Mod+ 234. GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE AND OUR ILLUSION OF CONTROL

Global warming/global cooling.. all these projections, and humans are still unable to predict next weeks weather with more than 50% accuracy.
There is already environmental damage. People can die from excess heat or extreme cold (altho it easier to warm up a body than cool it down)
There always has been - the trick is to claim it is all about global warming. I mean the story I read about the fires in California, is that the fires are raging now because the brushwood (dead trees and branches) isn't being cleared. This makes these fires far more likely to happen.

Something similar happened here. People stopped clearing out the drains and other water courses, so when it rains, we get flooding, which is blamed on CC!
Arguing about what will most likely kill us is both denial and alarmist. Let's hope one of us is wrong.

From my perspective, the best things to do for the environment are the obvious things:

We should try to persuade people in some way or other to reduce the population increase.

We don't want plastic in the oceans, so we should reduce its use if possible, but also burn waste plastic for energy because mixed, used plastic is practically useless.

We should definitely and completely stop the destruction of the rain forests.

We should try to reduce food waste as far as possible.

I am sure you can think of lots more ideas, and none of them rely on speculative science to justify them.

Those things are expensive, and we are only paying lip-service to them if we go on with the ludicrously expansive decarbonising policy.

One plausible reason why politicians like CAGW, is that it requires lots of new taxes, lots of lucrative contracts with firms that will actually set up the necessary infrastructure, and if it doesn't work well, they can just say they are doing their best to escape big, bad coal/oil/gas!

David
 
Global warming, or cooling, cannot be taken out of the equation. One can point at isolated possible causes but the trick is not to thereby deny others. All is interlinked. There are many and diverse reasons contributing; the divisiveness of separating into denial or alarm/you vs me/this vs that, leads to stasis and endless trivial contention. Possibly disequilibrium means we will have both pocket-y and unpredictable extremes of both. Gaia is trying to stabilise. Also 'be afraid' is a human default tendency.
I mean the story I read about the fires in California, is that the fires are raging now because the brushwood (dead trees and branches) isn't being cleared.
Yes, not collecting deadwood, as would have happened if we still lived in the old ways, having a real fire to feed and not switching to only electric heatpumps for eg. One thing we don't know much about is the unknown, what combinations and outcomes may be. Hindsight is so cool, but there are cultures that still practice the old way and don't need to know why, it just works. We have lost our connection to intuition, and the way we live is the expensive anomaly on earth.
We should try to persuade people in some way or other to reduce the population increase.
This is from fear-mongering, akin to LoneShaman's elites-threat. For eg where you are in UK is very crowded, so your perception is totally context dependent; and it's the UK Royal family dropping that little comment here and there. Fear not, there is a lot of uninhabited land available, but not if we conceive of its use as possible only with heavy dependency on fossil-fuel technology. It is oil-dependency, uneven distribution of wealth, inefficiency and lack of using our imagination that's the real problem. It's relevant that we 'people of consumption' in the developed countries think we should be able to go on sucking lots of energy and raw materials to maintain an unrealistic 'perpetual party'. We have to practice frugality, getting used to having less, in all areas. I like all your ideas, any many are already being tried, and work.
One plausible reason why politicians like CAGW, is that it requires lots of new taxes, lots of lucrative contracts with firms
Yes, I despise the human trait (or is it cultural?) for the greed and hypocrisy of this self-centered materialist world.
 
Global warming, or cooling, cannot be taken out of the equation. One can point at isolated possible causes but the trick is not to thereby deny others. All is interlinked. There are many and diverse reasons contributing; the divisiveness of separating into denial or alarm/you vs me/this vs that, leads to stasis and endless trivial contention. Possibly disequilibrium means we will have both pocket-y and unpredictable extremes of both. Gaia is trying to stabilise. Also 'be afraid' is a human default tendency.
The problem is, there are no equations that tell you the effect of all those factors. Our ancestors didn't live by some equation, they just took wood and burned it very inefficiently to keep warm and cook. There are simply too many of us now to do that.

