"Global warming"· Page 6

Cheesey
Preferred Member Topic Starter

15 years ago

That's just it Zero.
I don't doubt that the Earth is getting warmer. That's probably true.
What i have a problem with is the people saying that humans can some how control it, or are responsible for it. There have ALWAYS been climate variations. Some times warmer, sometimes colder.
But we have no control over it. The Earth has NEVER had a constant temperature.
It all boils down to FOLLOW THE MONEY. As long as they can use their "chicken little, the sky is falling" routine to control people and get their money, they are gonna continue it.

As I asked before, if man COULD lower the temperature, then how would they know when it was at the "right" temp? And how would they then STOP the temperature from going TOO low? And what IS the "right" temperature in the FIRST place?
I keep asking, and no one has an answer.

MassPackersFan
Member

15 years ago

#52

That's just it Zero.
I don't doubt that the Earth is getting warmer. That's probably true.
What i have a problem with is the people saying that humans can some how control it, or are responsible for it. There have ALWAYS been climate variations. Some times warmer, sometimes colder.
But we have no control over it. The Earth has NEVER had a constant temperature.
It all boils down to FOLLOW THE MONEY. As long as they can use their "chicken little, the sky is falling" routine to control people and get their money, they are gonna continue it.

As I asked before, if man COULD lower the temperature, then how would they know when it was at the "right" temp? And how would they then STOP the temperature from going TOO low? And what IS the "right" temperature in the FIRST place?
I keep asking, and no one has an answer.

"Cheesey" wrote:

Ok... so what exactly is it that you're arguing for? An absence of responsibility when it comes to the environment? "Global Warming" is just something people have gotten obsessed with because of a) the doomsday appeal and b) it's still a controversial subject with contradicting research results. There are plenty of reasons to be responsible in our treatment of the Earth and its resources. Global warming or not, we are NOT living a sustainable lifestyle.

Wade
Veteran Member

15 years ago

#53

That's just it Zero.
I don't doubt that the Earth is getting warmer. That's probably true.
What i have a problem with is the people saying that humans can some how control it, or are responsible for it. There have ALWAYS been climate variations. Some times warmer, sometimes colder.
But we have no control over it. The Earth has NEVER had a constant temperature.
It all boils down to FOLLOW THE MONEY. As long as they can use their "chicken little, the sky is falling" routine to control people and get their money, they are gonna continue it.

As I asked before, if man COULD lower the temperature, then how would they know when it was at the "right" temp? And how would they then STOP the temperature from going TOO low? And what IS the "right" temperature in the FIRST place?
I keep asking, and no one has an answer.

"MassPackersFan" wrote:

Ok... so what exactly is it that you're arguing for? An absence of responsibility when it comes to the environment? "Global Warming" is just something people have gotten obsessed with because of a) the doomsday appeal and b) it's still a controversial subject with contradicting research results. There are plenty of reasons to be responsible in our treatment of the Earth and its resources. Global warming or not, we are NOT living a sustainable lifestyle.

"Cheesey" wrote:

What constitutes a "sustainable" lifestyle?

When the Bushites and others were yukking it up over USA GDP growth rates in the neighborhood of 5 percent a few years ago, I pointed out to my students that mature economies have never been able to sustain that kind of growth.

On the other hand, when the "sustainable development" people talk, I also often object. Because the last 250 years or so have shown that we can sustain pretty substantial growth; and the evidence of the last 100 or so show that the amount that we can sustain is not decreasing, but increasing. Perhaps (though this evidence is as debatable as a lot of the global warming stuff) even increasing at an increasing rate.

The thing that I find myself pointing out over and over again: the constraint on sustainability is not resource-based. It is human ingenuity.

Now if people want to argue that man and his brain have reached the point of diminishing returns with respect to their ability to invent and innovate, fine. I don't agree, but I can see several reasons why that might be the case. (The example of the Tower of Babel comes to my mind.)

Let me put it this way. Say our lifestyle currently requires resources X, Y, and Z. Suppose, too, that through our profligacy we run completely out of one or more of those resources. Disaster, right?

Well, not necessarily. Because, while we've used up matter/energy taking forms X, Y, and/or Z, last I knew the law of conservation of matter/energy hasn't been repealed. And while it is true that right now we don't know what to do with resources X', Y', and Z', what is to say that some researcher/inventer/entrepreneur/govt bureaucrat combination won't figure those out.

And if they do figure it out, guess what? That sustainability equation just got changed.

