posted April 04, 2009 11:00 PM            

Overall, it would've been MUCH better if it had been about climate change (as opposed to global warming) and less about Al Gore. Especially given his own inconvenient truths. For example, Gore undermine the endangered species act in the snail darter case, fought in the construction of a nuclear reactor in his home state, and pushed for a "free trade agreement" on timber with NO conservation measures, and was an outspoken proponent in the Gulf War (the creation & use of munitions is a huge environmental disaster, and why the US Government is THE biggest polluter of all).

Gore also voted for the Neutron Bomb, B-2 bomber, Trident II , MX and midgetman missiles, and backed Ronald Reagan's Star Wars, virtually all harmful to the environment. (And he gets chosen over Irena Sendler for the Nobel PEACE prize? Heck, why not give it to a friggin climate RESEARCHER instead of a mere showman like Gore? OTOH, the prize itself has been cheapened already by who it has been awarded to, including Yasser Arafat.)

Rolling Stone even mentioned how Al Gore simply asked corporations nicely to not pollute while Bush was actually a champion of the Kyoto Protocols (this lasted until the fall of Enron, Enron being a major special interest of Bush for years and stood to make major profits if the US adopted the Kyoto Protocols).

And let's not forget Gore's jet, his house, and other ways he despoils the environment with his excesses, even after making An Inconvenient Truth:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm

Btw, in promoting CFLs, he neglects to mention that they contain mercury, which is a cumulative poison bad for the environment. Sure, one CFL won't do any damage, but if everyone switched (as is being mandated in many countries), then toxic shock & serious environmental damage will ensue.

Let's also not forget that Al Gore also backed the censorship of music, believing that some lyrics praised the devil and/or cast spells when played backwards back in the 80s (and his wife even managed the efforts there, as well as writing a book that was almost as bad as something put out by Chick Publications). This is in addition to other stuff of a similar nature. This is NOT someone whose intellect I respect.

Finally, it's climate change, not global warming, which the Earth is constantly going through. Just as some glaciers are shrinking, others are growing, as usual. And one meeting about global warming had to be canceled due to an unexpected blizzard. And at least one piece of footage from An Inconvenient Truth was shown as being misleading (though I forget what). Computer simulations/models are notoriously unreliable, and furthermore I find it hard to take claims of what the weather will do a century from now seriously when they can barely predict what the weather will do next week!

posted April 05, 2009 07:10 AM            

That, and how much of environmental movements have been manipulated for cynical ends. As just one example, when DuPont was about to lose its patent on freon, it used several politicians and environmental activists to get it banned as harmful to the ozone. They succeeded right about when the patent expired...and DuPont released its new refrigerant, with full patent. Absolutely brilliant on DuPont's part, what fools were those trying to help the environment to allow themselves to be so gullibly manipulated. Repeated instances of this also make it difficult for me to take the message seriously.

In addition, so many claims of doom, including of environmental devastation, turned out to be wrong (in one case, the environment actually got better instead of worse despite being completely ignored), yet people are still quick to believe that the end is nigh.

And in more general terms? Let me be blunt:

I recall people who lived very eco-conscious lives. They lived in cob homes, harnessed wind & solar power, took solar-heated showers of rain water, did amazing things with compost...

But if most people did that, then where would Western Civilization get their wage slaves? After all, living like that means you don't have to keep paying for a home for decades, power on demand, consumerism...and without that there aren't anywhere as many taxes paid to decadent politicians and bloated bureaucracies, either, nor for the manufacturer and usage of munitions cause some of the worst environmental damages, and are made in part to enforce environmental laws, as well as spread our environment-raping culture.

And what would happen to the lumber industry if most homes require very little wood? And power companies when very few power tools are needed to construct superior homes? Not to mention most homes generating their own power (possibly with enough surplus to power the cities where that's less practical)? That not only does away with most power plants, but also interferes with government controls (for example, not being able to cut power to tax resistors, in addition to the severe loss in tax revenue anyway).

Deforestation and power use from building homes? We're bailing that industry out right now so they can keep up the rape of the environment for a dysfunctional culture. And then more paper for the bureaucrats, textbooks, endless forms, money...granted, going back to hemp paper (which was good enough for the US Constitution) would alleviate a lot of that, but how many actually do that? (And hemp also makes a good source for alternative fuels, such as for cars run on hemp fuel, among other things.)

posted April 05, 2009 04:04 PM            

I am quite sure there are ways to recycle most of anything we use rather than contribute to a mass dump... this is the responsibility if companies who package their recycable proucts should be packaged with recycable material...

The energy of the Earth can be used properly.... It's not being done now because it doesn't make sense economically.
Cars fuelled by water or electric?
A general cutback of energy used would be a huge difference.... (the big companies/corporations/businesses could easily do this)

posted April 05, 2009 07:02 PM            

"And what would happen to the lumber industry if most homes require very little wood? And power companies when very few power tools are needed to construct superior homes? Not to mention most homes generating their own power (possibly with enough surplus to power the cities where that's less practical)? That not only does away with most power plants, but also interferes with government controls (for example, not being able to cut power to tax resistors, in addition to the severe loss in tax revenue anyway)."

