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Scott Pruitt is in the news lately for spending taxpayer bucks on personal perks, but the real news is that he is supposed to be our #ONE appointed GUY standing up for Protection of the Environment, excepting this guy is doing everything humanly possible to de-regulate Environmental Laws into nothingness. I've tried a lot of different drugs but I've never been stoned on a million dollars...I'll bet it's a nice high.
https://preview.ibb.co/kgAP9S/Scott_Pruitt_EPA.jpg
I'm surprised they haven't changed the name of the agency and banned the words 'environmental protection', like they did in this case. http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...ght=scientific
They are 'draining the swamp', Buttslinger, as in: draining it of its money (the money raised from your taxes). Thousands of $$ on knives and forks; millions on transport in the USA and to foreign countries like impoverished United Arab Emirates -and who is paying these millionaire and billionaire 'businessmen' in charge of the departments of government (and their relatives)? Why the 'swamp life' who put them there. Sorry mate, but you've been played and guess what- they are laughing all the way to the bank.Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
Fucking Jesus.... I'm being stalked! :hide-1:Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
The stalker stalked. Sounds like unfair foreign competition taking your job.
Three fascinating articles in today's Guardian on the impact of climate change in the US and how, over the next 25-30 years it could force people to move north from an increasingly and unbearable south and away from the coasts. One looks at predictions, the second tells some personal stories, and the third offers options on where to go to be safe; all in the context of a Presidency that is pulling down the barriers set up to prevent environmental pollution in the name of financial gain and climate change denial.
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ration-is-here
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...rricane-harvey
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ods-hurricanes
William Nordhaus has won this year's Nobel Prize in economics for his work on modelling the economic impacts of climate change (shared with Paul Romer for work on the the role of innovation in economic growth). The article has links to his work if anyone is interested.
https://marginalrevolution.com/margi...economics.html
This link gives you the interview with Myron Ebell last night on the BBC-2 Newsnight programme, a breathtakiing example of climate change denial which claims the IPCC report is in effect the European Union's attempt to make Americans pay more for their energy, recasting the debate in American terms as 'pro-Energy', his position, or 'anti-Energy' the Democrat position, based on false science designed to prove what the UN'S IPCC wants it to prove. And none of it actually based on science. Proof if it were needed that the Nobel Prize has no meaning or relevance to the world we live in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ1HRGA8g10
One million species at risk of extinction, UN report warns:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e...ecies-at-risk/
All kinds of species have become extinct since the Earth was in existence due to 'climate change.' There are known patterns of global, solar and astronomical events/activities that happen on a repeatable basis. The homo sapiens today have been around less than one million years. The Earth has been here slightly more than four billion years. The known unviverse is at least 14.7 billion years old.
It has been shown with hard empirical data that human activities do contribute and more than likely aggravate and accelerate some atmospheric conditions that are not condusive to many plant and animal reproductive cycles. There's nothing that guarantees the future by demanding this or that be done. How many times do people scare themselves with mutually assured destruction be it nukes, hairspray or cow farts? :deadhorse:violin:banghead
Yet we can essentially guarantee a significant decline in the future quality of human life should we do nothing about the activities that dump mega-tons of greenhouse gasses into the Earth's atmosphere on an annual basis. Fear has little to do with our overall reaction to this issue; it is rather a matter of reason versus apathy.
World food security increasingly at risk due to 'unprecedented' climate change impact, new UN report warns:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/08/1043921
How much destruction is needed for us to take climate change seriously?
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ange-seriously
When LA and Las Vegas finally run out of water and Broadway is a river? Who knows, your next President may actually care enough to develop practical policies to deal with it before it becomes crisis managementQuote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Ps welcome back Ben, what have you been doing in your long, lamented absence?
It is up to everybody not just Trump. What have YOU done to save our home. Ate at mc Donald's where the beef comes from what used to be the rainforests, are you a rapier at Starbucks?
What are YOU doing then?...:shrugQuote:
Originally Posted by rabbitfufu
I eat meat, but probably only two or three times a week, and mostly to accompany my diligent support of wine producers in Burgundy where once I almost got a job in a vineyard (I was three weeks too early and had nowhere to stay so I ended up harvesting plonk in the Midi). I live in a town that has a good re-cycling system and numerous bottle banks and other such re-cycling points. I don't pollute the air with tobacco/vape, I don't pollute it with fumes from vehicles though I have been known to sneeze in winter, mostly into a paper tissue. On my last trip to Paris I went by train (Eurostar) and would consider going to North America by sea if the opportunity arises, but not on one those ghastly floating cities. My conservation plan for Greenland consists in part of a water retention scheme so as not to waste it as the ice cap melts; a socio-economic programme to protect the indigenous inhabitants from marauding Americans in search of rare-earth metals that we don't need (the energy they provide can be created from alternative sources), and think the fact that Scotland is half-empty is one of its enduring attractions.Quote:
Originally Posted by rabbitfufu
But, I cannot answer this question -are you a rapier at Starbucks? because I don't understand it.
