Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Jingy
Social climber
Flatland, Ca
|
|
|
Nov 23, 2009 - 11:59pm PT
|
Is anyone still skeptical about the globe getting a bit warmer?
take a look at this story
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091123/ts_afp/australianzealandantarcticaclimateiceberg
Ice Bergs are floating away from Antarctica.. more and more as time goes by....
What?
Should we care about this at all.. I mean... I'm gonna be gone before it gets much warmer... So I should live as if I'm the only person on the planet and burn everything I can... For Profit!!!
|
|
bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2009 - 08:22am PT
|
wsj online provides several of the controversial emails:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704779704574553652849094482.html
here's my question: why try to suppress contradictory evidence (or even opinions)?
i would have much more respect for gore if he actually debated any of the many challengers who have asked (rather than mocking/berating reporters)...his continued refusal to engage in an open debate hardly bolsters his credibility...this is why i admire/respect/even like christopher hitchens so much; i find his attacks on christianity repugnant but he at least is willing to debate anyone on the subject matter in a public forum
i think the best defense of free speech is the simple fact that all idiots will reveal their idiocy if given the freedom to express their beliefs...so if you think climate scientists who reject anthropological global climate change are idiots, prove it by engaging them in debate...refusal to do so only makes you look fearful
another question: the climate change faithful always claim that skeptical scientists are simply motivated by money...so what motivates the climate change scientists who conspire to suppress evidence or intimidate those who disagree?
|
|
Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2009 - 10:59am PT
|
Research fraud maybe more widespread than thought . . .
An article in this week's Nature suggests that research misconduct is often going unreported, and that as many as 1000 cases a year are never discovered.
By Jonathan M. Gitlin | Last updated June 20, 2008 12:55 PM
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2008/06/research-fraud-maybe-more-widespread-than-thought.ars
Also:
"Contrary to their public image, scientists are normal, flawed human beings."13 They are as capable of prejudice, covetousness, pride, deceitfulness, etc., as anyone.” David Weatherall, "Conduct Unbecoming," American Scientist (vol. 93, January-February 2005), p. 73.
There is fraud in science. Yes, when it works as it is supposed to, it will be found out. But how long will it take, and how much damage will be done in the mean time?
There are those who will hide the truth to protect their interests no matter what side of the issue they support.
I think all scientists should be required to take an intensive course in scientific ethics and morals in their degree programs, and how to prevent it from happening. The problem is pervasive, and often goes undetected until someone questions the results of a study and then maybe it still isn't detected.
Case in point, how long will the truth be embargoed and held down regarding this phenomenon by governments (especially the US) and the corporate owned media? How long will people continue to lie to hide the truth?
The Best UFO videos Caught on Tape:
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/30998/The_best_UFO_videos_caught_on_tape/
|
|
Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2009 - 12:43pm PT
|
I would not say that the majority of science or scientists participate in fruad, far from it. But the problem exists, there is no doubt for whatever fraudulent reasons they do so. The articles I listed are from very respected journals and the scientific community is acknowledging the problem. It does exist.
The issue with global warming is a prime example of perhaps both sides "cooking the books."
I do think that GW is occuring due to green-house gases. We are releasing copious amounts of green-house gases artificially that would have been locked up and safely stored within the carbon cycle. There is no doubt about that. There can be no doubt it has an effect. Are there other ways of producing the energy we need by clean and renewable resources, there sure is. So why don't we do it? We all know the answer to that. Greed and power by the oil cartels around the world that enslave us and our control our oil based economies, so they have an incentive to fund and find scientists willing to compromise and say what they want them to say. Try working in Envirinmental consulting and see how much fruad goes on with EISs, EIRs, and CEQA. Anything will be said and fudged to get a development put in.
But are there some other influences possible also? I think so. Remember Sun-Spots stopped for a period of time for 60 years or so during the mid 1600s to early 1700s,
"1700s early 1800s During the period 1645–1715, in the middle of the Little Ice Age, there was a period of low solar activity known as the Maunder Minimum. There is a still very poor understanding of the correlation between low sunspot activity and cooling temperatures."
and there was a documented cooling world-wide and a "Little Ice-Age." Glaciers grew and advanced considerably during this period of time.
