359 replies to this topic

[jethro]

Quit the sniping folks.

It's possible to have opinions, strong ones at that, on any subject, but there's absolutely no need for it to lead to personal attacks.

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

VillagePlank, on 02 December 2009 - 19:34 , said:

I'm sure he will thank you for it, in the morning.

Sorry for singling you out PP.

I've just about had it up to my back-teeth of cynicism, consipiracy, and big bad world. Perhaps, I really am an idiot - the village plank - but I prefer to consider the position of the human race at the pinnacle of millions of years development. Something we should be proud of. For sure, people in power get up to bad things, but, frankly, my house is warm, food is on the table for my five kids, one cat, one puppy; is that an illusion based on some extra-governmental policy to control the masses? I don't think so. Is the laughter and joy in my house an illusion? I don't think so.

My advice to you and others of your ilk is simply to see these people that you think conspire as having a room-temperature IQ, and suddenly, instead of some intellectual elite conspiring us all to infinite slavery of some kind or another, it's simply a bunch of idiots. Well, the electorate from all democratic nations have a habit of voting for idiots, but pretty idiots.

If you want to change it with your intellectual supremacy, then become an MP. In the meantime, the rest of us will get on with hard-work, making a better life for our families, and trying, in some small fashion to make a better world.

I'm sorry if such an idea offends you.

I have to confess VP I'm really split on this one I really am. I too enjoy a comfortable generally extremely pleasant family life, and god knows have more things than I can begin to list to be thankful for. But on the other hand it is that very comfort that can act as a dangerous insulation to the many things which happen which we should be outraged at. I sometimes do worry that it is our very comfort and ease of life (relative to many others and to our forefathers) that is our greatest danger.

[Solar Sausage]

Please can we try and stay on-topic?

[noggin]

Crikey, when I started to read this, I thought James Hansen had changed "sides"!

Anyway, this is what he thinks about Copenhagen.

http://www.dailymail...ummit-fail.html

[stewfox]

Pete Tattum, on 03 December 2009 - 09:55 , said:

Please can we try and stay on-topic?

10,000 delegates

400 delegates taking a 13hr train ride from Brussels to Copenhagen, how many fly back by plane when the travelling circus dies down ?

Anyway no questions were allowed about the science of climate change at the last circus in town in Barcelona.

No negotiators we called upon to justify proposals for draconic emission cuts or staging sums of 'climate finance' for poor countries.

One good thing has happened , carbon dating, as most of the delegates go around the world every year since 1992 many have met up at these things and married etc
The only certainty when it ends December 18^th is the big top will be re-erected in another city soon

Nice to see Green peace park two large Lorries outside and spraying water and leaves in the delegates that arrive. Why don't they go dig a well and put that water to proper use?.

I think the jolly will end in the next few years and we will get back to tackle the real issues that affect the planet.

[laserguy]

stewfox, on 03 December 2009 - 10:32 , said:

10,000 delegates..........

................I think the jolly will end in the next few years and we will get back to tackle the real issues that affect the planet.

It,along with the whole AGW 'thing' is 100% scam. As for your last sentence.... we can but hope. Noggin,I think Hansen should retreat gracefully and tend roses,play golf or something.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Solar Cycles, on 28 November 2009 - 12:47 , said:

Your right to be concerned noggin, for all the huffing and puffing you find on climate forums, it's those elitist liberals who will decide how to cripple economies even further.

Just a question... how can people who want to erode freedoms (which is basically what is being "got at" here) possibly be liberal?

There are a few recurring points that come out of the posts in this thread so far, and I'll address them here.

1. "AGW is a sham". I might be more inclined to believe in this if I was presented with evidence that went beyond "because AGW is a sham" or "because I say so and I know I'm right" or "because people who believe in it are defensive of views they've passed through the academics" or whatever. In contrast the evidence for AGW includes the climate effects of GHGs, albedo and aerosols, which is rather more convincing.

2. Sustainability, taxes etc. A very important issue indeed, and I thought Noggin's first post in the thread raised some particularly good points for discussion.

But- and this is key- we need to be prepared to make some short-term sacrifices for long-term gain. This is why relying solely on free market capitalism- or centralised government- is likely to come up short, because markets and centralised owners alike tend to think mainly in the short term, as has been illustrated by the mistakes re. excessive borrowing leading up to the recession. Free market capitalism will ensure that our economies will stay in good order (and ensure that social factors continue to be seen as "unimportant" as all that matters in the free market world is profits & money) until fossil fuels run scarce or AGW becomes so severe that it starts having big negative impacts. And then, we'll be on our own... We need a multi-faceted set of approaches, not something that is simple, neat and wrong.

I certainly don't agree with the "sticks first, carrots second if you're lucky" approach favoured by many environmentalists and authoritarians alike. We need to solve current problems but not in ways that create bigger problems than they hope to solve. One key principle behind being more sustainable and addressing AGW is to preserve decent opportunities for future generations- they won't get that if they're stuck in a stifling regime of high taxation and regulation.

