Man made Global Warming is not taking place

[Khazul]

Hmm - a though for prisons - give them large caged hampster wheels with dynamos instead of cells - make sure the power operates essential services (water, light, heat etc) - dont keep you wheel turning - you get nothing

The only problem with that idea is that when the local government decides they need more power the arrest rates go up. All of a sudden half the 16-25 year olds are in prison for things like seeds and nickel bags and a bunch of men are in for domestic violence because they slammed the door too hard and yelled too loudly. Don't even get them started on "alcohol related"...

OK - and the problem with rounding up several 000s chavs and putting them to work in hamster wheels is???

[H20nly]

well not much...

but, I don't think someone should become a hamster for smoking herb or getting mad at their psycho wife who plays the woman card with the cops and won't shut the fuck up long enough for a guy to clear his head and do the right thing.
still, I see your point. There's a lot of little punk ass mofo's that I wouldn't mind watching go through the gyrations for a while.




Be careful though, producing energy in this unorthodox fashion to reduce global warming is a touchy subject.
we're actually not allowed to have this conversation, the wannabe moderator will get us.

[Tone Deft]

said the wannabe rapper.


OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH I did NOT go there!!!!

[H20nly]

OUCH!!...


*limps away holding ass cheeks*

[Green Lemon]

So, I'd like to make an assumption that you, like me, are not enough of a climate scientist to actually examine the data and study the trends for yourself to form your opinions.

My original chosen career path was oceanograpy, but I ended up in software development, and dropped out earl to start a software company (In truth the idea of spending my life up in the arctic/antarctic was loosing its appeal ). As well as the obvious directly ocean related studies, it also included some meteorology and moe generally climatology as well. Typically oceanography, climatology and meterology tend to go very close together and there is a huge cross over between the three.

However that was over 20 years ago, so Im not an upto date scienist on the subject by any means, but I can probably still make alot more sense of scientific papers on the subject than most people

Cool, you're in a good position to be able to explain to me why out of 928 papers on the subject not one disagrees with the IPCC consensus, but that's not enough.

[Green Lemon]

You know, about the food/fertilizer/hydrocarbon problem, there is an alternative line of thinking which does not lead to mass dieoff:

Yes, current industrial crop yields are unsustainable without massive petrol based fertilizer inputs. However, there is still today a fuck of a lot of farming which is done in developing countries, without synthetic fertilizers. The theory goes that if we converted all farming in both developed and developing countries to high intensity organic production, total yield would rise, even though yield in the developed countries would fall, because food production per hectare would rise in the developed world.

I have zero idea whether this is anything like feasible, but I have seen the theory articulated (actually I think it was an argument I was having with an organic gardener on this forum a couple years ago, I told him organic cannot feed the world, that's how he responded which I thought was a decent answer.)

[Emissary]

You know, about the food/fertilizer/hydrocarbon problem, there is an alternative line of thinking which does not lead to mass dieoff:

Yes, current industrial crop yields are unsustainable without massive petrol based fertilizer inputs. However, there is still today a fuck of a lot of farming which is done in developing countries, without synthetic fertilizers. The theory goes that if we converted all farming in both developed and developing countries to high intensity organic production, total yield would rise, even though yield in the developed countries would fall, because food production per hectare would rise in the developed world.

I have zero idea whether this is anything like feasible, but I have seen the theory articulated (actually I think it was an argument I was having with an organic gardener on this forum a couple years ago, I told him organic cannot feed the world, that's how he responded which I thought was a decent answer.)

Thats how things will go, but it will only feed possibly a 3rd of the people on earth. The scary thought that is of the developed and undeveloped nations it is far more likely that the majority of the die off will come from the developed nations as they have forgotten how to feed themselves. When Russia collapsed in the 90s many of the people went back to farming their own food to keep themselves alive and the same happened in the USA in the great depression. How many Americans do you think could do that now with far more limited space.

Anyway, i just found this and its pretty huge news and will precipitate a huge rise in american oil prices and therefore food next year and for the future. And probably for most of the developed world too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... emony.html

[Khazul]

Cool, you're in a good position to be able to explain to me why out of 928 papers on the subject not one disagrees with the IPCC consensus, but that's not enough.

No more than amnyone else - the reasons for that lie in politics, not science. Anyway as you picked up on the first thing said only, I am guessing you didnt read the rest.

