Looks like we are past the Global Warming thing

[h0lmes]

I agree that Al Gore is kind of an idiot. I never did see his movie, because it looked too "fantastic", i.e. not based on fact. I don't understand why people hate his message so much though. What is wrong with not wanting to mess the earth up, or trying to reverse damage we have done? why do people get angry about that?

Because a lot of people profit from the pollution and destruction of the planet.

[metalix1021]

Because a lot of people profit from the 'global warming' and 'save the earth' campaign.

Fixed.

[Farbin Kaiber]

bump... The last day of talks, maybe we should be talking...

[Miasma]

Good bump.

[Farbin Kaiber]

There are good ones, great ones, and then there are the WTF?!?'s.

[mar1t1me]

I don't how an intelligent person can believe that in the US alone, we burn 400 million gallons of gas per day and it would have no effect?

Look at China now. Oh yeah baby! Still think the planet's doing fine?

People aren't contributing to climate change? Riiiiiight.

The people that seem most against accepting the idea that the presence of 6 billion people and all the shit they produce and throw away and waste aren't having an effect are the ones that benefit from the status quo.

Regardless of climate change, we better change our ways. We are using up this little rock awful damn quick.

[Trucidatio]

^ yup it doesnt matter whether we are creating global climate change or not.

We are creating a global pile of waste and destruction. Populations are too high, resources are being depleted a faster rate than they can be produced, we are fighting wars over a terrible source of energy(oil), and god damnit I love trees.

Im not a hippy, Im not a vegetarian, but growing up where I live its really hard not to appreciate and to not want to protect nature.

[mongule]

^^Too much time and money is being wasted on the debate. Regardless if we have an effect or not, both sides agree on less pollution more recycling and more research on renewable energy. Billions are wasted on proving the effect of mankind on the climate when in reality it is irrelevant or at least the money should be spent elsewhere. If you believe that those who are anti human induced climate change are the ones that profit from the status quo....then surely you must realize the ones that push the current pro human induced climate change agenda are not doing this for free and from the goodness of their hearts.

Everything is money.

It seems they painted skeptical people as being for pollution or anti-green.

I believe that the sun has a much greater impact then we ever will though but I also agree with the awareness for greater human responsibility in terms of the environment though I think carbon taxes/credits are counter intuitive.

[Hallen]

You last two poster are exactly what the global warming alarmists want to see. Either you believe in global warming whole hog, or you are just concerned about the environment and go along with the alarmists because you figure its better than doing nothing. Both of those positions are dangerous.
If you really sit back and think about it from a common sense and logic standpoint, you start seeing holes in the arguments. Even using the data that the alarmists use, you can poke holes in their theories pretty easily.

Do you really think that the environment here on earth has survived upwards of 3 billion years by being so fragile? This is an analog system, not a binary one. It's not on or off. It sloshes and burbles. Even if the amount of carbon we are putting into the atmosphere was significant, the environment has the resilience to deal with it. In other words, unless thrown completely out of bounds, the environment deals with these natural substances that are part of its system. A small variation is not going to cause problems.

I agree that we need to work towards energy that does not produce unwanted by products. That only makes sense. However, destroying our economy to get there insuring that we'll have massive wars, famine, and plagues isn't the best way to get there. It would be effective though. That's what faces us if these out of control politicians don't pull back from their insane policies.

Over population is the main problem here. Just for fun, I looked it up, humans produce approximately 6,800,000 metric tons of CO2 DAILY by breathing. (But that's OK because it's closed loop according to the experts). That gives you a small inkling of the scale of things we are dealing with here.

[gwb72tii]

Because a lot of people profit from the pollution and destruction of the planet.

had to be holmes

how many people do you think profit from skewing science to support their conclusions about anthropogenic global warming?

how big an industry is the GW industry today? its billions per year.

who profits? think fat fuck al gore in his carbon offset scheme. you know, the man who uses enough energy to heat his home and fucking pool house in one month than i use to heat my home all year.

how about phil jones, the head of the CRU that has all the data that is the backbone of the IPCC reports. couldn't have any conflict of interest tight? this fucker has received over $22 million in government funding to "study" AGW. do you think this guy is going to come to a conclusion that AGW is not an immediate threat.

you guys are freaking ignorant

[mongule]

^^I don't know if that was about me but I don't go along with alarmists. What I meant is that the alarmists are actually making the problem worse.

It might not of been clear.

[Trucidatio]

Mongule I'm with you, I'm on the side that these alarmist are wrong.


Just cause I am concerned over the environment does not mean I will blindly follow whatever someone says is the correct way to take care of the situation.

I am trying to say that hopefully there may be some good coming from all of this, and that is that as a species we start to take care of the only home we have. We may not be making a drastic change in the climate, but we sure as hell are making major changes to our ecosystem.

[mar1t1me]

Do you really think that the environment here on earth has survived upwards of 3 billion years by being so fragile?

No, but it's never had to deal with 6 billion+ people and their unfathomable wastefulness.

Over population is the main problem here.

We agree on this. Why not provide incentives for people to have way fewer kids for a few generations? And maybe doubly incentivize stupid people-now that we have so many safety nets, they aren't removing themselves from the gene pool soon enough. They breed, and oddly enough stupid people have a verifiable track record of producing equally, if not more stupid, people.

[Hallen]

No, but it's never had to deal with 6 billion+ people and their unfathomable wastefulness.

True. But so much else has changed too, some of it due to us, some of it not. Are people wasteful? Probably. But the way to deal with most of that isn't really plausible given how our society has evolved. You can't get cheese from Wisconsin to NYC without disposable packaging and still have it fit to eat.

We agree on this. Why not provide incentives for people to have way fewer kids for a few generations? And maybe doubly incentivize stupid people-now that we have so many safety nets, they aren't removing themselves from the gene pool soon enough. They breed, and oddly enough stupid people have a verifiable track record of producing equally, if not more stupid, people.

But the problem isn't in the nations or places that would be amenable to that kind of thing. It's in India, China (mostly because of shear volume now, not really family size), and much of the middle east. People don't want to hear this, but giving modern medical technology to poor nations and areas who's cultures are still set somewhere in the dark ages, was probably the wrong thing to do. It allowed for a much higher survival rate for children which unnaturally drives up population because the culture doesn't evolve to deal with it. They still have huge families because culturally, they think they have to. Survival used to depend on it. Now it doesn't. I don't know how you are going to convince those people to have fewer children right now. It will take many years with the population going nuts the whole way.

But, back to the environment thing, nobody can prove that humans actually have any kind of a major impact on temperatures overall. The system is too complex and we don't nearly know enough to make that kind of prediction. The evidence mostly points to normal cyclical changes in the temperature, nothing more.

[rwh11385]

People don't want to hear this, but giving modern medical technology to poor nations and areas who's cultures are still set somewhere in the dark ages, was probably the wrong thing to do. It allowed for a much higher survival rate for children which unnaturally drives up population because the culture doesn't evolve to deal with it. They still have huge families because culturally, they think they have to. Survival used to depend on it. Now it doesn't. I don't know how you are going to convince those people to have fewer children right now. It will take many years with the population going nuts the whole way.

Sorry Hallen, I usually agree with you... but you are wrong here. As nations develop, their family sizes decrease. The only continent with lots of babies is Africa... because of violence and AIDS.

Look @ 4:30, as life expectancy increases, family size decreases:

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/ted-talks/hans-rosling-ted-2006-debunking-myths-about-the-third-world/