The Skeptic's Guide To Global Warming

[JDJarvis]

Taught you too well, I think. I read today that 45% of the US population still believes in intelligent design.

Meaning 55% still believes in evolution nonsense? Hmmm, maybe your criticisms of U.S. education are apt.
.

Silly evolution....everyone knows the primal cow Audhumla (the cow of Ymir ) with her four rivers of milk running from her teats licked the ancient blocks of salt for so long that she eventually exposed Buri , he and his ofspring survived on those rivers of milk as did Ymir. Eventually Odin, Vili, and Vé killed the giant Ymir. They took the body of Ymir and formed the world from it. Maggots crawled forth form the body of Ymir and were given man-like form and called dwarves and returned to the earth. In time with the help (sometimes coerced) of the dwarves all of Midgard was formed along with it's peoples and beasts (who were created to nourish the people and the gods) and that is how the world came to be.

[dcs]

Global warming is not a man made phenomena----it is a creation of the socialist left to allow them to tax and redistribute income. Of course, most of this tax will bepaid by the West.

No, most of it will be paid by middle-class Westerners. And global warming, Kyoto, etc., aren't entirely creatures of the Left, at least not how we traditionally think of the Left. Big Business is also involved as restrictions on developing countries allow Western interests to exploit their raw materials.

[Algolei]

I say it again, fight agaisnt those who make up crap to take your wealth and rights to "re-distribute" to others.

That's what the rest of the world says about the US!

Stop the Western-Europeanizatoin of the world's last best hope (The U.S.) and vote against the left in this country!

Oh now you're just stealing ideas from Babylon 5.

[AxeMental]

dcs: "No, most of it will be paid by middle-class Westerners. And global warming, Kyoto, etc., aren't entirely creatures of the Left, at least not how we traditionally think of the Left. Big Business is also involved as restrictions on developing countries allow Western interests to exploit their raw materials."


Actually I think dcs is right here. The "powers" pushing global warming are ultimately the same powers that own the world press, banking, and those giant mulit-national corporations that don't belong to any national or political philosophy other then "order allows us to prosper", they represent well under 1% of the world population and probably control over 50% of its wealth (seeing themselves as rulers of the world to some degree with no affiliation to anyone but themselves). They aren't truely "leftist" (really believing in it) or anything else, though they are more then happy to use the many leftist activitsts and their message as a method of advancing world order. The ultimate goal of these elight is for POWER to stay in their hands while doling out just enough money to their heards to keep them happy. The ideal world to them would be complete order with a population that feels free enough while they really make the decisions and skim off the top (and in our own government they have their tentacles in both major parties equally).

They fear small business (competition), independent press, and an armed population (that could take back control if it chose to) not to mention any government that doesn't play ball (though I suspect most if not all do). They operate in secret and are never covered in the press.

They are basically the lords of old, just behind the curtains never to be seen.

MMGW is just the latest tool to push this shadow groups agenda. Believe me if they wanted to stop it they could (by simply having the press start saying its a farce). If you want to know "their" agenda its easy enough to figure out by following the established press.

Here read all about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
though I'm sure there are other groups more secret then this we know nothing about. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, I see it as common sense that "crises" is used by those in power to stay in power.

The LEFTIST and other small fry involved in "research" to prove mans evil ways are being used (and they know it). Most BTW are hypocrits and leeches looking for hand outs and cushy jobs and big titles. Its a shame the environmental movement has been highjacked completey by the left (since I consider myself a HUGE envirmonmentalist).


PS Man made global warming is a joke scientifically. If every human and his polluting contraption was taken off the planet magically their woulnd't be any drop in temerpatures related to it. MMGW Its the key to getting money out of your pockets and into other peoples pockets, and a way to get people/nations to give up their rights to "smarter" folks. Its also fear mongering and a way to stir up resentment of the have nots for the haves (ie class envy "the US is destroying the planet, down with the US").

I think what they really fear is the US Constitution, its "government by and for the people" backed up by the 1st and 2nd ammendments scares the crap out of them. And they certainly don't want to see this philosophy spread to other nations. Anyhow, we (the freedom loving good guys) are on the ropes, they (the bad guys) are just waiting to land the killer blow. And since theirs no organized resistance I think its just a matter of time.

[Ska]

As corny as it sounds, the U.S. is the last and best hope for a mostly socialized / tyrant based world.

