Climate change could mean the extinction of our species [Archive] - Page 6 - HungAngels

Stavros

08-27-2015, 03:13 PM

I wonder if Ben is on holiday as we have not had a regular stream of updates in this thread?

In the meantime the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has prompted some thoughtful studies of the way in which Louisiana, most notably its southern reaches in the Bayou, has been transformed, and probably not for the better. What is striking about both the BBC report linked below where it begins Louisiana's coastal wetlands are eroding - more than a football field of land is lost every hour. As the marsh erodes, homes, communities and the local Cajun culture are under threat...and the article linked below it from 2014, is the way in which both unravel the extent to which human interventions in the environment have at one time made life in this harsh environment sustainable, and at other times undermined the means that were used to make it sustainable.

Deciding to live in a wetland or marsh environment for most people would be too much of a risk, even if it has a reward for those who make it a success that can be measured in the daily fish catch (but the fish went awol a long time ago), and the freedom as described by Ms Hopkins (in the 2014 article) as she looks out of her window at a glorious sunset. To mitigate the risks, the levees, the dams, the re-routing of the rivers has in effect combined with the impact of hurricanes and BP's oil spill to tip the edge of sustainability perhaps too far to the irredeemable, so that whole way of life may be coming to an end. Someone I used to know suggested at the time that New Orleans should be left to sink into the sea; many of its former citizens -substantially Black Orleanois- now live in Texas; one hopes that Cajun culture will survive. The other interesting issue is how climate change in this instance is only one factor in the major changes that have affected these coastal communities, but others may want to think about living on the coast as a long term risk, rather than a reward because of those sunsets and sea views...

The Washing Away of Cajun Culture
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34053365

The BP Oil Spill and the End of Empire, Louisiana
http://southerncultures.org/files/2014/08/Horowitz_BP-Oil-Spill-End-of-Empire-LA.pdf

Ben

10-03-2015, 01:45 AM

One of the World’s Most Powerful Central Bankers Is Worried About Climate Change:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/upshot/one-of-the-worlds-most-powerful-central-bankers-is-worried-about-climate-change.html?emc=eta1&_r=1

Stavros

10-03-2015, 01:53 AM

nitron

10-08-2015, 12:03 AM

Maybe we'll adapt and live underground, .."maybe we'll become like those future underground city dwellers from oh what's that Sci-Fi movie...... ,".+.. .Part of
Anthropocene ..

Ben

10-22-2015, 04:43 AM

Exxon's climate lie: 'No corporation has ever done anything this big or bad':

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/14/exxons-climate-lie-change-global-warming

martin48

10-22-2015, 11:12 AM

Closing paragraph of the Guardian article

But nonetheless it seems crucial simply to say, for the record, the truth: this company had the singular capacity to change the course of world history for the better and instead it changed that course for the infinitely worse. In its greed Exxon helped — more than any other institution — to kill our planet.

nitron

10-29-2015, 08:55 PM

I hope we all don't end up living like mole people ,or be forced to be such. But I'm sure it's all part of a learning curve. It happened/ing to other worlds.(Thanks Evolutionary Theory)

Ben

11-10-2015, 05:29 AM

Global warming could be more devastating for the economy than we thought:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/oct/27/global-warming-could-be-more-devastating-for-the-economy-than-we-thought

Ben

11-21-2015, 03:11 AM

Exxon’s Climate Concealment:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/opinion/exxons-climate-concealment.html?_r=2

martin48

11-21-2015, 08:02 PM

Wondering if we could sum up most threads here.

Yes - climate change will mean extinction of humans

No - God does not exist

No - guns will not be banned

Yes - Republican Party is full of nutters and arseholes

That about sums it all up

Ben

12-11-2015, 04:44 AM

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't a Republican. He claims to be one. But he's far too rational for the Republican Party. Wish he'd run (I know... he wasn't born in America... but neither was crazy Cruz) and thus add some sanity to the Republican Presidential bid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvcv7Ks5ybA

Caleigh

12-11-2015, 04:46 AM

He is a republican from the 70s but the party now is jjust so extreme and controlled by incredible evangelicals and corporations. He doesn't fit in anymore

Ben

12-22-2015, 04:18 AM

He is a republican from the 70s but the party now is jjust so extreme and controlled by incredible evangelicals and corporations. He doesn't fit in anymore

Yes. Agreed. The party has gone off the deep end. (And this is a party that started as a socialist party under Abraham Lincoln. They, originally, were against industrialization as posing a threat to their culture, they equated wage-slavery with actual slavery. Most people aren't aware of their origins. Understandably so.) And someone like Eisenhower would be way out on the left.
It's a party that wouldn't get any votes if people knew what they actually stood for. They're a party that is deeply committed to serving the super-rich. So, can't get any votes that way. So, you mobilize certain segments of the population: homophobes, Christians zealots, gun enthusiasts, anti-abortion activists etc., etc. That's how you get votes.
I mean, they couldn't be blatantly honest and say: we simply serve the super-rich... now vote for us -- LOL.
And the Democratic Party are moving in the same direction of simply serving the very rich... by embracing the core tenets of neo-liberalism. I mean, both parties embrace and support right-wing economic policies.

Ben

12-22-2015, 04:20 AM

GOP Candidates Receive Failing Grades on Climate as 2015 Smashes Global Temperature Records:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34090-gop-candidates-receive-failing-grades-on-climate-as-2015-smashes-global-temperature-records

martin48

04-19-2016, 06:26 PM

http://www.climatehustlemovie.com

Here's a stupid movie to watch

broncofan

04-19-2016, 08:28 PM

http://www.climatehustlemovie.com

Here's a stupid movie to watch
Or not to watch. You couldn't pay me. Masochism.

Stavros

04-19-2016, 08:52 PM

CDR Communications, the production company that made this film is part of the Cornwall Alliance via the James Partnership, an evangelical movement which campaigns against climate change science, you can read about it in these links -

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2010/10/15/124583/glennbeck-oil-evangelicals/

The imdb listing for CDR films-
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4297552/?ref_=tt_ov_dr

Stavros

08-09-2016, 02:49 PM

Last month figures showed that since shops began charging 5 pence for a plastic bag, the trend suggests an 83% decline in the number of new plastic bags being taken out of the shop by customers. This remarkable statistic also suggests that apparently minor adjustments can have a major impact as long as the plastic bags we do have do not end up in the sea. A 5 pence tax is affordable, yet people will still try to avoid paying it by using and re-using bags they already own. This further suggests that modest measures to protect the environment can actually work, not impose a cost burden on consumers, and reward those trying to improve the environment with funds. I think that is a win-win situation. Another example would be for people with cars not to use them for short journeys that can be made on foot, for people who eat meat to consumer it only 3 times a week and thus reduce the need for herds across the world, and so on. But if we can go further to prevent paper bags in shops being used as an alternative to plastic bags (which I think are not common in the US -?), the long term impact on forests will also be beneficial, though we still use too much paper in other areas of life.
The BBC report on the story is here-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36917174

nitron

08-10-2016, 09:44 AM

Nature , it's hammering , slowly but painfully (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/2015-may-just-be-hottest-year-on-record/)....,
(http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/26496/20160809/world-will-miss-important-global-warming-target-scientists-warn.htm)
2500 years ago, AESCHYLUS said,"We learn nothing save thru suffering ,the pain of wisdom falls drop by drop upon the heart and sleep ,against our will comes wisdom , the grace of the god(s) is forced on us".
We must be hammered into pieces before we learn anything and be able to change. We are not capable of Rational thought.
Sorry Stavros, I think it's going to be really , really hard.

trish

08-10-2016, 03:46 PM

Of course Aeschylus was given to hyperbole and drama. A great deal of what we know we enjoyed learning. Euclid demonstrated that humans are indeed capable of rational thought. The problem is greed, desire and ego often short circuit reason.

Stavros

08-10-2016, 05:00 PM

Nature , it's hammering , slowly but painfully
2500 years ago, AESCHYLUS said,"We learn nothing save thru suffering ,the pain of wisdom falls drop by drop upon the heart and sleep ,against our will comes wisdom , the grace of the god(s) is forced on us".
We must be hammered into pieces before we learn anything and be able to change. We are not capable of Rational thought.
Sorry Stavros, I think it's going to be really , really hard.

Too pessimistic, Nitron, and it is not rational thought that is at fault, but irrational behaviour often not informed of the full range of options. If we can reduce the distribution of plastic bags by 83% in less than a year, we can achieve other environmentally friendly goals that do not cost a lot in terms of either cash or effort. I suspect the 5 pence tax has clarified it for people who otherwise 'can't be bothered' to re-cycle their trash or drive when they can walk. You don't even need to believe humans are causing advanced global warming to treat the environment with respect, but doing so could in the long term have more advantages than cynics like to claim.

nitron

08-11-2016, 07:21 AM

trish>"...humans are indeed capable of rational thought....",
moi>" people are capable of not reaching for the donuts,but..."

Rational thought vs irrational . Long term vs immediate .. Do we even have the time that's really needed to face our own instincts? We can't even admit that were risen apes.

trish

08-11-2016, 08:36 PM

Of course we have the time, if you don't run out the clock telling everyone that all action is for naught, you might as well party or the devil will save you. We save ourselves or we go extinct - our choice.

BTW: I didn't rise from Hominoidia, although we do share a common ancestor. But one doesn't have to subscribe to the modern evolutionary synthesis to be influenced by 5 pence charge per plastic bag to start using reusable canvas bags.

Stavros

08-18-2016, 11:02 AM

Advance notice of a book on the Arctic Death Spiral by Peter Wadham, which argues that as the ice-cap in the Arctic melts, and it is melting at around 13% a year, so the planet will carry on warming with devastating effect in parts of the world that will be uninhabitable due to the lack of water, food and in 50 degrees centigrade no shelter without air conditioning-

The warming now being widely experienced worldwide is concentrated in the polar regions and Wadhams says we will shortly have ice-free Arctic Septembers, expanding to four or five months with no ice at all. The inevitable result, he predicts, will be the release of huge plumes of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, accelerating warming even further.

He and other polar experts have moved from being field researchers to being climate change pioneers in the vanguard of the most rapid and drastic change that has taken place on the planet in many thousands of years. This is not just an interesting change happening in a remote part of the world, he says, but a catastrophe for mankind.

“We are taking away the beautiful world of Arctic Ocean sea ice which once protected us from the impacts of climate extremes. We have created an ocean where there was once an ice sheet. It is man’s first major achievement in re-shaping the face of the planet,” he writes.

Wadhams also offers man-made solutions to man-made problems-

But he joins other climate researchers to cross lines that the public may still find unacceptable. He wants global action to find new ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and is not afraid of nuclear power – both of which answers can be swallowed – but he also argues for a colossal, global research programme in geo- engineering.

This is the deliberate attempt to reduce warming by the planetary-scale manipulation of weather patterns, oceans, currents, soils and atmosphere to decrease the amount of greenhouses gases.

Spraying sun-reflecting chemicals into the atmosphere, mimicking volcanoes, blocking sunlight and fertilising the oceans with iron filings attracts people who think that technology has all the answers, but it should strike fear into most of the world, which has not been responsible for warming and which has no reason to trust politicians’ or scientists’ further meddling with planetary forces.

the full article is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/18/ice-scientists-arctic-ice-disappearing-reduce-emissions-peter-wadhams

Stavros

01-31-2017, 12:24 AM

I don't know if it is the species that is in danger or science and the reason through which it reaches its conclusions, but we can be sure that however many scientists dance on the edge of a pin, whatever these representatives of the 'expertariat' conclude is of no importance to the planet or the Trump administration, except of course, as a threat:

The environmental movement is “the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world”, according to an adviser to the US president Donald Trump’s administration.

Myron Ebell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Ebell), who has denied the dangers of climate change for many years and led Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until the president’s recent inauguration, also said he fully expected Trump to keep his promise to withdraw the US from the global agreement to fight global warming.
Ebell said US voters had rejected what he dubbed the “expertariat” and said there was no doubt that Trump thinks that climate change is not a crisis and does not require urgent action.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/30/green-movement-greatest-threat-freedom-says-trump-adviser-myron-ebell

Stavros

02-02-2017, 08:59 AM

An article in today's Guardian claims that the Trump Presidency will gradually devolve the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to States until the EPA itself is wound up. What else will be wound up is a matter of debate and even though Myron Ebell, who led the EPA transition team- has said EPA research papers would not be dumped, he doesn't believe in the science of climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/donald-trump-plans-to-abolish-environmental-protection-agency

When the UK's Chief Scientist, Prof. David King said in 2004 climate change was a greater challenge than terrorism, Ebell responded by attempting to ridicule King as “an alarmist with ridiculous views who knows nothing about climate change”, a flippant dismissal of a distinguished academic who in reality knows more about climate change than Ebell. Indeed, King has now modified his comment on climate change:
"Climate change is not, in the Foreign Secretary's words, the biggest challenge of our time, it's the biggest challenge of all time."

How the US will meet this challenge is not clear, but one has the sinking feeling that science no longer matters. Even Ebell on tv last week could not hide his real concern, with the politics.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/blog-post/2342417/sir-david-king-climate-change-is-not-the-biggest-challenge-of-our-time-its-the-biggest-challenge-of-all-time

trish

02-02-2017, 06:05 PM

As early as 2014 the U.S. military recognized our changing climate as a threat to national security. The armed forces are seeking to adapt their coastal installations against the threat of ocean rise, they are developing alternate power sources and integrating climate change, water shortages, climate related rescue operations etc. into their strategic thinking.

Wind is the fastest growing source of power in the U.S. Seven major oil companies, including BP and Royal Dutch Shell, are investing in renewables and encouraging others to fund steps to reduce the production and release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Politically speaking, science was never much of a match against faith (religious or ideological) and faith was never much of a match against money. But this time, if we’re lucky, the money may be looking far enough ahead into the future to see that if it stays the current course, its coffers may get flooded with briny water rather than coin.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. We have Trump, Pence and Bannon in the White House with a cabinet that's filling up with retrogrades. We still have Inhofe on the Senate energy committee chaired by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Murkowski seems to rely on her own limited experiences rather than any scientific reading when she admits that Alaska is experiencing warmer temperatures and thinner ice and adds that those issues must be addressed. But she’s not sure humans can be blamed; she suggests volcanoes! The U.S. Geological Survey calculate the world’s volcanoes spew 200 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year, whereas all the world’s industries and automobiles cough 24 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually- the anthropogenic emission is 120 fold more. Nevertheless Inhofe and Murkowsky are stuck, trying to analyze the situation with anecdotes from their own experiences - melting snowballs in the Senate chambers and the volcano Lisa can see at Katmai National Park.

Hope you guys can carry on without us for a few years. We’re going to be away for a little while. We’re taking a Sentimental Journey - back to a time when we were really ‘great’.

Stavros

02-05-2017, 02:43 AM

It does look as if the Trump Presidency regards environmental regulations as bad for business, as its repeal of the 'Stream Protection Rule' suggests. This repeal will give back powers to coal companies to blow the tops of mountains and dump the debris in streams and rivers. In the Appalachians thousands of natural water courses have been buried under rubble, but it does not mean this repeal will lead to a new golden age for coal, jobs and prosperity in some of the poorest communities in the USA.
But it does cement the power coal companies have at the expense of the people and the environment. A while ago I saw a report from West Virginia that asked why so many had voted for Trump, and at face value it was all about jobs. But an alternative voice pointed out that coal rules to the extent that workers receive low wages for long hours, pay rent to property owned by the company, shop in stores owned by the company, get their pension from the company, and when they die are buried in coffins purchased from the company. The land they live on is polluted, the water makes them sick, but they can do nothing about it.

One wonders why the US is even mining coal which is a dirty, inefficient and expensive product to extract, when there are trillions of cubic feet of low-to-neutral carbon reserves of gas to use instead. This repeal has as much to do with a philosophical loathing of 'the environment' as it is an endorsement of commercial firms trashing the natural world for financial gain.
http://www.vox.com/2017/2/2/14488448/stream-protection-rule

Nikka

03-14-2017, 11:24 PM

it´s snowing

filghy2

03-15-2017, 02:39 AM

Yeh right. We've had the highest global average temperature on record three years running, but that that can't be right because somewhere at some point in time it's snowing. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jan/23/were-now-breaking-global-temperature-records-once-every-three-years

nitron

03-17-2017, 11:54 PM

The coral reef off Australia is degrading now,
byproduct of...
GWarming.,
Maybe this is exactly the kind of thing that our spices needs . Were pretty good at reacting to sudden emergencies. Who knows. Already the oceans have micro plastics, heavy industrial run off ...etc,
the land is not in better shape, and this just regular old pollution , then this Warming kicks in ,
I hope were not too cognitively challenged by that older type of pollution.
As long as it's not too sudden, say catastrophic ,like methane gas trapped under per-ma frost and sedimentary underwater is massively released,say over a few years.
I hate to say it, but the pessimist in me thinks this is exactly how this thing is going to roll.

hippifried

03-20-2017, 10:50 PM

it´s snowing
Ya skipped a decade somewhere along the line, kiddo. "Global warming" became "climate change" because the joke got old.

sukumvit boy

05-30-2017, 05:32 AM

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming = Paul Hawken
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zaTGMl11hs
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/drawdown-paul-hawken/1125140680/2676689363033?st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Marketplace+Shopping+Books_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP4783&k_clickid=3x4783

broncofan

06-02-2017, 07:15 AM

The coral reef off Australia is degrading now,
byproduct of...
GWarming.,
Maybe this is exactly the kind of thing that our spices needs . Were pretty good at reacting to sudden emergencies.
I don't know as much about this subject as many other people but I assume this isn't the type of thing that can be quickly fixed. Our models for predicting weather systems are not perfect, and our ability to predict exactly what sorts of events climate change will lead to not perfect either, but if we are talking about rising sea levels and more extreme weather events, what exactly is the fix for that?

I have not read about this, but couldn't changing weather patterns lead to epidemiological problems? Who knows what sorts of pathogens we might be facing if the landscape is completely changed, assuming we are able to figure out how to live in these conditions. We are already seeing types of bacteria that are resistant to even antibiotics of last resort. Climate change will not increase resistance from antibiotic use, but why wouldn't it increase the chance that there will be new pathogens that neither our current array of antibiotics nor our immune systems can handle? Our immune systems learn to respond to pathogens based both on exposure within a lifetime and natural selection across generations, but the generation times of bacteria are much shorter....if you completely alter the conditions in which we both live, who will undergo faster genomic change? I'm not saying the conditions would necessarily change in ways that make bacteria more pathogenic or more difficult to kill, but couldn't it?

sukumvit boy

06-04-2017, 01:57 AM

Yes , lots of epidemiological problems we can hardly begin to imagine . Not only bacteria but nasty viruses like Ebola lay dormant for centuries until encroachment by humans and fast international travel ignite possible catastrophic epidemics.
However , Project Drawdown shows that the solutions to carbon reduction and reversal are doable now.
http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/energy/wind-turbines-onshore
101245710124581012459

Stavros

08-30-2017, 10:25 PM

The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey continues to spread across Texas and Louisiana, and while it is too early to assess the long-term damage and costs, it will be no surprise to some that courtiers to the King have got their dismissal of climate change in before the real scientists have even begun to offer definitive conclusions, for example

researchers are also increasingly certain that the warming of the atmosphere and oceans is likely to fuel longer or more destructive hurricanes. A draft (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/climate/document-Draft-of-the-Climate-Science-Special-Report.html?mcubz=0) of the upcoming national climate assessment states there is “high confidence” that there will be an increase in the intensity and precipitation rates of hurricanes and typhoons in the Atlantic and Pacific as temperatures rise further.

Contrast this rational view with something Thomas Pyle (he led the President's energy team in the transition):
“It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that the left is exploiting Hurricane Harvey (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/hurricane-harvey) to try and advance their political agenda, but it won’t work
(the left? nobody else?)

Or the Heartland Institute:
“In the bizarro world of the climate change cultists ... Harvey will be creatively spun to ‘prove’ there are dire effects linked to man-created climate change, a theory that is not proven by the available science,” said Bette Grande, a Heartland research fellow and a Republican who served in the North Dakota state legislature until 2014.

“Facts do not get in the way of climate change alarmism, and we will continue to fight for the truth in the months and years to come.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/tropical-storm-harvey-climate-change-conservatives-donald-trump

The key point is that extreme weather events either may not happen often, or happen more often, but in both cases as the concept suggests, the impact is greater, in terms of damage, the rising levels of water, the challenge it poses to flood defences and other aspects of the environmental infrastructure. To deal with this it is not just a matter of throwing money at Texas ad Louisiana after the event (will Louisiana get as much as Texas?), but improving flood defences not dismantling them -for two days before the Hurricane landed, the President, in another act of Revenge Against Obama, scrapped the rule
that sought to flood-proof new federal infrastructure projects by demanding they incorporate the latest climate change science
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/tropical-storm-harvey-climate-change-conservatives-donald-trump

I guess there is a simple choice: the courtiers to the King, or science. One group dismisses science as mostly bullshit and dismantles safeguards because the man who authorised them is Black and anyway, America can afford to pay the repair bills. The other argues that precautionary measures save lives and reduce costs. One would think a man experienced in business would know which of the options makes sense. But we live in unusual times, and swimming with sharks has always been risky, and not just in waterlogged Houston.

sukumvit boy

08-31-2017, 01:33 AM

Excellent article on what we can learn from the Dutch approach to dealing with floods and climate change.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/climate-change-rotterdam.html?mcubz=1
Funny comment I heard today on National Public Radio was that the Dutch model would never work in the US because "the Netherlands was a Socialist Democracy and the Dutch a rational people " as opposed to Americans , LOL.
Another factor is that The Netherlands is such a small country that floods affect everyone as opposed to the USA which is so spread out and divided.

sukumvit boy

09-07-2017, 01:57 AM

Perhaps unnoticed by most people and the news media polymath genius Nathan Myhrvold has teamed up with Bill Gates on a plan for a safer nuclear ,self contained and sealed power plant based on using the "mountain" of low grade nuclear waste that we have accumulated so far which could "power the planet for 750 years".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYNfAZPX6_0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T49r6tmcayI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower

sukumvit boy

09-07-2017, 02:26 AM

Here's the rest of the Bill gates TED Talk above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRYtiSbbVg

Stavros

09-13-2017, 06:01 AM

We have known for many years now that when earthquakes, hurricanes and extreme weather events destroy buildings and homes, it is most often due to their poor construction, and it is mostly poor people who live in and use them. The Caribbean islands badly affected by the recent storms are a case in point, just as the lack of even more destruction in Florida may be due to the superior quality of the buildings there.

