mankind is circumstantial, and if there are plausible other explanations, it's hard to see why mankind should be convicted. "Reasonable doubt" exists, is all I'm saying, and in America, anyway, mankind should be presumed innocent. Where that presumption doesn't exist, and where the indictment so neatly fits with political agendas, the biases appear partisan, and prejudicial. To make this clear, let me draw up a parallel from the opposite side of the political spectrum: Imagine a white Southern jury member standing up during a jury recess and saying "the evidence is circumstantial, other culprits exist, and yet I'm sure the black man on trial did it." I'm not saying you're wrong, Joel, only that you may be biased. Science is best conducted with an eye of objectivity, and politics is almost never objective. You're an intelligent guy, Joel, no doubt about that. But your fiction, and your posts here, almost always have a political edge to them. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you can't watch an Argento movie without the prism of politics, you're hardly the most objective guy around, no? | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
I'm quoting here, but this is good: The scientific method is a valuable way to advance objective knowledge. By testing a hypothesis against observation, it can either be falsified or supported. Not proved, of course, but nevertheless over time sufficient evidence can accumulate for a hypothesis to be generally accepted as the best available explanation. It is then known as a theory. Hence, although the vast majority of scientists and citizens (at least in Europe ) accept Darwin 's description of evolution, this is still regarded as a theory rather than fact. This is important, because as our understanding develops, apparently satisfactory theories may be replaced by others. For simple things such as the effect of the Earth's gravity on objects we are familiar with, collecting the evidence is straightforward and no experiments have been done which contradict the theory of gravity. But over the last century, it has been accepted that classical Newtonian mechanics is actually only valid at a certain scale (which encompasses everything in our normal Earthbound existence). At the atomic scale, we enter the abstruse realm of quantum mechanics, and on a cosmic scale Einstein 's theory of relativity is currently the best description of what goes on across the observable universe. Importantly, both of these deviations from the familiar everyday world as explained by Newton arose because observation did not fit with prediction: the theory broke down at very large and very small scales. The boundaries of knowledge have since been pushed back steadily, leading to a general acceptance of quantum mechanics and relativity as the best theories to date to explain observations. On a cosmic level, there is still much we do not know. It is now generally accepted that the Big Bang theory describes the universe better than the previously-competing Steady State model. But current models require the universe to be composed largely of as-yet-undetected "dark matter" and "dark energy" if observations are to be consistent with theory. And on a broader scale, the search for a "theory of everything" which brings together quantum mechanics and relativity and explains gravity remains unresolved, with the large amount of work on the development of string theory potentially being a historical dead end. This sort of work engenders fierce scientific rivalries, and the formation of a consensus view can take many years, but it is essentially an internal professional competition, of little direct relevance to the average citizen (apart from the fact that their taxes pay for it). However, when we come to issues which affect non-scientists more directly, other interest groups become more involved. A classic recent example which is often quoted is of the cause of stomach and duodenal ulcers. Many readers will remember that stress and spicy foods were considered the primary causes of peptic ulcers, until the Australian scientists Robin Warren and Barry Marshall discovered the bacterium Helicobacter pylori in 1982 and proposed that colonisation by this micro-organism was the main factor. Warren took the rather extreme step of deliberately infecting himself (and inducing symptoms of gastritis) and publishing the results before the theory began to gain acceptance. In this case, doctors and scientists "knew" that stress and diet were the main causative factors for ulcers because that was what they had been taught and that was the basis on which patients were treated. It is human nature to accept facts rather than continually question them: indeed, society would probably not function if we did not behave like this. To overturn received wisdom requires either unexplained observation (as for the behaviour of the universe) or one or more awkward individuals who are sufficiently motivated to do their own experiments. But when we turn to environmental issues, the situation becomes more complex still. To test a hypothesis, it is always best if only one independent variable can be changed at a time. In the laboratory, this is usually possible, but when hypotheses have to be tested purely by observation of highly complex systems, life gets much more difficult. And it is difficult to think of something much more complex than global climate. It is well known that there were serious concerns raised about climate change in the 1970s, although at that time the worry was about cooling and descent into a new Ice Age. However, attention soon turned instead to global warming. A sudden jump in temperature in the mid-1970s was followed by an upward trend over the next two decades, and it was perfectly logical to hypothesise that this increase was caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This quickly became the new paradigm, linking humankind's burning of fossil fuels directly to environmental change on a global scale. Unfortunately for the cause of rational debate, this also quickly became the only acceptable hypothesis for large swathes of the scientific community, pretty much everyone who considered themselves an environmentalist and the liberal elites in Western democracies. The problem was, is (and will remain so for the foreseeable future) that it is impossible to do experiments on the Earth's climate. All we can do is observe. Scientists often model systems to predict what effects might be expected if variables change in a certain way. In the absence of anything resembling evidence for the causative effect of global warming, computer modelling was enthusiastically embraced to project likely changes on the basis of the understanding of how climate worked. So far, so good, but the output from these models, rather than being seen as indications of what might happen if the hypothesis was right, have taken the place of experimental observation. So, in a circular argument, the models which are based on a particular hypothesis (the greenhouse effect with positive feedback) are taken to "prove" the hypothesis because they reproduce the pattern of twentieth century temperature change. Similarly, the projections for future temperature rise (which, we should remember, cover a large range) are regularly quoted as what will happen if carbon dioxide emissions are not drastically cut back. Large numbers of people have been sufficiently convinced by the arguments to take it as read that the greenhouse gas hypothesis is essentially correct and that disaster will occur unless radical cuts are made in emissions. They have moved beyond the stage of questioning to simply not listening to anyone who raises doubts. But, what is worse, they are putting their faith in a hypothesis unsupported by anything more than circumstantial evidence. Because no-one can do more than point to observations, no new evidence is going to be produced which - as in the story of peptic ulcers - will provide direct, irrefutable corroboration of an alternative theory. In the meantime, the belief in the greenhouse gas hypothesis is such that legitimate criticism based on contradictory evidence - the lack of predicted warming of the upper troposphere, the measured cooling of Antarctica, the lack of change in the rate of sea level rise or the failure of the models to explain or predict recent temperature trends, for example - are dismissed as the propaganda of paid lobbyists or cranks. All societies will gain if we make sure we understand the problem before taking corrective action rather than jump on the currently fashionable bandwagon. Addressing critics' questions seriously is a necessary first step. Whatever the result, a better understanding of our climate will ensure that we take appropriate action rather than invest so much in one particular preferred "solution" which shows little chance of success. Whatever the result, science will be the stronger for it. But, if things continue as they are and the catastrophists' view of climate change turns out to be wrong, it would hardly be surprising if the average person fails to place much faith in science. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
To go off on a brief tangent and sort of link to the poetry thread - the man who's hypotheses on quantum physics are now most accepted was Mark Everett's (E from Eels) dad. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.235.0 |
If something is true and important, Craig, then paying attention to it is not fanaticism. I will admit to being wrong and taking the wrong approach in one area, Joel.... Symbolically - metaphorically? analogically? - something-ally - maybe representationally - these threads are like "rooms"; and this room was set-up by you to discuss the urgency of man-made global-catastrophe. Then I wandered in and voiced opposition. I've often thought the worst religious folk are those who willfully flout the rules of a given religion, instead of just getting out of it - if you don't like the club's rules, you are free to go elsewhere. I didn't go elsewhere here, so... that's my bad. Chris does make an excellent point about the "corrupted" eye and what it sees, and that facts are taken through the prism of one's personal bent. Joel actually anticipates countering this, in spirit, by stating in essence: there comes a time when you have to move on SOME facts or other, interpreted one way or another - it almost doesn't matter which way - or you are ever just a passive typist staring at a computer screen. Which I too see the need to do, betimes... even advertisers understand that extreme crisis gets people motivated.... I side with skeptics like Chris in the end, and it's because I just plain don't trust the motivations lying at the secret heart of this whole movement... it does seem more politically motivated, than scientifically, and I just can't ever seem to shake that nagging suspicion... and there's nothing wrong with radical political movements, but - I'd like for those to be clear and out in the open.... I'll restate what I said in the beginning: Love is a great leap of willful suppression. And here, I'm just not in love. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.116.94 |
"This reminds me of a murder trial. If all the evidence against mankind is circumstantial, and if there are plausible other explanations, it's hard to see why mankind should be convicted. "Reasonable doubt" exists, is all I'm saying, and in America, anyway, mankind should be presumed innocent." Every part of this statement is incorrect. People have been convicted of murder on purely circumstantial evidence. Reasonable doubt does not exist. Mankind WAS presumed innocent until the weight of evidence tipped against it, as I've explained. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
