Global Warming Debunkers Debunked

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
vroom: To be honest, I was equally surprised at the fact that the researcher came out and busted some of our guys on misusing research data. So far, that has been strictly in the purview of the “We’re all Gonna DIE” group.

So what do you think of my take on this? Sorry 'bout the threadjacking, but it wasn’t that far off topic, was it? Solar radiation, “cleaning up” our atmosphere ironically contributing to further warming? Waddaya think? :)[/quote]

This wasn’t directed at me, but I think it is sad some people seem to only think within the boundaries of their political affiliation. I could care less what democrats or republicans have to say on this issue. Common sense is that we can fuck up our environment FOR US and that we should take steps to prevent that. Ignoring small changes is one of the reasons for the growing antibiotic problem that I mentioned earlier. Too many people went too long before curbing the amounts handed out to people in spite of findings years ago. Now, we have resistant bugs which will only lead to growing disease. What does politics really have to do with common sense?

42

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Common sense is that we can fuck up our environment FOR US and that we should take steps to prevent that.[/quote]

This sounds good… I can definitely get behind thinking like this – but correct me if I’m wrong here – I think that what the fundamental disagreement is here is just how drastic and in what form those steps should be in regards to preventing and/or “fixing” our environmental fuckups.

Take the Everglades, for example. I’m a South Florida boy, had the Okeechobee in my backyard (almost), so when we start talking about conservation efforts I’m gonna gravitate to this subject. Way back in the day, “cleaning up” the Everglades meant draining the swamp and installing roads and other infrastructure – basically transforming it from a “useless and dangerous swamp” into something worthwhile to people.

Obviously, times have changed. :slight_smile:

You can talk to many environmentalists around here, and they will tell you that the record-breaking Everglades Restoration Project signed by Clinton isn’t doing its job – at all. In fact, throwing this huge sum of money at the environmental problem just created new ones:

http://www.bonitanews.com/news/2006/apr/22/interior_department_fails_project_unplug_clog_flow/

Eight years behind schedule. WAYYY over budget. The first steps to getting things moving (literally) haven’t even taken place yet. All this huge money bill did was create opportunites for graft, lawsuits, etc. So I’m asking myself just how much good is coming from the “Humans can fix the environment with huge sweeping changes and lots and lots of money” kind of thinking.

Which is a nice segue to get to your next point:

And I totally agree.

BUT

Let’s learn our lesson from the Everglades Project and think real hard before we turn from “ignoring small changes” into “making huge ones”. Like the whole “Kyoto Accord will fix Global Warming” thing. Humungous (is that even spelled right?) changes, humungous money – for what good?

This is where the common sense comes in. We can’t fix large problems with large money. There has to be more than to it than that.

43

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Why do you think human beings will now ‘simply allow the situation to get worse’? All of life is a struggle. If we stand by and don’t try, we deserve to be exterminated.

Astounding logic…since your entire point before was that we should NOT struggle but rather let it happen as we continue to be “arrogant” enough to scream that we can do no harm.[/quote]

Good strawman Prof! Equating understanding and accepting the fact that the world changes as ‘not stuggling’ WITH attempting to adapt to those changes. Beautiful!

Look, life is an adventure, a battle. We revel in it. If somehow we could attain nervana, with no more battles or obstacles to overcome, we’d die. Look at what you went through to become a doctor. Isn’t what you did like a great work of art?

I’ve seen people who finally succeed become worthless. A professor at university, for ex, had finally reached tenure — took all the fire out of him. He went from being a great teacher to an apathetic cumwad. Happens all the time.

Global warming is just another challenge for us. Do we adapt and overcome, or sit in the muck and die? If we choose the latter, then good riddance.

Maybe we should even welcome global warming, natural or not. Love a good battle!!

HH

44

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:

This is where the common sense comes in. We can’t fix large problems with large money. There has to be more than to it than that. [/quote]

People are notorious for screwing shit up. This is especially true when large sums of money are involved. Just look at the Katrina Fuck Up. Even from the other hurricanes that swept through Florida, the initial response seemed to be for residents to try to take advantage of the system. Millions have been lost to insurance fraud and plain old stealing. Does that mean we simply stop trying to institute programs designed to positively affect the environment…or do we find different ways to get the same job done? Will it take money? yes. Maybe it will also take more strict regulation and prosecution for people to quit taking advantage of a system. I personally don’t have the one true answer on how to fix it. However, I do know ignoring the potential problem is the wrong thing to do.

