Discussion: Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

[The Battousai]

Global warming is real because the people who do the research have evaluated all the evidence and have found that the only reasonable conclusion is that humans have an important impact on climate change.

Fixed

 

[bell110]

LOL

Yes, sorry for understating the obvious.

 

[SuBe]

 

[Paradyme]

Obama: 'Time for talk is over'

COPENHAGEN — A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come "not to talk but to act" on climate change.


Emerging from a multinational meeting boycotted by Chinese Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Obama warned delegates that U.S. offers of funding for poor nations would remain on the table “if and only if” developing nations, including China, agreed to international monitoring of their greenhouse gas emissions.


"I have to be honest, as the world watches us... I think our ability to take collective action is doubt and it hangs in the balance,” Obama told the COP-15 plenary session as hope for anything more than a vague political in agreement faded.


“The time for talk is over, this is the bottom line: We can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward. We can do that and everyone who is in this room will be part of an historic endeavor or we can choose delay,” he said.


He added: “The question is whether we will move forward together, or split apart… We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years.”

...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30774.html

...

 

[Timstuff]

Global warming is real because the smart people said so.

And as we all know, smart people never lie to us dumb people. What could someone possibly have to gain through fear mongering and demands for more government control?

 

[Carcharodon]

OMG! There are communists waving flags in Copenhagen! The whole thing is a communist plot!!1!!!!!!one!!11

 

[SuBe]

Doesn't it concern you that the World Leaders are Standing in Ovation for Anti-Capitalist Dogma. There are Protests from Anti-Capitalists. The Emails. Doesn't this concern you at all, as a scientist? All while having a Climate Change Summit?

 

[VampElvis]

I think we can pretty much say the "green" movement is mostly political/financial because you don't hear them talking, at least not very often or loudly, about ocean acidification. All you hear is temperature and rising sea levels. I haven't read up on this particular aspect of the climate change argument, but from what I have seen it is much more disturbing to me than any anthropogenic temperature controversy.

 

[Paradoxium]

The Green movement has been hijacked by politicos who probably don't give a damn about the environment so much as wealth redistribution (via carbon credits). You take out the carbon credits, I can almost promise they give a **** about the environment. Their concerns are disingenuous for the most part.

 

[Paradoxium]

Climate draft accord agreed

It would kick off with $US10 billion ($A11.28 billion) a year from 2010 to 2012, climbing to $US50 billion ($A56.39 billion) annually by 2015 and $US100 billion ($A112.78 billion) by 2020.

 

[The Battousai]

If you're going to seriously take a conspiracy position on this, there's no point in even trying to argue.

 

[SuperFerret]

Why must we plunge into an ice age? Can't we jump into one? Or maybe step to the right?

 

[The Battousai]

I'd prefer the last option

Then again, I'm not one for hyperbole, anyway

 

[bell110]

To be fair, the anti-Green movement doesn't really care about the "truth" behind the science, they are more concerned about keeping their money. The bottom line is greed.

 

[SuBe]

To be fair, the anti-Green movement doesn't really care about the "truth" behind the science, they are more concerned about keeping their money. The bottom line is greed.

Keep YOUR OWN money is "greed", but TAKING someone else's is not???? What the hell?

 

[bell110]

Take the Plunge; Do the Dew!

 

[The Overlord]

Doesn't it concern you that the World Leaders are Standing in Ovation for Anti-Capitalist Dogma. There are Protests from Anti-Capitalists. The Emails. Doesn't this concern you at all, as a scientist? All while having a Climate Change Summit?

Does that make the science they are putting forward incorrect?

Keep YOUR OWN money is "greed", but TAKING someone else's is not???? What the hell?

But if the Climate Change people are correct, then in theory the greed of a few individuals is putting the rest of the world in danger.

Someone doesn't have the freedom to pollute my backyard if they want to save money, do they?

 

[SuBe]

Google Climategate. Maybe you didn't hear of it yet.

 

[Paradoxium]

To be fair, the anti-Green movement doesn't really care about the "truth" behind the science, they are more concerned about keeping their money. The bottom line is greed.

That is right, I rather keep the money, so I can buy things that are energy efficient and clean. Since energy efficiency saves me money over the long run. It's my idea of n real investment. And if I see prospective R&D somewhere that would makes things more efficient and clean, I am more than happy to invest in it. Again out of greed and the bottom line.

