A good article for Conservative to read - Liberals should avoid such articles and instead post long, meaningless rants on unrelated subjects, poking fun at those "beneath" them. Thank you.
Global Warning Flapdoodle
Michael Colgan
Having been a consultant to several administrations of varying stripes, I have yet to meet a party in power willing to tell the public what a mess we have made of the environment. And they will not even whisper how that mess is causing much of the degenerative disease that plagues our Western lives.1,2 The business of government is foremost to stay in the business of government, and the truth would topple the strongest. Instead both public and media are fed carefully worded porkies, framed solely to make the ruling party look good and indict the parties in opposition. That’s where we stand with global warming.
We Cannot Control the Environment
It is an arrogant conceit that human discovery of immense powers of destruction somehow confer powers of creation. You can fell the mightiest oak tree with a handful of plastic explosive. But science still hasn’t the faintest idea how to create a single living blade of grass. Yet it is common conviction, and carefully conjured media madness, that we can create whole forests to replace those we destroy. Only the truly uninformed believe that a tree farm is a forest. We haven’t an inkling how to make it so. Yet children are taught to plant seedlings and rejoice, deceived they are re-greening the Earth.
I wish I had the space to present the evidence of man’s environmental ignorance. But one telling example will have to suffice. With great fanfare, and 200 million tax-free dollars seeded by Texas oil baron Ed Bass, in 1987 a series of interconnected sealed domes were built covering three acres of the Arizona desert, 20 minutes north of Tucson. For nearly a decade the Biosphere employed the best scientific minds in the world, to create a miniature Earth-like environment which would sustain a variety of plants, insects, food crops, fish, 25 species of animals and eight humans indefinitely, completely independent of the outside world for air, food and water. No expense was spared to make it as perfect an ecosystem as man knew how, complete with a 900,000 gallon little tidal sea. Anti-aging scientist Roy Walford spoke in glowing terms of the triumph of science before being sealed in with his seven carefully chosen companions on 26 September 1991.3 Media buzzed with speculations of vast cities in space built on similar lines. At last humans had triumphed over Nature and freed themselves from the confines of the third little rock from the sun.
Not a chance. Within weeks the oxygen inexplicably began to dwindle from the normal 21% in the air. Then the water became undrinkable and had to be laboriously filtered. Within months, 19 of the 25 animal species went “extinct”. After a year the “Biospherians” were struggling to survive, and fighting like cats and dogs. Finally they had to crack the seal and let themselves out to save their sorry lives.3 Even so, Dr Walford developed the illness that finally killed him, some 20 years shy of his centenarian dreams.
Biosphere: Scientific Disgrace
In March 1994 they tried again with seven people, new animals and much hubris. Within months the whole thing failed miserably. The Biosphere became a scientific laughing stock, and was ditched forever. Taken over by Columbia University of New York in 1995, and renamed Biosphere 2, it reopened unsealed in November 1996, as an “Earth Systems Laboratory, with much humbler goals of studying microbial, plant and small animal life. Once again it still aimed to be the place that taught us how to understand the environment of Earth. There were even some desperate experiments on greenhouse gases in a bid to regain credibility.4 All the promises came to naught. No one had the knowledge even to approach the problem. Biosphere 2 today is little more than a student classroom and a lame tourist attraction. Latest word: it is slated for redevelopment as a new bedroom community for ever expanding Tucson.
Think about it. The best of modern science, and more money than you can poke a stick at, could not maintain eight people in a man-made environment. That tells us for sure that science is nowhere near to tackling the environment of the planet. Global warming was in the news when I was a child, before the Second World War. Then, of course, it was believed to be happening naturally, a swing of the temperature pendulum that has gone back and forth for millions of years. Now there are gazillions to be made by the financially cunning convincing the scientifically stupid that it is mostly man-made, and that they can do something to stop it.
