sky is falling

[Ben]

As Noam Chomsky articulates: it's an institutional/corporate requirement to destroy the natural environment. So as to make human existence more and more difficult.
And, as Chomsky explicates, corporations are going to serve their own interests [again, an institutional/corporate necessity] regardless of the impact on others. Namely the fate of the species. And, too, it doesn't matter if the banks crash the worldwide economy. They simply get a bailout. But there is no bailout with respect to global climate change.
So, the core of the problem is you've these institutions who are going to serve their own interests regardless of how it impacts the planet or the people of the planet.
It's called an externality. Meaning the costs to others in a market transaction.

It's also required by law to maximize investor return. Take, say, Rex Tillerson. CEO and Chairman of ExxonMobil. Well, he's required by law (and if he doesn't do it, well, they simply bring in someone else who will) to maximize shareholder return. He can't think about: pollution or global warming. That isn't his job -- or function. So he has to, well, forget about the fate of the species.

[markyboy21]

Firstly, the temperatures of other planets in our solar system are increasing, as solar radiation is increasing, hence an increase on earth. Secondly, most of the research that is taking place in western contries is funded through research councils which are top heavy with industrialists who have vested interests. Thirdly, two of the most influential proponents of global warming were
M. Strong of the UN and Al Gore, and both are positioned with companies to make a fortune from carbon trading. Finally, who has made big profit from carbon trading so far; well in the UK, the electricity generating companies made £13,000,000,000 in the last but one tax year (we have only just finished the current tax year),while BP and Shell both made around £20,000,000. Therefore, the companies who are producing the most CO2 are making the most money and as for the scientists who are pro global warming they are either government employees or linked to industries with vested interests; also of the so called 2000 experts most are not climatologists, as 90% of the world's climatologists don't believe in the myth.

[russtafa]

Firstly, the temperatures of other planets in our solar system are increasing, as solar radiation is increasing, hence an increase on earth. Secondly, most of the research that is taking place in western contries is funded through research councils which are top heavy with industrialists who have vested interests. Thirdly, two of the most influential proponents of global warming were
M. Strong of the UN and Al Gore, and both are positioned with companies to make a fortune from carbon trading. Finally, who has made big profit from carbon trading so far; well in the UK, the electricity generating companies made £13,000,000,000 in the last but one tax year (we have only just finished the current tax year),while BP and Shell both made around £20,000,000. Therefore, the companies who are producing the most CO2 are making the most money and as for the scientists who are pro global warming they are either government employees or linked to industries with vested interests; also of the so called 2000 experts most are not climatologists, as 90% of the world's climatologists don't believe in the myth.

I thought some people have got to be making a bundle out of all this hysteria

[markyboy21]

Worldwide carbon trading estimates are £125,000,000,000 per annum.

[markyboy21]

Sorry, that should have been $126,000,000,000 and those are the figures for 2008 which will eventually cost the world $10 trillion per annum.

[russtafa]

Bloody hell no wonder they love this scam so much

[trish]

...the temperatures of other planets in our solar system are increasing, as solar radiation is increasing, hence an increase on earth.

Not true. I've already addressed this issue. The solar flux as been monitored closely ever since we learned how to measure it more than a century ago. For the last dozen years it been thoroughly scrutinized by the SOHO, a solar observatory occupying the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun. The solar flux is relatively constant and its variations are insufficient to cause planetary climate instability on Earth, Mars or bodies beyond. I recall discussing solar variation and its effect on planetary climates not too long ago. You might want to check out
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...4&postcount=24
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...5&postcount=26
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...6&postcount=27

This is not to say that average global temperatures on planetary bodies are of fixed value, but any discovered variations would not be due to variations in the Sun's energy flux. Mars, for example, is swept yearly (the Martian year) by duststorms. When these storms kick dust high into what little there is of the Martian atmosphere it changes the albedo of Mars. Exposed dark rock absorbs more of the Sun's energy, and light dust high in the atmosphere reflects more of the Sun's energy. The wreaks havoc with attempts to measure average global temperatures on Mars since we have so few stations there. Moreover the varying albedo no doubt does create a corresponding variation in the average global temperatures there. But once again, these are not due to an increase in the solar output.

Secondly, most of the research that is taking place in western contries is funded through research councils which are top heavy with industrialists who have vested interests.

This is not a scientific argument, and it doesn't explain why climatologists worldwide generally agree that the release of long sequestered greenhouse gasses have contributed significantly to the measured energy inbalanced that has taken place over the last century and a half.

Thirdly, two of the most influential proponents of global warming were
M. Strong of the UN and Al Gore, and both are positioned with companies to make a fortune from carbon trading.

This is not a scientific argument either. Moreover, Al Gore may be influential among some politicians, businessmen and laymen, but he holds no degree in Earth science, has done no work in climatology and holds no sway with those who do in fact do the research, perform the measurements, analyze the experiments and write the papers.

You can argue the politics of global warming all you want, but politics has no say in the science. You can have an opinion about carbon tax, carbon trading etc. My opinion is that there's nothing much we can do to reverse the trend. We've already released tetra-tons of once sequestered greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The verdict of science, however, is in: the Earth's climate is seeking a new equilibrium to counter the heat inbalance caused in part by the accelerated use of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution.

[Stavros]

it's an institutional/corporate requirement to destroy the natural environment. So as to make human existence more and more difficult.

Really, Ben there are times when I wish you would stop quoting other people and think things through yourself -it is impossible to deny that industrial development has 'destroyed' the natural environment where plant has been erected, much as the natural environment was 'destroyed' to build the house/apartment in which you live and the paved roads on which your cars drive, and so on. But if this is taken as an inevitable part of urban growth, then it is human need that has 'destroyed' -or changed- the environment, and it was the growth of cities and the impact of the industrial revolution which lay behind the anxiety expressed in Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' -a feeling some people had and still have that we have lost our connection to the land, to 'nature'. And its hardly new, the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society have been around for more than a hundred years, and they have not been armchair environmentalists either.

It is nonsense to suggest that environmental destruction is a requirement when there are laws -and not just in the USA- which oblige companies to provide environmental impact statements on major projects and adhere to them -its not my fault if the federal regulators who were so assiduous in applying the Environmental Protection Act (introduced by a Republican President in 1970) in Alaska in the 1970s, couldn't be bothered in 2010 (under another Republican President) in the Gulf of Mexico -the law is there. But so too are a new generation of people who work for these corporations who value the environment just as much as you and the most militant fringe in Greenpeace. In addition, there are examples of corporations acting to minimise environmental damage and to repair it if it happens, because nobody benefits from it -Deepwater Horizon was an accident that damaged BP's reputation and value as a company, it was not a deliberate act of sabotage which is what you/your Chomsky quote would suggest.

[Prospero]

You can publish all the clever articles you like and all the smart-ass scientific stuff - as far as I'm concerned the world is flat. The notion of it being a globe is just the feel-good religious idea of our times.

[arsenalfc70]

Climate change is real, CO2 is totally related to high temperatures on Earth history, and the results are catastrophic, worse when done by humans!