The cynical sell-out of environmentalism to global corporatism marks the Copenhagen conference as a fraud.
It's the world turned upside down. For a child of the 60s there's something bizarre and disturbing about seeing the young neo-hippies of today with eyes full of naive dreams, carrying mass-produced signs and marching in support of the expansion of the warmongering, global, statist establishment.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - STM
"I believe Devil's Island is currently unoccupied"
The old penal colony of Van Diemans Land (Tasmania).
Or they could come to Sydney and go to the beach.
That'd learn 'em.
27 - Cannonshop
#24 Wrong. You kill people, you just make martyrs out of them-same for imprisonment for political (as opposed to criminal) offenses.
No...they need to be laughed at, and mocked, and exposed for what they are so that they can't get into those stylish, canape' parties, their books need to be gone over, and every hypocrisy they practice be exposed, every myth imploded, every ignorant utterance brought out.
In short, they need to be exposed for the self-righteous fools they are, exposed as the power-obsessed goblins, the scum, that they are.
Then, they need to be forced (yes, forced) to live the lifestyle they have planned for those of us, after their power and influence has been stripped away until they're naught but ordinary citizens.
Uncle Al jetting around aboard an airliner-grade aircraft that's old enough it predates most of the fuel-efficiency mods we've been installing for decades needs to be put on a bicycle, his carbon-footprint reduced to what he thinks, say, the AVERAGE person should generate. If he's still enthusiastic about the idea, well, good for him-but until these folk on the left have to live the lifestyle they're trying to impose on others, until they're living that lifestyle...
yeah, killing is too good for them.
28 - Cannonshop
Oh, and Dave, did you catch the announcement by the EPA head declaring CO2 to be a pollutant?
I'd really love to see the carbon footprint of THAT agency lowered to what it's claiming is an acceptable level for the rest of us...
29 - Arch Conservative
I didn't say anything about killing anyone but since Btone and Cannonshop brought it up.........
I think seeing someone like yourself getting whacked for a behavior/action you are also engaging in can at times be a very effective deterrent in preventing you from continuing that specific behavior if you consider that it might happen to you in the future.
I just don't want this to be our future.
30 - Dave Nalle
Cannonshop, I heard about the EPA. They apparently use the constitution as toilet paper over there. But I'm sure they have approval from the top.
I wonder if we'll all be issued rebreathers to reduce our CO2 output.
Dave
31 - zingzing
stm: "Van Diemans Land (Tasmania)."
you know, for years i've thought about looking up what "van diemans land" referred to but never got around to it. there's a u2 song named after it, but i hadn't thought about that in years, then i read "blood meridian" by cormac mccarthy, which has a character named "the vandiemanlander" or something like that, and got curious all over again, but curiosity did not get the better of me. and now my intellectual laziness pays off. another mystery solved.
and archie: i absolutely love kids in the hall... bruce's skits are so damn strange. makes me wonder what he's up to these days... it appears he had a sitcom on abc a few years back that didn't survive the writers' strike. it was supposed to be pretty good. might have to check that out.
32 - Dave Nalle
It's not where Jean Claude Van Damme comes from, then?
Dave
33 - STM
Zing: I reckon it's the most beautiful state in Australia. Fantastic old colonial architecture and magnificent natural settings. The capital, Hobart, is set around a bay full of little inlets, with a mountainous backdrop and is, without doubt, the most spectacularly beautiful city I've ever seen, anywhere.
The only problem is it can snow down there in winter (which is during your NYC summer).
No one who comes to Oz for a visit should miss Tassie, and especially Hobart and some of the little country towns and farming communities surrounding it.
34 - STM
Dave:
No, that'd be that other place, Van Dammen's Land. I think it's in Belgium and it's full of little muscley blokes who can't act that well and are fawned over by people who think a great contribution to humanity is mumbling your way through half a dozen shockingly scripted z-grade movies.
