Global Warming is over.

[tjts1]

it is the 21st on soltice, but i could be wrong
congrats for seeing a little humor

as to your last question, its a bit of a catch 22, no?
outlaw developing countries from using fossil fuel based electricity, and the flip side is permanent poverty, disease and pollution. how does the UN/USA/IPCC morally condemn millions to that future? how do you tell obama's brother that he can't have a light bulb?

WTF are you talking about you racist piece of shit?

[herbivor]

as to your last question, its a bit of a catch 22, no?
outlaw developing countries from using fossil fuel based electricity, and the flip side is permanent poverty, disease and pollution. how does the UN/USA/IPCC morally condemn millions to that future? how do you tell obama's brother that he can't have a light bulb?

This is exactly the problem as I see it. To really have an impact when it comes to slowing climate change requires that the entire world population have an entirely new economic model, one not based purely on consumption. The Adam Smith way of doing things is not sustainable. On that same note, however, it is in our innate characteristic as an intelligent species to improve our comfort and chance of survival by following exactly the path we've been on. There is another way to have both creature comforts, longevity and a sustainable way of living, but it is one that requires more intelligence, compassion, and selflessness than our society currently has or will have anytime soon. I think it's unrealistic to think we will save ourselves in our current numbers, from ourselves. A mass extinction is afoot.

[nando]

it is the 21st on soltice, but i could be wrong
congrats for seeing a little humor

as to your last question, its a bit of a catch 22, no?
outlaw developing countries from using fossil fuel based electricity, and the flip side is permanent poverty, disease and pollution. how does the UN/USA/IPCC morally condemn millions to that future? how do you tell obama's brother that he can't have a light bulb?

a moment of clairity..

you already believe in climate change. You know you do. You just don't *want* to believe in it. I know I didn't, and I still don't want to. It took me a while to come around. But eventually I had to. I have my kid's future to think of, after all. What kind of planet am I going to leave them? What of this beautiful planet will be left for them to gaze upon in 30 years? What about 50 years?

I know you see it all around you. You can't have not noticed, given you're probably 20-25 years older than me (maybe more). You remember what winters in the PNW used to be like. You remember our mild weather. You remember when 100 year storms, only happened once in a blue moon.. not all over the world, all at once, during the same year, the same season, setting new records for extremes everywhere you looked. Maybe you remember going up to the mountains and seeing trees as far as you could see. Maybe you remember the local pasture land before it was filled with housing and shopping malls and huge parking lots full of SUVs. Maybe you remember the distant horizon before it was turned brown from air pollution. Maybe you remember driving down a lonely county highway where you perhaps saw 1-2 cars pass by for hours.

I do, although I just caught the tail end of it.

Oil money *literally* flows through my blood. I'm not kidding. I'm on a work trip for a refinery in CA. Booze provided by the client. Nice hotel, good food. Good pay. I consider myself extremely lucky. I'm not rich by any means, but as a family we make nearly double the median wage for our local area. Me and my co-workers probably pumped 10,00lbs of C02 into the atmosphere today at the bar alone. But how do I deal with that? How do I bite the hand that feeds me, and my family?

Which presents myself with a pretty big problem. I feel like I'm stuck inside a box from which I cannot escape. I go to the mall and see the consumersim, the drive to aquire stuff. But at what price? How much will we poison ourselves for the gain of money, and things? How much of the quality of my childrens future am I willing to sacrifice for a small gain in "wealth" today? what am I really gaining?

I'm not kidding, I actually have been considering either some form of vegitarianism, or at least a switch away from red meat (Oh yeah, I hate the vegginazi's as much as any of you AGW deniers probably do. Seriously, get out of my face before I break your scrawny, white, 1st world-problems ass in half). It wouldn't be much of a change - as it is, my wife does not like red meat (I do), so I don't cook it at home. 90% of my meals are either chicken or turkey protein. Yeah, I do all the cooking at home. As much as I can is from scratch (my wife hates how long it takes, but really, STFU, you're not the one cooking dinner every night). No, I don't grow my own vegitables. As admirable as that is, it's just not realistic in today's society, when you have kids to think about. I can barely come up with the energy to take out the garbage. weed my own garden? You've got to be kidding me. Maybe in 10 years when they're old enough to be endentured servants like all the "47%" who apparently don't pay any taxes and are lazy slobs who voted for Obama (yeah, that's me).

I don't even care about the animals "feelings". Fuck, theyre' basically there for us to eat. How do we know plants don't feel? We don't have any clue. It makes no difference to me. Besides, some poor bastard from Mexico, who's willing to work his ass off to stay in the USA, despite the ignorant, racsist, bigoted people that try everything they can to keep them out, will work in the factory slaughter house to kill the animals for me so I don't have to think about mass murder when I'm devouring a juicy Bacon Cheeseburger from 5-Guys during my lunch break (funded 100% by oil money, BTW). Damn I'm hungry.

