Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Steve 41oo wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

Some ask us to "Accept the principle of Anthropogenic Global warming" without specifying just what they mean by the term.
I was just specifying what I meant George.

As was I. My point, as I explained in my response to Halfback above, was there is a huge quantatiative difference between the definition you offered and what is all too often put forward as imminent catastrophe. The latter implies an urgency that is misused to override rational balancing of the costs and benefits of the remedies proposed. Finally, as you indicated yourself, if these catastrophic scenarios are indeed true, it is already too late for the better lightbulbs, windmills, and high mileage vehicles that are the favored solutions of these folks. Worse many of them resist nuclear power - something that could make a truly huge difference in a very short time.

Steve 41oo wrote:

How you resisted the temptation of laying the blame for AGW with Europeans, especially the Brits, and in particular Steve41oo is remarkable. Well done

Well, I've been working on it. :wink: I was particularly nice to a European gentleman at a lunch meeting today.

While I do acknowledge my - how shall I describe it? - points of irritability, I do think you should be able to recall that I am often (or perhaps just sometimes) relatively reasonable and balanced in our debates.

0 Replies

I've always found you reasonable and polite George, even when you're not. Smile

Of course the precise mechanism of global warming, and the specific effects it might have at the earth's surface is extremely complex, as someone who has studied fluid mechanics would instinctively appreciate.

But the basic premise of AGW is not that difficult. (I summarise here not for your benefit) CO2 is a "greenhouse" gas. Economic activity over the last 100 years has liberated billions of tons of CO2 which was trapped as fossil fuel. We can measure the increased concentration in the atmosphere, and we are beginning to see the expected warming.

But what we do about it is altogether a trickier question. I suppose we should hope for the best and plan for the worst. But the worst is the end of life on earth as we know it, and I know of no plan comprehensive enough to cater for death. The fatalism in me says nothing we can do will change things enough to make a significant difference. What will be will be. Apart from the obvious (building sea defences for example) we just have to hope for the best.

But on the other hand we are moving into the second half of the age of oil, and something has to fill the gap. (And yes nuclear will or should play a significant part). If getting off oil addiction - as your President wants to do - also means less CO2 emissions which might ameliorate the worst affects of global warming then thats a win win.

Moreover such efforts could herald a remarkable unity of purpose of all mankind. We only have one planet. Instead of fighting over scarce resources should we not share them more equitably? And in so doing safeguard future generations? For me its a three way fight between fatalism idealism and practicality.

Off on my bike to think about this more. See ya.

0 Replies

Shouldn't those with large carbon footprints be encouraged to breed less.

After all- it is people who pollute not the oil. The oil has no way of polluting anything. It would make not the slightest difference to the oil if the sea came half-way up Mt Kilamanjaro.

And think of the reduction in what might loosely be termed "trouble".

By the time the hilly parts of N. America are popular tropical island getaways for the better off from the Canarcticada and Britantarticish industrial zones they should be able to get back down to 10,000,000 and it would be paradise for those who inherited it and they would not have had to kill anybody because pulling out on time doesn't constitute killing. The little tadpole wigglers are used to dying and from my experience it looks to be painless, and then they mysteriously vanish.

The only problem as I see it is that the inheritors would have been selected in, honed down if you like, as specialists in being unable to pull it out on time. One might have to employ inducements and disincentives and then the inheritors would be selected for those who even inducements and disincentives aren't sufficient but hey- what the hell- they would know how to have a good time.

And their numbers would be such that they could stamp their carbon footprint as hard as they wanted without all this guilt/self-justification being a factor.

0 Replies

There are numerous issues with the "potential to end life on earth as we know it", and the attention we give them is not generally proportional to the risk they present.

Uniting mankind around a common purpose and goal is a nice-sounding idea (indeed something one might more likely expect from some sappy American -- but a Brit ????). The problem is that this notion flies in the face of human nature. The planet is rife with the often self-conflicting purposes and goals of billions of individuals and thousands of organized groups of them. History is pretty clear that a cause sufficient to bring about even a moment of common focus and purpose would have to be far more horrific and proximate than anything alleged by even the most fanatic of the AGW zealots.

