A Pragmatic Approach to Climate Change... (Iraq, middle east, weapons, Canada)

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

In order to be proactive, you have to learn more about the process(es) you're concerned about, but there are plenty of "experts" ready to shoot from the hip if it's in their personal interest to do so, and in a couple of cases, they've been caught trying to stack the deck.

It's like the cartoon of a Neanderthal couple -- up to their butts in kids and saying "How can we prevent pregnancy, when we don't know what causes it?"

What are you talking about? They've known what causes global warming and climate change for generations, now. What's lacking in the US (as compared to Europe) is the political will to do something about it. It will be interesting to see what China does about it, after the accord Obama reached with them yesterday.

[Stonepa]

Absolutely. I do find it interesting that so many people look at the possible negative implications (government regulations, tax on carbon) rather than the extremely positive implications (huge business opportunities, job creation, lower cost to act now on mitigation rather than wait for disaster, better health due to lower fossil fuel emissions,etc.). The Chinese are killing us on solar panel production. What if we were focused on policy and could make those panels here in the USA?

I guess too many folks like for problems and stumbling blocks rather than all of the opportunities. Too bad - opportunity (and most likely the types of high paying jobs coming with this new economy) will pass them by. Again. Good thing I'm on the later side.

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

What are you talking about? They've known (?) what causes global warming and climate change for generations, now. What's lacking in the US (as compared to Europe) is the political will to do something about it. It will be interesting to see what China does about it, after the accord Obama reached with them yesterday.

(Emphasis added)

You apparently are convinced that fossilized hydrocarbon consumption alone is responsible for climate change (and therefore, justifies the creation of a global bureaucracy to deal with it). Many of us remain unconvinced, especially when some of the greatest potential beneficiaries are leading the charge.

I first heard about the theories of greenhouse gases and rising ocean levels as a sixth-grader; the year was 1961. On the surface, at least, not too much has changed since then. I acknowledge that record-keeping for comparison purposes is much more accurate, BUT .....

No one has explained to me why, to cite one example, ancient (Biblical era) writings confirm that the Sahara Desert was somewhat wetter and had more vegetation in Caesar's time, but dried up well before the onset of the age of coal,


Or the origins of the "little Ice Age" (1300-1750 CE),

Or why alarmist writings like Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries, which are deliberately aimed at impressionable youngsters (to loud cheers from the "global warming", as opposed to climate change) advocacy, and predicted semi-tropical vegetation in London as early as 2015, are not called to task.

There is legitimate concern, -- and there is hype. But hype is much more likely to generate false prestige and possible bureaucratic salaries for Europhilic academics with resentments of their own, and an axe to grind.

[Stonepa]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

(Emphasis added)

You apparently are convinced that fossilized hydrocarbon consumption alone is responsible for climate change (and therefore, justifies the creation of a global bureaucracy to deal with it. Many of us remain unconvinced, especially when some of the greatest potential beneficiaries are leading the charge.

I first heard about the theories of greenhouse gases and rising ocean levels as a sixth-grader; the year was 1961. On the surface, at least, not too much has changed since then. I acknowledge that record-keeping for comparison purposes is much more accurate, BUT .....

No one has explained to me why, to cite one example, ancient (Biblical era) writings confirm that the Sahara Desert was somewhat wetter and had more vegetation in Caesar's time, but dried up well before the onset of the age of coal,


Or the origins of the "little Ice Age" (1300-1750 CE),

Or why alarmist writings like Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries, which are deliberately aimed at impressionable youngsters (to loud cheers from the "global warming", as opposed to climate change) advocacy, and predicted semi-tropical vegetation in London as early as 2015, are not called to task.

There is legitimate concern, -- and there is hype. But hype is much more likely to generate false prestige and possible bureaucratic salaries for Europhilic academics with resentments of their own, and an axe to grind.

The science is settled and not worth arguing about at a high level. Pretty clear by your response that your focus is on politics rather than science so no response is needed. Doesn't really matter what your opinion is, mother nature doesn't care.

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by Stonepa

The science is settled and not worth arguing about at a high level. Pretty clear by your response that your focus is on politics rather than science so no response is needed. Doesn't really matter what your opinion is, mother nature doesn't care.

It was the "global warming" advocacy who chose to politicize the issue; i'm merely responding (but dismissed solely, and automatically, because I'm not in agreement with a campaign based upon "junk science" and "pop wisdom", and aimed at teenagers).

Originally Posted by Stonepa

I guess too many folks like for problems and stumbling blocks rather than all of the opportunities. Too bad - opportunity (and most likely the types of high paying jobs coming with this new economy) will pass them by. Again. Good thing I'm on the later side.

And while a post-industrial society might be characterized by more "new Jobs", those jobs will often pay less, because they will revolve around personal service which, unlike physical industrial or extractive output, can't be as easily denominated -- nor stored, nor withheld.

[Stonepa]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

It was the "global warming" advocacy who chose to politicize the issue; i'm merely responding (but dismissed solely, and automatically, because I'm not in agreement with a campaign based upon "junk science" and "pop wisdom", and aimed at teenagers).



And while a post-industrial society might be characterized by more "new Jobs", those jobs will often pay less, because they will revolve around personal service which, unlike physical industrial or extractive output, can't be as easily denominated -- nor stored, nor withheld.

The science of human-induced climate change is well understood and, unless someone can disprove the theory, identifies the problem we need to act on. This is not opinion, religion, or politics. It is hard science. If someone can prove that the current theory is wrong then the theory will be thrown out immediately. That is how scientific research works every single day.

Politics is the policy aspect of the solution to the findings of science. That is wide open for different ideas, opinions, ideologies, viewpoints, etc. The political, real world solutions are absolutely the areas we need to be focusing on right now.