No, I think about how much extra energy it must take to make that meat. First you gotta grow that grain. It takes a hell of a lot of water, vs just growing some disgusting tofu or something and eating that directly instead. (Oh yeah, guess what fertilizer is made of.. uhm, PETROLEUM products. Yeah, you fucking veggie heads are dirty bastards too. We're all in this little sandbox together and the shit does stink. You're not a unique flower.) The electricity it took to run that farm, the oil to power the tractors, etc. etc. I may not be omniscient but I do consider it.

I think about how many extra tons of CO2 and methane and water is being used so I can really enjoy that juicy burger. Damn, it tastes good, but what would my kids think of me if I told them they will probably get cancer, the ocean levels will rise by 1-2 feet, biodiversity will decline raplidly, they may never have a white christmas again, and they'll have to inhale polluted air and drink poisonous water, all because the company I work for helps engineer the systems that turn crude oil into products that we can burn, cheaply, which also happen to be destroying the planet? My entire world is built on a system that will also destroy my own kid's future. How fucked up is that? Their college tuition will probably be paid for with oil money too.

I did a cancer charity ride last year. A lot of you guys helped me raise over $3000, and I'm really grateful for that. GWB even put his money where his mouth is, and made a very generous donation. Maybe that humanized him a bit for me. It makes me want to help him understand, we're fucking ourselves over, and one day, we're going to have to pay whether we like it or not. I like to think of the enviroment as a giant credit card, and we haven't paid a single bill on time since 1850. The late fees plus interest payments loom large.

In any case, the cancer ride was primarily sponsored by...... Enbridge. Know who they are? Giant multi-billion dollar oil-pipeline company, up in Canada. At first, I read a few posts by some of the left wing wacko people who talked shit about the cancer ride because of the sponsor. Yeah, fuck them - people are dying, and despite what the motives may be, the money is going to a good cause, and the scientists are doing their best to fix it with the resources they have. But you know what else? The hypocrisy - it got to me, eventually.

So we have this other huge problem. Probably 3/10 of the people you know, at *least*, will either die from or have cancer of some sort. It doesn't even really matter if you're a chain smoker or a big fat fucker who eats 10 McDonald's cheeseburgers every day. Little kids who are barely 5 years old get cancer and die before they can really even understand what's going on. I'm probably just as likely to die of cancer as any of you, and I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, smoked crack, jumped in vats of chemicals, etc.

The hypocrisy. Enbridge is a company, that quite literally, pumps carcinogens across the continent (if you don't think benzine, a main component of gasoline, is a carcinogen, I have a bridge to sell you), and makes billions from it. Aside from their horrible safety record, here they are, funding cancer research with money they got from causing (at least some of) the cancer that is killing 3/10 of your friends and family. That's not even getting into the climate change debate. I still can't decide whether that is corporate responsibility or outright hypocrisy.

Oh yeah, another thing. If you think Canadians are left wing tree hugger communists, you're dead wrong. Even if some of them think they are, their entire system is funded directly by oil money and destroying their own enviroment to keep the band marching. They might even be more right-wing-cowboy laissez-faire corporatists than we are in the USA. Actually, they're far better at it than we are. If it were a hockey match and a fight broke out over who could get the most shit done, damn the enviroment and our future, they'd kick our fucking asses to the moon.

So what's my point? Is it the "end of the world"? No. I'm not saying that at all. The sky isn't falling. I'm still alive, and breathing, quite well thank you. My kids have a roof over their head and warm beds to sleep in, and I have a good paying and rewarding job. But for what? What will there be left for me to give to my children and grandchildren? Will their life be "rich" because of all the cheap trinkets they can buy, manufactured in some dirty coal-powered plant in China, or because they're healthy and have a clean enviroment and a bright future to live in?

What would you be willing to change, to leave your kids with the best possible future for tomorrow? Would you be willing to take a leap, that the scientists who have devoted their lives to facts and knowledge, and aren't out to "get you", saying that the climate is changing, we're causing it, and we'd better wake the fuck up before it's too late for you and your kids, because by the time they're in their 60's that summer cottage you've had in your family for generations is 3' underwater (or washed out to sea by a "freak" storm)?

Graphs and charts and data will never convince you. They have a left-wing bias, so to speak. You can't see or feel them in real life. Weather is weather - unrepeatable and upredictable. But, climate, is something else entirely. So ask yourself a question - if we continued, indefintely, exactly as we are today, what state would the world be in when your chidren's children are your age? How much of the world that you grew up in and loved will be left for them to enjoy? Will they know what a wild elephant is? Will they know what coffee tastes like? (I'm not joking, BTW, coffee could quite literally be extinct in 50 years).

