Environment gets Bushed

[Simple Simon]

You are a liar. I never posted any such numbers.

BIGFATRON POSTED THEM.

And I never said those numbers were true, either. I don't know if they are. Doesn't really matter, as you'll find out in a second.

You should be smart enough to know that you should check your facts before you call someone a liar. You repeatedly posted the number THREE (in caps) in connection with population numbers. What makes you so sure I was not referring to that?

Nothing makes you sure? You just can't stand critizism? Well, not my problem.

On the contrary. It's the only chance we've got to save our planet. If my arguments are too sophisticated for you to understand, that's your fault.

What's this - argument from arrogance?
Actually, it's an argument from ignorance! It seems that you are not capable of imagining any scenario in which Chinese people do NOT copy our standard of living, for any reason - how idiotic! After all it is well possible that many Chinese in big cities will NOT want to own two cars per family - where should they park them? And drive them? Traffic is already horrible! It is well possible that they will NOT want swimming pools (they tend to get choke full of dirt due to the dust storms in many parts of the country).
And so on.

But your highly informed opinion is that this is impossible?

Also, who says that the Indians all want SUVs - maybe they will be just as happy with small, electricity-power cars?

But BasketCase knows this will never be

Everybody else on Earth is trying to catch up to the wealth and comfort of the U.S.; if and when they do, they will each produce the same amount of CO2 we are

See, this is where you are utterly, totally, completely wrong - this is exactly the thing we can attempt to change NOW!

But you'd rather fearmonger and sit back and enjoy polluting, rather than helping to make things better.

--actually, they will each produce more because most developing nations don't care at all about their environment.

And you know that how? Actually, I met a large bunch of Chinese who were extremely worried about their environment - not in the 'oh I love green trees' way, but in the 'Jeez, this used to be an orchard, now it is a nuclear waste - we MUST stop this or our grandchildren will live in hell' way. Basically, you're so arrogant as to say that others can't learn, that they MUST repeat our errors, even if they have much better data.

If China catches up to America's level of development, each Chinese person will produce at least as much CO2 as each American person.

You repeat yourself here, but that doesn't make you any less wrong.

That is unassailable fact. China has three times as many people as the U.S.; that is also unassailable fact.

False, false (albeit I will accept the latter as your best attempt at rounding )

The conclusion is inescapable,

... only if you are too limited to see alternatives. But you insult people who contradict you instead of asking what they mean, which already shows that you are not interested in solutions, only in being right and polluting on. GREAT!

and anybody who tries to argue it is either dishonest, or a moron.

Third World development MUST be addressed, or this planet is going to cook like a steak on a barbecue grill.

True - what does that have to do with US pollution getting addressed? YOU STILL FAIL TO EXPLAIN WHY REDUCING POLLUTION IN THE US IS BAD

The continued refusal of the environmental lobby to deal with this aspect of the problem is beyond stupid.

Nobody refuses - they just refuse tie it to the US issue. Why can't you understand that?



And will you now tell me where your magic additional plant matter is?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Everybody else on Earth is trying to catch up to the wealth and comfort of the U.S.

Thanks for the laugh

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: Simple Simon: My warning is for you as well.

Stop making obtuse assertions of ignorance, arrogance, lying etc etc.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[BasketCase]

You should be smart enough to know that you should check your facts before you call someone a liar.

Bigfatron's numbers aren't facts.

They're estimates.

But you'd rather fearmonger and sit back and enjoy polluting, rather than helping to make things better.

Actually, my CO2 footprint is considerably smaller than yours. And I've planted more trees in my lifetime than any six Greenpeace activists. I've done a hell of a lot more to fix the planet than you ever will.

None of it is going to make a difference. China and India are about to make global warming SIX TIMES WORSE than it already is (assuming they're not already). In order to make things better, CHINA AND INDIA MUST BE DEALT WITH. This is not open for debate, and I'm going to type this at you again and again until your monitor explodes.