See "Causes":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
|
|
GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2009 - 02:24pm PT
|
Don't even bother talking about it here, bluering. They will refuse to believe what you say, and refuse to look at it for that matter. The last thing the left wants is for you to take away their reason for guilting people into tax cuts and giving up freedoms.
Just like the republicans were said to use Terrorism to fund an 'unjust war,' the democrats used global warming to say 'the world is ending - spend money on these things now!'
Welcome to the two party system.
|
|
bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2009 - 03:08pm PT
|
Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate
Posted By Iain Murray On November 24, 2009 @ 12:42 am In . Feature 01, Computers, Environment, Media, Politics, Science, Science & Technology, US News, World News | 137 Comments
They’re calling it “Climategate.” The scandal that the suffix –gate implies is the state of climate science over the past decade or so revealed by a thousand or so emails, documents, and computer code sets between various prominent scientists released following a leak from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK.
This may seem obscure, but the science involved is being used to justify the diversion of literally trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels. The CRU is the Pentagon of global warming science, and these documents are its Pentagon Papers.
Here are three things everyone should know about the Climategate Papers. Links are provided so that the full context of every quote can be seen by anyone interested.
First, the scientists discuss manipulating data to get their preferred results. The most prominently featured scientists are paleoclimatologists, who reconstruct historical temperatures and who were responsible for a series of reconstructions that seemed to show a sharp rise in temperatures well above historical variation in recent decades.
In 1999, Phil Jones, the head of CRU, wrote to activist scientist Michael “Mike” Mann that he has just “completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps … to hide the decline”(0942777075 [1]). This refers to a decline in temperatures in recent years revealed by the data he had been reconstructing that conflicted with the observed temperature record. The inconvenient data was therefore hidden under a completely different set of data. Some “trick.”
Mann later (2003) announced that “it would be nice to try to ‘contain’ the putative ‘MWP,’ even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back” (1054736277 [2]). The MWP is the Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures may have been higher than today. Mann’s desire to “contain” this phenomenon even in the absence of any data suggesting that this is possible is a clear indication of a desire to manipulate the science. There are other examples of putting political/presentational considerations before the science throughout the collection.
Secondly, scientists on several occasions discussed methods of subverting the scientific peer review process to ensure that skeptical papers had no access to publication. In 2003, Tom Wigley of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, complained that paleoclimatologist Hans von Storch was responsible for “the publication of crap science ‘in order to stimulate debate’” and that they “must get rid of von Storch” (1051190249 [3]) as an editor of the journal Climate Research (he indeed subsequently resigned).
In 2005, Michael Mann said that there was a “fundamental problem w/ GRL now,” referring to the journal Geophysical Research Letters published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), because “they have published far too many deeply flawed contrarian papers in the past year or so” and “it is probably best to do an end run around GRL now where possible.” Tom Wigley responded that “we could go through official AGU channels to get him [the editor of GRL] ousted” (1106322460 [4]). A few months later, the editor of GRL having left his post, Mann comments, “The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/ new editorial leadership there” (1132094873 [5]).
Having seemingly succeeded with Climate Research and Geophysical Research Letters, the most recent target of the scientists’ ire has been Weather, a journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMS). Phil Jones commented in March 2009, “I’m having a dispute with the new editor of Weather. I’ve complained about him to the RMS Chief Exec. If I don’t get him to back down, I won’t be sending any more papers to any RMS journals and I’ll be resigning from the RMS” (1237496573 [6]).
This issue is all the more important because the scientists involved in these discussions have repeatedly accused their critics of being irrelevant because they fail to publish in the peer reviewed literature. For example, in October this year, Mr. Mann told Andy Revkin of the New York Times:
[L]egitimate scientific skepticism is exercised through formal scientific circles, in particular the peer review process. Those such as [Stephen] McIntyre [the target of much of the criticism in the CRU Papers] who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted.
