Banning the term climate change won’t stop the reality

[herbu]

You making a false equivalency. The skeptic side is NOT producing credible evidence. They are instead creating a circle of confusion. The Republicans are the same party that deny human evolution, climate change, etc. They produce nonsensical theories called Intelligent Design to push an agenda to reach religion in schools. They are the same party that declares "legitimate rape". Both sides are NOT correct in these cases.

A scientific consensus exists on manmade climate change just like it did with the correlation between smoking and increased cancer rates but that didn't stop the tobacco industry from producing "credible data" to refute it and create the circle of confusion decades ago.

While we all still wonder about manmade climate change, it's interesting to see studies like this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...as-been-the-hottest-start-to-a-year-on-record
I suspect you won't get an argument from anyone living in California about manmade climate change as they are too busy wondering where they will get fresh water from in the next 5-10 years due to the worst droughts in modern history in that state.

QED.

Citing examples does not prove a point. Lead, smoking? How about the earth is flat and the center of the universe? Or last winter in our northeast? There are plenty of examples where conventional science was right and wrong. Politicians love to parade out examples to prove a point. It doesn't.

Likewise, painting a whole political party with one brush, "legitimate rape", is just as unreasonable. How about Socialists or baby killers?

When faced with an issue we don't understand, we tend to take the side of our political party. Sometimes vehemently. And we pull out all the standard political rocks and arrows to discredit those who don't agree with us. I still say it is interesting. Sad, and certainly covers none of us in glory, but interesting.

 

[TheWarrior]

Likewise, painting a whole political party with one brush, "legitimate rape", is just as unreasonable. How about Socialists or baby killers?

If you vote for it, you support it. This isn't like religion where you get to pick and choose which parts you want to follow.

 

[herbu]

If you vote for it, you support it. This isn't like religion where you get to pick and choose which parts you want to follow.

I do not support ALL the tenets of either my political party or my religion. Again, painting ALL members of a party with the broad brush of a single issue is illegitimate and irresponsible. And I question the objectivity of anyone who does so.

 

[gene]

QED.

Citing examples does not prove a point. Lead, smoking? How about the earth is flat and the center of the universe? Or last winter in our northeast? There are plenty of examples where conventional science was right and wrong. Politicians love to parade out examples to prove a point. It doesn't.

Likewise, painting a whole political party with one brush, "legitimate rape", is just as unreasonable. How about Socialists or baby killers?

When faced with an issue we don't understand, we tend to take the side of our political party. Sometimes vehemently. And we pull out all the standard political rocks and arrows to discredit those who don't agree with us. I still say it is interesting. Sad, and certainly covers none of us in glory, but interesting.

It's difficult NOT to paint the whole party when their majority representatives do it themselves through policy and rhetoric. It also doesn't help that Conservative talk show hosts on radio and TV dominate the airwaves with similar stupidity. But you do make a valid point nonetheless. If only folks like David Frum instead of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin represented the Republican party, we'd be having a different discussion.

 

[Irvrobinson]

It's difficult NOT to paint the whole party when their majority representatives do it themselves through policy and rhetoric. It also doesn't help that Conservative talk show hosts on radio and TV dominate the airwaves with similar stupidity. But you do make a valid point nonetheless. If only folks like David Frum instead of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin represented the Republican party, we'd be having a different discussion.

I've got to agree, unfortunately, because I disagree with much of the Democratic platform. But the GOP is lost. Has anyone here read the GOP platform? It's peppered with religious references and calls to exploit the environment for business purposes. I like business and profits, and I dislike wasteful spending, but there's rational business and then there's selfish exploitation. The GOP has turned into the dumb party.

 

[herbu]

It's difficult NOT to paint the whole party when their majority representatives do it themselves through policy and rhetoric.

Agreed. Reid, Pelosi, Obama, Hillary, Rather and Brian Williams don't hardly inspire truth, morality and honor either. It seems political discussions are no longer about who is better, but who is worse. It is a sad state.