The world has never seen a country with such freedoms as possessed by the U.S. with the multitude of rights enshrined in our constitution.

Check out the link in the Drudge Report about the founder of the Weather Channel stating Al Gore should be sued for prpagating the nonsense that is the present leftist scam to redistribute American wealth----global warming.

[dcs]

It is true that the U.S. holds that certain Americans have certain rights.

[Dwayanu]

An honest (not rhetorical) question: What is the argument for immediate and comprehensive action? Assuming the reality of the crisis, how rapidly might it develop?

Not that I would bet in any case on the U.S.A. being much more proactive than it was before Pearl Harbor.

U.S. education indeed leaves much to be desired, and the quality of our public discourse thereby suffers. In general, I find that I could better argue the cases even for programs I heartily oppose!

From what I've read of climate-change research, I definitely favor increased investment in it (surely more profitable, whichever way the climate goes, than many of our military expenditures).

I don't see how it warrants responses of the magnitude proposed -- but that does not mean there is nothing to see. I know from experience that data (especially statistics) can be misleading if interpreted naively and that there is a practical reason for increasing specialization in the sciences: fully to understand new findings increasingly requires a mastery of so much foundational knowledge that it is enough for one lifetime to get (much less to remain) "up to date" in the narrowest field of inquiry.

[sepulchre]

Algolei wrote:

And shouldn't you people be writing gaming supplements right now for me to buy?

Ska wrote:

Stop the Western-Europeanizatoin of the world's last best hope (The U.S.) and vote against the left in this country!

Who do you think the Neo Cons are? I think maybe you’ve had a little too much to drink of Leo Strauss’s myth-making of America. Seriously, though, you can’t separate the consequences of Neo-liberal policies from that of Neo-Conservative in the long run. The only percievable difference might be whether the mercenaries who enforce the policies on the populace are that of the host nation, the foreign interest, or the foreign occupier.

DCS wrote:

I don't think the House of Lords has a direct analogue at all in the U.S. The bicameral legislature in the U.S. was a compromise between less-populated States and more-populated States.

Our congressional proceedings actually draw heavily from the Reformation and Calvin’s theocratic government in Switzerland.

and the injustices of the Versailles and Trianon Treaties could have been avoided.

yes, indeed.

No, most of it will be paid by middle-class Westerners. And global warming, Kyoto, etc., aren't entirely creatures of the Left, at least not how we traditionally think of the Left. Big Business is also involved as restrictions on developing countries allow Western interests to exploit their raw materials.

Yes, sadly.

Axe wrote:

Actually I think dcs is right here. The "powers" pushing global warming are ultimately the same powers that own the world press, banking, and those giant mulit-national corporations that don't belong to any national or political philosophy other then "order allows us to prosper", they represent well under 1% of the world population and probably control over 50% of its wealth (seeing themselves as rulers of the world to some degree with no affiliation to anyone but themselves). They aren't truely "leftist" (really believing in it) or anything else, though they are more then happy to use the many leftist activitsts and their message as a method of advancing world order...

Well said, Axe. Whether or not you side with the left or the right on the 'facts' the sad thing is that the 'facts' keep the populace divided while the multi-nationals reap the windfall. Inflation for example is commonly blamed on wage demands and the cost of public-sector spending (the redistribution argument). Yet, typically inflation happens because the supply of money and credit expands at a faster rate than 'available' goods and services. In general, prices and profits have always risen expedentially faster than wages. It is this corporate bottom-line that drives all the headlines.

Look at the spike in fossil fuels this month and in the coming summer...its not about 'availability', it's about demand (admittedly, we are told those go together). It's about who will pay, whatever the price. The measure of this is how it affects buying-power, what people then most go without, and whose buying power increases. One can spin as many stories about Iraq as one wants but their internal ministry has just signed over all oil production to Western multi-nationals. This appropriation of one's resources by foreign/multi-national corporations (this includes resources in the U.S - like food and many others) is what destroys the credit and thus buying/borrowing power of any nation economically.

To avoid this catastrophe, one of deficit spending, Saddam and every other dictator of an oil-rich nation have nationalized their resources. Like Mossaedeq of Iran before the Shaw, or Kaddafi, and many others, they have been on the recieving end of placement on a 'terrorist list', coup attempts, or invasion, driven by government(s) in service to Western corporations like, for instance, British Petroleum formerly Anglo-Iranian Oil.

