I'm sick of hearing GLOBAL WARMING AGGHHH

[rod@plasterbrok]

Czech president Vaclav Klaus puts it beautifully:

The - so called - climate change and especially man-made climate change has become one of the most dangerous arguments aimed at distorting human efforts and public policies in the whole world.

My ambition is not to bring additional arguments to the scientific climatological debate about this phenomenon. I am convinced, however, that up to now this scientific debate has not been deep and serious enough and has not provided sufficient basis for the policymakers’ reaction. What I am really concerned about is the way the environmental topics have been misused by certain political pressure groups to attack fundamental principles underlying free society. It becomes evident that while discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom.

As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism. This ideology preaches earth and nature and under the slogans of their protection - similarly to the old Marxists - wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning of the whole world.

The environmentalists consider their ideas and arguments to be an undisputable truth and use sophisticated methods of media manipulation and PR campaigns to exert pressure on policymakers to achieve their goals. Their argumentation is based on the spreading of fear and panic by declaring the future of the world to be under serious threat. In such an atmosphere they continue pushing policymakers to adopt illiberal measures, impose arbitrary limits, regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions on everyday human activities and make people subject to omnipotent bureaucratic decision-making. To use the words of Friedrich Hayek, they try to stop free, spontaneous human action and replace it by their own, very doubtful human design.

The environmentalist paradigm of thinking is absolutely static. They neglect the fact that both nature and human society are in a process of permanent change, that there is and has been no ideal state of the world as regards natural conditions, climate, distribution of species on earth, etc. They neglect the fact that the climate has been changing fundamentally throughout the existence of our planet and that there are proofs of substantial climate fluctuations even in known and documented history. Their reasoning is based on historically short and incomplete observations and data series which cannot justify the catastrophic conclusions they draw. They neglect the complexity of factors that determine the evolution of the climate and blame contemporary mankind and the whole industrial civilization for being the decisive factors responsible for climate change and other environmental risks.

[Studley 2436]

and I suppose that is at the base of my reaction to the whole arguement. That the centralists have pretty much been running it.

Another thing is that both sides agree that CO2 is a following feature. The globe warms and CO2 rises. That being the case there are greater forces than CO2 that dictate the tempreture of the planet. If this were not so CO2 would be made to increase following an increase in tempreture and then would cause more warming and that would cause more CO2 and then more warming ad infinitum. The world would have caught on fire long ago if this were the case.

Likewise governments have proven themselves the most inefficient way of making any decision. Governments are the most successful at making bad decisions. So why can we trust goverment to make those decisions. Guaranteed they will get it wrong. They always do. So the talk of Carbon trading is bumpf. The reason being that no one actually wants to buy the stuff. What will they do with it? Make pencil leads? This means that Carbon trading is just another tax. It is that simple. Will that work? No it will just take opportunity away from people and deliver an advantage to those who are able to take advantage of the political system. Might it reduce CO2 outputs, highly unlikely, after all the People who signed on to Kyoto have all failed to meet their promised reductions which is cool for the bureaucracy as they are fining countries for not making targets.

Studley

[woodbe]

"We'll all be rooned" said Hanrahan (1)

The problem is that the only people suggesting we DO something other than put our head in the sand and pretend nothing is happening are also the people who have been saying similar things for a long time. We've ignored them, and things got worse (pollution, water quality, air quality, etc) We listened to them, and things got better (eg. Ozone hole)

Like it or not, Governments are the only way of making any sort of community wide decision. That what they are there for actually.

(1) Said Hanrahan

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan
In accents most forlorn
Outside the church ere Mass began
One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,
Coat collars to the ears,
And talked of stock and crops and drought
As it had done for years.

"It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke;
"Bedad, it's cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad."

"It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.

And so around the chorus ran
"It's keepin' dry, no doubt."
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

"The crops are done; ye'll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke
They're singin' out for rain.

"They're singin' out for rain," he said,
"And all the tanks are dry."
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.

"There won't be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There's not a blade on Casey's place
As I came down to Mass."

"If rain don't come this month," said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak -
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If rain don't come this week."

A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.

"We want an inch of rain, we do,"
O'Neil observed at last;
But Croke 'maintained' we wanted two
To put the danger past.

"If we don't get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

In God's good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.

And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.

It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o'-Bourke.

And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If this rain doesn't stop."

And stop it did, in God's good time:
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o'er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.

