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Historic Editorial on Climate Change to be Published Tomorrow
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial
This is encouraging - what we need to see now is action, and people standing up to an increasingly irrational, scary and baffling American Hard Right.
This is encouraging - what we need to see now is action, and people standing up to an increasingly irrational, scary and baffling American Hard Right.
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Highly likely to succeed.
Climate change is happening, whether you think it's caused by humans or natural. You can see that the climate is incredibily different to what it was only 10-15 years ago, and this change has happened (as shown by science) at a rate much higher than any natural variation previously.
We would be a lot better off if we stopped blowing a lot of hot air by discussing if it is manmade or natural and instead worked towards being more ecological and sustainable in all our practices across the board.
America are addicted to oil and the Chinese to coal.
China is industrialising and pulling people out of poverty at the fastest rate ever on this planet ...India is booming.
There is no such thing yet as clean coal ...it is still a dream.
I aint getting the bus or train anytime soon cos my car does the job better.
We are all using ever more electricity and on it goes.
The analogy may be justified. Ominous parallels with today's new climate worshippers.
The flat earth theory was adopted, as far as I am aware, as a result of incomplete scientific research. (The primary source being Ptomely's Almagest.)
The adoption was of course political. Manipulation of the gullible to achieve a goal.
(As you are aware there are some who justify any means to achieve a given goal
Just like those who believe the Earth is flat.
The saddest part of all is that the immense majority of people "doubting" global warming are not conspiraloon nutjobs. They're rightwingers too selfish to even contemplate the possibility of reducing their carbon footprint.
But hey, what's the welfare of billions worth next to their "right" to drive the most absurd and inappropriate vehicle possible, if it fuels their ego and masks whatever inadequacies they might suffer from in the trouser department? Far better to attempt to deny comprehensive evidence to justify their selfishness and fuckwittery.
Otherwise, shut up and stop bashing people who are actually trying to do something about it, just because you don't like people who make a fuss.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/dec/07/climate-change-denial-industry
This isn't a debate anymore - and to be honest we are getting to the point where those who can't see sense and aren't amienable to argument really aren't worth wasting time on.
If ever there was a case of 'if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem', this is it.
There is a case in front of you, in plain English, that will directly affect you and all of us in the coming years, and is already affecting populations all over the world.
If you don't want to read it, fine. But if you (and anyone else) wants to run around making stupid statements rubbishing a clear argued case, backed by evidence; the consequences of which are dire.
If all you can do is sit there and just shake your head without even having so much as a point to put - then you're an idiot.
eg
http://www.tanfieldgroup.com/
http://www.optare.com/og_introduction.htm
http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/_en/_gb/index.aspx
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6096084.stm
1% of global productivity is a lot of money pumped into business as well (incidentally I disagree with Stern on the costs, as he doesn't highlight the benefits as strongly as I think he should eg reduced energy costs, nor does he factor in enough the profits to be made by the providers of environmental technology)
The UK as one of the biggest high tech manufacturers and exporters stands to gain massively from investment in environmental technology - frankly if Climate Change didn't exist it would be in the CBI's interests to invent it. The trouble is that too many people see the environment as an a stick to beat capitalism, rather than seeing capitalism as its best defence.
there's a couple of points in this
1) the comparative business interests and their reach/resources are highly stacked toward the anti lobby. Even where there is acknowledgement-action does not always meet the content of pr and advertising
2) capitalism is NOT the environment's best defence. Environmental distasters throughout the 20th century and pollution caused by the production driven by free markets has shown
this.
This is not to state that forms of Market economy do not have a place and uses, but being a fundamentalist for either side will not be enough to meet these challenges. Too many people on both sides reach for an economic dogma to wrap a problem in-rather than
thinking creatively about solutions.
Examples include waste disposal and recycling initiatives within companies; and workshops on personal sustainable living, like those run at the climate camp-which by the way, included a number of successful small business owners.
Lots of people are economically active in forms of Market economy; but some just don't see their lives or even values as being subordinate to neo liberal Market fundamentalism.
The slight irony here is that there has been a critique of 'environmentalists' (particularly by American hard righters) that they are trying to impose socialism or some kind of spurious totalitarianism. At the same time as we KNOW that forms of economic and state restructuring in the neoliberal model has reduced the actual practical ability of large populations to enhance quality of life.
People in Britain since the late 1970s and large lead more uncertain and fragmented lives than those living in the 1960s and 1970s.
This imposition and fundamentalism has affected people across the globe, with even the ex head of the world bank stating that the economic shocks of the period were mistakes. This is just as much an
imposition of dogma as those who would wish to 'impose socialism'.