And you know that how? Actually, I met a large bunch of Chinese who were extremely worried about their environment

I know. I've read their testimony as well. I've seen the works: workers with severe mercury poisoning, terminal cases of lung cancer, piles of trash in the rivers, smog so bad you can't see the sun in the morning.

The problem is that Chinese citizens have a habit of disappearing when they demand that the Chinese government straighten out their environmental policy. You need to deal with the Chinese government. Sternly. And quickly.

what does that have to do with US pollution getting addressed? YOU STILL FAIL TO EXPLAIN WHY REDUCING POLLUTION IN THE US IS BAD

Hmmm....true, I did forget to do that. Well, here's the reason: if the U.S. refuses to reduce, then you are forced to take action elsewhere. And then the words "China" and "India" come up again. I know you have no choice. Yes, you'll whine and complain about it, but you'll do it.

You can say I'm wrong about this or that, you can say I'm stupid or an idiot or whichever. Doesn't matter. You know I'm right even if you never say it. And you know you have no choice but to deal with those two nations that keep coming up and again. China and India.

And will you now tell me where your magic additional plant matter is?

Here's a hint: go take a look in your back yard.

Here's another hint: in the last couple of decades, oxygen levels around large metropolitan areas of the U.S. have been declining. Nothing alarming or hazardous, since we humans only use about one-fourth of the oxygen we inhale.

(Yes, there's the usual problem with measuring gas concentrations, but since this decline has been steady and reliable for TWO DECADES, it's worth consideration)

Here's the key point: oxygen levels are NOT significantly lower in rural and wild areas. Meaning that gas concentrations remain mostly localized. Oxygen is produced and consumed in your local area. The oxygen you breathe comes from your back yard, not from the Amazon rainforest. Accordingly, carbon dioxide is consumed locally. So how about you go thank your back lawn. Oh, and also water it--when plants get more water, it tends to help them absorb more CO2.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Hmmm....true, I did forget to do that. Well, here's the reason: if the U.S. refuses to reduce, then you are forced to take action elsewhere. And then the words "China" and "India" come up again. I know you have no choice. Yes, you'll whine and complain about it, but you'll do it.

You can say I'm wrong about this or that, you can say I'm stupid or an idiot or whichever. Doesn't matter. You know I'm right even if you never say it. And you know you have no choice but to deal with those two nations that keep coming up and again. China and India.

Not one of us will do the dealing with anyone.

That's why we have goverments. And luckely the US is reducing allready, no matter how you kick and scream

edit: Don't know if you noticed, but CFC-OT isn't defining policies for countries. All we do is fling poo at each other

 

[BasketCase]

See? Even Ziggy, my arch-enemy in global warming threads, admits it:

Global warming is not actually a problem. It's just a political scam.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I did no such thing. And I do not consider myself your arch enemy

 

[BasketCase]

Zig, you said it yourself: "Not one of us will do the dealing with anyone".

If you refuse to deal with other polluting nations, then the alleged problem isn't real.

I know the activist type. When there's a problem being caused by conservatives, they automatically pounce on it. They can't help themselves, it's a reflex.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Zig, you said it yourself: "Not one of us will do the dealing with anyone".

None of us, as in: none of us on CFC-OT. Meaning, you are not deciding US policy. We are not the ones who will be dealing with India nor China. (You as in: you, BasketCase, We as in: Simple Simon and me)

We have a goverment for that. Or how I put it the first time:

"Not one of us will do the dealing with anyone.

That's why we have goverments. "

This is clearly shown in the way the US goverment doesn't agree with your assesment, and is making an effort to reducing it's polution.

If you refuse to deal with other polluting nations, then the alleged problem isn't real.

I program gaming machines. I deal with them. People in goverment deal with other countries.

I know the activist type. When there's a problem being caused by conservatives, they automatically pounce on it. They can't help themselves, it's a reflex.

Uhm ... cabbages!

 

[BasketCase]

We have a goverment for that.

Then get yourself elected to federal office.

What, don't tell me you couldn't do a better job than President Bush???

