By Thong-girl, November 27 at 6:21 pm #

“If we’re serious about stopping human influence on the planet…”

Many of us have no reason to want to stop human influence on the planet.  And
for those of us here now, having pets and trading markets are perfectly good
things to do and we’re not going to stop because someone who hates these
things tells us they’re evil.

If you wanna get existential about it, consider that the entire planet will one
day burn up when the sun goes super nova.  In the meantime, we resident
humans wanna enjoy full lives and fulfill our natural procreative urges till the
party ends.  And if our kids put their collective heads together along the way,
we might just figure out how to get the hell of this rock so some of us can
carry on somewhere else after the mother ship goes down the tubes… and
maybe we can take a few of those pets with us too.

Mother of all our Problems:  Divisiveness, inflexibility, lack of imagination, lack of faith.

How to stop wars, murder and violence?
How to prevent or minimize global warming?
How to end economic injustice, grow enough food,   
  provide enough jobs,stop cutting down trees,etc.?
How to stop, clean up and prevent pollution?
How to manage “religious and ideological craziness”?
    (not necessarily in the order named)
    (It would take years of hard work!)
If we as intelligent human beings get together and do what the vast majority know in our bones needs
to be done, even little by little,there is hope. If somebody somewhere started a World People’s Party, with the primary intention of coming together on these problems as an agenda, what would you do? (Each one’s answer would determine THE answer.)

“Imagine all the people ... ”

DaveZx3,

“Here is a major tenet of teaching of Jesus Christ:” 

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”
~~~

The Dalai Lama has said, “Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people’s suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal.”

And to that end, since the beginning of recorded thought, the practice of Reciprocity has been taught and encouraged. Which goes hand in glove with the teaching of judge not lest you be judged, and the lessons of accountability.

Christianity:
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:1

Confucianism:
Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.
Analects 12:2

Shinto:
“Be charitable to all beings, love is the representative of God.”
Ko-ji-ki Hachiman Kasuga
 
Buddhism:
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
Udana-Varga 5,1

Sikhism:
“No one is my enemy, none a stranger and everyone is my friend.”
Guru Arjan Dev : AG 1299
 
Hinduism:
This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.
Mahabharata 5,1517
 
Islam:
No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
Sunnah

Judaism:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.
Talmud, Shabbat 3id

Taoism:
Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien
 
Zoroastrianism:
That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself.
Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5

Native American Spirituality:
“Do not wrong or hate your neighbor. For it is not he who you wrong, but yourself.”
Pima proverb.

Roman Pagan Religion:
“The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves.”

Ancient Egyptian:
“Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do.”
1970 to 1640 BCE perhaps the earliest version of Reciprocity ever written.

Plato:
“May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.”
Greece; 4th century BCE

Socrates:
“Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.”
Greece; 5th century BCE

So, I reiterate,  the challenge is how to determine what and who a true Christian is. Because if people everywhere adhere to the teaching of their historical beliefs, they are all what our contemporary world likes to define as “Christian” people of good will.

So it really comes down to good and bad, an extremely important tenet of the leaders of organized religion, in spite of the fact that sitting about judging others is frowned on in most religious teachings.

I’ll stick with my premise, “The task of deciding who is good and who is bad, which is true and which is lie, is best left for us all to decide regarding our individual behaviors, in our own private dealings with our own private demons.”

And that is a never-ending, on-going, daily challenge my friend. At least if we are honest with ourselves.

Night-Gaunt, December 1 at 3:25 am #

“There is no such thing as Islamic Extremism”

The teachings of Christ are completely non-violent.

I have heard that the teachings of Muhammed say to kill pagans.  Maybe that is not true, and maybe the muslims do not follow that teaching, I don’t know.  Most Muslims I know do not seem like extremists because they ignore verses 9-5 and 9-29 among others, and thank Allah for that. 

I do not follow the christian religions, no matter what the brand is.  I find that they all contradict each other and completely ignore the teaching of Christ.  But I have always had a hard time following the ideas of men with agendas. 

I do not bother much with bible translations either.  I find that most men really don’t write that well, especially when trying to chew gum at the same time. 

I looked into evolution, as we discussed many times before, and I found it to be totally lacking in real hard evidence.  But that’s just me.  Skeptical of scientists with an agenda and skeptical of politicians with an agenda. 

I looked into AGW, and found it severely lacking in evidence also.  If there was abundant evidence, scientists would not have to fight so hard and falsify data.  11 Ice ages during the 2million+ year Pleistocene age show me that the earth freezes, and then it thaws, and then it freezes, and then it thaws.  Man was not around for those 11 documented cycles, so why is he suddenly to blame for everything?  Carbon emissions are a small player when it comes to global climate.  But that’s just me.  Skeptical of scientist with an agenda and skeptical of politicians with an agenda.

You already know my positions on these things, so why do you keep asking these questions?  What do you think I am going to change my mind?

Louise, December 1 at 2:55 pm #

“OK, so the challenge is how to determine what and who a true Christian is”

No Louise, it is not a challenge.  Here is a major tenet of teaching of Jesus Christ: 

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”

He also stated that you were his follower if you kept his commands, most of which were given on the Sermon on the Mount. 

The people who commit atrocities in the name of Jesus Christ are not his followers.  They are what is known as the “false church”.  They have a different agenda.  They are found in very, very large numbers, where the authentic followers are in extremely small numbers.  You can tell the real ones, they follow the commands. 

It is not a challenge to know the difference.  Actually, it is extremely simple because the teachings of Jesus Christ are extremely clear, direct and well documented.  What is there not to understand?

Did Muhammed teach and command the nation of Islam?  Yes, he did. 

Doesn’t it make sense that if you call yourself a follower of someone that you actually do what he taught?  Or have we become so relatively discombobulated that you can say you are a Democrat, but act exactly like a Republican?

Christ made it simple.  He stated that he only considered people who actually did his teaching to be his followers.  He described others as counterfeits.

DaveZx3,

“There is no such thing as Christian Extremism.”
~~~

I’m not sure that would comfort the thousands and thousands who’ve been racked and hung, tortured and beheaded, or slaughtered on the battle fields of “Christian” salvation. Not to mention the many burned at the stake. Or those who’ve been sexually abused by a priest or preacher cloaked in the protection of “Christianity.” Or the abuse of elected office all in the name of God. And at this time, in this country (the US) that abuse is coming from “good” Christians, which leaves one wondering what the word good means.

~~~
“Just because someone says they are a Christian does not mean that they are a follower of Christ.  True Christians follow the teachings of Christ and are not noted for being a danger to the world.”
~~~

OK, so the challenge is how to determine what and who a true Christian is. A sticky problem which shouldn’t be left to simple minds, or even complex ones. The task of deciding who is good and who is bad, which is true and which is lie, is best left for us all to decide regarding our individual behaviors, in our own private dealings with our own private demons. Otherwise, we end up in messes not unlike our current mess. So many people who know absolutely nothing about Islam, for example, blaming Islam for the worlds ills. Likewise so many people blaming Christianity for the worlds ills.

I personally prefer to blame organised religion.

If we want to give God credit for creating the earth, and life in all forms, we have to agree he/she is a master of organization. Able to adapt,  evolve, and make changes that meet the needs of a changing environment. Organized religion on the other hand is a creation of man, and is quite unable to make changes, or adapt to the needs of a changing world. Stuck in neutral, the organizations of man eventually slide off a cliff, because the rigidity of the organization will not allow a sharp turn.

That alone should cause one to wonder about the value of such an organization.

~~~
“Read some literature on Yellowstone.  There are things which could be done to
significantly minimize the death caused by such a catastrophe, yet it is totally
not reported.”
~~~ 

Short of evacuating one third of the nation, there is little that could be done to significantly minimize the death caused by an eruption of the Yellowstone caldera. Because we are not exactly sure how big it is, where and when it might pop the lid, and which way the wind will be blowing at the time of eruption. Or how long that ash cloud will circle the globe, or when and where it will settle back to earth. All of which could lead to loss of food and water and the loss of life.

Perhaps in the name of safety, we need to evacuate all those areas that lie on an earthquake prone fault zone. Then we can focus on evacuating all the folks that live in a flood plane. And while we’re at it, evacuate everybody who lives in an area prone to hurricanes and tornadoes.

And with a little research, we can find other areas that might cause death in the future, like any place below a dam, or on a coastline, or where blizzards and droughts occur. And anywhere there might be a forest fire, a wildfire, or a nuclear ooops!

Eventually we can identify any and all potential threats (well except for maybe the sky is falling) and remove the population away from the danger, to a safer place.

Is there such a place? Maybe we could all go live on the moon.

Meanwhile, the best thing we can all do is prepare an emergency survival kit. Learn how to use it, and hope we never have to. And give a little thought to the National Guard. Because as our efforts to finish what Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney the Dick started when they decided to play warrior, continue to deplete our military ... we are going to need a ready Guard to step up and help us get through any approaching calamity!

And maybe we need to learn how to make fire from scratch.

We are all blind in some one else eyes. In the way Christianity is taught in the Bible (all versions) those who do not see the “obvious” are blind like myself. I don’t see that the absence of evidence is the evidence of evidence. [With no apologies to D. Rumsfeld.] It is easy when the invisible claims to have created everything and therefor is evidence of itself. But even so one cannot question for it violated the idea of sincere belief without proof. A cagey conundrum necessary to keep the sheep in line by the sheep herder. Any who did question and didn’t take to the fixing of their minds may have ended up dead or outcast.

Now with the ongoing climate change despite those damning E-mails that will hurt many people. Those who will suffer because of those who take the evidence of tampering to damn any idea of fixing our problems which are proved by many other sources. All the other factors that could change things on earth may not be able to be affected, or protected from by us but Climate Change is something that begs not to be ignored either. We do so at our peril.

Night-Gaunt, December 1 at 3:25 am

A brilliant and common sense response, in my opinion. Thanks for it, but I fear it wasted on the blind.

“There is no such thing as Islamic Extremism.  Allah said that he knows who his people are by whether or not they follow what he said.  He said that false followers would come along, and false churches would be established.  Just because someone says they are a Muslim does not mean that they are a follower of Allah.  True Muslims follow the teachings of Allah and are not noted for being a danger to the world.  They are not even known to be very evident in the world. They are an extremely small minority which do not say much at all.  You probably don’t know any of them.” How does that sound to you with my little substitutions?

Just because they take one of the more violent themes in the Bible doesn’t make them something else for they are Christian just a particular type. Tell me which Christianity you follow DaveZx3? And which Bible translation do you follow? Just curious.

It seems that you are immune from scientific and visual data on climate change as much a concerning evolution DaveZx3 which is consistent. But if we go up as much as 3 degrees C it won’t be a good place to live for billions here so it is just as important and it will affect everyone on the earth and in the oceans. Not that it isn’t happening now.

Night-Gaunt,

This is the big booger: . By the name of DD45. My boss told me about it, so they did know well in advance and he was sweating! I’m afraid all I have to rely on are the words of a guy who “used” to work for N.A.S.A. (and he really IS a rocket scientist!) and a guy who won’t work for N.A.S.A. lol. But I remember the good doctor because he truly was everywhere. Talked to John Stewart about it too. And all the night shows. And History channel. Everyone else was laughing it off and he said, “Wait for 2016”. Guess they told him to shut up because I’ve been looking for the interviews and they’ve gone *poof*. Maybe I can find the John Stewart interview tonight at work.

And the sunspots are getting up there, apparently. They skew cable transmitions. We lost 3 channels last night at the hotel and it wasn’t anything equipment related. Been through that one myself one year at the cable company. Only affects cable with dishes, though.

I wonder what people are doing to stop the carbon monoxide blowing out of lakes and the Bermuda Triangle? If you get a chance to look up “Mythbusters”, they did a beauty show on it, and it stalls out plane engines at just 1%. They were shocked too. And all that prehistoric ice melting. Huge clouds of carbon monoxide going into the air, earth, water from them! Not to mention the creatures around before man. Worms and fungi, yes, but they’re affecting things too. It’s old news, but you like reading for yourself, so try this: Gushing from a glacier, rust-stained Blood Falls contains evidence that microbes have survived in prehistoric seawater deep under ice for perhaps millions of years, a new study says.

The funny part of Yellowstone is Americans aren’t even paying attention to all the volcanic activity throughout the world. Eruptions breaking surface of sea water, new islands forming, Mt. Redoubt in Alaska erupting. amazing the potential of people who say they’re avowed “Earthers” and when you mention a new chain of eruptions in a foreign sea, they invariably say, “Oh well, that’s not anywhere near us.”

Really. Naked on the roof with my gun and some wine coolers when things start rumbling! I plan to really enjoy the hectic panic and shouting! lol. But, until that time, I’ll enjoy the flyfishing, at least in summer.

Night-Gaunt, November 30 at 4:32 pm #

“Right now it isn’t Islamic extremism that threatens the world but Christian
extremism from the USA or hadn’t any of you noticed”

There is no such thing as Christian Extremism.  Christ said that he knows who
his people are by whether or not they follow what he said.  He said that false
followers would come along, and false churches would be established.  Just
because someone says they are a Christian does not mean that they are a
follower of Christ.  True Christians follow the teachings of Christ and are not
noted for being a danger to the world.  They are not even known to be very
evident in the world.  They are an extremely small minority which do not say
much at all.  You probably don’t know any of them. 

Regarding so-called global warming,  no one answered my questions regarding
why this is the threat du-jour?  It is a potential threat at best, while there are
absolute real threats out there which are thousands of times more serious.  Why
is global warming the only thing I keep hearing about?  Why is it so special? 
Why has it become so politicized?  I say Yellowstone is the most serious threat
we have out there at this very minute, and there are many, many who think that
way also. 

Read some literature on Yellowstone.  There are things which could be done to
significantly minimize the death caused by such a catastrophe, yet it is totally
not reported. 

I am just asking why do the powers that be only seem to concentrate on global
warming?  There does not seem to be any real reason to just focus on that one
single threat, especially with such vigorous methods such as falsifying data and
squelching dissidents.  I am an extreme skeptic with regards to this issue
because of these things, and nothing I read helps me change my mind.

No WykydRed “Apophis” is the name of that killer asteroid so why don’t you look it up? Yes it is named after the nightmare god of the Abyss of the Egyptians that would try to stop the sun from rising every day. So you might get the idea how potentially dangerous this asteroid is? And it will make a 7 year return in 2029-2036 very close, don’t you see? I have not heard of this other one so I am thinking you didn’t hear all of what Dr. De Grasse Tyson was talking about & that this is the one “dude.” So what can I look up exactly? Unless you have more data like its name perhaps?

Yes all things die but they all don’t commit suicide either. Fatalism is fatal for long life but is good for a short run. My point was we should do what we can with what we can actually affect. But only if we stop fighting big wars and positioning for world power etc can we utilize our resources to do such things. Right now it isn’t Islamic extremism that threatens the world but Christian extremism from the USA or hadn’t any of you noticed?

DaveZx3 global warming affects all of us including you. There are enough indicators to see something is going on and it wouldn’t be occurring right now if we hadn’t caused it. Now we are going into a natural warming trend and it could really get bad really fast & just carrying on as if it isn’t happening is waiting for a wreck to happen.