Again. Just as it got changed after industrialization proved Malthus wrong. Just as it got changed after the info revolution proved the Club of Rome wrong.

Do we have a moral obligation not to "waste" resources? Sure. But calculating economic waste is a lot harder than people think. Because waste is a question of value, like everything interesting in economics. You can't just count the amounts of things; you need to count the values of those things being counted.

Ironically, the sustainability people tend to ignore their best argument in this regard, because, too often, they tend to ignore the best measure we have of value -- the money price.

Yes, I know. Lots of values don't get included in price. External effects, blah blah blah. But I didn't say the money price was a great measure of value when it comes to looking at our natural resources. I only said it was our best one.

Take "carbon footprint", for example. We add up our emission of certain gasses. So what's the value of the methane Foster farts after drinking all that lousy wheat beer?

If you think we're wasting or using up resources or damaging the ecology, find a price that reflects that resource or ecology value, and point out how it has increased. Then you're talking about something that tends to have a lot of value going to waste.

But until you do, you might just be worrying about beer farts.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)

TheEngineer
Registered

15 years ago

#54

I've always wanted to create a self-sufficient body covering, akin to a stillsuit from Dune.

Bring it, possibly-human-induced climactic temperature rise.

blank

dfosterf
Veteran Member

15 years ago

#55

That's just it Zero.
I don't doubt that the Earth is getting warmer. That's probably true.
What i have a problem with is the people saying that humans can some how control it, or are responsible for it. There have ALWAYS been climate variations. Some times warmer, sometimes colder.
But we have no control over it. The Earth has NEVER had a constant temperature.
It all boils down to FOLLOW THE MONEY. As long as they can use their "chicken little, the sky is falling" routine to control people and get their money, they are gonna continue it.

As I asked before, if man COULD lower the temperature, then how would they know when it was at the "right" temp? And how would they then STOP the temperature from going TOO low? And what IS the "right" temperature in the FIRST place?
I keep asking, and no one has an answer.

"Wade" wrote:

Ok... so what exactly is it that you're arguing for? An absence of responsibility when it comes to the environment? "Global Warming" is just something people have gotten obsessed with because of a) the doomsday appeal and b) it's still a controversial subject with contradicting research results. There are plenty of reasons to be responsible in our treatment of the Earth and its resources. Global warming or not, we are NOT living a sustainable lifestyle.

"MassPackersFan" wrote:

What constitutes a "sustainable" lifestyle?

When the Bushites and others were yukking it up over USA GDP growth rates in the neighborhood of 5 percent a few years ago, I pointed out to my students that mature economies have never been able to sustain that kind of growth.

On the other hand, when the "sustainable development" people talk, I also often object. Because the last 250 years or so have shown that we can sustain pretty substantial growth; and the evidence of the last 100 or so show that the amount that we can sustain is not decreasing, but increasing. Perhaps (though this evidence is as debatable as a lot of the global warming stuff) even increasing at an increasing rate.

The thing that I find myself pointing out over and over again: the constraint on sustainability is not resource-based. It is human ingenuity.

Now if people want to argue that man and his brain have reached the point of diminishing returns with respect to their ability to invent and innovate, fine. I don't agree, but I can see several reasons why that might be the case. (The example of the Tower of Babel comes to my mind.)

Let me put it this way. Say our lifestyle currently requires resources X, Y, and Z. Suppose, too, that through our profligacy we run completely out of one or more of those resources. Disaster, right?

Well, not necessarily. Because, while we've used up matter/energy taking forms X, Y, and/or Z, last I knew the law of conservation of matter/energy hasn't been repealed. And while it is true that right now we don't know what to do with resources X', Y', and Z', what is to say that some researcher/inventer/entrepreneur/govt bureaucrat combination won't figure those out.

And if they do figure it out, guess what? That sustainability equation just got changed.

Again. Just as it got changed after industrialization proved Malthus wrong. Just as it got changed after the info revolution proved the Club of Rome wrong.

Do we have a moral obligation not to "waste" resources? Sure. But calculating economic waste is a lot harder than people think. Because waste is a question of value, like everything interesting in economics. You can't just count the amounts of things; you need to count the values of those things being counted.

Ironically, the sustainability people tend to ignore their best argument in this regard, because, too often, they tend to ignore the best measure we have of value -- the money price.

Yes, I know. Lots of values don't get included in price. External effects, blah blah blah. But I didn't say the money price was a great measure of value when it comes to looking at our natural resources. I only said it was our best one.