 

[gene]

I've got to agree, unfortunately, because I disagree with much of the Democratic platform. But the GOP is lost. Has anyone here read the GOP platform? It's peppered with religious references and calls to exploit the environment for business purposes. I like business and profits, and I dislike wasteful spending, but there's rational business and then there's selfish exploitation. The GOP has turned into the dumb party.

The Republican party of the 60s-70s were much different. Then again politics were a bit different then too since we didn't have anonymous unlimited donations to politicians and the news in this country wasn't run for profit.

 

[TheWarrior]

I do not support ALL the tenets of either my political party or my religion. Again, painting ALL members of a party with the broad brush of a single issue is illegitimate and irresponsible. And I question the objectivity of anyone who does so.

Not when the issue at hand directly effects the economy. I offer no insult, merely a broadened perspective because you seem to be one of many southern conservatives that still hold to the Republican ideals of several decades ago. It was a decent ideology, until we went from 50 million people, to 300 million.

 

[Chu Gai]

We haven't had 50 million people for over 130 years.

 

[shadyJ]

I do not support ALL the tenets of either my political party or my religion. Again, painting ALL members of a party with the broad brush of a single issue is illegitimate and irresponsible. And I question the objectivity of anyone who does so.

It is not irresponsible to paint all members of a party with a broad brush. Some parties are just plain bad, and to voluntarily join those parties is simply immoral. The Nazi party, for an obvious example. It's very fair to dismiss anyone who would join that party, and there is just no qualifiers or caveats to that. Like it or not there are absolutes here.

 

[herbu]

The Republican party of the 60s-70s were much different.

Gene, we agree again! And again, it works both ways.
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

 

[Chu Gai]

Predictions from the first Earth Day.

 

[shadyJ]

The AEI? Please. I like how most of those predictions come from two guys. Not exactly casting a wide net there. Also, how many predictions by the AEI staff from the same era have come true? Has the Rapture happened yet?

 

[KEW]

 

[Chu Gai]

The AEI? Please. I like how most of those predictions come from two guys. Not exactly casting a wide net there. Also, how many predictions by the AEI staff from the same era have come true? Has the Rapture happened yet?

So the predictions in that link were either falsified or made up by the authors? Don't know how old you are but those guys were comparatively heavy hitters in their time.

 

[Chu Gai]

Stormy weather coming.

 

[shadyJ]

So the predictions in that link were either falsified or made up by the authors? Don't know how old you are but those guys were comparatively heavy hitters in their time.

Paul Ehrlich and Kenneth Watt were not considered heavy hitters, they were considered sensationalists. And while they were wrong in specific predictions, they are right to warn about the carrying capacity of Earth for humanity. I doubt mankind will change its nature in time though, so I have been preparing a cookbook which I am sure will be a hit in the future, "101 Entrees using Soylent Green", although it will only be available via Amazon Kindle, as paper is sure to be prohibitively expensive at the time of its publishing.

 

[Chu Gai]

Paul Ehrlich and Kenneth Watt were not considered heavy hitters, they were considered sensationalists. And while they were wrong in specific predictions, they are right to warn about the carrying capacity of Earth for humanity. I doubt mankind will change its nature in time though, so I have been preparing a cookbook which I am sure will be a hit in the future, "101 Entrees using Soylent Green", although it will only be available via Amazon Kindle, as paper is sure to be prohibitively expensive at the time of its publishing.

Sensationalists or not, the views were widely promoted just like Rachel Carson's dystopia of a silent spring with people waking up to an absence of birds singing. Today's climate change/global warming evangelists are no strangers to sensationalism.

What the 1970 crowd missed or woefully underestimated is the rapidity that technology would play in ruining their forecasts of doom timetables. It may be the same thing that's happening today where simply a multitude of technologies, as was spoken of in Herbu's videos earlier, is going to make an unforeseen impact in reducing emissions. A problem if not a danger to me is governments looking to impose their ideas of what ought be done by laws that are not so easily undone when they're no longer relevant.