But what climate change and extreme weather events do is ask a different question -should coastal areas and some inland areas of Florida be inhabited by humans? Florida has a particularly fragile geology, the result of millions of years of change which have seen it wrenched from the land masses of Pangea and Gondwanaland to end up stuck on the end of the continental US like a tail that doesn't wag so much as sag. There are minerals, and fertile soils but while geologists define the state as stable a lot of the underlying rock is limestone and clay which results in more sinkholes than any other State, plus subsidence, and a coast line that has risen and fallen over thousands of years. Just as New Orleans begs the question -should there be an urban settlement in this part of the US? So too it may be time to either engage in coastal defences that inhibit tsunami style inflows of seawater, or concede defeat and stop building homes with a sea view, not least because one day the sea might be in your bedroom. There may also come a time when the abundance of water in Florida and Louisiana may need to be shared with those states, like California, where there is a shortage of it, but that all assumes long term planning and an appreciation of the science of climate change that is lacking in the current US administration. There may not be another major hurricane in the next five years, but in year six a hurricane and storm longer and more powerful than what came before. One hopes in the meantime sound minds will address the longer term impact of climate change and human geography or lives will be put at risk.

https://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/land/land.htm

sukumvit boy

09-13-2017, 11:17 PM

I grew up in South Florida in the 50's and 60's . With regard to the Florida Building Code
(known by residents as "the FBC ") I can tell you first hand that they made a tremendous difference . My family owned a home and a business and we never feared the kind of catastrophic wind and rain damage seen from hurricanes and even tornados in other areas of the United States. Trailer homes are , for some reason , exempt .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Building_Code
I lived in New Orleans for a few years and would just scratch my head in amazement and think "if there is ever a real hurricane here it's going to be a disaster".
This was before Katrina

Stavros

09-14-2017, 10:12 AM

I think the long term concern is that climate change without a deep cut in carbon emissions that will themselves take a decade or more to take effect, will produce more extreme weather events, and that low-lying coastal areas are particularly vulnerable. Florida and the Caribbean islands are thus more likely to face challenges than others, so that even a robust building cluster may not be able to hold back winds if they are 180-200mph in strength and the volumes of water they bring with them. But what their breaking point might be I don't know. However, I suspect that people are drawn to sunny climates and sea views and that unless there is a cultural change then human populations will put themselves at risk. Deep cuts to carbon emissions, a transition away from the use of fossil fuels, reformed resource management, a stabilization of population growth -all these will be part of the mix in positive terms, but they do need committed policy makers who understand the science as well as the politics. In spite of the current phase the US is going through, I think the US has more committed people to change than is found in many other countries, so all is not yet lost, though the next few years do not look good. Maybe if it is really just about headlines and tweets change on that basis is possible, given that the President doesn't understand anything much other than headlines and apparently can now be swayed to abandon previously held positions, which, it seems, are more fragile than the Florida coast.

sukumvit boy

09-15-2017, 05:10 AM

Fortunately wind and solar power as well as other innovations such as carbon sequestration and electric vehicles are coming on line much faster than anyone expected 10 or even 5 years ago ,as described in some detail in the first half of the Bill Gates TED talk in post #1303 above .
However, until we begin reducing greenhouse gasses climate change will continue , which means more frequent and more severe weather events.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?427029-2/drawdown

Ts RedVeX

10-16-2017, 07:10 PM

filghy2

10-17-2017, 01:49 AM

Yeah, those commies are such fanatical greenies http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/13/if-you-think-communism-is-bad-for-people-check-out-what-it-did-to-the-environment/

bluesoul

10-17-2017, 01:52 AM

Oh and what makes you think that it is humans that are responsible for global warming? The same commies telling you so on mass media and facebook?

what tells you humans are not responsible for global warming? and btw: the commies? so who are the other guys? are they cool?

Stavros

10-17-2017, 04:20 AM

I guess nobody expected that commies would be supporting implementation of all the inefficient "green" technologies...
Oh and what makes you think that it is humans that are responsible for global warming? The same commies telling you so on mass media and facebook?

A few points to welcome you to Politics and Religion:
1) If you want to engage in robust debate may I suggest you drop the 'commies' stuff which has no meaning and diverts attention away from the point you are trying to make?

2) To help me, maybe others, please tell us what it is in the science of climate change that you dispute

3) We are in a transitional period in global energy systems, so that at the moment 'green energy' solutions like solar and wind are making great progress to the extent that

Just ten years ago, generating electricity through solar cost about $600 per MWh, and it cost only $100 to generate the same amount of power through coal and natural gas. But the price of renewable sources of power plunged quickly – today it only costs around $100 the generate the same amount of electricity through solar and $50 through wind.

The cheap price of solar and wind energy is already encouraging companies to build more plants to harvest it. The US is adding about 125 solar panels every minute, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association and investment in renewables in 2015 rose to $286 billion, up 5 per cent from the year before.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/solar-and-wind-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-for-the-first-time-a7509251.html
-see also
https://qz.com/871907/2016-was-the-year-solar-panels-finally-became-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-just-wait-for-2017/

-However, you are right to point out the inefficiencies in alternative energies, as studies show that green energy is still less efficient, in terms of production of units, than fossil fuel and coal production; but that is part of the process of transition and in due course green energy will indeed be an efficient means of production. One notes also that green energy employs a lot of people.
An essay on the inefficiencies of green energy can be found here-
http://www.insidesources.com/green-energy-efficient-worker-hours/

As for subsidies, the petroleum and coal industries have been subsidized for so long nobody bothers to question it any more, but that is also because we do not live in a world of free markets, but managed markets, or 'state capitalism', where the priority is to produce a lot of wealth for a very few people.

Ts RedVeX

10-18-2017, 12:16 AM

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Solar-Panels-Premium-Quality-PV-Photo-voltaic-Panel-MC4-Connectors-Boat-Caravan-/252116400626?var=&epid=1855999893&hash=item3ab34ef9f2:g:Pm0AAOSwDFNWFSGB

Oh dear. There seems to be somewhat of a misunderstanding between the communists, like Bill Gates, who is defo not a climate specialist, and Nathan Myhrvold, who claims to develop reactors or whatever without understanding what the difference between energy, power, and electricity is, promoting global warming in order to make people believe that solar power, and other "renewable power generating technologies" are cheap.. Take a look on ebay: 130 quid for a 100W solar panel sounds "a bit" much considering your claims that producing 1MWh costs but a 100 dollars.. It doesn't take an electric engineer to figure out that to squeeze a MWh out of this 130quid panel means it would have to work 10000h (yes, for ten thousand hours non stop). Never mind its redundancy periods, which in the UK and our shitty weather would be way over 60% time... If that makes any sense to your wise yet stupid mind... I am not even going to attempt to go into why the climate of our planet is heating up, as it does every several millennia, and how of a cold period we actually happen to live in.

bluesoul

10-18-2017, 02:03 AM

I am not even going to attempt to go into why the climate of our planet is heating up, as it does every several millennia, and how of a cold period we actually happen to live in.

besides the commie thing, this is the second most hilarious thing you've said. good job

broncofan

10-18-2017, 06:27 AM

besides the commie thing, this is the second most hilarious thing you've said. good job
Why don't you try to write something about climate change yourself instead of the sideline sniping?

filghy2

10-18-2017, 06:32 AM

I am not even going to attempt to go into why the climate of our planet is heating up, as it does every several millennia, and how of a cold period we actually happen to live in.

It's true that there is evidence of other periods when the global temperature was as warm as now, or even warmer. (Sorry the chart is a bit blurry, but I had to shrink it to fit the size limits.) But it's also true that all those episodes were associated with high levels of CO2 concentration, which is already well above the historical range and set to go much higher if nothing is done.

The current global temperature is higher than any time in the last 120,000 years. Back then there were very few people, they lived a very primitive lifestyle (no coastal cities) and there were no borders to stop them moving to somewhere cooler. That was before recorded history, so we don't know much about the impacts, but the mere fact that humanity survived does not imply that it's all okay and there's nothing to worry about.

Btw, this website provides rebuttals of almost every climate change denialist argument. https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
I'm sure that will cover all the other arguments you were going to make, so how about we just skip that to save time and effort? No doubt you will tell us it's all a conspiracy by 'commies'.

trish

10-18-2017, 10:39 PM

Briefly, why would one believe current climatological warming trend is anthropocentric?

It’s not really a matter of belief, but rather an assessment of evidence from the perspective of our modern scientific understanding.

First, there’s is a well understood mechanism (commonly known as the greenhouse effect) which quantitatively correlates warming with the density of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. In short, light (in the visible and ultraviolet bands) from the Sun passes easily through the atmosphere and is absorbed by biosphere, the oceans and the ground. The absorbed energy is released as heat and infrared radiation. In this form, this energy then escapes back through the atmosphere. Heat and infrared radiation, however does not pass very easily through carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gasses. So the flux of outgoing energy depends upon the density of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere that obstruct its escape. When the average net flux of energy is zero one expects the climate to remain stable.

Second, the current warming period correlates predictably with the increase in the density of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, an increase that can be traced back the mid-19th century. Quantitatively the density of the greenhouse gasses and the measured warming fit nicely with theory. So much so that it is certain that our current warming trend is due to the greenhouse mechanism described above. Deniers have suggested the warming is due to the Sun growing hotter or a shift in the tilt of the Earth. None of these suggestions bear the weight of scrutiny. SOHO has been monitoring the Sun for more than a decade and has shown no appreciable gain in solar energy of a magnitude that would cause the current rate of global warming.

Third. It remains to identity the cause of the increase in greenhouse gasses. Humans produce greenhouse gasses as a by-product of agriculture, and the burning of fossil fuels. One might expect that the climate of an entire planet would have enough inertia to remain unaffected by the comings and goings of a single species. That may have been so when the human population numbered in the millions. But we are now seven billion large. In 2010, by burning fossil fuels, we released 33.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That’s 100 times more than the carbon dioxide released by volcanic processes over the entire planet. Clearly the primary source of the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere is anthropogenic.

Fourth. This realization squares nicely with the fact that the current warming trend is concurrent with the industrial revolution; i.e. that period which saw a dramatic increase in the mining and burning of fossil fuels, not simply for the heat produced, but for work that heat can be made to perform. We saw fuel not merely as a source of warmth, but as a source of energy that can be used for the mass production of goods and services.

broncofan

10-19-2017, 05:59 PM

I've actually taken down what Trish wrote in case I have to explain to anyone the case for anthropogenic climate change. Clear, didactic, and well-written, the Das Kapital of climate change explanations. Instead of making the case for a proletarian revolutionary movement she is explaining how greenhouse gases in our atmosphere contribute to climate change. Still, up there with Das Kapital and other important foundational texts though I'm disappointed she said nothing about class struggle or the predations of the bourgeoisie.

trish

10-19-2017, 11:18 PM

Actually I was thinking that many of the measurements (certainly not all) upon which our climate models depend originate with NASA, the same organization that launched many of the private/corporate communications satellites that are currently in orbit as well as the military satellites that ‘spy’ for the good ol’ US of A - the opposite of a communist nation - you know the nation’s who’s flag you stand and sing to, not kneel to. :)

broncofan

10-20-2017, 01:11 AM

Exactly Trish. I take back what I said. Your post was the Star-Spangled Banner of climate change explanations. It's the flying the American flag from the top of a white chevy pickup while the wind blows in your mullet kind of climate change explanation that I really dig. It's a get the fuck out of this country if you don't like it kind of climate change argument that really sort of says, there is no debate, take it or leave it. Thank you for reinforcing my patriotism.

bluesoul

10-20-2017, 08:32 PM

Why don't you try to write something about climate change yourself instead of the sideline sniping?

you know you're a fucking dickhead. you know how you know that? because look at this story and ask me to fucking comment on climate change. climate fucking change? climate is fucking changing dipship because humans have fucked shit up. need proof?

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/photography/black-rhino-photo-wildlife-photographer-year-2017-win-poachers-natural-history-museum-killed-south-a8006871.html

so yeah, tell me to talk about climate fucking change, when humans contribute to so much fucking climate change.

oh and btw: fuck you

bluesoul

10-21-2017, 12:40 AM

I've actually taken down what Trish wrote in
case I have to explain to anyone the case for anthropogenic climate change.

as you should. one would hate you plagiarizing- but fuck that. you're a fucking dipshit full of fucking lies and shit.

but to anyone else reading reading this: wanna give something back to the world? guess what? i want give you a thumbs up because i never did. i won't back you up on some claim you make. i fucking stand where i fucking stand. feel free to back this self confessed lawyer.(yeah this idiot actually admit he was a lawyer) this is what they'll do:

here: https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/poaching_statistics

so my thing is not even about people. save the GOD DAMN RHINOS.

bluesoul

10-21-2017, 12:49 AM

and btw: i took it easy on it asshole. imagine if i asked him how much HE donated at all. what you're reading about, it a lawyer. also known as a layer. lawyers are born to lie. squeeze him tight, and he'll keep his butt tight. aint that right dummy?

trish

10-21-2017, 06:20 AM

This is why we can't have nice threads.

bluesoul

10-23-2017, 08:38 PM

...and i rave and i reep and i rip and i rape: everlasting world without end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0tYFYBcr6g

Ts RedVeX

10-30-2017, 03:14 AM

Stavros

10-30-2017, 04:06 AM

Hey I am just wondering.. since methane is a greenhouse gas, does farting cause global warming? Maybe it would be ecological to design and make people wear buttplugs with catalysator that would convert all the organic gases from a fart into carbon dioxide and water vapour. Maybe that would make our farts less damaging to the climate. And it would potentally reduce the vile smells associated with farts. One could even make their farts smell of flowers or tropical fruit by adding a tiny air freshner attachment to their plug!

Witamy. Maybe not so much with humans, but with cows the impact of their methane emissions is considered influential. The global population of cows has grown to meet the demand for red meat, so one positive action that humans can do to combat the worst effects of climate change is to eat less beef.
https://gizmodo.com/do-cow-farts-actually-contribute-to-global-warming-1562144730

Ts RedVeX

10-30-2017, 10:02 PM

I have another great idea worth millions then: if they fart so much, then why not install a tiny wind turbine behind each cow's bottom, that would generate electricity?

Ts RedVeX

10-30-2017, 10:54 PM

But seriously. If a volcano can emit 300kt of CO2 daily, then a supervolcano can emit at least 300Mt of CO2 daily. That is of course only 0,3Gt per day, but considering that the eruption can last for weeks or more, (the most recent one lasted for only around 235 000years) and that there is gonna be a lot more bad stuffs coming out of it, I reckon we have more important things to worry about as civilisation.

If light travels easily through greenhouse gasses then plants, which feed on CO2 and light, will grow better. This means that more CO2 may be a solution to feeding the growing human population.

Our planet is constantly changing. Climate change forced our ancient 'bruvas' out of Africa ages ago and they colonised pretty much the entire planet. We are part of this process and I cannot see much that we can do about it as a civilisation. Actually, if we go by the Kardashev scale humanity is not really a civilisation yet. - At least not with your communist propaganda brainwashing normal people.

filghy2

10-31-2017, 02:18 AM

But seriously. If a volcano can emit 300kt of CO2 daily, then a supervolcano can emit at least 300Mt of CO2 daily.

Dealt with in number 73 https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php Do you intend to work your way through the full list of dubious arguments? Could be a very long thread.

filghy2

10-31-2017, 02:20 AM

If light travels easily through greenhouse gasses then plants, which feed on CO2 and light, will grow better. This means that more CO2 may be a solution to feeding the growing human population.

Dealt with in number 43 https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

trish

10-31-2017, 03:53 AM

One: Human's put 100 times more carbon dioxide (by mass) into the atmosphere than all of Earth's volcanic activity does.

Two: Before the evolution of photosynthesis the Earth's atmosphere did indeed have very little free oxygen. Photosynthesis is the process that was responsible for putting oxygen into the atmosphere. In fact those ancient plants put so much oxygen into the atmosphere (before the current balance was established) that they nearly poisoned themselves. This nicely demonstrates that living things (plants, flowers, cows, humans etc.) can effect change on a planetary scale and do harm to themselves. Producing more carbon dioxide in the hopes of producing more carbon dioxide 'eating' plants (while btw deforesting whole continents) is like everybody hoping to get rid their weekly garbage by throwing it out the window hoping to attract more rats and other garbage eating rodents. Think that will really take care of the garbage, or only produce an additional problem or two?

Three: Our climate is constantly changing, and we are part of it. When that change works against us, and especially when we're ourselves are primarily responsible, it only makes sense to try to limit those of our practices that are having a deleterious effect on our climate and our own well-being.

Stavros

10-31-2017, 12:02 PM

To say it again: climate change deniers are not motivated by the science of climate change, about which they know nothing. Most, if not all were electrocuted into action when the remedies to global warming were proposed, two words and phrases sending them into an uncontrollable rage: carbon taxes, and subsidies. People who claim they are opposed to an increase in the powers of the state, who believe taxes inhibit market freedom, and subsidies undermine it, are the same people who support the means whereby large corporations use an army of lawyers to reduce the 'trickle down' taxes they ought to pay, and protect subsidies when they go to farmers, or tax beaks worth $8bn a year to 'protect jobs' in the aerospace industry in their state -the idea that producers and consumers should be on a level-playing field never entering the equation.

Meanwhile, as time goes on the practical benefits of alternative energy and, in economic terms their cost and efficiency will improve, and the use of fossil fuel -oil in particular- will decline (gas has a future as a low-carbon energy source). Many consumers are now taking their own vital action to protect their environment as we should, but the question is -is it too late to stop the planet warming beyond what is sustainable for many forms of life? I fear the problem for some people who have contributed to this thread is clear: they don't care what the science is, because they don't care, because in spite of the bitter orange skies over Beijing in mid-afternoon, thick with noxious chemicals that weren't there in 1977, 'nothing has changed'.

Ts RedVeX

10-31-2017, 08:36 PM

I am not surprised that dim communists like you guys just keep repeating the same bullshit over and over again without presenting any logic, hoping that eventually people will start believing them.

The data about volcanoes is taken out of Wikipedia rather than some dodgy website that looks like it was created by a 10-year old.

Saying that plants' feeding processes are complex and reducing climate change process to CO2 just shows how illogical your way of thinking is. At least you do acknowledge that the plants almost killed themselves rather became extinct. If our climate changes then we have to adapt to it rather than constrain our development by funding inefficient wind turbines from public money, telling people to stop eating proper food, introducing more and more taxes, taking children away from their parents etc. It is not climate that strangles the so called "western civilisation" it is idiots like you, who believe in the all the nonsense you are trying to promote here and try to put technological advancement to a halt (which has already happened at least in the EU), if not turn it into regression all together in the name of some belief that it may bring us some sort of salvation.

As for taxes, they do inhibit market freedom. They make manufacturers waste the time and effort which could be used for developing their produce or technologies they use, on thinking about how to pay less tax. We would probably be flying between Mars and Venus if it wasn't for cretins who think they can fix the world with bureaucracy.

Stavros

10-31-2017, 11:40 PM

If our climate changes then we have to adapt to it rather than constrain our development by funding inefficient wind turbines from public money, telling people to stop eating proper food, introducing more and more taxes, taking children away from their parents etc. It is not climate that strangles the so called "western civilisation" it is idiots like you, who believe in the all the nonsense you are trying to promote here and try to put technological advancement to a halt (which has already happened at least in the EU), if not turn it into regression all together in the name of some belief that it may bring us some sort of salvation.
As for taxes, they do inhibit market freedom. They make manufacturers waste the time and effort which could be used for developing their produce or technologies they use, on thinking about how to pay less tax. We would probably be flying between Mars and Venus if it wasn't for cretins who think they can fix the world with bureaucracy.

I am not sure who has advocated taking children away from their parents as a remedy for climate change, that is a new one for me and sounds illogical.

The EU, far from halting technological advancement is one of the leading sources of R&D in the world today-
Among top 50 R&D investors, there are 15 EU companies, same as in last ranking and 30 firms among top 100, one more than last year. The two top investors are Volkswagen (€13.6bn) in 1st place and Samsung (€12.5bn) from KOR in 2nd. The other firms in top-ten are Intel, Alphabet and Microsoft (€11.0bn) from the US; Novartis (€9.0bn) and Roche (€8.6bn) from Switzerland; Huawei (€8.4bn) from China; Johnson & Johnson (€8.3bn) from the US and Toyota Motor (€8.0bn) from Japan
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/2016-eu-industrial-rd-investment-scoreboard

As for taxes and market freedom, consider this:
Sky high taxes in the USA when Eisenhower was President -economic growth, full employment, budget surplus;
Lower taxes in the USA when Reagan was President -low growth, high unemployment, the biggest budget deficit in US history.

trish

11-01-2017, 01:27 AM

If our climate changes then we have to adapt to it...

Indeed. Humans best adapt by adapting their technology to the changing world, which is exactly what the move to renewables is; i.e. an adaptation in response the pressures placed upon us by a changing climate. We already know our response was neither soon enough nor great enough to prevent disaster. The question now is, “Thanks to the paucity of our action, how many and how great are the catastrophes that lie ahead?”

Markets adapt to market pressures. Democracies adapt to political pressures. The pressure made evident by atmospheric science is existential. Those who care are currently attempting to translate that into both political and market pressures. It’s not communism. It’s democracy. It’s science. It’s survival.

filghy2

11-01-2017, 02:20 AM

The data about volcanoes is taken out of Wikipedia rather than some dodgy website that looks like it was created by a 10-year old.

No, this is what Wikipedia says:
"Human activities emit about 29 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, while volcanoes emit between 0.2 and 0.3 billion tons." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

"The greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is emitted from volcanoes, accounting for nearly 1% of the annual global total." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_gas

0.2-0.3 billions tons per year equates to around 500,000-800,000 tonnes per day from all volcanoes, compared to your claim for a single volcano:
"If a volcano can emit 300kt of CO2 daily, then a supervolcano can emit at least 300Mt of CO2 daily."

Your first figure is similar to estimates for the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland several years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/apr/21/iceland-volcano-climate-sceptics Your second figure seems to be something you just made up.

filghy2

11-01-2017, 02:31 AM

As for taxes, they do inhibit market freedom. They make manufacturers waste the time and effort which could be used for developing their produce or technologies they use, on thinking about how to pay less tax. We would probably be flying between Mars and Venus if it wasn't for cretins who think they can fix the world with bureaucracy.

Thanks for the economics lesson, but I already have a degree. You obviously missed the class on externalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax

To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it's difficult to get a person to understand something when their ideology depends on them not understanding it.

Ts RedVeX

11-01-2017, 03:32 PM

I didn't miss anything and your statement is irrelevant. I do agree that if one's car produces fumes or bad smells then there should be a penalty for it. It doesn't mean that such fee is not bad for whoever runs the business which requires them to drive the car.