>> People have been convicted of murder on purely circumstantial evidence. True. It does happen. But most attorneys would agree that circumstantial evidence alone is not enough to bring a suspect to trial. Why? Because such cases tend to fail. >> Reasonable doubt does not exist. Mankind WAS presumed innocent until the weight of evidence tipped against it, as I've explained. You've only explained there is a consensus. I've shown the consensus may exist only for political/financial reasons. Where is your evidence? Perhaps you didn't read the last five paragrahs of my last post. (The quote.) All evidence for man's involvement in climate change is speculation bolstered by computer models. Traditional experimentation is impossible with climate. But think about those models: It's true that they've been created to replicate the climate patterns of the last hundred years or so. They do this well. (Of course they do. They were programmed to do this.) Now scientists use these models to predict the future. They do this by speeding up the model, iterating their variables over and over. If even one of these variables is off, even by a tiny fraction, such iteration will produce a large cumulative error. It's simple mathematics. Unfortunately there is ample evidence that the computer models aren't correctly predicting the future. There are many contradictory findings. Such evidence, unfortunately, gets ignored or dismissed as propaganda. That sounds like reasonable doubt to me. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Ah, I think I see what's going on here now. I thought Craig and a few others were denying the existance of global warming - which seemed like an absurd stance to take to me - but what you're all actually arguing about is whether humans have anything to do with it or not. I guess the argument you're putting forward is "if it's not caused by humans it was going to happen anyway so there's nothing we can do about it". Am I now correct in what you're saying? If so, I beg to differ. We can argue all we like about how much humans are to blame, but surely the fact speaks for itself: if we're agreed global warming is happening and could lead to a disasterous end for the planet, is it not our duty to try to do all we can to at least slow it down, even if we can't prevent it? I just can't see how anyone could argue against that - and as for this nonsense about such arguments being like "religious extremisim" - well, that's just nonsense as far as I can see. I can't see the logic in that argument at all. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Climate change has indeed happened. The question is: why has it happened? Some say man is to blame, his actions are the cause, and unless he changes those actions, climate change may lead to cataclysmic results. Even if those people are right: which actions? Will stopping those actions save the world? Proto is correct that most scientists agree that carbon dioxide emissions are the cause, and a plurality of those scientists agree that man is the cause of those emissions. I have tried to show merely that this consensus is no guarantee. Even if man is not to blame, Caroline says there is no harm in doing all we can to stop climate change. This is true, to a point. If you want to recycle, to eat less meat, to ride your bicycle to work, etc, that's fine. Of course there's no harm. But many say such actions aren't enough to alter the course of climate change. To make real changes, governments have to be on-board. But should we encourage such changes? Let's say Joel took over the American government tomorrow. (Bear with me.) He dictates that all American corporations cut their CO2 emissions in half, and that logging companies must stop destroying forests. Corporations now spend billions of dollars rebuilding their factories to accommodate the new rule. These corporations begin a series of layoffs to pay for the factories. Logging companies disappear, leaving tens of thousands out of work. The costs of logging products -- wood, paper, etc -- skyrockets. Housing costs go up, because houses are made of wood. Many Americans go homeless. In a country already struggling with a weak economy, these changes would no doubt cause a great many people to suffer. First off, the scenario above wouldn't happen, for a lot of reasons -- least of all because Joel will never be in control of the US government. Political opposition and the slow machinations of bureaucracy will ensure that such enormous changes won't take place. But even if it did happen, scientists say that reducing CO2 levels by half only affects climate change by .5 degree Centigrade, a trivial amount. So all that would be for nothing, really, according to the scientists. Lastly, all of this would have been done in the name of a belief that is anything but incontrovertible. If such changes are put into effect, and those who oppose them demonized in the name of science -- what happens if these dramatic precautions fail to stop climate change? As stated in my quote above, science is made to look foolish, and more people will cease to believe that science has any value at all. It's entirely possible that the end of the world isn't coming. Why not be happy about it? | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
I should point out that all the doomsday scenarios about climate change come from the computer models -- models that are based on the humanity-producing-too-much-greenhouse-gas theory and have proven to be, to say the least, not entirely accurate. So: If man is not the cause of climate change, then the models are useless. If the models are useless, then who knows whether climate change will continue in its current direction? If this is true, then who can say whether any action by man can affect global climate one way or another? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.68 |
Justin mentioend Arthur C Clarke earlier. As I recall, Sir Arthur also thought it somewhat ironic that the first planet we'd to terraform to make it suitable for human life looked like it would be Earth... Bears know a thing or two: you don't shit where you eat. Be nice when we figure that out. Don't keep peeing in your swimming pool either. For some, by the way, it's already too late. Climate change is stealing land and lives. The poor get it first. Which is unfortunate, because the suits don't much care about that. Is climate change an entirely man made phenomenon? Perhaps not. But we're not helping. Some shrug, say 'See, that means we can keep shitting where we eat.' Maybe one day intelligent life witha world-wide species perspective will come along. It should have happened here after Apollo's pictures of Earth. Something went wrong somewhere. Why do my tomatoes taste like shit? | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>Is climate change an entirely man made phenomenon? Perhaps not. But we're not helping. Some shrug, say 'See, that means we can keep shitting where we eat.' Maybe one day intelligent life with a world-wide species perspective will come along.<< Exactly, Mark - just what I was trying to say. Chris - you've misquoted me. I wasn't JUST talking about the little bits we can all do as individuals; I also meant "we" as the human race - the species who, for better or worse, seems to have set ourselves up as masters of this planet. It's our world - do we want to do something to help keep it for future generations, or do we not give a damn 'cause it won't affect us personally anyway? I know which side I'm on, and I couldn't look myself in the eye (metaphorically speaking  ) if I thought the other way. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.154 |
"what happens if these dramatic precautions fail to stop climate change?" Then you're inconvenienced and lose some money in the short term. There's only one way to lose.  | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Mark, Caroline: I have no quarrel with anyone who wants to reduce his or her carbon footprint. Please. Go right ahead. I, too, do what I can. Please let me remind everyone that I have not taken a side on this issue. The idea that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," as Proto said earlier, frightens me: it's what people say before they start pulling out the guns. My only objective was to point out that plenty of doubt exists, and that no one should start panicking yet. I suspect I've somehow been cast as a villain here and that was never my intention. I should note that I've enjoyed this spirited discussion. Discussions like this are part of a healthy democracy. Finally, since Proto is so interested in the views of scientists, let me direct his (your?) attention to the following web sites: 1. A US Sentate report in which 400 scientists dispute their own former views that global warming is man-made: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_i d=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb 2. A letter from 100 esteemed scientists to the UN about the fallacies of global warming. (This letter is signed by the President of the World Federation of Scientists, among others): http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/un-signatories.html 3. This exploration of the issue, written by a former physicist, who explains the ins and outs of the issue in incredible detail: http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.180.182 |
Chris, I, for one, don't see you as the 'villain' here - far from it. Discussions on heated (no pun intended) topics such as this often get a little feisty and the language can tend toward hyperbole and even belligerence at times. Personally, I believe that whether mankind is mostly or even partly responsible is not the most important point. The fact is, global warming is a reality and its predicted effects on the planet and its inhabitants are far too serious to be ignored and not acted on in the assumption that maybe we're not to blame for all/some of it. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.197.52 |
"Please let me remind everyone that I have not taken a side on this issue." Okay, point taken. And I'm not attacking you, just your points, which I believe you're raising in good faith, by the way. "The idea that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," as Proto said earlier, frightens me: it's what people say before they start pulling out the guns." We obviously don't know the same people! I stand by what I said. The largest problem at the moment is denial. "My only objective was to point out that plenty of doubt exists, and that no one should start panicking yet." I agree. no situation is ever improved by panicking. Doubt exists and your URLs are all fine submissions as evidence but it's very easy to find scientists who disagree with the weight of the scientific consensus. (THere's a Flat Earth society out there.) But a "theory" isn't a guess. A theory is a synthesis of a large body of information that encompasses hypotheses about the natural world which are well-tested by repeatable experiments. Obviously, we can't perform "repeatable experiments" on the planet, which may account for some of the controversy. We get one chance to make a decision. Even with repeatable experiments, no theory can be ever be proven to be true, only falsified. It's taken some of the smartest people in the world decades to accete and analyse the data that support [sic] this theory. And it should take an equal or greater amount of counter-opinion to overturn it. I simply can't think of a more sensible way to proceed, until there's a weight of evidence which falsifies the established theory. And, like a cherry on top, I'll pop the precautionary principle. Phew. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.230.246 |
Why don't you all piss off? No really - I mean it, piss off: http://www.theage.com.au/drive/motor-news/the-car-that-uses-urine-to-save-the-pl anet-20091014-gwiy.html | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.214.170 |
This debate has collided with some other things and made thoughts in my think-spud. What causes a lot of our problems is that our sciences are unevenly developed. Physics is the spearhead and has left the social sciences, sociology, psychology, criminology, psyhoanalysis, way behind. But someone WILL split the atom in the soft sciences. Revolutions like those in 20th century physics and biology will happen again elsewhere. As Joel said earlier, all advances (democracy, the abolition of slavery, women's rights, gay rights) were opposed initially by saying that the status quo is just human nature and so unalterable. They've been proven wrong every time. At the moment, as far as society's problems go, we're like medieval peasants trying to split the atom by hitting a rock with a stick. We then announce that the problem is insolvable and resort to cynicism or vigilantism or simply opting out. There'll be an Einstein of sociology, a Newton of psychology, and problems thought eternally intractable will fall away. Things will get so much better for everyone. And I mean everyone. Nobody excluded. Promise. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.173.76 |
And just as the scientific revolution was initially blocked by the Vatican – whose philosophers told Galileo that the things he saw with his telescope could not be real because they were not 'rational' – real progress in the social and political sciences is blocked by vested interests that keep us in trapped in the past. As Marx said, the tradition of the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the shoulders of the living. That's the Internet in a nutshell: new technology, tired old thinking. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
>>> We then announce that the problem is insolvable and resort to cynicism or vigilantism or simply opting out. I find this attitude particularly loathsome, particularly when it's wed to the idea that the cynicism suggests some kind of privileged knowledge of the perversity of human nature. >>>There'll be an Einstein of sociology, a Newton of psychology, and problems thought eternally intractable will fall away. Perhaps there already has been, but such a body of work is essentially unquantifiable and therefore more easily refuted. I'm not sure verstehen is demonstrably convincing in the same way that positivist theory can be. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
