Politics

So basically your point is "Don't argue with us when you don't know any more than us"?

Geez if that's the case then why even argue to begin with? None of us are climate scientists and just pulling up a Wikipedia article obviously doesn't make us experts at it.

Here is something we all know: there are many climate scientist who believe in the man-made global warming and there are many who do not. Wether one side is in Al Gore's pocket or one side is in Big Oil's pocket is debatable.

The greatest contributor to Global Warming is not CO2, it's water vapor and you can look it up. Almost ALL water vapor is of natural origin.

In the grand scheme of things, even if we curb our carbon emissions we'll have almost no effect because carbon dioxide itself has almost no effect.

So what are we supposed to do? Curb our water emissions? Curb the Earth's water emissions? Attach rockets to the earth and try to move away from the sun?

I don't believe man is so great that we are the cause and answer to all these problems. If we can't fix our own problems, what makes us think we are so amazing that we can fix earths problems?

 

My professor in climatology summed it up as this:

-Global warming is occurring at a certain slow rate
-All the scholars involved basically agree that to some extent, this has been caused by human factors and development since the Industrial Revolution
-What we DON'T know is what this means in the context of global warming and cooling trends over extremely long periods of time, like ice ages and thaws, which have much larger swings in temperature.

He phrased it very carefully, but made it clear that basically everyone agrees that the slight trend we've seen since the Industrial Revolution is at least partly man-made. Environmentalists often pretend the argument is between people who think it's happening, and people who think it's not, which is wrong.

To say that we're headed for global armageddon is excessive and alarmist, but being responsible about carbon emissions isn't a bad idea if it turns out to have some meaning.

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The greatest contributor to Global Warming is not CO2, it's water vapor and you can look it up. Almost ALL water vapor is of natural origin.

In the grand scheme of things, even if we curb our carbon emissions we'll have almost no effect because carbon dioxide itself has almost no effect.
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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You're close, but wrong. Water vapor is the most prevalent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, but we don't track it because it's not like we control the rate at which the sun evaporates water off oceans and lakes. Not by a significant percentage compared to its portion of the atmosphere. CO2 makes up a fraction of a fraction of the Earth's atmosphere, but that by itself does not mean that it has almost no effect. The CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased significantly relative to its original quantity (again, less than one percent of the atmosphere), but the change over the past 100 years of industrial development is not negligible.

I wasn't very good at the class, but the one thing I learned is that climatology is very hard because it has to model some of the most complicated systems on Earth. If we can't get the forecast right for 10 days in the future, what makes you think for certain we have the ability to say with complete confidence that CO2 does or doesn't matter? And whichever way we go, there's a lot at stake if we're wrong.

Edit: I agree with you that alarmist politics are counterproductive, and people need to make honest arguments, especially public figures like Al Gore. But it's ridiculous to dismiss that side of the argument because idiots happen to support it. I think we should protect the environment, even though I think Greenpeace is full of self-righteous idiots. I don't think people should be cruel to animals even though I think PETA is more concerned with hogging the limelight than actually helping animals. Stop setting up straw men and examine the facts as presented by those who know what they're talking about (i.e. probably no one quoted by the media in sensationalist stories). You're not going to hear the truth from tree huggers and you're not going to hear it from big oil, and distaste for one group over the other is not evidence for a theory.

 

nice findings spanky and well written! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

 

First, to bowtie, this is not to insult or patronize, and the world is filled with people who want to do harm to others. They live in every country. People outside the US fear us as much as we fear them. We happen to have the bigger fist and use it from time-to-time (even if someone else struck first - so what - nothing says we HAVE to use violence in return). People have seen us use extreme violence and expect we will again. I worry a little that North Korea or Iran might launch a nuke. I imagine there are lots of Koreans and Iranians worry that we will do the same. If you were in charge of Iran, don't you think you'd want to have nukes? And don't you think it would seem a little unfair that a country harboring hundreds of nukes is telling you not to have any of your own? I'd be less concerned about this if our peacetime activities didn't include fucking with other countries when it serves our purpose.

Why is it that people want to harm us? Religion? Could be. If you read the fatwas instructing radical Islamists to kill us, or Bin Laden's 16 requests of the US, you'll notice that 75% of the content says "get the fuck out of our house. If you do not, we will kill you at every opportunity."

Maybe we should get the fuck out of their house and THEN see what happens.

I'm all for defending my own house. And if the US wasn't forcefully moving into other people's houses, I wouldn't feel too disturbed about doing things in the name of freedom.

Watch out for these liberal mobs that want to love and be nice to people - we're extremely dangerous.

To the first sentence, how much of a free market do you want? No FDA or FAA for instance? I could see cutting back on the FCC a little. Do you think that companies need to make profit at all costs and to any level achievable? Isn't, say, 20% enough? Do today's CEOs need to make THAT much more than the janitors?

To the second, I agree. There is high demand and OPEC is limiting the supply. This drives prices up. About 25% of the price of an oil barrel is linked to the value of the dollar. Since the dollar is in a shit hole because the US has borrowed to the hilt to finance the war in Iraq, oil costs us more than it should. Moving the war to Iran won't really help us. Tax cuts don't really help much either.

Here are some new slogans:

"You want to support the war effort? Man up and pay some taxes, asshole!"