Pork Barrel Hurricanes
I have spent 30 years working in favor of reducing our fossil fuel waste and the man-made spewing of toxic vapors and greenhouse gases into the air, but global warming is way beyond our ken. Real scientists, who have examined the temperature and weather calendar over millennia, bow their heads in humility before the might of the system that sustains us, and our helplessness before it. Meanwhile pork-barrel businessmen and their scientific toadies have leapt on the lucrative global warming wagon, and tied it to everything uncomfortable that the normal cycles of Nature throw at us, from floods and snow, to heat waves and cold snaps, to tidal changes and hurricanes.
Hurricanes!!? Visit the National Meteorological Office if you don’t believe me, but hurricanes run in cycles too. They were big in the 1920s and 1930s, and again in the 1960s. Then they declined from 1970-1990. Now they are still on the upswing. But Katrina was not the biggest on record by far. The two strongest hurricanes were Labor Day 1935 that hit the Florida Keys, and Hurricane Camille in 1969. And the two most deadly were the Galvaston hurricane of 1900, and the Lake Okeechobee hurricane of 1928, the latter killing over 8,000 people, more than three times the death toll of Katrina5. Of course the evening news doesn’t mention these things: it would reduce the drama of blaming global warming.
I will take anyone’s bet, that, no matter if every government on Earth drastically cuts back emissions tomorrow, it will not make a whit of difference to the rising temperature in the next 40 years (about how much longer I hope to live). We have not the faintest notion how to alter the current warming trend by even one-tenth of one degree, and whatever action is taken will fail miserably, crooked folk
Human habitats and population distribution are much easier and cheaper to change than the planet. Better to focus our efforts on adapting to the extra heat, and the rising tides, and the mass migrations of starving people from countries near the Equator, all of which are happening now unplanned, while politicians argue about who did worst in failing to fulfill the Kyoto Protocol, and who has bullying rights in buying and selling “emissions credits”. Meanwhile, If you live only house height above high water mark, it might be good thinking to move up the hill.
1. Colgan M. Nutrition for Champions. Vancouver: Science Books, 2007.
2. Colgan M. Save Your Brain. Vancouver Science Books, 2007.
3.3. www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/biosphere2
4. Cohen JE, Tulman D. Ecology – Biosphere 2 and biodiversity: The lessons so far. Science, 1996; 274: 1150-1151.
5. Ridenour D. National Center for Public Policy, National Policy Analysis, October 2005.
__________________
2001 ST4 Mod Rod
Built by BCM in 2004 and still running like a clock. 120 HP at the rear wheel. 55 mpg. Thanks Bruce (and Jay)!
Good post, Dan. This is a guy I do actually admire and respect.
As I have said to my friends, "There is nothing that a sports nutritionist doesn't know about climate science that we should laugh about." because, hey, he's a scientist.
And scientists are clever guys, right ?
Specialisation is for pussy's. No shit, I believe that, look at me, I'm from the same neck of the woods as him, therefore I benefitted from the same excellent socialist education system, and I know a little about a lot, so this gives me that oh so-rare talent of being able to see the "Big Picture", right ?
BTW, it is an excellent article. Typical Kiwi "cut through the bullshit" stuff ! I guess he does fly in the face of all serious climate scientists about the human enhancement to the natural heating and cooling cycles of the planet, but hey, nobodies perfect....
Yeah, I also have little to argue with in that article. But using Biosphere as an example is a big stretch. Biosphere is much different than a planet. What we should do is multifaceted. He's right, we need to approach things from a variety of angles. I still think reducing greenhouse gas emissions and rainforest reforestation are two of them. It would be idiotic to not. The GW timeframe is not strictly 40 years either. Most estimates I've heard talk about 50 to 100 years before major affects are felt.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
Canada's first carbon tax took effect Monday in Quebec.
The stated goal is to reduce greenhouse emissions that supposedly cause global warming.
The reality will turn out to be quite a bit different.
Energy companies are now paying 0.8 cents (Canadian) on every liter of gasoline sold in Quebec — about 0.30 cents per gallon — alongside 0.9 cents on each liter of diesel fuel, 0.96 cents per liter of light heating oil, 1 cent per liter on heavy heating oil, 0.5 cents on each liter of propane and $8 for a ton of coal.