I know one thing for sure. The PNW is strange. Even the most right-wing people here are really environmentalists. You'd have to be, being surrounded by the beauty we are blessed with. We had recycling and climate change talks decades ago up here. It's not so much of a radical idea as a way of life. My family are a bunch of bigoted tea-party extremists, and while they talk from one side of their mouth as if they think climate change, enviromentalists, and scientists are a big left-wing communist nazi-obama scam to con them out of their money, their actions tell an entirely different story. They do care, and they do realize what they are causing, but they just don't want to admit it.

Will you?

When you guys figure it out, maybe we can move on to actually solving some problems, and making progress, rather than fighting to protecting a system that is destined to kill us. How the hell can I escape when most people won't even admit what they already know?

(sorry for the rant, but really - figure it out)

[ck_taft325is]

^ meh.



;)

[z31maniac]

nando ftw with drunk posting!

[herbivor]

nando ftw with drunk posting!

Was thinking the same thing. A couple more paragraphs and it could be a published essay. But in all seriousness, I think we all to some extent share the feeling of helplessness with regards to the environment. We are like the musicians on the Titanic, calmly playing while we know the ship is sinking, because there is nothing else that we know to do.

[z31maniac]

Was thinking the same thing. A couple more paragraphs and it could be a published essay. But in all seriousness, I think we all to some extent share the feeling of helplessness with regards to the environment. We are like the musicians on the Titanic, calmly playing while we know the ship is sinking, because there is nothing else that we know to do.

My thoughts boil down to, AGW or not, shouldn't we try to preserve the environment as much as we can?

I do realize the outright hypocrisy of saying that while driving a new muscle car and having a separate car that I take to the track.

But we try to make up for it with recycling, using less, wasting less......doing things to make the house more energy efficient. Eat a few vegetarian meals per week........but when so few people make an effort......you do wonder, why even try?

[gwb72tii]

^^agreed
how many of you actually walk the walk with regards to the environment
for instance, at our house, being near the puget sound, we do not use anythng that drain into the PS that is toxic
we recycle everything we can
we eat waht is in season as much as possible
we try to buy/use/eat local products whenever we can

how about you guyz?

[Q5Quint]

a moment of clairity..

How the hell can I escape when most people won't even admit what they already know?

(sorry for the rant, but really - figure it out)

I feel you, bro.

how do you tell obama's brother that he can't have a light bulb?

You give him 'a solar panel and a lightbulb' instead of 'a powerplant and a loan' from the world bank that causes his country to be poor and in debt forever and ever. All this is really about investing in the future~ if we spend money on things that will keep costing us money down the road we will be screwed. If we invest our money in things that will continue to grow we have a good deal.

A mass extinction is afoot.

As more and more gain access to education and we are not making more and more food the population will level out. We can still have 2 kids and a white fence, you just dont want to have 10 kids since it will cost too much to raise them (opposite of developing countries where kids work on the farm and are free labor). We just have to help get the 'developing' countries into the 'developed' sphere while skipping over the burning asphalt stage. They literally burn asphalt in Nicaragua at the power plant. thanks world bank!

We have this new technology where we figured out where all these kids are coming from. It is amazing. You use it and you dont get aids or a baby infection. China and India don't want to burn the earth down with emissions and toxicity and shittons of babies~ they just have a huge middle class willing to work their assess off to build a standard of living similar to the good ole USA, complete with white picket fence 2.5 kids and a buick. If the good ole USA says 'hey kids, look how cool we are with our electric cars and solar panels and no stinky cancer emissions' you can sure as hell bet they will go the same way so we will keep hiring them to build our stuff and they can build their white fences. We just have to decide to do it. But if we don't, they sure as hell wont either.

how about you guyz?

I only fap to photos of women with dreadlocks and arm-pit hair.
I also encourage my friends to buy one, 1, O-N-E solar panel every year. $500 a year, about 250 watts, and in 4 years you will be able to run almost everything in your house off grid, and in 8 you can run your heating system, and in 12 you will probably be making more than you are spending. If you move just take the things with you they fit in your trunk. Also buy a gun and learn how to can food. Learn how to can your own bullets. And stop eating processed shit.

[Farbin Kaiber]

I can't see putting bullets in jars immersed in boiling water in a pressure cooker being a wise idea. It would be even worse if they were in cartridges with powder and primers.

[Q5Quint]

Perhaps load/reload is the correct word. Canning makes it sound more fun.

[Cliche Guevara]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/12/20/wsj-obscures-contributors-fossil-fuel-ties/191927

[mrsleeve]

^

Media matters, Huh A more biased source and funded organization does not exist. They are just pissed that those papers are not citing more Soros funded (like Media Matters) Green energy and leftist think think tanks. Obvious Bias article is Obvious

[cale]

A more biased source and funded organization does not exist.

Welcome to the Heartland Institute Mrsleeve, right this way please.

http://heartland.org/

[nando]

that's probably his home page :p

(I'm kidding, I'm kidding!)