Take "carbon footprint", for example. We add up our emission of certain gasses. So what's the value of the methane Foster farts after drinking all that lousy wheat beer?

If you think we're wasting or using up resources or damaging the ecology, find a price that reflects that resource or ecology value, and point out how it has increased. Then you're talking about something that tends to have a lot of value going to waste.

But until you do, you might just be worrying about beer farts.

"Cheesey" wrote:

I do feel a certain responsibility to throw a few bucks in someone's kitty after yesterday's experiences. :thumbleft:

Some have equated the global warming hysteria industry's solutions to something akin to murder. I tend to lean towards that perspective. In the real world, were the industrialized nations to start taxing one another via the RIDICULOUS model of compensation for everyone's and everything's carbon imprint, the people that are going to suffer the most are the poorest in this world. I find it to be a massively dangerous diversion of priorities. If someone can show me that the impacts from global warming outstrip the impact of world-class poverty, I'm willing to revisit the issue. The irony being that these liberal-minded souls seem to gloss over that aspect far too easily in the quest of achieving their objectives. The whole issue has some of the same flavors as the gun control debate. I don't trust any of them.

Here, in exchange for my messin' up the environment yesterday...Have a strong bout of natural cooling study. :thumbright:

dhazer
Veteran Member

15 years ago

#56

Watch the movie 2012 they say the safest place in North America will be Wisconsin because that will become the south pole 😞

Just Imagine this for the next 6-9 years. What a ride it will be 🙂 (PS, Zero should charge for this)

Cheesey
Preferred Member Topic Starter

15 years ago

#57

That's just it Zero.
I don't doubt that the Earth is getting warmer. That's probably true.
What i have a problem with is the people saying that humans can some how control it, or are responsible for it. There have ALWAYS been climate variations. Some times warmer, sometimes colder.
But we have no control over it. The Earth has NEVER had a constant temperature.
It all boils down to FOLLOW THE MONEY. As long as they can use their "chicken little, the sky is falling" routine to control people and get their money, they are gonna continue it.

As I asked before, if man COULD lower the temperature, then how would they know when it was at the "right" temp? And how would they then STOP the temperature from going TOO low? And what IS the "right" temperature in the FIRST place?
I keep asking, and no one has an answer.

"MassPackersFan" wrote:

Ok... so what exactly is it that you're arguing for? An absence of responsibility when it comes to the environment? "Global Warming" is just something people have gotten obsessed with because of a) the doomsday appeal and b) it's still a controversial subject with contradicting research results. There are plenty of reasons to be responsible in our treatment of the Earth and its resources. Global warming or not, we are NOT living a sustainable lifestyle.

"Cheesey" wrote:

As i have stated several times in this thread already. I am NOT against trying to be more conservative with taking care of our resources. What i am dead set against is the constant scare tactics used, that just are NOT true. Did you know that a big company can "buy off" it's responsibility? Thats right.....PAY and it's ok for you to keep on poluteing. Should that be allowed? Or guys like AL Gore, that own shares in big "anti pollution" companies going out and making "GLOBAL WARMING" scare movies?
Like i have said, you want the truth? Follow the money trail! See where it leads.
Gore and his buddies will make a FORTUNE off their scare tactics. And being as there is NO proof that man has anything to do with the globe warming at all, it's wrong to just make up crap like that. Then to use it for financial gain.
That's how i see it, at least.
Like i said already, when i was in school, they were yelling "THE NEXT ICE AGE IS COMING! WE ALL ARE GONNA FREEZE!"
Please....tell me what changed SO drastically in 37 years that we went from freezing to frying???
The "flavor of the day!" Freeze was then, today it's fry.
If you want to believe that, be my guest. But i won't fall for it.

MassPackersFan
Member

15 years ago

#58

What constitutes a "sustainable" lifestyle?

When the Bushites and others were yukking it up over USA GDP growth rates in the neighborhood of 5 percent a few years ago, I pointed out to my students that mature economies have never been able to sustain that kind of growth.

On the other hand, when the "sustainable development" people talk, I also often object. Because the last 250 years or so have shown that we can sustain pretty substantial growth; and the evidence of the last 100 or so show that the amount that we can sustain is not decreasing, but increasing. Perhaps (though this evidence is as debatable as a lot of the global warming stuff) even increasing at an increasing rate.

The thing that I find myself pointing out over and over again: the constraint on sustainability is not resource-based. It is human ingenuity.