The 1990s saw the death of one economic dogma and I hope we'll see the death of another; we might then be able to salvage some of the merits of both.
Capitalism hasn't produced very much of anything ...it manufactures and distributes stuff.
Penecillin ...product of capitalism?
Workshops individuals uneversities create ...technology.
Where have you ever seen capitalism at work in your lifetime?
I have just watched something on the telly ...one of the closing statements went something like this ....
We have the technology and the manpower ...but we don't have the will.
If ...if we put all our technology into changing course now ...we are more or less guaranteed another 100 years of feeding 8 or 9 billion people ...maybe two hundred years ...with todays technology.
No one is doing anything much.
The industrialists will make sure the poor pay up or shut the fuck up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
Regarding those third world countries, given that they are the least prepared to combat such issues as raising sea levels, and that some of them actually face being partially if not fully wiped off the face of the Earth by raising waters over the coming decades, any alleged hardship caused by a reduction in carbon production would be cancelled out a thousand times over by the (obvious) benefits arising from not going underwater.
Whichever way you look at it, the planet and the world's economies will benefit from results of reducing our carbon footprint.
Thats a telling set of assumptions for two main reasons;
1) Conceptions of 'good life' - the assumption made here is that there is one possible form of 'living standards' and that anything else would be a reduction in that. This is not a tenable point, because shed loads of large scale, cross cultural studies of wellbeing show that affluence does not equal proportional happiness in terms of either subjective well being or health. Crucially, they also show that the greatest deficit in both is not to be found in countries with lowest overall material wealth, but in those with the least inequality.
Citing the 'third world' en bloc also presupposes something that (as quoted before) promoinent former subscribers to neo-liberal dogma commonly now recognise was a mistake - that their particular idea of 'free trade' (which in South America has been about the biggest misnomer the continent has seen) is the only way (and only one that will be tolerated) for people to lead better lives.
Again, alot of evidence showing that the World Bank and IMF shocks of the 1970s did way more harm than good...
We need both technology and individual action. The quick pain-free techno fix might not be quick enough or comprehensive enough to take care of the whole thing. It might be transient, it might be a set of different complex responses in different places and times.
But to pretend, or to even peddle the idea that meeting these challenges will be effortless and pain free for everyone is just unrealistic and dangerous.
What can be done, is to look at how through collective and cooperative action we might be able to spread this challenge so that it doesn't fall on one particular group.
2) Capitalism as driver of everything - this form of economic system (and also the fact that you refer to one form of capitalism as if it were the only form) is not the only thing that drives people to do things - it is a multiple set of factors. However what has happened in the post-1980s is that people have started claiming that everything is subordinate to the law of market forces - and that culture, norms, values and other non-economic entities do not interact or aren't as important.
This is a massive logical fallacy - it sets up the world in its own terms and then excludes anything that doesn't meet it's criteria. A market economy does not equal a market society, and market logic does not explain why people do everything they do.
I wonder how one quantifies the carbon footprint of this post ?
Why?
A good article on Climate Change denial by Ben Goldacre.
None of us care enough.
We are still consuming the planet at an immoral rate.
How much is xmas consuming in your house this year?
Don't know don't really care?
Pour another drink.
Again, a woefully disproportionate response to limited outbreaks of vandalism, by clearly identifiable groups. So they go around quick-cuffing people sitting down.
968 arrested - 13 remain in custody - 3 have been charged.
Meanwhile they summarily imprisoned hundreds of innocent people in freezing conditions by Danish Police.
Twas ever thus but just worth pointing out.
It always makes me laugh that the Police in various countries are willing to march groups of lairy football supporters, visibly shouting abuse and looking for a row, to and from groups up and down the country.
Sit down in the street and bang a drum though, and you're for it.
The only way of dealing with the impact man has on the environment is to radically reduce the rate of population increase.
We can't even get the Catholics to say birth control isn't wicked in every instance - so what hope do we have on getting our population back down to a level the planet can sustain?
I'm sorry but even if you aren't in agreement with this, the actions of the Police here are outrageous.
It seems completely unneccessary to keep people, restrained, in these conditions, for hours.
But of course, alot of people won't care - because they don't agree with these people, they really think it's ok to do this - and so don't really believe in democracy - in fact, don't really believe in much at all, apart from not being inconvenienced.
It would mean that billionaires would have to be happy with only two billion in the bank ...how sad.
Almost everyone on the planet can be well catered for ...but not with capitalism which abhors the idea of plenty and prefers to impoverish and starve people.
@SG - (sigh) and I suppose you've got evidence, rather than just swearing, to back those brazen statements? Evidence which would undo the IPCC report linked above?