 

[FriendlyFire]

See? Even Ziggy, my arch-enemy in global warming threads, admits it:

Global warming is not actually a problem. It's just a political scam.

9/11 Its 9/11 not 9/11 ? ........ 9/11

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Then get yourself elected to federal office.

What, don't tell me you couldn't do a better job than President Bush???

What the hell are you talking about?

 

[Simple Simon]

Actually, my CO2 footprint is considerably smaller than yours. And I've planted more trees in my lifetime than any six Greenpeace activists. I've done a hell of a lot more to fix the planet than you ever will.

A) this is beside the point
B) how do you know? It seems you are simply basking in your 'I am better than you' attitude here.

None of it is going to make a difference. China and India are about to make global warming SIX TIMES WORSE than it already is (assuming they're not already).

Argument from ignorance here! Basically you are saying that you can not imagine a different way, so there IS no different way.

In order to make things better, CHINA AND INDIA MUST BE DEALT WITH. This is not open for debate, and I'm going to type this at you again and again until your monitor explodes.

Where, please, did I ever say anything to the contrary? I actually said:

Third World development MUST be addressed

True

So why are you constantly harping on about this, but ignoring the issue here: that you advocate NOT doing anything in the US unless China and India do more?

I know.

How? You most probably have NOT met the Chinese persons I have met, so how can you KNOW what they told me????

I've read their testimony as well.

Again, this is weird - you appear to refer to my post (you quote me), but then what you claim is impossible. What ARE you talking about? Other Chinese people? Have you actually BEEN to China? Or are you simply getting stuff from some obscure place on the net?

I've seen the works: workers with severe mercury poisoning, terminal cases of lung cancer, piles of trash in the rivers, smog so bad you can't see the sun in the morning.

Yup. Indeed. And it is starting to scare the hell out of people. Not just ordinary citizens, but also Army and government officials. So there is a chance for change - but certainly not by putting a verbal gun to their heads and tell them: 'Shut up, do what I say or I won't do anything to clean up my pile of dirt!' That's Bushplomaty at work, and not helpful.

The problem is that Chinese citizens have a habit of disappearing when they demand that the Chinese government straighten out their environmental policy.

Not entirely correct - although not false either, sadly. However, you make it appear as if the Chinese government wants to develop at all cost, which is certainly untrue. In fact, they would much prefer, as you can glean from their pollution policies for the Olympics and the swift hangings following major pollution scandals, to clean up and earn money at the same time.

You need to deal with the Chinese government. Sternly. And quickly.

Sorry, but this is really absurd! What should we do - nuke them?

in case you haven't realized, let me spell out what 'dealing sternly' with them has always meant in the past: they just smile, extend their middle fingers, and go on with their ways. You seem to lack even the most basic understanding of Chinese culture - you MUST give them a opening that allows saving face AND showing a profit.

Hmmm....true, I did forget to do that. Well, here's the reason: if the U.S. refuses to reduce, then you are forced to take action elsewhere. And then the words "China" and "India" come up again. I know you have no choice. Yes, you'll whine and complain about it, but you'll do it.

:rofl:

let me rephrase that:
the US should refuse to reduce pollution so that it becomes MORE necessary to clean up elsewhere?

I'd say the US should think 'carpe diem' and clean up, then cash in massively on the techniques and gear sales for cleaning up elsewhere, all the while being able to negotiate pollution control with all nations from a position of strength and moral superiority.

You can say I'm wrong about this or that, you can say I'm stupid or an idiot or whichever. Doesn't matter. You know I'm right even if you never say it. And you know you have no choice but to deal with those two nations that keep coming up and again. China and India.

Erh, no, you are not right, and I know it. I know that 'dealing sternly' with Chinese people gets you a brick wall in the face, nothing else. And I know that continuing polluting while telling others to stop will only get you the Chinese equivalent of 'clean up your own front yard first'.

Here's a hint: go take a look in your back yard.

I did. No additional plant matter there. Next try?