When you start to think about past times, the waste was incredible. Not just fires that wasted most of the fuel that was put on them, but food that spoiled before it could be eaten etc etc. We should not idolise the way we lived back then.
Yes, not collecting deadwood, as would have happened if we still lived in the old ways, having a real fire to feed and not switching to only electric heatpumps for eg.
As I understand it, the Greens decided collecting deadwood was not green - so it stopped happening.
One thing we don't know much about is the unknown, what combinations and outcomes may be. Hindsight is so cool, but there are cultures that still practice the old way and don't need to know why, it just works. We have lost our connection to intuition, and the way we live is the expensive anomaly on earth.
Yes, hindsight is cool, and I think when we end up struggling with no power in winter, that phrase, "If only..." will be heard an awful lot. We haven't got many forests here in Britain, and I can imagine what we have will be raided for wood (not deadwood) by people who are too cold to care about breaking the law. The mess will be the result of naive Green thinking - sorry.
Yes, I despise the human trait (or is it cultural?) for the greed and hypocrisy of this self-centered materialist world.
So do I, but despising the hypocrisy isn't enough. People can be motivated to do awful things while having the bast of motives.

As a general rule of thumb, I would say that politicians are generally self-centred, and when they become excited by Green ideas, prepare for the worst.

David
 
A brief history of fossil-fuelled climate denial

The fossil fuel industry has spent many millions of dollars on confusing the public about climate change. But the role of vested interests in climate science denial is only half the picture.

Interest in this topic has spiked with the latest revelation regarding coalmining company Peabody Energy. After Peabody filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, documentation became available revealing the scope of Peabody’s funding to third parties. The list of funding recipients includes trade associations, lobby groups and climate-contrarian scientists.

This latest revelation is significant because in recent years, fossil fuel companies have become more careful to cover their tracks. An analysis by Robert Brulle found that from 2003 to 2010, organisations promoting climate misinformation received more than US$900 million of corporate funding per year.

Worth a read, and the embedded videos are well worth a watch.

Beware the vested interests... all is not as it seems when it comes to "climate skepticism".
 
Here's a little extreme weather and falsification update. The GSM may be giving us a taste. What did those 9/10ths of scientists tell us about warming winters and melting glaciers and disappearing arctic ice and kids growing up without snow and deteriorating ski industry? :)

Hell, I might guy for a ski trip, in summer no less!

AUSTRALIA JUST SUFFERED ITS COLDEST SUMMER DAY ON RECORD — MAINSTREAM MEDIA SILENT

Australia’s record lowest Summer daily-max temperature has just been broken, as reported by www.weatherzone.com.au.

Oh, but I'm the one cherry-picking...

Contrast the above against the worst bushfire season ever recorded in NSW and QLD (with diabolical fires ongoing), and in WA...

Deadly heatwave warning for Perth on the eve of first Test between Australia and New Zealand
 
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You MUST have known about all of this as an Australian, LoneShaman, but chose to omit it. For shame.

Ironic how you cherry picked just that one out of the many I have posted don't you think?

Ever heard about Black Thursday? 1851?

Basically it depends on your start date when you evaluate these things. That is how you deceive people. So yeah it is definitely cherry picking. All you have to do is look at the history and you'll see that these things are not new at all. Especially for Australia, the sun burnt country. Yeah it was called that long before this fad.

"...of droughts and flooding plains", I'm sure you recognize that being an ozzy right?

Twenty years ago, I left Brisbane on a 40 degree day, boxing day. I arrived in Tasmania and got off the plane that was 11 degrees even on the tarmac, in my shorts and t-shirt. Lol. Too cold for my subtropical conditioning! It's called weather. Not quite the same as a global climate system. Had a 39 degree day here recently, the next day it was 29. Absolutely nothing new in my 50 years here, exactly the same as it was when I was a kid, actually even hotter at some times. Nothing new.

The big problem for AGW is that nature is not co-operating. Snow was supposed to be a thing of the past, Manhattan underwater, the arctic ice should have completely melted away several times by now. Greenland glaciers should have receded. And likewise having record cold in an Australian summer should not be. A Bush fire was raging East of Canberra not too long ago, but just a little further south it was snowing.