3. Is Copenhagen worth it? Good question. Unless it leads to a long-term set of solutions aiming towards sustainable living, creating a decent quality of life for humans while minimising disruption to the environment, probably not...

[stewfox]

Thundery wintry showers, on 03 December 2009 - 11:33 , said:

Just a question... how can people who want to erode freedoms (which is basically what is being "got at" here) possibly be liberal?

There are a few recurring points that come out of the posts in this thread so far, and I'll address them here.

1. "AGW is a sham". I might be more inclined to believe in this if I was presented with evidence that went beyond "because AGW is a sham" or "because I say so and I know I'm right" or "because people who believe in it are defensive of views they've passed through the academics" or whatever. In contrast the evidence for AGW includes the climate effects of GHGs, albedo and aerosols, which is rather more convincing.

2. Sustainability, taxes etc. A very important issue indeed, and I thought Noggin's first post in the thread raised some particularly good points for discussion.

But- and this is key- we need to be prepared to make some short-term sacrifices for long-term gain. This is why relying solely on free market capitalism- or centralised government- is likely to come up short, because markets and centralised owners alike tend to think mainly in the short term, as has been illustrated by the mistakes re. excessive borrowing leading up to the recession. Free market capitalism will ensure that our economies will stay in good order (and ensure that social factors continue to be seen as "unimportant" as all that matters in the free market world is profits & money) until fossil fuels run scarce or AGW becomes so severe that it starts having big negative impacts. And then, we'll be on our own... We need a multi-faceted set of approaches, not something that is simple, neat and wrong.

I certainly don't agree with the "sticks first, carrots second if you're lucky" approach favoured by many environmentalists and authoritarians alike. We need to solve current problems but not in ways that create bigger problems than they hope to solve. One key principle behind being more sustainable and addressing AGW is to preserve decent opportunities for future generations- they won't get that if they're stuck in a stifling regime of high taxation and regulation.

3. Is Copenhagen worth it? Good question. Unless it leads to a long-term set of solutions aiming towards sustainable living, creating a decent quality of life for humans while minimising disruption to the environment, probably not...

1. Most say AGW unproven, no requirement for those who say its unproven to come up with much more , as the fact is its unproven. I think the word Sham is going a bit far and disrespectful.

2. Put a Tax on planes because they smell fine , lets face it they do pollute but lets get away from this loads of Green Taxes that are going to save the Polar bears.ie be honest what there for.

3. We do need to do something from de forestation to plastic bags . i would prefer 10,000 delegates to go to pick up the rubbish thats dump off island of Male ,Maldives but not likely.

Lets hope one day we will have a world wide 'pick up rubbish you find on the street and take it home day'.

[PersianPaladin]

Quote

LONDON (Reuters) - The planet would be better off if the forthcoming Copenhagen climate change talks ended in collapse, according to a leading U.S. scientist who helped alert the world to dangers of global warming.

http://www.reuters.c...E5B21BK20091203

[Roger J Smith]

Paging the Emperor, call your tailor, I repeat, call your tailor, your cloak is ready.

So now it begins, the vast interaction of the deluded, the brainwashed, and the timid.

But enough about our prime minister, I would leave timid out for most of the rest of the world leaders.

This is important, but for different reasons than the media will report. It is the operation of a largely-unrepresentative world government that answers to nobody but shadowy powerful figures behind the curtains. The fact that this sort of scenario used to be the stuff of conspiracy theories and B-grade movies just makes it that much more dangerous now that it actually exists, and now that most of our elected governments listen more to these people than to their own electorates. In fact, they take it upon themselves to try to brainwash their own electorates with the instructions they receive from these powerful interest groups, and make no mistake, there are interest groups who stand to benefit very substantially from this bogus global economy that is being created on the pretext of saving polar bears from a more difficult daily feeding session (and by the way, the polar bears are doing just fine anyway).

And where will all the money end up that is swept out of the global economy and into dead-end cycles of personal enrichment? Out of play and propping up the economies of China and various Middle Eastern countries, mostly.

People are being taken for suckers by this scam, and the e-mails scandal more or less proves this point. The only answer is for responsible leaders of democratic countries to walk out of Copenhagen and tell the IPCC to mind their own business, and meanwhile, for the atmospheric sciences to somehow manage to restore adult supervision to this science, which has become a farce and lost most of its credibility through this past two years.

Sure, the arctic could warm up naturally and the ice could melt. And are we even remotely ready to handle the impacts of that possible change? No, we are deluded into imagining that we can control this ourselves and that it therefore won't happen. It could be the most dangerous outcome of the whole AGW scam, if natural warming later this century does start a substantial meltdown in the arctic, because we will have wasted half a century on this delusion, while we might have been better using the time (and the wasted resources) planning around a response. On the other hand, it may never happen, or we might even face a natural slide towards a new ice age. We need to be realistic about all of this and accept that we are nowhere near understanding long-term climate change in enough detail and complexity to have any real idea what will happen.