Here's another hint: in the last couple of decades, oxygen levels around large metropolitan areas of the U.S. have been declining. Nothing alarming or hazardous, since we humans only use about one-fourth of the oxygen we inhale.

Which means that oxygen is bound in CO2 when you burn fossil fuels - so where is that elusive plant matter?

[q]uote(Yes, there's the usual problem with measuring gas concentrations, but since this decline has been steady and reliable for TWO DECADES, it's worth consideration)[/quote]Indeed - isn't it scary that bruning fossil fuels lower the O2 content of the atmosphere?

Here's the key point: oxygen levels are NOT significantly lower in rural and wild areas. Meaning that gas concentrations remain mostly localized.

How do you know that? The only thing you know is that oxygen levels are not lowered in areas with relatively high production, compared to those with low production. You can not extrapolate to other gases or general rules about how localized gas concentrations are.

Oxygen is produced and consumed in your local area. The oxygen you breathe comes from your back yard, not from the Amazon rainforest. Accordingly, carbon dioxide is consumed locally. So how about you go thank your back lawn. Oh, and also water it--when plants get more water, it tends to help them absorb more CO2.

You will have to bring proof for that 'local production, local consumption' claim. In fact, gases move a lot - it is called wind!

So, where is that plant matter? Forest cover in the world is going down, down, down, from Canada to Patagonia. Denudation is widespread, desertification also. WHERE IS IT?????

See? Even Ziggy, my arch-enemy in global warming threads, admits it:

Global warming is not actually a problem. It's just a political scam.

In fact, he does not such thing - it is highly amusing how you attempt to infer the weirdest things into posts by totally taking them out of context!

 

[History_Buff]

. . .Everybody else on Earth is trying to catch up to the wealth and comfort of the U.S.; if and when they do, they will each produce the same amount of CO2 we are . . .

As Simon said, this right here is why your argument is incorrect. You assume that it would be impossible to achieve the same standard of life whilst emitting less Carbon into the atmosphere. Unless you actually directly derive satisfaction from emitting, this is not the case. You ignored it once, and so I'll ask it again.


Do you believe it would be impossible to make emissions cuts in the West without compromising our standard of life?

 

[Aegis]

President Bush left the recent G8 summit in Japan with a bang when he parted a private meeting with international leaders with the line: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

According to the London Telegraph:

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

I should be shocked. I really should be, but it's almost expected at this point.

 

[El_Machinae]

Ah yes - still discrediting Monckton. Unfortunately, it appears that the analysis of his statements has been as much ad-hominems as it has been scientific.

I'm not discrediting Monckton. I'm pointing out that Monckton was forwarded to us for consideration by an article that began and ended in lies and fallacies. The problem is one of perspective. Most people advocating no action on AGW can't seem to recognise lies when they see them (the article was described as "spot on"). I don't even know why the blogger who made the article chose to lie.

It's the quality of the public debate that's lacking, and the problem is not a shortfall on the part of people who're concerned about AGW. Years after Gore's popularization, and we're still dealing with "Volcanoes! Yarr!" and "CO2 is not a major greenhouse gas! Yarr!" It took them 15 seconds of google to find errors in Gore's presentation, and then they held onto their own errors for two years. And, hell, Gore is not even a player in the actual presentation of the science.

This is why I liken it to Creationism. People seem to have prayed at their altars for an answer and have been grasping any foolish reason to not be concerned about AGW.

 

[ainwood]

It's the quality of the public debate that's lacking, and the problem is not a shortfall on the part of people who're concerned about AGW. Years after Gore's popularization, and we're still dealing with "Volcanoes! Yarr!" and "CO2 is not a major greenhouse gas! Yarr!"

In my opinion, its the quality of the scientific debate that is lacking. We have Hansen playing with numbers to try and generate a surface station temperature record (which seems ridiculously flawed), and being very closed and defensive about it. We have IPCC reviewers treating their research as "intellectual property rights" and refusing to open it up to scrutiny.