Yeah, AGW is all about cherry picking, All the while ignoring what is happening all over the world. Things were even far more dramatic in the recent past when AGW can't be blamed, all depending on where and when you look, the only difference now is that absolutely everything is blamed on climate change, everything! Despite the freezing cold in the Northern hemisphere.

Yeah talk about cherry picking, that is the what the science of AGW is all about.
 
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There are simply too many of us now to do that.
Until there's a crisis, whether natural or human-made, when we have no choice, and possibly wish we'd prepared. Denial of human influence, confusion over cause, and slavish reliance on 'the authorities' to 'do something' encourages a 'head in the sand' attitude..until there's a crisis.
We should not idolise the way we lived back then.
I don't idolise hardship, but I do believe in recognising how close we are to it.
The mess will be the result of naive Green thinking
'The mess' will be because of ignorant dependency on fossil-fuel technology.
Sure, it's political, manipulated and contentious, but 'blaming the greens'..ho hum
 
Naomi Seibt and Her Journey to Climate Realism
Yay the pro-fossils have a poster-girl too! Not forgetting that the Germans have a deeply-entrenched cultural guilt-complex, which she now appears to be channeling into a backlash against 'feeling bad', although she is clearly speaking from a comfy middle-class upbringing based on oil.

No one's objecting to human achievements in technology, but I hope she remembers to commend German success in alternative energy projects, and continues to prefer paper bags to plastic.

How smooth and wealthy the Heartland Institute looks.
 
Geez, the fact Maurice Strong and the Oil elitists started this nonsense is completely lost on you.

When you are both proponent and opponent how can you possibly lose?
What else has this thread been about but an issue with whether CO2 is a pollutant? And should be attended to. You have complicated that for me with an alarming perspective on the possible interests big oil-elites have in it. But James Corbett has indicated in his 'How Big Oil Conquered the World' that replacement of oil as a principle energy source with the many and diverse alternatives would de-centralise power, back to the people.
Do you have an issue with that?

Maurice Strong did not start this, they have merely jumped on the wagon for their own opportunist reasons.

[edit:] And I would hate to see an arranged 'cat-fight'. How very 'scientific' yet entertaining? No manipulation here at all.
 
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What else has this thread been about but an issue with whether CO2 is a pollutant? And should be attended to. You have complicated that for me with an alarming perspective on the possible interests big oil-elites have in it. But James Corbett has indicated in his 'How Big Oil Conquered the World' that replacement of oil as a principle energy source with the many and diverse alternatives would de-centralise power, back to the people.
Do you have an issue with that?

That is definitely not the conclusion he makes.

The 20th century was the century of oil. From farm to fork, factory to freeway, there is no aspect of our modern life that has not been shaped by the oil industry. But as the "post-carbon" era of the 21st century comes into view, there are those who see this as the end of the oiligarchy. They couldn't be more wrong. This is the remarkable true story of the world that Big Oil is creating, and how they plan to bring it about.

Agenda 2021 or Agenda 2030 definitely does not give power back, it further centralizes it, into every aspect of life far beyond what we already have to suffer with.

Maurice Strong did not start this, they have merely jumped on the wagon for their own opportunist reasons.

And I would hate to see an arranged 'cat-fight'. How very 'scientific' yet entertaining?

Technically Maurice strong did not start it, that began well before with "The club of Rome" in a more broader environmental "problem". He started what is at the head of this monstrosity that is the IPCC.

It's strategically brilliant, to be both opponent and proponent. It is also not new at all.

Yes, there is nothing scientific about this aspect at all, yet it is the very heart of it. That is the problem.
 
That is definitely not the conclusion he makes.
He says it about both easily distilled ethanol for cars and alternative 'home-made' medicine in stead of petroleum-based mainstream drugs.

James: "But as the "post-carbon" era of the 21st century comes into view, there are those who see this as the end of the oiligarchy. They couldn't be more wrong."
Of course Big Oil doesn't want a post-carbon/alternative energy era. And they will use any tactics, fight with diamond-tipped claws and gold-plugged teeth, to prevent it.
Technically Maurice strong did not start it
Thank you. But I believe it 'began' with the Jesuits in middle-age Vienna.
That is the problem.
The 'problem' is our shallow culture and well-groomed apathy. What else does one do with only 3, 4 or 5yr periodic voting opportunity, but protest?