35 - STM
But I wonder how much it'll cost to live in Tassie if the government forces through its cap and trade emissions trading scheme. I suspect it'll be paradise lost, with the cost of living going through the roof.
Let's hope when they get home from Hope-and-change-en-hagen they don't try to push it through federal parliament without actually explaining to us a) who'll pay and b) what it's actually about.
And I can't work out this carbon-trading bollocks.
I thought people traded in stuff that other people actually wanted.
At least, that's what they've been doing since the dawn of time ... up until now.
36 - Cannonshop
#35 Ever heard of 'Snake Oil', STM? Carbon-Trading is basically like Snake-Oil salesmen, but on an international level. The mechanics imply that you tax the living shit out of average blokes who can't find a way to hide their income, while putting as many of them in the West out of work as physically possible. The work transfers to hell-pit countries with neither Environmental laws, nor Labour laws, and the guys who set up the scheme pocket the difference after paying the vig to the third-world hellpits using your money.
The only people who're going to benefit, are the same ones that run the Enrons and Greenpeaces of the world, and they're selling it with an apocalyptic fairy-tale called Anthropogenic Global Warming.
37 - Arch Conservative
Yes Cannon, it's the conjob of the millenia but it's refreshing to see that with each passing day more and more people are refusing to buy what Al Gore and his cronies are selling.
Have you heard of the group WEARECHANGE?
It seems they've been following Mr. Gore around, giving him the business. You know, disturbing his little book signings at Borders and Barnes and Nobles where the hordes of weak minded fools have lined up like lemmings for the chance to shake the inventor of the internet's hand and fork over 29.95 for the lies he has put to paper.
Mr Gore doesn't liek it though when the Wearechange folks point out what an evil traitorous cunning bastard spawn of the NWO that old Al is. The things they point out such as the hypocrisy of Gore telling everyone else to be green while flying around the world in a private jet and living in a huge mansion, or his hypocrisy in claiming his AGW is completely an altruistic crusade while making nearly billions from the cause are just trivial minutia to Al not to be paid attention to by anyone.
If Al Gore thinks things are getting warm here on earth then he's really not going to like his final destination, a place much much warmer than earth could ever be.
Here's a little tribute to Mr. Gore.
38 - pablo
Arch,
You might be interested in knowing about the beginnings of loosechange.org, a group that I like very much. It was started by Luke Rudowski a 23 year old activist. His first public confrontation was at a speech that Zbigniew Brzezinski was giving, where Luke asked Brzezinski point blank, about the possibility of the CFR being involved with 9/11. The video is available on youtube.
Luke is also very much allied with Alex Jones and has been on his site numerous times. Loosechange started up soon after Luke confronted Brzezenski. Soon after Luke also confronted David Rockefeller as well, which is a great video, also available on youtube.
As you must realize I am a huge fan of Alex Jones, and have been one for about 8 years. the libs call him a right wing extremist, and the right calls him a lib! The fact is that he cuts through the bullshit left/right paradigm, showing in very clear concise and oftentimes angry ways how the ruling elite, ie the Rothschilds, the CFR, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, Bohemian Grove are all one big country club of criminal elites who are at this very moment trying to create a one world fascist government using Chicken Little as their mascot.
I have the tube on at the moment as I am writing this, and am seeing President Osama getting the Peace Prize in Norway! What a phony piece of work he is indeed, as well as his prize as he slaughters more human beings.
39 - Jordan Richardson
Ah pablo, thanks for conjuring visions of all those little Jehovah Witnesses who used to come knocking on my door.
Sweet, sweet memories.
40 - pablo
My pleasure Jordan.
41 - Dave Nalle
The only people who're going to benefit, are the same ones that run the Enrons and Greenpeaces of the world, and they're selling it with an apocalyptic fairy-tale called Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Not true. Plenty of that money will find its way into the hands of third-world dictators as they exploit their people and sell them into economic slavery to the international corporations. That's why they're the main ones advocating for a treaty with cap and trade at hoaxenhagen.