45

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Good strawman Prof! Equating understanding and accepting the fact that the world changes as ‘not stuggling’ WITH attempting to adapt to those changes. Beautiful![/quote]

Strawman? We either fight to survive or we die. Doing nothing is not adapting. It is simply doing nothing. In the example I gave, our adaptation is to cut back on antibiotics given and possibly even find new ways to treat disease. If we apply your logic on the environment, adaptation would simply be waiting until no antibiotics work and waiting for several million people to die off. It isn’t a strawman to relate two scenarios to show you how off your thinking is.

[quote]
Look, life is an adventure, a battle. We revel in it. If somehow we could attain nervana, with no more battles or obstacles to overcome, we’d die. Look at what you went through to become a doctor. Isn’t what you did like a great work of art?[/quote]

However, you’re writing is not. We fight to survive from the moment we take our first breath. My position is we should be fighting to keep this world habitable as well.

[quote]
I’ve seen people who finally succeed become worthless. A professor at university, for ex, had finally reached tenure — took all the fire out of him. He went from being a great teacher to an apathetic cumwad. Happens all the time.[/quote]

Complacency kills. Isn’t that what you want to do on this issue, however?

[quote]
Global warming is just another challenge for us. Do we adapt and overcome, or sit in the muck and die? If we choose the latter, then good riddance.[/quote]

To overcome this issue will require conscious efforts to fight our own destruction of the world we live on. THAT would be adaptation.

46

Loth,

I think when we drop down under the hysteria, it is easier to have a realistic conversation. It seems many people think concern about global warming means slapping huge binders of economy and technology and they react to that (see H2), instead of to what people are actually talking about.

There was a long thread recently, where I was outlining some ideas, market and community based initiatives, that would help us start down the path of creating new markets for new technologies and processes that would be more environmentally friendly.

The idea was to reduce human effect over time, by exerting economic influences. My argument is that markets don’t shift to new realities well, and then what we do get if things go naturally is a rapid change which then is difficult for the population to adapt to. There is a big loss of jobs, retraining is needed, and so forth. Just as animals need time to adapt to environment changes we need time to adapt to market and career shifts.

I’m a bit lazy to rehash everything, but rest assured it was all about creating new markets, stimulating consumer demand for new or alternate products, giving us choices and making those choices easier to make.

Oh yeah, I thought the debunker debunking was a landmark. It is a very clear example of information being manipulated and misused, to help alert everyone to be careful about exactly what they are told and what the data actually represents.

If someone was fooled by the misused statements, and recognizes it in themselves (not suggesting you), then this could be an eye opener, to the entire political process. So, that’s really the reason for the thread in the first place. Hopefully somebody somewhere is out there saying “yeah, shit, I never noticed that before, but I recall hearing this used in arguments”.

47

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Good strawman Prof! Equating understanding and accepting the fact that the world changes as ‘not stuggling’ WITH attempting to adapt to those changes. Beautiful!

Strawman? We either fight to survive or we die. Doing nothing is not adapting. It is simply doing nothing. In the example I gave, our adaptation is to cut back on antibiotics given and possibly even find new ways to treat disease. If we apply your logic on the environment, adaptation would simply be waiting until no antibiotics work and waiting for several million people to die off. It isn’t a strawman to relate two scenarios to show you how off your thinking is.

Look, life is an adventure, a battle. We revel in it. If somehow we could attain nervana, with no more battles or obstacles to overcome, we’d die. Look at what you went through to become a doctor. Isn’t what you did like a great work of art?

However, you’re writing is not. We fight to survive from the moment we take our first breath. My position is we should be fighting to keep this world habitable as well.

I’ve seen people who finally succeed become worthless. A professor at university, for ex, had finally reached tenure — took all the fire out of him. He went from being a great teacher to an apathetic cumwad. Happens all the time.

Complacency kills. Isn’t that what you want to do on this issue, however?

Global warming is just another challenge for us. Do we adapt and overcome, or sit in the muck and die? If we choose the latter, then good riddance.

To overcome this issue will require conscious efforts to fight our own destruction of the world we live on. THAT would be adaptation.
[/quote]

My writing too complicated for you, Prof? I stated that change is going to occur, whether manmade or not. Recognizing that is not ‘doing nothing’, it is recognition of a fact. It then becomes our struggle to adapt to the change, or die.

HH

48

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
My original proposition was to ask if the sun’s radiation has any effect in possible global warming. Has the sun gotten any brighter?
[/quote]

There are some Russian physicists who have bet $10K on this idea:

49

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I stated that change is going to occur, whether manmade or not.[/quote]

Let’s see if you can get your pointy little head around a key concept H2.