Quebec officials believe the tax will raise about $200 million — paid mainly by consumers who will get the passed-down costs — which will be used to cut back on the province's carbon dioxide emissions. That's an iffy proposition, at best. The money will be used, but it's unlikely that it will have an effect on global climate.
What is certain, though, is that the tax will spread beyond the targeted energy industry.
Already companies that don't provide energy are getting anxious because they import more than 25 million liters of petroleum or carbon products a year for use. Under the law, they're defined as distributors. Cement and mining operations are two kinds that will feel the pinch — and will be among the first businesses to leave the province because of the needlessly added taxes and regulation — unless changes are made in the law.
The best change would be to scrap it. But it's another revenue stream for lawmakers, and they'll be reluctant to get rid of a law that provides them with easy money no matter how ineffective it proves to be.
There's been a swell of agitation in the U.S. for a carbon tax in recent years, some of it from those we would least expect to be supporters. (Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economics professor who has advised President Bush and is now advising Mitt Romney, is the foremost of these.) So here's their chance. Quebec lawmakers are willing to let their province serve as a laboratory.
Eventually, the mad science of carbon taxation will put a drag on Quebec's economy. Because the energy sources being taxed are inputs across the economy, the prices of consumer goods are bound to rise. Higher prices reduce wages and slow commerce. Does that sound like the foundation of a healthy economy?
Quebecers ultimately will wish that their provincial lawmakers had the wisdom of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But it will be too late when they recognize, as Harper does, that the fight against global warming is just another way government can separate people from their money.
OK, it's not really neccessary, because we know where most of your right-wing crap comes from, but it's polite to at least let us verify the veracity of your sources. I mean, you could post something saying that Iraq has WMD, and that could cause a war, and lots of innocent deaths, if the information wasn't verifiable, and we couldn't have that, now, could we....???
Gee whiz!!!! I don't know if I could make ends meet if I had to pay an extra .3 cents per gallon. Let's see, I use like 15 gallons per week. That would be like 4.5 cents per week. Oh my!!! Whatever shall we do?!
BFD
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdog
Canada's first carbon tax took effect Monday in Quebec.
Energy companies are now paying 0.8 cents (Canadian) on every liter of gasoline sold in Quebec — about 0.30 cents per gallon — alongside 0.9 cents on each liter of diesel fuel, 0.96 cents per liter of light heating oil, 1 cent per liter on heavy heating oil, 0.5 cents on each liter of propane and $8 for a ton of coal.
Not that long ago, gas prices were at an all-time high, and we were going ballistic. When we were paying as much as $3 a gallon, I couldn't help but direct my anger at oil-producing countries. I was convinced that they were to blame for the soaring costs, and I was angry at our government for not taking more aggressive measures to slow price increases.
Imagine my surprise when the stories came out about how much money the oil companies have been making. While drivers have been paying record prices at the pumps every time they fill their tanks, the oil companies apparently have been making historic profits. It's actually quite unbelievable.
Exxon's profits were up 75 percent to 9.9 billionin the third quarter alone. Shell reported a net income of $9 billion. British Petroleum reported $6.5 billion of profit in the third quarter, and ConocoPhillips reported $3.8 billion. Those are astounding numbers.
I know that the purpose of business is to make money, and I never want to begrudge an organization its profits. But all this time we assumed the oil companies were struggling like the average consumer. This was one time where they could've buckled down just a little bit. They could've taken a little less of a share of the profits so that they wouldn't have passed on such a big burden to the consumers.
Yet here we are, eating the costs of higher oil prices.
Oh man, that's just not right. Humor at anothers expense just isnt funny to me.....
Especially when it's you that is being made fun of... right?
But seriously, I like your photography angles and ubber cool photoshop effects, very Napoleon Dynomite-ish
Maybe i can get the latest version of MS Paint and you can teach me
Maybe i can get the latest version of MS Paint and you can teach me
Absolutely, Ive always enjoyed sharing the knowledge bro, here's a lil something I just whipped up.......