But I do agree with you my friend that it is not wise to challenge the carrying capacity of our planet. Or to keep looking to extend it even though we are able to. Yet that is what we're doing because there are always unintended consequences in what may appear to be the most noble of intentions.

My mother had two sisters and two brothers. There were at least two more children but they died while young. None of them spoke especially kindly about their father who blamed his economic woes on how many kids there were. From time to time his anger over the never ending needs of the family to be clothed and fed rose from verbal anger to beatings. None were spared. That is until one day her oldest sister stood up to him and wrested the piece of wood that he used to inflict his anger from his hands and told him he had no business bringing so many children into the world if he couldn't care for them. She said some other things but the beatings stopped that day.

I read somewhere that the average global lifespan was something like 35 years in 1900. Today it's more than double that. So a billion people today are consuming double the resources from those in 1900, more or less. The otherwise noble efforts of bringing potable water, AIDS medicine, looking to eliminate malaria in countries, has the unintended consequence of placing additional demands on the earth's resources. Reading articles that talk about human lifespans of 200 years being within reach also means that a billion people today will have resource consumption of 5-6 billion people in 1900, give or take. Artificial insemination and other fertility techniques that often result in multiple births also create additional needs for resources. It's this population thing that IMO is the big problem. But how to get it under control and bring it down?

 

[KEW]

Today's climate change/global warming evangelists are no strangers to sensationalism.

The difference is climate change is supported by a consensus of well respected scientist who have looked at the data. The nay-sayers are now the few odd sensationalists/extremists.

To my knowledge, other scientists did not attach their reputations to the items you linked from the 70's. I'm betting it is because the data was not so conclusive.

I certainly would not argue that population is not a major source of the problem.

On a positive, we have sucessfuly converted from Freon to the less efficient but better for the earth R-12. I believe a major decision point on this came when someone calculated how much Freon would be produced if (as) China modernized to refrigerators in each household.
And we have LED bulbs that further reduce the energy load.
Not enough, but still steps to reduce the burden of population increase.

 

[Chu Gai]

The difference is climate change is supported by a consensus of well respected scientist who have looked at the data. The nay-sayers are now the few odd sensationalists/extremists.

To my knowledge, other scientists did not attach their reputations to the items you linked from the 70's. I'm betting it is because the data was not so conclusive.

I certainly would not argue that population is not a major source of the problem.

On a positive, we have sucessfuly converted from Freon to the less efficient but better for the earth R-12. I believe a major decision point on this came when someone calculated how much Freon would be produced if (as) China modernized to refrigerators in each household.
And we have LED bulbs that further reduce the energy load.
Not enough, but still steps to reduce the burden of population increase.

The term consensus, and here in the US the oft repeated 97% consensus, bears some examination as to its origin. The WSJ wrote an opinion piece last year that sought to shed some light on this. As we all know, the way a question or statement is phrased, the way a survey is conducted, can have a profound influence on the outcome. To use my friend ShadyJ's expression, there's been sensationalizing as well as an unbalanced view. Would it not be honest to also examine benefits as well as detriments to overall climate warming? Would it not be honest for proponents of warming to put numbers with appropriate uncertainty numbers for the public's consideration when it's said the first three months of the year were the warmest on record? Would it not be honest to say that the drought in California is exacerbated by matters such as massive population increases, lack of planning and testicular fortitude in having created dams, and the agriculture business that increasingly supplies produce for the world?

Like you, I thought the move to alternate refrigerants was a good idea and I like the increasing development of LED bulbs which are coming down in price. The development in batteries, capacitors, solar efficiency, and the like is good. Having grown up on a family run farm, this economy appeals to me.

Population is not only a problem because of numbers and longevity, it also creates its own problems as people become wealthier. They're going to look to become consumers and consumers buy an awful lot of stupid sh!t.