-or-

"You want to support the war effort? Stop commuting 80 miles daily in an H2, you fucking cunt."

It does surprise me that oil companies are making record profits and you don't think there's ANY possibility they're not doing a little gouging because they can.

 

I like the, "End the war, reduce military spending to zero, offer free education and health care to everyone (including "illegal" humans), giving cash incentives for limiting consumption (i.e. breeding less[why isn't this part of the issue?], driving less), increasing minimum wages, <u>enforcing</u> a maximum wage, building up instead of building out, bring back the rail roads (without the tycoons and with electric-bullet trains), taxing religion, etc." option.

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Even reducing military spending by a tiny bit can do a hell of a lot; we need a military because the big bad wolf wants to kill us.

Granted, we logged their habitats for timber and killed a number for their pelts, but come on.

 

Meat inspection is tyranny! Let the market protect me. If I eat a hamburger from Jack-in-the-Box and I get E. Coli and I die, then Jack-in-the-Box will suffer because the dead buy no hamburgers The market is my benevolent protector!

 

I don't like the greed that is rampant in USA that comes from the methodology taught. Get as much as you can and screw the people you hurt. I'm more of a socialist that uses more capitalist ideas as well. There needs to be a level on control on how much advantage the cooperations can take of people. You'd be surprised how much shit they pass up for "high quality"

 

With the amount of people I see driving in their cars alone, I doubt there's much of a panic. People will talk about it, and act like they care, but most of them will care for it as long as it doesn't disturbe their comforts.

 

A person can be fanatically devoted to the idea that the state should control everything (communist/socialist) or a person can be fanatically devoted to the idea that individuals and markets should control everything (libertarian/"conservative"). Those are both absolutist positions. A person can be a moderate in between these two extremes (liberal, progressive, etc.).

 

I've made up my mind about McCain: he's Bush 3.0

And even though Hillary may have "testicular fortitude" XD (according to supporter, Gibson)
I dread voting for her... even though I will if she gets the nom just bc she would be the lesser of two evils /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif

I gotta say, I really dislike the "I'm going to vote for Hillary bc she's a woman like me" and the "I'm going to vote for Obama bc he's black like me" attitudes.

I voted for Obama in the primary bc I felt that he is a better candidate than Hillary but all I had to go on was the little bit I knew about his past and his current speeches. Maybe I'm just weird but his skin color really does not influence me to vote for him.
He has made some reeeally good speeches... but is he for real?
I'm still not sure yet if he is the real deal or just a poser but politics is a roll of the dice sometimes... I guess.
I know most people who voted for Bush regret it now... even though they won't admit it.
"No! No apologies and no backing down. G.W. Bush taught me that." - American Dad /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

This race might be historic but it sure is slim pickings.

 

I defiantly somewhere in between the two extreme, not exactly sure which side I lean more toward though.

 

I don't have a lot of faith in the Democrats, but the Republicans are so goddamned awful I'd vote for a leprechaun before I'd vote for a Republican at this point.

Bush is a war criminal. His apologists are implicated in his crimes. He will go down in history as the worst President that the US ever had.

I actually like Obama more then I have liked any politician in my lifetime. I don't know if he can win in a racially polarized America. If he wins I don't know if he can reverse the corruption at the heart of our political system.

 

George Bush on global warming

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/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

 

---in regards to the new direction of the thread---

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I know who I'm voting for.

 

A funny spin on recent political news
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Here's one more to get you caught up on what's going on in the seedy world of politics:
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Humorous cartoons help to dull the pain. But being sad about our current state or not caring isn't going to change anything. Let's get involved, even if it's just by voting this year bc, seriously, our country is in a state of emergency.

 

KKK says Barack Obama will be killed if he gets elected
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I had a revelation recently. Brace yourselves.

Hillary Clinton is the O.J. Simpson of 2008. Remember when O.J. Simpson decapitated his ex-wife and the dude who was screwing her? That was pretty messed up, right? Then there was this crazy trial and somehow most of black America was actually rooting for O.J. to get acquitted, despite the obviousness of his guilt.

Black Americans had so many gripes with American society in general and the criminal justice system in particular that they began to identify and root for a psycho killer because in their minds he was pitted against these admittedly awful forces.

These ladies who delusionally cling to Hillary the candidate are blind to her shortcomings. She has tremendous negative ratings among the general public. She has been terribly dishonest by constantly moving the goal posts so that she has some grounds to claim a right to the nomination. She has played to racist sentiments in the electorate, saying that Obama can't reach out to "hard working white people." She recently raised the specter of the assassination of a presidential candidate to justify her ongoing campaign. In all she has badly hurt the party's chance of taking the White House in November by running a divisive campaign in which she constantly portrays herself as a victim.

And yet her supporters, mostly middle aged white women, cannot disenthrall themselves. Yes, it is unfair that middle aged women are so uncelebrated in our society. They are kept out of the circles of power and they are often mocked (or worse) for their waning attractiveness. They make less money for the same work. They are often ignored or condescended to by men. It's totally unfair. But that does not make Hillary Clinton suck any less.

Just like our society and economy and educational system and criminal justice system are totally unfair to black America. But that doesn't mean O.J. should be allowed to chop off heads. To suggest otherwise is very flawed thinking.

 

Young Hillary Clinton
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Classic /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif