I would also like a worldwide tax to come through my coffer. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Faldur
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I would also like a worldwide tax to come through my coffer. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Faldur
Has the UN ever proposed a tax, or even assigned a subcommittee to look into the possibility of formulating such a proposal? How do you know the UN has no dearer desire than to levy a tax on its membership?
McCain has eight homes and his wealth is not even in the same class as that of the Koch brothers. How many of McCain's homes are on the ocean? If you had the money the Koch brothers have, you'd could have a dozen homes and still have billions of dollars to burn. Why not have one or two or three on the ocean. Hey, when you got money you can live for the day. Nevertheless, I'd wager way more than 3/5 of the homes of the super rich are above the flood zones predicted by the current global warming models.
What Senator McCain has as possessions is his, as long as he obtained them in a legal manner. Your "things and stuff" envy is embarrising. If you want 8 homes on the sea you live in America get your ass out there and earn them, and quit sitting around bitching that everyone else has more than you.
Ever hear of a guy named Steve Jobs? Try following his example..
Did I disparage McCain in this last post? Did I disparage the rich? Then show me where. The point of the post is if you're super rich you can afford the risk of having a couple of ocean side homes and a few more on less risky ground and still have most of one's worth in stocks, bonds and maybe bullion:). Gee, either you're kinda touchy or your diversionary tactic just backfired.
unlike steve her claiming shes sterile and couldnt have fathered a daughter to dodge paying child support would be credibleQuote:
Originally Posted by Faldur
Acquiring inordinate riches is very rational. It's rational self interest. I mean, why should I care if the old woman down the street doesn't have enough to eat. Ain't my problem. Or the old guy down the street doesn't have health care. Who cares. (I, of course, am being somewhat flippant. But it is rational to pursue riches. And we live in a culture that places undue emphasis on greed. But we omit the fact that we live on a finite planet. We cannot continue to grow forever. It's physically impossible. So, if we continue to pursue policies of growth, well, at some point the ecosystem will crash. It's inevitable. It might be in 100 years -- or whenever. But it will happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Faldur
But, of course, under the principle of greed future generations have absolutely no meaning. I mean, take, say, oil. We're going to use as much as we can. Now! And leave as little as we can for future generations. Well, who cares. Ain't our problem.
It's the greed aspect. I mean, there's no concern at all with, say, conserving oil use for, well, future generations. So, future generations can have oil, as it were. I happen to think we should move toward alternative energy, cleaner energy.)
The YT clip below explicates externalities:
THE CORPORATION [4/23] Externalities - YouTube
The UN can hardly ever agree on anything (when it comes to effective interventions someone invariably vetoes things at the security council. This week it was any condemnation of murder by the Syrian government). it has never espoused the idea of taxes and as for a world government - that's just a joke Russtafa. Are you still reading your marvel comics for info? You guys crack me up.
the amount of shit they have put on Israel is joke
the UN is like a boa constrictor slowly strangling the world
The UN is hardly the world's government. It is not a state. It has no sovereignty, no currency, it can't wage war, it can't levy taxes, it can't even make it's member states pay their dues. If one insists on calling it world government, then it's the smallest, loosest, most minimal sort of government a world could have. It's a tea-bagger's ideal.
Acquiring inordinate riches is very rational. It's rational self interest. I mean, why should I care if the old woman down the street doesn't have enough to eat. Ain't my problem. Or the old guy down the street doesn't have health care.
Whether you agree with the point or not, Ben, you are drawing attention to the extreme form of individualism that one associated with Ayn Rand. The argument is an old one, and has been part of the libertarian/anarchist concept of the state as explained by the late Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia. But there is a problem with the theory because the individual who is only looking after No 1 has not in most cases built the house in which they live; has not built the roads on which they drive, or the car they are using. Most do not grow all the food they eat or make the clothes that they wear, and when they need health care, they need a trained professional. In other words, they are not individuals in a vacuum, they are individuals in a society, and owe much of what enables them to live, to other people -just as other people may be dependent on them for a job if they are, say owners of a business.
