by Simon 129 Replies latest jw friends
I think it's a real thing. I think aspects of it are a natural part of the planet's long-term cycle, but I also suspect it's significantly human-influenced, too.
I also think Canada is gonna weather the phenomenon fairly well (no pun intended). It's opening up access to more northern (and previously Arctic-bound) resources, after all.
Humanity'll adapt, like we always have.
The thing that annoys me is the way that we are guilt-tripped into making the most trivial changes 'to save the planet' when the real causes are elsewhere. China and India make our contribution to global warming look insignificant. Sometimes it feels like turning up to help after an tsunami with a dustpan and brush.
This has happened in Canada. The Trudeau government has nobbled the Alberta oil industry on the basis of pollution and human-rights but the net result is that it rewards far worse abusers of both.
It's the same with banning drinking straws - the real problem is the crap that China dumps in the oceans, not the odd straw that finds its way there from the US.
Investing in technology and innovation and allowing the best to profit and thrive will bring change because it forces the other countries to change in order to compete. Companies don't want to waste energy but if they are forced to spend their money on climate levies that are then paid to subsidize worse polluters in countries that don't care, it means they can't invest in cleaner technology - something that will make an actual difference.
It's why I don't believe the alarmist people really care or really believe it - because their policies are not about reducing emissions, they are about money changing hands.
How often have you (as in anyone reading this) actually changed your mind over any subject?
Lots of times.
I used to be anti-gun and pro-abortion but having learnt a lot about both I've changed my mind on both issues.
Steven Crowder does a "Change My Mind" segment where they setup a table at a college campus with some emotive topic such as "There are only 2 Genders - Change my mind". The discussions and viewpoints are interesting even if no one changes their mind. Sometimes people do - the last one about abortion had a women that argued her case and then they had a follow up discussion that shows it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
What it often shows is that once you get past the "soundbites" on an issue, people have zero real knowledge of it and / or can't articulate or argue their position (which is why they often resort to name calling and trying to silence people and stop the debate).
The debate and the discussion are important, even if people don't change their view - they should at least appreciate what other people's views are and where they need to be more convincing, explain things better or provide more evidence.
Simon - "The Trudeau government has nobbled the Alberta oil industry on the basis of pollution and human-rights but the net result is that it rewards far worse abusers of both."
Agreed.
I'm starting to get the impression that even us left-leaning Albertans are getting fed up with Trudy's admin.
I won't miss it if/when it gets ousted in the next election.
Simon - "It's why I don't believe the alarmist people really care or really believe it - because their policies are not about reducing emissions, they are about money changing hands."
(On a lighter note) does that mean that if I become an alarmist, people will give me money? 'Cause with the views I've stated at the top of the page, that'd be hard.
Climate scientists are describing something that needs to be fixed by taking action that will disrupt our lives. There are many people with vested interests that don't like the sound of that.
But are they? Are they really climate scientists saying those things or are people cherry picking papers they have paid for, claiming its climate science and using it as an excuse for policies that will disadvantage others but benefit themselves and their supporters? Hint, go read up on the "97% of climate scientists" figure and where it came from.
I find it interesting that we literally put our lives in the hands of other scientific research without question, yet when it comes to global warming we are all expert critics
And science lately has done a piss-poor job frankly. Sure, we all blame anti-vaxxers for the immunization problem but that was cause by the scientific community - it was published in medical journals and they didn't contradict it or say it was false. The system that people believe in doesn't work and has been shown not to work by people having deliberately false papers published. As long as your thesis promotes the political views of the people who control the purse strings, then you are "true science".
Belief and trust in "science" can involve just as much faith as religion.
Simon - "Belief and trust in 'science' can involve just as much faith as religion."
From my readings and rather cynical knowledge of how governments work, I believe the the climate change debate has been hijacked to be come a scheme for increasing personal taxation.
This is my opinion as well. It's a nuanced view that some won't understand but it can both be true that there is human influenced climate change and also true that a lot of it is BS and just an excuse to charge people extra taxes.
Canada has a carbon tax. It's extra money that the government can mismanage and piss away on idiot agendas and direct toward their cronies. It does absolutely zero for the environment, in fact it makes it far worse because now Canada imports energy from far worse polluters with worse environmental footprints and human-rights abusers.
But some people think because there is a carbon tax, it's somehow "saving the planet'. It's not, it's funding corruption.
Simon I need to clarify, do you mean you don't think climate change is happening or you think it is but we are not responsible for it or capable of changing it?
Both. I think it's happening. I think it happens anyway, regardless of whether there are people on the planet. I think we are responsible for some of it but not all of it as many claim (because it happens anyway and isn't always correlated with our actions). I think we can change some of it and it's good to limit pollution but money changing hands doesn't really change anything - it's often all about political posturing and self-congratulatory photo-ops rather than really doing anything of worth.
Do you think the scientific reports of the polar ice melting are faked or that it's real and just part of a cycle that happens every few thousand years that we can do nothing about?
One way of lying is to tell the truth but omit other information. We are told every time ice melts, we're never told when it builds up.
Here's a question - all those layers of ice ... how many layers were there the year before the last one was added? One less, right? And the one before that? And the thousands before that ... We know ice wasn't always there. The earth didn't always have polar ice caps.
Must it have polar ice caps for us to survive?
What happens if it melts? Yeah, if I had luxury beach-front property I'd probably want to promote the idea of some scheme that in the short term funds costal defences to perpetuate my lifestyle and investment or pays for me to move elsewhere.
If you don't want to be flooded, don't live near a river or the sea.
Well 2 deg. in 100 years I don't think is all that big a deal if it even happens. Its way past all of us heres sell by date.
Simon - "One way of lying is to tell the truth but omit other information."
Yup, reminds me of someone... can't think of it at the moment... oh wait... 
Simon - "We are told every time ice melts, we're never told when it builds up."
Not to mention that when it melts, its volume decreases.
How often has anyone seen a glass full of ice water overflow after just sitting at room temperature for a half hour?
(Note: doesn't mean we can't enjoy Waterworld.)
Note: doesn't mean we can't enjoy Waterworld
Some slated that movie, I thought it was great! LOL
Yeah, lying by omission is one of the cleverest because it uses facts but paints a misleading (sometimes outright false) picture but it's impossible to point to anything specifically as "the lie". The media do it all the time. They are not there to educate people or provide all the facts, they are there to make money and drama sells, so do political kickbacks for pushing a policy.