If we used our collective brains coupled with humanistic ideas & feelings of altruism and mutual aid we wouldn’t be teetering on catastrophe. From food and water shortages to diseases and other problems related to population, resource exhaustion and climate change all working together. We can solve it or at least minimize its effects but we will have to work together. But will we? Part of evolution is in behavior—-things change but you don’t you become extinct. Humans have a peculiar talent for ignoring what is around them. No way around that if enough of us don’t change our behavior now.

Well, well, well.  All this talk, when the ‘birthers’ and ‘tea-partiers’ and ‘death panelists’ and ‘the-earth-is-6,000-years-old bunch have the definitive answer, to wit, all this talk of global warming is nothing but an “atheist conspiracy.” 

For those who accept global warming as a present phenomenon, no argument is necessary.  For those who don’t, no argument is possible.

Melting and freezing and fire, oh my!

And death and disease and taxes, oh my!

And Congress and Kings and Oprah, oh my!

And earthquake and flood and hunger, oh my!

And war, and more war and God’s work, oh my!

Not to worry, the “second coming” is coming any day now.

And the good will get thrown off and the bad will fry.

(some choice, eh?)

But lets not spend a lot of time trying to figure out which is the good and who are the bad, ‘cause earthquakes and floods, and eruptions and fire, and stuff falling out of the sky cant tell the difference. And deep down inside, we all know that, right? Else why would we spend so much time fighting over that which we can not control?

Frustration, oh my.

Rather, why don’t we all enjoy the opportunity we have to study and learn? Personally, I find study worthwhile. And I’m actually glad we have folks looking into all the possible ways our world could end, fascinating reading. And even though we all know a book or report, hypothesis or study (or money)cant change what mother earth may have in store for us, still we have an advantage over our way back ancestors. When their end came they didn’t have a clue why.

On the other hand, maybe they were the ones with the advantage. They didn’t have to face the horror of losing access to their money or stuff. They didn’t have to anguish over their lost computer, or email, or twitter. They didn’t sit about stewing and wondering when “they” would get the power back on ... or how to phone home. They just survived, well enough of them to keep human evolution going, anyway.

Death comes unexpected. Even when we know it’s coming the reality is still a shock. So while I don’t encourage the witless practise of “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” I do encourage make every moment of every day count, because tomorrow never comes ... when it gets here it’s today. And yesterday is gone forever ... no do-overs allowed.

And by the way, that’s the real tragedy of war. No do-overs allowed. So it really doesn’t matter who wins or loses, because we all lose. And that my dear friends is why organized religion is so important. Somewhere in time someone came with the most excruciatingly painful clap-trap, “it’s God’s will,” which allows those who would control, more control. And guarantees the “faithful” will not understand every violent death is a personal loss, no matter which side of the religious hokum one stands on.

All the same, it’s good to be prepared. At least to the extent that we in our infinite helplessness can be prepared. Prepare a survival kit, just in case you or I happen to survive. Most important of all, take a moment today and let your loved ones know they are loved.

And it might be a good idea to learn how to make fire from scratch.

Here is a quote from the article entitled “Supervolcano Politics” of March 20, 2007
by Stephen Neitzke in the Populist. 

“It doesn’t help that the Al Qaeda message that went along with the Madrid bombings (11 March 2004) mentioned the “black wind of death” that will blow over America. If Yellowstone 4 is a medium rip, its volcanic/nuclear winter will run six to ten years. And there seems to be many ways that an Al Qaeda nuc could be delivered to near-enough the Yellowstone magma chamber to start it blowing”

Full article is here: 

http://www.populistamerica.com/supervolcano_politics

Contrary to your constant accusations, I am not picking on the Muslim community.  I am picking on a number of groups of radical Islamic warriors that have declared war on the United States, rightly or wrongly, and would be happy to destroy it by whatever means they could.

Current scientific estimates are that Yellowstone may not be a world-wide extinction event, possibly not even a US-wide extinction event if properly prepared for. 

I only bring up this subject because this is a natural disaster in the making which can happen more rapidly and more destructively than the slower, potentially less disastrous global warming scenario.

Why do our salvationists such as Al Gore only warn us about the disasters that they are prepared to make money off of? 

Why is data falsified to keep AGW at the head of the list of disasters which must be addressed instantly? 

Why has global warming taken on a polarization of the population that almost rivals the gay issues, or even abortion?

Why is AGW such a special case, given all the disaster scenarios we should be preparing for? 

I ask these questions not rehetorically, but expecting to understand the nature of all this a little better, but also understanding that TruthDiggers probably do not have the answers.

DaveZx3, November 29 at 11:01 am #

By ardee, November 29 at 9:51 am

“increasing fascism that accompanies scaring the public half to death with such science fiction crap as this “

In a free country, everyone gets to choose what brand of fascism and science fiction scares them half to death.  I choose the Yellowstone super volcano.  You can choose global warming if you want.

No ,Dave, what you have chosen, yet again, is to vilify the Muslim community with the thought that radical islamofascists would destroy the world instead of just seeking an end to Western meddling in their region.

Yeah, most people get all pissy and start handing out “Don’t worry! Be happy!” posters covered in glitter when people bring in anthropology and science. They get pissed because the true nature of Man doesn’t match their “Fiddle-dee-dee” philosophy that denies facts and truths in favor of living in a self-serving fog that grants them power over the lives of others.

I wonder what would happen if America was like China in matters of suicide? Karma is karma and you don’t poke your nose into someone else’s karma. In China, if you stop a guy from jumping off a building, hey, you’re responsible for that guy for the rest of his life. Why? You stepped in, kicked his karma aside and took things into your own hands. I wonder, human nature being what it is and all, what would happen if, in America, whoever stops a suicide would be responsible for that person. I’m sure they’d be millions of people willing to give up their money and time, to make sure that person was tended for for the rest of their lives. La-dee-dee….

Hey, if you find light and happiness, GOOD! Believe it or not, everyone does. You ain’t special. Someone wants to kill themselves that you don’t know? Oh, just like man to be so superior to decide someone else is wrong and take it into their own hands to force THEIR will on another.

This is a planet. It does not follow our rules, beliefs, “faiths” or anything else man makes. Things fall out of the sky or smash into planets, despite life being on it. I am of the opinion rocks flying about in a giant space filled with magnetic fields and gravities do not have any moral demeanor. I do not believe volcanic eruptions ask themselves “I wonder if I’ll hurt anything?” before they blow. I do not sleep better at night knowing my government - and it’s HIGHLY armed and pretty much amoral thugs - are “keeping things safe”. I do know that, given any prior warning that something is about to hit/blow/melt/flood or catch on fire, our government, whose humans in it know mankind way too well, will give us 3 days notice we’re all going to die. Why? Human nature! While a few believe they are so highly evolved that the rest of us should catch up and carry the sparkly posters, 99.9% of us, if given say ... a week’s notice we ARE all going to die in a big batch, will run out and loot (See: Britain’s findings on a survey about the end of the world). Some will pray, and some will prey. We will kill each other. We will throw people down and rape them. We will kill kids who have annoyed us, even in the past. We will break windows and burn down things and do things we have always wanted to do unto others, but being shot by a S.W.A.T. team or thrown in jail for life stopped us.

And the self-serving would deny a dying person a last drink of water if they stumbled and fell with a cigarette in their mouth. But only in America. The rest of the world wouldn’t give a single damn. Even with tons of ash and rock falling and everyone gasping their last, there would be people who want to lecture the smoker about how “bad” it is for them. (Yes, people ARE that badly self-righteous).

Try being a night auditor at a hotel that sees a lot of traffic from Californians. Oh the tales that are told about “humanity” when you see these assholes for yourself! That is when you know - not guess or hope - for a fact, “humanity’s” dying will be of zero consequence, and definitely a good thing.