I was somewhat reassured to see the press conference with our representatives to the talks who basically said "no way" to any of the proposals or any treaty coming out of Copenhagen. They even said that if it involved Kyoto or anything like Kyoto the US would not participate.
I think it has made a big difference that the far left has become so outspoken against cap and trade. They may be moonbats, but they're not entirely stupid and they can see how utterly exploitative and bad for the common people these draconian environmental schemes are.
They're Obama's peeps and he may be listening to them.
Dave
42 - Arch Conservative
Well Dave I guess the harder you get screwed the more obvious it becomes that you're getting screwed and who's screwing you.
Does the nobel prize really have nay value anymore? Arafat, Gore, Obama.....who's next......Miley Cyrus?
43 - pablo
New Zealand’s NIWA accused of CRU-style temperature faking
My oh my what a tangled web they weave, the scam of the century continues!
44 - STM
My country puts out about 1.4 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. It's high per capita, but it's still tiny.
So what does this government (which ruiles over a population of 22 million) do?
It sends 120m people to Hope-and-change-en-hagen ... including baggages handlers.
What, can't our pollies and bureaucrats carry their own frigging bags and run their owen errands, or have their senior staffers do so?
Fair dinkum. It's madness.
Seriously, that's out of all proportion and is way above what the UK is sending, with a population of more than 60 million.
And the Poms only have to travel across the north sea, not two oceans and four continents.
The moonbats have taken over the argument Down Under, and they are intent on pushing this tax through without any discuission.
Luckily, they've been foiled so far by the Opposition and a groundswell of public fury.
There might - might - be something in the science, but until the polluting developing nations also commit (at their own expense, not ours) to doing the same as us, I'm not prepared to wear a new, giant tax based on flimsy science that is now looking increasingly wonky.
I want details, truth, fact, and as much of it as I can get.
And I certainly don't want the traders on Wall Street and the City of London to get their grubby fingers in the pie when it comes to selling and trading in carbon credits as "investments"
Geez, haven't we learned our lesson with this stuff?
Make sure you ask the same questions, America, as we are asking down here.
And don't let them do a snow job on you.
45 - Cannonshop
Gotta remember, STM, it's not just that it's snake-oil, it's also a "Moral Crusade". The tenor of the debate from AGW supporters is a lot like the tenor from the Temperance Movement of the early 20th Century-and there's a reason for that.
It's not about the Science-it's about fighting the Sin-in this case, the "Sin" is everything we in the west have because of industrialization in our past-automobiles, central heat, cheap food, all of it-the sin in question is 'excess' and the prescription is Carbon Trading to Save The Earth.
The way this works, is similar to the Sin Tax. The way a Sin Tax works, is you take something everyone for the most part agrees with (say, "Drinking to excess is bad", or "Smoking is unhealthy", or "Pollution is bad").
You use this to frame the debate so that opposition is lumped in with "The Sinners", and massage the numbers to create an Apocalyptic Scenario ("Demon Rum will Destroy Civil Society", "Smoking in the yard kills kids", "Pollution will destroy the earth-soon.")
Then you offer a "Remedy" in the form of a Tax. (Alcohol taxes, Cigarette Taxes, Cap and Trade). This remedy doesn't ACTUALLY address the root of the problem (Problem Drinkers have emotional or medical issues that weaken their self-discipline, Smokers are addicts, industrializing the third world has resulted in deforestation and unmuffled dumping into the atmosphere), instead, it turns the problem into a slush-fund for those positioned to take advantage of administering the revenue-scheme. (Al Gore, Third World Dictators, the U.N., the EPA).
The reap in this case isn't just money, though-it's POWER. By declaring CO2 a Pollutant, EVERY aspect of your life is now open to be controlled by the environmental agency of your choice-including how long you have to live. It's litereally an open door to a "Breathing Tax".
46 - Arch Conservative
Proof that not all Europeans are globalist sheeple.
47 - Dr Dreadful
There are Norwegian Ron Paul supporters?!?! How on earth did you manage to dig that one up, Arch? :-)
More proof of J.B.S. Haldane's famous quote: "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine - it is stranger than we can imagine."