Now if people want to argue that man and his brain have reached the point of diminishing returns with respect to their ability to invent and innovate, fine. I don't agree, but I can see several reasons why that might be the case. (The example of the Tower of Babel comes to my mind.)

Let me put it this way. Say our lifestyle currently requires resources X, Y, and Z. Suppose, too, that through our profligacy we run completely out of one or more of those resources. Disaster, right?

Well, not necessarily. Because, while we've used up matter/energy taking forms X, Y, and/or Z, last I knew the law of conservation of matter/energy hasn't been repealed. And while it is true that right now we don't know what to do with resources X', Y', and Z', what is to say that some researcher/inventer/entrepreneur/govt bureaucrat combination won't figure those out.

And if they do figure it out, guess what? That sustainability equation just got changed.

Again. Just as it got changed after industrialization proved Malthus wrong. Just as it got changed after the info revolution proved the Club of Rome wrong.

Do we have a moral obligation not to "waste" resources? Sure. But calculating economic waste is a lot harder than people think. Because waste is a question of value, like everything interesting in economics. You can't just count the amounts of things; you need to count the values of those things being counted.

Ironically, the sustainability people tend to ignore their best argument in this regard, because, too often, they tend to ignore the best measure we have of value -- the money price.

Yes, I know. Lots of values don't get included in price. External effects, blah blah blah. But I didn't say the money price was a great measure of value when it comes to looking at our natural resources. I only said it was our best one.

Take "carbon footprint", for example. We add up our emission of certain gasses. So what's the value of the methane Foster farts after drinking all that lousy wheat beer?

If you think we're wasting or using up resources or damaging the ecology, find a price that reflects that resource or ecology value, and point out how it has increased. Then you're talking about something that tends to have a lot of value going to waste.

But until you do, you might just be worrying about beer farts.

"Wade" wrote:

I don't really understand your parallel between the growth of consumption of the world's resources and the economy. The economy is a human construct, as is wealth. Environmental resources and their limits exist with or without us humans.

250 years may be significant when discussing economic growth, but it is a tiny blip on the radar when discussing the survivability of a species and the sustainability of a lifestyle, especially one that consumes like the human species consumes.

Human ingenuity is very impressive, but it doesn't negate the fact that ingenuity forced upon us by larger populations and larger consumption has led to serious health and environmental issues over a relatively tiny period of time.

I couldn't tell if you were saying resources X, Y, and Z were used by us or we did not know how to convert them to useful energy, etc... or how "waste" and our definition of waste is defined, but surely you've heard of entropy. The more we convert these resources into energy, the more the output becomes less usable and less efficient. Waste is simply waste, at some point.

MassPackersFan
Member

15 years ago

#59

That's just it Zero.
I don't doubt that the Earth is getting warmer. That's probably true.
What i have a problem with is the people saying that humans can some how control it, or are responsible for it. There have ALWAYS been climate variations. Some times warmer, sometimes colder.
But we have no control over it. The Earth has NEVER had a constant temperature.
It all boils down to FOLLOW THE MONEY. As long as they can use their "chicken little, the sky is falling" routine to control people and get their money, they are gonna continue it.

As I asked before, if man COULD lower the temperature, then how would they know when it was at the "right" temp? And how would they then STOP the temperature from going TOO low? And what IS the "right" temperature in the FIRST place?
I keep asking, and no one has an answer.

"Cheesey" wrote:

Ok... so what exactly is it that you're arguing for? An absence of responsibility when it comes to the environment? "Global Warming" is just something people have gotten obsessed with because of a) the doomsday appeal and b) it's still a controversial subject with contradicting research results. There are plenty of reasons to be responsible in our treatment of the Earth and its resources. Global warming or not, we are NOT living a sustainable lifestyle.

"MassPackersFan" wrote:

As i have stated several times in this thread already. I am NOT against trying to be more conservative with taking care of our resources. What i am dead set against is the constant scare tactics used, that just are NOT true. Did you know that a big company can "buy off" it's responsibility? Thats right.....PAY and it's ok for you to keep on poluteing. Should that be allowed? Or guys like AL Gore, that own shares in big "anti pollution" companies going out and making "GLOBAL WARMING" scare movies?
Like i have said, you want the truth? Follow the money trail! See where it leads.
Gore and his buddies will make a FORTUNE off their scare tactics. And being as there is NO proof that man has anything to do with the globe warming at all, it's wrong to just make up crap like that. Then to use it for financial gain.
That's how i see it, at least.
Like i said already, when i was in school, they were yelling "THE NEXT ICE AGE IS COMING! WE ALL ARE GONNA FREEZE!"
Please....tell me what changed SO drastically in 37 years that we went from freezing to frying???
The "flavor of the day!" Freeze was then, today it's fry.
If you want to believe that, be my guest. But i won't fall for it.