That's true. The scientific method has to evolve. Even (especially?) advanced physics has been forced to admist that logical positivism has major holes in it. Just as Newton invented calculus to solve a particular problem of physics (what a guy!), we need to develop tools appropriate to these new softer sciences. We need to make them sciences. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.206.8 |
I remember this story about a guy who had to talk to the nazi youth after the war. He took them aside for an hour (no all of them of course!) and asked them why they had followed Hitler, and quite softly just kept following the trails of the answers they gave. Within a few hours they weren't nazis. I'll look this story up to quantify it. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
"Within a few hours they weren't nazis" Most of them were just frightened kids in any case who joined the Nazi youth because if they didn't their families were afraid they would all be shot. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Read the Book Thief by Marcus Zusack - it's a brilliant depiction of the life of ordinary people in Nazi Germany leading up to and through the second world war. I know Ramsey doesn't like it but it's one of the few books that made me cry with the death of one of the characters. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Within a few hours they weren't nazis. I think that's the very point Tarantino was trying to make in his quite wonderful 'Inglourious Basterds'. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
>>>we need to develop tools appropriate to these new softer sciences. We need to make them sciences. Hmm, well, perhaps that privileges science somewhat. As if, say, literature has less to offer the world in terms of 'solutions'. As if progress can only be induced by quantifiable truths. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
Unless you want to create a science of verstehen - phenomenology. The science of experience. But then . . . why necessarily call it science? Maybe the terms just don't matter; maybe that's part of the problem. Let's just do something, as opposed to worrying solely about creating coherent 'audit trails' of our activities. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
Gary, I'm using the term science in the broadest possible way - as an understanding of physical phenomena. Ultimately, even the softest of sciences and arts is based on physics. In a way, I'm arguing for an expansion of the methods and language of physics which will allow it to encompass the softer sceinces and the arts. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
Then we're in harmony. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
Ahh... Someone take a picture, quickly. How often does this happen here? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
I have to say that, as Chris M says above, this thread is a nice demonstration of the kind of level-headed debate that should be encouraged vis a vis such weighty issues. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
You stupid ****. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
 | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
A four-star rating? Thanks | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.37 |
This is good, isn't it?http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20091019/tuk-brown-for-the-planet-there-is-no-pla-dba 1618.html | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
It's a start. It's a great deal better than Dubya the oil baron refusing to sign up to the first Kyoto Agreement. The more the need for action is agreed internationally at a high level, the harder it is for people to shrug and say "Well, there's nothing anyone can do." | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.37 |
Anyone think the presence of Obama in the world has made Brown wonder about himself? Yesterday in one of these gadget mags you get thru the post there was Obama merchandise (you can have a mug with him hugging you on it). You know a government person has made it when he gets into a gadget mag. Unless it's Hitler. Or Osmam B. Laden. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
James Lovelock's new book is called "The Final Warning", which was the publisher's idea. He wanted to call it "Enjoy it While You Can". | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.189 |
Mr Brown said: "If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice.... So if it's not done in 50 days - we can all shut up about it finally - because it'll all be too late - right?... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.234.115 |
So this big treaty failed on controlling global warming. World leaders were shooting to reduce their world's carbon-dioxide emissions to 1/2 of 1990 levels by the year 2050 - who knew the-sky-is-falling/shit-your-pants-now fear had 40 years to gradually, lazily, languidly float its way to some intangible, theoretical paradise?... But that whole treaty fell apart, again. And they're even blaming Obama, like here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,661678,00.html "The world is about to end, and HE won't do anything, one country, and though nothing is stopping us from doing what we need to anyway, out of petulance we're ALL not going to do ANYTHING! Waaaaaaaah!" So must have went the crybaby used-car salesmen that run these countries. But now there's this... http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/140492/Million-hit-by-plague-worse-than-swin e-flu- ... so which end-of-the-world/drink-poison-now crisis are we all supposed to worry about first?... Honestly. Does ANYONE really give a f@$# anymore about ANY of this bullsh*t?!? (Sorry if that sounds rude - but really, [read above line a second time]) | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 193.89.189.24 |
Just watched this yesterday. Yes an important film. Well put together. It does not look like BTW, that an all encompasing agreement will be reached here in Copenhagen. The clock ticks on... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.14.126 |
More "age of stupidity" fodder.... http://www.prisonplanet.com/with-hurricanes-at-thirty-year-low-gore-turns-to-pho toshop.html You gotta love this quote from a poster, below: "The hurricanes don’t even follow the curvature of the earth. If the water level was high enough to cover Cuba, the Baja Peninsula and most of Central America, the entire central area of the United States would be under water. This is terribly pathetic. This guy was our Vice president for eight years and he is a coplete moron." 1800's: snake-oil. 1900's: the Brooklyn Bridge. Today: global-warming. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
"1800's: snake-oil. 1900's: the Brooklyn Bridge. Today: global-warming." Yawn. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.76.152 |
Evil Jains are causing global-warming now.... http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_black-magic-by-jains-behind-global-warming- claims-book-jagathitkarni_1313713  Hey, why not? Makes about as much sense as anything else. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
That situation in Ukraine seems to be getting worse by the day. We're all doomed!! | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
It seems even Al Gore is changing his mind: http://www.infowars.com/al-gore-admits-co2-does-not-cause-majority-of-global-war ming/ | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.232.143 |
Gawd.... From that link, Chris: "In another indictment of Gore’s accuracy in warning about climate change, he has now virtually abandoned scientific 'facts' in favor of characterizing his Inconvenient Truth presentation in the context of a religious sermon. 'Simply laying out the facts won’t work,' admits Gore." It's a religion, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I fucking knew it. Inquisitional religious fanatics - beware them wherever they rear their ugly heads.... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224961/Green-views-religion-environment alist-wins-claim-sacked-beliefs.html Much as I hate to back Craig up... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
One from a better source than the Mail http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6494213/Climate-change-belief-given-s ame-legal-status-as-religion.html | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Anyone who doubts that the climate hasn't changed just take a run up to Cumbria right about now! However, it is way too late to do anything meaningful about it. The planet is readapting itself to a few millennia of human dominance and will be still here long after we're gone... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
You know what I mean... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.212.248 |
"It's a religion, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I fucking knew it. Inquisitional religious fanatics - beware them wherever they rear their ugly heads...." Yes, some of them even frequent message boards and cherry-pick scientific facts from right-wing American radio DJs. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.106.220.83 |
Interesting reading if true:- http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparen tly-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/#more-12937 | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
So if someone finds a scientific fact that contradicts or calls into question the belief that global warming is entirely man-made and we all need to go back to victorian living etc - he/she is cherrypicking. But it's ok for you to ignore that these facts/arguments exist. That's not cherrypicking? Keeping an open mind on the issue - and looking at all the evidence - NOT ignoring an entire side of the debate because you don't like it - is IMHO a far healthier attitude than the holier than thou quasi-religious fervour that seems to permeate the debates on this subject. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.80.167 |
Even when the facts come from this man?  That's your expert witness? | ||
| Alexicon (Alexicon) Username: Alexicon Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 88.106.56.246 |
God,Proto - who IS that? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
He's not the only person who's been quoted in this thread from the skeptic side of the argument. Even if I knew who he was. The fact remains that theere IS evidence on both sides but some people refuse to accept that one side of the debate even exists. That's not healthy. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8299079.stm Just in case anyone missed this earlier in the thread. Several trusted scientists casting doubt on the exact causes which people here are claiming as incontrovertible proven fact. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.230 |
I don't know who that person is either. But he sure looks smart to me.... | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Proto, are you referring to my link? I don't make a habit of reading posts from right-wing radio DJs. I came across an article on the subject a week or so ago, in another forum, but when I tried to find that article last night, I couldn't. So I linked to the radio DJ's. Certainly he's not the only one with this info. You can also go http://robertsteely.blogtownhall.com/2009/11/04/al_gore__co2_not_so_bad.thtml http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/gore_ clears_carbon_dioxide_of_most_blame/ http://worldbbnews.com/2009/11/gores-spiritual-argument-on-climate/ Here's the actual Newsweek article itself. The relevant portion in on pg 3. http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/1 | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.230.196 |
Craig, your attitude makes me sick at heart. It's been ten years since people stopped pretending that climate change could be denied. But because your world begins and ends online, you still manage to prop up your denial by providing links to websites. Oxfam in the UK has posters saying 'Climate change is not a prediction, it's a current reality for millions of people.' If you haven't heard of Oxfam, it's a charity supporting disaster relief and sustainable development in the developing world, which is hardest hit by climate change. Google those terms if you need to, but don't delude yourself that they have no offline meaning. Climate change destroyed New Orleans. Climate change is currently damaging UK towns and cities, and causing massive worldwide damage AT THIS TIME. Other coastal cities, including London, will go the way of New Orleans within a generation if something serious is not done. If that's too upsetting for you to accept, go back to your DVDs and let other people discuss what is actually happening in physical places, where people live, that are not part of cyberspace. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.246.15 |
