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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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 Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:03 am Post subject: |
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| Kimbop wrote: |
Deforestation and toxic sludge in rivers are concerns; CO2 is not. In 20 years, the western world will be the only place on earth that hasn't decimated its environment. This is a real concern. |
But if it were up to the deniers they would refuse to do anything about even these basic environmental issues.
Look at the agendas of all the "think tanks" paid to push the interests of big business and attack science. Heres one such example of many, the CEI.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute
Its a horror show. They want organic produce curtailed, they want funding to the fish and wildlife service stopped, they want the protection of endangered species stopped, they want environmental education in schools stopped. Basically they just want to completely trash the environment to keep their profits rolling. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:01 am Post subject: |
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Stewart Brand has a helpful analysis of the debate:
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FOUR SIDES TO EVERY STORY
By Stewart Brand
STEWART BRAND is cofounder and co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation. He is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, cofounder of The Well, and cofounder of Global Business Network.
He is the original editor of The Whole Earth Catalog, (Winner of the National Book Award). His latest book is Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
FOUR SIDES TO EVERY STORY
Climate talks have been going on in Copenhagen for a week now, and it appears to be a two-sided debate between alarmists and skeptics. But there are actually four different views of global warming. A taxonomy of the four:
DENIALISTS They are loud, sure and political. Their view is that climatologists and their fellow travelers are engaged in a vast conspiracy to panic the public into following an agenda that is political and pernicious. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and the columnist George Will wave the banner for the hoax-callers.
"The claim that global warming is caused by manmade emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science," Mr. Inhofe declared in a 2003 speech to the Senate about the Kyoto accord that remains emblematic of his position. "CO2 does not cause catastrophic disasters � actually it would be beneficial to our environment and our economy .... The motives for Kyoto are economic, not environmental � that is, proponents favor handicapping the American economy through carbon taxes and more regulations."
SKEPTICS This group is most interested in the limitations of climate science so far: they like to examine in detail the contradictions and shortcomings in climate data and models, and they are wary about any "consensus" in science. To the skeptics' discomfort, their arguments are frequently quoted by the denialists.
In this mode, Roger Pielke, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, argues that the scenarios presented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are overstated and underpredictive. Another prominent skeptic is the physicist Freeman Dyson, who wrote in 2007: "I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models .... I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests."
WARNERS These are the climatologists who see the trends in climate headed toward planetary disaster, and they blame human production of greenhouse gases as the primary culprit. Leaders in this category are the scientists James Hansen, Stephen Schneider and James Lovelock. (This is the group that most persuades me and whose views I promote.)
"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted," Mr. Hansen wrote as the lead author of an influential 2008 paper, then the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have to be reduced from 395 parts per million to "at most 350 p.p.m."
CALAMATISTS There are many environmentalists who believe that industrial civilization has committed crimes against nature, and retribution is coming. They quote the warners in apocalyptic terms, and they view denialists as deeply evil. The technology critic Jeremy Rifkin speaks in this manner, and the writer-turned-activist Bill McKibben is a (fairly gentle) leader in this category.
In his 2006 introduction for "The End of Nature," his famed 1989 book, Mr. McKibben wrote of climate change in religious terms: "We are no longer able to think of ourselves as a species tossed about by larger forces � now we are those larger forces. Hurricanes and thunderstorms and tornadoes become not acts of God but acts of man. That was what I meant by the 'end of nature.'"
The calamatists and denialists are primarily political figures, with firm ideological loyalties, whereas the warners and skeptics are primarily scientists, guided by ever-changing evidence. That distinction between ideology and science not only helps clarify the strengths and weaknesses of the four stances, it can also be used to predict how they might respond to future climate developments.
If climate change were to suddenly reverse itself (because of some yet undiscovered mechanism of balance in our climate system), my guess is that the denialists would be triumphant, the skeptics would be skeptical this time of the apparent good news, the warners would be relieved, and the calamatists would seek out some other doom to proclaim.
If climate change keeps getting worse then I would expect denialists to grasp at stranger straws, many skeptics to become warners, the warners to start pushing geoengineering schemes like sulfur dust in the stratosphere, and the calamatists to push liberal political agendas � just as the denialists said they would.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: First published as an OpEd article in The New York Times on December 15, 2009] |
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beck's
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:09 am Post subject: |
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Human created climate change ideology is a trojan horse.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Tianamen Square protests and the opening up of China, the Left was up against the wall. Its image was seriously tarnished. Socialism was completely discredited outside of the walls of academia.
So, how to continue to subvert capitalism and advance the collectivist agenda?? Big question.
The answer was to destroy capitalism and economic progress and advance the ideals of collectivism and government control through "saving the planet."