So it is not about individuals living in isolation from each other, it is about what Rawls called Justice as Fairness, it is about a moral choice about distribution, and whether or not you want to live in a society where people are paid a fair wage for a day's work, and whether they can afford basic necessities. We all live in societies, even if we do not participate in social activities, we all benefit from what others do just as sometimes we have to pay the cost. The aggregate cost of national health care in the UK for each individual is small, the reward is beyond calculation because it is security of mind for the times when something goes wrong, it is knowing that a service is there free at the time of use whenever you need it, and because it is valued by society as a whole, with the exception of a few idiots in the Conservative Party.
The key argument about climate change is that we can all make a difference as individuals, by modifying the way we live without drastically changing its details; it is a moral choice that should benefit generations to come; people are free to make the choice or disagree with the science, but will still live with the consequences.
Selfish and greedy individuals are a minority, let them stay that way.
i don't think so
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Very well argued Stavros.
Meanwhile Russtafa responded "I don't think so." Actually his post would have been more honest if he had simply omitted the "so".
The author and journalist Naomi Klein went to the Wall Street protest/occupation because, in part, she saw a sign that read: "I care about you."Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I mean, that's what's scary about hyper individualism. That we're taught not to care about other people. Ya know, I've got to maximize my own wealth. And one's kids and grandkids don't matter.... And the entire ecosystem doesn't matter. Ya know, we can trash the place -- despoil the air, the water, the soil -- and this is seemingly rational. That's why it's scary.
So, it's short-term personal gain. Nobody else matters. Your kids and grandkids, again, don't matter. (The American author Thom Hartmann described Ayn Rand as being a psychopath. Was her philosophy based on psychopathy? Well, in part, it was indeed based on simply not caring about other people. I don't know what Rand thought about future generations. Ya know, whether or not we should care about future generations. Did she????)
And our culture is built on this selfish notion. It's drilled into our heads. From infancy, through TV, and school.
And it's built into the institutions. That's the way the corporate structure works. (And, of course, corporations are the dominant institutions in our society. So, our society will indeed reflect those very narrow values.)
But, again, corporations have to serve selfish and short-term interests. That's why they're exceedingly frightening.
guys i don't really like to sound this paranoid but i think most governments have the tiger by the tail with these corporations and the tiger is far to strong for them and is quite capable of turning around and ripping them to pieces
So, Russtafa, too big to fail means nothing? Corporations are one part of the capitalist landscape, of late 19th century origin. On the one hand they becone indispensable when they are producing and marketing strategic products, on the other hand they are given power by a decision of government to allow free enterprise, and they do pay taxes, even if it can be calculated they are but a small % of their overall profits; and if the business of government is business, why shouldn't corporations have wealth and power? We don't live in communist societies, and I don't see many people slating Steve Jobs as a capitalist -which he was- and corporate magaphone -which he was. So, suddenly, we have the acceptable face of capitalism because we all have iPods, but the unacceptable face of capitalism in Rex Tillerson because Exxon puts the gas in your car??
not when they start to dictate how they want a government to behaveQuote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
How would a CEO ever get his thoughts to paper if he didn't dictate???
not when they start to dictate how they want a government to behave
Any practical examples you can give, Russtafa?
yeah cheap labour being brought from overseas for the mining companies by our great government when we have unemployed here.if something don't stink over that oneQuote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Marching Off the Cliff
By Noam Chomsky
Source: New York Times Syndicate
Thursday, December 08, 2011
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A task of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, now under way in Durban, South Africa, is to extend earlier policy decisions that were limited in scope and only partially implemented.
These decisions trace back to the U.N. Convention of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which the U.S. refused to join. The Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends in 2012. A fairly general pre-conference mood was captured by a New York Times headline: “Urgent Issues but Low Expectations.”
As the delegates meet in Durban, a report on newly updated digests of polls by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Program on International Policy Attitudes reveals that “publics around the world and in the United States say their government should give global warming a higher priority and strongly support multilateral action to address it.”
Most U.S. citizens agree, though PIPA clarifies that the percentage “has been declining over the last few years, so that American concern is significantly lower than the global average–70 percent as compared to 84 percent.”
“Americans do not perceive that there is a scientific consensus on the need for urgent action on climate change–a large majority think that they will be personally affected by climate change eventually, but only a minority thinks that they are being affected now, contrary to views in most other countries. Americans tend to underestimate the level of concern among other Americans.”
These attitudes aren’t accidental. In 2009 the energy industries, backed by business lobbies, launched major campaigns that cast doubt on the near-unanimous consensus of scientists on the severity of the threat of human-induced global warming.