The only campaign of junk science comes from the groups that conflate science with politics. These two concepts are not the same thing. Fox News doesn't have a single true scientific journalist on their team.

Education of our young people, who will have to deal with the issues we have caused, is of paramount importance. The politics of the issue, the solutions, will be identified and implemented by our children. Not educating them on the hard science (no different than physics, biology, chemistry, etc) does a distinct disservice to them and makes them uncompetitive on a global scale. Someone is going to have to solve these problems and, whoever it is, will make a lot of money doing it. I would hope that those kids are Americans.

And regarding the jobs, these are not service jobs like McDonalds. These are engineering, information technology, science, architecture, teaching, etc jobs. These are already providing great opportunities to Americans, Chinese, Indians, Germans, etc. There will also be industrial jobs because someone will need to mine and mill the aluminum, lay the carbon fiber, assemble the panels and turbines, and install the facilities. It is just left to who those people will be. Americans or someone else.

Too many Americans are stuck in the old paradigm of hands-on manufacturing as the only 'real' job, or for some reason are stuck believing that someone always has an agenda. This is not a zero sum game. It is a very serious effort that is going to provide solutions to the problem and wealth to those solving it. Those that stick with the old way of thinking will make themselves, and their families, less competitive and less productive in the resulting future economy.

[2nd trick op]

There was a time -- really not that long ago, when even as conservative a publication as National Review was able to acknowledge that the climate was changing (and, it must be emphasized, always has been). I don't think that any person capable of serious thinking takes issue with that point.]The contentiousness intensified precisely because a well-organized advocacy has to link climate change with human activity, and thereby justify a large and powerful environmental bureaucracy. The Establishment, be they "mainstream" increasingly Left-leaning Democrats, or RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) all follow the same strategy of restricting real power to a limited elite, and offering access to the levers of that power more or less exclusively to those invited to their coalition.

Be they for Stein, Johnson or Trump, the numbers of those who perceive themselves as excluded from the Dem-RINO coalition appear to be increasing. And whether Clinton (who seems likely to face pressures that will make what was unleashed against Richard Nixon seem tame) can hold things together for even four years remains to be seen, or whether the election winds up in the House (highly unlikely) the most vocal and self-righteous of the AGW crowd appears to be losing some sway within the "progressive" coalition -- and that loss of favor can be attributed in part to their increasing stridency.

There is, no doubt. a place for further attention to climate concerns within the realm of mainstream statecraft, but it is the continued refusal to acknowledge the loss of "center stage" due to oversimplification, the harassment of supposed "deniers" via the thinly veiled Fascism of Political Correctness, and the emergence of rare and minor, but well-documented fudging of scientific data which has led to the fall from grace of the oversimplified "global warming" advocacy among people of average education, and average means.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...sus-ian-tuttle

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...cs-wrong-again

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbar...ptics-n2183997

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...oring-students

Dahlberg-Acton's observation that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." seems appropriate here.

[Stonepa]

More politics. If the theory is wrong, and it seems like every day the data points out directionally that it is correct if somewhat under estimating the effects, then someone should disprove it so we can move on to a new theory. No one at any level of scientific rigor has.

[EvilEyeFleegle]

Since, by the tenor of your posts, you've established that Climate change, whether Natural or Man-made--is occurring, I'd like to know your ideas of what to do about it..since that is kinda the point of this thread.

By what to do about it, if you've not followed the earlier posts, I mean tactics to survive and thrive.

I doubt that we're going to change the climate, any time soon, so ...how do we adapt?

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by EvilEyeFleegle

Since, by the tenor of your posts, you've established that Climate change, whether Natural or Man-made--is occurring, I'd like to know your ideas of what to do about it..since that is kinda the point of this thread.

By what to do about it, if you've not followed the earlier posts, I mean tactics to survive and thrive.

I doubt that we're going to change the climate, any time soon, so ...how do we adapt?

While this post appears to be directed to Mr. Stonepa, I want to put my own position forward and invite any alternatives anyone else may propose:

For about sixty years, well before the first Earth Day, the principal theme of those in the front ranks of environmental activism reads somewhat like this: "We, the enlightened few, are convinced that a catastrophe, be it greenhouse gases, depletion of the ozone layer, mishandling of both nuclear and coal-fired power generation, long-term effects of fracking -- or whatever, is underway, and we alone have the knowledge to stop it if we are given more power and a bigger budget." When the catastrophe fails to materialize, we simply adjust the parameters of the projected doomsday scenario.

I'm not going to completely dismiss the prospect of potentially serious effects, but the prophecies of doom invariably are linked to the desire for expansion of some aspect of the legal monopoly on coercion granted to the state -- and usually to some pretty specific suggestions as to whom that power should be granted.

But in fact, environmental knowledge and concern has expanded substantially over the same period, and some aspects of the movement -- recycling probably being the most prominent -- have been very positively (and usually voluntarily) accepted. It is the loudmouth who proclaims that "we know what's best for all" and might have a partner or two inclined toward more forceful tactics, who gets the cold shoulder.

If any situation worsens, and a threat is more clearly identifiable, those who have seen it coming are free to restate their case in stronger terms, But this has clearly not been the case over the past 10-15 years during which a variety of the most strident environmentalists have tried to force their particular cause to center stage.

The potential for advancement from "survive" to "thrive" depends upon the workings of a reasonably open marketplace -- for goods, services, and human opinion -- the mainspring of all secular human progress, as it always has and always will. I'm not opposing the need for rational policing, but the pursuit of unbridled power for power's sake is not a rational act -- excuses about some supposed "greater common good" notwithstanding.