LOL.
48 - Dr Dreadful
I want details, truth, fact, and as much of it as I can get.
There's plenty of it out there, Stan, despite all the noisy naysayers who keep insisting that there isn't.
49 - Dan(Miller)
Doc, re Comment #48 -- Of course there is stuff supportive of the climate alarmists' claims. However, when a clock chimes thirteen, we justifiably wonder about its other claims. Here, the crazy clock appears to have chimed thirteen, fourteen and twenty seven, and those skeptical of its accuracy have been told "move along, nothing worth seeing here." Isn't it time to find out why, rather than rely on it as a reliable timepiece?
Dan(Miller)
50 - Dan(Miller)
Doc,
If and while you get around to pondering my #49, you might want to take a peek at this.
Dan(Miller)
51 - Dan(Miller)
Doc -- But wait! There's more! We will also thrown in, absolutely free, this.
No checks, carbon credits or money orders, please.
Dan(Miller)
52 - Dr Dreadful
Dan,
This is not so much a case of the clock chiming thirteen as it is the clockmaker trying to wind it with the wrong key.
53 - Dan(Miller)
Doc,
Gotta go now. It's 27 o:clock and past my bedtime.
Dan(Miller)
54 - Dr Dreadful
Dan (@ #50, 51):
Do either of those links provide scientific evidence to refute global warming?
As long as we're trading links, try this one.
55 - Dan(Miller)
Doc, the article seems rather defensive and contrived to me, but I don't know whether there is man made global warming. I certainly don't believe in it; as an Agnostic in many things beyond religion, I certainly can't "believe" in something like MMGW without more than had been presented even before Climategate. At the risk of irritating el Bicho, here is what I wrote well before Climategate.
Reading some of the "stolen" e-mails, it seems to me that some of the crucial data have been fudged and some who have tried to say so have been banned from "peer review" journals. That is not good science. I don't even think it is good religion, although that may well be an oxymoron.
Before the United States and other nations get fully committed to destroying their economies based on what strikes me as "scientific" dogma, it seems sensible to figure out what's actually happening and what are likely to be the economic and other results of doing so.
Dan(Miller)
56 - Dan(Miller)
Doc,
Further to my Comments# 49 et seq., you might consider whether this is really the best path for the United States to follow.
Dan (Miller)
57 - Arch Conservative
Where are all the brits here?
I was just got my first taste of Nigel Farrage and I want more!
58 - Dr Dreadful
Dan, while I do confess to being somewhat bewildered by the logic of carbon trading, I'm at a somewhat greater loss to explain your "I see no ships" attitude:
I certainly can't "believe" in something like MMGW without more than had been presented even before Climategate.
I'm not sure whether you saw that my comment #48 contained not one link, but five - BC's formatting makes that not obvious unless you wave your mouse in that direction. The point being that there are millions of pages of data out there. I don't expect you to read all of them, of course, but just what 'more' do you need?
Reading some of the "stolen" e-mails, it seems to me that some of the crucial data have been fudged
That crucial data being...?
it seems sensible to figure out what's actually happening and what are likely to be the economic and other results of doing so
It's true that little work on the environmental consequences of corrective action has been done. But I can't really see that humans ceasing to pump vast quantities of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere is going to cause massive damage.
As far as the economic consequences go, well, it's true they're not going to be pretty. Lord Stern's review, though, makes a good case that appropriate action may very well be less painful economically in the long term than continued inaction.
I don't necessarily attribute this motive to you - your attitude seems more like that of the lawyer who is not necessarily invested personally in his argument - but it does seem rather illogical to side with a lobby that would rather nitpick than consider that unfettered capitalism and its prodigal child, the Industrial Revolution, may end up being responsible for the biggest man-made disaster ever to befall the planet.