The consensus is only “near-unanimous” because it doesn’t include the many experts who feel that climate-change warnings don’t go far enough, and the marginal group that deny the threat’s validity altogether.
The standard “he says/she says” coverage of the issue keeps to what is called “balance”: the overwhelming majority of scientists on one side, the denialists on the other. The scientists who issue the more dire warnings are largely ignored.
One effect is that scarcely one-third of the U.S. population believes that there is a scientific consensus on the threat of global warming –far less than the global average, and radically inconsistent with the facts.
It’s no secret that the U.S. government is lagging on climate issues. “Publics around the world in recent years have largely disapproved of how the United States is handling the problem of climate change,” according to PIPA. “In general, the United States has been most widely seen as the country having the most negative effect on the world’s environment, followed by China. Germany has received the best ratings.”
To gain perspective on what’s happening in the world, it’s sometimes useful to adopt the stance of intelligent extraterrestrial observers viewing the strange doings on Earth. They would be watching in wonder as the richest and most powerful country in world history now leads the lemmings cheerfully off the cliff.
Last month, the International Energy Agency, which was formed on the initiative of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1974, issued its latest report on rapidly increasing carbon emissions from fossil fuel use.
The IEA estimated that if the world continues on its present course, the “carbon budget” will be exhausted by 2017. The budget is the quantity of emissions that can keep global warming at the 2 degrees Celsius level considered the limit of safety.
IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said, “The door is closing–if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum (for safety). The door will be closed forever.”
Also last month, the U.S. Department of Energy reported the emissions figures for 2010. Emissions “jumped by the biggest amount on record,” The Associated Press reported, meaning that “levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst-case scenario” anticipated by the International Panel on Climate Change in 2007.
John Reilly, co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s program on climate change, told the AP that scientists have generally found the IPCC predictions to be too conservative–unlike the fringe of denialists who gain public attention. Reilly reported that the IPCC’s worst-case scenario was about in the middle of the MIT scientists’ estimates of likely outcomes.
As these ominous reports were released, the Financial Times devoted a full page to the optimistic expectations that the United States might become energy-independent for a century with new technology for extracting North American fossil fuels.
Though projections are uncertain, the Financial Times reports, the U.S. might “leapfrog Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s largest producer of liquid hydrocarbons, counting both crude oil and lighter natural gas liquids.”
In this happy event, the United States could expect to retain its global hegemony. Beyond some remarks about local ecological impact, the Financial Times said nothing about what kind of a world would emerge from these exciting prospects. Energy is to burn; the global environment be damned.
Just about every government is taking at least halting steps to do something about the likely impending catastrophe. The United States is leading the way–backward. The Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives is now dismantling environmental measures introduced by Richard Nixon, in many respects the last liberal president.
This reactionary behavior is one of many indications of the crisis of U.S. democracy in the past generation. The gap between public opinion and public policy has grown to a chasm on central issues of current policy debate such as the deficit and jobs. However, thanks to the propaganda offensive, the gap is less than what it should be on the most serious issue on the international agenda today–arguably in history.
The hypothetical extraterrestrial observers can be pardoned if they conclude that we seem to be infected by some kind of lethal insanity.
© The New York TimesSyndicate
A recent paper in Nature/Geoscience uses new technique to tease apart the natural and human cause of global climate change. The new work indicates that at least 74% of the warming since 1950 is caused unwittingly by human practices.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/
and
http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538
what a lot of toshQuote:
Originally Posted by trish
Oh, you read the two articles in Nature already (one of the world's most premier science journals) [], in what 17 minutes time. Re[-]ran the calculations, evaluated the runs and came up with that wonderfully scientific assessment. Why am I not impressed?
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/
http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538
All rigged by these paid liars .science can be bought
The problem we have at the moment is that there is no genuine debate about climate change or advanced global warming [AGW] -for a debate to take place different sides of the argument should be weighing up the evidence, such as that presented in these two articles.
The deniers have decided the argument is closed -climate change and AGW is rubbish, and that's all there is to say.
As I have indicated before, a lot of the argument is actually concerned with carbon taxes and the policy measures that have been proposed to deal with the impact of climate change, and to counter the tax regime, denial is the neatest option, because it cuts off debate at the start -as in, what's to debate?