And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o'er the fence.

And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place
Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.

"There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned,"said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

P. J. Hartigan ('John O'Brien')

[ozwinner]

I thought you were God Al,

Just a disciple, just a disciple.....I work for God.

Al

[rhancock]

Czech president Vaclav Klaus puts it beautifully:

up to now this scientific debate has not been deep and serious enough
Really? 40 years of work by scientists around the world? Not deep and serious enough?

ambitious environmentalism ... wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind
Now we're getting to the really scary side of politics. The free and spontaneous evolution of mankind WILL result in the destruction of the planet that supports our life form, but this guy wants to be able to keep on doing whatever it takes to keep his economy ballooning to support his political career.

. To use the words of Friedrich Hayek, they try to stop free, spontaneous human action and replace it by their own, very doubtful human design.

So humans have the right to do whatever they like as long as it benefits one or more humans....

The environmentalist paradigm of thinking is absolutely static. They neglect the fact that both nature and human society are in a process of permanent change, that there is and has been no ideal state of the world as regards natural conditions, climate, distribution of species on earth, etc.

Well, true, in the UK for instance, the natural environment has been carefully managed for at least 2,00 years, and here in Oz, the landscape has been managed for something like 10,000 years. But still an 'ideal state of the world' would include a suitable temperature range, as much dry land as sustainable, space for at least one or two species other than humans.

They neglect the fact that the climate has been changing fundamentally throughout the existence of our planet and that there are proofs of substantial climate fluctuations even in known and documented history. Their reasoning is based on historically short and incomplete observations and data series which cannot justify the catastrophic conclusions they draw. They neglect the complexity of factors that determine the evolution of the climate and blame contemporary mankind and the whole industrial civilization for being the decisive factors responsible for climate change and other environmental risks.

True, there are just as many flawed arguments on the environmental side as any other section of human society, but at the end of the day, blindly using up a finite set of natural resources, whether they will end tomorrow of in 1,000 years, and arrogantly assuming that the planet will continue to support whatever style of human society we currently consider appropriate, is just not a sensible way to evolve. Surely the point of evolution is to get smarter?

[rod@plasterbrok]

[ernknot]

Geez, some of you guys get your nickers in a twist over things you can't control.

[reeves]

The free and spontaneous evolution of mankind WILL result in the destruction of the planet

mmm who wrote this, did you write it rhancock ?

I that statement represents the rampant fearmongering and attempts at emotional maniplulation that seem to abound on the GW issue.
Arrrrrggg! the sky is falling! yelled chicken little

To pose a rationalist view for a moment, the earth has been around for 4.5billion years or so. In that time climate change has encompassed various extremes from molten, to ice ages, to no ice caps and full scale forests, comet and asteroid impacts, vast releases of greenhouse gases from within the earth, more ice ages. Around 99%of all species that have ever lived are extinct. The earth is either warming or cooling, the up and down cycles of climate change.

I find it extremely unlikely that current human activities WILL result in the destruction of the planet, the planet has survived far worse in the past. In fact i'd back the planet to survive humans anyday

There is no doubt human emissions and deforestion and basic population count is affecting the environment, its obvious but to suggest the earth cannot cope with it or adapt in time is false, and life goes on evolving, humans will die out in time and anything that happens on the way in 'disaster' terms that causes a population decrease, wars, floods, famines etc is essentially 'good' in environmental terms. Relieves the burden of human supply from the environment.

The earth will be fine, its just got a bad case of humans at the moment. ;-)

[rhancock]

Originally Posted by rhancock
The free and spontaneous evolution of mankind WILL result in the destruction of the planet

mmm who wrote this, did you write it rhancock ?

I that statement represents the rampant fearmongering and attempts at emotional maniplulation that seem to abound on the GW issue.
Arrrrrggg! the sky is falling! yelled chicken little

Ah, yes you're right I did write it... And you're right on its own it does sound like chicken little!

In fact I'm trying to make the same point that you are.... Perhaps it should read:
The free and spontaneous evolution of mankind will result in the destruction of that tiny portion of the planet's biosphere which supports human life, leading to the extinction of the human species.

Certainly the planet will survive, but if left to abuse the planet in the same way as the last 200 or so years, its surface will be covered with enormous holes where we've dug up the planets resources, enormous piles of rubbish that we turned the resources into for a few minutes amusement, with a huge number of enormous concrete jungles squashed in the spaces in between.