It's strategically brilliant, to be both opponent and proponent. It is also not new at all.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Am I doing whatever you mean by this, or are you/they?
We are all in this boat together and any institute that propones 'free-market individualism' is not going to be a proponent of 'community people-power'.
I am surprised though, I guess you will be heavily dependent on alternative energy sources once you're out in the back-blocks. Can I ask why you're doing it? Is it to 'escape' from oiligarchal crowd-control? Or because you wish to live a saner, healthy life? Goodonya, but please don't bring it down for the rest of us, bound to the fringes of polluted urban-life.
 
He says it about both easily distilled ethanol for cars and alternative 'home-made' medicine in stead of petroleum-based mainstream drugs.

James: "But as the "post-carbon" era of the 21st century comes into view, there are those who see this as the end of the oiligarchy. They couldn't be more wrong."
Of course Big Oil doesn't want a post-carbon/alternative energy era. And they will use any tactics, fight with diamond-tipped claws and gold-plugged teeth, to prevent it.

I am saying they are playing both sides.

Thank you. But I believe it 'began' with the Jesuits in middle-age Vienna.

Interesting.

The 'problem' is our shallow culture and well-groomed apathy. What else does one do with only 3, 4 or 5yr periodic voting opportunity, but protest?

I am not arguing there about the culture, this is true. I just believe this carbon thing is a non issue, a phantom. It is not supported by any real evidence.

I am a environmentalist at heart. I am all for cleaning up our act. I see this as a distraction to that, and a trap leading to a far worse outcome than what we have already been lead into. There are bigger fish to fry.

If the same fervent fever was directed at real pollution, instead of what is a crucial component for life, we might be onto something. What it boils down to is the control of the flow of energy it will not save the planet because CO2 is not the central control knob for climate.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Am I doing whatever you mean by this, or are you/they?

The institutions of centralized power. People think they are fighting the big oil companies by supporting climate change, as James states. They could not be more wrong. They are both opponent and proponent at the same time. It's a tactic used throughout history. It is not really about oil but energy, they will squeeze every last drop of oil they can (in fact this is escalating as we speak) while setting up a new system culminating in Agenda 2030 for the elitist wet dream of technocratic tyranny. Either way they win.

Except I believe nature will be our saving grace, but she also is indiscriminate and will show no mercy.

I am surprised though, I guess you will be heavily dependent on alternative energy sources once you're out in the back-blocks. Can I ask why you're doing it? Is it to 'escape' from oiligarchal crowd-control? Or because you wish to live a saner, healthy life? Goodonya, but please don't bring it down for the rest of us, bound to the fringes of polluted urban-life.

Definitely a saner and healthier life. Including...

Liberation, challenge, self satisfaction, self empowerment, personal growth, harmony, knowledge and inner peace to name a few.
 
I am saying they are playing both sides.
Like I said, they've jumped, with fake concern, on the alternative energy wagon.
I see this as a distraction to that, and a trap
No doubt it's a trap, but now we know this thanks to your timely warning.
I'm not going to let them divert me from my heartfelt principles.
 
Yet another incredible synchronicity. I responded to Laird about this only just this morning. I swear the universe just serves this up right into my lap.

Hiding Australia's Hot Past
Great! you've proved Australia's hot and always has been. So what was the point you're trying to make here? Surely not cherry-picking a conspiratorial slant so that any concern over current high temperatures, bushfires and lack of water is somehow undermined? Or just to advertise your priveledged place as favoured child of the Universe? What about this actually makes you happy?
 
Great! you've proved Australia's hot and always has been. So what was the point you're trying to make here? Surely not cherry-picking a conspiratorial slant so that any concern over current high temperatures, bushfires and lack of water is somehow undermined? Or just to advertise your priveledged place as favoured child of the Universe? What about this actually makes you happy?

Sheesh Alice, you really don't get it? You got to be kidding me. Try just thinking about it. It's really not that hard.
 
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