The mixture of impotent rage and cynicism that has undermined a responsible and accountable financial system now seeps into envronmental issues, the result is a growing division between those who care and those who do not. The recent BBC tv series Frozen Planet ended with an episode in which David Attenborough allegedly -and controversially- looked at the North and South Poles in the context of climate change (apparently Attenborough was not biased one way or the other) but the BBC has offered the series to foreign tv stations minus this episode, in case they don't buy it at all!
We seem to moving into a new age of ignorance, I have rarely encounterd such hostility to open debate, it started with Reagan and Thatcher, and deepened with Bush and Blair. I enjoy debate, I do change my mind, even at this stage of my life, but how does one debate with someone convinced the earth is flat and that the UK will be living under Shari'a law in 10 years time? But I guess I'll go on.
climate change is a scam for taxes by the fucking government and is very unpopular here and will bring down the government without doubt
The key word is CAN. You CAN lie. Should I take everything disagreeable that you say to be a lie without scrutiny and without evidence? I’d guess that in your lifetime you lied far far more times than Nature has published a fraudulent article. The odds are against you. Assuredly there have been frauds perpetrated on well respected science journals. But they are rare, they are quickly exposed and the careers of the perpetrators are damaged beyond repair. Assuredly Nature publishes articles that turn out to be false. It happens all the time that a team of researchers will publish results that contain a miscalculation, a systematic error or an experimental measurement that can’t be reproduced. The latter may be the case with the Huber-Knutti study. But if you want to accuse Huber and Knutti of perpetuating a fraud for money please be prepared to give your evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof...you have nothing.Quote:
Originally Posted by russtafa
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/
and
http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538
Who can better afford to pay for fraudulent studies? Who stands to gain the most from fraudulent studies? Who has a record of paying for fraudulent studies? Not the government. Think instead, pharmaceuticals and oil.
Tell me another story Mommy!!! Does Manbearpig kiss the princess??
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/...x246_popup.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RYc1B3Gq3J...a524000043.jpg
http://www.mofizixgr4fix.com/images/climateg8.jpg
http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.c...Manbearpig.jpg
Morning Trish.. :)
Obviously you haven't kept up Faldur. Independent investigators looked at those emails nearly two years ago and found nothing damning about them...except for the fact that they were pillaged by anti-science interests paying for a non-existent scandal. (Note too the difference between an email and a paper published in Nature). Shame on you still pushing that shit. But in your world I suppose cartoons pass for science and Jesus time-travels to make appearances in the Old Testament before he was born. And you call yourself a "sceptic."
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/
and
http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538
Not a term I've ever used to describe myself. A "sceptic" as defined would not believe in a creator.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
I'm a moderately intelligent individual who has looked at the issue and come to the determination that I'm being sold a bunch of hooey. I lived through the "coming ice age" scare of the 70's. And learned first hand how people attempt to manipulate science for political/monetary gain. As a great man once said.. "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archive...20W%20Bush.jpg
Nonsense again. A couple of articles in popular magazines do not science make. The majority of climate scientists in the 70's were already weighing the evidence in favor of warming. You suffer from a selective memory, because you in fact haven't examined the evidence and come to an objective determination. Your conclusion was determined by your ideology, namely "I don't want to pay taxes." I'm not asking you to pay taxes. Acknowledging that facts and doing something about them are two different things. You won't do either. (And yes, you have called yourself a climate "skeptic," and it still makes me laugh).Quote:
I lived through the "coming ice age" scare of the 70's.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/
and
http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538 __________________
So, we shouldn't trust anyone? We shouldn't trust businesspeople? Or politicians? What about astrophysicists? I mean, was there a big bang that happened 13 billion years ago? What about evolution?Quote:
Originally Posted by russtafa
So, 98 percent of climate scientists are involved in some sort of conspiracy. Why? What's their incentive or motivation. I mean, oil companies have a much BIGGER incentive and motivation to DENY that it's happening. They've got, literally, trillions of dollars on the line. So, it's in their interest to really DENY the science of climate change.
And, too, what if the climate scientists are correct? Then what? I mean, science isn't speculation. But the general public, who aren't climate scientists, are speculating, are making guesses.