The leftists threw themselves into this new campagn with the zeal of missionaries. Collective control over the very basis of economic life. Needless to say, this time around, Obama, the big banks and the oil companies are all on board. All of them benefit by government caps, taxes and increased bureacracy. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 6:10 am Post subject: |
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| I totally thought that the UN etc was going to save the world. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| beck's wrote: |
Human created climate change ideology is a trojan horse.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Tianamen Square protests and the opening up of China, the Left was up against the wall. Its image was seriously tarnished. Socialism was completely discredited outside of the walls of academia. |
Good God. So anything that comes out of academia is now suspect for 'Leftist ideology?' |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| beck's wrote: |
Human created climate change ideology is a trojan horse.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Tianamen Square protests and the opening up of China, the Left was up against the wall. Its image was seriously tarnished. Socialism was completely discredited outside of the walls of academia. |
Good God. So anything that comes out of academia is now suspect for 'Leftist ideology?' |
In the qualitative subjects, that assumption will seldom do you wrong. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 6:27 am Post subject: |
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| beck's wrote: |
So, how to continue to subvert capitalism and advance the collectivist agenda?? Big question. |
You're seeing it too much as a black and white issue- unfettered runaway capitalism vs living in the trees environmentalism.
Nobody suggests returning to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Although that may be the result if we continue trashing the planet beyond what it can handle.
No. Its entirely possible to have all the benefits of modern civilisation while developing in a way that is gentler on the planet. Sustainable development, not short-term exploitation. Replace energy with cleaner forms. There are plenty out there.harvest and replant, not slash and burn. Build but preserve our ecosystems.
A lot of development until now has just been greedy and wasteful. With careful planning it need not be so. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| beck's wrote: |
Human created climate change ideology is a trojan horse.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Tianamen Square protests and the opening up of China, the Left was up against the wall. Its image was seriously tarnished. Socialism was completely discredited outside of the walls of academia. |
Good God. So anything that comes out of academia is now suspect for 'Leftist ideology?' |
Indeed. So now "Leftist" means "anything I disagree with"? |
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economicmayhem
Joined: 22 Oct 2009
Location: Yong In
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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The Climate Conference FAILED!!!!
CEEEEEEEEEEELEBRATE GOOD TIMES COME ON!!! YEAH!!!
CEEEEEEEEEEELEBRATE....
PARTY LIKE IT 1999!!!
I feel like shouting out the window
"Climate Change Conference FAILED! AAAAAASSSSSSSSSAAAAAAA |
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thecount
Joined: 10 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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You're seeing it too much as a black and white issue- unfettered runaway capitalism vs living in the trees environmentalism. |
Glad to see you understand that there are a myriad of complex and complete separate issues here, and that people in one camp can not neccessary be pigeonholed into an entire system of beliefs, such as traditionally very conservative hunters on the AGW issue
(http://www.targetglobalwarming.org/pledgesigners).
I applaud your transcendence of relying on the ignorant and lazy stereotype. Perhaps we can achieve a real discussion here...
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But if it were up to the deniers they would refuse to do anything about even these basic environmental issues. |
....
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They want organic produce curtailed, they want funding to the fish and wildlife service stopped, they want the protection of endangered species stopped, they want environmental education in schools stopped. Basically they just want to completely trash the environment to keep their profits rolling. |
I should have known better than to hope. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Manner of Speaking"]Stewart Brand has a helpful analysis of the debate:
| Quote: |
FOUR SIDES TO EVERY STORY
By Stewart Brand
STEWART BRAND is cofounder and co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation. He is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, cofounder of The Well, and cofounder of Global Business Network.
He is the original editor of The Whole Earth Catalog, (Winner of the National Book Award). His latest book is Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
FOUR SIDES TO EVERY STORY
Climate talks have been going on in Copenhagen for a week now, and it appears to be a two-sided debate between alarmists and skeptics. But there are actually four different views of global warming. A taxonomy of the four:
DENIALISTS They are loud, sure and political. Their view is that climatologists and their fellow travelers are engaged in a vast conspiracy to panic the public into following an agenda that is political and pernicious. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and the columnist George Will wave the banner for the hoax-callers.
"The claim that global warming is caused by manmade emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science," Mr. Inhofe declared in a 2003 speech to the Senate about the Kyoto accord that remains emblematic of his position. "CO2 does not cause catastrophic disasters � actually it would be beneficial to our environment and our economy .... The motives for Kyoto are economic, not environmental � that is, proponents favor handicapping the American economy through carbon taxes and more regulations."
SKEPTICS This group is most interested in the limitations of climate science so far: they like to examine in detail the contradictions and shortcomings in climate data and models, and they are wary about any "consensus" in science. To the skeptics' discomfort, their arguments are frequently quoted by the denialists.