If you are saying on the one hand that you will not take notice of someone until they have been published while on the other you are working behind the scenes to stop any such publication, I would venture to suggest that you are not operating with any degree of bona fides either towards the media or the legitimate scientific process.
Finally, the scientists worked to circumvent the Freedom of Information process of the United Kingdom. Nowhere is this better evidenced than in the email [7] reproduced in full below (minus Dr. Jones’ contact details):
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil
The context in the subject header is clearly the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI), while AR4 refers to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What is most important to know here is that, according to the Taxpayers’ Alliance [8] in the UK, “at least one FOI request on exactly this correspondence had apparently been submitted [9] by a David Holland on May 5th 2008.”
The Freedom of Information Act, however, explicitly forbids deletion of any material subject to a FOI request. The penalty for such a criminal act is a fine of up to £5,000. Presumably being found guilty of such an act, or even suggesting it, would also bring about significant disciplinary procedures at any reputable university. A complaint has been made to the British information commissioner.
This is, however, just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to attitudes toward FOI. Numerous other references are made about ways to avoid divulging information (the following summaries are by the blogger Bishop Hill [10]):
Tom Wigley discusses how to deal with the advent of FoI law in UK. Jones says use IPR argument to hold onto code. Says data is covered by agreements with outsiders and that CRU will be “hiding behind them.”(1106338806 [11])
Jones says that UK climate organisations are coordinating themselves to resist FoI. They got advice from the Information Commissioner [!](1219239172 [12])
Jones tells Mann that he is sending station data. Says that if McIntyre requests it under FoI he will delete it rather than hand it over. Says he will hide behind data protection laws. Says Rutherford screwed up big time by creating an FTP directory for Osborn. Says Wigley worried he will have to release his model code. (1107454306 [13])
There appears to be a prima facie case that there was a conspiracy to prevent the release of information subject to FOI.
There are many other disturbing revelations in the CRU Papers, including a particularly disturbing assessment [14] by a computer programmer of the state of CRU data. These have yet to be fully analyzed.
So what does this all mean? It does not mean that there is no warming trend or that mankind has not been responsible for at least some of the warming. To claim that as result of these documents is clearly a step too far. However, it is clear that at least one branch of climate science — paleoclimatology — has become hopelessly politicized to the point of engaging in unethical and possibly illegal behavior.
To the extent that paleoclimatology is an important part of the scientific case for action regarding global warming, urgent reassessments need to be made. In the meantime, all those responsible for political action on global warming should stop the process pending the results of inquiries, investigations, and any criminal proceedings. What cannot happen is the process carrying on as if nothing has happened.
This could prove to be climate science’s Vietnam.
|
|
bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 08:46am PT
|
funny vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk&feature=player_embedded
serious article; the most salient point? that global warmi...er, climate change alarmists may be guilty of more than a lack of ethics; because their claims have been used to enact legislation, at huge costs to the public, these scientists might be guilty of several felonies, including conspiracy (racketeering?) to commit fraud and larceny (if accusations of fraud are proven, then the funding for their research was stolen)...i'm not a lawyer so i don't know the feasibility of charging these guys, but i think they (including gore) deserve some jail time (though i'd be satisfied if gore was forced to liquidate his assets and donate the cash to "skeptical" scientists
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/24/the_fix_is_in_99280.html
|
|
bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 08:50am PT
|
Climate of Fraud
What do hacked e-mails tell us about global-warming research?
An NRO Symposium
The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit’s e-mail account was hacked earlier this month, exposing communications among CRU faculty members and researchers that reveal their willingness to distort climate-change data. Do those e-mails mark a sea-change moment in the global-warming debate? National Review Online asked environmentalism experts to weigh in.
H. STERLING BURNETT
Why anyone should be surprised by this, I don’t know. Twenty years ago, Steve Schneider of Stanford stated that to be effective advocates on the issue of global warming, scientists would have to “offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” His disciples have tried to suppress criticism of the “hockey stick” graph; when that proves impossible and researchers such as Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick expose the graph’s deep flaws, they settle for ignoring or downplaying the problem.