59 - roger nowosielski
It'd seem to me that Dan suffers from a kind of solitude and disengagement of late, disengagement from BC and the rest of humanity, I should add, a state of being he'd rather imposed on his self, a self-inflicted exile rather than an actual one.
Being a lawyer, as the good Doc charitably puts it is a bad enough sin. However, "being more like . . . a lawyer who is not necessarily invested personally in his argument" is a thousandfold worse. Touche!
So why don't you wake up, Dan Miller, and rejoin the human race. As intolerable as you were back then, we had no doubts you were a human. But your present state of mind and being does put you a mile apart.
So which shall it be, Dan, oh Dan! - a mere mortal or a demigod?
60 - Dan(Miller)
Demigod seems like a good job. Where do I apply? Does the stimulus jobs stuff provide any help?
Dan(Miller)
61 - roger nowosielski
Stay where you is, Dan Miller. You're doing a splendid job, or need I say.
I just wish you were more human once in a while. It certainly would be easier to take you.
62 - Cannonshop
Doc, there's a problem in your position, (oh, how do I explain this in a way nobody's explained it before...crap. Can't.)
Look, would you trust a doctor who's invested heavily in skull-bump-measuring equipment? (I wouldn't.)
The Global Climate is a fluid, and chaotic system. (Ask the Mammoths...wait, you can't, they're extinct because the climate changed, ending the ice-age).
Here's the problem: The Data has been manipulated-it's not good data, the hypothesis is unsound. It's well advertised, and it may or may not contain some element of the truth, but when your scientist manipulates data to get a pre-desired, pre-determined outcome, that's scientifically the equivalent of fraud.
Would you accept stock tips from an Enron Executive? would you accept investment advice from a known fraudster? NO, you wouldn't.
Why would you endorse policy based on the work of what appears to be a group of "Scientists" (term used loosely to acknowledge their numerous degrees and published papers) who alter data and findings, whose mathematical models have failed to yeild accurate results over known periods of time, and whose techniques are, frankly, doubtful? "Scientists" who toss out the whole experiment if it doesn't produce the result they need to keep pumping the bandwagon?
Seriously. You don't take investment advice from an Enron exec, you shouldn't take climate/public policy advice from a guy who cooks his scientific books-no matter HOW awe inspiring his credentials might look.
In Prof. Mann's case, he's been caught doing this before-which is how he decided to NOT put his methodology and mathematical bases in a publicly accessable forum.
The Climate is going to change-nobody with any serious science in their education can argue it won't. The argument is, and continues to be, whether, how much, and in what way human activity can impact it, and whether, how much, and in what way human beings can either adapt to the change, or deal with it.
The task the AGW crowd wants to put on everyone is similar to trying to alter the direction of continental drift by digging holes in the ground. The assumption they're making is about on the level of saying people cause earthquakes by digging holes in the ground. It IS an extraordinary claim, and it turns out, there's no extra-ordinarily strong evidence out there-just cooked books and fraud.
The fact that the whole narrative fits nicely as a replacement for god smiting the sinful, and therefore appeals mightily to the ingrained need to be in some way not only virtuous, but important, does not add to the veracity of the underlying claims-it just feeds the ego of the believer in thinking he's got something to do with it, and something he CAN do about it.
63 - roger nowosielski
In all seriousness, then, Cannon, why did you invest in derivatives?
It would seem that your past investment decision have come to bite you in the ass.
Is that why, perchance, that you're so adamant about the idea of man-made global warming.
Just asking.
64 - Cannonshop
Roger, I didn't invest in 'em (hell, I didn't have the money to even think about it), but the point still sits-with what you know about Enron, would you trust Ken Lay with your investment portfolio?
It's the same bloody thing-Science is about analyzing FACTS, even when the facts don't support your hypothesis. When you start altering your data to fit the hypothesis, it ceases to be science. If you're relying on science to guide your policies (and environmental policy is all about relying on the science), you don't use science that's compromised, even if doing so encourages behaviours you want encouraged (like, say, clean energy or conservationist behaviours. Both are highly laudable ideals in and of themselves, but using fraud to achieve them doesn't achieve them, and cripples the chance of REAL science to be treated as credible.)
