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New York, 12:53 AM
Sat Dec 19
54 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/15/09
Don't you think it's a scootch ironic in light of the fact that the temperature chart you include begins in 1880? Datapros Krugman and Brad Delong do this all the time.
Do a point for point bullet list of the specific contentions, evidence for, and evidence against and we've got something. Charts that start in 1880... fail.
And yes 9/11 was an inside job, and yes we still haven't seen Obama's long form birth certificate (have we?), and yes Oral Roberts just died, and no I'm not a republican or conservative, or democrat or progressive or libertarian socialist so just stfu with any partisan rejoinders.
12/15/09
12/15/09
Long story short, the media is fucking awful. I would encourage everyone to read the IPCC Synthesis Report for Policymakers. It's long but it's fair, informative, and fairly easy to read. [www.ipcc.ch]
12/15/09
12/15/09
12/15/09
Drudge has also previously noted that snow is FAAAAAAABULOUS!!!!!
12/15/09
12/15/09
Whether climate change is or is not actually happening, while extremely important, is far from the only justification for being good stewards of our planet.
12/15/09
If you've not read SuperFreakonomics, you should, particularly for the discussion and analysis of global warming solutions. If the interview subjects in the book are correct, global warming can be battled with relatively cheap solutions (shooting chemicals into the stratosphere). And Al Gore all but admits that cheap, effective solutions are not what he's looking for.
12/15/09
12/15/09
12/15/09
12/15/09
I am much bigger fan of less chemicals, less pollution, less "cheap" fixes and more proper corrections to the way we impact our environment.
12/15/09
[[www.realclimate.org]]
12/15/09
Let's be realistic: No one is going to convince China and India to trade improvements to their populations' standard of living for being team players in cleaning up the world. Why not explore cooling ideas and technologies we have today while we figure out efficient, cheap, clean energy sources?
12/15/09
Mo Modo was right in what she/he was saying because Earth's Atmosphere is made up of layers, including but not limited to the Mesosphere and Stratosphere.
You say that it sounds like a good idea yet do not, and I stress that I'm not trying to be insulting, know the basic make up of the atmosphere or which layer. You think it sounds good because it was said with authority.
12/15/09
12/15/09
Hell, toastball, the comments section of that realclimate.org post you linked to has some lively (seemingly science-driven (i.e., not politically driven) banter about this very idea. I don't think it's accurate or meaningful to call it "pure bullshit." It might be, but I think there are some bright people who believe it should at least be studied and modeled before it's dismissed.
12/15/09
12/15/09
Happy hunting!
12/15/09
12/15/09
But of course the people who stand to directly benefit from the expenditure of those trillions of dollars are pure as the driven snow and not at all influenced by money or power. To imply otherwise is just crazytalk. They just want to save the planet. Right?
12/15/09
Queue somebody saying the science is bunk and the scientists are lying....
12/15/09
I'm all for cleaning up our act and all, but we aren't going to be able to stop Mother Nature. To see people and corporations attempting to make fortunes based on the idea that we can control this gives one pause.
12/15/09
I feel like the scientists still have a lot more work to do before the politicians start using their theories to push an agenda. I would be much more amenable to the cuts in carbon if there was some concrete proof that it is absolutely necessary to save us from the apocalypse... I just don't see that evidence yet.
*bracing for the angry, hateful responses*
12/15/09
But let's break it down. Do you take issue with the idea that humans are causing climate change? Or that the way to stop it is through government intervention?
Those are actually two separate questions, I guess, which I think makes it a little disingenuous that you bring them up in one sentence, as though one must necessarily follow on the other.
12/15/09
Climate Change may or may not be happening. If it is, and we're causing it, then, well, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman in one of his great works, "Our presence deforms reality. Now THAT's responsibility". If Climate Change is happening (and the evidence points to such), then the efforts made are naturally to save humanity, no? If isn't happening, then money will be wasted on a fruitless enterprise and power will be abused (but that happens anyway). Personally, I'd rather just throw caution to the wind. There's so many of us, and with our technology and expansion, it only seems logical that there WOULD be some effect on the planet. The Earth itself isn't in danger. Humanity possibly is. But the planet will change and get along fine without us as it did before.