Nothing in our common experience suggests that this could be done short of creating an entirely new body of thought and belief comparable to the religious movements such as Christianity and Islam that have swept across the world in the past. Interestingly there are seeds of this in what I regard as the new secular ethic of political correctitude, organic lifestyles and daffy environmentalism. Considering its potential to wipe out all of our achievements to date, I would not wish to see such a thing unleashed on the world. More significantly I see little in the way of truly unifying principle or basic human appeal in these somewhat disjoint and sappy ideas -- in short only neglegable potential to achieve such a religious conversion of mankind.

With respect to Spendi's typically perverse notions about the selection of people based on their carbon footprints, etc --- The truth is that the major political and economic movements on the earth today have the purpose and effect of increasing the carbon footprints of billions of the earth's people in China and South Asia. Indeed at present rates Canada (the nation with the largest per capita carbon emissions) will be overtaken by China in a short time compared to the general time constants of the historical phenomenon. The same evolution of human society and technology also suggests that in its natural progression the use of carbon fuels will be gradually replaced by other sources.

Absent the matter of AGW, there would be a near-universal consensus among geologists and atmospheric scientists that the earth is approaching another of the cyclic ice ages that have periodically altered its climate, surface texture, and life forms -- in short "ending life on earth as we know it. How AGW might damp or alter this observable cyclical phenomenon is far from clear. It is just as likely that it may be a protective phenomenon as a net harmful one in the long run - even more so if one discounts the extreme catastrophic scenarios that have the least foundation in science.

Humans have been coping with the dynamic forces of change on this planet for as long as they have lived. There is a good case to be made for the origins of some basic human myths in the likely geological events surrounding the creation of the Black Sea and even the Mediterranean itself under the forces of continental drift and rising sea levels. Volcanism, asteroid impacts, plagues and famines have all done their parts to end or alter life as it was known in various ages and places. On what basis do contemporary "scientists" presume that we now have the potential (if we will only use solar power, better light bulbs, etc) to contemplate a steady state planet?

0 Replies

I'm reading another wonderful book on corporate marketing (and misinformation) tricks. There are a lot of precedents for the present campaign to attempt to cast research findings as "incomplete", "questionable", and "in dispute". This has been perhaps the most fundamental strategy used, because it has been very effective (tobacco being the paradigm case, but there are many others).

The title is "Trust Us, We're Experts" by Rampton and Stauber.

0 Replies

Then, of course there is 'Chicken little' and her story about the sky falling in.

Clearly that too was a product of corporate scheming.

0 Replies

blatham wrote:

I'm reading another wonderful book on corporate marketing (and misinformation) tricks. There are a lot of precedents for the present campaign to attempt to cast research findings as "incomplete", "questionable", and "in dispute". This has been perhaps the most fundamental strategy used, because it has been very effective (tobacco being the paradigm case, but there are many others).

The title is "Trust Us, We're Experts" by Rampton and Stauber.

Himmel!

Bernie, darling, are you comparing Josef Stalin's "questionable" activities (as in murdering 60 million of his own citizens in horror camps, as per his successors' recent calculation) to .... finally discovering there really, really, is a NorthWest passage?! Hope not - anyway, checked on those darling polar bears, not many of them, sadly, but they seem inclined to mate with brown bears, so there's hope for them.

All others (man and dog and dolphin and so on) are safe even in terminal meltdown Smile

0 Replies

I wrote-

Quote:

Shouldn't those with large carbon footprints be encouraged to breed less.

Why that should be designated a "perverse" idea I cannot imagine. It is the well settled procedure in our culture and has been since the rise of the bourgeoisie to pre-eminence. It was such a significant feature of Roman life that Augustus attempted to legislate against it and unsuccessfully. It was, in a fancier form, besides being obvious, the subject of a recent article in one of our more thoughtful organs of the record and it was also the general starting point of all the eugenics movements I have read of.