"Cheesey" wrote:

I agree, dumbed down scare tactics are annoying. However, some of the environmental impact we are having is pretty damn scary, apart from the whole global warming/cooling debate.

Wade
Veteran Member

15 years ago

#60

I don't really understand your parallel between the growth of consumption of the world's resources and the economy. The economy is a human construct, as is wealth. Environmental resources and their limits exist with or without us humans.

250 years may be significant when discussing economic growth, but it is a tiny blip on the radar when discussing the survivability of a species and the sustainability of a lifestyle, especially one that consumes like the human species consumes.

Human ingenuity is very impressive, but it doesn't negate the fact that ingenuity forced upon us by larger populations and larger consumption has led to serious health and environmental issues over a relatively tiny period of time.

I couldn't tell if you were saying resources X, Y, and Z were used by us or we did not know how to convert them to useful energy, etc... or how "waste" and our definition of waste is defined, but surely you've heard of entropy. The more we convert these resources into energy, the more the output becomes less usable and less efficient. Waste is simply waste, at some point.

"MassPackersFan" wrote:

"Environmental limits exist with or without us humans." True. But IMO beside the point. Call me human-centric, but apart from my dog I don't much care what happens to rest of the planet inhabitants if all human life is gone.

The question, ISTM, is whether we should operate as if those limits are as defined by the current state of human knowledge.

Yes, the economy is a human construct. It's a construct defined by how it reshapes the environment. Reshaping the environment (or trying to) is what human beings do. We make stone and wood into houses. We make iron ore and coal into steel. We put nitrogen and water and soil together in new ways to get higher yields of corn. Man's "natural" place in nature is to strive to change it.

I believe in entropy, yes. I believe I'm going to die and become worm food. (I also believe I'm going to live again, eternally, but that's another piece of faith that really isn't relevant here.)

But in the meantime I've got to decide what I have faith in and what I'm going to fear. I've got to decide what I believe is possible and and what is not.

Yes, 250 years, in terms of the length of human existence on the planet, is pretty short. And in terms of the life of the universe, it's less than a blip. But 250 years is also 8-12 generations of human existence. And 3-4 times my expected lifespan. That, to me, is grounds for much hope.

Now, if my hope is ill-founded, I'm part of the problem. I'm accelerating our decline. But, to be frank, it's worth taking a risk. Because if the "our current lifestyle can't be sustained" argument is correct, then there's not much of an argument for any of that edifice of technology and economic growth we've built over those 250 years. If the last 250 is just a blip before Malthus is proven right...well, we've got about 80 percent of the world's population to get rid of. Because the "simple" and "natural" world of 1750 couldn't sustain all of us.

In the end, entropy is God's problem, not mine. By God's standards of what constitutes "important works", anything we do is a waste. But I don't ask myself to solve God's problems. That's too hubristic even for an economist.

"Waste is simply waste, at some point." Sure. But the key, you see, is "when is 'some point'?" The answer to that "when?" question is going to be determined, not by the amount of oil we have or by the carbon footprint we make or, even by the number of species we kill, but by the limits of our human ingenuity.

Resources are here to be converted into other forms and used. Waste, to me, consists of two things: (i) taking away the incentive to find new ways to convert those resources in the name of "conservation"; and (ii) converting resources into a form that no one can figure out how to use.

(i) v. (ii) IMO is where the debate on sustainability belongs.

But shifting the debate alone isn't enough. We must also recognize that it is a debate that takes place on grounds of faith as well as grounds of reason. We are all intellectual descendents of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. We value, and rightly so, the "scientific evidence" on a question such as this. But because the science involved is not just the science of "resource limits" or of "physical entropy" but the science of "the limits of human understanding of resource limits in the future" and the science of "the extent of human ingenuity's ability to postpone entropy in the future", we must -- all of us, on all sides -- take one or more stances of faith about what might happen in the future.

Because none of us knows the future.

My "human ingenuity" stance is based on my deciding which historical evidence is most persuasive to me (i.e. the last 250 years). But that deciding is, in the end a stance of faith.

But so, too, is everyone's deciding on what they believe about the future.

(shrug)

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)

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