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Exxon/Bush think-tank offers cash to any scientist who denies climate change
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2004397,00.htmlScientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.
The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.
This of course comes on the day yet another report concludes man is to blame for global warming and that we're truly fucked if we don't change our ways.
As far as I'm concerned anyone who still claims there is no such way as man-made global warming is either a flat earth loonie or a selfish cunt and should be put against a wall and shot.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
You wouldn`t advocate such heretics being burnt at the stake ( like in the good old days before scientific proof) due to your certainty that such action would contribute to global warming ?
Meh, I don't really think there is much of a story here. It's not as if the other side doesn't play similar games.
But its where you go from there which is the issue, and in large part he is right to say that without the Chinese the US might as well not bother. Which is a nice way of giving both the Chinese and the US a get out clause.
The biggest problem I see is the nature of politics, this is a long term problem, politics doesnt do long term, at absolute most you are working on a five year time table.
The boffins at LSE and elsewhere seem to think that carbon trading like the EU does on a global scale is the best way forward and I'm inclined to agree with them, though lots of goods will go up in price as a result.
Either that or we set aside big chunks of the ocean to algae farming to off set the CO2, which could work.
- Nearly all of all those who deny climate change do not have genuine scientific doubts about it but are simply denying it because it serves their political/economic interests.
- This is a far more serious debate than, say, whether the Earth is flat or how old it is. If some loonies want to think our planet is really flat or only 6,000 years old, let them. There are no consequences to adults (I don't agree with teaching children such rubbish but that's another debate).
But there will be extremely serious consequences if we do not take action now about global warming. And every single person who denies there is a problem or that it is caused by us, because it interferes with his wishes or plans, is contributing towards untold future death, famine and misery for billions and is a worthless selfish prick IMO.
You don't half write some shite sometimes.
Cut the use of fossil fuels as drastically as possible. If that means slapping an extra large tax on fuels, so be it. Make alternative fuel vehicles tax exempt while increasing road tax for gas guzzlers. Do a 'Son of Kyoto' treaty and impose financial penalties and trade barriers to those nations that refuse to join. Promote alternative forms of energy, and if some people don't the look of wind turbines, frankly the hell with it.
Make industries reduce their carbon emissions. If they have to invest in newer equipment, advanced filters, etc so be it.
Subsidise the cost of energy efficient light bulbs. If all of us were to replace all our bulbs with energy efficient ones, energy consumption would be cut by 20%. Just like that.
And last but not least, slap a big tax on aviation fuel. Specially on short haul trips.
There is no way you could do that suddenly without drastic economic cost, yes we might cut CO2 emissions, but we'd put tens of thousands of people out of work in the process.
And of course, bio-ethanol which you seem keen on (so is Bush interestingly) isnt going to be a great help, not only can we never hope to grow enough to take over from oil, but there is debate as to really how much better it is.
We have to make it profitable to be green, and in large part it now is, but too quick and too drastic action would only back fire.
Then again you could pass a law that banned companies from laying off workers because of reduced profits caused by investment in greener technologies. Dividends by shareholders should come last on the list of priorities.
So you'd rather loads of companies went bust and the number of people unemployed went up drastically? Hell, why not just ban oil altogether and we can just scrabble amoung the scraps of our society for food.
Surely there is a better way forward than that, you do know that you'd never sell that to the public.
The biggest changes we can do are the smaller ones- try turning lights off, walk short distances instead of driving, go by train instead of plane, etc etc. Green taxes don't work- they just price the poor out of essential goods and services. We could try not lopping down the forests, too, that would help.
As it stands nothing will change, and taxes won't change anything. People are too attached to their mobiles and computers and plasma TVs, people are too attached to their holidays, people are too attached to a frequent bus service.
As for wind turbines, it depends on what you value more- our consumption or our countryside. I value the latter, and am vehemently opposed to turbines in all but the ugliest places.
I am very skeptical about both global warming and the human impact upon it. The authorities that are reporting the biggest armageddons (such as UNIPCC) are the ones that have the biggest financial interest in selling armageddon.
I oppose them largely for another reason, and that is their power is so unreliable, so in large part they have to have a back up. They can have some use, but to suggest they are the answer like some do is bonkers.
Its unpopular with some but in the short to medium term (10-15 years) nuclear is our only decent option.
That's as good an argument for communism as any.
But that's just picking figures out of the air, heavy handed moves are going to be very unpopular and potentially very dangerous.
Simple things like investing in 'clean coal', agreeing to gradually increase the cost of a tonne of carbon on the trading market, and investing in replacing our nuclear power stations are all things which could happen, wouldnt be very painful and could be pushed through on a global scale.
As ever, the main reason for not much of it not happening is oppostion by business leaders and lack of backbone (or in the case of Dubya, willing complicity) by our politicians who find themselves unable to make difficult decisions.
The international market in carbon, by the impression I get, seems to be a given, it will just take a little while to get it totally worked out.
In terms of Bush, you should note that this report was signed off by all the governments involved, including the US, even Saudia Arabia signed this off! And they've got a lot to loose. Again though I think your attention on Bush is missing large part of the picture, I think both China and the US know exactly what they are doing, they are giving each other a get out clause and are therefore equally to blame.
Some habits die hard admittedly. I'm still not as good as I should be with leaving some appliances on standby. But I have changed my ways in the last few years, from washing at 30C to changing bulbs to recycle every last item that is recyclable.
The major failing is perpahs in transport. Though it is difficult to get people out of their cars when the alternative is often so grim.
I don't know anyone who deliberatly buys energy saving and no-one who is energy concious for anything other than the cost of the bill.
I guess I hang around with mostly tree huggers
It's about encouraging people to change, and mostly that'll be because it'll cost them if they don't. NOT pricing them out, making it easy and cheap to be green, and getting them to agree to the benefits.
True, really.
Anyway, as budda said - Nuclear power is the only even semi-enviromentally friendly option about, but the greenies don't like that either mostly. And companies and the government don't like the big cost of starting a Nuclear plant. Even thought it pays for itself over and over by ten years later when it will still be in fine service. (How fucking long has that death trap Sellafield being going now?!).
Catch 22 comes along, capitalist approach means we all lose. Woo!:yippe:
Possibly the most sensible thing said in this thread but sadly overlooked.
The majority of people in this country, nay the world, just don't care enough and that's the key to this. Sure you can raise taxes but petrol is at it's highest price ever and yet more miles are covered than at anytime in history, so that worked eh?
You find a cheaper way for me to live to the same stardards that I enjoy now and I'll do it. Until then all you will get is tokenism. Sorry.
I'm obviously hanging around with different people (and I suspect, demographics) to Fiend but I most people I know have changed their ways to some degree or other in the last couple of years. There might be a long way to know but such things as washing up at 40C instead of 60C can save massive amounts of energy.
Then again I don't doubt many other people don't give much of a shit so long as it doesn't cost them money. Perhaps it's down to education and general awarenes but I get the feeling in most Western and Northern European countries folk are a lot more conscious about it than here...