I was referring more to punishing people for working at all, e.g. income tax, taxes for buying or selling, etc..

I was also referring to a supervolcano, whose eruption is at least 1000time bigger than that of a small one, which may erupt in future. So according to your data a supervolcano would emit in one year 1000% or what humans' yearly produce - 300Gtonnes. I suggest that rather than worrying about some minute problems like cars or power plants, we would focus on figuring out how to control things like that.

"Give people democracy and they will start building socialism for you" (Karl Marx) - This is what has been happening for quite some time in Western Europe and the USA for quite a while now. There is no efficient technology for producing enough electricity to satisfy the increasing needs of mankind as of yet. Telling people lies and encouraging them to use solar or wind powered generators is a bad idea because those who would be able to develop an efficient technology (that would not need any encouragement from mainstream media or fascist governments to be implemented) waste their potential on trying to make a living with what is available. Saying that implementation of these inefficient technologies wont sort climate change anyway in the same paragraph you advocate their implementation makes you look utterly stupid. It is policies that try to artificially regulate markets that pose threat to mankind, not the climate change.

Implementation of laws that prohibit parents from bringing their children up will result in a generation that does not know anything about values that brought "Western Civilisation" to the top. Once they grow up, the people will have their heads filled with misbeliefs like "humans cause global warming". You guys already seem to have lost your perception (unless you never had it in the first place).

I have already wrote about taxes I'll move on to unemployment and growth. Unemployment is good because it teaches people to think. They open their own companies which create competition, invent new things, in general unemployment propels a country's economy. Budget deficit is also good because any money in a state's hands is 40% less efficient than the same amount of money in the hands of the country occupied by that state (or government).

Stavros

11-01-2017, 04:02 PM

"Give people democracy and they will start building socialism for you" (Karl Marx) -

I don't have time right now to challenge some of the ideas you lifted from the anarchist's cook-book, but with regard to the quote from your post, I am not familiar with it, and if I google it, the only source I can find is in Hung Angels in a post written by someone called Ts RedVex. Either you did just make this up on Marx's behalf, or you are translating from another language.

Ts RedVeX

11-01-2017, 06:22 PM

Stavros

11-02-2017, 01:51 AM

Well, if I google Redvex Kingdom then google also cannot find my website... Maybe using quotation marks around my statement was a mistake, but if you look in Wikipedia, then you will see that Marx talks about working class conquest for political power and socioeconomic emancipation. Since most people have no background, experience knowledge or any idea of what government should be doing, it is very likely that in a system like democracy, where everyone has their vote, people will generally take to socialistic solutions, like more taxes, more money to government-owned businesses, more restrictions, more bureaucracy, doles for people who can't be arsed, "free" healthcare, grants for using "green technologies"... In short, silly choices mean silly governments, silly governments mean silly laws, silly laws mean it is impossible to run a normal business without a team of lawyers, a pile of money, or an uncle in the ministry, to start with...

If I google 'redvex kingdom' it produces your website, your twitter feed (I did not visit either of these sites) and numerous other web sites so you might want to check your internet connection or possibly your security software.

Your argument, that when people take part in democracy the outcome is socialistic solutions, like more taxes, more money to government-owned businesses, more restrictions, more bureaucracy, doles for people who can't be arsed, "free" healthcare, grants for using "green technologies"... In short, silly choices -is verifiable rubbish, as the election of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 proves. The signature policies of her government were lower and fewer taxes; a reduction of the State's ownership of segments of the national economy, a reduction in bureaucracy, while she and her supporters regularly complained of the costs and impact on society of welfare and the 'nanny state'. To this end she sold off industries that had been owned by the State in oil and gas, water, gas, electricity, and the railways. She was rewarded with three more election victories before Labour entered power without reversing any of Thatcher's policies. You could of course argue she did not go far enough, but that is a different argument from the one you made.

One important, indeed devastating example of the reduction in regulation was made in 1987 when regulations imposed on the construction industry were lifted, reducing the 'burdens' on the industry to comply with the highest, and therefore the most expensive standards with regard to building materials and inspections on new or renovated buildings. The horrific fire at Grenfell tower is a bleak example of what happens when the State 'sets industry free' and makes the assumption that self-regulation will always produce better outcomes than state imposed rules -the opposite is the case, as dead bodies and families still without permanent homes can testify. Is it any wonder that people do not trust capitalists all the time, that they do not believe capitalism is the best system when the people who are supposed to make the market work rig it to suit their private, financial interests rather than their customers?

As for 'free' healthcare, it beggars belief that you would want to return to the days when health care was provided by charity or Christian Missionaries. The NHS has established itself as a world class service, which, in spite of its problems -that began in 1986 with Mrs Thatcher's 'internal market reforms- not only provides everyone with the security of knowing they will be treated if ill, but also trains doctors, nurses, dentists and the army of supporting disciplines in radiology, microbiology, haematology, and so on, and since 1947 has also become one of the most important sources of research into medicine, with the pioneering research of Richard Doll into the links between smoking and lung cancer at Oxford in the 1950s a brilliant example. Indeed, thanks to the NHS and the contributions of others across the word, diseases that were common in 1947 such as smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, measles, mumps, diphtheria and others are mercifully rare. And note that not only did the people who paid for it, benefit from it, so have many people around the world.

Your arguments are weakened when your refer to people as 'silly' just as in another thread you called people 'idiots'. One of the ironies in all this, is that the kind of world you wish you lived in, where there is no state, no taxation, no regulation, no censorship, has been described as one in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all, and can be found in Ayn Rand's favourite book, 'The Communist Manifesto' (closing paragraph of section2) published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848.

Ts RedVeX

11-02-2017, 05:14 PM

My connection is fine, google returns links to my twitters and my ads but not to my website.

If I ever decide to settle here, I would personally like to see England have another PM like Mrs Thacher. The fact that for the last 30 years it hasn't seen any Prime Ministers like her shows how silly democracy is. As soon as someone tries to pass a reasonable bill, their support falls.

Grenfell Tower should have been replaced with a contemporary building long before the fire. Who do you think cares more that the house doesn't collapse on their heads and the heads of their family - people who live in the house or some government official? If not for the ridiculous regulations and government intervention the fire would not have taken place at all.

Public healthcare in the USA didn't work out, did it? The NHS is also inefficient, in accordance with Savas law I mentioned earlier. I have personally wasted about 3 weeks, so about 252 work-hours in the past 2 months because of it. If In other words, if I earn 20quid per hour, then it means over 5000GBP loss for the economy. Also note that this is only loss generated by me and not by the NHS. The NHS in the UK is not even "free" as on top of NI contribution one hast to pay extra for many things: e.g. I recently had bloodtests done to see if the hormones I am on are not causing blood thickening, liver damage etc.. When I wanted to see the results, I was told that I would have to pay for that (sending them by email was not even an option, in this 21st century). Of, course I figured that it would not have to do that if I make an appointment with my GP. If you call that efficient then you must be an idiot, as my appointment meant wasting another work-hour for me as well as that a patient who may actually need to consult the GP won't be able to do it. It also means that the doctor would be getting paid basically for sitting there in their room doing nothing. I can assure you that the doctor would not be discovering any sort of cure for cancer at that surgery.

I never wrote that there should be no state at all. I fact, the thread I was advocating monarchy was censored. Government should exist, they just shouldn't interfere with county's economy. Neither have I ever said there should be no taxation at all, only taxes that do the least harm to economy should be implemented.

I had also missed Trish's comparison of garbage to CO2 and rats to plants. Rats do not eat garbage. They will only eat the edible part of it and leave all the rest. Nonetheless, as you noticed, because there is more food available in the area of dumping rubbish, rat population will increase. This actually verifies what I had written before - that if there is more food for plants, they will grow better, they will be bigger, and produce more fruit or whatever.

Stavros

11-02-2017, 06:52 PM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1799178]
If I ever decide to settle here, I would personally like to see England have another PM like Mrs Thacher. The fact that for the last 30 years it hasn't seen any Prime Ministers like her shows how silly democracy is. As soon as someone tries to pass a reasonable bill, their support falls.
--This is an obscure paragraph. Even if you do not accept Mrs Thatcher's own verdict that Tony Blair was her 'true heir', it is hard to know what you mean by a 'reasonable bill' and how it loses support for the government. The laws that were changed to allow same-sex couples to form a legal partnership, and then marriage may have been opposed by some religious groups, but they were reasonable bills that became law and if anything, were a positive benefit to the government concerned. By contrast, the attempt by Mrs Thatcher's government to prevent the 'promotion of homosexuality' in schools through an amendment (Section Twenty-Eight of the Local Government Act in 198-eight) was widely condemned as what you would probably call a 'silly bill', yet the party remained in power and won the election in 1992.

Grenfell Tower should have been replaced with a contemporary building long before the fire. Who do you think cares more that the house doesn't collapse on their heads and the heads of their family - people who live in the house or some government official? If not for the ridiculous regulations and government intervention the fire would not have taken place at all.
--The opposite is the case, as was pointed out in an article in the Telegraph shortly after the fire:
Until 1986 all buildings in London fell under the London Building Acts which ensured that external walls must have at least one hour of fire resistance to prevent flames from spreading between flats or entering inside.
But under Margaret Thatcher's government, these rules were replaced by the National Building Regulations and the crucial time stipulation was scrapped.
Instead, materials used on the outside of buildings now only had to meet 'Class O' regulations and show that they did not add to the heat or intensity of a fire. But crucially they did not have to be non-combustible.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/15/eight-failures-left-people-grenfell-tower-mercy-inferno/

Regulations that protected life were relaxed for the benefit of business not the residents of tower blocks; you need to decide who you think was better served by the decisions of a government and ask if it is just a coincidence that building regulations were relaxed when Alistair McAlpine, a construction company millionaire was Treasurer of the Conservative Party and a friend of Mrs Thatcher.

Public healthcare in the USA didn't work out, did it? The NHS is also inefficient, in accordance with Savas law I mentioned earlier. I have personally wasted about 3 weeks, so about 252 work-hours in the past 2 months because of it. If In other words, if I earn 20quid per hour, then it means over 5000GBP loss for the economy. Also note that this is only loss generated by me and not by the NHS. The NHS in the UK is not even "free" as on top of NI contribution one hast to pay extra for many things: e.g. I recently had bloodtests done to see if the hormones I am on are not causing blood thickening, liver damage etc.. When I wanted to see the results, I was told that I would have to pay for that (sending them by email was not even an option, in this 21st century). Of, course I figured that it would not have to do that if I make an appointment with my GP. If you call that efficient then you must be an idiot, as my appointment meant wasting another work-hour for me as well as that a patient who may actually need to consult the GP won't be able to do it. It also means that the doctor would be getting paid basically for sitting there in their room doing nothing. I can assure you that the doctor would not be discovering any sort of cure for cancer at that surgery.
--I am not aware of public health services in the USA. As for the UK, your personal experience is not the means by which it can be measured because the service varies, particularly with regard to the kind of treatment you are seeking. Without going into the details I could tell you of my own experience just this year when I received first class treatment for an operation, an efficient follow-up procedure with both staff in the department and the Consultant, with my post-op medical supplies and the drugs I must now take all free. I spent most of my life paying a tax to fund the NHS and am I glad I did that. It has been utterly crucial to my well-being, as I also take medicine every day for another chronic condition, and pay nothing for it. For me the NHS has been an efficient and irreplaceable service, if in your judgement that makes me an idiot, then that is your judgement.

I never wrote that there should be no state at all. I fact, the thread I was advocating monarchy was censored. Government should exist, they just shouldn't interfere with county's economy. Neither have I ever said there should be no taxation at all, only taxes that do the least harm to economy should be implemented.
--The arguments for Monarchy are not very different from Lenin's concept of the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' which these elites consider necessary when the average person is considered too stupid to be a 'citizen' as Aristotle would have defined one. The Monarch knows best, the Party knows best, is there a difference? But we don't live in a small city-state like Athens, we are part of a global economy and a diversity of states, and people have fought and died for the right to have a voice equal to everyone else's.
I am mystified as to what it is that you find so offensive about democracy, unless it is the simple fact that democratic elections do not always produce the outcome you want. But Democracy offers the prospect of change, it gives people the right to change their government, and it brings people together in a social endeavour that, as it affects them all, they should have the right to control. You are not a socialist, obviously, but there is a nice quote from Polanyi that says “Socialism is, essentially the tendency inherent in an industrial civilization to transcend the self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to a democratic society.” Which could just as easily be altered to say 'Democracy is, essentially the tendency inherent in an industrial civilization to transcend the self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to the will of the people'.

We are all in this together.

Ts RedVeX

11-03-2017, 04:34 PM

A reasonable bill could for starters bring monarchy back and reduce the numbers of people in the government to maybe a 100 of intelligent and educated people - experienced ones in senate, young ones in the lower chamber. A reasonable bill would be something that scraps income tax. A reasonable bill would allow citizens to have firearms... etc. etc. As for loosing support. Some time ago Theresa May wanted to take away meals from children at some schools. A reasonable idea, but the proles didn't like it and May's team lost a few %. Mr Corbyn promised more money for public healthcare - bad socialist idea - Labour gains support.

That is exactly why regulations should not be relaxed. They should be removed and all the building experts responsible for those laws and their enforcement should get jobs. A decent tradesman would know not to wrap that block in shitty cladding. Corporation director probably wouldn't. At least I would not expect he would.

Marriage should not be regulated by the state at all. The only reason why a socialistic state would encourage two people to get married is because in order to encourage them to have children. I personally cannot see why discriminatory laws like those allowing homosexual to man marry each-other to be enforced, other than to bribe the homosexuals. That is another argument against democracy, by the way.

Let's say your earn 1200quid per month (before deductions) and you are in category A for the NI contributions. You pay around 12% or your earnings to the NHS and any other of the bandits who redistribute your money to appropriate places. Over 50 years that is 86400 quid Now considering that each pound in the state's hands is 40% less efficient, than each pound in private hands, this means your 80 grand would be worth over 120000. Now because the public health service has pretty much a monopoly in its field, their services are very expensive (a few thousand pounds per night at a hospital) Were there competition between clinics and drug manufacturers, the services and medication would be much cheaper. I wouldn't say that I am paying my contributions gladly. Especially when it means I don't even get e.g. "free" dental care while a dole scrounger does. But yeah, I must be stupid not to be happy to pay for their well-being...

In a monarchy you have a king who is ruler for life. In democracy, every several years you have a bunch of idiots cheering celebrities who call themselves politicians and whose only concern is to get electorate and public money rather than do any good to the country. If that is what you call a minor difference then I call you an idiot again.

Stavros

11-03-2017, 10:40 PM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1799359]

A reasonable bill could for starters bring monarchy back and reduce the numbers of people in the government to maybe a 100 of intelligent and educated people - experienced ones in senate, young ones in the lower chamber.
--This is not an original position, as we had a system like this for several hundred years following the Norman Conquest of 1066. And guess what, it didn't work. It was inefficient, corrupt and unpopular. It also begs the question -how do you know if your 100 chosen ones are intelligent, when the same people you ridicule on a regular basis in our Parliament are graduates of our finest universities, or have been successful in business -where are these 'philosopher kings' to come from, and who will choose them?

That is exactly why regulations should not be relaxed. They should be removed and all the building experts responsible for those laws and their enforcement should get jobs. A decent tradesman would know not to wrap that block in shitty cladding. Corporation director probably wouldn't. At least I would not expect he would.
--Your faith in 'decent tradesmen' is somewhere between naive and plain dangerous. There used to be a programme on tv called 'cowboy builders' which exposed the useless, dangerous and often criminal behaviour of so-called 'tradesmen' and if you look at some of the reports on Grenfell, the residents were verbally abused by these 'tradesmen' during a renovation phase. Regulation exists both to impose standards on the industry, and to hold it to account if something goes wrong, whereas under your system there are no regulations and no accountability. Across the world, from Mexico to Italy, people have died in earthquakes because builders skimped on quality materials and buildings that were supposed to withstand a quake fell to pieces. Under your system, the cowboys win, the people lose. You might as well point to Grenfell Tower, shrug your shoulders and say 'so what?'

I wouldn't say that I am paying my contributions gladly. Especially when it means I don't even get e.g. "free" dental care while a dole scrounger does. But yeah, I must be stupid not to be happy to pay for their well-being...
I am disappointed that your personal experience of the NHS has left you so bitter, and not everyone on 'the dole' is a 'scrounger'. Personal stories of woe can be balanced by stories of gratitude. And you can ask for dental treatment on the NHS. The first payments asked of citizens using the NHS started in 1950 when prescription charges were introduced because the Government could not afford to pay for its contribution to the war in Korea without raising extra funds. Perhaps you would prefer to live in the USA with its insurance system where health care is a commercial business run for profit for those who can afford to pay, rather than a national service available to all, as Congress is now considering an amendment that trades tax cuts for the withdrawal of health insurance from millions of Americans.

In a monarchy you have a king who is ruler for life. In democracy, every several years you have a bunch of idiots cheering celebrities who call themselves politicians and whose only concern is to get electorate and public money rather than do any good to the country. If that is what you call a minor difference then I call you an idiot again.
-Your cynical dismissal of democracy can only be based on ignorance and deliberate deceit as in another post you praised Margaret Thatcher who was democratically elected, and a fan of democracy too, for what that's worth. The reconstruction of democracy across Europe after 1945 may have passed you by in Poland until 1988, but it was, and remains both a superior form of rule to fascism, national socialism and communism, and enjoys greater popularity. I am not really sure why you live in Europe if you find us so lacking in the values you believe comprise a place worth living in.

None of which contributes to the debate on climate change.

Ts RedVeX

11-03-2017, 11:43 PM

I am not bothered whether or not is my position original... I would like to note that not so long time ago Great Britain was indeed a very powerful state, whose wealth is about to disappear thanks to democrats and fans of social services like yourself. Maybe the Queen or some of the eldest members of parliament would know who is worthy.. I dunno. Definitely not proles like yourself and definitely nobody whose candidacy you would recommend. Any form of government is bad for the people but anarchy is even worse. Not as bad as democracy though.

If you want square work then you shouldn't cut corners - as the saying goes. Competition between building companies within a normal country would be regulatiory enough to keep irresponsible people off the domain they have no idea about. Let's say you build a house for a family and it collapses killing all but the one member. In a country of law and order, you would be publicly hanged for murder or at least punished in another way (it would be up to court to decide how). I seriously doubt any decent builder would dare to put flammable cladding on a high-rise building when a inflammable cladding is available, even if they were paid to do it. I doubt that there would be many pretending to be decent builders. Apart form that, if people die because some idiot relaxes regulations then why is that idiot not being held responsible for the deaths his idiotic laws caused? By the way, my faith in tradesman is so big that I made a big drama (unnecessarily) when I took my car to an "authorised garage" last time. But when I see an obligatory PAT test being done by a guy who comes over with a multimeter and checks if there is connection between a device's casing and a screw in the wall then I am asking myself "Why do I even pay for this"?

Oh dear.. I didn't know the UK is still at war with Korea... I do get it now... Thanx for taking the time and explaining it to me. really.

Thacher was not perfect, then... I guess.

It all does as it is the same propaganda that tells you democracy and slavery is better for the "people" than monarchy and freedom, tells you that humans cause global warming.

Stavros

11-04-2017, 02:07 AM

Your faith in builders as part of the argument that markets are best when self-regulated should not of course smear the reputations of some very fine workers. And you can argue that market mechanisms will punish those businesses that are crooked, but in the building industry this could mean punishing a dodgy company after their shoddy work has led to the deaths of X people, when a properly regulated system might prevent them from being builders in the first place. The examples of builders, bankers and bakers operating in the market to con people are so numerous I find it hard to believe you really believe markets know best.

The UK went to war in Korea through the 'Uniting for Peace' resolution passed at the United Nations in 1950. The resolution gives the General Assembly rather than the Security Council the right to legally engage a party in military action and was passed in the GA to circumvent the fact that the USSR refused to endorse any military action to counter the Korean communist campaign in the south of the country. A coalition of forces, including the USA and the UK engaged the north Koreans in a war that ended in an armistice so that, technically, the UK is still at war with North Korea.

You are free to dismiss democracy and link it to slavery and dismiss me as a 'prole', whatever that means, just as I am free to regard the idea as incoherent garbage. It is, perhaps, fitting that you want a government of outstanding intellectuals, yet the outstanding scientists who have documented climate change for over 100 years and have identified the human element in global warming you believe are simply wrong. One wonders who you would select to govern us, and hope it never happens.

filghy2

11-04-2017, 07:21 AM

Libertarianism is really a kind of substitute religion. It appeals to some people because it appears to provide a simple universal framework for dealing with a messy world. However, that simplicity is an illusion because it only comes from ignoring real world complexities, such as transaction costs, externalities and disparities in knowledge, wealth and bargaining power.

Ironically, it shares many similarities with communism, which was also a religion substitute. There is the same claim to offer a universal system for achieving utopia. There is the same willingness to override this wishes of the majority in the name of what is supposedly in their best interests.

I'm struggling to get my head around the logical consistency of arguing against democracy because most people don't know what's in their interests, but also arguing against government regulation because people know best how to protect their own interests.

Ts RedVeX

11-04-2017, 01:53 PM

A few people died... So what? People die every day in work-accidents, road-accidents, etc... and you say that you want to tell people how to build their homes because of that? That is idiotic. If someone wants to break your stupid regulations then they will do it anyway.

Good to know that I still pay taxes to support the English troops at the Korean borders. I was wondering why I need to pay so much but it makes sense now... Since Poland has not signed a peace treaty with Germany I also understand now why taxes in Poland are even worse. I just cannot see why we do not have any nuclear arsenal yet. I guess that we will keep our traditions of fighting tanks with swords and we will go to nuclear war in tanks... Money well spent...

I never said i dismiss the work of scientists that researched global warming. I only dismiss the nonsense propaganda about human beings being the main cause of global warming. Einstein's work was also being questioned by dozens of other professors but as it has turned out, the majority was wrong. Similarly, since nobody has proven that global warming is caused by humans, it probably isn't.

Your laws and books seem to be your religion. You blindly believe that more bureaucracy is better, you believe that hundreds of scientists who say it is likely that we cause global warming must mean that we do even though none of them has ever proven it...