If people are doing charitable works to help others, who's complaining about that? That is godly work. I couldn't care less if they believed celestial turnips ruled several galaxies, if they're doing charitable, loving acts. That is not only beyond reproach, but should be promoted and encouraged. Argumentum ad Misericordiam doesn't quite answer any charges effectively, as I'm sure you realize, Joel; but it is good always to remember the basis of all this worry. And it's not about it being too upsetting for me to accept - the world leaders (including ours, Obama) balked in ways that my standing on mountains or shouting from rooftops for the rest of my life could never hope to out-compete (with the givens) the damage you're saying neglect will do, some of it to people in real-time need. One could easily draw the lesson from world leaders that: it's just not that important. It's unclear who thinks it is, on the brainiac end, because they're all so willing (it seems to me, from the outside) to compromise their seemingly-edge-of-doom positions. One is left genuinely confused. Perhaps it's best to just ditch ALL that, and, well... go find someone who needs help now, and just plain old deal with that... and to hell with the rest of it, either way.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.193.61 |
That man in the glasses is the owner of the website that had that link, yes. Several trusted scientists casting doubt on the exact causes which people here are claiming as incontrovertible proven fact. Several? Is that a significant number? Okay, what does then let's stop the cherrypicking then once and for all: "In trying to overcome criticism of earlier attempts to gauge the view of earth scientists on global warming and the human impact factor, Doran and Kendall Zimmerman sought the opinion of the most complete list of earth scientists they could find, contacting more than 10,200 experts around the world listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments. Two questions were key: have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second. In analyzing responses by sub-groups, Doran found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 and 64 percent respectively believing in human involvement. Doran compared their responses to a recent poll showing only 58 percent of the public thinks human activity contributes to global warming." http://opiniondominion.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-on-expert-opinion-and-climate.h tml | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.193.61 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society "A newsletter from the society gives some insight into Johnson's thinking: Aim: To carefully observe, think freely, rediscover forgotten fact and oppose theoretical dogmatic assumptions. To help establish the United States...of the world on this flat earth. Replace the science religion...with SANITY." | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.193.61 |
Dr. Doran's full article here. Is contains startling bar charts. (Yes, I did say startling bar charts). http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.193.61 |
" Perhaps it's best to just ditch ALL that, and, well... go find someone who needs help now, and just plain old deal with that... and to hell with the rest of it, either way...." No, that won't do. No amount of sandbags will get us out of this. Strategic decisions must also be made if a (meaningful) survival of our species is to be achieved and if people are to be helped in the long run. | ||
| Alexicon (Alexicon) Username: Alexicon Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 88.106.110.57 |
Not only is this the Age of Stupid,it's also the the Age of Indecision with its subtitle - the Age of Procrastination. I sense that democracy itself is the problem: too many disparate voices,each espousing a different theory, agenda and/or solution for the looming crisis. EVERYBODY is fiddling while Rome burns. Dictatorship (as benign as possible) is needed urgently. It may mean the curtailment of some 'rights',but everybody needs to be taken by the scruff and told: "These are the basic issues,and this is how we're going to tackle them. No ifs,buts,or maybes." I have a scenario in my head,in which I (and probably a few other frustrated members of this board) would act if I were to lead a bloodless,military-backed coup in 2010. It covers the first emergency policy meeting I'd chair. People present would include scientists of all persuasions,strategists,climatologists,et al. Only two subjects would be on the agenda: global warming and diminishing oil supplies. Arguments at this meeting would be listened to politely,but not necessarily acted upon. Why? Because I already know how I'm going to deal with both subjects. Basically, the meeting would be convened so that I could kick ass - get the buggers singing from my hymn sheet. I'd better not commit this scenario to screen because many RCMB members who are 'neutral' on the above two Big Issues may find it tedious. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.151.243.114 |
Will this feckin rain NEVER stop ? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.230.26 |
I feel stupid. I looked at that chart, and it had scientists who are actively publishing in the field of climate change - i.e., whose income depends upon mad-made alterations to the climate - as overwhelmingly agreed upon it. A poll is not science, right? If one polled Catholic priests on whether Holy Communion is the body off Christ, one would get overwhelming numbers to "prove" they're right. Am I missing something...? Surely you can understand the skepticism - if they had polled Bush's cabinet on the need to going to war with Iraq, the numbers would surely be high, and the reasons incontrovertible (to them) - and the opponents would surely be thinking: um, hold on a minute there.... "Something must be done"? Again, the leaders of the WORLD can't decide, or won't decide, what to do. So - what? What does one do? Shout and pound the fist? One shouts and pounds the fist on one side of the table, the other shouts and pounds the fist on the other side. Let the powers-that-be wrangle, we can't do anything about that. Charitably help those stranded in the middle. What else is there? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.219.24 |
"it had scientists who are actively publishing in the field of climate change - i.e., whose income depends upon mad-made alterations to the climate - as overwhelmingly agreed upon it." So you don't respect people who know about the subject and (presumably) don't trust people who don't know about the subject? For your own mental health (and mine) it'd be better if you just admitted to yourself that you simply don't want to face reality. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.12.231.18 |
I've heard this line of reasoning before. Don't trust people who are too close because they're biased. Don't trust people who are too far away because they know nothing. It's bollux, isn't it? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.248 |
It's called the smell test - when I smell bullshit, I avoid it. Luckily, again again again, ME am not the problem - go to talk to the leaders of your country, Europe, America, China, India, everywhere else. Go talk to THEM. It doesn't matter what ME think. ME has no power to do anything. And, ME don't care, especially when the LEADERS clearly don't care either.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.91.45 |
If you don't care, then it should be easy for you to stop posting cherry-picked snippets from the web that support the conspiracy theory you don't care about. I don't care what you think, but I will intervene when you start spouting dangerous nonsense. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.91.45 |
Gary, it reminds me of the line of false logic used to demonise people who object to a development at a local level. If they're from the area, they're labelled "not-in-my-back-yarders"; if they're not, they're labelled "interferring-blow-ins". | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Proto, I understand the scientific consensus is that global warming is man-made. Believe me. I get it. You have pointed this out several times. In fact, this is the only evidence you have ever provided for this subject. I have tried to show before why that consensus may not be all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t want to argue in circles. And I’m also quite certain that there are more climatologists who agree with the man-made theory than there were fifteen years ago. Climatology is one of the fastest growing sciences. But what sorts of people are being drawn into the field? Do you think the field is attracting people who disagree with the man-made theory? People whose minds are changed once they see the facts? No. Of course not. The field is attracting the converted. But scientific consensuses are often wrong. History proves that several times over. In the early 70s, the scientific consensus was toward global cooling, with alarmist climatologists predicting an upcoming ice age. Here are some facts. (Cherry-picked? Well, only inasmuch as contradictory evidence in a murder trial is cherry-picked. I’d love to include facts here that align with the man-made theory, but I honestly can’t find any.) Can you with any sincerity tell me that these facts don’t give you pause? That they don’t leave you with some degree of suspicion about the man-made theory? 1. Climate science, by its very nature, does not allow for experimentation. All doomsday predictions about the man-made climate theory come from computer models. And these models are inaccurate. 2. Temperatures have not risen since 1998. Despite computer models predicting otherwise. 3. Antarctica has not shrunk. (In fact, over the course of the last decade some estimates say it’s grown.) Despite computer models predicting otherwise. 4. The upper troposphere has not warmed, despite computer models predicting otherwise. 5. Earth’s entire southern hemisphere remains largely unaffected by global warming. 6. Graphs showing the levels of man-made CO2 released over the course of the twentieth century do not align with temperature increases over that same period. 7. Al Gore, who once said “the science is settled,” now says that CO2 is responsible for only 40% of man-made global warming. Methane, he says, is now the chief culprit. Part of the difficulty with this subject is that there is so little hard data. Global temperature readings from the ground will differ from those in weather balloons, which will differ from satellite readings. Global sea-levels are difficult to measure. The arctic ice crust is notoriously malleable, and since measurements have only been taken for the past thirty years or so, it’s hard to get a baseline for determining shrinkage. Worse, when measurements fail to conform to expectations, scientists on both sides of the issue can claim easy rationalizations: Sea levels are rising? Well, deniers can say that the sea takes decades, possibly hundreds of years to adjust to temperature differences, so the rising waters are actually the results of the nineteenth century. Antarctica is growing? Well, believers can say that a rise in the global mean temperature does not imply universal warming. See what I mean? With no experimental data, scientists are free to interpret this any way they want. And altogether too often, that means they are free to interpret it through the prism of politics. It’s perhaps instructive to note that one of the first people to use the theory of man-made global warming was Margaret Thatcher, who used the theory to bolster the appeal of nuclear energy in the UK. You won’t find many subjects whose proponents include both Margaret Thatcher and Joel, but there you are. Now let me go ahead and include the rebuttal you're sure to make: most climatologists believe in the man-made theory. Dude: I know. I know. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.246.14 |
I couldn't ever hope to say it better than Chris just did. I really wish I could, but I can't. So I won't even try to. Let me just say this, Proto... look at my links that you say I "cherry-picked" - they point out nothing about the global warming issue itself, merely how GLOBAL WARMING PROPONENTS LIE (Gore with his fake hurricanes and no Cuba) or WORLD LEADERS ARE ASS-FUCKING YOU YEAR AFTER YEAR. I think you're really mad at them, not me.... Unless you don't like hearing about a new flu or evil Jains. Was that the "cherry-picked" conspiracy? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.123 |
Chris, thanks for clarifying with your considered response. I'll get back to you on it (bit tied for time over the next few days). | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.233.207 |
Simple facts: the North Pole ice-cap has mostly gone, the glaciers are mostly gone, sea levels are rising, cities are getting severaly flooded on a regular basis, the rain forests are disappearing at a higher rate than ever before, there are currently millions of people displaced by climate change and needing urgent international aid. Climate change is not a theory: its effects are a critical problem already. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
If some of us want to compare a belief in global warming to a belief in God, I should think Pascal's Wager might usefully apply. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