What do you think?
The whole head tilt, eyebrow lift..........is slightly on the side, IMO, which is fine if you like being folded over I suppose.
How someone could even think about insulting another person when they're sporting THE ish self portrait avatar is beyond me. You goof on my having some fun on PS but yet either you did it yourself or had someone do it for you (not sure which is worse) to post on a MOTORCYCLE FORUM. ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!
Now that I think about it, you're the ONLY person I know who keeps posting self portraits as av's, are you a wanna be runway model cutter? Maybe start some binge eating before making that big leap from pool boy to modeling.
Now back to the original thread topic, I propose that ALL fat asses stop over eating, that'd be less energy consumed to prepare their meals, less driving (emissions, black gold, tire wear, etc...) to restock fast food locations and grocery stores....etc...
So any FAT ASS who bitches about MMGW needs to start at home...........IMHO ofcourse.
Funny, I always thought that was Edward Norton.
XBLOB, why are you always playing up the gay angle? Hmmm.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
Absolutely, Ive always enjoyed sharing the knowledge bro, here's a lil something I just whipped up.......
What do you think?
The whole head tilt, eyebrow lift..........is slightly on the side, IMO, which is fine if you like being folded over I suppose.
How someone could even think about insulting another person when they're sporting THE ish self portrait avatar is beyond me.
What nerve, I let you suck my cawk once and you call me !
A avatar is (by definition) "a graphical image that represents a person, as on the Internet."
I chose to use my own image to put a face to my posts, unlike you who hides your image out of shame of lame postings, can't say I blame you
Quote:
You goof on my having some fun on PS but yet either you did it yourself or had someone do it for you (not sure which is worse) to post on a MOTORCYCLE FORUM. ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!
Yes, it is about as redundant as talking politics or telling jokes on a "MOTORCYCLE FORUM ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!"
I do my own animations and photoshops, if file size allowed I would use those. I even do some for side work, PM if you're interested...
Quote:
Now that I think about it, you're the ONLY person I know who keeps posting self portraits as av's, are you a wanna be runway model cutter? Maybe start some binge eating before making that big leap from pool boy to modeling.
I worked hard to get fat, countless 12 ounce curls to get my 12 pack abs
Quote:
Now back to the original thread topic, I propose that ALL fat asses stop over eating, that'd be less energy consumed to prepare their meals, less driving (emissions, black gold, tire wear, etc...) to restock fast food locations and grocery stores....etc...
So any FAT ASS who bitches about MMGW needs to start at home...........IMHO ofcourse.
If these number are acurate, and based on US operations profits, the profit per US household would be obscene.
30 Billion divided by maybe 150 million households is *what* $200 profit per household, per quarter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gog
Exxon's profits were up 75 percent to 9.9 billionin the third quarter alone. Shell reported a net income of $9 billion. British Petroleum reported $6.5 billion of profit in the third quarter, and ConocoPhillips reported $3.8 billion. Those are astounding numbers.
Remember, the war in Iraq is not about oil, hmmm. And the oil companies care about the environment. After all, if all that ice melts, it makes drilling so much easier in Alaska ! Yay for Global climate change ! Yay for oil companies !
I think the oil companies have realised that the game is almost up, so this is the last big splurge, the last attempt to fill their coffers with wonga, ready for the lean times and possible toppling from their monopoly of energy providers that is now a great deal closer than just a speck on the horizon...
It will also ensure them a head start, at least financially, in their eventual domination of alternative energies. Total/Fina/Elf are buying up at undisclosed rates a lot of former French MoD land and cultivatable land for growing colza and other oil-bearing plants. They are also investing heavily in wind, solar and tidal energy programs and developments.
Guess they've got the cash for it. Thanks, GWB and the Horseman, War........
Canada's Tax Lab
side, IMO, which is fine if you like being folded over I suppose. 
Thanks, GWB and the Horseman, War........
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