The Nobel Prize (for propaganda)

People will potentially unite over big issues, this is a big enough issue, and ceterus paribus, a more unviersal one than global war for oil, making the world safe for GM agribusiness, or otherwise attempting to cement corporate profit centers through political, economic and military force.

Or jihad for that matter, Christian or otherwise, these are all short term. us/them concepts, divisive not uniting.

I don't happen to to believe that's all it is, conservatives bitched about the ecology movement back inthe Seventies too, when Lake Eerie was on fucking fire fer chrisakes. You didn't need scientific models back then, you just had to look out the window.

We did manage to clean a lot of that up, but it still doesn't sit well with some people, who are comfortable with an Eastern European style industrial hellhole, as they can simply retreat to their summer house in the Hamptons, or go skiing in Swizerland - i.e., no problem.

It's not a big world with a few people anymore, it's a small world with a lot of fucking people, and Eighteenth century industrial romanticism is an increasingly untenable delusion.

Is opposing the fine grained technologies based on sustainablity and conservation in favor of take-the-money-and-run/devil-take-the-hindmost crude depletion more or less Luddite?

As trisail notes in the OP, few of those who are most passionately and loudly promoting the global warming theory are scientists, and scientists are divided, many saying it's a crock (mostly ignored by the media). The loudly passionate promoters have some other things in common, however: They tend to be strongly statist, favoring government mandates, regulations, controls, taxes subsidies and prohibitions in many areas of life. They also tend to be somewhat or very hostile to industrial civilization and capitalism - the more fervent their promotion of the warming theory, the more hostile they tend to be to those.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but in my experience the tendencies and correlations are very strong.

It should be noted that the warming theory has become perhaps the most prevalent rationale for expansions of the government mandates, regulations, controls, subsidies, taxes and prohibitions favored by statists in many areas of life and commerce, global warming or no. Coincidence?

Roxanne Appleby said:

It should be noted that the warming theory has become perhaps the most prevalent rationale for expansions of the government mandates, regulations, controls, subsidies, taxes and prohibitions favored by statists in many areas of life and commerce, global warming or no. Coincidence?

Click to expand...

Wrong-- the War On Terror, and The Need To Protect The Citizen From Himself-- that's what's creating the government mandates, regulations, controls, subsidies, taxes, and prohibitions these days.

eta:

Ohg, wait-- you said; "As favored by statists"

By which, of course, you mean "left-leaning statists."

It seems to me we are seing a distressing rise in right-wing statists, as per my examples above-- you can't use the word to mean the one side only any longer, you'll have to specify adroit or a gauche.

Stella_Omega said:

Wrong-- the War On Terror, and The Need To Protect The Citizen From Himself-- that's what's creating the government mandates, regulations, controls, subsidies, taxes, and prohibitions these days.

Click to expand...

Um - that too is creating them. Good point - no political party has a monopoly on statism; it comes in many flavors. So my point was not wrong, but as a description of statists it was incomplete. (And that's OK because in the edited version of my post it described those who are "loudly passionate" about promoting the warming theory. Al Gore, fer instance.)

If we assume that 'scientists' are clear thinkers (a la MiAmico) then it would appear that Roxelby's definitions, tendencies and correlations actually validate an opposite 'natural' order to 'right thinking'.

Trained objectivity leads to more societal thinking.

Can I further assume that rejection, or ambivalence towards, theism (which is another 'definition' of scientists, given that Christian scientists appear to make lots of noise about their Christianity) is also an indicator that logical, dispassionate or objective 'thinking' is actually swayed towards people, or soicety, or heaven forfend, socialism?

n'est-ce pas?

wrong, twice, rox; note to stella

rox, few of those who are most passionately and loudly promoting the global warming theory are scientists,

the International, UN committee, International Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] that received the Nobel, are scientists, and are very concerned; as to who is "loud", that's irrelevant.

roxand scientists are divided, many saying it's a crock (mostly ignored by the media).

P: no, "many" in the climate field, and metereology, agree on warming. there are, by my count, about a half dozen qualified, dissenting scientists, out of hundreds; these are the current right wing darlings, e.g. Lomberg.

as an appendix, i'd note that the issue of statism, subject of roxy's nightmares and reinforced by the party she voted for (arbitrary powers), is probably NOT a concern of climate scientists, who probably represent a spectrum of politics. the view would be that something should be done and government has a role, a position only attacked by the extreme right (rand folks) or associated loonies (limbaugh).

this is the position which the British court affirmed, in essence, in discussing Gore's movie. see my posting #3 above for reference:

Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.