 

[SuBe]

That is right, I rather keep the money, so I can buy things that are energy efficient and clean. Since energy efficiency saves me money over the long run. It's my idea of an real investment. And if I see prospective R&D somewhere, that would makes things more efficient and clean, I am more than happy to invest in it. Again out of greed and the bottom line.

NO! You must have your money seized from you and be spend on what smarter, brighter, more enlightened people think is better. You don't own your things, it's their's and they just let you have it for a little while. You know that silly!

 

[bell110]

Keep YOUR OWN money is "greed", but TAKING someone else's is not???? What the hell?

Yes, keeping your money at the expense of the rest of the world is greed.

That is right, I rather keep the money, so I can buy things that are energy efficient and clean. Since energy efficiency saves me money over the long run. It's my idea of an real investment. And if I see prospective R&D somewhere, that would makes things more efficient and clean, I am more than happy to invest in it. Again out of greed and the bottom line.

But if it's cheaper to pollute the Earth, you would rather do that too, out of greed and the bottom line.

Like I said, the anti-Green people are not trying to get to the truth any more than the tobacco industry wan't looking for the truth. They are/were just looking for ways around the truth to make more money. Remember money > human life.

 

[Paradoxium]

Yes they will do that. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Good intention does not justify solutions that won't get results.

Carbon credits and regulation don't mean **** if they can pollute in a different jurisdiction. More importantly this is the issues of actually enforcing the god damn regulation effectively.

Taxes simply stifles productivity and work efforts in the economy, just like the intent of carbon credit to carbon. The former is conducive to actual innovations that might help the environment; it has a proven track record (even if not perfect). I rather take my odds there than give Chavez more money to buy some cigars.

 

[Carcharodon]

Doesn't it concern you that the World Leaders are Standing in Ovation for Anti-Capitalist Dogma. There are Protests from Anti-Capitalists. The Emails. Doesn't this concern you at all, as a scientist? All while having a Climate Change Summit?

I couldn't give two ****s about the anti-capitalist dogma. I'm not one to be paranoid and fearful of the so-called "evils" of communism. I leave that up to you guys.

The e-mails are most definitely cause for concern, although I think that they have been severely misconstrued in many instances. With the exception of the lost/destroyed data and the issues with modeling code (Paradoxium has an infinitely better grasp of that issue than I do), the e-mails simply demonstrated what happens when people get a hold of information without context and without a level of knowledge suitable for accurate interpretation.

 

[The Overlord]

Google Climategate. Maybe you didn't hear of it yet.

Yeah I did, that doesn't disprove every scientist who believes in Global Warming.

Yes they will do that. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Good intention does not justify solutions that won't get results.

Carbon credits and regulation don't mean **** if they can pollute in a different jurisdiction. More importantly this is the issues of actually enforcing the god damn regulation effectively.

Taxes simply stifles productivity and work efforts in the economy, just like the intent of carbon credit to carbon. The former is conducive to actual innovations that might help the environment; it has a proven track record (even if not perfect). I rather take my odds there than give Chavez more money to buy some cigars.

Are you saying corporations are destroying the environment to save money? What gives them the right to pollute the air I breathe? Why do they own the air?

Also just because the government can't force them not do this, doesn't make it any less immoral. I mean would be moral if these companies moved to a dictatorship that doesn't care about its citizens and polluted those places?

If the idealized Libertarian version of capitalism existed, these companies should decide not to do this on their own, the fact that they don't and acting in a such short sighted and immoral seems to suggests that version of capitalism doesn't really exist.

 

[bell110]

Yes they will do that. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Good intention does not justify solutions that won't get results.

Carbon credits and regulation don't mean **** if they can pollute in a different jurisdiction. More importantly this is the issues of actually enforcing the god damn regulation effectively.

Taxes simply stifles productivity and work efforts in the economy, just like the intent of carbon credit to carbon. The former is conducive to actual innovations that might help the environment; it has a proven track record (even if not perfect). I rather take my odds there than give Chavez more money to buy some cigars.

I could vote for pro-green candidates. And you don't know they won't have solutions

My point was you can't talk about the pro-greens only being motivated by greed, when that is the exact thing that motivates the anti-green. Even if the pro-green is wrong, at least they are trying to save the environment.