Scientific Fraud damages the Scientific community, because the basic, underlying principle of scientific inquiry, is rooted in Integrity, including accepting the possibility that your hypothesis is dead-wrong. This is why Chemistry is better than Alchemy, why Paleontology is better than Creationism, and why you don't sign onto agreements like Kyoto without making god-DAMN sure the basis of your science isn't compromised-that the books aren't cooked, and that the people promoting it aren't playing games with their data to get a predetermined, desired outcome.
In the case of the AGW hypothesis, the books have been cooked, the outcomes can't be trusted, and no matter how laudable the political and cultural objectives may be, the use of a fraud to achieve them is a very real danger, and must not be rewarded.
65 - Cannonshop
Short form: In Science (esp. mixed with politics), the ENDS do NOT justify the Means.
66 - Dr Dreadful
The Data has been manipulated-it's not good data, the hypothesis is unsound.
Citation?
It's well advertised, and it may or may not contain some element of the truth, but when your scientist manipulates data to get a pre-desired, pre-determined outcome, that's scientifically the equivalent of fraud.
It seems to me that that's exactly what the global warming deniers are doing.
Would you accept stock tips from an Enron Executive? would you accept investment advice from a known fraudster? NO, you wouldn't.
Would you avoid all investments because of the occasional Ken Lay or Bernie Madoff? I doubt it.
Why would you endorse policy based on the work of what appears to be a group of "Scientists" (term used loosely to acknowledge their numerous degrees and published papers) who alter data and findings, whose mathematical models have failed to yeild accurate results over known periods of time, and whose techniques are, frankly, doubtful? "Scientists" who toss out the whole experiment if it doesn't produce the result they need to keep pumping the bandwagon?
You're projecting political motives onto scientists. Knowing what you do of the scientific community, frankly, what is more likely here? Collusion or consensus?
If anything, the strongest motivation for a climatologist would be to disprove AGW. The scientist who could come up with robust evidence that there was no anthropogenic global warming would be a superstar. Yet I have seen not one solid, scientific argument presented as to why the consensus on global warming is wrong - just a plethora of ad hominems, cherry-picking, well-poisoning, hole-picking and quote-mining. And believe me, I've looked: I want the scientists to be wrong on this just as badly as you do. Tragically, it appears that they are very, very right.
...and why you don't sign onto agreements like Kyoto without making god-DAMN sure the basis of your science isn't compromised-that the books aren't cooked, and that the people promoting it aren't playing games with their data to get a predetermined, desired outcome.
Oh, give me a break, Cannon. Just who do you think the US delegations to Kyoto and Copenhagen were/are listening to the hardest? Scientists? Or industrialists and politicians?
67 - Cannonshop
Politicians, Doc, that's who gives them their grant money.
Just like Y2K, there's a lot of money to be had in crying "Apocalypse", not to mention the power involved.
As for coming up with "proof" of a negative, Doc? You're talking about a system that even the most hard-core specialists in the field can't accurately model (that'd be the Climate, Doc, just in case you were fuzzy on that aspect.) Definitive proof of AGW isn't possible without that little 'ability to model normal behaviour' thing, having to Disprove it falls on the scientific process that was sabotaged by Mann and company.
Further, you assume a profit-motive from normal sources here-don't do that, it short-changes basic human behaviours and mistakes one form of malfeasance for another.
Until the AGW scare started in the eighties, climate-science was focused mainly on meteorology, there were no 'superstars' or Nobel Prizes, it wasn't 'sexy' for bright grad-students to go into.
Like other forms of Apocalyptic Prediction, the Prediction gets front-page coverage, the "oops, we weren't right" is covered on page nine to seventeen (note an entire industry got a shot in the arm from Y2K? even though many computer experts were laughing at it? same gig here, Doc.)
The university dept. that comes out and says "well, it isn't what our colleagues said it was" is going to lose funding fast-because without the crisis, there's no fear-driven money coming in, no prominence for department heads, no sunday-talk-show coverage, no fame, and no Nobel Prizes.
Get it yet? without the crisis, there's no new "Global Warming" industry with lecture circuits, chauffered limos, or hobnobbing with the glitterati.
WITH it, there's lecture circuits, fame, politicians listening to people with degrees, and the ability to effect social changes-and THAT is one HELL of a motivator for someone whose personality, field of study, and social base wouldn't normally afford them access to power in the political field.
68 - pablo
I hope the above comment 67 makes sense to you Dread, it is uhhhh rather obvious.
69 - Cannonshop
Pablo, anyone can be encouraged to do very nearly ANYTHING if you can first convince them that they're saving the world, or making a truly better place. That's how Imams got nineteen young men to get aboard four airliners and ram the planes with passengers into buildings, it's how good, moral catholic boys were turned into concentration-camp guards in Europe, it's how John Chivington convinced a battalion of volunteers to slaughter Sioux Civilians at Sand Creek, and it's why a young man named William Ayers planned to set off a fragmentation bomb in the middle of a dance for returning servicemen.
Tying fame and influence to the act and you'll not just convince someone, you'll get eager volunteers, not only to perpetrate the act, but to promote it, protect it, and justify it.
When it follows an existing Mantra ("Mankind is Destroying the EARTH!!"), it's even easier-because opposing the act is seen as opposing a clean environment, as being party to...
Destroying the EArth!!.
It's the same thinking that goes on with Sin Taxes. Is taxing sin fighting sin? Not really, but it's a good way to sell a Tax or Tax Increase. In both cases, the stated 'problem' is not the thing the chosen methods are actually designed to address-it's just smoke to cover the REAL objective-which in both cases is increasing or achieving power and/or wealth.
DuPont declared Freon-12 an "ozone Eating CFC" one day before their patent expired on it-and released 134 shortly afterward-which their patents still apply to. This is not a coincidental event, however it WAS useful to get Freon 12 banned from sale in the United STates to give 134 a boost in sales.
It helped that there was an "Ozone hole" detected only a few weeks prior.
Does the "AGW" panic serve corporate interests? HELLS YES it does. Maybe not the SAME corporations, but guaranteed someone's positioned to make money off of it, besides Al Gore (who's already making bank off of it.)
Like Tax laws, the Bigger your Corporate entity is, the more likely that any new "Restrictions" or "Regulations" simply serve their existing directorships-often at the peril to the consumers and lower-echelon employees, and always to the detriment of smaller firms trying to compete in similar markets. All the good intentions in teh world aren't going to stop that simple fact of modern business.
70 - pablo
Cannon
Yes I do know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I came across an interesting website the other day, which unfortunately I lost, that was from webarchive that clearly showed that the CRU center was funded by both Shell Oil and BP, hardly surprising to me, but I do get a kick out of those fanatics that always cry foul and say your with the oil companies whenever you question GW.
71 - Christopher Rose
It doesn't really matter that much if there are some flawed scientists or even flawed science.
Obviously, the climate is always changing, but it is equally obvious to anybody who actually has an open mind and looks around the planet that currently the climate is changing a bit more rapidly than it has in the recent past, and that the broad trend of that change is an increase in global temperatures.
It doesn't take a great deal of brain power to figure out that human activity is adding to that warming process and the end result is going to be a hotter planet.
That said, it is equally pretty obvious that the promises of governments to reduce carbon emissions are just empty words and that some serious planning on a global level needs to be done.
As we are approaching the end of the hydrocarbon energy era anyway, it seems more useful to me if a lot more work was done on other forms of generating energy more economically.
This means finding ways to make solar, wind and wave power generation more efficient and economical and that a major effort to develop nuclear fusion ought to be put into place.
These technologies all offer the potential to generate more power than we need. Once they become cheaper to use than current means, it does away with the need for complicated carbon trading schemes, which only address part of the problem anyway, and people will adopt them simply because it is cheaper.