Yes Dervish thats a good question, what WOULD happen?

posted April 05, 2009 07:35 PM            

the more things change the more they stay the same!! and for every gain we humans create on earth we also create a deficit somewhere.

what would happen to the lumber companies! they would find something else to do!

as for people having their own power, that is one of my life dreams!! getting off the grid. and the funny thing is that it tends to be in places where too much government interference has sent prices too high and people - wait for it - use their ingenuity to find ways to compensate!!

as to the extra evaporation causing more storms, that is true. it also causes the balancing mechanisms of earth to come into play, and what usually results is _ an ice age...

but i am all for finding ways to CLEAN up the mess we have created, and cleaner engines ESPECIALLY in the industrial sector would make a big difference. on another thread i mentioned the climate change caused in london when smoke producing fires were banned...the peasoupers all but disappeared, and a lot of people's lung problems too. whether smokeless coal is more hazardous to your health longterm, i dunno.

its just possible that we humans will have to be sacrificed for the health of the planet and whatever creatures can thrive on nuclear waste, chemicals and s**t of other sorts which we have accumulated over the years. not that i want personally to be sacrificed.

posted April 05, 2009 10:01 PM            

quote:

---

CO2 is a natural gas and it’s produced in all living things. Of all the living things here on Earth, the largest producer of CO2 into the atmosphere is not done by humans, not even industry, cars, or planes. In fact the largest producers of CO2 comes from the oceans. Other big players in the contribution of CO2 include volcanoes, animals, dying vegetation, and bacteria. Animals and bacteria alone produce some 150Gigatonnes of CO2 each year compared to a mere 6.5Gigatonnes produced from humans.

All global warming models assume that man-made CO2 is the main cause of climate change rather than the sun or the clouds.

As stated, the largest producer of CO2 is from the oceans. The more they warm up the more they produce CO2. Conversely, the cooler they are, the more they suck in. But why is there a time lag of hundreds of years between the change in temperature and the change in the amount of carbon dioxide going into or out of the sea?

The reasons is that oceans are so big and so deep they take literally hundreds of years to warm up and cool down. The current warming trend started way before people had cars or even lights. In the past 150 years the world’s temperature has risen just over half a degree Celsius, but most of that rise occurred before 1940. Between 1940 and 1975 the temperature actually dropped.

If CO2 doesn’t drive the Earth’s climate. What does?

The answer is simple: - The Sun. To be more exact there is close correlation between what the sun was doing and changes in temperature on Earth. In fact solar activity (sun spot cycles) rose sharply to 1940 and fell back until the 1970’s.

We are in a sense inside the Sun’s atmosphere. The intensity of the Sun’s magnetic field more than doubled during the 20th century.

Global warming is happening on Mars and Pluto as well. Since there are no SUVs on Mars, CO2 can’t be causing global warming.

---

Hysteria attracts the very gullible.

That said, I do believe in climate change but I am more concerned with real pollution than with CO2. What are we going to do? Ban the Sun and the Oceans, ban all living things from dying?

The whole concept is absurd. We need to be focused on the real problems facing us, not blinded by the smokescreen "global warming = CO2 is evil" garbage that as a purpose has only the increase of taxes to pad beaucratic pockets.

And as for changing industries, I'm all for gradual changes. This immediate change crap that Obama has going on is only going to lead to more jobless people. Which I suppose is great for him and his socialistic hopes for the US. So much money he has set aside for "green" things without ANY plan set up. How the hell do you know how much something is going to cost if you don't even know what you're going to do?

I would love to see people embrace cleaner energy, recycle more, buy less crap, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of the things we use currently CANNOT be recycled in whole or in part because they are made from synthetics. For every person out there who wants things that don't destroy nature, there are people creating garbage out of synethic, chemical crap to appease them. Trees can grow back if you harvest them responsibly. People like vegans who "care" about animals need to think further ahead ... if you use an animal's skin for leather shoes, for example, that leather will wear away and it's organic matter; ie it won't end up in a landfill forever. However, if you buy a bunch of fake plastic shoes made up of a load of synethic chemicals, that WILL end up in a landfill for a very long time and that kind of pollution will end up doing more harm to all species of animals you supposedly care about, never mind the very process by which synethic materials are made to begin with. Along with that is the idea that people need to be responsible with their purchases and not just buy crap for the sake of buying crap. However, buying the bare minimum and living like an ascetic goes against the entire nature of our world. Merchants and artisans need money to survive, too. People are creative beings and they need to create ... and to survive they need to be able to barter (ie, modern selling) those goods to others for money or other goods.

I just read an article on yahoo about how businesses are suffering. You might think, hey, great, less consumerism but stop a minute and really think. Do you think Walmart and Costco are going to be hurt the most? No. The small businesses, especially the ones who support artisans and speciality goods, are already the first ones suffering, the first ones cutting back hours, employees, etc. We are moving AWAY from precisely the kind of change we need.

posted April 12, 2009 11:11 AM              

and i agree that the best way to avoid being used like a tool for our own death is to distance ourselves from this system. no need to fight it, it would be to give it substance. if it ain't right, it is inevitably doomed, unless we contribute to its survival by subscribing to it... in any ways.

and i believe that those who want this system to last are ready to use every methods to do that. even underhanded support (like giving worrying data) to sincere protestors worried by the situation. what else can u excpect from people who destroy the earth for some pieces of green papers locked up in safes???

posted April 12, 2009 11:07 PM            

Please don't give me the crap 'its global cooling'.

We live in a causal world. Every effect is preceded by a cause. That is there is no such thing as 'coincidence'.

Oh BTW, Gore is a Demagogue. Anyone noticed how fat he has become. Shouldn't he stop blurping and farting and contribute less to this global warming which he believes in