I cannot see what is so hard to understand in my reasoning. Subjectively, people know what their interests are. Objectively they don't. Let me give you an example. The main party in Polish government won elections because they had promised to give people 500zl per child. Subjectively, a parent thinks "yeah that's good innit?" What he doesn't know is that the 500zl does not fall from the sky and the government has to first take that amount increased by Savas's 40% , so 700zl away from them by means of increasing tax on gasoline, increasing the prices of bread, milk etc... This is why democracy is so bad for the country (good for the state because it can easily convince people that they cause global warming and therefore should pay some new "global warming tax" for instance)

Stavros

11-04-2017, 03:28 PM

When I read something like this: A few people died... So what?, I wonder if there is anything more to say about your eccentric views of government, the state, democracy and those pests known as people. I could also add I think it is a disgraceful thing to say about a fire that could have been, should have been prevented.

As for your remark
I never said i dismiss the work of scientists that researched global warming. I only dismiss the nonsense propaganda about human beings being the main cause of global warming... Similarly, since nobody has proven that global warming is caused by humans, it probably isn't.
The New York Times reports today:
Directly contradicting much of the Trump administration’s position on climate change, 13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/) on Friday that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization.

I suggest you back up your own claims with a report of your own. It will make interesting reading, for those who still read.

Ts RedVeX

11-04-2017, 06:25 PM

How can a federal agency unveil scientific reports? Did they pass those in a voting or something? Scientific reports should be done by scientists, not a bunch of charlatans from the government.

People are not pests. Most of officials are. If lives matter so much then how come ISIS which attacked France and the USA (allegedly the most powerful country on Earth) still exists? That is exactly what you get when a greedy state minds its own business rather than taking care of the people who it should be looking after.

broncofan

11-04-2017, 08:33 PM

How can a federal agency unveil scientific reports? Did they pass those in a voting or something? Scientific reports should be done by scientists, not a bunch of charlatans from the government.

https://science2017.globalchange.gov/credits/

I can go through the list and document their credentials as researchers and professors, as well as their academic credentials. It would take quite a long time but I'm not even sure if you believe the nonsense you're spouting.

sukumvit boy

11-05-2017, 02:37 AM

They ,"unveiled the scientific reports " because "they" are the ones who paid the scientists to do the research .
They being we the taxpayers .:banghead

Ts RedVeX

11-05-2017, 01:19 PM

not a single Ph. D. or M. Sc. or Professor in that list.. not even a single M.A.

Stavros

11-05-2017, 04:11 PM

not a single Ph. D. or M. Sc. or Professor in that list.. not even a single M.A.

I picked three names at random from the list, here are the results:

Wiesław Masłowski is a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School) in Monterey, California (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterey,_California) since 2009. He obtained his MS from the University of Gdańsk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Gda%C5%84sk) in 1987,[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wies%C5%82aw_Mas%C5%82owski#cite_note-1) and his PhD from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Alaska,_Fairbanks) in 1994, with a dissertation entitled Numerical modeling study of the circulation of the Greenland Sea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_Sea)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wies%C5%82aw_Mas%C5%82owski

David Easterling is currently Chief of the Scientific Services Division at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1987 and served as an Assistant Professor in the Climate and Meteorology Program, Department of Geography, Indiana University-Bloomington from 1987 to 1990. In 1990 he moved to the National Climatic Data Center as a research scientist, was appointed Principal Scientist in 1999, and Chief of Scientific Services in 2002. He has authored or co-authored more than sixty research articles in journals such as Science, Nature and the Journal of Climate.
https://www.agci.org/redhen/contact/1287

Donald Wuebbles

Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, University of California at Davis, 1983
M.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1972
B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1970
Donald J. Wuebbles is the Harry E. Preble Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Illinois where he has been since 1994. He is also a Presidential Fellow at the University of Illinois, with the aim of helping the university system develop new initiatives in urban sustainability. From 2015 to early 2017, Dr. Wuebbles was Assistant Director with the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the Executive Office of the President in Washington DC.
https://www.atmos.illinois.edu/cms/One.aspx?portalId=127458&pageId=151986

Ts RedVeX

11-05-2017, 04:28 PM

I cannot see any degrees in the list so we must be talking about different people.

Ts RedVeX

11-05-2017, 04:49 PM

Stavros

11-05-2017, 06:27 PM

I cannot see any degrees in the list so we must be talking about different people.

Which people then are you referring to, because it is not the people identified in this link from Broncofan's post above-
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/credits/

Before you start ranting about my ignorance
-I have not ranted or even suggested you are ignorant, merely hinted that you might want to spend more time doing some research on the scientists producing the report than you do posting opinions which you are entitled to believe, but which are not supported either by the science we do have, or the science you are reluctant to tell us gives a different explanation for climate change and global warming.

broncofan

11-05-2017, 07:35 PM

not a single Ph. D. or M. Sc. or Professor in that list.. not even a single M.A.
See Stavros' post above. I had the same result with every name I looked up, which was about eight of them. If you read my post, I said it would take a while to compile their academic credentials. That wouldn't be the case if their credentials were listed right there on the link.

You don't think it says anything about your entire approach that you would see a list like that, make an unfounded claim, and not even be cautious enough to verify it?

broncofan

11-05-2017, 08:50 PM

Before you start ranting about my ignorance I would like you to read the report, which clearly states in the introduction that:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Over the last century, there are no alternative explanations supported by the evidence that are either credible or that can contribute more than marginally to the observed patterns. There is no convincing evidence that natural variability can account for the amount of and the pattern of global warming observed over the industrial era."

Which means the whole report is a load of crap as they haven't determined the real cause of global warming, they concluded that one can assume humans cause global warming.

What is it you think the introduction is supposed to do? They are telling the reader what their findings were and in the subsequent chapters they describe the ways in which they have rigorously tested the various potential causes.

For instance, chapter three( https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/3/ ) is called detection and attribution. Again, the hint is in the word attribution. They use regression analysis to figure out what contribution each independent variable makes to whatever their dependent variable is, I assume temperature change. They discuss the role of changes in solar output and any possible contribution by increased volcanic activity. This can also be found in chapter 2 ( https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/ ). Chapter 2 is called physical drivers of climate change. You can find subsection natural drivers: solar irradiance and volcanoes. They find that these potential causes do not play as large a role as anthropogenic activity in increasing global temperatures.

Again, I have not gone through the study and a lot of it is going to include methods I do not have training to evaluate. But one thing I would not do is read the introduction of a voluminous study like this and state without any cause that the subsequent text dismisses potential causes that it talks about at length.

sukumvit boy

11-05-2017, 11:54 PM

I give up 1037399

filghy2

11-06-2017, 01:55 AM

I give up

Very wise. People like RedVex exist in closed loop where facts and logic are invented or distorted to support a pre-conceived position. In their own minds they can never be wrong so it is pointless to argue with them. I only do it because I have time on my hands and it's perversely entertaining (up to a point).

Unfortunately, while RV is an extreme example, about 1/3 of the population, and the majority of one side of politics, now seems to be in this category to a fair degree (at least in the US). It is hard to see how healthy democracy or even continued human progress is possible if this continues.

Ts RedVeX

11-06-2017, 02:30 AM

Democracy is leading the most civilised western countries to socialism, as Marx predicted.

I am sorry but if the introduction reads that the scientists responsible for this complete failure of a research were unable to determine whether or not is humans's activity the main reason for global warming, then I am not going to read the whole report.

I don't suppose they put at the end "to be continued" did they hehehe

Stavros

11-06-2017, 02:51 AM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1799885]

Democracy is leading the most civilised western countries to socialism, as Marx predicted.
--You said it, not Marx, as you were unable to give me a source for this when I asked last time.

I am sorry but if the introduction reads that the scientists responsible for this complete failure of a research were unable to determine whether or not is humans's activity the main reason for global warming, then I am not going to read the whole report.
--Yet again, this is the opposite of what the report says, thus
13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/) on Friday that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization

It is fine for you to disagree with the conclusions of the report, but you can't say it doesn't identify the causes of global warming in our times. This is becoming a farce, and a waste of time. Add something to the debate that will help your cause.

Ts RedVeX

11-06-2017, 10:43 AM

Read about Marx in Wikipedia and try to understand it this time. Or read his "Communist Manifesto". It is not a citation. If democracy means that a bunch of 5 winos from the local train station each have the same right to vote and their vote has the same weight as an Oxford professor then democracy is is where the winos tell the professor what to do. In most "civilised countries of the west" that is what you have, amongst other things like: the so called "income tax", no private property, national businesses, central bank, etc... We all already live in socialist countries and the next step on the communist agenda is transformation to communism. in 1920

Which part of the report states that the greenhouse gases generated by humans is the main cause for global warming? Because what I gathered from your posts, you claim that the climate changes due to human activity.

Stavros

11-06-2017, 01:10 PM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1799945]

In most "civilised countries of the west" that is what you have, amongst other things like: the so called "income tax", no private property, national businesses, central bank, etc... We all already live in socialist countries and the next step on the communist agenda is transformation to communism.
--Who would have thought it, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Tony Blair, all socialists...a curious interpretation of politics and the state and one that sits at variance with the people who cut taxes and bureaucracy....

Which part of the report states that the greenhouse gases generated by humans is the main cause for global warming? Because what I gathered from your posts, you claim that the climate changes due to human activity
-Try the Executive Summary in the link provided:
This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/executive-summary/

Ts RedVeX

11-06-2017, 02:52 PM

Stavros

11-06-2017, 04:00 PM

Thacher was a liberal, not a socialist. She showed the communists who had been strangling Great Britain with their privileges, and "rights" to death. She liberated the market and allowed proles to take lead. Not any lazy dole scroungers, who do indeed have their say in the pro-socialistic system democracy is and which you advocate, but those proles with new ideas and initiative to work... I am seeing it now. You are not a prole are you? Have you ever actually had a job or are you one of those known in Thatcher's times as the wets?

I shall repeat what I had said earlier: lack of alternative explanations is not an argument for any reasonable man to believe that something is true. The previous statement, which you have emphasised in bold, says it clearly that human activities are not proven to be the cause of global warming. I don't know whether it is your stupidity or the fact that you are arguing with a simple prole like myself that does not allow you to acknowledge simple facts that would be obvious to a 10-year-old. Either way, I now know why there is so little reasonable people even trying to reason with your idiocy.

Yet again you contradict yourself without seeming to know it, dismissing the UK as a socialist country while acknowledging that the politician who has influenced the UK the most in the last 40 years was not a socialist, as if we didn't know that! You need to explain the contradiction between the tax-hungry socialist Britain you live in and the impact Thatcher had which seems to be the opposite. It doesn't make sense to me and I doubt it makes sense to you.

As for the Climate Change document I quoted, if you bothered to even read the Executive Summary you would see that the authors, not me, chose to put a part of their text in BOLD letters, and that the quote concludes with the statement there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.

And we have yet to read your presentation of the alternative evidence, which is the fundamental weakness of your position.

broncofan

11-06-2017, 05:39 PM

I shall repeat what I had said earlier: lack of alternative explanations is not an argument for any reasonable man to believe that something is true. The previous statement, which you have emphasised in bold, says it clearly that human activities are not proven to be the cause of global warming.
This is clever of you but the report does not say that the cause of global warming must be manmade simply because they ruled out alternative causes. They determine the extent to which both manmade and natural causes are responsible for temperature increases. Even if you read the first couple of paragraphs of what I linked you would be able to determine that this is what they were doing in the detection and attribution section. To be thorough, they included natural drivers of climate change in their regression model. Had they omitted them, you would assume they weren't thorough and that they assumed warming was manmade without proving it, which is actually what you said earlier.

They describe their statistical methodology in appendix c. I can tell you what regression analysis is generally but am not a statistician so you can read appendix c for yourself.

In summary: they do not assume something is true based on lack of alternative explanations. They establish directly the contribution of anthropogenic activities on warming, as well as the contribution of alternative causes such as solar and volcanic activity.

Ts RedVeX

11-06-2017, 10:14 PM

broncofan

11-06-2017, 10:48 PM

Ts RedVeX

11-06-2017, 11:48 PM

If you say believe that there is no imperative for the environment to sustain human life, then why would you believe that whatever we are doing to the environment is positive or negative? From our planet's point of view, and it's environment, it does not matter whether or not do we survive or become extinct. From our point of view it also does not matter much: if we all die then it doesn't matter once we are dead. If we survive then it doesn't matter, because future generations will be facing the same problems we are facing now.

Maybe you have heard of entropy, which is, to put it in simple words, the degree of disorder in our world. All matter aims to lose all its energy and achieve the highest entropy naturally. However, human beings, are created by nature, but we are unnatural creatures. We want to have "law and order" and we actually measure the advancement of our civilisation by the amount of energy we can gather and use in an "orderly" manner, for specific purposes. We are meant to oppose whatever nature comes up with. Whether it is global warming, a super-volcano eruption, an asteroid hitting our planet, a supernova explosion, a black hole that might start sucking the galaxy we live in at some point, and ultimately, at least as of today, be capable of opposing the end of the "big bang". We need to try and eventually be capable of acquiring enough energy to transport ourselves into safer dimensions one day, or indeed find an ultimate balance point and sustain it to stop what commenced in the "big bang". Thinking we should sacrifice technological development in the name of a planet's environment, or even worse - in the name of some mafia or state's economical profit, is just unworthy of humanity. - At least from the point of view of those who actually care about their children, grandchildren, and future generations. The rest can indeed just eat whatever the statutory dole or minimal wage allows them to buy...

trish

11-07-2017, 01:13 AM

The report covers the last 200 years. Earth is over 4 billion years old and there is evidence that life has been around for 3.7 billion now and it too the report's authors 4 decades to unveil nothing, probably because they focused on a tenth of a percent of humanity's existence...
The Earth’s atmosphere has undergone a number of transformations and the climate has seen many fluctuations. Each one had a cause: the precession of the Earth’s axis, the expulsion of greenhouse gasses through periods of extensive vulcanism. the dumping of oxygen into the atmosphere by the then newly evolve process of photosynthesis, periods of fluctuation in solar activity etc.

Climate is balancing act between the flux of incoming Solar energy and the outgoing energy radiated away back into space. What is certain is that we are currently experiencing an exponential rise in the average global temperatures of the oceans and atmosphere, that extends over a period of time that is pretty much co-extensive with what we call the industrial revolution. It’s certain that, in this case, the cause is due to a rise over that period in the levels of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which obstruct the escape of radiative energy into space thereby creating an energy imbalance. It’s also certain that those gases have been released into the atmosphere primarily through the burning of extensive amounts of fossil fuels. Those fuels have sequestered those gasses for a geologic period of time, and in a blink of an eye (within the last two centuries - a time period that coincides with the current warming of the Earth’s climate system) we released them.

That’s why the report covers the last two centuries. It’s a report on the current climate change and it’s causes - not a report on all the changes of climate the Earth had ever experienced. Climatology involves the study and investigation of all those previous eras, but no single paper or report needs to recount the entirety of what occurred over the last four billion years.

to say that climate change might mean our extinction is just silly.
Could a change in climate result in our extinction? Of course it could. But it would depend upon the extent and nature of the change. I do not know how to measure the level of threat in relation to our survival as a species. But the current change is definitely a threat to the continuation of our civilization, as are famine, ocean rise, plague and political upheaval which are all connected to the habitability of our surface world.

Thinking we should sacrifice technological development in the name of a planet's environment, or even worse - in the name of some mafia or state's economical profit, is just unworthy of humanity.
No one I know of is suggesting we abandon technological development in the name of the planet’s environment. Developing new technologies to help us endure, cope and conquer the energy imbalance we must now live with is exactly what many scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are engaged in. I do know some people who’d rather sacrifice those technologies and trudge on with the old fossil fuel technologies because the cooperation required to make a concerted change threatens their beleaguered ideology of individual greed and selfishness.

I cannot predict what solution, if any, we will find. Will future industries be powered by solar cells and wind power? Or geothermal energy? Perhaps we’ll build space elevators to launch satellites and utilize the thermal difference between the base and higher reaches of the elevator to create the power we'll need to heat or cool our homes and drive our industries. What seems certain right now is that fossil fuels are at best an eventual dead end and at worst a nearly immediate and catastrophic end.

filghy2

11-07-2017, 02:45 AM

As to Stavros, he can fuck off no matter whether he is indeed an idiot who cannot understand simple things, like that the UK's government has changed a lot since Thatcher's demise, or some sour old twat born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a very long butt-plug up his stinking arse.

In the other thread you were telling us that we need to return to "the values that made our civilisation great". Is this sort of childish abuse your idea of those values?

trish

11-07-2017, 02:50 AM

I thought I’d respond to the philosophical discussion here in this post as opposed the the prior post devoted to facts of climate change.

Is there an imperative for the Earth to be habitable? Or for the environment to sustain human life? Does it matter?

The answer to the second question is pretty clearly: No, there is no apparent imperative for the environment to sustain human life. The occurrence of humanity is accidental and has so far been brief.

Does it matter? Neither the universe nor the Earth has no point of view on the matter. We do. By and large humans care about whether or not there will be future generations of descendants to continue our history, our advances in knowledge, explorations and our human spirit. If we die out, no one will be left to care, but that doesn’t change the fact that we do now. Future generations, should they exist, will always have problems to solve. But I fail to see the bearing that has on our desire for the survival of the species. If we do things right, those generations will have different problems then the ones that currently occupy us.

So what about the first question? The Earth is four billion years old and has been the home to life for 3.7 billion years. RedVex is correct to connect this with entropy. The second law of thermodynamics (the one which states that the entropy of a physical system -if examined on a sufficiently large scale- decreases with time) is often misunderstood as being in conflict with living processes. In fact living processes; e.g. the metabolism of cells, the electro-chemical processes of the neural net we call the brain, etc. are dependent on the second law of thermodynamics. We are the product of natural processes and we ourselves are as natural as anything else in the universe. Intention is social construction that results from a taking a cognitive stance. The universe has no intentions for us. We are neither ‘meant’ to oppose ‘whatever nature comes up with’ nor go along with it.

Not only is the second law of thermodynamics essential to the physical and chemical processes that are life, but also living systems seem to optimize the production of entropy in the larger environment. Physicist Jeremy England speculates that whenever a system supports it, it will evolve subsystems that maximize the dissipation of thermal energy and that these subsystems are what we call living organisms. I remember reading some years ago a similarly themed popular book by Eric Schneider called Into the Cool.

But there is nothing that says the Earth’s environment will continue to produce and support life. It may happen because of causes not in our control. But we ourselves could be the ones who blow out the flame.

filghy2

11-07-2017, 03:11 AM

We have been around for 200 thousand years. We haven't become extinct even though there were some global calamities as described e.g. in the Bible. Climate change has been around throughout Earth's history and I am sure that humanity has had nothing to do with it. Now, we may indeed contribute a bit, but to say that climate change might mean our extinction is just silly.

Our close relatives, the Neanderthals, did actually become extinct around 40,000 years ago (maybe less). Scientists don't know for sure why this happened, but climate change (an ice age) is one hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction

Stavros

11-07-2017, 04:07 AM

As to Stavros...who cannot understand simple things, like that the UK's government has changed a lot since Thatcher's demise...

Trish, I am pleased to say has rescued this thread from is rhetorical depths to remind us of the importance of science in all this. Even if I do sound like a time machine stuck on the same groove, I don't have a problem with you denying the science of climate change as it currently exists and was presented in the report, but note that you have not offered an alternative explanation based on science.

As for Mrs Thatcher, try to understand that the importance of Thatcher in the UK was, as she herself made it clear at the time and for years after, the break with what had been called the 'Keynesian consensus' sometimes 'Butskellism' [an amalgam of Tory Rab Butler and Labour Hugh Gaitskell) or the 'post-war consensus' which, like the New Deal Administration in the USA, responded to economic depression and poverty with the belief that the State had a duty to intervene to remedy the worst effects of economic failure.

In the UK this meant the State, in 1945 taking ownership of utilities such as water, electricity and gas, and public services such as health, education and transport. For reasons too detailed and tedious to go into, the people voted for a change in 1979, the same people whom you have variously described as idiots, proles or just plain silly. Whatever, the outcome was indeed a reduction in the extent to which the State intervened in the economy, with utilities and industry privatised, and attempts made to reduce the State's financial contribution to education and health.

Here are two legacies of Mrs Thatcher.
In the first place, she was, like Reagan, Kohl and Chirac, a Conservative not a Liberal -had you asked her that common question asked of all Conservatives: What do you want to conserve? Her answer would have been, not markets, but State Power, defined as the Monarchy, the Military, the Church of England, the City of London, and Parliamentary Democracy. Yes, she tinkered with 'market reforms', and yes, she signed the EU's Single Market Act on the UK's behalf; but she did not sacrifice state power or tax-raising powers to 'release' the market from the interference of the State. In fact one of the first things she did in 1979 on entering office was to double VAT to 15%. Raising taxes is hardly the work of an economic liberal.

The second legacy is that all succeeding administrations incorporated her policies in government, including that of Tony Blair's 'New Labour' government. In fact, Blair -whom Mrs Thatcher regarded as her 'true heir', went further than Mrs Thatcher in reducing direct income tax for low paid workers so that for all your bleating about socialism and taxes we now have more people than before either paying no income tax on their wages or paying a lower rate, with the additional nonsense (to me) that they can also claim -in most cases have to claim to survive- in-work benefits. Mrs Thatcher may be dead, yet even after the crash of 2008 that supposedly buried her version of 'neo-liberalism' we are living with many elements of her 'market freedoms'.

What does this have to do with climate change? Believe it or not, Mrs Thatcher's government was one of the first in Europe if not the world to take direct action to reduce the volume of greenhouse gases entering the upper atmosphere and creating a hole in the Ozone layer - it was her government that banned the use of chloro-fluorocarbons in household products that can be marked down as an early example of a government taking action to combat the human element in climate change, as noted here-

Back in the 1970s, CFCs (HFCs’ cousins) were burning a hole in the ozone layer and risked sending skin cancer rates through the roof. But very few in power were heeding the warnings.

That changed when a group of scientists managed to persuade the ex-chemistry student, and then prime minister of the UK, Margaret Thatcher, of the situation's severity. The speech (http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817) she made to bring the world together on this issue is still worthy of the most globally-minded eco-warrior today. “We carry common burdens, face common problems and must response with common action,” she told the UN General Assembly in 1989, when the agreement was on the brink of disaster.

The resulting Montreal Protocol not only banned CFCs but also ensured that rich nations would help developing countries to pay for the greener alternatives.
http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/how-margaret-thatcher-helped-protect-world-climate-change-2533

I have this vision of Margaret Thatcher, a science graduate of Oxford University (Somerville College), sitting you down and tapping you gently on the knee, 'You know, my dear, it is not as you think it is...'

The idea that markets work better than governments, that carbon taxes are wrong because they are taxes, that subsidies for alternative energy are wrong because they are subsidies -she might agree with you there, and this aspect of her legacy as it unfolds with the environmental vandals in the administration (if not all the states) in the USA is deeply depressing.