Doom and gloom!  Fatalism!  Reading back over this long and mournful string, I can only gather one conclusion:  We are in a hopeles situation! 
  Sounds like the “Samson Option” in several different scenarios—climate change, incessant war, overpopulation, calderas, meteorites,—and nobody knows what to do except talk,  and most of the people are in denial.
  The Samson Option, in case anybody doesn’t know about it, is the suggestion of mass suicide in order to “solve” (escape from) a problem the masses don’t or can’t solve. It is a form of escapism, pathetic and deplorable—and not really a solution, psychologically “sick”—or at least unhealthy.
  Individuals kill themselves sometimes when they see no other way out of their personal dilemma and no one is there to stop them. The massive size of current problems and their intransigence easily impact masses of people with similar feelings of helplessness and incapability.  Such defeatism has to be fought against to be avoided.
  Solutions!  Solutions!  We need to be reminded of the spirit of love for human live that makes it possible to find and employ solutions! 
  So much here indicates a disgust, a disdain for humanity that is truly discouraging.  But isn’t it cowardly to admit that we (you and I) have created these problems and yet scorn making the changes that will free us from our own mistakes (“sins” if you will)?  Are we only able to crawl in a hole and wait—and write comments on our own demise to be sure that others who follow us will know that we knew what was happening—and refused the challenge?
  Really, I think columns like this are all too common and destructive.  Hypnotic, even. At the risk of being scorned: 
  NIGHT JOURNEY:  I fight against demons. They are murderers for no reason, mendacious, crafty, belligerent and stupid, and it ocurs to me daily that Adam and Eve should have been strangled in their cradles. 
  I fight until my soul exhausts itself, and my mind is crazed by the sharp edges of rage, rant and calumny that burn all common sense to cinders and reconciliation to ash. 
  And I reach for help—a rope, a strap, a ledge to use as foothold, grasp as anchor.  My God!  Why hast thou forsaken me?
And there upon the wall appear the dancers—the elk, the bison the fish, the birds, the turtles—a historiography, a pantosophy of praise and wild abandon, and I turn, laughing, toward you, my companion, strip you naked of all darkness and defeat
and we lie down together and love in furious worship, singing to the sun’s rise in the distant East.

D.R. Zing,

Apology accepted.

Everything else you said I agree with, except, we must do more than just ensure “the long-term survival of our species”. Ecological collapse affects more than just humans. We are on the brink of the fifth mass extinction; the first one caused by a species on the planet: namely us. This is not something to be proud of.

D.R. Zing, November 29 at 3:57 pm :
’... The time to change is now….

Well, no, not unless you’re talking about hysteria or random floundering.

Plainsman:

Point noted and taken.

My apologies.

I screwed up.

To D.R. Zing:

I pretty much agree with you, and I am doing my share, like:
1. No car, use only public transit, live a simple life so as to use fewer resources, try to eliminate the use of plastic bags, recycle stuff.
2. Try to get my locality not to sell their excess water to Dubai and other sand and oil countries.
3. Support a Palestinian state.

Copenhagen might be of some value if instead of global climate change they spent time planning for things like:
1. Eliminating toilets and put human wastes to use in agriculture;
2. Making plans for how to feed people if once-fertile agricultural areas can no longer produce, for example, in India and the USA where recent floods have decimated harvests.
3. Getting the UN to mandate that no ship may drop its wastes into the ocean, and all ships traversing oceans must pick up their share of wastes (see the continent-sized dump in the Pacific);
4. Placing sanctions on rogue states (like Israel and the US) that are existential threats to the entire globe or to other nations;
5. And on and on.

No, Night-Gaunt, it isn’t “Apophis”. That’s some religious, cracker-nut weirdness. This is a very large meteor and the good Dr. talks about it. Well, he tried, as no one knew for certain it would hit. And the orbit is on a 7 year cycle. Read up on the dude. He’s fricken hilarious and very, very well respected. It’s just more scientific shit falling out of the sky (or in this case, flying around in an eliptical orbital path.

People get weird about scientific fact because the godders like to insist it’s some invisible being’s hand. Actually, it’s just usually black holes or huge chunks of rock that are everywhere in the universe.

And, yeah. I’m ready. If Yellowstone blows, Colorado will be one of the states that goes up and I’m good with that. Not that I mind eating human flesh to stay alive, but it isn’t really an issue when you’re dead. Add to that the fact that no one is going to be warned and not allowed to run anyway, and it’s under the heading of “Just shit that happens”. I’m sure idiots will want to desert America, but good luck there! People in this country think a mega-volcano is like any other volcano and they’ll live through it. They start jumping on boats and try to outrun the extinction, they’re going to find that not only are Americans truly hated in the world, they ain’t gonna find a place to land. Not without being killed, as every single place is going to be going shit-wacky trying to keep THEIR citizens alive a little while longer. My relatives are begging me to gather up my small family and get to Norway before it happens, as once it does, no one will be getting into Norway either. And every household there is required to be armed as everyone is considered Home Guard.

I don’t panic over this shit. Everything that lives, dies. And I’m sure that will become evident to the racists and immigration-reform folks if they try to run to Mexico. Good luck there! lol. I find only Americans seem to gasp and look hideously aggrieved when it’s mentioned that with all the plants and animals dying, people everywhere will not let any outsiders in, but when it comes to them, oh yes! Of course they’d let people in! Yeah bullshit. But hey, the politicians will survive. For a little while.

D.R. Zing,

You might want to re-read my first comment instead of taking one of my sentences out of context. “The question is whether [climate] change is being caused by humans and if so why?” 

This is what I also said in case you can’t scroll that far down or past the first paragraph:

“There is a more serious problem that is being neglected in a discussion of the environment which focuses on so-called greenhouse gases. Toxins and all of the other stuff we are dumping into the earth, air, and water. But there is no money in that. In fact, stopping production of all the chemical inputs that home owners, golf course managers, and farmers make use of to limit “weeds” and artificially enhance plant growth would put some powerful mega-corporations out of business.

There is, however, a potentially huge cash cow in carbon credits for those who have positioned themselves to milk it. . . .”

I am aware of other facets of environmental abuse by our species. In fact I am doing something about it: replanting the few acres I call home with indigenous flora and next to no lawn.

I know this isn’t “Apophis” you are talking about which isn’t due till April 13, 2029 [Friday] and then will pass again on the same day & month in 2036, right WykydRed? That one will be very close and it may actually hit us. In 2029 it is expected to pass so close it will go within the orbits of some of our satellites! What it does then can determine what will probably happen in 2036. We can do something about this if we weren’t playing at world empire but it just isn’t as profitable now.

As for the Yellowstone caldera*—-we can monitor and we can prepare (see above as to why we won’t) and don’t forget the New Madrid fault which is due as well to go off and it could kill many millions unlike in 1812 when it was sparsely populated.

We are in deep excreta even without those three swords over our heads. But then the way we have changed the earth is our own short sighted fault. It is up to us to correct it before Nature does. Then only the most hardened poor and the best prepared rich will survive in that harsher world. Are you ready?

* A much easier thing if someone wanted to real put a crimp in the growing American Empire is to go to the Canary Islands and detonate along the western ocean shelf and let millions of tons of earth displace the water and let our eastern seaboard get hit by one or more 100’ waves. It is a risk right now of it falling on its own. Just add that to the list. The least likely is exotic matter reaching earth and converting everything it touches to exotic matter. We should spend time, effort and money on solving those things we can have a chance of controlling.

Hey DaveZx3? Actually, Yellowstone is more that over 600,000 years overdue to blow! And, the constant earthquakes in that area that reflect the lava moving have jumped in frequency. The guys from the University of Texas and two vulcanologist I talked to say in the last year they’ve gone from 700 a day to 900, but it took awhile as the vulcanologist from Italy was a little tricky to understand. The REALLY fun part is, now they’ve found “sticky lava” under the caldera. That’s the stuff that took the Krakatoa eruption up 100,000 times what it would have normally been.