There are powerful interests that are threatened by climate science. Namely big oil. And, too, so-called free-marketeers. Because if the science is correct, well, they'll have to be a dramatic shift away from corporate state-capitalism. So, these right-wing free-marketeers are being incredibly rational. They're defending their own narrow interests. It's rational. They'll do whatever it takes to defend their economic model. Again, it's rational on their part.
Anyway, there are pluses and benefits to reducing pollution. And plus maybe we should conserve oil for future generations.
And, too, why are people hostile to conservation??????? I don't get it. What's wrong with reducing consumption?
Ben, in 1997 the chief executive of BP at that time, John Browne (these days Lord Browne of Madingley) delivered a speech at Stanford in which he acknowledged the human role in climate change. He was pilloried by many at the time, yet Shell and the LA based firm Atlantic Richfield (which BP took over a few years later) followed BP's example. Exxon was the main antagonist, esp when Lee Raymond was CEO -BUT, I was once told that Exxon took an uncompromosing stance because if the human element in environmental change was accepted by Exxon as a fact, it would leave the company open to decades of litigation in the US by individuals and groups claiming that Exxon had 'admiited' ruining the environment =admitted liability. However hard to prove, its the kind of issue lawyers can spin for years and earn ridiculous amounts of $$$.
My hunch is that if you polled most of the employees of oil companies, most believe that climate change is generating global warming. In fact, the oil companies have done much more to reduce carbon emissions than other industries -because they can afford to. It is the power industry, and the staggering growth in carbon-spitting cars and poorly regulated industrial plants in China and India that are becoming more responsible for carbon emissions beyond our control.
Because this is a planetary issue, everyone has to be involved -people who deny climate change to me have a flat earth mentality: they have decided its rubbish so anything that advances the argument is, by definition, rubbish, or hooey as they used to say in the USA. No explanation for the glaciers in Switzerland that have melted, no attempt to think through the consequences of deforestation in the Amazon basin or Indonesia, no real explanation for the gradual disappearance of the Dead Sea; just a simple belief that God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world,and if only those New Age fundamentalists would go away we could live in peace, eat our grits in the mornin', go huntin' and fishin' in the afternoon, an watch movies at night. And, as you say, curbing emissions makes for a cleaner environment, nobody demands pollution as a right.
I believe it may have more to do with the fact that some economies around the world, at present , barely seem to be hanging on by a thread...so people would be afraid to do anything that would (..maybe could) strangle it further. There is also the recognition that China, both an emerging economic giant and one of the worst polluters on the planet, will probably just laugh off any attempts to ever get it to comply . The question most likely to be asked then, would be:Why hamstring ones own economy, if everyone else isn't going to play by the same rules? (Other than some possibly disingenuous lip service).Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Don't believe it.The global warming is the ruse to get people to pay more taxes,like Australia and New Zealand.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
When climate change accelerates taxes will skyrocket because, well, we'll have to clean up the disasters, as it were.Quote:
Originally Posted by russtafa
A stark [sort of] solution would be to increase taxes on corporations and the rich. And reduce taxes on middle and lower income earners. That's a simple policy shift/decision. (Look at Canada. Up there in Canada they've the G.S.T. Or the Goods and Services Tax. Instituted in 1991. It replaced the Manufactured Sales Tax. Or a Corporate Tax.
93 percent of Canadians were OPPOSED to it. Didn't matter. Popular opinion in a so-called democracy is totally irrelevant.
These tax policy shifts have been going on for over 30 years. It's quite simple. Shift taxes from the super-rich and rich and the corporate sector to the general population.
Again, this has been going on for 30 years. I mean, this is way before climate change became a big issue.
It is simply a Friedman/Hayek economic model that massively shifts wealth upwards. And, again, it has been going on for 30 years. And it'll continue to happen. Where the real gains are being made by 0.01 percent of the population... and a large segment of the population gets screwed.
Again, the whole notion of climate change as a plot to increase taxes on the general population doesn't really, I think, have any traction -- :)
Again, because it has been going on for 30 years. I mean, take, say, public transit. When people PAY to use public transit, well, that's a tax. People get screwed. And they've always been screwed -- ha ha! :)
With all due respect to Ms. Appadurai...I believe the silent majority of the earth is busy scratching out a meager existence on this planet for themselves and their family...and trying not to die an early death from disease and strife before they even think about climate control. Nice speech though.