Debate Topic: Environmentalism (Little Upsilon)

You maybe onto something there Dirt. Male fertility is in decline. Maybe in a few generations the world will be rid of us.

Just a shot about "known nuclear resources":

There was a young jew, riding a train somewhere in germany, that had a brainstorm in the early-mid thirties:

He realized that not only could you use uranium to make a bomb or generate energy in a power plant; you could also breed your own uranium to do it. Now, not to rain on anyone's "question everything" but what are the world-wide thorium resources? Considering the uranium is a high-order element, it is rare; but thorium's lower on the scale, and breeds the much better version of uranium, 233 I think, instead of the 235 - in which fission is induced much easier.

@BorderC: "Last I heard we may have enough Uranium and Plutonium to last from 50 to 100 years at current consumption rates."

Fifty years is a long time, two generations. Any problem that can be solved for fifty years out is a problem solved, in any meaningful sense.

@ Vali: "We have the ability to destroy or save this world."

In all seriousness, what does that mean, really, to 'save the world'? People say it, as a justification for taking some kind of action, and I don't think it's at all clear what it means.

I think it means that you either play a part in saving the world (Mother Nature) from those who seem intent on destroying the world (Mother Nature). Or you play a part in destroying the world (Mother Nature) by working with or allowing those who seem intent on destroying the world (Mother Nature).

Okay, but you didn't explain what is meant by "save the world". Or, by "destroy the world".

Killing nature through our action or inaction.
Evolution occurs on long time scales. Sudden mass global changes leads to mass extinction. Humans have and are already causing the mass extinction of other species through the distruction of natural habits both directly through occupying the land and indirectly via pollution.
Throughout histroy the mass emergence of new species usually occurs after a mass extinction of others.
I think people are too far removed from nature these days and forget how dependent we are on the world around us. It really should be save our world rather the world. The bacteria will survive our actions, we as we know ourselves however may not. As I have mentioned befofe our civilisation is very fragile.

I will post a detailed response to all this later today. My apologies in advance, for it will be a long one.

I take it you forgot about us FarmerBob.
As it's Christmas, I'll let you off.

Have a spiritual Christmas everyone. It does you the world of good. Christmas midnight mass is where it's at. Stagger into the church as quite as a mouse.........we'll I try to be, I knew there was something I was going to do this year, oil the Church doors.
Sing some songs. Probably not as loud as I usally do after hearing myself on my mates Nintendo wee Karioki game the other night.
And then hopefuly, depending on how long it goes on for, meet back up with everyone for a couple more toasts up the village.
Sorted. Payed my respects.
It makes you feel all content on Christmas day.

Anyways.
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.
Lets get this party started.

The world may shed a new air borne virus tomorrow that may have the potential to reduce our population by 25%.

Worry about that, IMO, not the ambiguous concept that is "global warming."

You would think that after killing more people by banning DDT than Hitler killed in concentration camps, or Stalin killed in Russia, people would no longer be affected by the environmentalist's call of "we've got to do something to save the planet".

You would think.

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm

And it's not just more than Hitler killed in concentration camps, OR more than Stalin killed in Russia. . .

It's more than BOTH those figures combined:

http://www.junkscience.com/malaria_clock.html

Fool me once by killing nearly 100 million people, shame on you, fool me twice. . .

Again, the earth's been warmer, the earth's been colder, and our influence on mean global temperature is infitessimally small compared to the influence of the normal fluctuations in solar energy output from year to year.

Note to self: don't try spelling words like infitessimal when you are too tired to bother going to dictionary.com.

Goodnight all, may your holidays be bright!

The views espoused by some on this thread and others that fall within the agenda of Modern Environmentalism are not new to humanity. The precepts of this philosophy (and that's what it is, a philosophy) are intertwined with an ancient religion, Gaiaism, and a relatively more modern worldview introduced by a British economist/minister, Thomas Robert Malthus, 1766-1834.

In his 1798 work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus makes some rather bold assertions that resonated with and have been expanded upon by many academics.