There are two types of change in your statement. Man made change and natural change. One can happen very quickly, the other is relatively slow…

The rate of change is significant when discussing issues like adaptation…

50

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
lothario1132 wrote:
My original proposition was to ask if the sun’s radiation has any effect in possible global warming. Has the sun gotten any brighter?

There are some Russian physicists who have bet $10K on this idea:

Interesting link BB, thanks.

51

Here is some current news that might help quell arguments against building more nuclear power generating facilities.

This would be a great help with respect to the problem of global warming via greenhouse gases.

Cool Solution to Waste Disposal

[i]
Professor Claus Rolfs, leader of the group at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, said “The method we are proposing means that nuclear waste could probably be dealt with entirely within the lifetimes of the people that produce it. We would not have to put it underground and let our great-great-grandchildren pay the price for our high standard of living.”

The technique involves embedding the nuclear waste in a metal and cooling it to ultra-low temperatures. This speeds up the rate of decay of the radioactive materials potentially cutting their half lives by a factor of 100 or more.

Professor Rolfs added “We are currently investigating radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel with a half-life of 1600 years. I calculate that using this technique could reduce the half-life to 100 years. At best, I have calculated that it could be reduced to as little as two years. This would avoid the need to bury nuclear waste in deep repositories - a hugely expensive and difficult process.”

…

According to Rolfs, the lower temperature of the metal means that free electrons can get closer to the radioactive nuclei. These electrons accelerate positively charged particles towards the nuclei, thereby increasing the probability of fusion reactions, or in the opposite case, accelerate particles that are being ejected from the nucleus.

“We are working on testing the hypothesis with a number of radioactive nuclei at the moment and early results are promising”, he said. “It is early days, and much engineering research will need to be done to put this idea into practise, but I don’t think there will be any insurmountable technical barriers.”
[/i]
Heck, I’m for the creation of nuclear power generation facilities anyway, but if something like pans out, it becomes a no brainer. I hope policy makers and environmental extremists are paying attention. Combine this with failsafe nuclear technology and we’re set.

52

[quote]vroom wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
I stated that change is going to occur, whether manmade or not.

Let’s see if you can get your pointy little head around a key concept H2.

There are two types of change in your statement. Man made change and natural change. One can happen very quickly, the other is relatively slow…

The rate of change is significant when discussing issues like adaptation…

[/quote]

Why? Do you think so little of us that we can’t adapt to this, given that we now also have a lot more means at our disposal to use?

I know you probably couldn’t adapt and overcome. Is that why you’re afraid? Don’t be; there’ll be men around to protect you and look out for your welfare. That’s why your kind promotes altruism, so some of the strong who believe such stupidity will continually come to your rescue, in your hopeless ineptitude.

HH

53

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
vroom wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
I stated that change is going to occur, whether manmade or not.

Let’s see if you can get your pointy little head around a key concept H2.

There are two types of change in your statement. Man made change and natural change. One can happen very quickly, the other is relatively slow…

The rate of change is significant when discussing issues like adaptation…

Why? Do you think so little of us that we can’t adapt to this, given that we now also have a lot more means at our disposal to use?

I know you probably couldn’t adapt and overcome. Is that why you’re afraid? Don’t be; there’ll be men around to protect you and look out for your welfare. That’s why your kind promotes altruism, so some of the strong who believe such stupidity will continually come to your rescue, in your hopeless ineptitude.

HH

[/quote]

This makes no sense. Humans don’t just “adapt”. We fight for it. If it rains, we don’t wait until we can breath under water. We build a damn house. If we need to get somewhere fast, we don’t keep focusing on horse drawn carriages. Eventually, we design a car. What is being said to you, that you seem to be trying real hard to NOT understand, is that we can adapt to damage we may eventually cause ourselves by realzing there is a problem and doing something about it…not waiting until we somehow magically adapt without the effort.

54

[quote]vroom wrote:
Here is some current news that might help quell arguments against building more nuclear power generating facilities.

This would be a great help with respect to the problem of global warming via greenhouse gases.

Cool Solution to Waste Disposal

[i]
Professor Claus Rolfs, leader of the group at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, said “The method we are proposing means that nuclear waste could probably be dealt with entirely within the lifetimes of the people that produce it. We would not have to put it underground and let our great-great-grandchildren pay the price for our high standard of living.”

The technique involves embedding the nuclear waste in a metal and cooling it to ultra-low temperatures. This speeds up the rate of decay of the radioactive materials potentially cutting their half lives by a factor of 100 or more.

