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We are basically pissing in the wind

sean99 said:
I think you've made your point.

You'll gladly do something to lower your CO2 emissions, but only if

1) It doesn't inconvenience you
2) Everyone else in the world has already signed up to do the same
3) It is proven beyond any doubt that AGW is real and a threat (this is 99% there)
4) It is proven beyond any doubt that the action you take will prevent any future consequences of AGW.

We understand we won't persuade you otherwise. Some of us, however, are more believers in the precautionary principle, and the idea that the best way to persuade others to do something (especially if a little sacrifice is involved) is to first do it yourself.
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Straw man. I am not an AGW denier. I am merely trying to take a pragmatic instead of an idealistic approach.
 
sean99 said:
I think you've made your point.

You'll gladly do something to lower your CO2 emissions, but only if

1) It doesn't inconvenience you
2) Everyone else in the world has already signed up to do the same
3) It is proven beyond any doubt that AGW is real and a threat (this is 99% there)
4) It is proven beyond any doubt that the action you take will prevent any future consequences of AGW.

We understand we won't persuade you otherwise. Some of us, however, are more believers in the precautionary principle, and the idea that the best way to persuade others to do something (especially if a little sacrifice is involved) is to first do it yourself.
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You missed a bit - Steven doesn't know the answers to the questions in his list therefore nobody anywhere knows the answers, therefore he's right because nobody really knows anything.
 
Steven,

Here's three things you could do -- eat less meat (ideally none), switch every light in your house to CFLs or LEDs, and walk when it's a reasonable alternative to driving.

If you were the only person amongst the 7.26 billion on the planet I agree it would make no difference, but conservation has to start somewhere.

Joe
 
i sense a posting pattern among some members, i.e. i'm going to post my opinion on something, and ask others their opinion, just so i can tell others that their opinions are wrong.
 
Joe P said:
Steven,

Here's three things you could do -- eat less meat (ideally none), switch every light in your house to CFLs or LEDs, and walk when it's a reasonable alternative to driving.

If you were the only person amongst the 7.26 billion on the planet I agree it would make no difference, but conservation has to start somewhere.

Joe
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The UN has just announced that CO2 levels are growing at record rates.

That's in spite of all the picayune measures taken to reduce them.

We are not going to stop CO2 levels increasing. We are not going to slow down climate change.

What we need to do is start developing strategies to live with the changes that are coming.

Eating less meat, using energy efficient lightbulbs and all the other "remedies" are a total & utter waste of time.

As usual, it will come down to us adapting. Or dying. The planet could not give a toss.

Chris
 
Adapting in ways such as: scientific progress in the area of clean-energy; policies to reduce waste of resources (including oil which we need for plastics rather that to burn); etc, etc.

I would expect these modes of adaptation beats continuing "as is" on the basis of "what's the point?".

Humans have an excellent track record of solving complex problems. What we don't have is a great track record of efficient, peaceful collaboration, though progress can be made in that area.
 
Chris,

Eating less meat isn't solely about reducing CO2 emissions -- it's inefficient to raise grains (or whatever), which are cycled through livestock, to ultimately feed people on meat. More water is used, more land is used, while less protein and calories are transferred.

Enough natural diverse ecosystems have been razed to the ground to provide monocultures to feed animals that are then eaten by people.

I know you don't care but my memory is surprisingly good so you won't need to remind me of that when you reply.

Joe
 
Joe P said:
Steven,

Here's three things you could do -- eat less meat (ideally none), switch every light in your house to CFLs or LEDs, and walk when it's a reasonable alternative to driving.

If you were the only person amongst the 7.26 billion on the planet I agree it would make no difference, but conservation has to start somewhere.

Joe
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Plus dont use valve amps or class A amplifiers.
 
Joe P said:
Chris,

Eating less meat isn't solely about reducing CO2 emissions -- it's inefficient to raise grains (or whatever), which are cycled through livestock, to ultimately feed people on meat. More water is used, more land is used, while less protein and calories are transferred.

Enough natural diverse ecosystems have been razed to the ground to provide monocultures to feed animals that are then eaten by people.

I know you don't care but my memory is surprisingly good so you won't need to remind me of that when you reply.

Joe
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Ah, but the others may not have seen my argument, Joe:)

We live in a real environment, not a bloody theme park. If diverse ecosystems have to be sacrificed to feed people, so be it. People come first.

And, increasingly, those people are going to demand an increasing amount of meat in their diet. So goodbye little ecosystem.

Chris
 
Chris,

Whatever, man, but I think you mean to say that Chris comes first -- or maybe second, right after Steven.

I'd write more but I'm really quite busy today, but here's some questions to ponder -- has it occurred that diverse ecosystems are necessary (a) for a source of genes for disease-resistance in the crops we eat, (b) for efficient nutrient cycling, and (c) to maintain the ecological relationships between species such that biological systems are resilient?

Are natural ecosystems biologically diverse because they're stable or stable because they're biologically diverse?

Joe
 
Mescalito said:
Ah, but the others may not have seen my argument, Joe:)

We live in a real environment, not a bloody theme park. If diverse ecosystems have to be sacrificed to feed people, so be it. People come first.

