Republican Scorched Earth Policies

[turk]

By way of extrapolating the "ravages" of intelligence, and being "mercifully free" from those; it could be that's the evil lurking near the hearts of men no one should touch, lest they find their precious hearts be tainted by intelligence Sly.

[turk]

OK. There is your answer. It is utterly devoid of a factual basis, utterly absent a spelled-out scenario whereby we can see what you are saying. "Control carbon dioxide somehow" is meaningless. If we were talking about controlling water rights which several capitalist speculators are working on, I could give you watershed purchases, malfeasance claims in local water rights boards, and if I were a journalist, I might find damning emails of those bastards' 20-year-plans to buy and divert water into private reservoirs, etc.
But "controlling carbon dioxide somehow"? Who are the players? What have they planned? It has to be beyond idle barstool guesswork.

The players are the IPCC, various academics, jury-rigged boards of institutes, government(s), investment funds. Besides all that, read my last point (which you edited in a typical misquote):

3. there's a third option which DOES NOT control carbon dioxide somehow

Typical contradiction of logic in the post-normal science generation. THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF GLOBAL WARMING CAMPAIGN IS CURTAILING CO2 EMISSIONS. What don't you get about it NOW? You used to live by the creed. Now it is inconvenient to admit, and you toss it in the trash to squabble with me. Who's the real plonker utterly devoid of independent original logic?

No, this is the same sort of catastrophicism that greeted safety and fuel economy standards in the automobile industry. It was exactly your sort of thinking that finished off the hide-bound American car manufacturers and allowed Toyota and Honda to leapfrog ahead of us. Innovativeness will do that.
We could spank the Chinese with carbon sequestration/conversion technology if we would just invest and innovate. Make money! Like creative Republicans (an oxymoron)!

I do not want you on my team leading into the future, turk.
Colin

Where's the factual basis of any of that? Bad. Fail. Ideologue.

[ruckman101]

Perhaps you should do a little research.


neal

[ruckman101]

With all due respect, the gauge on your dashboard v. 30 years of 4,000,000,000 is a lot like walmart v. phytoplankton. We don't wanna quote Time Bandits again do we?

Well of course that is true. Scientists have much more sophisticated gauges to monitor trends than I.


neal

[turk]

Not really. No mater how big their models, or sophisticated their gauges, they can only predict trends, and they've been wrong since they started in the seventies. First it was "getting colder", then a few years ago "warmer", now colder again or leveling. Hell, they got the last two YEARS dead wrong for the N. hemisphere, and they have extremely limited models, leaving out numerous factors, like plants' evapotranspiration reduction due to more CO2 (the plants transpire LESS water now), etc.. So, your dashboard analogy is apropos to demonstrate the lack of data to gauge something so complex and chronologically disproportionate to a few decades of very limited data. Not science, politics, drive the dogma you hear. The siren song that sells so well. Hell, May 21 is around the corner. Maybe the Mayan calendar has something on us skeptics.

[ruckman101]

Sigh, yes, it's true, some folks actually put credence into the findings of Koch and other corporate funded scientists.


neal

[turk]

The Kochs are behind the May 1, 2011 apocalypse then. I was mistaken. The Mayan Calendar has it at Dec. 21 2012 I believe. I should do my research. I'm more of an Inca Aztec guy to be honest. Everything is permitted, nothing is true. Drink a few beers and enjoy the ride.

[ruckman101]

Yep, it's also true that those with propensities to sign onto a conspiracy theory are prone to empathize and be sympathetic to additional ones, often the theories intertwine.


neal

[turk]

Who will inherit the earth? My guess is the offspring of the Kochs. But the Mayan Calendar nixes it, unless they perfected a time machine and can loop 1 year and 8 months into a virtual eternity.

[glasseye]

Hell, they got the last two YEARS dead wrong for the N. hemisphere.

They did? How, exactly?

[turk]

<grin> the Met Office of Britain predicted warm winters with no snow for two years consecutively (and they were dead wrong both times). Now why would that be? Maybe because their models are not too good. Then we get revisions and explanations of course. Predictions are what they are. Crystal balls essentially. Nature doesn't work with that. Of course politics dictates what they now backpedal and revise and cover their asses with.

[RussellK]

Yeah well the wooly worms were dead on about this winter. Should I ask them how I should vote?

[turk]

If they are dead on all is well. Vote how you think best. Keep in mind climate change is pretty normal in big and small doses across the sphere. I really don't see it as an issue. JMHO..

[glasseye]

My understanding is that science predicted that Northern Europe and parts of North America would actually experience colder winters as a first result of climate change. Based on my experience, they were right. Winter is very slow to leave my backyard this year.

Anyway, imagine this:

In the far distant past, the arctic was tropical. That's why there's a zillion tons of natural gas buried up there. I know this for a fact. I've been there and I chatted with the boys who were drilling.

Anyway, it's dark up there, right? All winter long, it's pitch dark, just like it is now. But it's also hot.

Imagine a world where for nearly six months it's both hot and dark. All the time.

[turk]

I agree with most of your points , but hot? I don't see what the point is there unless you mean a long time hence, where various cycles bring it to that point. I just don't see it in the near future.