And yet, as far as Thatcher is concerned, she understood the science, and however one judges her legacy on politics and economics, on the Ozone Layer, she got it right. And the policy -adopted worldwide- worked. Because when we pull together and act we can change the world, for better. I know, because I am an idiot.

Ts RedVeX

11-07-2017, 03:15 PM

I have found something for you knaves, who promote all this "global warming" and "more bureacracy and regulation helps development" communist bullcrap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJBDI7jVMqM

trish

11-07-2017, 05:51 PM

Thank you for over an hour’s worth of tired, worn, laughable, conspiracy laden and previously debunked falsehoods and misunderstandings about climate and science in general. You will find these claims have already been addressed elsewhere. You might try

http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/16/eight-pseudo-scientific-climate-claims-debunked-by-real-scientists/

which nicely dispenses with 176 false claims by climate change deniers.

Whether you’re someone who believes climate change isn’t anthropogenic or simply an outright denier, I’m sure this link will get you scouring the web to satisfy the cravings of your unsupportable preconceptions.

Look, I get that hardcore libertarians don’t want climate to be something that humans can effect. The fear is if we can influence the climate, then that would place a moral burden on all of us to perhaps cooperate in ways certain libertarians find abhorrent. Unfortunately theories of governance are distinct from physical science and wishful thinking doesn’t turn fact into fiction (although wishful thinkers can sometimes be convinced to believe outlandish fictions).

I personally am interested in the science of climate change. [It’s happening and it’s anthropogenic. It’s due to the rapid and massive release (over the past century or two) of greenhouse gasses that have been sequestered for geologic periods of time within the fossil fuels we use to power our industry, transportation systems, cars and homes.]
I’m not much of a solutions person - definitely not an engineer. So aside from the fact that I prefer we not continue the practices that destabilized our climate, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m neither a communist, a monarchist nor a libertarian. If you can find a libertarian solution, fine. But continuing on as we have been is not a viable option. I’m not advocating (very few people are) that we end the industrial revolution and return to the agrarian lifestyle of our ancestors. That’s the exact opposite of my desire. To continue civilization as we know it we need to find and develop new and cleaner sources of energy to power our industries.

Perhaps we could convince several billion people to sell themselves to the rest of us as armed slaves. We’d have them run around power generating treadmills for us. We could pay them in ammunition. (For a good laugh and to see the relevance of this last response see http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?73366-The-FAST-Approaching-Gun-Ban&p=1799449&viewfull=1#post1799449 ).

Ts RedVeX

11-07-2017, 06:55 PM

Oh yeah that looks like a very scienticifific webshite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1IbRujko-A

peejaye

11-07-2017, 08:31 PM

Stavros

11-07-2017, 09:14 PM

To be honest it's all a bit of a joke! We, thanks to the bureaucrats in Brussels, have had industries shut down(coal mining), congestion charges inflicted on us, car taxes rising for older vehicles, humongous increases on energy bills while the rest of the world do what the fuck they like!
The US & China being two culprits.....
& if that's not hard enough to swallow; I've been made redundant because of it!
Just to appease a few do-gooders! :yayo:

But Peejaye, climate change was not the reason the mines closed -most of them had closed by the end of the 1960s because oil and gas was a cheaper and more efficient source of fuel, and because the factories that used coal also closed, if not in the 60s then in the 70s. I would not be surprised if there are now more people working in green energy in the UK than coal. Coongestion charges were introduced in London because of, er....congestion, not global warming...

filghy2

11-08-2017, 02:03 AM

while the rest of the world do what the fuck they like!
The US & China being two culprits.....

Another one who doesn't bother to research anything before sounding off. That may be true of the US under Trump, but China is actually doing quite a lot to reduce emissions, including shutting down coal mines. http://grist.org/climate-energy/7-signs-that-china-is-serious-about-combatting-climate-change/
If you'd taken a few seconds to google you'd have found numerous articles in a similar vein.

Ts RedVeX

11-08-2017, 11:51 AM

Peejaye, please do not fall for the communist newspeak. They are no do-gooders. They are communists. The way it works is as follows:

- Tell workers they are being oppressed and need to create a trade union that will fight for privileges for its members (bullshit them with guaranteed minimal wage, minimum number of hours per week, holidays, discount on the factory's produce, whatever). At that point, every worker, who can only see their own interest, likes it.
- After some time all the worst workers (the lazy ones, who don't like to get their hand dirty) are members of the union whose structure grows and becomes less efficient (because instead of working, now the bad workers, do bureaucracy for the union. This makes the industry even less efficient and generates more losses).
- At the point where in free market's natural rules (which just work naturally and do not require any communists push them write them down and convince the government to put them in power) would simply cause the factory to close, comes somebody like M. Thatcher. and shows how it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv5t6rC6yvg at that point post proles are no longer dumb enough not to believe it.
- Unions are dismantled, factories that generate losses go bankrupt, and normal people get other jobs. Communists, as one may expect, say that it is bad when factories shut down, they say that all the poor workers have been cheated by the government while the were actually being cheated by their union all the time, etc, etc.

Of course, like I pointed out earlier, the government should not interfere in economy at all, and the fact that the same government that dismantles unions later increases taxes to push global warming and nuclear power is bad in this sense. Nobody is perfect though... Government that imposes congestion charges is also bad. I hope I don't have to explain that it is not the congestion that charges people for driving in the congestion zone but the communists (or the so called do-gooders) who introduce their silly laws.

Stavros

11-08-2017, 12:45 PM

Of course, like I pointed out earlier, the government should not interfere in economy at all, and the fact that the same government that dismantles unions later increases taxes to push global warming and nuclear power is bad in this sense. .

I am puzzled, on the one hand you link a speech by a politician you claim to admire, then damn her as the Prime Minister who used State Power to intervene in the economy to tackle climate change (the climate change you appear to deny), the Prime Minister who presided over a decline in trade union power and a 24% decline in Britain's industrial capacity, the Prime Minister who raised taxes you don't approve of, and the Prime Minister who sold off council houses creating a long-term crisis in public housing, and sold off state owned assets in water, gas, electricity and the railways with the result that in this 'free market' most of our railway operating companies in the UK are owned by companies wholly or part-owned by companies owned or part-owned by the governments of Germany, France and the Netherlands, proving that 'the state' is deeply embedded in the UK economy. Your remarks on trade unions are so historically ignorant as to be without value, but at least we now know (or do we?) how much you loathe and detest Margaret Thatcher and the policies of her government, particularly on climate change, which is the subject of this thread.

peejaye

11-08-2017, 01:18 PM

Another one who doesn't bother to research anything before sounding off. That may be true of the US under Trump, but China is actually doing quite a lot to reduce emissions, including shutting down coal mines. http://grist.org/climate-energy/7-signs-that-china-is-serious-about-combatting-climate-change/
If you'd taken a few seconds to google you'd have found numerous articles in a similar vein.

When the fuck are you going to get off your high horse! You're worse than a politician thinking you know best & trying to correct people all the time! You people pick out the facts that suit you & your views!

peejaye

11-08-2017, 01:38 PM

RedVex; I can't comment on other Trade Unions but the one I was, & still am a member of is a very strong Trade Union. Only today 4 different train operating companies across the country are on strike because bosses are trying to jeopardize safety & cut costs!
I used to work a 35 hour week, get 36 days holiday a year and saw my salary rise by around 30% over 10 years. Full sick pay for 6 month then half salary for 6 month. I also received very good representation if problems arose. I received a very good redundancy package & will get my hands on a very good pension in March 2020.... that's if those greedy Tory bastards don't get their filthy greedy hands on it first?

peejaye

11-08-2017, 02:00 PM

But Peejaye, climate change was not the reason the mines closed -most of them had closed by the end of the 1960s because oil and gas was a cheaper and more efficient source of fuel, and because the factories that used coal also closed, if not in the 60s then in the 70s. I would not be surprised if there are now more people working in green energy in the UK than coal. Coongestion charges were introduced in London because of, er....congestion, not global warming...

Another Politician! Putting your own spin on everything. Congestion charges were introduced in an attempt to reduce pollution within the city of London, you telling me congestion is down! Take a 15 bus from Aldgate to Trafalgar Square if you think the answer is yes! A hybrid bus that costs over £300,000 each designed to cut emissions, not ease congestion, oh ; & there are almost a 1,000 of them & they are riddled with problems! There is no attempt being made to reduce congestion in London, people just pay the charge, what else CAN they do! You really must be a politician Stavros!
I don't know how many people are employed in green energy but 634,000 people worked for NCB in the 1960's.

Ts RedVeX

11-08-2017, 03:03 PM

Like I said, Thatcher liberated the nation from companies that were bringing loses to the state. That was good because part of public funds that had to go into those companies just to keep them going could be used otherwise.
The fact that she decided to push her climate change and nuclear power agendas are bad because they are against the paradigm of free market.

Whether that was good or bad depends, of course of who you ask. If peejaye was running a company, he would probably say Thatcher's politics were good. If he was running a coal mine, he would probably say they are bad. The main difference between ideologies and politics is that ideology is something you believe in and try to work around its paradigm, also if you are building your political programme. You do not discuss with paradigms unless you want to create a spin-off ideology. You do not compromise it's paradigms. However, politics, even if built around a paradigm of free market, may in practise require you to compromise things. So objectively, if a lot of people's living quality increased because they could buy houses and finally call them their own homes, then her politics were good for the nation. I do not know exactly what made her invest in climate change. Probably the same misbelief that that drives you guys to still promote the propaganda that says humanity can affect climate change by implementing laws that give privileges to "green industries", which are pretty much like the loss-generating coal mines.

I am sure that in a normal country, where government does not intervene in economical matters, where one would be able to work themselves, their family and the boss with his family, one would not need any sick pay, fixed amount of holiday, pension, redundancy packages, simply because there would be no obligatory monthly charges for pension and redundancy for the lazy, public health, dole, social housing, public water, public electricity, public whatever, and thousands of official who need to collect all those taxes, redistribute your money, create laws around this whole process, make sure that the laws are enforced, etc, etc. A simple example: Let's say a capitalist decides to make shoes. He has to calculate how much he is going to charge per pair, so he adds costs of materials, his work, work of his employees if he has any. Now in a socialist country, where politicians know everything better how to make shoes than the shoemaker, The shoemaker has to also add to his shoes' price all the taxes, insurance, costs of implementing health and safety regulations, etc etc. The effect is that a pair of shoes cost whoever decides to buy them 100quid rather than 60quid. So who do you think pays all those fees? The shoemaker, or the one who buys the shoes? Now if you say "OK, but if there is no regulations as to how much the shoemaker decides to charge for his shoes, then he will still charge 100quid or more". Well, no because then another shoemaker will charge 90quid per pair and as soon as poeple find out the first company won't be selling any shoes and go bankrupt unless they start making shoes for 90quid or even 80quid.

peejaye

11-08-2017, 03:16 PM

You would be "stoned to death" for saying anything good about Margaret Thatcher where I come from RedVex, it really is as simple as that!
She invested in climate change because, as part of the EU, she had no option. I suspect she didn't give a shit about climate change like she didn't give a shit about anything else? Of course, the Tories hatred of the coal miners may of slightly influenced her somewhat?

I find your comments interesting RedVex as you grew up around communism but also find interesting your utter contempt & disliking of it. Reminds me of my ex Russian GF who thought Putins view of their free market was a very positive thing.

Stavros

11-08-2017, 05:01 PM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1800381]

I do not know exactly what made her invest in climate change.
--Do some research, RedVex, it was the science that persuaded here. The science absent from your critique of climate change science.

Now if you say "OK, but if there is no regulations as to how much the shoemaker decides to charge for his shoes, then he will still charge 100quid or more". Well, no because then another shoemaker will charge 90quid per pair and as soon as poeple find out the first company won't be selling any shoes and go bankrupt unless they start making shoes for 90quid or even 80quid
--Or the shoemakers could do what they and other commercial enterprises have done for centuries -even Adam Smith pointed this out: meet in secret to decide among themselves not to sell shoes for less than £100. They then charge £150 and laugh while their 'competitor' has a 'sale' with the shoes at £140, shoes that cost £25 to make for which the worker received the equivalent of £1 per shoe. Not a free market but a rigged market, or a 'regulated' market. Your naivete is breathtaking.

Stavros

11-08-2017, 05:18 PM

Another Politician! Putting your own spin on everything. Congestion charges were introduced in an attempt to reduce pollution within the city of London, you telling me congestion is down! Take a 15 bus from Aldgate to Trafalgar Square if you think the answer is yes! A hybrid bus that costs over £300,000 each designed to cut emissions, not ease congestion, oh ; & there are almost a 1,000 of them & they are riddled with problems! There is no attempt being made to reduce congestion in London, people just pay the charge, what else CAN they do! You really must be a politician Stavros!
I don't know how many people are employed in green energy but 634,000 people worked for NCB in the 1960's.

1) re the Congestion charge -in fact the Congestion charge did reduce pollution in London in just the first six months:
On 23 October 2003 TfL published a report (http://www.mobilidades.org/arquivo/London_congestion_charge.pdf) surveying the first six months of the charge. The main findings were that, on average, the number of cars entering the central zone was 60,000 fewer than the previous year, representing a drop in non-exempt vehicles of 30%.

The charge also had an immediate environmental impact (http://www.cchargelondon.co.uk/effect.html), with Transport for London recording falling particulate levels within the original congestion charge area and along the Inner Ring Road boundary zone. Nitrous Oxide (NOx) fell 13.4% between 2002 and 2003, and there were similar falls for Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Particulate Matter (PM10).
https://leftfootforward.org/2013/02/ten-years-of-the-congestion-charge/

-It also reduced the number of private vehicles on the roads, but this has led to an increase in other vehicles that is the source of the current problem -as if often the case, you solve one problem only to find another has taken its place-

The problem is that the space vacated by those private cars has since been filled up (and then some) by other vehicles—specifically, private-hire cabs and online shopping delivery vans from the likes of Uber and Amazon. The on-demand economy is choking the city.

They weren’t a major factor in London traffic 13 years ago, and they’re are not deterred by the current £11.50 ($14) daily charge to drive into the zone. Because they count as public transit, Ubers don’t even pay the fee.
These new congestion-charge-immune vehicles motor into a city whose road space has shrunk, thanks to lane closures caused by major construction work (https://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/09/how-londons-newest-transit-link-revealed-the-source-of-the-great-plague/499346/) and new cycle highways (http://Feargus%20Citylab%20London%20cycle%20superhighways ). Add London’s galloping population growth, which surpassed its previous peak of 8.6 million (https://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/01/the-future-of-london-at-peak-population/384267/) in 2015 and could reach 10 million (http://londonist.com/2016/04/london-migration) by 2030, and you have a complex knot of problems that will take some unpicking.
https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2016/10/traffic-in-london-is-out-of-control-what-happened/505454/

2) Employment in the coal mines peaked in the 1920s, but as I said, once oil and gas and de-industrialization reduced the demand for coal in the 1960s it was all one way-
1037779

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom

peejaye

11-08-2017, 05:42 PM

Stavros

11-08-2017, 07:43 PM

There you go again.......
I have NOTHING to add to my last report, I am not a Politician but a real person out there on the streets, not looking at figures and graphs in an office somewhere convincing themselves everything is hunky-dory & our millions are well spent! Most of the problems in London are caused by taxis stopping in bus lanes are wherever they want(dropping you lot off) or by vans & lorries making deliveries, whom, may I add, have to pay this latest tax inflicted on them!

Peejaye, I understand a lot of your frustrations with the way we are governed, but I often think you fail to stand back and look at the lager picture and instead focus on what is in front of you. This may be logical, but often what happens in front of you has been engineered somewhere else and in another time. Coal declined because it was no longer competitive in the energy market, and because fewer industrial concerns were using it, it is also a dirty and environmentally abusive substance we do not need.

The politics as you know intensified in the 1970s as miners fought for what remained of their jobs and better compensation. The showdown in the 1970s which ended Edward Heath's government not only did not resolve the problem, it led the Tories to plan long term to smash the National Union of Mineworkers -if you remember Nick Ridley he wrote an article in The Economist in 1978 called 'Appommotox or Civil War' in which he presented the case, which led the govt to first make sure there were abundant sources of coal for those still using it, and then provoke the miners, so that when the damn burst in 1984 the govt just sat back to watch the miners fail to achieve what they had achieved in 1973.

They were helped in this with the rank behaviour of Arthur Scargill, who remains one of the most utterly stupid trade union leaders we have ever had and a disgrace to both the Labour movement and the Labour Party which I was a member of at the time. As I am sure you must concede, we are moving into an era of driverless trains and the RMT cannot stop it. I do think they have a case for long-term protection of pension rights, and other forms of compensation when the time comes, but on the London Underground new technology may see a travelator on the Circle Line, and driverless trains on other lines. This is the future, and we cannot stop it.
I left London years ago and it was one of the best decisions I ever made, even if I was obliged to at first. I have since lived in towns where I was never more than 15 minutes from home and never more than just over an hour by train from London if I have to visit that awful place. If it wasn't for the British Library and some cultural venues, I would happily live the rest of my life knowing I need never see its grubby streets again. But that is a different issue.

The climate is better off without coal, just as in time the streets of our cities will be cleaner and less polluted without carbon-drunk cars. Slowly we are transforming our cities, though some, like New Delhi and New York have some way to go, and when we think we have solved those problems, others will emerge, because that is the way it is.

peejaye

11-08-2017, 07:51 PM

Ts RedVeX

11-08-2017, 09:03 PM

I have been born in a country far less communistic than it is now. Reforms from 1988 made it probably the best country to live in in Europe at the time. Unfortunately, Poland has been building socialism ever since...

As to the new congestion, that is exactly what happens when you give privileges to taxis, busses, Uber or whoever else. First you get one publicly funded idiot who pretends to solve congestion problem then you get another, and there will always be a new one until you privatise roads and get rid the politician responsible for all that waste and have him interned to somewhere like Siberia with just enough to survive. The whole bus lane concept is a completely absurd idea.

Socialism is like cancer. It is no good cutting half of it out. You have to purge of it completely. Otherwise it will soon grow back and spread until it consumes you whole. Thatcher, unfortunately, did the former which was probably better than doing nothing at all though.

filghy2

11-09-2017, 01:56 AM

When the fuck are you going to get off your high horse! You're worse than a politician thinking you know best & trying to correct people all the time! You people pick out the facts that suit you & your views!

So whenever someone points out facts that don't fit your preconceptions, your response is to put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and yell abuse at them? Well why not? Ignorance and poorly-directed anger have always proved to be a sure solution to all kinds of problems.

nitron

11-09-2017, 03:41 AM

Ts RedVex, don't you think it's safer to be careful?

Maybe people are powerful enough to fuck the planet.
I mean every time I go to buy some smoked fish , I wonder what it has eaten, makes me a little nervous.
N'est-ce pas?
I should add that under the communists ,historically, the environment did not do any better than under capitalism.
This problem, I fear, might be to big for our human nature.
Greed mixed with stupid technology,
Companies and Governments ,together !!!!!!
,screwing up.

We can fuck the planet, and our self's.

Stavros

11-09-2017, 04:01 AM

Your views are you're own, you're opinions would be better kept to yourself.
It's no secret that you have nothing but contempt and dislike for anyone left of centre!
As I've said before, you people in the south live in a totally different country to us people up here, I know all you Politicians or whatever connection with the Westminster elite you have will disagree with that remark. You can have the last word but it's wasted on me.
I'd like to suggest you go & live somewhere like Switzerland because the world you wish for in this country is light years away!

Peejaye, whatever you think of my opinions about Scargill and Corbyn, the facts are there and the decline of coal and its causes can be and have been verified, the same is true of the initial environmental impact of congestion charges on pollution in London. It is not about being for or against the left, on some issues I am sympathetic on others neutral or opposed. As I have said before, I knew some of the people currently in Momentum in days past and consider them untrustworthy, they are people who have not changed their views for 30 years, which is like denying anything has changed in that time, when it has. I don't live in the 'south' by the way but must admit, if I could choose, Switzerland would be a congenial place in which to live, as I like mountains and cheese.

nitron

11-09-2017, 04:10 AM

Don't get me wrong , I think there's a place for both, com-gov,
it's just the long term vision thing , or lack thereof.
We have become Behemoth. Must be careful how we tread.

nitron

11-09-2017, 04:16 AM

......"Switzerland would be a congenial place in which to live, as I like mountains and cheese."
Your' killing me

:tongue:

nitron

11-09-2017, 04:50 AM

To all I apologize,
by the looks of this website ,I've been reading for just the past 10 pages,
and it's downed on me, it seems you all are talking about everything.
I admit I don't read this forum often. I was re -reading my posts and i wish I could rewrite them. It's rude of me to think of this place as a magazine rather than a bar /club. Next time , I think I'll drink before and read ahead .

filghy2

11-09-2017, 08:03 AM

peejaye

11-09-2017, 10:21 AM

So whenever someone points out facts that don't fit your preconceptions, your response is to put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and yell abuse at them? Well why not? Ignorance and poorly-directed anger have always proved to be a sure solution to all kinds of problems.

You're the one adding personal insults to your postings. We know you despise the great unwashed but wind your neck in & stop behaving like a troll or face a possible ban! And please; go and see your GP to get some treatment/medication for that huge superiority complex you have! Big headed twat.

peejaye

11-09-2017, 10:51 AM

Ts RedVeX

11-09-2017, 01:46 PM

Governments must not intervene in economy, period. When they do, you get countries or vicinities, areas of market ran by mafias. E.g. one that gets legal privilege to use parts of publicly funded roads, or one that gets legal privilege and benefits to fight global warming; etc. Mafia is basically a company & a bunch of politicians who push laws to support the company's business. Trade unions are also mafias as they want their businesses to be supported and ultimately live of public money. Mafias are legal here, unfortunately. Poland is also ran pretty much either by those thieves, or by a bunch of idiots.

I haven't suffered from much oppression myself. Like I said, I was born in times that allowed me to grow up in a relatively normal environment. What I see happening around me now is alarming though. At the moment, whole Europe is dying under occupation of the European Union. Poland, probably relatively not much so, if you compare it to France or the UK. I thought brexit would change that for the UK but it seems that Farage was right to have said that the whole thing would be "kicked into the high grass".

Coming back to Thacher's politics, I think it is worth noting that she would oppose projects like Exchange Rate Mechanism, and to "proposals from the European Community (EC), forerunner of the European Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union), for a federal structure and increased centralisation of decision making". She was basically against the European Union! Poland's joining the EU was not a dose of Thatcherism. It was totally the opposite!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2koyUc-4MQ0

peejaye

11-09-2017, 02:43 PM

Don't forget about our legalised Maffia Vex; It's called the Establishment! Only recently £20bn as gone missing from the treasury! Course; the BBC & SKY news have been trying to keep a lid on it but we have social media now! If £20bn had gone missing in Russia or Sicily, you wouldn't ask questions about it either!
These bastards make the Russians look like Mother Teresa! That's why they(UK) are always having a "pop" at them.