Professor Rolfs added “We are currently investigating radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel with a half-life of 1600 years. I calculate that using this technique could reduce the half-life to 100 years. At best, I have calculated that it could be reduced to as little as two years. This would avoid the need to bury nuclear waste in deep repositories - a hugely expensive and difficult process.”

…

According to Rolfs, the lower temperature of the metal means that free electrons can get closer to the radioactive nuclei. These electrons accelerate positively charged particles towards the nuclei, thereby increasing the probability of fusion reactions, or in the opposite case, accelerate particles that are being ejected from the nucleus.

“We are working on testing the hypothesis with a number of radioactive nuclei at the moment and early results are promising”, he said. “It is early days, and much engineering research will need to be done to put this idea into practise, but I don’t think there will be any insurmountable technical barriers.”
[/i]
Heck, I’m for the creation of nuclear power generation facilities anyway, but if something like pans out, it becomes a no brainer. I hope policy makers and environmental extremists are paying attention. Combine this with failsafe nuclear technology and we’re set.[/quote]

Unnecessary. If nuclear fuel was used properly (which Jimmy Carter forbade) and the waste was buried in concrete bunkers under Yucca Mtn, there’d truly be no problem.

http://www.jamesphogan.com/heretics/nuclearoption/

55

[quote]vroom wrote:
Here is some current news that might help quell arguments against building more nuclear power generating facilities.

This would be a great help with respect to the problem of global warming via greenhouse gases.

Cool Solution to Waste Disposal

[i]
Professor Claus Rolfs, leader of the group at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, said “The method we are proposing means that nuclear waste could probably be dealt with entirely within the lifetimes of the people that produce it. We would not have to put it underground and let our great-great-grandchildren pay the price for our high standard of living.”

The technique involves embedding the nuclear waste in a metal and cooling it to ultra-low temperatures. This speeds up the rate of decay of the radioactive materials potentially cutting their half lives by a factor of 100 or more.

Professor Rolfs added “We are currently investigating radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel with a half-life of 1600 years. I calculate that using this technique could reduce the half-life to 100 years. At best, I have calculated that it could be reduced to as little as two years. This would avoid the need to bury nuclear waste in deep repositories - a hugely expensive and difficult process.”

…

According to Rolfs, the lower temperature of the metal means that free electrons can get closer to the radioactive nuclei. These electrons accelerate positively charged particles towards the nuclei, thereby increasing the probability of fusion reactions, or in the opposite case, accelerate particles that are being ejected from the nucleus.

“We are working on testing the hypothesis with a number of radioactive nuclei at the moment and early results are promising”, he said. “It is early days, and much engineering research will need to be done to put this idea into practise, but I don’t think there will be any insurmountable technical barriers.”
[/i]
Heck, I’m for the creation of nuclear power generation facilities anyway, but if something like pans out, it becomes a no brainer. I hope policy makers and environmental extremists are paying attention. Combine this with failsafe nuclear technology and we’re set.[/quote]

Cool stuff.

56

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Why? Do you think so little of us that we can’t adapt to this, given that we now also have a lot more means at our disposal to use?

I know you probably couldn’t adapt and overcome. Is that why you’re afraid? Don’t be; there’ll be men around to protect you and look out for your welfare. That’s why your kind promotes altruism, so some of the strong who believe such stupidity will continually come to your rescue, in your hopeless ineptitude.[/quote]

I honestly understand your viewpoint as I’ve held it myself. Life is harsh and in a sense we are totally insignificant and it makes no difference to the universe whether we live or die.

Snide petty insults aside, you sound somewhat like a sociopath. Fuck everybody but me, and it goes well with your incessant quoting of Rand.

If you honestly don’t mind letting millions of people starve and die, having tons of species wiped off the planet because we were in too much of a hurry to slow down the rate of change then that speaks to your character, not anyone elses.

It sounds like you woundn’t care if a large meteor hit tomorrow. After all, it’s just a change. True, in one sense. However, devastating to life as we know it on the planet.

Howabout you chuck off the cartoon responses and think about what the issues will cause to millions of people. Be one of those men you speak of that will be there to help those who will be affected by rapid changes and don’t be afraid to apply the brakes just a little.

You can still be a man and have concern for the well being of humanity. In fact, I’d say it would make you more of a man than you are now.

57

[quote]vroom wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Why? Do you think so little of us that we can’t adapt to this, given that we now also have a lot more means at our disposal to use?

I know you probably couldn’t adapt and overcome. Is that why you’re afraid? Don’t be; there’ll be men around to protect you and look out for your welfare. That’s why your kind promotes altruism, so some of the strong who believe such stupidity will continually come to your rescue, in your hopeless ineptitude.

