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Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 5:33 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I am definitely not advocating central planning!

I would call "public-private partnerships" central planning.

They are a bad idea from the get-go, in any case. Often it just becomes the govt putting up the cash because of delays and cost over runs. The "private" part of the partnership knows that they will be bailed out if they foul it up, so they make decisions that they wouldn't make if it were their own cash on the line.

Quote:

The government needs to replace roads and sewer systems anyway.

Why? That stuff is important but, they haven't done a very good job of it thus far. And besides, aren't cars a cause of global warming? Confusing.

The Happy Warrior

Joined: 10 Feb 2010

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 5:47 pm Post subject:

Senior wrote:

Quote:

I am definitely not advocating central planning!

Quote:

The government needs to replace roads and sewer systems anyway.

Why? That stuff is important but, they haven't done a very good job of it thus far. And besides, aren't cars a cause of global warming? Confusing.

Yes, you are confused indeed. You are criticizing me on one hand for central planning, and on the other hand for not eliminating private cars (Hint: that would be central planning). Such is the clusterfuck of libertarian climate denialism.

What I mean about private-public partnership: If you are building a nuclear power plant, for example, the government has before killed the viability of such projects by loading more and more restrictions and regulations on the things until they became unprofitable. The public money is the government's stake, so the government doesn't create environmental regulations that would destroy the project.

Government investment in power or roads or trains or sewers or government buildings like courthouses are traditional and appropriate.

Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 5:55 pm Post subject:

The Happy Warrior wrote:

Haha, relax guy. I was just showing the inconsistencies in your argument. Of course I'm not supporting the notion of banning private cars. I'm not even sure how or why you would jump to that conclusion. Where did I say we should ban cars?

Quote:

What I mean about private-public partnership: If you are building a nuclear power plant, for example, the government has before killed the viability of such projects by loading more and more restrictions and regulations on the things until they became unprofitable. The public money is the government's stake, so the government doesn't create environmental regulations that would destroy the project.

The private market probably wouldn't build a nuclear power plant. They need subsidies and special concessions from the gov, to exist in the first place.

Quote:

Government investment in power or roads or trains or sewers or government buildings like courthouses are traditional and appropriate.

Court houses, OK. The other stuff is traditional, but I wouldn't deem it appropriate.

HalfJapanese

Joined: 02 Feb 2010

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 7:23 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Alex Jones does great work bringing information to peoples' attention, but if he is leading people down the road to a "revolution", he's doing more harm than good. Any sort of chaos will be a big win for the elites who know more about how things really work and have infinite resources and will immediately exploit such an opportunity to further their agenda.

By "revolution" if you mean one that involves "violence", then no he is not advocating a violent revolution, but a peaceful one. A revolution that would take back the freedoms and liberties that everyone in the world enjoys and has been slowly taken away through government laws and regulations. He is in no way advocating violence, b/c violence will just give them an excuse to further clamp the hammer down on us.

On the BP Spill
------------------
As Ron Emanuel said "You never want let a disaster go to waste because it allows government/entities to do things that usually wouldn't be allowed." In other words, who has what to gain from the BP's oil spill. Some say that the government is going to use this disaster to nationalize oil, which will allow them to pass their carbon/green taxes and jack up the price of oil.

There is also the suspicious activities that occurred before the explosion in the rig such as:
1. Goldman Sax and other major shareholders of BP dumping a majority of their BP stock days and weeks before the explosion.
2. Haliburton ordering a clean-up crew before the explosion occurred.
3.

Quote:

Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell, a top employee of rig owner Transocean, was speaking with someone in Houston via satellite phone. Buzbee told Mother Jones that, according to this witness account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/06/the-rigs-on-fire-i-told-you-this-was-gonna-happen/57775/
4. How sea water was shot into the oil well instead of mud and cement to regulate the pressure of well, which caused the leak....

Other Things:
5. How other clean up methods, which are more efficient and less detrimental to the environment, are not being used as a way to prolong the disaster.
6. The anticipation of a hurricane that would spread the oil and sludge inland, allowing the government to grab more power, and evacuate people.

nautilus

Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 11:38 pm Post subject:

Senior wrote:

I agree to a certain extent. Bio-fuels can only, presently, survive through subsidies. Perhaps in the future they will be economical.

But obviously they should not even be considered if they come at the cost of clearing large swathes of primary and biodiverse forest.
You see everything in terms of economic interest. How much is a healthy environment worth to you?

Quote:

I know that you hate humans. I feel kind of sorry for you because of it. The same way I feel about someone who is prejudiced against any group. Ultimately they hold those feeling because of fear and ignorance.

