I don't know that I agree with this one.

[milotrain]

It's easy to sling stones at people who we disagree with and who are politicians. Their's is not an easy job, and many of them are good people trying to do good while satisfying the constituencies desires. I don't think there is anyone who doesn't hope for change, nor do I think the push towards more sustainable systems of power generation is bad. Organic farming is fought with problems but it's a step in the right direction. Ideally you'd eat stuff you grew in your backyard but most of us don't have that kind of time.

Everything is a balance, no one has a monopoly on the truth (weather convenient or inconvenient).

full disclosure: I worked on Capitol Hill briefly, as did my sister. Many of the people I encountered were hard working people who were trying to make things better and that rarely translated to those who got good press for it (democrat, republican, independent or green).

 

[Rickard]

Please Allow me to apologize in advance for being a boorish - uncivilized - Crass and Rude American (Texan). you'll get my BIG BLOCK 502 CID V8 and 2 stroke Kawasaki right after you "pry the GUN from MY COLD DEAD HAND"! Electric cars and the tech involved is KOOL as anything, but you ain't gong to force me to switch. Global Warming, and OZONE is all Part of a communist plot to remove our freedom. all this Global Warming is brought to you by the same People that brought you Metric! I'm 100 times more "Eco Friendly" by using my 50 - 100 year old SEA Tools and my 45 year old truck, than buying all new "Metric" stuff. ( requiring a ton of energy to manufacture)

 

[Maryak]

Everything is a balance, no one has a monopoly on the truth (weather convenient or inconvenient).

I wish it was.

One of my problems is that human history is littered with the carcasses of the majority of scientific opinion is X and it has been the nay saying minority of Y who have pulled humanities chestnuts out of the fire.

IMHO climate change has been hijacked. Currently there is no rational debate and hence no rational action. A somewhat self serving grab for additional tax dollars by some countries whilst others continue to destroy forests and remove the planets lungs.

If it is a problem, it's a GLOBAL problem; and successful resolution is only possible on a global basis. This probably one of the more inconvenient truths.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[Ken I]

The world is facing hundreds of problems CO2 is just simply not one of them.

No one has a monopoly on the truth and I would be the first to admit I could be wrong on this one
but....

Have you ever seen a warmist admit they might be wrong ?

All conjecture is presented as fact.

Ken

 

[milotrain]

I believe that global warming is indeed happening. I am quiet possibly wrong.

I do not believe that global warming is happening because I'm driving a 30+ year old car. I do not believe that if I buy a prius I will fix global warming. I do believe that if we all worked towards being more conscious to avoid "industrialized solutions" (agriculture, food, toys, throw away technology) that we would be doing a good thing for the environment. I don't think that will necessarily "fix" global warming, in fact I am not sure that fix is the right word. The planet goes through swings, we may be aggravating those swings to our own detriment, we may or may not be able to do anything positive.

I recall a story:

Little boy is walking through the woods when he comes across a small pond where he finds a pretty but dead fish. Little boy is sad and reaches in to pick up the fish and bury it. He notices upon touching the water that it is very cold and comes to the common sense conclusion that the fish died of being cold. So he goes home and boils up a kettle of water, runs out to the pond and dumps it in. Of course he finds that the water in the pond isn't perceptibly warmer. So he spends the next month designing a slow pumping system with a boiler unit over a fire he builds next to the pond (sound like anyone we know?) and slowly heats up the pond to a nice warm comfortable level. This kills all the fish.

We have no clue what we are doing, and the media shills for whoever pays them. Scientists may be impartial but not all of them are good at what they do, and certainly not all of them are right. Many people disagree on what is happening, if what is happening is "bad", and if we can do anything about it. But this is the same as the constant human problem of not killing each other all the time. None of us know how to fix it, but we can just be nicer, we can try harder to be understanding, clear and cordial (which we do a great job of on this board but it's not an honest reflection of life unfortunately). So that's all I can think of doing with the environment. Just be nicer, do it better, in whatever way that seems to resonate with you and maybe we'll come out the other side.

 

[Ken I]

Milotrain, like you I accept the world is warming - (although currently cooling) - and if geological history is anything to go by it may get appreciably warmer - we are after all merely in a warm interglacial of the Neocene icehouse.

I just don't believe man has anything to do with it and we have no possible mechanisms to do anything about it.

CO2 is not the magical "Global Thermostat" it is claimed to be (well maybe 0.2°C if we go back to the stone age).

The problem with the AGW belief system is that by opposing it I am obviously anti-environment etc. etc.

I'm not - I live here.

But I know shoddy science when I see it.

With the Naural (organic) Carbon cycle accounting for 196 billion tonnes - man's input of 8 Billion tons - while significant is unlikely to be earth shattering.
Recent sub-sea surveys now place volcanic CO2 at 5-50 times mans figures - the error of the estimate is almost an order of magnitude larger than man's contribution. Mt. Pinatubo put more CO2 into the air in one year than man has since the Industrial Revolution.
To then claim we know enough to be suggesting current policies is simply bad science.