In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”

The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.

===

stella: good points about the expansion of statism as never talked about by amicus, roxanne, trysail, and so on.

the so called 'war on terror'... a phrase little used outside the US, is the reason both stated and implicit behind a raft of extensions of executive power: warrentless surveillance, renditions to foreign countries, declarations about NON applicability of Geneva accords, hidden prisons, suspension of habeus corpus, torture specifications at special facilities under new labels as interrogation techniques, etc.

Meanwhile, back in the REAL gulags and torture chambers -

Not Nobel Winners

WSJ - October 13, 2007

In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

Or to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing terrorists and drug lords in his country.

Or to Garry Kasparov and the several hundred Russians who were arrested in April, and are continually harassed, for resisting President Vladimir Putin's slide toward authoritarian rule.

Or to the people of Iraq, who bravely work to rebuild and reunite their country amid constant threats to themselves and their families from terrorists who deliberately target civilians.

Or to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili who, despite the efforts of the Kremlin to undermine their young states, stayed true to the spirit of the peaceful "color" revolutions they led in Ukraine and Georgia and showed that democracy can put down deep roots in Russia's backyard.

Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.

Or to thousands of Chinese bloggers who run the risk of arrest by trying to bring uncensored information to their countrymen.

Or to scholar and activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and other democracy campaigners in Egypt.

Or, posthumously, to lawmakers Walid Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni; journalist Samir Kassir; and other Lebanese citizens who've been assassinated since 2005 for their efforts to free their country from Syrian control.

Or to the Reverend Phillip Buck; Pastor Chun Ki Won and his organization, Durihana; Tim Peters and his Helping Hands Korea; and Liberty in North Korea, who help North Korean refugees escape to safety in free nations.

These men and women put their own lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and oppression. Let us hope they survive the coming year so that the Nobel Prize Committee might consider them for the 2008 award.

There is no such thing as global warming...It's now call Dramatic Climate Change. As to local observations, it was cool long into the summer months then hot farther into the fall months than usual this year. But it has now returned to normal. Drought in the southeast has caused the lakes(reservoirs) around Atlanta to fall to a low point. Although when I lived there Lake Altoona was always just a mud hole. As for things in the breadbasket of America...

All is back to normal fall activity...it rains, the sunshines, it's cool as it should be. The weather is as I remember it as a child...except that one time it snowed in July and then everyone was claiming an new ice age was coming. Whatever happened to that? Oh well fades come and fades go. I, personally am still waiting for my flying car but don't thing it will ever come to fruition.

So the debate ping-pongs back and forth and really only time will tell us who had it right....and probably not even in our lifetimes.

I myself try and do the right thing to help where I can...but I will be long dead before we see.

Then again it may be that the world will turn without any help from us, it's a big place and we are yet such an insignificant blight on it hind end.

Wsj

Not Nobel Winners
October 13, 2007; Page A10

In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe** opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.



What utter hypocrites. Silent on almost all oppressions including US citizens in jail with no trial. As if they fucking cared about saudi women!
They have constantly endorsed US Saudi policy for decades.


UTTER HYPOCRITES!

---
**PS i'd love to see some WSJ editorials when rhodesia was on the map, and there was a zimbabwan independence movement!

as well as all those they devoted to Pinochet's government while it was in power.....

Utter Hypocrites.

Pure said:

Not Nobel Winners
October 13, 2007; Page A10

In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe** opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.



What utter hypocrites. Silent on almost all oppressions including US citizens in jail with no trial. As if they fucking cared about saudi women!
They have constantly endorsed US Saudi policy for decades.


UTTER HYPOCRITES!

---
**PS i'd love to see some WSJ editorials when rhodesia was on the map, and there was a zimbabwan independence movement!

as well as all those they devoted to Pinochet's government while it was in power.....

Utter Hypocrites.

Click to expand...