Yes. See my patronising table above. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh dear, I hadn't realised this utterly depressing thread had started up again. I find it so depressing because I'm sure Craig isn't the only person in the world with this "who gives a f**k, it isn't my problem" take on this issue. Sadly, while so many people feel this way (political leaders included), there really is damn all that we can do about it. Surely, the argument isn't about how much humans have contributed to the problem, it's whether they should be doing anything to help solve it? And, to me, the answer to that question is obvious - of course they b****y well should! We're the only creature on earth with the power to do something about it, and sitting back and doing damn all is utterly criminal. That's my view on the issue anyway. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.4.36 |
I think this whole issue puts me in a rotten mood because of a pet-peeve of mine, and it is: hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is one of those things that I just find intolerable - I find it so enraging and infuriating, that I simply don't get at all how others can actually live their daily lives with it going on around them. Let alone voluntarily being part of systems that luxuriate in it. This is the main reason (among lesser others) I could never be Roman Catholic. The hypocrisy level there literally disproves the presence of the RC-claimed "God" seal-of-approval - BUT, don't let me get started on that tangent.... (Or Pascal's Wager.) Note my opening post after a month's absence - I was decrying the utter hypocrisy at the highest levels of the global warming debate - the world leaders who do nothing. When I wrote, "Does ANYONE really give a f@$# anymore about ANY of this bullsh*t?!?", I meant - how can anyone want to even be part of this effort, when THOSE WHO CAN DO SOMETHING, DON'T? That's what I mean when I seem to give off the "who gives a f**k, it isn't my problem" vibe, because it ISN'T my problem when THEY DO NOTHING. Or is the rule, when the priests molest, whip the flock? So it's actually not global warming/man's role or not I have a problem with at all. It's the leaders saturated in doing-nothing-ness, when all their doing-nothing-ness is out of petulance and base greed and political Machiavellianism. I've not heard one peep of anyone complaining here about that - or did I miss something? (When I see that, see, I don't ignore it... I wonder... are they doing nothing because there's nothing there?... is that why no one at higher levels really seems to care all that much?...) | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.188.78 |
"So it's actually not global warming/man's role or not I have a problem with at all. It's the leaders saturated in doing-nothing-ness, when all their doing-nothing-ness is out of petulance and base greed and political Machiavellianism. I've not heard one peep of anyone complaining here about that - or did I miss something? (When I see that, see, I don't ignore it... I wonder... are they doing nothing because there's nothing there?... is that why no one at higher levels really seems to care all that much?...)" But Craig, unless I've been seeing things you've said earlier in this thread that you aren't convinced about the facts regarding global warming or mankind's role/responsibility in it. You've been likening it to a religion in which the scientists who say that it is a real problem are in it for their own gain. Also, several of us have remarked, from the very start, that those in charge need to be doing something drastic about it. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
In that case I think we've ALL misunderstood where you're coming from on this, Craig. I thought you were saying "the leaders don't bother, why should we?" I also thought you were saying ordinary people, like those of us here who've said we care about the situation, were hypocrites for holding that viewpoint. But it IS your problem, Craig. It's your problem, and my problem, and Joel's problem, and particularly all our children's problem (except I don't have children, but don't worry about that) - 'cos they'll be the ones who really suffer for it. Just because our so-called leaders can't get their butts into gear and do something about it, doesn't mean no-one else should. That's just passing the buck. So, you're not actually denying global warming then, are you Craig? If you're not, then I think we probably are all on the same side in this - it's just about whether we should, or can, do anything to help. I say "every little helps" so I do what I can to help. As I've said before above, that's not as much as I'd like to do. I wish we could manage without two cars, for example, but it's just not possible in our current situation. But I'm doing what little I can. If everyone did what they could to help, it would all add up to a hell of a lot. It might not be enough to help save the planet completely, but it would give our kids, and our kids' kids, a bit more time to enjoy life on earth. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.191 |
It's complicated, Caroline, and Huw. This goes to very complex issues of faith vs. works, and belief vs. action, and leaders vs. the "little people," etc. And since these issues are so often key in religious discussions, and they so totally apply here, and the reactions of many match perfectly religious discussions, I call it all a religion. It is a fascinating religious question, after all. If someone ACTS out a faith, but is vocal against it - is that person a "good" or "bad" person, according to that faith? If a person doesn't believe in a faith, but lives totally indistinguishable from someone who does believe, is that person a "good" or "bad" person, according to that faith? I live a very small-carbon-footprint life, tiny tiny tiny. There's not much more I can do to diminish it. I'm conscientious about conservation, and energy-consumption. But no, I am not convinced about man's role in this change, it being there/large. I look to the leaders - and I see people who don't do jack diddly squat. I see others who are hypocrites (the carbon footprint of Gore has gotta be pretty big - and why does he lie, if the truth is so prima facie?). I am very suspicious of those who say they "know" - but, I don't limit this suspicion to these folks, I'm suspicious of many - and I find comrades in suspicion, except when it comes to their own idols. But we all have idols I suppose... who are mine?... uh... hmm... lemme get back to you on that.... I just know that: something about this whole issue plain old doesn't smell right to me. I look to leaders and those not following from positions higher up - they too live as if there is something not true here. If the world truly is about to be horrifically affected, can anyone tell me why NONE of these world leaders will do anything voluntarily?... Doesn't that strike any of you as decidedly odd?... So, I live a heretical life. And heretics are always going to get the lash and the burning stake, because they speak and spout too often, and they don't make things comfortable (Nietzsche would understand; "philosophizing with a hammer," he called it, meaning: sounding out belief systems as with a tuning fork, listening carefully for flaws). For those easing into a synthetic life, it's hard to tolerate someone still in an antithetical one. I need an opiate, but the religious one, let alone the environmental one, doesn't take with me. I'll keep searching.... In the meantime, maybe some Metamucil will calm me down. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.191 |
Further clarification: As much as I am suspicious of the global warming debate, if I saw ALL the countries of the world coming together, everyone taking part in doing ALL they can to limit their output - fictional or not, as I might believe it - I would at least think: Well, here's a world that has come together to take the burdens amongst them all, for a higher ideal. Fine, I'm all for it! Jesus, wouldn't a real idealistically-admirable world effort be NICE! It's not happening. The rottenest side of political f*ck-me-ery is all I see in this world state of affairs, as egregiously polluting countries openly say they won't do f*ckall, and none of the others care much about that, instead getting pissed-off-mad at the countries that are only willing to do something if the others will do something as well, in the end they not doing anything either. Me throwing a plastic bottle in a recycling bin or not is .0000000000000001 as impactful as anything these guys could do. But I do it anyway. And I say: Gee, those guys are acting like this whole thing is what I think it is anyway - a big old fictional game - hey, maybe it is! And so, they drag out the crucifixion brigade. The first rule of power is: Make sure the little people are always in line. Exterminate the little dissenters, but always placate and molly-coddle and apologize for those dissenters more powerful than you (i.e., embrace hypocrisy), until you finally get what you want - a place of power yourself. Aka, Roman Catholicism to the mid-300's A.D. Yes, that is pretty bitter, I agree. Apologies. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
I don't understand your religious analogy at all I'm afraid. I'm not religious, and I don't consider having a concern about the fate of our planet as having anything to do with religion whatsoever. But surely you don't expect all the world leaders to agree on something do you? I mean, it's just not human nature to do that. Politicians = politics = power. Each one is in it for his or her own gain. One side won't reduce carbon emissions because it will affect their car manufacturers. Another won't do it because they want their country to experience growth and become wealthy. They're all blinkered - just like you'd expect politicians/world leaders to be. Good grief, no-one would surely EXPECT these politicians to agree on it, would they? I certainly don't. It's late right now, I'm tired and I can't think of specific examples offhand, but I'm sure there must be countless examples throughout history where the politicians have done nothing until the "little people" stand up and force them to do something? To simply say "our leaders don't do anything, therefore why should we?" is plain madness in my book. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.247.249 |
Well, Caroline, it's at least nice to see someone else acknowledging this in our leaders - I was starting to feel like I'm the only person who sees the utter self-serving ruthless selfish greed of them, and I was wondering if anyone else even noticed. You spoke just what I feel, so... maybe I'm not so far off after all. I think I just need some early Christmas spirit in me. I'm turning into a rotten bitter humbug. And that's so not me - honest! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Aw, cheer up Craig. I think now we can see what you're saying - even if we don't agree with all of it - we can understand your feelings. Re politicians and whether they could ever reach agreement on any of this, I'd be so surprised if they did. But this planet's a truly wonderful one - it's worth fighting for.  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.184 |
I'm going to drink lots of spiked eggnog and be thoroughly pleasant from hereon out. I'll make it an early New Year's resolution. Life's too important to take seriously.... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.14.251 |
I've heard this line of reasoning before. Don't trust people who are too close because they're biased. Don't trust people who are too far away because they know nothing. It's bollux, isn't it? You tell me, Gary: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/24/hiding-evidence-of-global-coolin g/ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-fina l-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/ I'll still drink lots of spiked eggnog and be pleasant, but I will never not appreciate my built-in bullsh*t detector.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.245 |
A bricolage of unsubstantiated out-of-context and heavily edited emails from one department of one university in one country, cherry-picked by right-wing newspapers from an anonymous and -- if at all genuine -- illegal source. Well, I'm convinced. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh dear, Craig, what happened to the "new you" then? It only lasted just over 24 hours. I'm not sure you deserve that spiked eggnog now! Anyway, try this news report instead: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8371597.stm I think the following is one of the most telling quotes in there: "Myron Ebell, a climate sceptic from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is funded by US business interests ..." You see, it's not just Al Gore who has a vested interest in espousing his viewpoint - folks with the opposing viewpoint might be in it for their own gain too. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.3.110 |