12/15/09
You are right. Rather than enacting statutes and approving treaties to deal with global warming. We should let the large multinationals establish and effectuate their own pollution policies. They have a long, well-documented history of effective self-regulation.
Because you know who is not driven by money or power, the large multinationals who have the most to lose if stricter laws are enacted. Nosirreee.
12/15/09
The whole "I'm all for cleaning up our act..." disclaimer was bullshit. Come on. Admit it.
12/15/09
What is it about the current science that gives you pause? What
"more work" do you need to see?
Please advise.
12/15/09
Also, how do we know what temperature is the "right" temperature?
12/15/09
Ok. Like I thought, you are a parrot of the company/party line.
I mean you have a point, like... how do we know which shoreline is the "right" shoreline?
12/14/09
12/14/09
12/14/09
12/14/09
12/14/09
12/14/09
First step, kick Harper to the curb. Second step, deport Nickleback. Third step, make Kim Mitchell's "Patio Lanterns" the new national anthem.
Happiness.
12/14/09
Given the bumbling ways of Iggy McEyebrows, I don't expect the Tory Reign of Terror to end any time soon.
12/14/09
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12/14/09
They in turn have bent over so willingly that there literally is no seriously critical coverage of Harper's government.
(Our current minister of Defense in fact married a producer at CTV news, one of our only national news outlets. In fact, there's a long and sick history of Canadian reporters dating parlimentarians. See: Krista Erickson).
This prank, plus the organized climbing of the parliament buildings a few days ago, are basically the only free press our country honestly has.
And we deserve to get humiliated on this issue. Our citizens are basically tacitly convinced that we're an environmental country because everyone went camping as children. We're fucking idiots.
12/14/09
Holy Hockey, Pontiff, that comment just gave me morning wood.
12/14/09
And your crying over the fact that the Conservatives are getting no tough coverage is laughable. Ever heard of the left-wing Globe & Mail (Canada's #1 newspaper)? The even-further left Toronto Star (#1 local paper)? CBC News? Hello??
But feel free to carry on with your gross exaggerations...
(and don't paint us Canadians with the "idiot" brush. Thanks)
12/14/09
12/14/09
And the Globe is ANYTHING but left wing. For you to think that just shows how perverted you are to the genuine political spectrum. Maybe it seems leftist because it's one of the only genuinely centrist papers in the country, while Canwest and Sun media chains are rabidly right wing.
The Globe publishes idiot, semi-catatonic retard right-wingers Margaret Wente and Rex Murphy along with a few others (blatchford). Then they have a stable of left-wing columnists to balance it out. The CBC is hardly left wing. It's also reasonably centrist. The Toronto Star is slightly left, but that doesn't really make much difference. Torstar isn't really a national paper, or link to any national chains. it's mostly just toronto. But it's still reasonably balanced.
The Globe and the Star are the only papers with enough monetary resources to actually stay balanced. And maybe the Journal de Montreal, which is a great paper but I never read it.
And yeah, Harper will take a reasonable hit on this issue. He takes a hit on any issue that he's not utterly and totally in control of all possible information on. His government coasts along precisely because of the total void of any real information or scandal. They're basically a non-government because they know that's fundamentally what the ageing, complacent population wants. People can then fool themselves into thinking anything they want about our country - like we have a good overseas reputation and we're a stand up member of the international community. But when an issue like this comes out, and the world rises up and spits at us, maybe now we'll have to face the facts that this government has done shit all.
12/14/09
I do wish that Harper were indeed getting killed; he's coasting, because...Iggy's too busy gunning for top job at the UN to bother putting up any opposition. God, we thought Dion was lame, but at least Dion was BORN lame; Iggy's just acting that way.
I, personally, plan to stay warm by burning conservatives all winter.
12/14/09
12/14/09
Oh yeah, the Conservatives are up 2% in the weekly/daily tracking polls since the Copenhagen summit began....while the Fiberals are down.
Oops.
12/15/09
The Tories aren't losing any face right now because people still don't give a shit. BUT nobody really likes them. Out in Alberta, the traditional conservative stronghold, the party is down in the polls to the Wildrose party by something heavy like... 20%.