Stavros

11-09-2017, 06:15 PM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1800584]

Governments must not intervene in economy, period.
--Who, then, decides what the currency of the state shall be? Are you saying that there should be no state regulation of currency, of banks indeed, of money in all its forms?
--Why, in the 'golden age' of American capitalism, an age that resounds with the names of Rockefeller and Mellon, Carnegie and Vanderbilt and JP Morgan did the US Goverment in 1890, in Congress pass An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies [the 'Sherman Act']?
--because unrestrained, unregulated capitalism, far from expanding free markets, led to the creation of monopolies and cartels that stranglied them. Without state regulation, could Rockefeller have owned in one corporation the whole of the USA's oil and gas resources? Yes, had he bought out the others. And was it a good thing for capitalism and free markets that the Bell Telephone Co was broken up, not once but twice between 1877 and 1982? Or should the market have been free to give one corporation control of all telecommunications in the USA? Because without anti-trust law, there is no free market.

Your attachment to free markets seems to sit somewhere between unrequited love and delusion. They may even be the same thing.

Coming back to Thacher's politics, I think it is worth noting that she would oppose projects like Exchange Rate Mechanism, and to "proposals from the European Community (EC), forerunner of the European Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union), for a federal structure and increased centralisation of decision making". She was basically against the European Union! Poland's joining the EU was not a dose of Thatcherism. It was totally the opposite!
--Mrs Thatcher as a Minister in the government of Edward Heath campaigned for the UK to join the EEC in 1970 and supported the negotiations that led to the UK becoming a full member in 1973; and it was Mrs Thatcher who took the UK into the European Exchange Mechanism in 1990 -against her instincts she said after the fact-from which it crashed out in 1992, why? Because of the underling weakness of the UK economy 13 years after she became Prime Minister. It was the same Margaret Thatcher who took the UK into the Single Market in 1986, as significant a move in the integration of Europe as you can think of, but something which, as a believer in free markets she did not oppose for that reason so we can agree with this assessment, that

Thatcher was never an enthusiast of a political union, let alone a federation, on the European level; rather, her priorities for the European Community mirrored her priorities at home – economic growth and tight budgetary discipline.
http://ukandeu.ac.uk/margaret-thatcher-the-critical-architect-of-european-integration/

The problem is that Thatcher, along with every other British Prime Minister from the moment the European Iron and Steel Community was formed in 1951, knew where it was going because Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman were well known for their aspiration to unite a once divided Europe through economic and political federation. Because the UK decided not to be part of the 'European Project' some in Europe turned against the UK -notably Charles de Gaulle- while the British looked on in envy at the progress of the 'Community' and thus created an alternative in 1960, the European Free Trade Area, a precursor to the UK joining the EEC in 1973.

Thus it can be said that the UK always wanted to be part of the economic union, but did not want the political change that brought with it. The nostalgic movement based on the idea Britain is Great when the Great is in Britain sits in denial at the reality of economic decline outside the EU as the Empire faded away, just as the claim Britain can be Great outside the EU is yet to be proven.

I guess the fact is the British have never really thought of themselves as European, and that may be where Thatcher's limits with the EU lay, in an ever-widening ditch into which the UK has now tumbled not knowing where or how hard it will fall.

Ts RedVeX

11-09-2017, 09:29 PM

There is nothing wrong with Russia. It is much more liberal a country nowadays. It may also be worth mentioning that it was one of the first countries to break out of the Soviet Union.

- Money can be anything that can be reused as money later on. Since it is capitalists that actually produces something, e.g. a shoemaker, who need money as tools to produce their shoes (because he needs to buy leather, shoelaces, threads, etc and other capitalists who produce those may already have shoes and be unwilling to trade for shoes), it is up to those capitalists to decide what money they are going to use. Giving government the monopoly to decide and for make money leads to bad things, as Alexis de Tocqueville would say "There is no atrocity a liberal and gentle government would refrain from committing when it runs out of money".
- because communists want to control everything and they want to have monopoly for everything. There is only place for one monopoly, usually.
- Mafias would not be possible in a normal country where markets are free from government intervention. If a company does a good job rendering its services then I cannot see why it shouldn't be the main provider of those services. It then does not need any laws who protect it from competition, which is not the case when it decides to lower it's services' quality.
- There are only two types of communists 1) Smart, lying bastards, who know they are lying; 2) Complete idiots, who actually believe in those lies. I can only assume that you belong to the latter.

- I never said Thatcher was either good or bad. She was a politician after all, and she found herself living in an abnormal country. She did bring the UK out of a crisis caused by the communists.
- That is why government should not intervene in economy.
- That is why government should not intervene in economy.
- That is why government should not intervene in economy...

filghy2

11-10-2017, 12:16 AM

There is nothing wrong with Russia. It is much more liberal a country nowadays. It may also be worth mentioning that it was one of the first countries to break out of the Soviet Union.

- Money can be anything that can be reused as money later on. Since it is capitalists that actually produces something, e.g. a shoemaker, who need money as tools to produce their shoes (because he needs to buy leather, shoelaces, threads, etc and other capitalists who produce those may already have shoes and be unwilling to trade for shoes), it is up to those capitalists to decide what money they are going to use.

Lol, Russia is a dictatorship run by a crony capitalist kleptocracy, and nothing like a free market. If there is any country that resembles a mafia state it is Russia.

The Soviet Union broke up because the other republics broke away, starting with the Baltic states - Russia was one of the last. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union

Your definition of money is a tautology. A stable economy requires some monetary standard - it can't be just left to the market. Even advocates of free banking, where banks could issue their own notes, have in mind a rule that would set either the price of currency (eg in terms of gold) or the supply of money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_banking

If you had studied any financial history, rather than talking off the top of your head, you also would know that the period before modern central banking was characterised by frequent financial crises, mainly due to banking panics. If there was no central bank we would face the risk that we could lose all of our savings simply because some rumour caused a run on the bank.

Stavros

11-10-2017, 07:24 AM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1800650]

Money can be anything that can be reused as money later on. Since it is capitalists that actually produces something, e.g. a shoemaker...
--A shoemaker is an artisan not a capitalist. Capitalists provide the 'capital' -could be cash, could be a loan, could be an asset like a factory building- that can be used to make shoes. Where an artisan may make two or three pairs of shoes a day (ad charge a high price for his or her craft), a factory can make 10,000 or more, and get this, the capitalist doesn't even need to take his coat off when the working day begins or show up at the factory gate at 6am, because it is the machines and the workers minding the machines who make the shoes. This distinction, between the artisan and the worker is so basic one wonders why you think an example from the 13th century is still applicable in the 21st.
And, if you did read accounts of the medieval world as it left feudalism behind, be it Marc Bloch or Fernand Braudel you would be able to trace the emergence of money out of barter, and accept that the need for a state controlled currency followed endless crises and small wars fought over the contested validity and quality and availability of specie in the emerging mercantile capitalist world of them days.

because communists want to control everything and they want to have monopoly for everything. There is only place for one monopoly, usually.
- Mafias would not be possible in a normal country where markets are free from government intervention. If a company does a good job rendering its services then I cannot see why it shouldn't be the main provider of those services. It then does not need any laws who protect it from competition, which is not the case when it decides to lower it's services' quality.
--You have completely ignored the point that I was making about the fact, and it is a fact, that in the relatively unregulated US economy of the late 19th century 'free markets' -not Communism!- enabled monopolies to emerge, precisely because the capitalists crushed their competition or bought them out. Rockefeller was the master of this, and if you think about it, he was approaching every small entrepreneur who wanted to open a retail gas station or drill for oil and 'made them an offer they can't refuse' -but offering money rather than a 'Corleone'. It is not about the quality of the company, but the operation of the market and bear in mind it was the politicians who believed in competition who passed the law that was eventually used to break up Rockefeller's empire (in 1911).
As for the Mafia, it emerged in Sicily because of a lack of government, in the absence of responsible rule by local nobles in the 18th century and particularly following the demise of the Kingdom of Napes and Sicily when 'Italy' was 're-unified or more accurately created in the 19th century. So when you write Mafias would not be possible in a normal country where markets are free from government intervention in fact it is precisely in countries where 'markets are free from government intervention' that organized crime flourishes. And if you describe the USSR as not a 'normal country' you find that the distribution of commodities entering the market from inside or outside were controlled by 'the party' which money could easily corrupt so that the Russian mafia could get its hands on desirable goods -eg Belgian chocolate- buy it cheap and sell it dear to someone organizing a wedding or a birthday party -another example of how markets can support crime when crime and the markets are not properly regulated.

- I never said Thatcher was either good or bad. She was a politician after all, and she found herself living in an abnormal country. She did bring the UK out of a crisis caused by the communists.
--If I understood this incoherent garbage I could respond, but I don't, so I can't.

Ts RedVeX

11-10-2017, 01:19 PM

Money is a tool that is meant to facilitate exchange of goods. Just like no sane shoemaker is going to collect hammers to ensure he can feed his family in case of a crisis, they are not going to collect money in order do do that either, as during crises lack of money is usually not the problem. - Lack of goods is. There was times in Poland when everybody had literally shit-loads of money. The only problem was that it would be worth nothing and you were unable to buy anything as nobody was willing to trade for it. Financial crises are not real crises for the nation. They are only crises for communist states.

A shoemaker does not make shoes only because he likes it. He makes them to get make a living. In civilised countries that means getting money.

The Russians hated the Soviets just like everybody else. Learn history. (Only not from Stavros's red books)

Artisan still exist and I used a shoemaker as example but I could have just as well used an independent prostitute or baker... The problem with factories as they grow bigger is that apart from money they require other tools than those required in on their production floors. If the said shoe-shop grows into a factory, the shoemaker who established it indeed no longer earns his wage by physically making shoes. He now has agreed with others who are working for the factory and only provides the assets you mention, namely tools, the factory building, materials, etc... It is still up to him to decide, however, what sort of currency he uses in the whole process. He may be using gold, shiny stones, bitcoin, pieces of plastic with a face and a number drawn fancily on them, or all of them at once, and because it is his factory, he knows which currency he ought to be using much better than the central banker communist.

In a normal country Rockefeller would not be able to make offers one wouldn't be able to refuse. He would be hanged. If I am to believe your words, Rockefeller was one of the first greedy communists who wanted to control everything. Which explains why shortly afterwards, in 1913, financial punishment for work a.k.a "Federal Income Tax" was legalised.

Mafia is symbiosis where a business gets legal protection from government in exchange for something else. In a normal country, where police does their job and enforce laws, such symbioses would simply not exist. The King is King, pretty much irremovable, it has all the wealth he may want so bribery is very unlikely, and all he has to do is make he is running a country of law and order rather than a democratic one - where "the bigger bunch tells everybody else what to do and what not to do".

Only about 10% of population is capable of abstract thinking. Apparently you are not in those 10%. You also seem to see everything either as "black or white" and the world is usually "of one of the shades of grey". Don't worry if you cannot understand everything you read. In a normal country, you would probably be able to do something that suits you and still make a decent living out of it.

Stavros

11-10-2017, 02:33 PM

So, it appears you don't know the difference between an artisan and a capitalist. It appears you don't understand how money replaced barter, and how only government has been able to create the stable currency that everyone -producers and consumers- wants, accepting that a strong currency is dependent on the performance of the economy.
You don't seem to understand how the Mafia originated in Sicily owing to the absence of government, and regard John D. Rockefeller as a 'Communist' which undermines any credibility you think you have when it comes to discussing economics. You keep talking about this (mythical?) 'normal country' without defining what it means, but I guess that is what 'abstract thinking' produces. If you really think I see everything in 'black or white' then you have not been reading my posts.

More to the point, the President, earlier this year, lifted regulations on coal companies in the US that had prevented them from dumping slurry from excavations into local rivers and streams. The regulation was there because people wanted the environment protected, the regulation was lifted to reduce costs to coal companies, but why are the companies so uninterested in being good 'corporate citizens' and indifferent to any damage it might do to their reputation? Because they don't care. How can you explain the difference between your wonderful capitalists who 'do the right thing' and therefore do not need regulating, and those who, in the real, as opposed to the abstract world, do not?

Ts RedVeX

11-10-2017, 03:07 PM

Coal mines are built to mine coal, not to care about their reputation or environment. If someone is concerned about the slurry they produce then they sould invent technology of mining coal that does not pollute the environment. If use of the new and cleaner technology is economically justified, mines will employ it without any government intervention. Again, let miners do their jobs. They know much more about mining than any federal officials. If the mines' customers disagree with their ways, they can always refrain from buying coal. Apparently the US president knows much more about how economy works than you do and prefers that miners do their jobs and inventors of new technologies do theirs rather than discouraging them from doing anything at all with silly restrictions. I am not sure which one but there was another US president who would say that government cannot solve any problems. It can only create them.

peejaye

11-10-2017, 03:49 PM

There are millions of tons of coal under the ground in the UK & it's some of the best in the world, it as a high sulphur content.

The company I used to work for operated trains conveying coal from Kellingley Colliery to Drax Power Station, trains departed every two hours 24 hours per day conveying about 1,520 tons per train. Total distance was 9 miles, journey time with an eco friendly locomotive was about 23 minutes! Costs to the environment were negligible!
Now Drax mainly burn wood chippings, known as bio-mass, imported from Scandinavia & the US. it takes 3 trains of bio-mass to every one train of coal to generate the same amount of power!
This, of course, was mainly down to our friends in Brussels & fucking ECO-warriors! You can't save the world unless you start using monopoly money!

peejaye

11-10-2017, 05:26 PM

Stavros

11-10-2017, 06:43 PM

Coal mines are built to mine coal, not to care about their reputation or environment. .

Who then, was responsible for Aberfan? According to Enquiry in 1967-

Blame for the disaster rests upon the NCB [National Coal Board]. "This blame is shared (though in varying degrees) among the NCB headquarters, the South Western Divisional Board, and certain individuals.

“There was a total absence of tipping policy and this was the basic cause of the disaster."

It criticised the lack of legislation regulating the safety of tips or guidance from the Inspectorate of Mines (my emphasis)
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/terrifying-tale-ineptitude-aberfan-disaster-12025544

Ts RedVeX

11-10-2017, 07:39 PM

peejaye

11-10-2017, 08:27 PM

Don't blame everything you don't like on communists RedVex! You've left most of them behind in Poland, there aren't many here & none working for the EU!

Stavros

11-10-2017, 08:40 PM

Politicians from the statutory NCB, of course, who clearly did not know about mining. Had there been no NCB, the disaster would not have happened. Miners had seen it coming 3 years before the tragedy struck, but of course, the commies from the NCB knew better where to dump the waste, didn't they? - Yet another argument against state-owned companies...

Of course, if politicians were keeping out of economy, miners would have had jobs for as long as private companies wanted to mine UK's coal. The problem was, the other state owned business would not be able to operate their trains with coal and wood from abroad would it...? Add global warming and more communists from Brussels to it and it turns out that UK's coal and miners are baaaad.

When I argued that lifting regulations protecting the environment from pollution caused by coal mining in the USA was damaging, you responded by saying it was not the business of the coal mining companies to protect the environment. Now you claim that it was the business of the NCB to do precisely that in Wales. The argument that the 'politicians' from the 'statutory NCB' did not know about mining has been plucked out of the air without reason, let alone evidence, just as you continue to deny that regulations imposed by government on industry intend to protect people from any potential accident whatever its cause.

For someone besotted with 'free markets' you should know that coal declined in Britain precisely because the markets decided oil and gas were cheaper, more efficient, and cleaner sources of fuel -which they are. It never was about political decisions, otherwise the State could have maintained an inefficient coal industry for decades. It appears you are defending jobs lost in the mines when it was markets that took them away. Surely you should be celebrating market forces?

Your other comments could be dismissed but it is evident you know next to nothing about the political affiliations of coal miners, many of whom were not only life-long members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but elected a Party member a senior official of their union, the National Union of Mineworkers.

We therefore find you arguing against state regulation that protects safety and the environment while at the same time defending the Communists who argued for it. You cannot be right and wrong at the same time, can you?

peejaye

11-10-2017, 08:58 PM

For someone besotted with 'free markets' you should know that coal declined in Britain precisely because the markets decided oil and gas were cheaper, more efficient, and cleaner sources of fuel -which they are. It never was about political decisions.

You WHAT! NEVER about political decisions? The Tories dismantling of the coal industry NOT political? YOU know better than that, letting your own personal views get the better of you, I think?
And for your information; The price of gas & coal as fluctuated over the last 10 years, the Power stations used to buy gas when it dropped in price then order coal again when it became cheaper & so on. Our business(ex employer) fluctuated too because of it!

Stavros

11-10-2017, 11:34 PM

You WHAT! NEVER about political decisions? The Tories dismantling of the coal industry NOT political? YOU know better than that, letting your own personal views get the better of you, I think?
And for your information; The price of gas & coal as fluctuated over the last 10 years, the Power stations used to buy gas when it dropped in price then order coal again when it became cheaper & so on. Our business(ex employer) fluctuated too because of it!

The decline of coal actually began in the 1920s when the industry was privately owned. To the extent that it was the NCB that closed mines between nationalization in 1945 and the 1970s these were still commercial decisions even if the NCB was state owned. The political intervention which I described in the 1980s was intended to break the National Union of Mineworkers, with the longer term aim to return coal mining to the private sector. To the extent that coal remains a part of the UK's energy profile it is because it has been able to retain a commercial presence in the market. However political the management of the industry might have been, the decisions on pit closures were commercial.

bluesoul

11-11-2017, 03:06 AM

filghy2

11-11-2017, 06:25 AM

Finally, someone who makes RedVex look reasonable. Maybe it's time to abandon this thread to the loonies, Stavros.

broncofan

11-11-2017, 06:32 AM

Finally, someone who makes RedVex look reasonable. Maybe it's time to abandon this thread to the loonies, Stavros.
Wait, what are you doing? He finds you civil and polite, qualities he admires in others!

http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?98366-Thought-for-the-Day/page41

filghy2

11-11-2017, 06:46 AM

Yeah, we had quite a civil exchange, but he's gone right over the top recently for some reason.

Stavros

11-11-2017, 06:56 AM

humans will be the means to the extinction of our species

i'll also leave it to the dickhead that has made it his life to google facts to: this

go for it asshole. write us a fucking essay with your facts about 1920s elephants being poached against today elephants and all that crap because that's a fucking great thing you're there buddy. you're really making a change with your wonderful esssays on hungangels like a dipshit

Bluesoul it is about evidence that others can look up to decide for themselves if my argument is right or wrong. If I make an assertion I offer a reference so another poster cannot say I just made it up. I read your opinions on a lot of things but never know their source -personal experience? Something a friend told you, something overheard in a bar or a party? But that is your choice.

Google is a search engine and a portal to a global library of books, articles, web-sites/blogs that offer you more insight and evidence than I can provide on my own.

The dilemma of humans-vs-elephant on the one hand illustrates today the extent to which human settlement is invading the natural habitat of elephants -it could just as well be gorillas and other primates in Africa, or bears in north America- but on the other hand is not new, as the famous essay by George Orwell 'Shooting an Elephant' was first published in 1936.

bluesoul

11-11-2017, 07:16 AM

thanks. will be sure to check that amazing book. can i get it on amazon? it's right up there on my reading list. (shakes head as useless information)

bluesoul

11-11-2017, 07:21 AM

Yeah, we had quite a civil exchange, but he's gone right over the top recently for some reason.

don't worry bro. i ain't mad at'cha for giving me a check. what is redvex though? is that some kind of insult?

bronco: good detective work. do you also collect my various poetry coz i have one that can be very valuable to your collection. i'll give you a hint: i wrote it in 2012. have fun

broncofan

11-11-2017, 07:35 AM

don't worry bro. i ain't mad at'cha for giving me a check. what is redvex though? is that some kind of insult?

bronco: good detective work. do you also collect my various poetry coz i have one that can be very valuable to your collection. i'll give you a hint: i wrote it in 2012. have fun
I would give you a thumbs up but I don't want you to think I'm trying to curry favor. I just remember the interaction and thought that was a nice interaction, very cordial etc. Now I see him giving you a little check and you're like "no problem sir whatever you say sir". Very interesting:).

Alright, now back to the climate.

Stavros

11-11-2017, 07:43 AM

do you also collect my various poetry coz i have one that can be very valuable to your collection. i'll give you a hint: i wrote it in 2012. have fun
Still going strong then, ed?
and here's me thinkin' you was dead...

anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

he sang his didn’t he danced his did

(no references this time as I am sure you know it)

peejaye

11-11-2017, 12:28 PM

Stavros

11-11-2017, 02:25 PM

I really like your quote, to be reading about Political history in so much depth on a T-girl forum is strange to say the least! I've said before Politics is about today tomorrow & the future, not 100 years ago although these cunts in charge today are trying to take us back to Victorian times. Only thing I'd like to see is his particular Politics become history! As for his "sidekick", he's just a troll.

But Peejaye this is the Politics and Religion section, and you cannot avoid history in either. I am also puzzled by your claim you want my 'politics' to become 'history', as it is not so far from your own.

I have, I hope, made it clear I don't think commercial firms should be allowed to pollute the environment, and government regulation is one way of achieving this -I don't think you disagree on this, I think it is something we both want.

I argued that the Thatcher government was eager to confront the National Union of Mineworkers in order to smash the union in revenge for what happened in 1973 and because they wanted to make unions irrelevant in collective bargaining -do you agree or disagree? We may not agree on Scargill, but it was his reckless and foolish behaviour that broke the back of the Union movement in this country, with the result that they failed to prevent the widening gap between rich and poor through militant or any kind of action to protect wages and conditions which, if I am not mistaken, had a direct impact on you personally. We can agree on the outcome even if we don't agree on the means by which it was achieved.

'The left' opposed the UK's membership of the 'capitalist club' the EU (boring old history but Corbyn can't escape his consistent attacks on the EU as they are on record) before they caved in to Jacques Delors in 1986 over the Single Market Act and cannot now escape responsibility for their own role in one of the most stupid and damaging decision in British history in modern times.
I have to say it, but if you had a better appreciation of the history of the UK and why we joined the European Economic Community in 1973 having been a founder member of the European Free Trade Area in 1960, you might understand why I voted Remain.