And all of this with the cooperation of the mainstream media. Even when errors are found and admitted to, “legitimate journalists” such as those at the New York Times and the Washington Post, rather than asking hard questions of the scientists who have made the errors or conducting independent investigations, have simply given these scientists a platform to say, “Yeah, we were wrong, but the error was not important.” The reporters never question the claim that the errors aren’t important.
Whether these e-mails are game-changers depends largely upon two things. First, the willingness of other scientists to stand up and speak out about the way these researchers’ deception, professional malfeasance, and attempts to suppress dissent and subvert the peer-review process undermine the credibility of science in general and climate science in particular. Second, the ability of analysts and other concerned parties to force this issue from the blogs into the mainstream media. So far, it’s same old, same old: The Times and the Post give climate alarmists a forum in which to downplay the incident, and broadcast media largely ignore it. We need a Van Jones moment, a moment in which people at CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, the Post, the Times, and the AP have to admit that there is a significant story and hard questions should be asked. So far, they’ve been focusing on whether the e-mails were obtained legally — which shouldn’t be an issue, since most of the disclosed material should have been available under FOIA request.
At the very least, the scientists featured prominently in these e-mails should be precluded from participating in further efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for the sake of the IPCC’s integrity, if nothing else. Their continued involvement with the IPCC can only serve to raise a cloud of suspicion over future IPCC efforts and publications.
— H. Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
DANA JOEL GATTUSO
While many may regard the release of the e-mails a major victory, particularly on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit, it is and should be viewed as a tragedy.
How else can one describe the intentions and acts of leading climate scientists who, if the e-mails are authentic, conspired to censor scientific research that didn’t conform to their vision of a global-warming crisis, illegally plotted to conceal their own data from climatologists with different findings, and perhaps even manipulated data for what one of the e-mails refers to as the “common goal”?
Moreover, this episode illuminates how one of the world’s leading climate-research institutions — the CRU provides key data and studies to the IPCC, thereby greatly influencing environmental policy worldwide — put its agenda far above the science, cherry-picking studies and gagging experts who disagreed.
If there is a win here, it is that extremism and alarmism in the debate on climate change may be put to rest, or at least put on leave for a time. No longer can these scientists, who have driven and dominated the climate debate, speak with authority or credibility.
— Dana Joel Gattuso is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.
KENNETH P. GREEN
The recently released documents from the CRU may not mark a sea change in the debate over anthropogenic climate change, but they will certainly increase the public’s skepticism. They will also stiffen the spines of those who have long doubted climate science but have found it expedient to accede to the science and simply argue about policy.
The purloined letters show a climate-science community in full tribal mode, conspiring to suppress contrary findings in the peer-reviewed literature; excluding contrary peer-reviewed publications from IPCC reports; concealing the shoddy nature of climate data; colluding to hide data and destroy correspondence; and using mathematical tricks to produce ever more alarming-looking charts.
While much of the CRU material is banal, some of it clearly suggests intentional subversion of the scientific process by an incestuous group of scientists from major climate-research centers in the U.S. and U.K. Now, more than ever, we must demand transparency from the climate-science community, whose research is being used to justify Al Gore’s “wrenching transformation” of our technological civilization.
— Kenneth P. Green is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
BEN LIEBERMAN
The wheels were already coming off the cart of the global-warming crisis before Climategate hit. But the recently released cache of e-mails and other documents showing that data were manipulated to hide a lack of warming, that other data were suppressed, and that contradictory research from “skeptics” (the pejorative term for those who dissent from climate-change dogma) was shut out of the debate just accelerates the process.
Those in the media and elsewhere straining to argue that Climategate is no big deal have had quite a bit of practice making far-fetched claims. For example, temperatures have been fairly flat since the late 1990s, but some have treated the complete lack of warming over this decade-plus stretch as a non-issue. The upcoming Copenhagen climate conference is tasked with replacing the supposedly inadequate provisions from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, but, ironically, temperatures have barely budged since then.