I was at work one night when a really, really strange…“ripple” went under the hotel. Standing on the floor, you could feel it like a small wave, and yes, it was kinda liquidy. Only lasted about 5 seconds but it went on to Utah and caused a bit of queasiness there. So I’m hoping that one hits first. Should take out 6 states and eat California real quick with everything in between.

There’s also the meteor that recently just missed earth that Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson warned us 3 years ahead of time. I remember he went on every show he could find to talk about it and when it was due (he was a microsecond off when it passed a certain point on earth) He said everyone in astrophysics was hoping it would hit the first time, as it would cause less damage than if it missed. Well, it missed, and Americans are befuddled, as though they’ve never heard of it, despite being on every news broadcast and newspaper in and off the internet! He said it’s orbit would bring it back in 7 years (so that’s 5 more on the actual countdown) and this time, it would hit. It’s big, so it’s extinction time, but people are still nattering about “hope” for “some” survivors of the human race. Man I hope not. I think the Big Mother is bored with the life forms infesting her and she’s ready for a whole new set.

As for 2012 folks, it would be great if it was like the movie, except the arks would rupture and kill everyone and the water would not recede anytime this century. But, the Mayans never said the world would end on Dec. 22, 2012. Their calendar just points at “a great change in the world.” So we can’t count on that. But I am glad Dr. Tyson turned down Obama to head N.A.S.A. He’s a wonderfully likable guy and funny as hell! I like his outlook on things and try to catch him on the History Channel whenever he’s on. I love how he talks about “the end” and how only a black hole will destroy the earth.

But that’s what it’s really about. Everyone says “we’re killing the earth” or “the earth is in trouble.” No she’s not. LOL. The Earth is fine. WE’RE in trouble. And it’s about time! Overbreeding, all the machines and electronic signals and poisons and sewage problems. The earth is just on her natural course of melting the old to form the new and she don’t care about us one damn bit! We’ll go with the polar bears and psalm-singers demanding how important and sacred human life is. It’s a good thing the rest of the universe don’t see it that way.

I think it’s going to be like the earth-sized meteor that came out of nowhere while 2 billion people were watching the skies with their telescopes and collecting data to share with N.A.S.A. and S.E.T.I. and everything. One minute, nothing, star gazers turned their backs for a few hours, WHAM! Something earth-sized hit Jupiter and left a big, black stain. No one knew it was coming, no one knew it had hit until the black mark shows up. lol

It ain’t the things you KNOW that will get you. It’s the things you aren’t looking at that will.

Sorry to pick on you out of all the posters, but I LOVE Yellowstone blowing and I like to watch the scientists and all cry outside at night. But they get pissed when you cheerfully ask them, “Sooo? When’s she gonna blow, folks?”

To plainsman:

You state:

“The question is whether the change is being caused by humans and if so why?” 

That is not an important question. 

The important question is: 

Are human beings on a path to ecological collapse? 

The answer is Yes. 

Yes, we are on the path to ecological collapse. 

Yes, we need to stop overpopulation now. 

Yes, we need to change our economic policies.

Yes, we need to change our methods of farming.

Yes, we need to stop fighting perpetual wars and imposing imperialism.

Yes, we need to move past this absurd debate about climate change and start changing our lifestyles and economic policies to support the long-term survival of our species.

Yes, we need a sustainable culture, not a disposable one.

To Dayahka:

Then pick an issue, any issue, and go there. Suppose your point of view is correct: There’s nothing we can do about global climate change.

Then what about destruction of forests and jungles? 

What about rivers, streams and bayous in our own United States where the fish are poisoned, where the state posts warnings saying not to eat the fish? 

What about the big fish in the ocean that we cannot eat too often because of heavy metal contamination?

What about the dust bowl in the twentieth century, do you want that happening over the entire continent of Africa?

What about clean water?  Accessible water?  One of the big, rarely spoken about issues with Israel and the Palestinians is access to clean water. Do you want your grandkids dying and fighting wars for access to drinking water?

What about overpopulation, why don’t you take a stand against overpopulation? That is the underlying problem for most of the issues listed above.

Pig shit, cow shit, blowing the tops off mountains for coal—pick an issue, my friend. They’re all just as big as global climate change. 

Your red herring argument about “global warming” is well stated and meaningless.  We are destroying the ecosystem—that’s the system that allows our species to live healthy productive lives—and we are at risk of an ecological collapse—that’s the one where your grandchildren dine on cockroaches. 

Get real.

The sad thing is that Mr. Robinson feels the need to pen a column about this issue. 

The real issue, the one we are not discussing because the whackos have been so successful at derailing serious debates, is: are we on the path to ecological collapse?

Scientists who study ecology say we are.  They say if you look back at past ecological collapses we are following that pattern. 

—We are killing off plants (read: entire forests and jungles)

—We are destroying arable land that once supported small groups of people who were able to grow their own food.

—We are polluting the water.

—We are polluting the air. 

—We are contaminating our most important food supply, the one most likely responsible for our big water-monkey brains, fish. 

—And, yes, the earth is getting warmer in a cycle that is much faster than normal cycles and with that warmth will come erratic weather patterns, more hurricanes in places prone to hurricanes, more violent snowstorms in places prone to snowstorms, longer droughts in places prone to droughts, and, ironically, perhaps a very quickly enusing ice age if desalinization of the ocean caused from massive ice melt disrupts The Gulf Stream, that massive current in the Atlantic Ocean that conveys warm water right past England all the way to Greenland. Counter-intuitivie isn’t it? That global warming may result in global freezing?  That’s why the terms are global climate change, not the global warming or even worse the greenhouse effect. 

Economic policies and theories will have to change if our species is to remain intact.  That’s not to say we’re all gonna die.  But it could mean a helluva a lot of do die before we figure things out. 

The time to change is now.  One hundred years from now our grandchildren won’t be worried about terrorists. They’ll be worried about finding nonpoisonous food and decontaminated water. And they will be asking:

What the hell were they thinking? 

Couldn’t they see it coming? 

The answers are we were thinking plenty about it. But we lived in a era consumed with wars from past centuries.

And, yes, we could see it coming.  But when you live in a war and imperialism for centuries your news media become puppets of government war policy and economic policies that support the war policy. 

And, as Mr. Robinson alludes above, they believe giving pathological liars who rely on shoddy science to buttress unsustainable economic models—they believe giving those people a forum constitutes objectivity. It does not. 

But to readers of the future:  That’s why we screwed you. We burned up your resources fighting wars.  Sorry about that. Best of luck with life among the cockroaches.

There’s a mistaken belief that human beings/behavior do not (and maybe cannot) affect climate.  Historical evidence reveals otherwise.

At the time of the Black Death, mainly in Europe, millions died, enough to result in a drastic reduction in farming (a dearth of farm workers and a smaller population to feed.)  As a result a lot of farm land reverted to forests.  Trees eat carbon-dioxide.  Result - a ‘little’ Ice Age.

Either intentionally or unintentionally, human beings/behavior affect climate.

By ardee, November 29 at 9:51 am

“increasing fascism that accompanies scaring the public half to death with such science fiction crap as this “

In a free country, everyone gets to choose what brand of fascism and science fiction scares them half to death.  I choose the Yellowstone super volcano.  You can choose global warming if you want.
My neighbor is still worried about the bird flue.
I know a lot of people who buy into the 2012 scenario, then there are asteroids, world takeover by Muslims, one world government run by the Illuminati, the buddhists Maitreya, total economic collapse of the dollar, and Sarah Palin being elected president.

Choose whatever you want.  The important thing is that someone makes tons of money, and the people are sufficiently scared to give up their rights and freedom for security and protection from all these scary things. 

So, my first pick is Yellowstone, and my second pick is Y3K.