I honestly understand your viewpoint as I’ve held it myself. Life is harsh and in a sense we are totally insignificant and it makes no difference to the universe whether we live or die.

Snide petty insults aside, you sound somewhat like a sociopath. Fuck everybody but me, and it goes well with your incessant quoting of Rand.

If you honestly don’t mind letting millions of people starve and die, having tons of species wiped off the planet because we were in too much of a hurry to slow down the rate of change then that speaks to your character, not anyone elses.

It sounds like you woundn’t care if a large meteor hit tomorrow. After all, it’s just a change. True, in one sense. However, devastating to life as we know it on the planet.

Howabout you chuck off the cartoon responses and think about what the issues will cause to millions of people. Be one of those men you speak of that will be there to help those who will be affected by rapid changes and don’t be afraid to apply the brakes just a little.

You can still be a man and have concern for the well being of humanity. In fact, I’d say it would make you more of a man than you are now.[/quote]

Look, before I can help others (if I so desire), I’d have to be NOT in need of help myself. If I am in need, do I sit around and wait for someone to help me, or do I get off my ass and help myself? Logically, therefore, I must help myself before I help others, OR I WON’T BE ABLE TO HELP THEM.

So, either way, egoistically or altruistically, I must help myself first or I’m no damn good to ANYONE, myself included.

As to the ‘rate of change’: so what if its happening faster than in the past? If it is, good. I’d rather kayak on a wild mountain river any day, compared to some placid stream. (You do get the analogy, I hope?)

HH

58

[quote]Professor X wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Who has ever said that the Earth gives a shit? However, I am pretty sure your future ancestors might if it turns out we could have prevented further damage by simply acknowledging that we do have an impact on our environment. Since when before recently in human history have we populated the planet to this degree and increased air pollution in some cities to hazardous levels?

What the hell is a “future ancestor”?

The arrogance lies in thinking that man can affect the earth’s balance.

Now we can clean up the streams, treat our sewage, and pick up the trash - but none of that has any affect on the earth. I’m not against doing those things we need to do to make our respective parts of the world look pretty and noce - but there is dick you can do to have any real affect on the earth. Except maybe quit letting all these old people live so long.

Is my keyboard not typing in English? The flying rock in space will no doubt keep floating throughout eternity unless the sun explodes like in the beginning of Superman. However, OUR ability to continue to live on the fucking thing has a great potential to be royally screwed the fuck up by our own pollution and pestulence. The phrase “your future ancestors” refers to any “great to the 15th power” grandchildren you may have roaming the planet hundreds of years from now who will be cooking or freezing to death based on the very real possibility that the planet could become uninhabitable. If that future could be extended or avoided simply by us paying attention to our own fecal waste and where we drop it, only a fool would believe we can have no devestating effect on our own future.

get it?

The flying rock in space? It keeps turning.

The people who used to live on the rock? They be dead. Long fucking dead. They BE dead because dumbasses kept shitting where they sleep all while bragging to the skies above, “there is no way we can screw up the planet”.[/quote]

Quoted for truth.

Go see “An Inconvinient Truth”. Al Gore was a shitty speaker, but he’s dedicated his life to this shit.

59

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
…

Go see “An Inconvinient Truth”. Al Gore was a shitty speaker, but he’s dedicated his life to this shit.

[/quote]

He has pinned his political career on this issue but he has not dedicated his life to it.

His actions produce far more carbon dioxide than twenty average people combined.

Don’t be taken in by his propaganda.

60

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Look, before I can help others (if I so desire), I’d have to be NOT in need of help myself. If I am in need, do I sit around and wait for someone to help me, or do I get off my ass and help myself? Logically, therefore, I must help myself before I help others, OR I WON’T BE ABLE TO HELP THEM.[/quote]

Where do you get this self-serving bullshit? I can’t imagine you even believe any of the shit you are spewing yourself.

You miss the point, perhaps because you only think of yourself apparently. When we quickly fuck up agriculture and knock species out of the food chain, then we’re setting up large chunks of people for trouble.

Perhaps you are such a sociopath that you don’t care at all, after all, like is tough isn’t it? Too bad, so sad. Let those that aren’t me suffer and die, that’s nature after all.

Like I said, I understand your viewpoint, but I don’t agree with it. The problem is that it isn’t nature anymore if we are the ones that are accelerating change. While the cause and effect are harder to delineate, it is there.

The faster the change the more hardship is involved in adaptation. The fact that you are relatively well insulated from hardship and that’s all you care about simply reflects your lack of character.