Point taken, Caroline - point semi-conceded, Proto. I think I might deserve some eggnog, because I'm alighting on my synthesis: you could call it living a "Pascal's Wager" like Ramsey suggested, sure, which I pretty much do anyway, and will do anyway - low carbon footprint, pick up trash around me, etc. But I reserve the right to be highly skeptical, in fact, almost totally skeptical, barring... I dunno... something else. Something that is more of a smoking gun to me. It's why I am amused but disbelieving of any theses concerning UFOs and ghosts: no smoking guns as of yet. Now I'll grab the rum and start pouring. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.88.14 |
do you believe that smoking causes lung cancer? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Do you believe that stress causes stomach ulcers? All scientists thought it did untill about 10 years ago when some Australian bloke realised it was the H Pylorai bacterium. A consensus of scientists proves nothing. Craig isn't saying that global warming doesn't exist, just that the evidence so far - including AL Gore saying CO2 accounts for less than half of the greenhouse gases - isn't as completely convincing for the carbon footprint worshippers make out it is. There is plenty of contradictory evidence out there for the causes and long term effects. Look at Chris Morris's post above from November 22, 2009 - 03:46 am: and tell me that there's absolutely no reason to be sceptical. But of course he's just cherrypicking. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.247.89 |
I do believe smoking can cause lung cancer, yes. One could safely say smoking cigarettes long-term will more than likely cause lung cancer. Which makes this hilariously relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyhvHB62ph8 But I defer to Weber, above.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
"and tell me that there's absolutely no reason to be sceptical. " Mis representing my views doesn't advance your argument. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
So are you saying that you do believe there's reason to be sceptical? Every time anyone says anything that contradicts the Carbon footprint is the alpha and the omega viewpoint you accuse us of cherrypicking and pooh-pooh anything that's been said, stating taht our sources are wrong or disreputable - normally with no backup to your point. All I, and craig and chris, have been saying is that there's plenty of data out there from reputable sources - including Al bloody Gore - that clouds the validity of the carbonfootprintisgod viewpoint. You have said nothing to further your argument except that the current scientific consensus says so. As has been pointed out, that doesn't make it right. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Trees "breathe" in Co2 and "breathe" out O2. Surely stopping the wholesale deforestation of the planet - I believe an area the size of Belgium is chopped down in the Amazon rainforest alone - would absorb large amounts of extra CO2 in the atmosphere and be far more effective at saving the planet than any number of people using the bus (and being late to work as a result) would. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
"So are you saying that you do believe there's reason to be sceptical?" Always, and about everything. NO theory of any branch of science is complete, even one as objective as mathematics. Gravitation is far from being fully understood, but there's enough of a theory there to make predictions -- predictions on which we base matters of life or death. That's how theories work. To dismiss a theory because it can't account for all data is rather like chucking out some emmenthal because it has holes in it. "You have said nothing to further your argument except that the current scientific consensus says so." I don't have to say anyting to further my argument. Given the scientific consensus, the burden of proof is on you. "Surely stopping the wholesale deforestation of the planet" This reminds me of the world war 2 plan to combat German U-boats. Man #1: We drain the Atlantic, drive tanks up to them and force them to surrender and then-- Man #2: Wait a minute. How do we drain the Atlantic? Man #1: Hey, I'm just the ideas man... | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Protodroid, here's more for that pile of cherries ... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/21/ap/world/main5727910.shtml?tag=content Main;contentBody http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.223.178 |
' "The selective publication of some stolen e-mails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way," the university said in a statement.' Which seems a reasonable assessment of the story. Do you really understand a word of what they're doing with their code in those paragraphs the piece calls "...some excerpts from what appear to be his notes, emphasis added...")? I don't. Nor would even another climatologist unless they're put in context. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.235.186 |
I don't think the, in sum, in many ways, the problem here we're all having could be boiled down to a scientific one - Proto concedes that it's okay to be skeptical. And I concede that the scientists might be right (though me? I doubt it). I think it boils down to a political battle - and when it comes to politics, all's fair. Whatever tactics it takes to win the battle, is okay, if one is engaged in war. I must admit, I revived this thread (reassessing retrospectively, with this new focus) because I must have felt a bit of wicked gleeful joy, that the generals on the opposing side, were in such disarray. There's nothing personal or even "right" in that situation - it just is. For so long, this side - the global-warming skeptics - were taking heated fire and many casualties, and had to constantly seek cover. In the end, all that will happen, is one side will prevail or another, and I guess life will go on. War is business.... | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
The information was taken illegally, which is of course wrong. However, now that the info is out there, it's hard to see how any effort by climate scientists to "hide the decline" in recent global temperatures or to suppress alternate viewpoints can be taken as anything but disgraceful. It's not the duty of scientists to "hide" anything. If the information they've found doesn't support their position, it's the responsibility of those scientists to (a) release the information and (b) if necessary, change that position. Regardless of the truth about climate change, the leaked memos support the theory that the IPCC has become a political organization with little interest in actual science. The irony of this situation is that most of us expect science to be conducted in the open, without unpublished secret data, hidden agendas, and computer programs of dubious reliability. East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit might have avoided this snafu by publicly disclosing as much as possible at every step of the way. Uh, yeah. To say the least. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.188.72 |
I don't think it's clear yet whether these 'leaked' emails are genuine, partly genuine, or bogus. It's possible that phrases (such as "hide the decline") were embedded here and there to make it seem sensationally damning. I'm not saying that's the case, just that it's plausible, in my opinion. Personally, I find it hard to believe that if scientists were covering up such important information they would discuss it so openly over the internet, given the possibility of it being leaked, by whatever means. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.69 |
From Wikipedia, under "Climate Research Unit": "The Climate Research Unit came under criticism in 2009 for refusing to release the data used to construct its surface temperature history report. Requests from other researchers and scientists have been denied, and in some cases the authors of the report claimed that the original data no longer exists." Is THAT true? Why are they hiding data? Isn't that patently non-scientific? Information taken illegally bears no relevance to the value/truth of that information or not. Can't the University understand that? And come out now and clear it up once and for all and put ALL the skeptics to rest? WITH context to the emails, research, data, etc.? Doesn't this other side know the little people are just left super-suspicious as a result of all this constant shell-game-ery? This all reminds me of our American ACORN scandals. Once you got child prostitution and tax evasion being advocated on tape, damn... politically? You're done. Stick a fork in yourself, you're done. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, you're done. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.69 |
Ha! From the Mail Online today: "At least half the 36 UK officials and ministers travelling to the climate change talks in Copenhagen are going by air rather than by rail. The Liberal Democrats said the arrangements showed up Labour's hypocrisy on green issues. The Government said officials had meetings that limited their travel options next month." Here's an analogy: "At least half the Roman Catholic priests headed to the world council on priest-child abuse scandals were taking young boy lovers along with them. The critics of the Church said these arrangements shows up the hypocrisy of these priests on cracking down on such abuses. The Church said these priests had even greater pressing mental and stress-related concerns that required them to bring along their consensual young boy lovers." | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Surely stopping the wholesale deforestation of the planet" This reminds me of the world war 2 plan to combat German U-boats. Man #1: We drain the Atlantic, drive tanks up to them and force them to surrender and then-- Man #2: Wait a minute. How do we drain the Atlantic? Man #1: Hey, I'm just the ideas man... Are you trying to be funny? It really doesn’t suit you. You really are a hypocrite Proto. This is exactly the attitude you were having a go at Craig for at the start of this thread. Taking the piss because the issue is too big to tackle at a local level. Think about it. The rainforests are the lungs of the world and by chopping them down we’re giving the planet a bad case of COPD – and massively reducing the planet’s ability to deal with CO2. At some point so many trees will be gone that the world could become a net user of oxygen rather than a net producer of the stuff and we’re all dead no matter how much CO2 we stop producing. If you want ideas on how to try to solve it, let’s see what I can think of off the top of my head. You could try joining one of the many save the rainforest campaigns. If every person who carps on about carbon footprints was to join, they’d turn into pretty influential societies. On a local level, join a nature conservation society, volunteer at a local nature reserve, go out and plant a fucking tree or three whenever you can. It’s not going to make a massive impact on a global scale, but neither does switching your TV off at the switch. Once again, if all the carbon footprint worshippers went out and did this, it would have a massive impact. It’d be a damned sight more fun than switching off the heating at home. The only way to get a zero carbon footprint the way we’re told to at the moment would be to stop breathing out and – before you asphyxiate or your lungs explode from constantly breathing in – lock yourself in a hermetically sealed (carbon neutral) container so that when you die none of the gases inside you could pollute the environment. To answer another point, the onus of proof is not on us. We ain’t scientists. The best we can do is show alternatives, and demonstrate that there is a building consensus against the one you’re trying so badly to defend. All you’re doing is sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting consensus consensus consensus. It's not very convincing for all the reasons already listed. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.253.225 |
Weber, you bring up a good point: We keep going back the last 20 years to measure things with global warming, etc. Well, lately, we've hit a severe economic snag, and there's at least two effects of this snag, as well as technological changes generally - one is that hard-copy newspapers everywhere are going out of business, and secondly that housing construction has been severely curtailed. What with all the deforestation not taking place at the same scale as it was but a mere year ago, isn't THAT alone enough of a - one could even say - policy change that affects beneficially the global warming issue? What kind of carbon offset is being made merely by houses not being built and newspapers not being printed (and books too - let's not forget Kindle)? Actually, Weber, the very fact you bring up the rainforests is funny, because it reminds me a lot of when I bring up nuclear weapons: two old issues the "other side" seems to not give a care for anymore. I wonder why? Scratch the surface, it's for quite obvious reasons.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