[Green Lemon]

Cool, you're in a good position to be able to explain to me why out of 928 papers on the subject not one disagrees with the IPCC consensus, but that's not enough.

No more than amnyone else - the reasons for that lie in politics, not science. Anyway as you picked up on the first thing said only, I am guessing you didnt read the rest.

I didn't read what, the study I was citing or your posts? I read both several times, and responded to you already about how you're right about the fact that the amount of energy hitting the surface of the earth is far more than our daily needs.

Anyway, carry on, I just thought you might have something more useful to add with your education...

[Green Lemon]

I'll not bother to quote myself but if you actually *read* my post you'll notice that I spoke of our moral obligation to help "small, poor" countries. Do you think China and India are small?

I have no backward view at all of China and India, or other developing economies. In fact, I live in Vietnam, have traveled in China, and so have first hand knowledge of what life is actually like here.
...
Anyway, you're incoherent when you argue against "free trade" and then against a "leftist political agenda", as free trade is generally a rightist position- but I get your concern, and I share it, on both sides of the equation.

My point is not a political one- why environmentalism has come to be associated with "the left" is beyond me, as I find nothing more conservative than conservation of resources and ecosystems.

I brought up India because they are at the forefront of pushing for separate standards for developing and developed countries, and I can see their point. They know these regulations would hurt their economy, so they want to push that hurt solely onto developed countries. Why else would they push for separate regulations?

My point about free trade and leftist agendas is that both sides of the political spectrum are working against the economic interest of the US. My interests are not represented well by either political party in the US. "Free trade" is a globalist position, not a rightist position, although in the US at least supposed rightists such as George Bush push for "free trade".

I totally agree about environmentalism and the left.....conservation=conservatism in my book. I wish more "conservatives" saw it that way.

I do tend to believe that AGW is a real phenomenon. Bu there definitely is a political agenda going on as well, and it is embodied in the statement you make that Bangladesh needs help. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that, just pointing out that that is a political agenda that is being appended to the AGW issue, and one does not necessarily follow the other.

btw, this sort of back and forth is why I like these discussions on this forum. I don't know about the rest of you, but my views are being refined right now in a way that I don't get by just reading articles. I'm ignorant in a lot of ways, so thanks for the back and forth.

Yeah, I guess you're right that AGW is a separate problem than poverty at the base, and it certainly shows my politics that I'd want to give money and technology to a country like Bangladesh.

But I think a real problem is this mindset that many people have that dealing with climate change will "hurt" the economy. The only thing that hurts an economy is when it stops moving. Dealing with climate change will cost money, but that is not at all hurting the economy- that is helping the economy, if you measure the traditional way as GDP, the sum total of goods and services.

What it will hurt is the *status quo*! Get the difference? It will direct a whole lot of money and effort in directions that would not have been taken at this point in time. Research, products, travel, lifestyles would all be influenced. Which is the point. And there would be losers, and winners. The losers would primarily be those heavily invested in carbon intensive activities, who would suddenly have every incentive to find new ways of doing business. Which is also the point. The winners would be innovate companies, designers, and skilled manufacturing labor, who would find a vast new market to tap and product to develop which are in high demand. And it would pinch all of us in the pocketbook a bit, because the price of goods and services would slightly rise to reflect the cost of carbon.

But here's the real deal- that future is coming anyway. Oil is only going to get scarcer, coal is filthy shit no matter how many marketing campaigns you clean it with. Why not do it now and preserve our atmosphere and our forests?

And for your political fears, I share them. I don't care if comes from the left right or center, big business is gonna try and get their paws around this one too, and it looks like they've halfway succeeded. But as I was saying earlier, if Americans really knew what was good for them they'd accept a carbon tax as a necessary weight, and ditch cap and trade. A carbon tax is simple, verifiable, and you can refund part of the money to people who need it and use the rest for research. Cap and trade is going to be brought to us by the same people who brought us the financial crisis and the bailout, and they're happy about it.

[Emissary]

I didn't read what, the study I was citing or your posts? I read both several times, and responded to you already about how you're right about the fact that the amount of energy hitting the surface of the earth is far more than our daily needs.