It was on the basis of what had happened in the previous 100 years that I voted Remain to secure the UK's position in the global economy for the 100 years to come, along with the collective agreements on security and intelligence, and of course environmental protection and climate change action that we owe to the next generation. For the warning signs are there, as noted in today's Independent-
Crops in Cornwall are said to be 'rotting in the fields' due to a lack of migrant workers to harvest them in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the European Union.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cornwall-council-appeal-government-crops-rotting-migrant-labour-a8049391.html

peejaye

11-11-2017, 02:46 PM

filghy2

11-11-2017, 05:29 PM

As for his "sidekick", he's just a troll.

It's funny that you should accuse me of trolling when your response to me doing no more than point out you were wrong on something a few days ago has been to:
(a) respond with personal abuse (posts 1387 and 1405);
(b) go out of your way to make further derogatory comments like the above; and
(c) give the thumbs down on every post I've made since then.

It's true that I've criticised you a few times, but these were all criticisms of things you actually said. Taking issue with people in a way that addresses the substance of what they are saying is not trolling.

peejaye

11-11-2017, 06:02 PM

You go in too hard on people who have a different view from yourself. A bit "high & mighty" & I don't bother wasting my time like you marking thumbs up or thumbs down as it's totally irrelevant! I know who the other person is doing it like the one to your remark above. He's also a bit of a troll whose had his nose put out of joint. Making comments like "sounding off" & accusing people of not doing research is unnecessary?
This is a bit of fun after all!
I've been trolled a few times having been around a long time, it doesn't bother me, those that do it disappear after a while!
Me, well I'm still here.

filghy2

11-11-2017, 07:06 PM

Ok, if it wasn't you doing the thumbs down I take it back. It did start at exactly the same time though, which is why I assumed it was you. I'm guessing it's someone not involved in this thread who I may have crossed swords with elsewhere.

I only give thumbs down when someone crosses the line in being abusive. I will resolve to avoid unnecessary comments if you do the same. Attributing motives to people who disagree with you is also unnecessary. Calling someone a "big headed twat" is certainly not necessary.

However, I'm not going to apologise for putting my view robustly when I think people are wrong-headed. That is part of the fun, too. We can't all be professorial like Stavros.

Stavros

11-11-2017, 09:05 PM

I meant no offence Stavros, I got the impression you were more right of centre or very middle, what my dad used to call "Middle class" & I appreciate it's the Politics section.
I do agree Thatcher wanted revenge for what happened under Ted Heaths Government & believe she got it but I was right in the heart of the miners dispute, the only mistake Scargill made was not negotiating with Thatcher to close the uneconomical pits, she wanted to close them all!
As for JC, I believe personally he is a staunch br-exiteer despite the views of the Labour Party at the last election, much like the Tories; split down the middle?

I am not offended Peejaye more frustrated with some of your views.

The key thing in the miners dispute was that the Thatcher government used 'trade union reform' -particularly independent ballots for strike action to make it harder for unions to go on strike and mount picket lines outside plants. Scargill, by not holding a ballot played right into Thatcher's court, and it was the moment they relished -think of it, a strike at a time of declining demand for coal from a depleted industrial sector, and in the middle of summer!
The Trotskyists in my local party were convinced this was the turning point and they were right, but on the wrong side of victory, and as for pointing out supporting coal was a contradiction to the party's environmental policy, as usual it was all going to be sorted out when the Tories were thrown out of office and new Labour government in power.

And here we are 30 years later and you would think nothing has changed. And also it was impossible to even debate gender issues in those days other than standard women's issues like equal pay and abortion. Mention anything gay let alone transgendered and they would start giggling like schoolboys or shake their heads in dismay.

We have come a long way since those days, yet a lot has not changed on the left, if anything they are convinced their time has come again. If you wanted my view of Corbyn, McDonnell and Momentum on Brexit, it is a version of Socialism in One Country, but as this was Stalin's remedy for the USSR's isolation it is a touchy tagline these days. Anyway, they supported the Social Chapter of the Single Market and may be able to play games with the Tories when the Commons debates the terms of exit, but the main aim will be to bring down the government and force another general election, which I think Labour will win, albeit with a small majority. Then they will be lumbered with Brexit.

peejaye

11-11-2017, 11:36 PM

Let's all cool down & try and get along. I admit to sometimes being a bit brazen but as Stavros as often said, it's just frustration. Patience, unfortunately, isn't my strong point.

filghy2

11-12-2017, 02:50 AM

Peace in our time! Now for the Middle East peace settlement, or maybe Korea.

filghy2

11-12-2017, 06:34 AM

Funny how it's always outsiders slagging the Russians off?
Never hear many Russians slagging their own country off? Most of the programmes I've watched show Russians are staunchly proud of their origins. As I befriended one for over seven years & met many others only confirms my thoughts.
Some cunts been watching the BBC news too often.

Okay, I'm not going to sit in a circle, hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

Are you and RedVex aware that people like you are not exactly treated well in Russia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia

Yes, Putin has 'made Russia great again', which is why he is probably popular with most Russians. Hitler also made Germany great again in the 1930s, and the average German would have had the same view at the start of WW2. That's if they where Aryan, heterosexual and had no past left-wing associations (the Nazis were very effective in suppressing 'commies'). That did not end well.

That's how it goes with dictatorships. Power corrupts and once they are in power there is no easy way to get them out. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government apart from all the others.

It's unlikely I'm watching too much BBC news as I don't live in the UK.

peejaye

11-12-2017, 11:35 AM

peejaye

11-12-2017, 11:37 AM

Apologies as this thread is about Climate change, let's respect that!

Stavros

11-12-2017, 04:10 PM

I was about to say take a good look at this place & the scum running it but if you don't reside here it looses its context?
I've been to Russia many times & I've had no unpleasant experiences & met many of my ex girlfriends friends too who were very hospitable.
It's a shame we(I) live in a country promoting so much fake news about Russia, I know Putins' not whiter than white but Russians buy their own homes now & most live in a Westernized society, in the cities.

Take a look at our Leaders before we mock the Russians;
1. Our Prime Minister is married to a man who advises the rich on how to avoid tax!
2. Our Head of State as also had income hidden away in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes, that amounts to the crown robbing the crown!
3. 25% of our children live below the poverty line!
4. 16,000 more homeless people on our streets than this time last year!
5. We have Members of the cabinet jetting off for secret meetings with other foreign Diplomats, who knows WTFk they are up to?

Russia is not a dictatorship, I don't care what the BBC say, I wouldn't believe those cunts if they told me tomorrow was Monday! It doesn't matter where you live but you are probably aware of the "BBC World service"? All I do know is you're probably living in a better place than I am? If this place doesn't get a change to replace this current Establishment very soon & predict some sort of civil war brewing!

There are some important differences between the UK and Russia, Peejaye. The absence of political opposition to Putin -how many parties and opposition politicians can you name, compared to the same exercise in Europe and America? Britain has been part of the Gulf Wars and regime change in Libya just as Russia has been deeply involved in Syria, but Russia has also invaded Ukraine and created two phoney statelets compliant to Russian interests in the east of that country, and provided the weaponry that shot down a civilian airliner killing all on board. I don't believe the British have intervened in domestic Russian politics since the days of Sidney Reilly, whereas the Russians are now implicated in the EU Referendum campaign and are delighted with the result, much as they have been directly involved in the US Presidential election of 2016.
Yes, the money the UK as lost from -legal, mostly- tax avoidance schemes should have been retained for use in the UK, and we may yet hear of new measures to stop this from Philip Hammond's budget speech in ten days time; but spare a thought for the trillions lost to Russia that oligarchs and criminals have sent to the USA via the City of London, where it has been transformed into plush apartments in Manhattan (think Tower Block, think 'Tower Heist') and real estate in Florida.

And don't forget the answer to the question-Who killed Alexander Litvinenko? A nuclear attack on the UK as a result of which we should probably have either gone to war, or broken off diplomatic relations.

As for climate change and the environment, this article from the FT discusses the enduring importance of oil and gas and coal, and the feeble attempts to promote alternative energy, constrained by the impact of sanctions, although Russia has signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, indeed with Syria doing so recently only the USA has walked away from it. But I guess for their current President, a majority of one is all you need.

One extract from the interesting article:
Russia’s tiny use of renewables, at 3.6 per cent of total energy consumption, is a black spot in a global surge in the use of green technology, which accounted for more than 18.3 per cent of the world’s energy supply in 2014, according to the International Energy Agency. Fellow Bric nations China and Brazil boast usage of more than 25 and 45 per cent respectively.
https://www.ft.com/content/638e1dc6-1bb2-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f81f

Aticus100

11-12-2017, 04:18 PM

Saw some intesting stats that helped me better understand the general apathy toward claimant change in the USA.

41% of Americans believe Christ will return to earth by the year 2050!

When that large a percentage of the population believe, even pray, for the “End of Days” in the next 33 years it’s not hard to see why they don’t concern themselves much with the long term affects of anything, let alone climate change!

trish

11-12-2017, 05:30 PM

41% of Americans believe Christ will return to earth by the year 2050!
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!
I didn't know so many of us were idiots; according to a PEW research poll conducted in 2010 ( http://www.people-press.org/2010/06/22/public-sees-a-future-full-of-promise-and-peril/ ). To be fair only 28% believed He would definitely return by 2050. The other 18% thought it was probable. That was seven years ago. Maybe people have since brightened up? Please God please, enlighten the blind, and let science shine in.

peejaye

11-12-2017, 06:30 PM

[/URL]

The Litvinenko business was awful, I agree. The point I was making is the level of corruption at the helm of OUR democracy at the moment!
Putin's almost untouchable, yes. I don't think anyone else dare stand against him? Back to the this thread though; I think it's commendable that they(Russia) have signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the level of pollution in that place is something else, no surprise considering all the heavy industry they still have! Are we the only country who've decimated most of it?

buttslinger

11-13-2017, 01:58 AM

I would have to go to school for four years to actually get a grip on climate change, so I can't comment on it....It kind of brings up a problem I used to bump into posting on this site: who am I talking to, the dumb people or the smart people?
Smart people are wasted on me, he he. If Einstein explained everything to me in a dream, that would be a miracle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rh6qqsmxNs

filghy2

11-13-2017, 03:19 AM

I would have to go to school for four years to actually get a grip on climate change, so I can't comment on it....It kind of brings up a problem I used to bump into posting on this site: who am I talking to, the dumb people or the smart people?

That's why we have experts. Most people understand that if they have a serious health problem they should find a good doctor, rather than trying to find the answer on the internet. But on this issue we have some people who think they know more than the climate science experts because of a few things they picked up on the internet.

If people were really smart they would be getting paid to work on these issues rather than debating them here. You probably have as much chance finding wisdom on this forum as you would from a few random people on the street.

buttslinger

11-13-2017, 05:48 AM

.......If people were really smart they would be getting paid.....

The anti-reality people ARE getting paid. Trump is unregulating every regulation he can find because that's where the money is.
Democrats want to be right, Republicans want to win.
If the Republicans stood up for sane gun laws, sane regulations, sane climate control.......their donors would disappear and so would they.
Climate Control experts get most of their funds from donors too, I imagine.
And we working stiffs pay for it all.
I personally would rather go poor paying taxes than give all my money to some fat-cats who control Congress. When we buy their crap we pay their taxes. They want it more than we do.
Like the man said, "don't boo...vote!!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyvHqYu_KXI

Ts RedVeX

11-13-2017, 06:33 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCw7_OdC1aI

Ts RedVeX

11-14-2017, 07:26 PM

Let's privatise NHS and let the communists get eaten by germs and cancer. This will reduce their CO2 emmissions.

nitron

11-23-2017, 04:45 AM

"Let's privatize NHS......co2 emmissions",,, Who hurt you?
ah , but seriously, what it does for Global warming if fewer people on the planet, still use primitive energy that pollutes those left behind? Admit it , we leave in ses pool. We should be doin better....

smalltownguy

11-23-2017, 07:31 AM

Climate change is the worst thing to think of when it comes to our species. This is so true. Sometime I think everything around us depends on just and just climate. We should do something to stop this climate change

broncofan

11-23-2017, 12:34 PM

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/turkeys-are-twice-as-big-as-they-were-in-1960/546104/

Not especially relevant to this thread but there is a tangential relationship. Turkeys have been selectively breeded so effectively that they are twice the size they were 50 years ago, with similar diets. When I read the article I thought it was definitely interesting how industrialized this process has become. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Also, selective breeding doesn't have anything to do with communism so I would be especially thankful on this holiday if we don't call our domestic farmers communists. It's one of those articles where none of the players are communists; the farmers, the turkeys, the people who eat the turkeys, definitely not communists.

Ts RedVeX

11-23-2017, 04:05 PM

Privatising NHS means less taxes, less sick people, less communists.. But no, it has nothing to do with global warming - just like CO2 emissions caused by humans, which is my point.

peejaye

11-23-2017, 06:03 PM

Privatising NHS means less taxes, less sick people, less communists.. But no, it has nothing to do with global warming - just like CO2 emissions caused by humans, which is my point.

You actually think taxes will come down when the NHS is privatised? People will be less sick? What planet are you currently orbiting RedVex?

Ts RedVeX

11-23-2017, 08:42 PM

If power goes to someone who is going to privatise state-owned businesses like the NHS then taxes may actually go down. Unless it is going to be another lunatic that believes in global warming and equality, of course... And yes - people will not get sick as often as they do now simply because they will know that whenever they see their gp, they will have to draw that tenner out of their pocket. So it will suddenly not make sense to take time off work and make another appointment with the doctor just to see the results of an earlier examination, or just to have a chat with other old people in the waiting room of a hospital, at the cost of taxpayers', or see a doctor whenever you get hayfever, or be asked by the gp to come in for a repeat prescription review when you are feeling perfectly well, etc, etc... Nobody even talks about how many work-hours are lost due to all that bollocks.

peejaye

11-24-2017, 11:09 AM

& what about people who are genuinely ill? Not just bored pensioners wanting a chat! If you want to know about private medical bills, ask our friends in the US, you think a tenner is going to be the going price. An overnight stay in hospital can cost over a $1,000!
Wake up if you think a privatised health service is a good idea & prey you don't get fucking ill or have a nasty accident because a "tenner" won't cover the entry fee!
Apologies, again, for going off-topic & taxes DON'T come down after privatisation, we should know!

Jericho

11-26-2017, 08:26 PM

Privatising NHS means less taxes, less sick people, less communists.. But no, it has nothing to do with global warming - just like CO2 emissions caused by humans, which is my point.

Quite frankly, anyone who wants to privatise healthcare, is a money grubbing cunt!

trish

11-27-2017, 01:04 AM

Quite frankly, anyone who wants to privatise healthcare, is a money grubbing cunt!
...or else a witless pawn of money grubbing cunts.

Ts RedVeX

11-27-2017, 10:06 PM

I don't want privatising NHS. I want government to withdraw from economy all together. That is the only way of bringing back normality, free market, humanity.

Imagine what it takes to build an MRI scanner. There has to be multiple industries involved in the process and each and every one of them has to pay taxes - including the income tax which basically punishment for doing any work at all and is higher the bigger the company is. You democrats are against those big companies, voting for higher taxation for big firms. Those firms have to use services of other firms for their logistics, providing materials. All of those employ people who pay taxes. That is the theory. Because the reality is that all those taxes propagate down and it is always the consumer who wants to use that MRI scanner who has to pay all those taxes you think these companies are paying. That is why the night at a public hospital is so expensive. I mentioned a few times that according to E Savas any public enterprise is 40% less effective that it would have been, had it been in private hands. That means your 1000 dollars per night would come down to 600 dollars if it only was in private hands - neglecting the taxation bit, as those are so high due to the fact many more enterprises are also funded from your taxes... But you think your unions, democracy and pride will make the world a better place. Well fuck you. Cos it isn't. You are the witless pawns of those who tell you that they are giving you something for free.

buttslinger

11-28-2017, 01:55 AM

I think I'll send a huge corporation a thousand dollar check to save the country.

trish

11-28-2017, 04:28 AM

Imagine what it takes to build an MRI scanner. There has to be multiple industries involved in the process and each and every one of them has to pay taxes -

So far so good.

- including the income tax

Still with you - although for companies and corporations it’s a tax on revenue; income tax is a term usually reserved for taxes on an individual’s income (as opposed to the revenue of a company or corporate entity) through wages, dividends and gifts.

the income tax which basically punishment for doing any work at all

This is just utter nonsense. Taxes are not fines, because labor is not a crime. But as long as we’re stretching the meanings terms: taxes are the wages we pay to government entities (schools, transportation departments, justice departments, police, fire etc.) to perform the services we expect civilized societies to provide.

...and is higher the bigger the company is.

In principle yes, but in practice no. GE didn’t pay any Federal taxes this last year.

You democrats are against those big companies, voting for higher taxation for big firms.

This is a straw-man argument together with a obfuscatory lie. Democrats are not against companies big or small, provided they operate within the law, do not endanger the general public and pay their fair share. What we’re against is both individual and corporate freeloaders of any kind.

Those firms have to use services of other firms for their logistics, providing materials. All of those employ people who pay taxes. That is the theory. Because the reality is that all those taxes propagate down and it is always the consumer who wants to use that MRI scanner who has to pay all those taxes you think these companies are paying. That is why the night at a public hospital is so expensive.

It’s a nice theory but in reality it doesn’t fit the facts. In the U.S. there were no private hospitals until the 80’s. The cost of hospital stays rose as more and more hospitals went private. It’s just a fact. The cost of any given procedure, or any given dose of medicine, or even an elastic bandage varies enormously from one hospital to the next. High prices have very little to do with taxation and more to do with kickbacks and barely under the counter deals with private insurance companies - deals that vary from hospital to hospital and insurance representative to insurance representative.

But you think your unions, democracy and pride will make the world a better place. Well fuck you.

Unions yes. Democracy yes. Both have already amply demonstrated their usefulness in making the world a better and more livable place. Pride? Yeah, you can fuck my pride if you want. I don’t see how it enters the equation.

You are the witless pawns of those who tell you that they are giving you something for free.

Last time I checked it was the private market place telling me that if I buy two I’ll get the third for free. Read any ad sheet and you get coupons for free this, and free that. The government never told me I’d get anything for free. I have no children, but I’m happy to help pay for their public schooling. I was more than happy to help pay for CHIP which provided healthcare for impoverished children in the U.S. I pay taxes that build and maintain roads I’ll probably never drive on, but that’s fine with me, because the goods and services that I and my town depend upon ride over those surfaces. I’m proud to support my country and pay my taxes. Then again, you can fuck my pride, ‘cause it’s neither here nor there. What’s important is to realize that the optimization of corporate profits is not a principle that can guarantee optimal welfare for all citizens. The two concepts are distinct. It doesn’t even guarantee survival of the fittest, it only assuages the conscience of those most concerned with making a profit.

MrFanti

11-28-2017, 04:57 AM

Here's something to ponder.
So with all this ice melting on the poles, we're finding all kinds of dinosaurs, prehistoric men, etcetera thawing out from underneath the ice.

What does all this mean?

Well, it means that those areas once covered by were actually warm! Add to that , was it global warming that caused the earth to come out of the Ice Age - or did it warm up naturally?

We know the answer to the last question....

trish

11-28-2017, 08:02 AM

...those areas once covered by [ice] were actually warmContinental drift.

was it global warming that caused the earth to come out of the Ice Age - or did it warm up naturally?Precession of the Earth's spin.

We also know the answer to the question, "Why have the Earth's oceans and its atmosphere been warming for the last century?" Anthropocentric release of geologically sequestered greenhouse gasses largely through the burning of fossil fuels but also aided by various feedback mechanisms like the release of methane via the thawing tundra.

All of these processes are natural, although the last is (or was) preventable. Humans are just product of evolution like all the other organisms in the biosphere. Whatever we do is natural in that sense, whether we kill ourselves or thrive.

Ts RedVeX

11-28-2017, 03:19 PM

The only people in the centre of this anthropocentric global warming is you and other commies so why don't you just do mankind a favour realise your idea and go kill yourselves.

trish

11-28-2017, 07:18 PM

The only people in the centre of this anthropocentric global warming is you and other commies so why don't you just do mankind a favour realise your idea and go kill yourselves.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘the centre of anthropocentric global warming’ (the two dimensional surface of the Earth has no center). Perhaps you think I’m the center of some sort of scientific conspiracy whose aim is to study, test and explain the processes of nature as objectively as humanly possible. I am involved in that project but hardly its center. In regard to anthropocentric climate change I do stand with the professional consensus of those scientists who have studied the phenomenon without regard to personal politics.

Oh yes, thank you for your kind suggestion. Were you always such a wonderful person?

Once again: my answer to the question, "Why do you believe in climate change?"
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?48732-Climate-change-could-mean-the-extinction-of-our-species&p=1796012&viewfull=1#post1796012

broncofan

11-29-2017, 12:41 AM

Ts RedVeX

11-29-2017, 01:17 AM

Yes. That is more less what I meant, only you are not describing anything objectively, as then you would not be spreading your crooked "science".

I am only so nice to the communists so you may consider yourself lucky.

Following your scientific methods, based on my observation, global warming is mostly due to the number of communists in the region. (fig. 1) If we extrapolate these into the future, another taking into consideration 2megacarrots, a microapple and 200 gigatonnes of sugar, with very sophisticated indeed anthropocentric global warming software using our publicly funded federal sophisticated indeed state-of-the-art computers at University of Middleofbuttfucknowhere we see further evidence that confirms global warming is dependent on number of communists in the region (fig 2).
1041922

Ts RedVeX

11-29-2017, 01:22 AM

In reference to the not-at-all communist USA. Future generation looks very capitalist indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE0gass-21E

filghy2

11-29-2017, 01:22 AM

The only people in the centre of this anthropocentric global warming is you and other commies so why don't you just do mankind a favour realise your idea and go kill yourselves.

This is why I can't be bothered with this section of the forum any more. I'm not sure how we can eradicate the RedVex virus, but depriving it of oxygen by not responding to her nonsense might be good start.

trish

11-30-2017, 07:28 PM

The chief executive of AccuWeather, Barry Myers (a lawyer by training) has been appointed head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The appointment was back in October. Myers is a business man who has no scientific training although one may argue he has experience dealing with forecast meteorologists and not interfering with the objectivity of their product. Concerns have been raised that he has no experience with oceanographers nor climatologists.

Myers is a conservative who has contributed to Santorum’s campaign for the Senate, and Romney’s run for the Presidency as well as Trump’s (although to cover his bases it is also reported he contributed to Clinton). A personal aside: I used to use the AccuWeather app until it started pushing political ads.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that in his Senate confirmation hearing, Barry Myers confirmed his belief in the “current state of the articulated science” that the climate change we’ve been experiencing and measuring for the last century or more is primarily driven by human activity.