In this mode, Roger Pielke, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, argues that the scenarios presented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are overstated and underpredictive. Another prominent skeptic is the physicist Freeman Dyson, who wrote in 2007: "I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models .... I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests."
WARNERS These are the climatologists who see the trends in climate headed toward planetary disaster, and they blame human production of greenhouse gases as the primary culprit. Leaders in this category are the scientists James Hansen, Stephen Schneider and James Lovelock. (This is the group that most persuades me and whose views I promote.)
"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted," Mr. Hansen wrote as the lead author of an influential 2008 paper, then the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have to be reduced from 395 parts per million to "at most 350 p.p.m."
CALAMATISTS There are many environmentalists who believe that industrial civilization has committed crimes against nature, and retribution is coming. They quote the warners in apocalyptic terms, and they view denialists as deeply evil. The technology critic Jeremy Rifkin speaks in this manner, and the writer-turned-activist Bill McKibben is a (fairly gentle) leader in this category.
In his 2006 introduction for "The End of Nature," his famed 1989 book, Mr. McKibben wrote of climate change in religious terms: "We are no longer able to think of ourselves as a species tossed about by larger forces � now we are those larger forces. Hurricanes and thunderstorms and tornadoes become not acts of God but acts of man. That was what I meant by the 'end of nature.'"
The calamatists and denialists are primarily political figures, with firm ideological loyalties, whereas the warners and skeptics are primarily scientists, guided by ever-changing evidence. That distinction between ideology and science not only helps clarify the strengths and weaknesses of the four stances, it can also be used to predict how they might respond to future climate developments.
If climate change were to suddenly reverse itself (because of some yet undiscovered mechanism of balance in our climate system), my guess is that the denialists would be triumphant, the skeptics would be skeptical this time of the apparent good news, the warners would be relieved, and the calamatists would seek out some other doom to proclaim.
If climate change keeps getting worse then I would expect denialists to grasp at stranger straws, many skeptics to become warners, the warners to start pushing geoengineering schemes like sulfur dust in the stratosphere, and the calamatists to push liberal political agendas � just as the denialists said they would.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: First published as an OpEd article in The New York Times on December 15, 2009] |
Thanks for that article, MOS.
I found myself nodding in agreement with this prediction:
| Quote: |
| If climate change were to suddenly reverse itself (because of some yet undiscovered mechanism of balance in our climate system), my guess is that the denialists would be triumphant, the skeptics would be skeptical this time of the apparent good news, the warners would be relieved, and the calamatists would seek out some other doom to proclaim. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:02 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| beck's wrote: |
Human created climate change ideology is a trojan horse.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Tianamen Square protests and the opening up of China, the Left was up against the wall. Its image was seriously tarnished. Socialism was completely discredited outside of the walls of academia. |
Good God. So anything that comes out of academia is now suspect for 'Leftist ideology?' |
Sigh, Kuros. Haven't you heard? Global warming was entirely invented by Leftists to try and take you back to the Stone Age. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:07 am Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| Junior wrote: |
scientists have established a link between emissions and climate. . |
Here Junior, you, BB and others believe this lie. But it's just your belief, your religion, but your bible has been debunked. |
No, this is your religion. You pursue your denial with the zeal and fanaticism of a nutty Scientologist - proffering up your pseudo-scientific bloggers' D- 'climate discussions' like they were holy gospel.
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| No such link has been estalished. We see tons of opinion pieces that argue this, but there is no science to prove the claim. |
You sound like a spokesman for a cigeratte company in the 70s. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:35 am Post subject: |
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Take a deep breath for a second, BB. Is it possible that GW isn't significantly caused by human activities?
I'm sure I'll be skewered for even asking this question, but would it make you feel like you had lost something were this to be definitely established? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:50 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
| Take a deep breath for a second, BB. Is it possible that GW isn't significantly caused by human activities? |
It's very improbable. The evidence is hardening.
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| I'm sure I'll be skewered for even asking this question, but would it make you feel like you had lost something were this to be definitely established? |
If it were to be shown that we weren't responsible it could be either a good thing or a bad thing.
a) it might be a great relief, because our activities weren't contributing and our practises would not require amending.
b) It might be terrifying, because if we continued to catapult into a hotter climate - one that was heated up past that extra 2C threshold that would bring about serious difficulty for us as a species - then there might be absolutely nothing we could do to stop it. i.e. because it wasn't due to our actions in the first place, and we had nothing up our sleeve to bring things to a halt.
I would be absolutely delighted if this whole problem would go away. Wouldn't it be fantastic if it really were a sneaky conspiracy between Leftists and Fraudulent scientists. After all, unlike most people on this forum, I have 2 children and I want them to have the same kind of opportunity that I have (and still) enjoy. But the science informing us of this problem isn't as flimsy as the deniers would have you believe. |
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