What is amazing is this history is part of the public domain and often not even disputed. Former heads of the C.I.A, embassy and State Department officials, will be interviewed and don't dispute any of this, nor do they flinch at the horrendous death tolls incurred by people in Central America, the Middle East or Souther East Asia. Many, indignant that the question even need asking, point out that their actions are in the 'interest of National Security', that is, if pressed, our (America's in this case, but never exclusively) economic interests that lie within the borders of other soveign nations and even sometimes its own.

[Dwayanu]

A rant concerning the ideological perspectives that naturally enough come into the discussion:

Obviously (as observed 30+ pages ago, I expect), none of this has much to do with D&D. On the other hand, I'll take thoughtfulness wherever I find it and I find it amply at the K&KA.

Whatever the influence of pundits on the laws of men, they have no power to alter the laws of nature. I am not joking when I observe that this has not kept politicians from attempting the feat. A U.S. state legislature (I forget which) once tried to establish by decree not the price of pie but the value of pi.

On the evidence of history, I reckon democracy better than the alternatives -- all tyrannies by whatever name -- and socialism part of the package. It is about as regularly a greater or lesser part as myriad other things that fluctuate with the "business cycle."

The Industrial Revolution turned many free men (and women and children) into wretched slaves. The greatest horrors of the last century were to my mind not its wars per se but (what so often accompanied and occasioned the marching of armies) its reprises of the brutality of that shameful chapter in human history.

When a big capitalist objects to the working class using government to take what is "his," he begs what has been THE question since the greatest of all historical revolutions so estranged capital and labor.

As it takes both to produce the smallest bit of real wealth, the one certainty is that there must be a division of the product between them. The Bolshevik lies (being really a monopolistic capitalist), but even taken at face value he is as wrong as his opponent who claims that labor has no entitlement.

Some men's horizons do not extend very far; they may not even care about the welfare of their own grandchildren. Moreover, even that instinct has been around much longer than intelligence and remains more common. A buffaloe's good intentions don't amount to much next to the intentions (good or bad) of a human with a rifle.

Democracy is a free market for formal political power. Socialism is a balancing force for a market in which capital would otherwise be overwhelmingly more actually free than labor -- and so artificially deflate wages and impose hidden costs.

One day, some German soldiers too tired to keep running scraped out a pit and set up a machinegun. On that day, the Industrial Revolution made obsolete an old order that had crushed one ideological revolt after another.

It is now not merely a moral ideal but a physical fact that behooves elitists to accept democracy. Those with enough moxie do not really wish to go back to the bad old days when a regiment of Royal Lancers might be a practical expense. "Pork-barrel politics" has advanced to the point that one need not even deliver actual pork. A TV advertisement suffices, and the rubes will actually line up to pay for getting it!

Were I to examine in more detail what has (from an American perspective) passed between Eisenhower's presidency and today, the litany would be very pleasing to the Left.

The Left has had less power by which to be corrupted. I consider myself to have arrived pretty rationally and realistically at the cynicism expressed in the Who's song "Don't Get Fooled Again."

As the proverb goes: If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I?

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Let's try this another way.

You can believe the country that's just passed the Patriot Act and was responsible for Gitmo is the last best hope for individual freedoms if you like. You can even believe Kyoto is a Commie plot to steal American wealth. Personally I find both ideas hilarious, but it's no skin off my nose if you want to believe them.

Isn't it the oil-producing cartels who really have their hands in the US's pocket?

Up to the elbows, I should say. Three dollars a gallon for petrol over there and doubling every few years. And isn't it nonsensical to keep relying on coal or natural gas? What will the price trend be on those?

Clinging stubbornly to your "right" to burn oil, coal and natural gas is effectively building up a mortgage the next generation will have to pay off. Because the supplies WILL run lower and prices WILL keep going up. The nations that use less of this stuff are going to be at an ever-increasing economic advantage in the 2010s and 2020s.

Whether you love Kyoto or hate it, solving the looming energy crisis is a challenge this generation faces.

We'll never solve that crisis with bullshit like HEP or wind power. Those might work in Scandinavia, but most of the rest of us don't live in a country made of mountains and streams.

We need cheap and plentiful power. In fact, we need fusion; with that, we could turn a ton of seawater into more energy than we presently get from three tons of coal. We'd incidentally stop chucking so much carbon into the atmosphere too, but don't hold that against the idea. Reducing carbon emissions doesn't automatically make you a Communist.