DaveZx3, November 28 at 7:04 pm

Scarier still is the idea that it could be induced to blow by a strategically placed nuclear bomb to the center of the caldera.  This fact has already been noted by certain terrorist groups, and was discovered to be so during the investigation of the 1984 Madrid bombings.  That is the first time I had heard of this super volcano.

So if you want something to worry about, worry about that for a while.  Doesn’t place very high on the list of threats because it cannot be blamed on man, you cannot tax it, and Al Gore can’t make billions protecting us from it.

Actually, promoting such scare tactics, and I for one am uncertain as to what effect an explosion in that caldera would engender, has a profit motive, whether conscious or not.

If given a choice between Al Gore making millions, even billions, from such as cap and trade and the military industrial complex making their own billions from the increasing fascism that accompanies scaring the public half to death with such science fiction crap as this ( do terrorists really want to commit global suicide or just murder us?) I choose Gore’s wealth.

I would also comment that truedigger3, November 28 at 7:54 pm: ,makes much sense to me…..

I found your conflation of the terms sceptic and denier to be offensive.

All scientists should be sceptics. The problem is that the purloined emails showed that at least some scientists not only tried to be scientists but also tried to be partisans, and this violated basic rules of science. Their claims should be approached with some scepticism.

The question of whether or not global warming is occurring and if so what caused it are two still-open questions. At this point, no matter what the true believers think, humans may not be the primary cause of warming—if indeed we are warming. The determination of global warming (or cooling) and the cause (human or not) should be determined on the basis of evidence—not belief. And we should refrain from calling people names, attacking them instead of their ideas and theories, and questioning their motives (like saying all sceptics or deniers are stooges of the oil companies or what have you. Let’s do science here—not play propaganda or PR or other childish games).

Now, once the evidence says warming or cooling and human or non-human causality, then we can ask: what, if anything, can or should be done. Obviously, the archbishop of the AGW true believers, Al Gore, believes the issue is settled—warming by humans, but Al is not a scientist and is not competent to make that determination.

Anyway, Mr. Gore and his partisans has determined that it is AGW—and he knows what we should do about it. Reduce Co2, etc. all in an attempt to preserve the current climate system, preserve the current infrastructure, the current cities, and the current arrangements—all of which contributed to the problem in the first place! This is a massive contradiction. Gore is the real conservative, he wants business as usual (bau), not change.

Now, I don’t think we know that warming is a long-term trend, we sure don’t know that humans caused the trend, but even if we did, I would nevertheless NOT want anything done about it because I don’t think the current system is worth preserving. I hope there is massive warming (or cooling), I hope the current ecocidal and genocidal civilization is wiped out—and we have to start over with a struggle for existence. Maybe we’ll be smart enough to develop just and fair and non-polluting systems, but in any case we’ll be far too busy to be able to wage war, create toxic derivatives, and rob the poor to enrich the rich; maybe we’ll also clean up the massive pollution of air, sea, and earth that the “filthy animal” (humans) have done.

truedigger3, November 28 at 7:54 pm:
’... OKAY! Forger about global warming for a while!
What is wrong with combating too much burning of fossil fuels and its resulting pollution and acid rains and cancers and respiratory ailments.
What is wrong of developing clean energy sources and saner consumption of earth resources.
Couple that with a strict birth control across the planet and we MIGHT also solve the global warming problem!  MAYBE! MAYBE!’

What is “wrong” is that significant policies, especially those involving changes in behavior on the part of large numbers of people, have considerable financial, social and other costs.  Before exacting these costs, leaders and experts are supposed to determine, as carefully as they can, what’s actually going on and what can be done about it.  None of the measures you advise are cost-free or cost-neutral, and imposing strict birth control across the planet would additionally require the immediate construction of a highly authoritarian, probably totalitarian world state with unlimited police powers.  It would probably also have to fight several wars since many regions of the world are inhabited by people whose religions or political convictions do not accord with strict birth control or a totalitarian state.

Because the prevention or mitigation of climate change is so expensive, and because achieving consensus about it is so difficult, it was very, very important that the science involved be conducted in an honest, open, and clear manner; that it not be tainted with politics or financial opportunity.

Now we’re down to handwaving.  I should quote Stevie Smith here:  “Not waving but drowning.”

ardee,  this is just a hiatus, as Willis said?  did the models predict this?  how long will this hiatus last?  one more year?  a decade?  a century? 

is this hiatus a perturbation?  i looked it hiatus in an online dictionary.  hiatus:  a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.

then i looked up perturbation:  A small change in a physical system.

which reminded me of a phrase in the IPCC report:

Even if a model is assessed as performing credibly when simulating the present climate, we cannot be sure that the response of such a model to a perturbation remains credible.

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-08.PDF

Maybe be the stop in the rise of the temperature in the oceans in the last few years is due to rapid melting of ice from the poles.
And if one pole is warming faster the other pole might stop warming or even get cooler TEMPORARILY due to TEMPORARY cooler water but still hotter other pole!
Maybe! Maybe! I don’t know.

OKAY! Forger about global warming for a while!
What is wrong with combating too much burning of fossil fuels and its resulting pollution and acid rains and cancers and respiratory ailments.
What is wrong of developing clean energy sources and saner consumption of earth resources.
Couple that with a strict birth control across the planet and we MIGHT also solve the global warming problem!  MAYBE! MAYBE!
I really don’t like Al Gore. I think he is just another opportunist who just trying to cash in.
He amassed a fortune from global warming is a big davocate of nuclear energy

Maybe be the stop in the rise of the temperature in the oceans in the last few years is due to rapid melting of ice from the poles.
And if one pole is warming faster the other pole might stop warming or even get cooler TEMPORARILY due to TEMPORARY cooler water but still hotter other pole!
Maybe! Maybe! I don’t know.

OKAY! Forger about global warming for a while!
What is wrong with combating too much burning of fossil fuels and its resulting pollution and acid rains and cancers and respiratory ailments.
What is wrong of developing clean energy sources and saner consumption of earth resources.
Couple that with a strict birth control across the planet and we MIGHT also solve the global warming problem!  MAYBE! MAYBE!
I really don’t like Al Gore. I think he is just another opportunist who just trying to cash in.
He amassed a fortune from global warming is a big davocate of nuclear energy

The warming and cooling cycles of the earth are a little scary, and could cause major catastrophes, but what I really fear is the Yellowstone caldera.

This super volcano in northwest Wyoming is the largest in the world.  The magma has been building up there for over 600,000 years, and it has been determined that it does blow every 600,000 years
(+/-)  It should be primed and ready to go anytime soon.  This would be a major extinction event.

Scarier still is the idea that it could be induced to blow by a strategically placed nuclear bomb to the center of the caldera.  This fact has already been noted by certain terrorist groups, and was discovered to be so during the investigation of the 1984 Madrid bombings.  That is the first time I had heard of this super volcano. 

So if you want something to worry about, worry about that for a while.  Doesn’t place very high on the list of threats because it cannot be blamed on man, you cannot tax it, and Al Gore can’t make billions protecting us from it.

Thong-girl wrote:
“The reason deniers of global warming can rest easy is because those “claiming” to know how to address the problem, refuse to list the one and only reason and the one and only action the world must take:  population control!!”
____________________________________________________

I agree 100%.
With all due respect “population control” is confusing choice of words, better is birth control.
A proof that the world is warmnig is that all the glaciers in the world except one in Argentina have retreated markedly and undeniably in the last decades and the thikness of ice in them is getting thinner and thinner
And what the deniers say about temperature measurements which are higher than a century ago.

Ironically we are moving out of the normal cooling trend into a warming trend. So you see the problem of the warming has so far? Just imagine being here in 2050 and write to us in the past here in 2009. What a difference 41 years and billions of people eating, drinking, reproducing and let us not forget excreting make to affect the world. It all adds up. Even 7 billion fire ants can bring down and kill an elephant.

plainsman,

It really makes no difference, does it? We are where we are, and that wont change by argueing about how we got where we are. Or calling those who’ve tried to warn us for decades, names.

