Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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.

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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.

I give up Attachment 1037399

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Originally Posted by sukumvit boy

I give up

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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.

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

[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 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.

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.

[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...utive-summary/

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.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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.

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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.

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... 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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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... 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.

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This first paragraph is sort of topical and philosophical so I might as well speculate too.

I don't see how there's any imperative for the Earth to continue to be habitable. The human body has all sorts of negative feedback mechanisms in order to withstand shocks and buffer itself against them and there are good reasons these have developed. Is there any reason that our climate should tend towards stability in the same way and not actually have more positive feedback mechanisms that compound whatever changes we induce?

At least, that's my intuition on it though I could be wrong...there was some discussion of various ways that equilibrium might be sustained between organisms that expel oxygen and those that expel carbon dioxide, but what human beings have done in creating civilization is so external to this system. Organisms can manipulate their environments, but there has to be a difference between a beaver building a dam and millions of pounds of concrete being poured and all of the industrial processes we've developed.

Those are my thoughts. What we've done is not matched by the activities of other organisms. There's also no imperative for the environment to sustain human life. Plenty of other planets do not. So even without this report and its attempts not just to document temperature changes but downstream changes in extreme weather events and other disruptions to various ecosystems, there's intuitively no reason to believe what we're doing could not lead to harm.

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...

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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...

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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.

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to say that climate change might mean our extinction is just silly.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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.

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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?

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.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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.

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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

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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

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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 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/h...te-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.

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

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/eig...al-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/sho...=1#post1799449 ).

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

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:

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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:

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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...

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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

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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-si...limate-change/
If you'd taken a few seconds to google you'd have found numerous articles in a similar vein.

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.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

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. .

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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.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

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-si...limate-change/
If you'd taken a few seconds to google you'd have found numerous articles in a similar vein.

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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!

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?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

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...

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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.

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.

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.

[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.

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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.

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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 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, 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/...estion-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 and new cycle highways. Add London’s galloping population growth, which surpassed its previous peak of 8.6 million in 2015 and could reach 10 million by 2030, and you have a complex knot of problems that will take some unpicking.
https://www.citylab.com/solutions/20...ppened/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-
Attachment 1037779

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_m...United_Kingdom

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!

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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!

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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.

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!

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.

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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!

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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!

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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.