Pretty sure it's not a thing. I've been told I have a barista like wit but not sure they have rapiers at starbucks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
remember your histoty...The Hudson river was severely polluted as well as most of Europe in the industrial age , you don't think that could helped start the ice melting, and don't forget the methane gas given off by cow farts
"The Trump administration is finalizing plans to allow oil and gas drilling in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that has been protected for decades.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will offer leases on essentially the entire 1.6m-acre coastal plain, which includes places where threatened polar bears have dens and porcupine caribou visit for calving. Drilling operations are expected to be problematic for Indigenous populations, many of which rely on subsistence hunting and fishing."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...l-gas-drilling
This is sad news, as my understanding is that the drilling that did take place in the ANWR in the 1980s did not discover hydrocarbons with the same volume as those in Prudhoe Bay, so I see no need for this. The policy is revenge on Obama -just as he sought to protect the environment, so P45 is determined to mess it up, even destroy it just out of spite because a Black Man entered the White House as President. It is pathetic, childish but to be expected. As for the wildlife and the people who actually there, why doesn't P45 tell it like it is, and tell them to go to hell?
But 'tis he that is making hell out of America.
US pesidents have a 8-year limit on declartions max. Fuck that that idiot! No one knows what the next adninstrarion willl allow/disallow based on this issuse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
4 years, 8 years is a lifetime and more in the case of our environment, when forest the equivalent of 27 soccer fields is lost every day; and the slurry legally dumped in the rivers and streams of West Virginia by rogue coal mining companies may take a generation to clear, if anyone has the resources to do it. The more fragile environment of the Arctic can sustain industrial production in some areas with stringent safeguards, in others it has permanently damaged the tundra, and few people have any confidence in US industry with regulations lifted by P45 and his greedy chums. As Channel 4 news in the UK has reported this week, there is an unfolding crisis in Greenland as the ice-sheets melt and local authorities cannot cope with their own waste, let alone the crap that floats north to pollute the ocean.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quinfeldt
If you think what positive things can be achieved in 4-8 years, you can measure the extent of the loss when in the same time-frame an administration doesn't care, or works against the environment. And for what? Money? As if there are no other opportunities to make it?
why blame one man as this environment problem has gone on for centuries. Don't you over use water, drive when you don't need to. Don't blame one person. Look at our recycle problems with China. This everyone's problem to do more than their part. Thin donkeys not a discussion of GOP vs the jackass I mean the donkey. Keep this civil!!
I agree with you in regard to the personal responsibilities we have to our environment, but such responsibilities weigh more heavily in the cases of Governments that can create the regulations to protect the environment. Why would any government rescind those regulations -if they were not working or could be improved, fine. But to reverse good decisions just so the President's friends and backers can make money while polluting the land? No, that is not acceptable, and as a policy regime would not be acceptable here in the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by rabbitfufu
Rabbitfufu is confusing personal responsibility with the responsibility of representing the entire populous of the US, unfortunately so is Trump.
There is little difference between Mr Trump and the "animals" in administration in this country, they think exactly the same as Trump, the main difference is they don't go public on what they think inc. shouting their mouths off on social media. Otherwise they are identical.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
They are also attempting to divert the conversation and the blame away from the fossil fuel industry and foist it upon the general public - you and me. True, we can all lessen our individual ecological footprints; but right now the oil, coal and gas industries are the largest and most prolific abusers the planet and they are the easiest to do something about and the most important to address immediately.Quote:
Originally Posted by rodinuk
I love the use of quotations for the word animals to imply that other people commonly call their political opponents animals and you are just following suit. Thanks for your brilliant thoughts.Quote:
Originally Posted by peejaye
in the 50's we did boycotts and sit in's try that today.. don't buy those products .fossil fuels and coal have been used for how many years? and we still use them
We can boycott electric companies that burn coal by living without electricity. But it's more effective to regulate the use of coal, tax carbon, make it illegal to charge homeowners extra if they use solar cells, support wind and the production of electric and hybrid technologies, etc. Yes, we can make our personal choices felt in the market place, but we won't stop climate change without enforcible regulation and effective treaties.