Nice try at changing the subject and focus. The thread is about the ultimate trivialization, debasement and descent into pure politics of the now-absurd Nobel "Peace" prize.

dear rox,

yes, well, i once asked you to list your postings about 'statism' in your own back yard..... growth of abitrary government power.

i got back, on your own admission. nothing.

the wsj and you both reach great heights of moral indigation over oppressions, in other countries, that you condone the other 364 days a year.

and it's pretty transparent what this anti-nobel thing is all about.

best,

---
i bet i could make a stack a mile high of WSJ artcles and editorials touting the virtues of "our friends" in the house of Saud. some of whom helped fund 9-11, btw.

i realize you care about abused women, but the WSJ and saudi women, gimme a fucking break.

A small challenge to Roxanne and the folks at WSJ

The Wall Street Journal recently mentioned a list of persons they feel deserve the attention of the Nobel committe. (rather than Al Gore).

Among them was Saudi feminist, Wajeda al Hawaider, about whom i post the information below. [see WSJ quotation at the end of this posting]

The Challenge: Please reproduce here the titles and initial paras of all Wall Street Journal articles--regular news or official WSJ editorial, not the opinion page-- that deal with Wajeda al Hawaider, over the past year. Lacking that, articles about the Saudi feminist movement will do.

First question: Are there any at all?

-
===



http://vitalperspective.typepad.com/

The movie banned by PBS, "Islam vs Islamists" gives voice to a few brave reformers. Wajeha Al-Huwaider is another one:

"On the first anniversary of the crowning of King Abdallah on August 4, 2006, Wajeha Al-Huwaider chose to mark the occasion in a way that typifies her style in recent years. In an attempt to remind the king of the promise he made on the eve of his coronation, she marched alone on the bridge connecting Saudi Arabia with Bahrain, holding a sign that made one demand of King Abdallah: “Grant Women Their Rights.”

After marching for about 20 minutes she was arrested and taken in for questioning at the nearest police station, but the investigation itself could not get underway because any investigation involving a woman requires the presence of a clergyman who belongs to the “Morality Police” (Al-Mutawin).

"This special police force has 20,000 members who oversee proper public conduct in accordance with the harsh principles of the Wahhabi movement, the official stream of the Saudi monarchy and one of the most orthodox and conservative currents in Islam. [...]

"A few hours after her arrest she was set free, but her passport was confiscated and she was forbidden to leave the country. In accordance with existing laws in Saudi Arabia, a woman is not permitted to walk around alone without being chaperoned by a male from her immediate family. Therefore she had to stay at the station until her brother, many years her junior, arrived to take her home.[...]

"This is what Al-Huwaider wrote in heartrending fashion, with regards to the current system of laws in Muslim states intended to limit a woman to her home, under the supervision of the males in her life: “These are laws that are definitely unsuitable at a time where cats and dogs, in the developed world, enjoy much greater rights than those enjoyed by Arab women, and even greater than those which Arab males receive.”

These words have a significance that goes beyond their immediate context. Al-Huwaider chose to make her arguments while still living in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which endows her words with an unusual power intellectuals living elsewhere cannot match."

===

The Wall Street Journal, Oct 13, said, in apparent condemnation,

[The Nobel prize was NOT awarded ...] ... to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

The Shrinking Glaciers of Kilimanjaro: Can Global Warming Be Blamed?
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55553/page/7;jsessionid=baa9

The short answer: no.

"The shrinking glacier is an iconic image of global climate change. Rising temperatures may reshape vegetation, but such changes are visually subtle on the landscape; by contrast, a vast glacier retreated to a fraction of its former grandeur presents stunning evidence of how climate shapes the face of the planet. Viewers of the film "An Inconvenient Truth" are startled by paired before-and-after photos of vanishing glaciers around the world. If those were not enough, the scars left behind by the retreat of these mountain-grinding giants testify to their impotence in the face of something as insubstantial as warmer air.

But the commonly heard—and generally correct—statement that glaciers are disappearing because of warming glosses over the physical processes responsible for their disappearance. Indeed, warming fails spectacularly to explain the behavior of the glaciers and plateau ice on Africa's Kilimanjaro massif, just 3 degrees south of the equator, and to a lesser extent other tropical glaciers."

Gore gets a cold shoulder
By Steve Lyttle
October 14, 2007

One of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing."

Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.

But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.