And, increasingly, those people are going to demand an increasing amount of meat in their diet. So goodbye little ecosystem.

Chris
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well, yes I suspect Joe might agree with the bit in bold, but you appear to have missed Joe's actual point about the inefficiency of meat production. Fortunately your point about priorities means that you recognise the logic of eating less meat.

Somehow I anticipate you will tell us you like meat and you don't care.
 
Greg said:
Adapting in ways such as: scientific progress in the area of clean-energy; policies to reduce waste of resources (including oil which we need for plastics rather that to burn); etc, etc.

I would expect these modes of adaptation beats continuing "as is" on the basis of "what's the point?".

Humans have an excellent track record of solving complex problems. What we don't have is a great track record of efficient, peaceful collaboration, though progress can be made in that area.
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This is constructive and I actually agree with it 100%. I stated myself up-thread that we needed oil for plastics and pharmaceuticals.

Necessity is the mother of invention. In the mid to late 19th Century concerns were expressed to the effect that by 1900 the streets of London were going to be knee-deep in horse shit. It was also said that if the world's entire agricultural land was set aside for feeding horses required for transport purposes this would meet the needs of only a quarter of the world's horses.

Fortunately along came steam power followed by the internal combustion engine.

This is a very interesting article:

http://bytesdaily.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894.html?m=1

Davies says:


“What this misses is that in a competitive market economy, as any resource becomes more costly, human ingenuity will find alternatives.


We should draw two lessons from this. First, human beings, left to their own devices, will usually find solutions to problems, but only if they are allowed to; that is, if they have economic institutions, such as property rights and free exchange, that create the right incentives and give them the freedom to respond. If these are absent or are replaced by political mechanisms, problems will not be solved.


Second, the sheer difficulty of predicting the future, and in particular of foreseeing the outcome of human creativity, is yet another reason for rejecting the planning or controlling of people’s choices. Above all, we should reject the currently fashionable “precautionary principle,” which would forbid the use of any technology until proved absolutely harmless.


Left to themselves, our grandparents solved the great horse-manure problem. If things had been left to the urban planners, they would almost certainly have turned out worse.”


http://www.fee.org/pdf/the-freeman/547_32.pdf


·         In the modern day, there are doomsayers who take current trends and extrapolate them into the future as means of predicting ultimate ruination.


Sometimes such messages are accompanied by the suggestion that we have the means of averting doom if we change our ways, often at the cost of personal liberty.


Take your pick:

o   global warming;

o   pollution;

o   greenhouse gases;

o   population increase;

o   nuclear weapons proliferation;

o   increasing world tensions;

o   diminishing fish stocks in the oceans.


        According to Davies:

“The fundamental problem with most predictions of this kind, and particularly the gloomy ones, is that they make a critical, false assumption: that things will go on as they are. This assumption in turn comes from overlooking one of the basic insights of economics: that people respond to incentives.  In a system of free exchange, people receive all kinds of signals that lead them to solve problems.”

This has been adopted by quite a number of supporters and commentators.

·         The problem with Davies’ view is that it can be used as a justification for inertia: do nothing because something or someone will come along and solve it.


In discussing this topic with my wife, she made the pertinent observation that even the doomsayers perform a valuable function, by presenting the problems for consideration by and alerting people to them.


She also pointed out that sometimes the very fact of doomsaying is enough to result in change, especially when there is no magic bullet that may or may not happen.


·         Furthermore, the automobile was not intentionally invented to alleviate the horse manure crisis.


What would have happened had the automobile not been invented, or if the technology had not been practical, or it had been too expensive to mass produce?


According to one commentator who does not agree with Davies’ philosophy:


“Necessity may well be the mother of invention but counting on providence to resolve pressing issues is not a prudent way to run a nation much less a business. He needs to take a course on Cost/Benefit analysis because his “que sera sera” attitude may work when applied to philosophy or watching brain tripe like “Pollyanna” but fails miserably when applied to economics and science.”
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Chaps

Have any of you flown to Africa lately ?

There are millions upon millions of acres of land waiting to be cultivated, in fact, Africa could become the farm of the world, producing food and providing jobs.

Mick
 
Mick P said:
Chaps

Have any of you flown to Africa lately ?

There are millions upon millions of acres of land waiting to be cultivated, in fact, Africa could become the farm of the world, producing food and providing jobs.

Mick
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Indeed, we should build on the sucess of previous projects such as the britsh governments ground nut scheme.
 
Mick P said:
People are starving and you make a crap joke like that - what a nice human being you are.
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Mick,
Agriculture has been around for 13,000 years. Why do you think that millions of sq. miles of temperate, fertile African soil haven't been turned into the Great Plains already? Now think dear.

Have you been getting calls from a Lagos boiler room again?
 
TheDecameron said:
Mick,
Agriculture has been around for 13,000 years. Why do you think that millions of sq. miles of temperate, fertile African soil haven't already been turned into the Great Plains already. Now think dear.
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I live in Andalucía of Spain, the place where spaghetti westerns are made.

Over the last three years, thousand of acres have been converted into farmland and crops are being grown 52 weeks a year where there was once just gravel.

The least you could do is apologise for that joke, it was appalling.
 
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