His central points were these:

1 subsistence severely limits population-level
2 when the means of subsistence increases, population increases
3 population-pressures stimulate increases in productivity
4 increases in productivity stimulate further population-growth
5 since this productivity can not keep up with the potential of population growth for long, population requires strong checks to keep it in line with carrying-capacity
6 individual cost/benefit decisions regarding sex, work, and children determine the expansion or contraction of population and production
7 checks will come into operation as population exceeds subsistence-level
8 the nature of these checks will have significant effect on the rest of the sociocultural system -Malthus points specifically to misery, vice, and poverty

While these may sound like entirely reasonable and arguable theories, the conclusions reached by Malthus were anything but.

"The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world."

Malthusianism was expanded to embrace ALL resources useful and required for human existence. The argument that there are too many people and will never be sufficient resources for all of us, you see, is not a new one. This quote from his second edition typifies the mindset in this sort of thinking:


"A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents on whom he has a just demand, and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature's mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he does not work upon the compassion of some of her guests. If these guests get up and make room for him, other intruders immediately appear demanding the same favour. The report of a provision for all that come, fills the hall with numerous claimants. The order and harmony of the feast is disturbed, the plenty that before reigned is changed into scarcity; and the happiness of the guests is destroyed by the spectacle of misery and dependence in every part of the hall, and by the clamorous importunity of those, who are justly enraged at not finding the provision which they had been taught to expect. The guests learn too late their error, in counter-acting those strict orders to all intruders, issued by the great mistress of the feast, who, wishing that all guests should have plenty, and knowing she could not provide for unlimited numbers, humanely refused to admit fresh comers when her table was already full."

Malthus's views gave birth or heavily influenced everything from modern demography to the Theory of Natural Selection.

Modified Malthusianism is the guiding principle behind Modern Environmentalism.

Despite the influence and longevity of this philosophy, it has been proven WRONG at every turn. It plays simultaneously into base human fears and elitist sentiments that have great appeal to certain mindsets- just as does environmentalism in its current pop culture form.

Thusly, you have the philosophical underpinnings for the economic and social components of this phenomena of self-loathing that is modern envronmentalism.

Next, we will discuss the belief structure of modern environmentalism in it's Soft Green form, as opposed to the traditional Hard Green practices of the original and present Conservationism from which movement, it diverged.

\Barney Raises Hand...


"Professor Bob, Wendy keeps touching me. Can you tell her to stop? I think she needs to see the Principal, mr laguna"

LOL Barney. It's almost time for recess.

well i guess i think environmentalism is sort of about embracing nature, and organic things, and trying to become more "at one with our surroundings". its kinda hard to put it into words. if you get super literalistic and examine environmental movement with a really critical lens, a lot of it looks like over exaggerated hogwash. but its basically an aesthetic instinct i guess, preferring leafy forests over industrial parks or what have you....

now if this thread is about debating "global warming"/"climate change" and whether or not its man-made, i *definitely* come down hard on the side that it is. there is enormous reams of data proving it.... less than 10% of scientists differ on the point , and almost all of them get funds from oil/gas corps

"less than 10% of scientists differ on the point , and almost all of them get funds from oil/gas corps"

Interviewed them all, have we? Got the signed affidavits and everything, do we?

"there is enormous reams of data proving it...."

Really? The mathematical formulae for the mean planetary temperature taking into account all variables, their relationships to each other and to each system in toto, the exact values of each variable precisely determined for quantitative analysis, all variations of each over time, with the precise values for all variables of human activity entered into the mathematical formulae that accurately describe their relationships to the natural variables and systems, with their sum total effects on the entire global system has been conclusively established, tested under controlled conditions, and withstood peer review and publication of what must be, now, new Laws of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, and several other disciplines? Interesting.

Last I heard, the math to accurately describe such complex systems was entirely theoretical, not yet in existence, and the variables that are believed to be factors were gross estimations with no degree of certainty of their exact relationships to each other or the total system.