The celibacy of the priesthood might be partially derived from it. That distance from animality is attenuated to perfection in not breeding like skunks do.

And I gather that the Russian population is falling rapidly and the aboriginal populations of Australia remained constant and very low for thousands of years and here we are with the USA thrusting its way through the 300 million barrier with each one stamping footprints at a 4% harder rate every year.

In actual fact George, if China and other countries are whacking it out faster doesn't that make the idea even more sensible. And the applicability of the "other sources" you hint at will be readily achieved with a small population.

I don't see where "perverse" comes from unless it is out of the same toolbox as "sappy" and "sappy".

Could not "intelligent design" be the "truly unifying principle" and isn't "flying in the face of human nature" the whole object of Western religious development? Was that not clear from my post about the management of tension between self-assertiveness and social restraint?

Bernie-

Surely, at your advanced age, you have no need to spend your time reading books which only contain what you must already know.

0 Replies

spendius wrote:

I wrote-

Quote:
Shouldn't those with large carbon footprints be encouraged to breed less.

That distance from animality [...........]

Bernie-

Surely, at your advanced age, you have no need to spend your time reading books which only contain what you must already know.
[..............]

If any more repulsive nonsense was ever posted on this website, Monsieur Spendieux, I, personally, have been most fortunate in not having read it. Would you, btw, be so kind as to define "animality" (sic) sadly not in my dictionary... Perhaps fewer pints next time at the pub?!

0 Replies

Quote:

The celibacy of the priesthood might be partially derived from it. That distance from animality is attenuated to perfection in not breeding like skunks do.

The celibacy of priests is due to land ownership concerns, and absolutely nothing else.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

"Animality" from the OED.

1- The sum of the animal qualities and functions; vital power.

2- The merely animal nature, as opp. to the moral and spiritual.

3- Animal nature, life; opp. to vegetable or inorganic matter.

I could put it less politely. Try the zoo HS- you'll soon get the idea. Self assertiveness unhindered. Cages needed.

Join the throng who have said that one of my posts was the most ( fill in to taste) ever to have etc etc.

It got you popping out.

Cyclo- I wouldn't be so dogmatic if I was you. You might mean nothing else you have yet read about. That isn't the same thing.

0 Replies

spendius wrote:

"Animality" from the OED.

1- The sum of the animal qualities and functions; vital power.

2- The merely animal nature, as opp. to the moral and spiritual.

3- Animal nature, life; opp. to vegetable or inorganic matter.

I could put it less politely. Try the zoo HS- you'll soon get the idea. Self assertiveness unhindered. Cages needed.

Join the throng who have said that one of my posts was the most ( fill in to taste) ever to have etc etc.

It got you popping out.

Cyclo- I wouldn't be so dogmatic if I was you. You might mean nothing else you have yet read about. That isn't the same thing.

Absent any affirmative evidence presented by you or someone maybe slightly more credible, there's no reason to believe that what I learned - and was extensively documented at the time - isn't the truth. Please keep your Black Swan arguments to yourself.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

High Seas wrote:

blatham wrote:
I'm reading another wonderful book on corporate marketing (and misinformation) tricks. There are a lot of precedents for the present campaign to attempt to cast research findings as "incomplete", "questionable", and "in dispute". This has been perhaps the most fundamental strategy used, because it has been very effective (tobacco being the paradigm case, but there are many others).

The title is "Trust Us, We're Experts" by Rampton and Stauber.

Himmel!

Bernie, darling, are you comparing Josef Stalin's "questionable" activities (as in murdering 60 million of his own citizens in horror camps, as per his successors' recent calculation) to .... finally discovering there really, really, is a NorthWest passage?! Hope not - anyway, checked on those darling polar bears, not many of them, sadly, but they seem inclined to mate with brown bears, so there's hope for them.

All others (man and dog and dolphin and so on) are safe even in terminal meltdown

Soon, Beige Bears will be running all about the tundra. It's a lovely picture.