I don't hate humans, I hate the degradation and destruction they have wrought on the biodiversity and life-giving ecosystems of the earth. Some is indeed malicious and down to greed and corruption, the rest is down to ignorance.

You're certainly showing a lot of ignorance in the way you mischaracterise and attempt to ridicule those who wish to protect our environmental future. If you are so in love with the human race as you claim, you would want to ensure it is secure and living sustainably. Not advocating a ridiculous idea of pump out more cO2 and party until we all die.

I read recently that 50% of rivers in the Phillipines are now too polluted to be of use to people. Add in the political corruption that has allowed most of the country's natural forest cover to be cleared , resultant floods and mudslides, and we are left with an example of environmental breakdown that you seem to be quite OK with. Grow up.

Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:54 am Post subject:

nautilus wrote:

Senior wrote:

I agree to a certain extent. Bio-fuels can only, presently, survive through subsidies. Perhaps in the future they will be economical.

Sometimes the people who own the forest don't have any choice. It's clear the forest or starve.

But let's be serious for a moment. They've been saying for as long as I can remember In sombre tones with a U2 song playing in the background. "Every day four hundred football fields worth of pristine forest are felled to make way for farming." But the forest still seems to be there. If it is being cut down so quick, why do we still have so much of it?

If I had to put some sort of quantifiable figure on the environment, I would say that if all the world had South Korea's standard of living with Korea's environment, I think we would be doin' OK.

Quote:

And I'm sure some is out of necessity. Don't fret too much. If people manage to destroy themselves, biodiversity will bounce back fast. There have been much worse mass extinctions than the current one.

Quote:

You're certainly showing a lot of ignorance in the way you mischaracterise and attempt to ridicule those who wish to protect our environmental future. If you are so in love with the human race as you claim, you would want to ensure it is secure and living sustainably. Not advocating a ridiculous idea of pump out more cO2 and party until we all die.

I ridicule because I don't believe that many of these people have sincere motives.

Quote:

I read recently that 50% of rivers in the Phillipines are now too polluted to be of use to people. Add in the political corruption that has allowed most of the country's natural forest cover to be cleared , resultant floods and mudslides, and we are left with an example of environmental breakdown that you seem to be quite OK with. Grow up.

I completely agree with you. The govt aids and abets a huge amount of the pollution that occurs. I'm completely opposed to this in all its forms. Through subsidies, taxes, regulation and general graft, govts all over the world allows more than the optimum amount of pollution(of which certainly exists) to occur.

nautilus

Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 6:51 am Post subject:

Senior wrote:

Sometimes the people who own the forest don't have any choice. It's clear the forest or starve.

There are numerous communities of people worldwide who depend on forest for their livelihoods. They draw all they need from the forest..and have done for millenia. How is clearing the forest helping them exactly?
What you're talking about is a few corrupt businessmen making a quick buck out of pushing ahead with environmentally devastating projects.

Quote:

If it is being cut down so quick, why do we still have so much of it?

if you're talking of amazonia in particular, we have far less than before. And what remains is thanks to the efforts of the environmentalists that you seem to dislike.

Quote:

If I had to put some sort of quantifiable figure on the environment, I would say that if all the world had South Korea's standard of living with Korea's environment, I think we would be doin' OK.

South Korea has lost something like 80% of its former biodiversity in the past 50 years. from tigers and bears to birds and insects-gone under a wave of concrete. It has also experienced loss of air and water quality.
If you think Korea's environment is good then I think you need to travel.

In any case it is not possible for the entire globe to experience a first world living standard. Those few countries that do are consuming 10X their fair share of world resources to do so.

Quote:

If people manage to destroy themselves, biodiversity will bounce back fast. There have been much worse mass extinctions than the current one.

Once a species is lost, it is lost forever. Sure the planet may be left with cockroaches and rats, but that does not amount to biodiversity. Perhaps if you stepped out of your urban existence for a while and went to actually experience nature to some degree your opinion of its value would change.
Ever seen a wild lion? elephant? whale? dolphin? anything?

Quote:

I ridicule because I don't believe that many of these people have sincere motives.

Then you've obviously never met any.

But this is nothing personal against you. Its just a fact now that most of the world's population has become urbanised and estranged from the natural world. Under such circumstances its unsurprising that people have no interest in protecting what they no longer understand or see with their own eyes.
My grandmother for example grew up to know the name and medicinal value of every tree and flower in the countryside in which she lived: also the animals and birds. Back then such knowledge and respect for the natural environment was entirely normal, there was nothing exceptional about it. Not so nowadays. The contact has been lost and people seem to view themselves as entirely separate from and independent of their environment.

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