I used to be a "believer" but once I started down the science I rapidly became skeptical - I have spent hundreds of hours on this subject and my own personal notes on this now tops 150 pages.

Man has a lot to answer for and we all need to play a part - but I'm not buying into the CO2 hoax any longer.

As Lord Keynes once famously said "When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do, sir ?"

I changed mine.

Ken

 

[milotrain]

Perhaps i should clarify. I don't believe I have near enough data to apply blame to a single or group of man's actions as effecting a specific nature of the natural environment. However I do absolutely believe that man's actions have damaged the natural environment of this planet. Our damage may not be that big of a deal, I mean in the grand scheme of things if we die off the planet will just keep going in whatever way the natural system develops regardless of whatever we did. It's like overpopulation of goats on the Galapagos. It's a problem, goats never existed there until sailors put them there and they are destroying what was there before, but that doesn't mean that the destruction isn't natural. It is natural, it's a function of the system of nature including man's effects. Nothing inherently wrong with that. But if we want to preserve something (which we do because as humans we are universally afraid of change) then we have to be conscious of our actions as accelerating change or retarding change. In total honesty I think that whatever we do accelerates change (law of entropy), some change is just more obvious.

For example, the 8 billion tons of CO2 we accelerated into the natural system (we didn't create it, the atoms were always there, we just moved it) is the less obvious change. The more obvious change is the massive deforestation of the planet which makes the planet less able to deal with CO2. Again, I'm not saying CO2 = global warming, or that CO2 = bad, I'm just saying that in a microcosm we accelerated a natural system. I happen to like forests, but I also happen to like furniture, paper, food, and the other things we get from cutting down trees. I'm not naive enough to think that we can have it all, but it should be worth our time to preserve some of the more beautiful things that are less touched by man. We need the reference, and we need the wildness of those systems.

I grew up next to a forest that doesn't exist anymore. Now it's housing. This small system had a negligible effect on the global scale but it made me sad. However now there are around 10 houses in that area making 10 families feel a sense of home in a beautiful part of the world. For this reason I'm perfectly aware that my feeling of "maintaining nature" is a personal, and even perhaps selfish satisfaction. But this is why I think we have to address "global natural destruction at the hands of man" in a personal and not global way. We can't calculate the global effects, we can't even predict the damn weather. So we just do the best we can and try not to be selfish.

If that means you want to drive a Prius I can't fault you for that, I can say that it would seem to some engineers that dirt to dirt a Prius isn't any better for the environment (and might be worse) than a similar small car. But I can't calculate the general push to more efficient systems that will make tomorrow better, nor can I calculate the general push towards selling something that people think they should want but doesn't actually do anything good. I can only say that I'll drive my cars into the ground and try to keep them as efficient as possible in the process, because I think that's better for the environment.

 

[Maryak]

Australia's proposed carbon tax has been mooted at $26/tonne with the stated aim of reducing our CO2 emissions by 20%.

The latest info I have been able to find is that CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 365ppm to 383ppm over the 10 years 1998-2008. That's 1.8ppm per year.

Man is reported as emitting 29,321,302,000 tonnes of CO2 per year in 2008 of which Australia emits 437,045,000 or 1.49%.

The revenue raised by our proposed carbon tax assuming no exemptions is most likely around $11,363,170,000 in its' 1st year.

Assuming it achieves the aim of a 20% reduction in Australia's emissions we will have reduced mans output of CO2 by 87,409,000 tonnes or 0.3%. Put another way we will have reduced the increase in CO2 emissions by 0.0054ppm in a year.

Australia has a population of some 21,000,000 so every man, woman and child will have to find an extra $541 in the 1st year

IMHO the effects on our economy will be devastating as energy companies and businesses either recover the impost or close down and move elsewhere. The only people in the food chain who do not have the above options are the Australian Taxpayers.

Worse of all it's done virtually nothing for the environment.

Looking at the above...............it's SCARY..................I can't say:

Best Regards
Bob

I can only say :'( :'( :'(

 

[mu38&Bg#]

Here are more on the same theme.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKg-LPOXIMs[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ez8vWcjUhQ[/ame]

I've thought about building something even less practical than the gasoline powered blenders out there using a model airplane engine.

 

[Ken I]

Taurus excreta cerebrum vincit !

 

[steamer]

Taurus excreta cerebrum vincit !

Rof} Rof} Rof}

 

[Maryak]

Taurus excreta cerebrum vincit !

And will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. ;D

Bob

 

[Dan Rowe]

Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. *beer*

Dan

 

[tel]

I wish I had one in mine! ;D

 

[steamer]

ehhhh? What's that you say? ;D

 

[Ken I]

Dan, another latin phrase I'll have to remember for future use.