But then again, how can 90% of the scientists be wrong? It's been proven, right? It's the overwhelming consensus, right?

Here is the text of Newsweek's 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels.


"There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas - parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia - where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree - a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down.

Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."


A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras - and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 - years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. "Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases - all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.

"The world's food-producing system," warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA's Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, "is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago." Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies.The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

-PETER GWYNNE with bureau reports

Yes. Absolutely. We must act without delay. It's Scientific Concensus and science is never wrong. Especially when they don't have the math to describe the system, the ability to accurately measure the variables, or even the ability to test the hypotheses.

But then again, under the above conditions, can we even call that science?

I apologize for the length of these posts, but if we wish to argue this topic, by god, argue it.

well i am not a climate scientist i am just stating that i mean, every single scientist i've ever seen on TV or read in a magazine for the last at least 10 or 20 years has said global warming is real.... it seems pretty preposterous to argue against that and i would have to be skeptical of the motive in doing so.

i guess pop science: what about the increased number of hurricanes in recent times? what about the actual physical glaciers melting and collapsing around the polar regions and greenland etc? what about the huge ozone layer hole above antarctica? dont any of those things seem remotely ominous or new to you? there is no possible connection to co2 emissions or the other new chemicals human industrial products have created in the 19th/20th/21st centuries? how come so many different countries are banding together in things like Kyoto Treaty to address an issue that i guess according to you isnt even real??? i mean you are in an extreme minority and i really wonder how you can believe everyone else is so wrong. ok, you found a weird newsweek article from the 70s? so what?

Don't confuse the sheeple with logic and reason Farmer Bob.

Despite the warnings no one has flooded. CO2 remains 3 parts per million. Huge snowstorms cover the Northern half of the planet. Nothing has happened. But by God we will throw trillions of dollars, wreck our economies, and fix the "problem".


Kyoto is a scam based on flawed science and we will soon be footing the bill for this nonsense. Who needs an economy.

Alexander,

There is a colossal difference between Global Warming, and Man-Made Global Warming. It's akin to the difference between a 90-year old man passing away from complications related to heart disease, and a 23-year old female collegiate athlete being gunned down for the $34 in her purse. It's night and day.

When you write, ". . .every single scientist i've ever seen on TV or read in a magazine for the last at least 10 or 20 years has said global warming is real. . ." do you mean Man-Made Global Warming?

If you are interested, you can find a short list of the very, very few accredited scholars who believe the following:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth. "

http://www.oism.org/pproject

And by very few, I mean over 9,000 PHD's. Plus over 20,000 more accredited signees to the above referenced petition.

The IPCC (the fountain of man-made global warming theory) has a horrific record of how it handles reports issued by the body. You can find the details if you are interested, but in essence the IPCC will issue a draft of it's report to a body of it's members. Then, regardless of the number of this body (called a Working Group) that disagrees with portions of the report, every member of the body is listed as having contributed to the findings. This practice was most horribly abused in 1990 and 1995. Supposedly, in 1995 the draft was presented to the body, and within 48 hours the final report was completed. I don't normally include 'supposed' information in my arguements, but this came from a member of the NSF, but I've lost the emails, and forgotten the name, so that's why I say 'supposedly'.

The Report is then released. This was the pattern for the IPCC reports of 1990, 1995, and 2001.

In June 2007 the IPCC modified it's methods (finally, but there are still huge issues), and allowed the release of findings submitted by dissenting members of it's working groups (II or III, I've forgotten the exact structure).

One of these dissenting members wrote the following, referring to Chapter 6; section 6-42 of the February 2007 IPCC report (released four months AFTER the initial report to which this internal review refers, enough time for the headlines to have been established in the mind of the public as being 'conclusive'):

"In general, the certainty with which this chapter presents our understanding of abrupt climate change is overstated. There is confusion between hypothesis and evidence throughout the chapter, and a great deal of confusion on the differences between an abrupt "climate change" and possible, hypothetical causes of such climate changes."