Consider voting for whichever party wants to invest a reasonable sum in fusion research.

And in the meantime, why not consider looking at ways to reduce the amount of money you personally bleed into oil and gas and coal? Because fusion research wouldn't necessarily succeed, and future generations of Americans would benefit from reduced energy costs, right?

[sepulchre]

PapersandPaychecks wrote:

You can believe the country that's just passed the Patriot Act and was responsible for Gitmo is the last best hope for individual freedoms if you like. You can even believe Kyoto is a Commie plot to steal American wealth. Personally I find both ideas hilarious,

Well said, and need I say, all the other illegal renditions of prisoners to thousands of bases across the globe, and the sequel to the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act.

Isn't it the oil-producing cartels who really have their hands in the US's pocket?

Problem is Papers, its not just the U.S, its Western countries in general. If your point is that some on the thread seem to think this is not what drives U.S policy, then your point stands.

Clinging stubbornly to your "right" to burn oil, coal and natural gas is effectively building up a mortgage the next generation will have to pay off.

The same point of view believes in being 'fiscally conservative' that is borrow from the international banks to pay for spending on the military and tax cuts for the rich all paid back by the most guaranteed debtor, the public, and with interest I may add. You don't think borrowing money from banks doesn't make them money. That's what it means for the next generation to pay off, when the democrats enter office raise taxes remind people that deficits destroy the value of the dollars and unbridaled military spending, corporate welfare, and deregulated environmental standards have a consequence. Its an unfortunate cycle that plays itself out like a broken record.

Because the supplies WILL run lower and prices WILL keep going up. The nations that use less of this stuff are going to be at an ever-increasing economic advantage in the 2010s and 2020s.

Interesting point.

Reducing carbon emissions doesn't automatically make you a Communist.

Its really too bad you have to say this.

Consider voting for whichever party wants to invest a reasonable sum in fusion research.

Papers, that party is not part of the "two-party system' here. In this way you must understand that the ideas you are talking about don't even make it into the public forum of left and right here. The only left that seriously talk about such ideas are third party political organizations.

Because fusion research wouldn't necessarily succeed, and future generations of Americans would benefit from reduced energy costs, right?

No, the West would buy fossil fuels from China and Venezuala, right? [/quote]

[dcs]

Clinging stubbornly to your "right" to burn oil, coal and natural gas is effectively building up a mortgage the next generation will have to pay off. Because the supplies WILL run lower and prices WILL keep going up. The nations that use less of this stuff are going to be at an ever-increasing economic advantage in the 2010s and 2020s.

The market will develop something else. It's really not terribly important.

Whether you love Kyoto or hate it, solving the looming energy crisis is a challenge this generation faces.

It's a contrived crisis to consolidate power in global gov't and multinational corporations. Big businesses love government regulation as it keeps their smaller competitors from getting any bigger, and keeps would-be competitors out of the market entirely.

[sepulchre]

dcs wrote:

The market will develop something else.

In a very smug sense you may be right.

It's a contrived crisis to consolidate power in global gov't and multinational corporations. Big businesses love government regulation as it keeps their smaller competitors from getting any bigger, and keeps would-be competitors out of the market entirely.

Sad fact could be there is global warming and it will be used as an excuse to do exactly what you have just stated.

[TRP]

To paraphrase Bill Maher: "When George W. took office, gas was about $1.50/gallon, now oil is creeping to $4.00/gallon. Mission accomplished for George W. & Dick Cheney."

Yes, Maher is a comedian, so don't take what I post here too seriously. Still .. it makes me think.

[dcs]

To paraphrase Bill Maher: "When George W. took office, gas was about $1.50/gallon, now oil is creeping to $4.00/gallon. Mission accomplished for George W. & Dick Cheney."

Here's a little blurb about that (of course one must consider the source):

I once made the mistake of suggesting to Bush that he use the phrase cheap energy to describe the aims of his energy policy. He gave me a sharp, squinting look, as if he were trying to decide whether I was the stupidest person he’d heard from all day or only one of the top five. Cheap energy, he answered, was how we had got into this mess. Every year from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s, American cars burned less and less oil per mile travelled. Then in about 1995 that progress stopped. Why? He answered his own question: because of the gas-guzzling SUV. And what had made the SUV possible? This time I answered. ‘Um, cheap energy?’ He nodded at me. Dismissed.