It seems Barry’s main concerns are eliminating competition between the forecast branch of NOAA and private weather forecasters. He stated, “Quality, peer reviewed, scientific research, and the underlying data, to provide an ongoing narrative about our environment, which can offer the scientific basis for policy considerations and ongoing scientific discussion and advancement, are national assets that should be disseminated to the nation.” But he wants this information to be packaged and sold by private companies who produce ‘value-add’ forecast products.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/11/29/barry-myers-trumps-pick-to-run-noaa-declares-humans-are-main-cause-of-climate-change/?utm_term=.d28443674fa4

Ts RedVeX

12-01-2017, 12:44 AM

Another reason why government should not interfere with economy, or science...

filghy2

12-01-2017, 12:51 AM

Redvex is dismantling every thread she's in. Who but a communist would be so obsessed with communism? In fact, if I were a communist, this is the exact cover I would come up with. I would literally call everything a communist plot in an attempt to make people think I'm not a communist and that opponents of communism are irrational. Just a thought.

Or an ex-communist. The extreme right and left have more in common with each other than with the centre, so it's not uncommon for people to start on one side and move to the other. RedVex has the same mentality as the communists, but with a mirror-image reversal of the policy positions. There are the same utopian claims about her preferred system, the same arguments that any failings are because the system has not been properly implemented, and the same arguments that the people don't know their own interests and been to be directed.

Ts RedVeX

12-01-2017, 01:21 AM

No. I am not saying communist systems have not been implemented properly. There have been numerous attempts to implement them properly and they all failed. The most relevant example is Chile, where the communist leader was elected in democratic elections in 1973. Socialism have brought countries into crises 100% of times while capitalism had built the power of the USA in a couple of centuries - excluding of course the 20th and the 21st centuries, when the US has begun develop the socialist cancer. Unfortunately, there was never a monarchy in the USA and the money needed for a republic to work have run out, so the only remaining system that is left in this line of politics is social democracy, which inevitably leads to socialism, as its name would suggest.

In the case of global warming, it is the fascist government's target to propel the "green" businesses that would not have the right of existence in a free market, because the governments need to have an excuse for being funded by taxpayers. Global warming has nothing to do with Earths well-being. Politicians, lawyers, and all that kind of scum should not interfere in domains they have not the foggiest idea about.

fuck it ima add a vid with a special dedication to all your communist ass-holes out there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_UAHZsrX_A&t=59s

Stavros

12-01-2017, 02:28 AM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1805672]

There have been numerous attempts to implement them properly and they all failed. The most relevant example is Chile, where the communist leader was elected in democratic elections in 1973.
--Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile in 1970, he was murdered in 1973 by the military led by the fascist Augusto Pinochet.

Socialism have brought countries into crises 100% of times while capitalism had built the power of the USA in a couple of centuries - excluding of course the 20th and the 21st centuries, when the US has begun develop the socialist cancer.
--Depending on how you define socialism, what crises in the UK were caused by the governments of Clement Attlee between 1945-51, given he would be a communist in your definition? How many socialist governments have there been in Sweden since the 1940s and what crises did they create?
There has never been any form of socialism in the USA, not in the 20th or the 21st century.

Unfortunately, there was never a monarchy in the USA and the money needed for a republic to work have run out, so the only remaining system that is left in this line of politics is social democracy, which inevitably leads to socialism, as its name would suggest.
--Evidently nobody has told you that the USA used to be part of British America, ruled by the Monarch in London from c1607 to 1776 or 1815 if you take in the last military confrontation between the British Empire and the US.
The USA is a liberal democracy, not a social democracy.

In the case of global warming, it is the fascist government's target to propel the "green" businesses that would not have the right of existence in a free market, because the governments need to have an excuse for being funded by taxpayers.
--If you don't like fascists, why do you keep posting videos of the mass murdering fascist Augusto Pinochet?

Global warming has nothing to do with Earths well-being. Politicians, lawyers, and all that kind of scum should not interfere in domains they have not the foggiest idea about.
--I have yet to be convinced you know what you are talking about as you have not provided any evidence based on science that proves that man-made global warming is not taking place, and that it does not pose a threat to life on planet earth.

filghy2

12-01-2017, 05:02 AM

No. I am not saying communist systems have not been implemented properly.

My point was that one of your standard responses to anyone pointing out any failings of the market is to argue that it's not a free market because there are laws and regulations. This is the same strategy used by diehard communists who argued that what was implemented in communist countries was not true communism and, hence, any failures were not failures of communism. It's a convenient argument for people who never want to concede they've been wrong because, obviously, the 'ideal' will never be achieved.

Ts RedVeX

12-07-2017, 11:52 PM

Me when I enter this communist-den of a hungangels section:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCt1SVgwIMU

Oh noo there is absolutely no sign of a crisis or communism in the US... These are prolly all fake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLCmemsW8rI

and the effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOkfTxPyEPA

Jericho

12-08-2017, 12:47 AM

Me when I enter this communist-den of a hungangels section:

Me...When you keep twatting on about it! :shrug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeX-SzAICdw

Stavros

12-08-2017, 02:44 AM

Oh noo there is absolutely no sign of a crisis or communism in the US... These are prolly all fake:

As usual, the opposite is the reality in US education. The link below is to a thorough piece of research that Infowars would never trouble to engage in. It discovers school text books using sources such as L Ron Hubbard, that on the environment teaches-

“Radical environmentalists” don’t just appreciate nature, but they “worship” it. In a pursuit of preservation, environmentalists “view mankind as the enemy of nature.” Environmentalists advocate for laws that hinder the advance of technology.

And claims with regard to Psychology-
What the Abeka textbook says: Satan did not want people worshipping God, so in the late 1800s, Satan hatched “the ideas of evolution, socialism, Marxist-socialism (Communism), progressive education, and modern psychology” to counter America’s increased religiosity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/school-voucher-evangelical-education-betsy-devos_us_5a021962e4b04e96f0c6093c

Far from there being a left-wing conspiracy in US Education, it has become and is becoming a laboratory for backward ideas that strangle thought and progress particularly in the sciences and humanities. Some school do not even teach music presumably because of its association with the devil. And as the article makes clear, it is damaging lives, not just preventing them from realising their full potential.

Ts RedVeX

12-11-2017, 04:46 PM

Stavros

12-11-2017, 07:47 PM

The less free the markets are, the shittier the services and goods offered at them are and the less you can get for your money. This justifies the use of the argument by free marketers. Fascism is just a form of communism. I like neither types, but fascists seem to be effective against socialists - unfortunately only short-term as they then implement republic or democracy or some other nazism.

It is a pity but probably not surprising that you did not read the survey of education in the US that I linked for you and others to read, because it actually begs the question: is private education, or education in 'voucher schools' that operate on a market basis, offering American children a rounded and balanced education? Moreover, for someone obsessed with indoctrination in all its forms, is it not the case that the examples given are precisely that -indoctrination rather than education?

Are children being given the tools to use to develop the critical faculties which will enable them to weigh the arguments for or against climate change, or are they being indoctrinated when told that Environmentalists advocate for laws that hinder the advance of technology.-?

A core argument that you use, The less free the markets are, the shittier the services and goods offered at them are and the less you can get for your money, is not verified in fact. Indeed, there appear to be cases where a free market in education is a licence for religious groups to make money from parents of the same faith while delivering something so remote from learning that it should probably not be called 'education'. For someone who claims to believe in freedom, you seem relentlessly keen to take it away, even from children.

And I am tempted to wonder how anyone with an education can write-
fascists seem to be effective against socialists - unfortunately only short-term as they then implement republic or democracy or some other nazism.

Ts RedVeX

12-11-2017, 10:45 PM

Stavros

12-12-2017, 01:45 AM

Schools should be private and parents should be the ones to decide when and if at all to send their children to school.
Talking about giving freedom to children and making them equal to their parents is a complete load of nonsense that I mentioned several times on this board already. I don't expect you to agree, as you are a retarded communist advocate of equality but I am sure any reasonable and responsible parent, who wants best for their kids, would.
As to the nazis socialist and fascist bit - I went to a few public schools q(^.^)p

I never said children should be 'equal to their parents', but what I did do, was cast doubt on the uncritical position you take on 'free market' education even when there are well documented cases -in the UK as well as the US- where the quality of education provided by the private sector is so poor it is barely worth the name education. I don't -or I ought not to- name the schools in question but let us just say they are religious schools, without damning all religious schools such as the ones we have in this country which have been centres of excellence for decades.

But you don't want to admit there are flaws at all in the private sector because you don't approach this subject in a practical manner with any evidence of an interest in education and how it takes place, but as an ideological campaign for 'free markets' which is little different from the doctrinaire education some American students receive that insist that evolution is wrong because we are all here by God's Design and must therefore Obey God's Laws. Do you obey God's Laws?

We could if we choose list all the people who went to state schools in the UK or the US who have been successful at what they do, be it in science and engineering, the arts and politics, even in education and so on and so on, but why bother when you could not care less about achievements of any kind, but merely trade your nihilist fantasy for attention?

Have a go at the private education claim and show us how brilliant you are:
Environmentalists advocate for laws that hinder the advance of technology. Discuss.

trish

12-12-2017, 04:36 PM

California's hellish fires: a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/dec/11/californias-hellish-fires-a-visit-from-the-ghost-of-christmas-future

From The Guardian

sukumvit boy

12-13-2017, 12:48 AM

Stavros

12-13-2017, 09:10 AM

The Ghosts of Christmas past , present and future were able to change Ebenezer Scrooge because he was just a normal guy who appeared to be suffering from an obsessive - compulsive personality disorder as evidenced by his hoarding money and his extreme work ethic.
It appears that Mr. Scrooge experienced a brief psychotic episode ( the ghosts and delusional thinking ) as people with personality disorders are more at risk of experiencing psychotic episodes than the general population .
Most likely triggered by the stress of the holiday season , and lack of friends and a family support system.
Although Mr. Scrooge is now in a highly emotional state and giving away large sums of money, he does not appear to be a danger to himself or others .
LOL
Pity the same can't be said for the sociopath in the White House .

Dickens may be seen as the product of his Victorian environment, in his fiction often drowning the reader in a glue of emotion that seems designed to expunge the guilt of the person concerned; as a man indifferent even cruel to the woman he married who was pregnant at least twelve times and bore him children who, once they had got past the 'fun part' of being children were dismissed by their dad as failures. Dickens in middle age had an affair with an 18-year old actress, and was a regular visitor with his friend the author Wilkie Collins to those areas of London and Paris most known for their 'women of ill-repute' -one could imagine him these days spending a fortnight every year in Thailand, and not just for the climate and the food.

Dickens was often good with words, not so good with stories which go on and on and on; he depicts the sharp distinctions between poverty and wealth in mid-19th century London, appearing to side with the poor against the rich, but in politics he was a coward as the relief from poverty does not come from political action, but when it comes seems like magic or the lottery to be the sudden revelation that a distant uncle who went to America or Australia has left the character a fortune, though one notes Pip's sour dismissal of Magwitch at the end of Great Expectations as a sign that maybe Dickens also had a fetish for money that laces gratitude with resentment.
Dickens has been described as a misogynist and a bad father in the two links below.

One also notes that the environment became a political and social issue in Dicken's time, and that the stinking slums in which his characters lived, notably in Little Dorrit and Oliver Twist, were part of a problem that increased over the 19th century as economic growth attracted more people to the city, as well as immigrants from Italy and the Russian Empire toward the end of the century. Slum landlords made a fortune out of other people's misery.

It was during Dicken's time that London began to build the network of sewers which still exist today, as well as a multitude of ornate public lavatories, most of which have gone, in an attempt to make the city a healthier place in which to live, the turning point being, perhaps, the celebrated moment in 1854 when John Snow removed the handle of a water pump on Broad Street (these days, Broadwick Street) having identified it as the source of a cholera outbreak in the city.

Hard to believe that issues around something as basic as water, can in the 21st century result in a country as rich as the USA being unable to provide clean drinking water to every household. Whatever the long term effects of climate change might be on coastal areas and cities like New Orleans and Miami, easy access to drinking water remains one of the planet's greatest challenges; drinking 12 diet cokes a day is no substitute.

http://observer.com/2012/12/daddy-issues-on-the-worthless-brood-of-charles-dickens/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/charles-dickens-was-an-abuser-of-women-says-miriam-margolyes/

trish

12-13-2017, 05:02 PM

Dickens was often good with words, not so good with stories which go on and on and on;...

I can testify to and share your assessment of their interminable length, having suffered through an eighth grade English teacher who had us read both Great Expectations and David Copperfield. As far as English class went, eighth grade was an interminable year. I’m guessing these stories ramble on so because they were published in installments and were followed the same way people follow soaps on TV today - they were the soap operas of the day.

Hard to believe that issues around something as basic as water, can in the 21st century result in a country as rich as the USA being unable to provide clean drinking water to every household. Whatever the long term effects of climate change might be on coastal areas and cities like New Orleans and Miami, easy access to drinking water remains one of the planet's greatest challenges; drinking 12 diet cokes a day is no substitute.

Ironic too that the bigoted wall builders who decry porous borders and hold other cultures in distain, never give a second thought to the increased pressure climate change will place on those walls and borders.

trish

12-14-2017, 06:31 PM

Everyone likes their strippers glistening with glitter, right? I never even asked myself the question what the fuck glitter is made of. Since it goes back a long way I assumed it was flakes of naturally occurring minerals that naturally cleave in sheets or planes like mica or feldspar. Turns out most glitter today is manufactured from non-degradable plastics. According to an article in National Geographic...

"...an outright ban on glitter is premature, given the lack of science on the subject. ... the continuing accumulation of microplastics in the seas can only cause more harm to marine life, ... more effective remedies could be regulatory measures or manufacturers acting on their own." -- https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/glitter-plastics-ocean-pollution-environment-spd/

Not exactly about climate change, but it is related to the environment and certainly relevant to guys attracted to girls who wear glitter.

broncofan

12-15-2017, 02:51 AM

Not exactly about climate change, but it is related to the environment and certainly relevant to guys attracted to girls who wear glitter.
Hmm, so I should feel guilty when I go to a strip club but not bc of the naked ladies I'm paying to watch dance? I refuse. But it is interesting:D

I'm gonna ask them if they know how bad glitter is for the environment and whether they've considered any biodegradable substitutes. Probably worth a slap.

Ts RedVeX

12-15-2017, 04:24 AM

broncofan

12-15-2017, 04:34 AM

I am wondering if you guys ever went to a school at all or were you just union-schooled under the brilliance of the hammer and the sickle.
I went to public elementary, middle and high school. I went to a private college and then private grad school. There are tons of good public universities and graduate schools. It was not something I even based my decision on. There are probably great private academies and whatever where people can get secondary school education (what we call high school) but it's not gonna be a choice for everybody. Remember, we're talking about privatization as a way of evaluating market systems and what kinds of regulations can prevent climate change so that's a much longer conversation and sort of its own topic.

Would I seem like Joseph Stalin if I asked what connection you're making to the environment or do I have to read your entire conversation?

Stavros

12-15-2017, 06:00 AM

Hey commies! Knock yourself off and gizza name of a crappy private school or two... Oh sorry. You are advocating censorshit..ekhm correctness political. Or maybe you just do not have any schools in mind cos you are just writing bullshit as usual, trying to enlarge your penises that way... I do have one shit school that I took a course at here in the UK - Mango Spice. I would advise any interpreters who wish to obtain the DPSI to spend their money and time elsewhere... Now, I do admit there are flaws in private sector. There will always be some shit schools, and companies of other type, but in contrast to shit public schools, the shit private schools close down as nobody wants to send their kids to those schools. I actually tried to google Mango spice briefly, and it does not seem to exist any more (maybe there is hope for the UK). So in general, it still seems like private schools are better than public ones on average. I am wondering if you guys ever went to a school at all or were you just union-schooled socially in the brilliance of the mighty hammer and the razor-sharp sickle.

You should be able to find out for yourself the schools that fail OFSTED inspections, those that are top-rated, be they in the state or the private sector. It is not that difficult, just as it took me about five seconds to find the Mango Spice website.
https://www.mslanguagesolutions.com/linguist-academy

Learning about the environment, in my opinion, is crucial to understanding a wide range of issues in politics, the economy and society, it can be approached with sufficient scientific content to enable students to make up their own minds on what the most pressing issues are -water, de-forestation, resource management, population growth and control, climate change etc.

And it seems that all that glitters is not gold. So we can stop mining the stuff.

filghy2

12-16-2017, 02:58 AM

Hey commies! Knock yourself off and gizza name of a crappy private school or two... Oh sorry. You are advocating censorshit..ekhm correctness political. Or maybe you just do not have any schools in mind cos you are just writing bullshit as usual, trying to enlarge your penises that way... I do have one shit school that I took a course at here in the UK - Mango Spice. I would advise any interpreters who wish to obtain the DPSI to spend their money and time elsewhere... Now, I do admit there are flaws in private sector. There will always be some shit schools, and companies of other type, but in contrast to shit public schools, the shit private schools close down as nobody wants to send their kids to those schools. I actually tried to google Mango spice briefly, and it does not seem to exist any more (maybe there is hope for the UK). So in general, it still seems like private schools are better than public ones on average. I am wondering if you guys ever went to a school at all or were you just union-schooled socially in the brilliance of the mighty hammer and the razor-sharp sickle.

Lol, does this incoherent stream of consciousness (even by your usual standards) have any connection to this thread?
Were you under the influence of alcohol or drugs when you wrote this? Your inability to do a simple google search (which also took me seconds) seems to point in that direction.

broncofan

12-16-2017, 10:02 AM

Your inability to do a simple google search (which also took me seconds) seems to point in that direction.
In fairness I got a bunch of Indian restaurants until I happened upon the genius idea to add the word language or the city it's in or the fact that it's a school or the certification it offers or just about anything related to it. Probably my public school education. I wasn't sure where the discussion of education came up; I assumed it had to do with a discussion of whether an unregulated market provides better services than one that includes subsidies by the state. If she is implying that you cannot get a good education in public schools and universities or that they're propaganda mills, I think Stavros had her covered.

If she has any concern about the state of public universities in the states she can maybe go through this list. With some diligence, she might find some of the best scholars in this country. I can't even imagine someone complaining about the quality of education from UCLA, UC Berkeley, or U Virginia. And look at the in-state tuition fees, which for people who do not come from super wealthy families provides a fantastic opportunity to get a great education at a manageable cost. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

As for the connection to this thread...well she could probably take courses on climate change and related disciplines at the above schools and would learn more than she would at this private school. https://www.bju.edu/

Stavros

12-16-2017, 02:58 PM

I wasn't sure where the discussion of education came up; I assumed it had to do with a discussion of whether an unregulated market provides better services than one that includes subsidies by the state./ (https://www.bju.edu/)

I offered a link to a survey published in the Huffington Post which argued that some private schools in the US are using materials from education boards that replace ideas based on science with ideas taken from scripture, and used an example relating to the environment. Comrade Vex, as usual, slotted the question of what is taught in schools into her ideological straight-jacket in which there is a simple either/or choice between the State and the Free Market, which had nothing to do with the environment or climate change as her posts reveal. Note also that we tend in the UK to use the words 'school' and 'University'/'College' separately, so my intention was to refer to schooling up to your highest level in the High School sector not in further or higher education, ie college and university.

Ts RedVeX

12-19-2017, 10:53 AM

Public schools are shit because they teach pretty much the same stuff to everybody. You may say that this is good because it helps kids determine whether they have more talent for mathematics, biology, or other sciences... That is unnecessary. If someone is a genius then it will prolly show at some point in their life by means relativity theory of some sort - even if they end up working as clerk at a patent office. Also, if someone finds it necessary to learn to read or write, then they will most likely learn that too regardless of whether or not they attend a school.

How does public schooling affect global warming? - If you teach to kids the same bullshit, i.e. that breathing and burning things causes global warming, then most of them will believe it. - That's how. Stavros and his fellow comrades like the idea cos it will be easier to convince the kids, once they grow up, to pay breathing tax or make the give money to Stavros's nephew's windfarm project.

I am disappointed that mango-spice still exists.. Truly a waste of time and money my course was. Quite sociable peeps though. I actually passed the written part, which I had previously failed, recently (after not taking any of mango-spice's courses for two years). Maybe if I could retake the remaining part I had failed, after another year of recovering from the mango spice's course I would eventually pass it!
Oh, I must have been under influence of "Internet Neutrality" that I couldn't find their website. Looks like broncofan also was, before he was allowed to see what he was looking for.

As to big universities in the U.S. I hear that if you take all the professors from a single one of them you are likely to have more communists than in the whole Soviet Union. My university days are over and I am not interested in any courses at the moment, especially at a commie den in the USA, that puts gender equality before maintaining the "high" level of education: I actually had a glimpse at the list of US unis you provided. Most of the students, at least throughout the first three unis from the list, are female which indicates the level of education there must be average. Universities may only be available for the intelligent few percent of the society who are actually capable of understanding what is being taught there and using it later to develop new technologies, or make connections with people who can help with that etc. - There is nothing wrong with that. What is the point of making taxpayers of a given state to pay yearly the 30k USD for each idiot who wants to have use the MA by his name? Like I said earlier, if there is someone worthy amongst the poor, they will probably not even need a diploma to become successful in life and they will get sponsorship once they do - e.g. from the company that spots and employs them.

Stavros

12-19-2017, 02:01 PM

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1809769]

How does public schooling affect global warming? - If you teach to kids the same bullshit, i.e. that breathing and burning things causes global warming, then most of them will believe it. - That's how. Stavros and his fellow comrades like the idea cos it will be easier to convince the kids, once they grow up, to pay breathing tax or make the give money to Stavros's nephew's windfarm project.

-But this is what I actually wrote, with a new emphasis in bold letters:
"Learning about the environment, in my opinion, is crucial to understanding a wide range of issues in politics, the economy and society, it can be approached with sufficient scientific content to enable students to make up their own minds on what the most pressing issues are -water, de-forestation, resource management, population growth and control, climate change etc."

As to big universities in the U.S. I hear that if you take all the professors from a single one of them you are likely to have more communists than in the whole Soviet Union.
-This is quite simply incredible. Over the last 30 years the Koch brothers alone have funded over 300 research units, lectureships and departments in US universities to create a distinct 'conservative' voice and agenda, and that is before you take into account the influence of Evangelical Christians and the Moral Majority who began infiltrating US academia in the 1970s. As usual, you assume a handful of academics who study history, literature and 'media studies' are all on the left, and while some are, many are not. This is just ignorance masquerading as fact.

The planet is our home, we should respect it. As I said above, we should as a basic right give students of all ages the tools to make their own decisions. You have not educated any of us in the science that proves the human element in climate change and global warming is a fraud. Education is not just a word, it is also a process.