"Are you trying to be funny? It really doesn’t suit you." Are you trying to be personally abusive? Actually, it suits you nicely. I'll take the ad hominem because it speaks volumes. Honestly, with every post it's like watching someone threaten to continually punch themselves in the groin until their opponent gives up. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.11 |
"... it reminds me a lot of when I bring up nuclear weapons: two old issues the "other side" seems to not give a care for anymore. I wonder why? Scratch the surface, it's for quite obvious reasons.... " Craig, by "other side" do you mean people who believe something needs to be done about global warming? If so, weren't you saying just a day or two ago how it's not that you don't believe in the danger of global warming, but that you're mad at the world's leaders for not doing anything about it? Something doesn't add up here: one moment you're ridiculing this "other side" one moment you're saying you actually agree with them. Surely we are all in this together. I honestly don't have a clue what your comment about nuclear weapons is supposed to mean. I can't recall you bringing up nuclear weapons except to make tasteless quips about how their use by your country was "money well spent" (or words to that effect), and I certainly don't recall anyone saying they don't care about the nuclear problem. You did the same thing earlier when you said that people here don't seem to care about the world's leaders inaction over global warming, yet when I reminded you that people have been complaining about precisely that right from the start of the thread, you had no response. Now you're saying that this "other side" doesn't care about nuclear weapons. Please show me where anyone has said this (specifically please, not the usual vagueness). I also don't quite get what you mean by the "scratch the surface" comment. Again, show me where anyone has said they don't care about nuclear weapons. It seems to be a sad return to snide hints rather than intelligent debate, something I think there has been far too much of in this thread. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.215 |
Fair criticisms, Huw. I will try to answer them as clearly and articulately as I can: By "other side" I mean - I think it comes through what I've said - that no, I am not convinced that man has played a role in increased global warming. That there IS increased global warming? Sure. That it is something new and something to worry about? Unsure. Those three reasons are why I am on the other side. But, as I think I came to later in the thread, I said, that sure, I was willing to chuck these disbeliefs and misgivings aside, if we could all come together - but I'm extremely suspicious of world leaders, and when whole countries don't want to do anything about the issue, expecting other countries to just tow the line - I'm sorry, maybe this qualifies as suicidal petulance, but no, then I have problems with implementing changes in policy over it. *Sigh*... read my "tasteless quip" again, and you will see it was a sardonic joke about how at least scientists who were working on the nuclear bomb had something to point to to prove their work was not locked in a theoretical world of speculation, like what I suspect the Haldron Collider of being; and further, a comment upon the wondrous innovations these same scientists make, namely, death and destruction. The fact you could point to a mushroom cloud, was the bitterly-ironic "money well spent." Do I look like I'm monstrous enough to actually point at an atomic mushroom cloud and actually think this? No, I tell you, I really am not. It's sardonic humor that is meant to shock and make a point. How I drag nuclear weapons in, is because - correct me if I'm wrong? - but years ago, the crisis du jour was nuclear weapons; which, if we can assume nuclear weapons can destroy the world hundreds of times over, and that they are literally in the hands of human beings capable of quite inventive insanity, I sincerely don't understand how anyone can spend a moment of time worrying about "global warming" when nuclear weapons are even MORE in danger of falling into the wrong hands, than they were back then. Perhaps this is one of those perception things, Huw: I just see, if you were to compare the two issues, this one as being paramount over that one - you see the opposite (? - I assume?). This just seems to be a much bigger problem, like the deforestation of rainforests are - physical real time problems, and looming tangible threats. Global warming, sorry - it strikes me as theoretical, intangible, potential, long-term, abstract - it's not as IMMEDIATE as nuclear weapons, and sure, rainforests too. An outsider would look and say: Gee, I don't get it - they're worried about something that might happen in the future, but not worried about a looming threat that hinges on crazy people (nuclear weapons in the wrong hands, hell, ANY hands), nor about the destruction IN the present (deforestation). That just does not make logical sense to me, an outsider. If it doesn't make logical sense, it can only mean - there might just be other reasons that nuclear weapons are being ignored, and sure, the rainforest issue too, since it's now been brought up. And the "scratch the surface" comment means, I think there are political reasons these issues don't want to be discussed so much right now - they've lost their luster and ability to draw donations, they are occurring in countries that some don't want to criticize, they will draw attention away from the big new fad in crises (global warming), etc. When a weapon that can destroy all mankind like a nuclear bomb is being sought by a nutty country like Iran - how the hell can ANYONE worry about global warming?! I don't get it, it makes no sense, and that's where I'm coming from. I hope this was a little clearer, Huw...? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.215 |
One more thing about "world leaders": I just don't believe that if something were a real crisis, they would be so out of joint about coming together on this. I have come to be super-suspicious of leaders, and of the "powers that be," and I hope it doesn't reflect a paranoia growing within me, I like to think of myself as easy-going and quite normal.... And perhaps it's my lack of being scientist that contributes to all this. I'm suspicious of them, and so when they fight and can't agree, I wonder... must be for political reasons.... Hell, can someone explain to me how, within the space of mere months, we can come up with a single vaccine that fights the Swine Flu, a virus - when after 20+ years, we can't come up with a vaccine that fights the HIV virus? What am I missing here? Is this just the utter ignorant cynic in me that thinks the latter issue is a cash-cow of sorts for researchers? Why are evil pharmaceutical companies allowed to be evil and scheming, but no one else?... I just don't get some things. I must just be too dense to understand. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.192.203 |
Craig, swine flu (H1N1) has existed for a long time and is closely similar to other strains of flu for which vaccines exist. Coming up with a new flu vaccine is routine biomedical research. Coming up with an HIV vaccine is far less easy, as the virus is unusually versatile and pernicious. I'm sure drug company politics has slowed it all down, but it's hardly likely that an HIV vaccine would make less money than an H1N1 vaccine. I would have thought it was pretty obvious that world leaders are very concerned indeed about climate change. It's the oil industry and other corporate string-pullers who are indifferent, or hiding behind a mendacious 'scepticism', and are holding governments back. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.183.66 |
Fair enough, Craig, and thanks for the clarification. When you said "the other side" and talked about people not caring about the nuclear problem, I thought you meant people here on this board, and as I haven't seen anyone here doing that I was a bit confused. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Proto, if you want me to be personally abusive I will be. I was merely responding in tone to your previous post. Once again you show complete hypocrisy. If anyone has been using ad hominem arguments on this thread it's you. Virtually every post you've made has just said "I don't like the person who made that claim so therefore it must be false". Criticising the source of the material does not impact on the validity of the material itself. Saying that someone is right wing, or posting a photograph of someone is not making any kind of point about the argument made. "Chris, thanks for clarifying with your considered response. I'll get back to you on it (bit tied for time over the next few days)." You haven't yet and it's nearly a week ago. Plus can you please explain to me why tackling deforestation is not a valid defence on the global warming issue? You seem to be ridiculing my posts on this subject without posting any kind of rebuttal - other than trying to insult me. Rational arguments in your next post only please Proto. No more insults unless you really do want me to respond in kind. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Well, the most important world leaders in respect of climate change (ie. the countries which have been most out of step with the rest of the world) have now come on board for these upcoming talks - Obama and someone from China will be there. Does that change anyone's views here about whether it's an important issue or not? I totally agree on the deforestation issue - which is, of course, another way that mankind has contributed towards global warming. I've long been known as a tree-hugger! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
"No more insults unless you really do want me to respond in kind." Go for it. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
There we go, you're not trying to debate anything here. You're just trying to pick a fight. You really are fucking pathetic. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.85.28 |
Give it a rest, folks. Or I'll have to delete the thread. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
You may have noticed I realised a few posts back that there was no point in wasting any more words on WeberCraig's brains. Two little black walnuts sloshing about inside the same logic-proof skull. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
Sorry Gary, our posts crossed. I wouldn't have posted had I seen yours. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Sorry Gary. I'm just trying to get a response from Proto that doesn't involve him trying to insult me. I'm not trying to pick a fight. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.85.28 |
It's Ramsey's board and I'm sure he doesn't want rancour. By all means keep on debating the issue - few more important at the mo - but also remember where we are. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I'm trying to debate it. someone else just insists on throwing insults. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Well then folks, why not just ignore anything you consider to be insults and get on with debating the facts (from either side)? It IS an important (and emotive) issue. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Good to see you back Gary! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
When all you get in response to anything you say is an insult, there's not much of a debate really. I've been trying to ignore teh insults but that leaves nothing except a few "the"s and the occasional "and" | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
...not much to base your next response on. Which is why I did ask him to respond to what I'd said (and what Chris said a week ago that he still hasn't responded to) a few posts back. But we can all see he's not actually interested in a debate. Which is a shame because he's letting your side of things down very badly. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.249.143 |
Thanks, Joel - I was hoping there was some reason for the flu/vaccine thing, and not just my cynicism sprouting. Now I do respectfully disagree somewhat with your second point, in that I believe both the oil companies AND world leaders are scheming self-interesters, though I venture to say we're not too far off the suspicious-o-meter on that. Huw, I'm personally not so concerned about nuclear weapons, nor even rainforest deforestation (i.e., I don't think they're major problems on the edge of ignition or irretrievable catastrophe) - and, as you know, global warming - but I'm looking at the string of logic, and as I explained, I don't quite get the chain; except for the fact that doing something about the first two, I admit, seems hopelessly futile. Nuclear proliferation and rainforest deforestation are issues that must be frustrating to a great degree to tackle. Global warming does have the smack of both "doability" as well as, let's face it, the heady rush of being somewhat popular. Compared to the other two, it just looks like an issue that is possible to fix, and that must be a major reason why it's now so much on the minds of so many. I hope all that didn't sound in any way patronizing, because I don't mean it to be. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