I want to leave you with an example of the 100% consensus you've been, well, lied to about for the past "10 or 20 years".

http://www.earthsky.org/article/20-scientists-speak

This is a website of an organization that espouses the 'consensus is reached, the debate is over' line on anthropological global warming. On this page they state, "Twenty six scientists were kind enough – and concerned enough – to answer.
Their answers follow. They leave little doubt. Earth is getting warmer. Humans are the most likely cause."

Look at the other articles on their site. They consistently use verbage such as, "By the end of this century, experts expect Earth’s climate to have changed." Not 'some experts', or even 'most experts', but a definitive statement about climate change. Their language is equally unequivocal regarding the debate - their is NONE.

Yet I urge you to take the time to read the 26 responses included in the above linked article. Are ALL twenty-six saying that the debate about man-made global warming has been concluded? And look harder at the credentials. Of those whose positions are not dependent on the continued belief in man-made global warming being a catostrophic disaster in the making, how many believe the debate is over?

One more item on CONSENSUS - this is how articles were written at the beginning of the debate:

"In a poll of 400 climate scientists conducted by Greenpeace International during
January & February 1992, almost half (45 percent) said that a runaway
greenhouse effect is possible if action is not taken to cut greenhouse gas
emissions. And more than one in ten of those polled believe that such a scenario
is probable. The poll included all scientists involved in the 1990 study of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, & others who have
published on issues relevant to climate change in Science or Nature during
1991." http://earthrenewal.org/global_warming.htm

These are IPCC members (and others) in which 10% felt that it was 'probable' that inaction on global warming would result in a run-away greenhouse effect. This means that nearly 90% of the members believed it was NOT PROBABLE. More than half believed it was NOT POSSIBLE. NOT EVEN POSSIBLE. Do you remember any reports from 1992 stating that MOST of the IPCC members did not believe a run-away greenhouse effect was even possible?!? Did the 1990 IPCC report on climate change which started the whole scare include this information?

No, it didn't. The fact is, that according to this poll conducted by GREENPEACE for crying out loud, a majority of the IPCC members DISAGREED with the IPCC's own report! This is the report that led to the Kyoto Accords!! This (and the 1995 report which has monumental issues with the ideas of 'internal peer review' and 'full disclosure' to the point that it's intellectually criminal) is the foundation on which the need for the Kyoto Protocol was presented to the world! ARRGH!

::deep breath::

Sorry, this whole 'consensus' and 'the debate is over' thing really, really infuriates me. History is rife with examples of a scientific consensus being reached, and subsequent drastic action being taken (for the good of the earth, nation, race, _insert good cause here_) which results in the deaths of millions upon millions.

Anyway, I love a good debate, so thanks for indulging me! Hope you find the New Year better than the last!

I could care less about global warming as you guys have covered it quite thoroughly in your posts. The thing that concerns me, and prolly will be the end of mankind, is the poisons in the air, food and water supplies. Our water is so full of heavy metals its hard to find anything pure anymore. the population of the Earth has exploded and food shortages are a very real concern, especially with the bee colony collapses we have been seeing latley. Also, the air is getting worse by the minute and Mother Nature can't clean it faster than we fuck it up. Global warming may be a real thing but its so slow I don't think we will see any real life changing events...but some of the things I have listed above are down-right scary.

Don't even get me started on the pesticides, herbicides and hormones that we consume everyday in our food supply....

Great thread people. Its a refreshing change from the constant SC bickering we do everyday. Glad to see a little pro-activeness!<---is that a real word or did I just make that up? hehe


Dirt

Thank you, William, for yet another oustandingly well researched and presented post.

The question that begs to be asked is "why, then, is this campaign of misinformation being conducted?"

The answers are multiple, but the one that applies to the bureaucrats and politicians at the forefront of this movement is the same answer that applies to nearly issue involving them.