0 Replies

Cyclo wrote-

Quote:

Please keep your Black Swan arguments to yourself.

Perhaps you might try to control your obvious propensity to give out orders of that nature.

I will offer any argument I think fit on a public debate forum and am content to allow the mods to adjudicate on what is permissable.

There are a number of reasons for the celibacy of priesthoods. Not least the prevention of nepotism in an organisation which intends to last.

You said "absolutely nothing else" and that is not true. What are your land ownership considerations based upon? What mechanisms?

0 Replies

spendius wrote:

Cyclo wrote-

Quote:
Please keep your Black Swan arguments to yourself.

Perhaps you might try to control your obvious propensity to give out orders of that nature.

I will offer any argument I think fit on a public debate forum and am content to allow the mods to adjudicate on what is permissable.

There are a number of reasons for the celibacy of priesthoods. Not least the prevention of nepotism in an organisation which intends to last.

You said "absolutely nothing else" and that is not true. What are your land ownership considerations based upon? What mechanisms?

You're free to offer whatever poor arguments you like, and I am free to ridicule them for their poor quality. Nice to know we're on the same page here.

Celibacy, at least in the pope-oriented church tradition, was enforced as a method of keeping priests' sons from inheriting land. The church was losing land left and right to this, and had to put a stop to it somehow. The modern practice of enforced celibacy and non-marriage amongst priests stems from the church's desire to keep their land; other factors are at best secondary to this main reason.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

Not that Wikipedia is a great source, but they seem to fail to mention anything about land ownership. Maybe you should add that in there Cyc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_celibacy_%28Catholic_Church%29

Another source that says nothing of land ownership. How odd.

http://www.arthurstreet.com/celibacy1993.html#Anchor-Th-1269

0 Replies

I thought is was more a carryover of the "Eve tempted Adam" and therefore they are the evilest gender crap! Laughing

On the other hand, you never met my ex-wife. (OK. I know. Cheap shot. I often wonder what horror stories she tells about me. Shocked

)

Halfback

0 Replies

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Celibacy, at least in the pope-oriented church tradition, was enforced as a method of keeping priests' sons from inheriting land. The church was losing land left and right to this, and had to put a stop to it somehow. The modern practice of enforced celibacy and non-marriage amongst priests stems from the church's desire to keep their land; other factors are at best secondary to this main reason.

Cycloptichorn

That, at least, is your interpretation of history. However, it is hardly the only plausible one, as Spendius and others have noted - particularly for a policy that has lasted for over a millenium. Categorical statements such as yours are usually both risky and suspect, particularly when they deal with the supposed intent and motivation of others - things that are not really knowable with certainty.

We are all free to ridicule the opinions of others, but I think you will agree that is not the highest and best use of this forum. Disagreement, together with an exposition of the reasons or basis for it has the potential to benefit everyone here - even if one is wrong or merely fails to persuade. Ridicule is another matter.

0 Replies

i sure hope increased celibacy is NOT going to increase global warming Shocked

.
reading the last few pages , i am beginning to wonder , though :wink: .
hbg(NOT a proponent of celibacy)

0 Replies

Celibacy is also a route to really wild dreams where it is possible to engage with members of the opposite sex the like of which never appear in movies, not even French ones, and, what is even more astounding is that it doesn't cost a cent and there is no having to train up an offspring to try to demonstrate the quality of one's genes which one had failed to manage on one's own account and one has all one's time to oneself when one wakes up and one is never subjected to being seen in public with a female person and the indignity of holding hands with her Jimmy Carter style.

The older one gets the longer the time intervals between such dreams unless one sings Gregorian chants about the Virgin in spartan conditions and resists wanking.

It is as well to remember that the ladies in the olden days often had teeth missing, matted hair and a hopeful sheepish grin like Senor Eco described in The Name of the Rose. They weren't at all like your average stenographer or even any of the weather-girls.

Desire to retain land my arse. That's kinky IMHAHO.

0 Replies

Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know