If influential scientists’ being caught manipulating and suppressing data is no big deal, and if the absence of any additional warming since the late 1990s is also no big deal, one wonders what if anything would be a big deal.
With Copenhagen coming up in two weeks, the revelations are very timely. As with cap-and-trade legislation currently stalled in the Senate, international efforts to ratchet down fossil-fuel use would be enormously expensive and likely ineffective even if global warming really were a serious threat. And now there is even more reason to believe that the costs will be for nothing.
— Ben Lieberman, a specialist in energy and environmental issues, is a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.
JIM MANZI
A set of very damaging e-mails have apparently been hacked from the Hadley Climate Research Unit; they purportedly show climate scientists there manipulating and deploying historical climate data to reach predetermined conclusions, coordinating messaging, and attempting to control the definition of expertise in order to marginalize those who disagree with them.
I have not read the full set of e-mails, nor have I seen authoritative evidence of their provenance, but for the sake of argument let’s assume the allegations are correct. None of this surprises me. I argued over two years ago that: 1) Long-term climate reconstruction was one of the two key trouble spots in climate science; 2) mathematically sophisticated critics had debunked the methodology used to reconstruct long-term climate evidence that is the basis for the famous “hockey stick” increase in global temperatures; and 3) excellent evidence had been presented to the U.S. Senate that, in climate reconstruction, academic peer review meant, in effect, agreement among a tiny, self-selected group of experts. The root problem here is not the eternal perfidy of human nature, but the fact that we can’t run experiments on history to adjudicate disputes, which makes this less like chemistry or physics than like economics or political science.
In human terms, the scandal is obviously a PR disaster for those who believe that climate reconstruction is “science” in the sense we normally use the term, but what it does not change is the basic physics of how CO2 molecules interact with radiation. As I have always argued, this is the real basis for rational concern about greenhouse-gas emissions, and is a key reason that all the major national scientific academies agree that the greenhouse effect is a real risk. Recognizing this risk, however, does not entail accepting the political conclusion that we need laws to radically reduce emissions at enormous cost.
— Jim Manzi is a contributing editor of National Review.
HENRY PAYNE
Do the Climate Research Unit e-mails mark a sea-change moment in the climate-change debate? They certainly constitute one more leak in the hull of a global-warming movement that has been taking on water recently from allegations of faulty science and political hypocrisy. But given the vested interest that media, governments, and rent-seeking industries have in CO2 regulation, even news of cover-up will not easily turn the juggernaut.
Consider what we already know about global-warming science. Its advocates have a 40-year track record of crying wolf, from warnings of pesticide-induced species extinction to predictions of the world’s running out of food by the 21st century to warnings of a global freeze.
Its lead advocate, Al Gore, lives in a 10,000-square-foot home while pushing government subsidies that will boost his profits from business investments. Even green journalists privately concede that the movement’s leading climatologist, James Hansen, is a nut — a view whose soundness was dramatically illustrated in 2008 when he testified on behalf of Greenpeace activists that power plants should be vandalized. Contrary to predictions, the Earth hasn’t warmed in a decade.
Yet this January, the Detroit Auto Show will be themed green as automakers hype their tiny, government-subsidized electric-hybrid vehicles, designed to meet federal miles-per-gallon standards — while show attendees freeze through one of the coldest decades in Midwest history.
And the assembled green media will ignore the irony and write the hype.
|
|
JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 01:53pm PT
|
I always enjoy reading your posts and links, Bookworm, but I'm not sure that the NRO comments really mean much. I don't find it news when climate change zealots minimize anything that contradicts their preconceptions. For the same reason, I don't find the comments NRO posted all that helpful.
To me, the real issue will be how the MSM treats this. Already, AP failed the test. They've assigned all sorts of reporters to find holes in Palin's book, and to defend ObamaCare. I doubt that they've devoted even a tenth of those resources on this story.
Also, the fact that science has politics (as opposed to political science) is nothing new. Even if the climate change zealots have been trying to suppress data, there is a substantial amount of data supporting their position. Accordingly, I'm not nearly as sanguine as the NOR commentators on this being a sea change.
John
|
|
Robb
Social climber
The Greeley Triangle
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 02:09pm PT
|
Isn't economics almost always at the root of everything?I say the truth will be told when people follow the money on this one.
|
|
Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 02:09pm PT
|
This is the Green equivalent to Weapons Of Mass Destruction.
It was all bullshit all along.
|
|
dirtbag
climber
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 02:12pm PT
|
Yawn.
|
|
Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 02:27pm PT
|
I say the truth will be told when people follow the money on this one.
Umm, no, the truth will be told by nature. We can act or not act, see what's happening
or refuse to, but outside there's a real world of ice, water and air. It is changing.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 02:44pm PT
|
|
|
Robb
Social climber
The Greeley Triangle
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 02:44pm PT
|
Chiloe,
I agree that it's changing-no debate on that. What I have trouble w/ here is how much it's changing & what the real cause(s) is/are.I see so much money in play with this situation that it's difficult for me (w/ my econ. background)not to consider the $$$ aspect as being a primary "driver" of events rather that a known, rational fact-based approach being taken.No offense meant & sorry for the above blathering sentence.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
|
|
Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 02:57pm PT
|
Robb, could be we're just seeing different pieces. I don't see so much money, I see
a lot of climate scientists and their data, spanning many disciplines and scales.
Our policy response (or it seems likely, nonresponse) will be shaped by politics and
money, but those can't trump physics.
|
|
bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 03:33pm PT
|
chiloe, the climate ALWAYS changes; it's been changing for BILLIONS of years...all those big rocks we like to climb were carved by glaciers; thank GOD it got warm enough to melt them
is human activity contributing to climate change? probably
should we do something to try to minimize our impact? absolutely
do i think we should risk crippling our economy based on debatable and, in light of recent events, dubious claims? no
consider...
in just my life time, that's 44 years, i have seen the following environmental "crises":
--ddt
--radiation poisoning from nuclear power plants
--new ice age by year 2000
--acid rain
--ozone depletion
--global warming
--climate change
in those cases where legislation was enacted, i argue that the results were more harmful than beneficial because the legislation was extreme and driven by fear-mongering...the total ban on ddt resulted in thousands of children dying from malaria in africa; a ban on building nuclear power plants is partly responsible for our dependence on foreign oil; the push for biofuels, primarily ethanol, has lead to food shortages and deforestation in third world countries
i long for the good old days of conservation...when legislation was designed to strike a balance between nature and industry...i do think it's possible to achieve such a balance
by the way, has anyone else noticed that the ones who scream the loudest about preserving the wilderness are also the ones who complain the most about paying the fees to preserve the wilderness?
|
|
MH2
climber
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2009 - 03:53pm PT
|
I clicked on this thread by accident. After looking through most of it I made a big effort and took off my cynics' cap.
Yes, the planet is being affected by human activity, from disappearing fish and frogs to rising CO2, and government is not good at long-term planning, but the U.S. put men on the Moon and there are dreamers who still think we can go to Mars.
Somehow the Hudson River got cleaned up and during the energy crisis of the 70s improvements in conservation and efficiency made a big difference in oil and electricity demand. Isn't it better to cooperate and look for answers to problems than to throw up your hands and say the problem isn't there and even if it is I can't or don't want to do anything about it?
A Mom's adage: "If you don't take care of that it will come back around and bite you in the ass."
There will remain people who look at every situation for opportunity to improve their own lot at the expense of others', such as wealthy people who pay as little tax as they can get way with, who drop a few thousand bucks in the gas tank of the yacht while other people try to scrape up change for the bus, but that is just part of the picture. Don't let behavior you don't like give you an excuse for apathy.
There are also wealthy people who do a lot to help the less fortunate.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!