The amount of energy that hits the earth is enough to power our current electrical grid quite easily, but once 500 million cars have to be powered by electricity thats quite a large increase in energy consumption. This will require a complete overhaul of our entire global energy grid that will take roughly 30 years. And once again food by my accounts is THE most important need for humanity and its being totally ignored by renewable energy proponents . Would you rather drive a car/watch TV or eat?

[Green Lemon]

I didn't read what, the study I was citing or your posts? I read both several times, and responded to you already about how you're right about the fact that the amount of energy hitting the surface of the earth is far more than our daily needs.

The amount of energy that hits the earth is enough to power our current electrical grid quite easily, but once 500 million cars have to be powered by electricity thats quite a large increase in energy consumption. This will require a complete overhaul of our entire global energy grid that will take roughly 30 years. And once again food by my accounts is THE most important need for humanity and its being totally ignored by renewable energy proponents . Would you rather drive a car/watch TV or eat?

Yeah, I know, I told you you're preaching to the choir. Thread topic isn't food production, though.

I have nothing productive to say about that problem, its a huge clusterfuck as I've already acknowledged. If you're trying to warn me, consider it done, but I'm not gonna live like you I already explained why.

And you never pick up on my references to Malthus...

[ethios4]

But I think a real problem is this mindset that many people have that dealing with climate change will "hurt" the economy. The only thing that hurts an economy is when it stops moving. Dealing with climate change will cost money, but that is not at all hurting the economy- that is helping the economy, if you measure the traditional way as GDP, the sum total of goods and services.

The reason I think it will hurt the economy is that manufacturing jobs will be lost in any country that adopts tougher regulations to countries that do not have the regulations. NAFTA was sold in the US under the premise that it will create tons of jobs and prosperity. What actually happened was that jobs moved south for cheaper labor. If the US, for example, set tougher regulations on carbon output and it was cheaper for a company to manufacture in India with less regulations, they would move production to India. Then you have the same amount of pollution (if not more), plus you have the added impact of shipping goods from India to the US. So in the end, tougher regulations were passed but the end result was more pollution and a loss of jobs in the US (with a corresponding gain in jobs in India).

So that's my understanding of the economics of that scenario would work. Could be wrong.

[ethios4]

Anyway, i just found this and its pretty huge news and will precipitate a huge rise in american oil prices and therefore food next year and for the future. And probably for most of the developed world too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... emony.html

Yikes! It seems actual implementation of a pan-Arab currency will take some time, but clearly they are well on down the road. Grrr, I should have bought gold when i had the chance....now its so inflated i'm reluctant even though will most likely go much higher with this news.

[Green Lemon]

But I think a real problem is this mindset that many people have that dealing with climate change will "hurt" the economy. The only thing that hurts an economy is when it stops moving. Dealing with climate change will cost money, but that is not at all hurting the economy- that is helping the economy, if you measure the traditional way as GDP, the sum total of goods and services.

The reason I think it will hurt the economy is that manufacturing jobs will be lost in any country that adopts tougher regulations to countries that do not have the regulations. NAFTA was sold in the US under the premise that it will create tons of jobs and prosperity. What actually happened was that jobs moved south for cheaper labor. If the US, for example, set tougher regulations on carbon output and it was cheaper for a company to manufacture in India with less regulations, they would move production to India. Then you have the same amount of pollution (if not more), plus you have the added impact of shipping goods from India to the US. So in the end, tougher regulations were passed but the end result was more pollution and a loss of jobs in the US (with a corresponding gain in jobs in India).

So that's my understanding of the economics of that scenario would work. Could be wrong.

I think you're quite correct, but the only kind of deal I would be for is one that imposes penalty tariffs on countries which are not meeting their obligations, in effect making them pay the carbon tax one way or the other. Otherwise it certainly simply exports jobs and pollution.

Also look at something which the US has, which is a skilled workforce and good infrastructure and organized gov't. These things are good arguments for manufacturing machines in the US. Like I said earlier, I live in Vietnam. Not a lot of technical stuff gets put together here, and the reason is the whole culture is just kind of anti-precision. 3rd world countries have their own challenges. Sure, you can assemble stuff cheaply. But if you need a workforce that can read a roadmap (or assembly diagrams), well...its hit and miss.

I get it about being sold one thing and ending up with a pile of shit. But don't blame the environmental movement for politicians being scumbags. The fact is that they will attempt to profit off any fucking piece of skin they can poke a needle into. I don't have the exact solution, but I'm pretty sure that we need to react.