I guess according to this logic we should still allow asbestos to be used in building materials, DDT in pesticides, lead in paints, pipes and gasoline, smoking to be promoted as healthy etc. There are numerous other examples where we've moved away from things that were in common use after scientific evidence that they had harmful side-effects. I'm pretty sure in all those cases there was resistance from people in the industry claiming that the evidence wasn't clear, it would be too costly and jobs would be lost. Are you seriously suggesting that it should have been left to the market and peoples' individual choices?Quote:
Originally Posted by rabbitfufu
Hello .. i try 2 answer but my english is not very well ok... sorry.
this world exist maybe 4,5 billions years in this time the world had extrem temperatur that we know but interresting is about the time we dont know.
The world had o very very long rise and we human exist maybe 100000-300000 years ..ok...the weather was extrem in the past not in our human history in the WORLD HISTORY.. i think was actually is is normal , only that WE live now and see that everything change 4 the planet is this NOT NEW .
BUT what our fucking mistake our FAULT is that we destroy our nature the see everythig THAT IS TRUE .
WAR GREED ENVY is what the humanity go to DESTROY...thx 4 reading ...i hope u can understand what i mean ;-)
A compelling documentary on the attempt to discredit climate change science. It is more about the human angle than the science but is a salutory lesson in the impact of social media on real science. I hope this is available outside the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...e-of-a-scandal
Well.. If we don't become an interplanetary species we will become extinct.. :geek:
Will we cause our own extinction? Probably not as we can adapt and our tech will help us to adapt other species that can't deal with the rapid changes to the biosphere..
What we really need to be careful of is damaging the microbiome on the planet. The microbiome is the foundation and the stuff of life, the base of the food chain.. If we damage this too much it will have catastrophic effects on the entire biosphere..
Trying to get away from fossil fuels is a big challenge.. It is definitely possible as we have endless FREE energy on this planet in a few forms that is just waiting to be utilized.. The problem though is this thing called human greed..
Watch Blade Runner 1 & 2 for a possible idea of where we are heading..
The good days are gone.. We have micro-plastics and nano-plastics in the rain now.. :-|
It looks like the Arctic permafrost may be starting to melt, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, which is one of the tipping points scientists have been worried about regarding climate change.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-envir...port-card-noaa
Global Apathy Toward the Fires in Australia Is a Scary Portent for the Future:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/...-response.html
Is the premise of the article correct? I live in Australia, but I had the impression that the fires here (and the link to climate change) were getting a lot of attention overseas.
I think that most Australians perceive that something different has been happening this year. There have been severe fires before (with even more deaths), but these have been more localised and limited in duration, so for most people things have returned to normal fairly quickly. What's different this time is the geographical extent and duration of the fires, with places like Sydney affected by smoke haze for weeks on end. This could be a game-changer in terms of how people think about the issue, especially if there is another bad fire season in the next year or two.
The big worry is this issue is subject to the same tribalistic political polarisation as most others. The right-wing media and many politicians are going all out to gaslight people with disinformation seeking to direct the focus away from climate change onto other factors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/w...formation.html
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...lian-bushfires
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...zard-reduction
I see the link to climate change being made more on Twitter than the mainstream UK news services. Even there it's being countered by announcements that that this phenomenon is a regular occurrence (though not on this scale) and that arson is the cause of a lot of the fires starting in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
To be honest, the UK media is more concerned with Brexit, Iran and now Meghan/Harry than it is with Australia,
It's all over the news here as it should be. It's also all over my twitter feed. This sort of premise about whether something is getting the coverage it warrants is a hard thing to disprove but makes for a good opening to an opinion piece.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
Here in the U.S. I’ve heard public discussions as to whether climate change is to blame for the outbreak of thousands of uncontrollable fires in Australia, poor forest management, arson or just the old “sometimes shit happens” argument.
The latter is hardly an explanation and falls flat in the face of contrary evidence; i.e. periodic breakouts (which happen more than just ‘sometimes’) of unmanageable fires in other parts of the world (e.g., California).
To be sure a lot of forest fires are lit by humans (usually unintentionally), but we’re talking about thousands of fire in Australia and the theory that they’re being purposely lit by a couple of hundred arsonists is unsubstantiated rubbish.
I cannot speak to the question of whether the Australian forests have been poorly managed. It takes a lot of money to clear brush, run controlled burns and decide where and when it should be done. There is also political opposition to these sorts of environmental controls. Do we even know how to properly manage a forest? The forests of California probably are fairly well managed as far as modern standards go, but in recent years they too have been plagued with seasonal fires.
We are living in the Anthropocene. There are more than seven billion of us on the planet now! Humans are dumping over 37 billion of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere on a yearly basis, not to mention other greenhouse gasses. The rising temperature is releasing methane from the permafrost setting the stage for a runaway feedback loop. Even a slightly hotter atmosphere holds lots more water. So there are longer periods of drought between rains and more rain when it does rain. Our future is one of fire and flood. We’re already seeing just a little bit of what possibly lies ahead.