That’s a little like watching the fire-men and the house owner fighting about how the fire started while the house burns down.

And there’s one other little reality we all need to think about. It may be too late to alter the obvious climate change, so maybe we better spend some time trying to figure out how we are going to deal with the inevitable consequence. Assuming we can stop argueing, and name calling long enough to recognise the inevitable consequence.

Might help if we could overcome our incredible conceit and accept that while we are all really smart, we can not control the earth. Maybe Mother Earth wants another ice age!

Unlike now where the entire planet is indentured to a few? Re. CONG. Cap & Trade is a scam that benefits the polluters or didn’t you figure that out? The ice cores going back some 624,000 years show the same “hockey stick” of greater CO2 and methane that caused previous spikes. What we need is a carbon tax to help fund non-carbon based fuels and power sources.

Eastern part of Antarctica has some ice accumulation that is a fact, so is the massive losses of ice on the western side. The equatorial belt is wider by 2-3 miles, the oceans continue to warm, no added affects of the sun as part of this warming have been recorded for the passed 11 years. The weather patterns are also changing like in Australia where the rains are now falling 200 miles off the coast leaving it with a chance to become a desert populated by rabbits. The passed 10 years have been the hottest on record, not in particular places but over the entirety of the globe for an entire year counted.

We should thank our lucky stars we have a brief cessation of the warming. Are we doing anything about it on a large scale, larger than the Manhattan Project? No we dither in the worse possible way to clean up our act. Greed will win over human survival it seems. The earth will abide without us but will we in a poisoned inhospitable world? We have had it good theses past 10,000 years but no longer. Tick, tick, tick and so it goes.

@Louise

Perhaps because there are so many voices on the planet, on this issue, what is actually the core issue has been buried deep amongst the vested interests and opportunists. It seems to me the question is not whether the climate is changing. Obviously it is. The question is whether the change is being caused by humans and if so why? Al Gore and his colleague Maurice Strong argue that CO2 emissions are the cause. They use fudged data to make their case. The famous hockey stick graph from An Inconvenient Truth is apparently a fudgery, if you will. The scientists working for the IPCC were coerced into massaging the data to make it look convincing that the planet is suddenly warming and hence attributable to something unusual; conveniently humans. There are scientists who argue vociferously against the lie contained in Gore’s award winning Truth.

Both Gore and Strong stand to benefit financially from cap and trade legislation that will allow the wealthy to offset their excessive production of CO2 emissions onto the rest of us. Cap and trade does nothing to reduce carbon emissions; it creates a new tax which will give some corporate entities access to new revenue streams and enormous power. If, for example, you don’t pay up (pay Gore, et al) you don’t do business.

Were the scientific debate open and noticeably honest then most would agree with the conclusions reached. But, there is no indication that it has been an open debate. In fact mounting evidence suggests that a handful of wealthy and influential people are attempting to bully their way into new positions of power and authority, lining their pockets along the way. Which has nothing to do with climate change.

Pinning the changing climate on the human donkey is a way to pull off a global scam. One, that if successful, will indenture the entire planet to a few.

“Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat.”

So, T-shirted fellow, one takes what one wants from articles and leaves the rest?

Now I’ve been told, and it might be so, but I’m not a scientist, so I don’t really know ...

The oceans around us carry currents, and the currents often determine seasonal climatic conditions, and the ebb and flow, both high and low can be and are affected by the surface temperatures of all those oceans.

So what happens when huge hunks of ice fall into those oceans? Can that change the surface temperatures and affect the eb and flow ... alter the high and low? Can that change the currents, the way warm travels up to colder regions and visa-versa?

Can huge hunks of ice actually alter the flow of the gulf Stream, by altering the temperatures that make the Gulf Stream go?

I don’t know ...

And apparently the scientists aren’t to sure, one way or the other. But I do know this ... if you drop a hand-full of ice-cubes in a cup of hot tea very quickly the ice-cubes melt and the tea is no longer hot.

So, what caused the ice-cubes to melt? And what caused the tea to get cold?

When I put this question to my grand-kids, being able to follow A to Z with logical precision, to a person they exclaimed with delight ...

“Oh good then the Polar Bears will be OK!”

Seems pretty simple to me, maybe global warming isn’t about rising temperatures anymore so much as it’s about falling temperatures. Maybe the quickness of the melting will introduce the quickening of a new Ice Age.

So maybe while the scientists and know-it-all global warming climate change deniers are dickering about what’s really going on, we need to figure out how we’re going to survive when the power lines collapse under the weight of ice. And the trains, planes and automobiles (not to mention freighters) can no longer traverse over the frozen tundra. And whether or not we have enough warm coats and blankets.

But no matter which side of this sticky issue one decides to stand sweating (or shivering) on, it’s high time we all stop being silly on the subject. Because, there is only one side. And that would be us!

Those ice-burgs are quickly melting, and that’s not progressive versus regressive, conservative conjecture.

That’s just a fact!

i read elsewhere on Truthdig’s site about how “Bloomberg Dug Deep Into His Own Pockets to Win Third Term”. it continued with this:

  This is just the kind of news that doesn’t bode well for the state of democracy in America…

and this article is for AGW.  you can’t have AGW and democracy in the same country.  ever they say its so.

The limits democracy

Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely, sacrilegious though this may sound. In its present form, democracy is no longer well-suited for the
tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent
decisions at the tight time.

this is from a publication by the Club of Rome, which Al Gore is a member of.

http://ia311021.us.archive.org/3/items/TheFirstGlobalRevolution/TheFirstGlobalRevolution_text.pdf

you can find it on page 71

so the AGWers want a dictatorship in america, no, the world, and don’t even know it.  because they’ve got BLIND FAITH in their “leaders”.

this is from NPR, aren’t they run by some liberals?

The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat

Moremony, November 28 at 3:48 am #
“What’s missing from this story is the irony - everything the deniers accuse the
scientists of they have committed a thousand times worse or more.  They
ignore all the science data, unless they can skew it or misrepresent it to bolster
their case.  They say the scientists are involved in some vast conspiracy, but
they are the ones so involved, to do anything and everything they can to
obscure or demonize the science.  They are demagoguing the issue - the
climatologists are arguing the science”

What you are saying above is that there are two sides to the Global Warming
issue.  The one side is the “scientists and climatologists” and the other side is
the “deniers who demonize the science and the scientist”

I am not a denier, but as stated in posts below, I am very skeptical of scientists
who lie about their data, ridicule those with different opinions and say that all
scientific results point to only one hypothesis, that man is responsible for a
global warming climate change. 

Do yourself a favor, read the complete scientific evidence on the subject.  Here
(below) are a few to get you started regarding scientific studies of the Antarctic
ice mass.  There are literally hundreds if not thousands of good scientific
reports with very mixed conclusions on the subject.  Why don’t you try reading
some before you come up with such absurd statements as above. 

Your so-called “deniers” are really people with massive scientific evidence for
other complex things going on in the climate.  And they are not ready for Al
Gore to make his billions trading “emission credits”.  That is the most ignorant
piece of legislation that has ever been pushed onto the American public. 

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/271218

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/06/antarctic-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in-satellite-era/

http://www.ecoworld.com/climate/the-real-facts-on-increasing-antarctic-ice.html

DaveZx3, November 27 at 9:29 pm:
‘There is no denying climate change. ...’

The verb deny is almost certainly used by Believers to remind us, though its derivative denier, of Holocaust deniers.  Otherwise, the Believers would use the correct term, skeptics, because as you say nobody can deny climate change, but people can be and are skeptical about its extent, direction, origins, and solution or mitigation.