If a cause is unpopular then it's evidently pointless because nothing will happen. If a cause is popular then it's evidently 'trendy' and therefore can't be taken seriously. So the fewer people support something the less worthwhile it is, and the more people support something the less worthwhile it is. I'm just glad we didn't have the Internet when slavery was abolished, women and non-white citizens were allowed to vote, male homosexuality was decriminalised, the NHS was created and the Poll Tax was scrapped. Otherwise the political initiative for change would have disappeared in a fog of hair-splitting, URL-referencing and solipsistic philosophical argument. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.249.143 |
That's not fair, Joel - I've never attacked the global warming issue for being " 'trendy' and therefore can't be taken seriously" - I've never used the numbers argument to attack the issue, that's a misrepresentation - I was merely pointing out what I thought was a supporting inducement, what I attributed some of the energy behind the global warming debate to - I was doing an armchair, unlicensed bit of psychological analysis. No more than that. Proto, I've read all that Weber has to say, and I must admit, I've not seen any evidence of a walnut sloshing around inside a logic-proof skull. At least, not on this issue....  | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Front page of the Express today http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/143573/Climate-change-fraud- I know it's not the most reliable of papers but the guy they're talking about seems to be fairly well qualified to make the points he's making (going by my lunchtime interweb browsing earlier). The thick plottens. Something like that. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.14 |
Hey Weber, you should go ask Chris, sitting in the lobby, if he'd like some tea or biscuits while he's waiting - the guy's been there seems like forever.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.100.13 |
"THE scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”." *Sigh*. No it wasn't. One man asserting something doesn't cause so much as a ripple in the scientific consensus. "...mining geology professor Plimer..." Ah. I see. Hey, this rubber mask is a bit loose. Let's give it a pull and... "Plimer is a director of three Australian mining companies: Ivanhoe, CBH Resources and Kefi Minerals. Plimer rejects claims of a conflict between his commercial mining interests and his view that man-made climate change is a myth." Right. Gotcha. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Al Gore is now a Billionaire on the back of climate change. That makes him as reliable as Plimer. Consensus isn't the scientific method anyway. It's the political method. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
To say that a financial stake in the outcome of the argument lessens your input into the argument is - what was the phrase you used earlier - ad hominem. If that point had any validity then Al Gore's billions in the bank would outweigh Plimer's stake in a couple of mining companies. Plimer is a geologist with many more years experince in his field than most climatologists have in theirs. As a geologist I'd say he's pretty well qualified to make statements about how climate has historically affected the world. The dinosaurs were wiped out by climate change. Must have been those SUV's they were driving. The waters on this debate are far muddier than people like Gore would have us believe. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.100.13 |
"To say that a financial stake in the outcome of the argument lessens your input into the argument is - what was the phrase you used earlier - ad hominem." I didn't call him - what was your phrase? - "fucking pathetic". I demonstrated that he has (three) vested interests in the debate. Oh, and I never referenced (or needed to reference) Al Gore, so it's odd that you've run off to kick that straw man for a bit. You really don't do your side much good when you refuse to concede that a source you've quoted has a stark and obvious bias. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
There's bias on all sides of an argument, that's why they're different sides... I called you fucking pathetic because you were clearly looking for a fight not a debate. I kicked the straw dog of Al Gore as he is the most vocal campaigner for the carbonfootprintisgod side of the argument. Anyhoo - all those points Chris made more than a week ago which you were going to consider and reply to, you haven't yet. Any chance of a reply to those points sometime this year? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem Just because someone may have a stake in an argument does not make any points he makes any less valid. C'mon Proto, you introduced me to the phrase. Try and find an argument against Plimer's viewpoint other than - "he's biased because he owns a stake in a mine or three". | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.81.164 |
"There's bias on all sides of an argument, that's why they're different sides..." Hee. "I kicked the straw dog of Al Gore as he is the most vocal campaigner for the carbonfootprintisgod side of the argument." And not one I have supported. The fact remains that you are quoting sources which are demonstrably heavily biased. I am not. "Anyhoo - all those points Chris made more than a week ago which you were going to consider and reply to, you haven't yet. Any chance of a reply to those points sometime this year?" If you read my post you'll see it begins with a salutation to Chris. When I respond it certainly won't be at your convenience. ----------------------------------------------- I've followed the link you've posted and it says: "An ad hominem argument ... is an argument which links the validity of a premise to an irrelevant characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise." Do you seriously consider your source's financial connections as "irrelevant"? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.248.133 |
Can't both sides make ample claims that the other side has "vested interests"? Disparaging the character of the other side is not a valid argument against a position - hence it's being labeled ad hominem, and it's being listed among those fallacies for arguing logic. One I think can be very suspicious of interests, but it is not data against a theory/proposal/etc. One can attack Gore for lying and Photoshopping in hurricanes - this is faking evidence that doesn't exist, and that's factual. It could be argued too, that putting up Gore himself at all, however, is a straw man argument; so it is possible to request Gore's presence at all be removed from the debate. I will concede that, even after foisting Gore into the debate - because he is so vocal and such a leader on the issue, in many ways. Looking at all this as dispassionately as I can... which is difficult.... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
In the first trial of Gary Glitter for child abuse (excuse me your honour, the relevance will become clear in a minute) he was found innocent and all charges dropped. the reason for that was the woman who was accusing him was found to have a financial stake in the outcome of the trial - the News of the World had offered her a £100,000 for her story if he was found guilty so he walked out of court apparently an innocent man. This is a classic example of ad hominem. She had a financial stake in the outcome, but what she was saying was still demonstrably true. He was after all arrested when he abused yet more underage girls. Therefore, (and please listen to what I'm actually saying) a bias, even a financial stake, is irrelevant to the validity of the facts stated. Attacking the person is not teh same as disproving the statement. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.232.3 |
There is another angle to this whole argument that is extra-science, and that is exemplified by this news: http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSDEB00309720091203 India, in sum, will not be signing any carbon-reduction treaty. They will not play along. So, why should other countries destroy their economies, hamstring their advances, cripple their abilities to exit a world recession, voluntarily? On a purely political level, getting heavily into any program of carbon-emissions, etc., is just plain, well, "age of stupid"-ish. Okay, reset the table. We got all these egg-headed scientists all over the world who say there's human-caused global warming. They've warned us how to stop it (so they say), and lately, it's proving to be an uphill battle - this recent "cliimate-gate" is going to do even more severe political damage. It looks like this avenue is simply not going to work. Now I've seen enough movies to know, that when the scientists run into Snag A - when Godzilla or the Blob won't be stopped by Brilliant Idea #1 - they quickly go into Plan B mode. It's time for these scientists to say to themselves: We can't stop people from doing what they're going to do - it's up to us to figure out ways to allow people do whatever they want, while we solve this global warming issue; and in spite of people/countries doing exactly what they want, alongside it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Let the world go on its merry way, and we'll figure out a kind of "toilet" for all the bad stuff, and flush it all away as people go on with their daily lives.... Hell, we're scientists, they could say - we're fucking brilliant, we figured out the whole global warming thing to begin with - WE CAN DO THIS GUYS! Come on, it's up to us and us alone now! We got a planet to save! Question. If there were a way, oh global warming proponents, that EVERYTHING COULD GO ON EXACTLY AS IT DOES - energy consumption levels, people's consumer habits, settling and industrialization, etc. - but somehow a "magic pill" could be found that could somehow magically wipe away all the nasty bad stuff - would you be fine with that? Do you have a problem with what people are doing, or do you have - only, solely, totally - a problem with the results of what people are doing? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.232.3 |
Kenneth Rexroth, interviewed (“Summer, 1969"), as published in THE SAN FRANCISCO POETS, edited by David Meltzer (1971), pgs. 51-52: “… everybody says bolshevism broke down, that other things were never tried because they could not envisage a real alternative that would work or, to use correctly the misused slang, a ‘viable alternative,’ something that wouldn’t be stillborn. An ecological revolution can scientifically extrapolate into the future certain essential conditions. It can say this and this must occur. There must be so many people to so many acres. There must be so many people to so many square feet. There must be certain kinds of relationships, certain kinds of agriculture: there are all kinds of things that must be and this necessitates certain methods of production and distribution, etc. You create, as they say in science or math, a model and it is a clear model. The Bolsheviks had no model. They had no model at all…. “The ecological crisis provides – the way that Marxism with all its bullshit about scientific socialism never did – a scientific model for a just society….” [emphasis mine] | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>In the first trial of Gary Glitter for child abuse ..<< OMG this thread has gone from bad to worse! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Me just using an example of ad hominem being used to discredit someone where the facts stated were completely true. Just making a point that certain people here prefer to attack the people making counter-claims rather than attacking the counter-claims themselves. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Yes, yes, I realise that Weber. But any thread which mentions Gary Glitter is a definite no-go area as far as I'm concerned. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
His music was shite wasn't it | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.13.68 |
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-great-global-warming-collapse/a rticle1458206/ <----------me | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
From the article linked to above: "None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid." | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.156.38.66 |
'His music was shite wasn't it' Sorry, I disagree, Gary Glitter was a great and influential Pop Star. His own predilections have been the cause of his downfall, and sadly he will only be remembered as a paedophile & not for his music. History should not be rewritten, regardless of how unpleasant Glitters' behavour was/is. gcw | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.38 |
None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. I would agree with this. I just think the crisis-hysteria of it is what was overblown. It's a maxim of life, that we never make our best decisions in a state of panic. And it's the panic, which I think has been discredited. |