It is worth planning for the more extreme possibilities, and we may at some future date be more certain that one of them is beginning to develop in the world around us. This is what the international community should be talking about, instead of going deeper into this mumbo-jumbo false paradigm that we can "control" the world's weather and climate. We can't even begin to do that. But if they want to accomplish one useful thing at Copenhagen, it would be to turn the tables on China and demand that they start cleaning up their vast trans-national air pollution, which, if any human activity is having an effect on the arctic, would be the one thing we might be able to do to tip the scales towards a colder arctic (if that's what we really want five hundred years before an ice age, just saying, if we're that concerned about what future generations will think of us, do we really want to put all our eggs in one basket when clearly there are two available?)

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

jethro, on 02 December 2009 - 20:00 , said:

Quit the sniping folks.

It's possible to have opinions, strong ones at that, on any subject, but there's absolutely no need for it to lead to personal attacks.

My uptmost apologies. I will bow out now. Back some time soon.

(I can't help the way I feel about extremists)

[PersianPaladin]

http://rawstory.com/...ies-exxonmobil/

[jethro]

Everyone has to get funding from somewhere, can't say that it means much really. Greenpeace maintain that they are entirely independent, "To maintain absolute independence Greenpeace does not accept money from companies, governments or political parties". Really?

http://badecology.bl...ce-funding.html

http://www.activistc...ull.cfm/oid/131

[Solar Cycles]

Greenpeace lost it's way many years ago, it's now nothing more than a eco-terrorist group.

Has anyone seen the advertisement on sky news, for that Copenhagen jolly boys outing? Apparently the world is slowly dying, whilst we stand by and do nothing. Well apart from fudging data, and trying to brainwash the masses that is!

Edited by Solar Cycles, 04 December 2009 - 09:07 .

[Devonian]

Solar Cycles, on 04 December 2009 - 09:07 , said:

Greenpeace lost it's way many years ago, it's now nothing more than a eco-terrorist group.

That is an outragous thing to say! What give you the right to so label people who join such pressure group out of good faith and who aren't terorist but simply concerned members of society? Do people call sceptics terrorists? Do we go so low? Terrorists? Sheeshhh.

You are a disgrace and, you are simply not telling the truth. I'm a member of Greenpeace and I am not a terrorist!!!! What gives you the right to so label me?

Go away until you can be civil to people with other views.

Edited by Devonian, 04 December 2009 - 09:17 .

[Solar Cycles]

Dev, maybe you should ask the former leader off greenpeace his views!

[Devonian]

Solar Cycles, on 04 December 2009 - 09:24 , said:

Dev, maybe you should ask the former leader off greenpeace his views!

Apologise to any members of Greenpeace who might be here! I am not a terrorist I resent such steroetyping. Apologise!

Edited by Devonian, 04 December 2009 - 09:27 .

[jethro]

Come on folks, be nice.

I posted the Greenpeace stuff to demonstrate those "in the pockets of" stories can be cut both ways - not so folk can now start taking pot shots at one another.

Money has to come from somewhere, does it really matter where it comes from? Does it mean funding sets the agenda? I think not. I regularly donate to charity, choosing which ones depends entirely upon what their aims are. I fund charities who's aims and goals I support and believe in - isn't corporate charity done on the same basis?

[Devonian]

jethro, on 04 December 2009 - 09:37 , said:

Come on folks, be nice.

I posted the Greenpeace stuff to demonstrate those "in the pockets of" stories can be cut both ways - not so folk can now start taking pot shots at one another.

Money has to come from somewhere, does it really matter where it comes from? Does it mean funding sets the agenda? I think not. I regularly donate to charity, choosing which ones depends entirely upon what their aims are. I fund charities who's aims and goals I support and believe in - isn't corporate charity done on the same basis?

You're not being labelled as a terrorist

Do you think I'm a terrorist? I AM NOT! Labelling Greenpeace as terrorists insults a lot of people...
We must be getting close to Copenhagen...

Edited by Devonian, 04 December 2009 - 09:40 .

[jethro]

Devonian, on 04 December 2009 - 09:39 , said:

You're not being labelled as a terrorist

Do you think I'm a terrorist? I AM NOT! Labelling Greenpeace as terrorists insults a lot of people...
We must be getting close to Copenhagen...

I'd suggest you stop taking it so personally, no one has labelled you a terrorist.

Despite Solar's rather confrontational approach (toning it down would aid your views getting a more sympathetic hearing Solar) he has a valid point. The founder of Greenpeace has distanced himself from the organisation saying he cannot support their increasing politicisation.