This is why I liken it to Creationism. People seem to have prayed at their altars for an answer and have been grasping any foolish reason to not be concerned about AGW.

Interesting. Some liken the other side to creationism too.

Do you have any comments on Roy Spencer's article?

 

[Ammar]

Do you have any comments on Roy Spencer's article?

I'll look into it in more detail later. It's certainly more credible than the Viscount I'll give you that.

On another issue and I might overstep my priviliges here, but I think your post 237 is a little too inflammatory itself for you to moderate this particular thread. After all you already seem to dismiss any criticsm towards the article a priori.

Edit :

BTW according to his Wikipedia Article he is actually an IDist, which would make the comparision more apt. But too stay more on his work than his character, what exact article are you referring to in your post? If it is his new one
Chaotic Radiative Forcing, Feedback Stripes, and the Overestimation of Climate Sensitivity then it doesn't seem to be actually published yet - which means any discussion on it's accuracy and relevance will really have to wait a while.

 

[ainwood]

I'll look into it in more detail later. It's certainly more credible than the Viscount I'll give you that.

On another issue and I might overstep my priviliges here, but I think your post 237 is a little too inflammatory itself for you to moderate this particular thread. After all you already seem to dismiss any criticsm towards the article a priori.

I moderate conduct, not ideas. If I feel that I cannot be objective, I will refer it to other moderators. If other people feel that I am not objective, then take it up with me via PM; or failing that, with Tunderfall. If you want to discuss this with me, then please PM me, rather than continue the discussion in this thread.

Edit :

BTW according to his Wikipedia Article he is actually an IDist, which would make the comparision more apt. But too stay more on his work than his character, what exact article are you referring to in your post? If it is his new one
Chaotic Radiative Forcing, Feedback Stripes, and the Overestimation of Climate Sensitivity then it doesn't seem to be actually published yet - which means any discussion on it's accuracy and relevance will really have to wait a while.

The link to the article I was referring to.

The interesting thing is that when Monckton posted his article suggesting that the impact of CO2 forcing had been over-estimated, a lot of the discussion was actually discussion of Monckton rather than his work. There was some scientific discussion, but even then, what I saw tended to be framed around appeal-to-authority: Monckton's argument was discredited by a climate scientist, Monckton must be wrong because the climate scientist must be correct. Well, here is another climate scientist who, whilst his methodology and justification is different, draws the same conclusions. I am interested to see if the debate in the mainstream will be about the science, or about the person.

Not that this makes Monckton correct (anyone can get the 'right' answer and still have the 'wrong' reasoning) - but its a good illustration that climate science debate in the mainstream seems to be a debate on the personallities, not on the science.

 

[El_Machinae]

A respected, well qualified meteorologist,
Publishing his theory in a peer-reviewed journal
which has been peer reviewed by to leading IPCC climate model experts.

I think it's a good idea to keep looking at clouds. I would fully expect clouds to inject noise into any prediction, since they're a pretty important part of albedo as well as other effects.

So, what's he saying? Is he saying that chaotic clouds will reduce the impacts of increased heat retention, that they'll dissipate more heat as CO2 ppm increases? I don't know how much I follow such an idea, since I can't easily figure out a way that they can do that without changing regional weather.

Or is he saying that the climate effects of clouds (under any concentration of CO2 ppm) are so huge that the effects of CO2 are minimal?

If it's such a desperate problem, then you and your fellow environmentalists would gladly pay for all those installations yourselves, and stay the hell out of my wallet.

But I know that's not how it's going to happen.

I keep telling you guys: NEVER PLAY POKER. Because I just called your bluff again.

Well, think of it this way. Our lifestyle is currently unsustainable, ecologically. If we spiral the way we are, things will get worse at a certain rate. Some people are taking pains (at personal cost) to increase their (and others') sustainability, thereby delaying the rate at which 'things get worse'.

We're already paying out of pocket, actually. We're effectively subsidizing the lifestyles of people who're going to be ecologically unsound until the 11th hour. But how is that actually fair?