My favourite schemes are nuclear fission, which is long overdue, and the idea of covering large areas of the Sahara and other deserts with efficent, low cost solar panels.
Cheap efficient power can transform the economics of both industrial and domestic economics and heat signatures.
It would also make water desalination technology more viable, which could help to alleviate the twin threats of fresh water shortages and rising sea levels.
The worst thing about Copenhagen and its predecessors is that it seems to give the illusion of a plan without actually being a plan.
72 - Dan(Miller)
The science is settled and the deniers are fools seeking to destroy the Earth. They should repent and buy indulgences from the Church of Global Warming. Therefore, don't bother to read this article. It's far too complicated for mere mortals to understand, and we just have to trust our betters.
Dan(Miller)
Sulks off, repeating endless Hail Als, full of grace . . .
73 - Dr Dreadful
As for coming up with "proof" of a negative, Doc?
I didn't ask for proof of a negative, Cannon. I asked for a convincing scientific argument that dissented with the consensus. Still waiting.
Further, you assume a profit-motive from normal sources here-don't do that, it short-changes basic human behaviours and mistakes one form of malfeasance for another.
Yet you go on to assume a profit motive on the other side.
Until the AGW scare started in the eighties, climate-science was focused mainly on meteorology
How's that? They're two separate disciplines.
there were no 'superstars' or Nobel Prizes, it wasn't 'sexy' for bright grad-students to go into.
Cannon, nobody goes into science to make bucketloads of money or for the glamour of it.
Like other forms of Apocalyptic Prediction, the Prediction gets front-page coverage
Most other forms of 'apocalyptic prediction' - with the possible exception of the nuclear winter we were all worried about in the 70s and 80s - have zero science to back them up.
(note an entire industry got a shot in the arm from Y2K? even though many computer experts were laughing at it? same gig here, Doc.)
Except that many climate scientists are not laughing at this, Cannon.
WITH it, there's lecture circuits, fame, politicians listening to people with degrees, and the ability to effect social changes-and THAT is one HELL of a motivator for someone whose personality, field of study, and social base wouldn't normally afford them access to power in the political field.
And where does peer review, replication of results, and the scientific method in general fit into your dastardly scenario, Cannon? Doesn't it seem the slightest bit odd, not to mention unprecedented, to you that the scientific community at large is being so vehemently accused of malpractice, deceit and greed on this one issue? That it is suddenly supposed to be capable of such a massive global conspiracy and fool 90% of the world's politicians and people? ...When your average scientist has trouble putting on matching socks in the morning? ;-)
74 - Dan(Miller)
When your average scientist has trouble putting on matching socks in the morning? ;-)
So do I, because I am partially color blind. But then, that does not cause nations to waste trillions of dollars. I hope.
Peer review is great. However, when it is slanted due to ideological biases, as seems rather clearly to have happened here, it forfeits some of its value.
Years ago, peer review was the province of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, it seems to be the province of a different church, the dogmas of which are no less noxious and no less harmful.
If we accept what the Church of Global Warming says, and apostates are to be damned to perdition because they disagree, it ceases to be science.
Then, we get this sort of garbage.
Sorry, but we Agnostics simply can't go along with religions, old or new, secular or spiritual.
Dan(Miller)
75 - Dr Dreadful
Peer review is great. However, when it is slanted due to ideological biases, as seems rather clearly to have happened here
Why does it seem rather clearly to have happened here?
Now, it seems to be the province of a different church
I do remember your article on the subject, Dan. But your objections seem to say absolutely nothing about the science.
If we accept what the Church of Global Warming says, and apostates are to be damned to perdition because they disagree, it ceases to be science.
You're begging the question, Dan. You assume that the entirety of global warming is faith-based, without providing any evidence for your conclusion.
Then, we get this sort of garbage.
Again, why is it garbage?
Like most other 'skeptical' arguments on this subject, you once again offer nothing of substance.