Money and Power

Regardless of the threat presented, the solutions are always the same. Give central planners control of free economies and the power to do as they will. Kyoto represents, if implemented, a financial base for the formation of a nascent world government. Something the UN lacks. The UN is funded by voluntary contribution of the member nations. International agreements establishing international "taxes" with a bureaucracy required to administer such systems are a stepping stone in the process of forming functional world government. It is inaccurate and disingenuous to state that so many countries are united in this belief, i.e. Kyoto. It would be much more accurate and honest to acknowledge that political factions with similar viewpoints that exist within said nations are cooperating.

Sorry if that sounds paranoid, but it is simple truth. World government as opposed to international cooperation has proven to be a line most developed nations are unwilling to cross at this time. There is, however, a minority everywhere that supports the idea completely. Many of these individuals are networked and players in this campaign.

It is a philosophical struggle that has little to do with science and nothing to do with protecting the environment.

Without getting into a new debate over the worth of world government, at least, grasp the reason why all this is happening.

Post Script for William. You are exactly right about the conduct of the politicians "speaking" for the scientific community. The largest UN study on climate change in the late 90's wrote thousands of pages concluding that there was insufficient evidence to make any determination if global warming was occuring much less causes. They concluded that at least 50 years of further study would be necessary before any attempt at conclusions could be reached.
The Executive Summary of a few hundred pages was written by the supervising bureaucrats and politicians that stated conclusions that were directly contradicted by the body of the study. They just made up what they wanted the world to hear and trusted, correctly, that it would be long enough between the reporting of the Summary Conclusions and the actual dissection of the study that public opinion would swayed in favor of man made global warming.

@Dirt. The misinformation that you are being fed about the microthreats to human health are the other side of the coin in the same movement.

The real evidence is exactly the opposite of what you are stating.

The developed nations are increasingly cleaner and healthier than they have been since the industrial revolution. Certainly better than the third world. Real pollution that is conclusively proven to be harmful has been thoroughly regulated, monitored, and reduced for several generations. (Please spare me the links to the prophecies of impending doom websites.)

The scare tactics of the "invisible killers" are just part of the larger campaign to convince our populations that we cannot regulate ourselves and require the intervention of supernational bodies to do it for us.

Please don't buy into this Bravo Sierra as well.

"@Dirt. The misinformation that you are being fed about the microthreats to human health are the other side of the coin in the same movement."

I hardly call it misinformation FB. These are not scare tactics but they are indeed invisable killers as you described. I know a little about this subject as I have an Ag degree...

We CANNOT rely on our 'supernational' bodies as they are the ones who profit and benefit from all of the above. We must rely on ourselves to grow our own foods and take great care to what we put in our mouths, and raise holy hell about what is in our air and water...but its all mute. The pollution has set in and it will take a milenia to reverse the damage we have done. This isn't a 'save the Earth plea' but rather save yourselves.


Anyone who thinks that the pollution we have pumped into the ecosystem isn't causing great harm is in a serious state of denial.

"The developed nations are increasingly cleaner and healthier than they have been since the industrial revolution. Certainly better than the third world. Real pollution that is conclusively proven to be harmful has been thoroughly regulated, monitored, and reduced for several generations."

Yeah right! Cleaner than what? Than before the industrial revolution? Bah! And pollution isn't being reduced. Its simply being shuffled around thru 'credits' and hidden in red tape. If you want to believe the EPA go right ahead as they are a branch of the same govt. that lies to us daily. And you say we've been reducing pollution for generations but the real pollution didn't start till the turn of the 19th century, roughly 12 generations ago. Thats hardly enough time to reverse anything we've done.
How many Prince William Sounds do we need to experiance? How many Chernobyls do we need to go thru? Three mile Islands? These pollution disaters take 10,000 years to reverse and they are piling high on us like pancakes.

I challenge you to prove me wrong. Please don't refer me to any websites as you have requested of me. I simply rely on my education and years of collaboration with my colleagues.

i dont feel qualified to judge whether or not global warming is man-made. i am not a climate scientist. maybe some of you guys are qualified to determine that all on your own. but i really feel you are just picking and choosing, cherry-picking really, the scientific reports that fit your political ideology....