If you were watching the earth from space over the last 200 years, then human development would appear as a fungus spreading over the plkanet.

[Studley 2436]

Actually it appears the only scientists that are backing Global Warming are the ones paid to do so. And of course the guys that do the graphs that dissappear off into cataclysm. That's a 2 Billion dollar industry.

Need I say it, The only Interest is Self Interest.

Studley

[Cliff Rogers]

I think I'll put the kettle on.... anybody else want a cuppa?

[Grunt]

Actually it appears the only scientists that are backing Global Warming are the ones paid to do so. And of course the guys that do the graphs that dissappear off into cataclysm. That's a 2 Billion dollar industry.

Need I say it, The only Interest is Self Interest.

Studley

What utter crap.

The climate scientists in Australia are paid by the CSIRO and the BOM. They are going to get paid regardless of the global warming debate.

These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is the only scientific society that rejects these conclusions,^[4][5] and a few individual scientists also disagree with parts of them.^[6]

Only bunch of petroleum scientists reject global warming. Think about their self interest!

Have a look at The Denial Machine which looks at who is actually say that global warming isn't true. It turns out that they are the same scientists that said that smoking wasn't bad for you.

The real money in denying climate change. The coal and petroleum industries have very deep pockets.

[Studley 2436]

Wikipedia is not what I would call a qualified source.

Have a look at today's Australian

It says

Cut & paste: Greenhouse gas emissions do not lead to global warming
June 12, 2007
Veteran radical leftist columnist Alexander Cockburn, in The Nation in the US, on the myth of a scientific consensus
WE should never be more vigilant than at the moment a new dogma is being installed. The claque endorsing what is now dignified as "the mainstream theory" of global warming stretches all the way from radical greens through Al Gore to George W. Bush, who signed on at the end of May. The Left has been swept along, entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent, naively conceiving of global warming as a crisis that will force radical social changes on capitalism.
Alas for their illusions. Capitalism is ingesting global warming as happily as a python swallowing a piglet. The press, which thrives on fear-mongering, promotes the non-existent threat as vigorously as it did the imminence of Soviet attack during the Cold War, in concert with the arms industry. There's money to be made, and so, as Talleyrand said, "Enrich yourselves!"

The marquee slogan in the new cold war on global warming is that the scientific consensus is virtually unanimous. This is utterly false. The overwhelming majority of climate computer modellers, the beneficiaries of the $2 billion-a-year global warming grant industry, certainly believe in it but not necessarily most real climate scientists - people qualified in atmospheric physics, climatology and meteorology. Geologists are particularly sceptical.

Take Warsaw-based professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, famous for his critiques of ice-core data. He's devastating on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rallying cry that CO2 is higher now than it has ever been over the past 650,000 years ... Or take Habibullo Abdussamatov, of St Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory. He says we're on a warming trend but that humans have little to do with it, the agent being a long-time change in the sun's heat. He says solar irradiance will fall within the next few years and we may face an ice age ... Now read Jeffrey Glassman, applied physicist and engineer, retired from California's academic and corporate sectors, who provides an elegant demonstration of how the CO2 solubility pump in the Earth's oceans controls atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and how the increase in atmospheric CO2 is the consequence of temperature increase ...

OOOPS everyone doesn't agree

maybe I should check my reddies

Studley

[Grunt]

I find it perplexing that people still don't get that Climate Change is real, serious and man made.

It's serious, it's getting worse and we need to act now.
Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predictions'.

The Big Thaw

90% of the worlds climate scientists think that global warming is man made. We could ignore them and side with the deniers. If we do that the consequences will be dire.

Humans are doing an excellent job of stuffing up the biosphere.

[Waldo]

G'day,

Can't be bothered reading through 7 pages of posts, so here my rant.

Emissions Trading:

Company A: Has used their quota in emissons, so they buy a licence to burn more from Company B who has cut back.

HTF does this scheme work? It hasn't cut back on anything, it hasn't reduced anything, combined company A and B have both met their quota in emissions, so now they have to find some-one else to buy more licences from. What nichead thought of this?

All it does is generate a squillion dollars for the bodies that they buy licences from, it does nothing to save anything. For my 2¢ worth it's as useless as spending squillions of dollars on stopping the terrorists from bombing us, what a crock too. It'll never happen - it's just filling the coffers of those who are smart enough to realise a cash cow.

I agree that Global Warming is happening, but Emissions Trading c'mon