If people use terms of propaganda habitually you can be pretty sure that truth is secondary to them.  They want win, and that comes first.

DaveZx3, November 27 at 9:29 pm:
‘There is no denying climate change. ...’

The verb deny is almost certainly used by Believers to remind us, though its derivative denier, of Holocaust deniers.  Otherwise, the Believers would use the correct term, skeptics, because as you say nobody can deny climate change, but people can be and are skeptical about its extent, direction, origins, and solution or mitigation.

If people use terms of propaganda habitually you can be pretty sure that truth is secondary to them.  They want win, and for them “winning isn’t the most important thing; it’s the only thing.”

There is no denying climate change.  But, as many posters have pointed out, the reasons for it are extremely complex, and not fully understood. 

I am reading so much contradictory science on this subject lately, how can I not be skeptical.  And then this report comes out that the scientists basically fake their data to support their points and ridicule legitimate dissent.  And of course, Gore is positioned to make the billions. 

Read the recent McClean report written by the three Australian scientists who blame global warming on the ENSO, volcanic activity and solar activity.  It sounds a lot more convincing that these gigantic forces have more to do with climate change than man.

Other science shows that Glacier ice is actually increasing in the Antarctic.  And the melt-down has slowed considerably in the past year in the Artic.
This info comes from actual measurements.

This stuff can be read all over the web.  Pro and Con.  So if I am skeptical of the man-caused global warming crowd, pardon me.  I have many, many reasons to be skeptical.  I see people desperate enough to fake data, and I see politicians with their eye on money.  Do I have any reasons for skepticism?

You know, you hear those on the left, some dare call themselves “Progressives,” yet they pick and choose which parts of the ‘global warming’ they agree with and leave out the things that are most important.  If we’re serious about stopping human influence on the planet, stop making humans, stop keeping pets, stop herding bovines, stop building damns, stop the markets from trading and so on and so on.  Or wait until it really is too damn late to cash in your chips.

I would be happy to defund the massive gravy train that is the CONG conspiracy to keep it all to themselves.

This couldn’t have come at a worse time and finely planned too. What better way to kill any chance of the USA cutting back and cutting out hydrocarbons from our technology anytime soon?

They acted like humans afraid of losing funding etc and that is damning for them. But it doesn’t change the fact that the torrid zone around the equator is widened by 2-3 miles or that the ocean level has risen by 1 inch. The melting of the North Pole is going on actually faster than even the worse case models had predicted—-sooner. Too many variables and unknowns yet to be discovered to fully understand what is going on. Once the oceans become too warm they will stop absorbing CO2 and start expelling it. That will be bad as will be the release of large amounts of methane from formally frozen permafrost. Then we will really see some faster changes!

Splitting hairs and other forms of obfuscation:

One very important item that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) proponents leave out of the discussion is the number one source of heat on planet Earth: the sun. Climate change is real, to be sure. The climate on this planet has changed many times and will continue to do so. Most changes to the climate are the result of solar activity. Some scientists, who are sceptical of AGW, point out that rises in CO2 follow (not precede) rises in temperature. Their voices have been marginalized.

Something else left out of the discussion is that plants love CO2; it makes them grow bigger and faster. Check out your local indoor gardening suppliers; they all recommend increasing CO2 to enhance plant growth and sell products to that end.

Another thing to factor into the equation is seemingly off-base. However, it is important to note that brokerages obtain money based on transactions. The more transactions there are the more a brokerage earns. What has the number one AGW proponent done? Al Gore has positioned himself as Chairman of Generations Investment Management. GIM, in spite of the seemingly noble mission statement, is a brokerage firm.

One last item. The word consensus is code for “bald faced lie”. Those who argue that rising CO2 levels are a leading cause of global warming refer to a consensus among scientists at the IPCC. A consensus among scientists is a rare thing and something that is not very likely on a subject as complex as the climate on this planet.

There is a more serious problem that is being neglected in a discussion of the environment which focuses on so-called greenhouse gases. Toxins and all of the other stuff we are dumping into the earth, air, and water. But there is no money in that. In fact, stopping production of all the chemical inputs that home owners, golf course managers, and farmers make use of to limit “weeds” and artificially enhance plant growth would put some powerful mega-corporations out of business.

There is, however, a potentially huge cash cow in carbon credits for those who have positioned themselves to milk it. Yet those advocating for cap and trade, as it’s called, base their arguments on a consensus of opinion around suspect evidence that increased levels of CO2 cause global warming.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover031307.htm

“Most Americans are convinced that climate change is real…”  Eugene, did you get this stat from Phil Jones???  And I love this one, “...the kinds of huge economic and behavioral adjustments we would have to make to begin seriously limiting carbon emissions..”  I think our priorities need to be directed towards getting folks back to work, or else there won’t be enough money to fund your grand wealth-redistribution scheme anyway.

ardee, November 27 at 10:47 am:
‘All those “deniers” can argue on, those of them who live on either coast might check their footing as the waters rise to their ankles.’

I am somewhat surprised that you would use an abusive, propagandistic term like “deniers” in this discussion.

What our author above doesn’t seem to realize is that purloined emails are facts.  If the science in regard to climate change is tainted, as science often is, and as the emails show it is in regard to the issue at hand, then the use of propagandistic rhetoric will further enhance skeptics’ notions that the true believers they oppose are concerned with anything but power.

As to water rising to our ankles, one of the problems of the global warming or climate change discussion is the lack or ambiguity of the physical facts.  It is almost certain that some kind of climate change is occurring, because that is what climates do, but its overall rate is hard to determine.  It is much less certain that a significant part of the changes can be attributed to human activity, and if so, it is less certain still what humans can do about them now or in the near future.  Propaganda can’t answer these questions.  Science might be able to, but that means real science, not guys dressing up in white coats and pretending to be scientists.

I kind of hope it all melts and we find Atlantis under An-Arctica. You know people, all the carbon was above ground at one time. We really know NOTHING.

I have to borrow a quote from Ronald Reagoon. When told that hard work never killed anyone, Reagoon thought about it and replied “oh, hell why take a chance”. The same can be said about global warming, “why take chance” that it isn’t happening.

“Someone hacked into the servers at one of the leading academic centers in the field—the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England…”

Ok, ok, but what about the hundreds of organizations & thousands of scientists who posited climate change & global warming as undeniable fact? Are we to risk hundreds of millions of lives disrupted physically & financially on a few e-mails by a few misguided scientists?

Where are the hacked e-mails from the FED, the banking & hydrocarbon industries, and the military industrial complex when we really need some transparency there?

The political drama that’s taking place over Global Warming, is very much like the one we’ve had over the last 40 years in regard to smoking and tobaco.

Initially, smokers and tobacco companies tried to deny that smoking caused lung cancer, but as time went on this became difficult. At this point almost everyone understands the connection.

The same is true over global warming. Led by the petro chemical industry, and right wing politicians the global warming deniers have done everything to ridicule and devalue the observations and views of those who have raised the alarm.

Unfortunately, we don’t have 40 years to convince them that the world is no longer flat. If we wait that long to act then we’re done for.

It’s probably already too late to do anthing. Thanks to the last 8 years under Bush.

The media, and its water carriers like Gene, have figured out precisely how to tweak a message and get the response desired.  The reason deniers of global warming can rest easy is because those “claiming” to know how to address the problem, refuse to list the one and only reason and the one and only action the world must take:  population control!!

Until those claiming to be claiming they want to reverse the human influence, admit they begin by making fewer humans, it’s all a joke.  Without that paramount factor at the top of the discussion, it’s hokum.

Where is the call for a criminal investigation after all is it not illegal to hack into anothers email account. We can start by asking the people who posted these emails on their sites where they got them.

All those “deniers” can argue on, those of them who live on either coast might check their footing as the waters rise to their ankles.