He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

I'm actually ambivalent about global warming, I take it with a small pinch of salt in much the same way as I took the shooting down of flight KAL 007 in 1983.
America cried 'demons', a British, politically active trade unionist (Arthur Scargill) said "Let's wait til we have the facts."

As far as I'm aware (according to a movie about the incident) Scargill was right.

Wait til we have the facts. Unfortunately the facts are dependant on short term forecasting which, as we all know, can be construed however you like. "Short Term!" I hear you cry. Well, in geological terms, 150 to 200 even a thousand years (although king Harold didn't exactly have any weather advice at Hastings) is exceedingly short.

(Having said that, and since I've been researching a story/possible novel about that period, it happens that William the Bastard (conqueror) had to put off his invasion due to bad weather which delayed the channel crossing whilst Harold was in the North fighting at Stamford Bridge 2 to 250 miles away)

The British Meteorological Office willingly admits that it cannot forecast with any accuracy further than three days.

On the other hand I am a 'just in case' kind of bloke. Always check your spare tire, just in case. Make sure your smoke alarms are working, just in case.
Pay a couple of workers to sit around doing nothing or doing makework, just in case.

So it might well be that global warming is hurried by burning things, so slow down, the oil's gonna disappear eventually anyway, so slow down. Just in case.

One last word: Kyoto. Just slow down. Just in case.

(A word of warning, {that you should have got by now} try realising that eternal expansion is impossible. Try finding ways to balance. Ways to remain dynamic in the face of entropy. Ways that you don't use up what isn't yours.)

gauchecritic said:

I'm actually ambivalent about global warming, I take it with a small pinch of salt in much the same way as I took the shooting down of flight KAL 007 in 1983.
America cried 'demons', a British, politically active trade unionist (Arthur Scargill) said "Let's wait til we have the facts."

As far as I'm aware (according to a movie about the incident) Scargill was right.

Click to expand...

What "facts" would those be, Gauche, that somehow mitigate the murder of several hundred innocent men, women and children?

(The same "facts" about making ommelettes?)

That said, I'm glad to hear that you have not fully imbibed the GW kool-aide.

Roxanne Appleby said:

What "facts" would those be, Gauche, that somehow mitigate the murder of several hundred innocent men, women and children?

(The same "facts" about making ommelettes?)

That said, I'm glad to hear that you have not fully imbibed the GW kool-aide.

Click to expand...

Mitigation nothing. You sent a spy plane, they followed it, they turned back and an exceedingly similar plane came back from the same direction. I have no judgement on the actual happening, merely on the gall and hysteria that you then followed it up with instead of explanation.

On imbibing. I've never listened to anything that the US wants me to listen to, on principle.

There's a problem with "waiting til we have the facts," and that is-- the house will be on fire, that's how we'll know for sure.

Roxanne Appleby said:

What "facts" would those be, Gauche, that somehow mitigate the murder of several hundred innocent men, women and children?

(The same "facts" about making ommelettes?)

That said, I'm glad to hear that you have not fully imbibed the GW kool-aide.

Click to expand...

Probobly the fact that KAL 007 was on roughly the same flightpath and timing as routine us spyplane missions being run to test Soviet response - the when the blip did not turn around as it would otherwise been expected to do, but continued to overfly Soviet missile testing grounds, phased array installations, and near the Sub pens at Petropavlovsk, it was shot down.

If a Soviet airliner had tried to overfly Kings Bay, you can bet your ass we'd shot that motherfucker down too.

gauchecritic said:

On imbibing. I've never listened to anything that the US wants me to listen to, on principle.

Click to expand...

Not even the Beach Boys?

Roxanne Appleby said:

. . .

That said, I'm glad to hear that you have not fully imbibed the GW kool-aide.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Bush doesn't even add sugar.

Or were you talking about a different GW?

Stella_Omega said:

There's a problem with "waiting til we have the facts," and that is-- the house will be on fire, that's how we'll know for sure.

Click to expand...

The problem is, if someone thinks they might smell smoke in the house it's not really prudent to drown the house with 100,000 gallons of water on the mere suspicion. (Especially if that someone has been hollering "Fire" on a phalanx of issues for almost 40 years, many of which turned out to be wildly overstated or bogus.) The 100,000 gallons refer to the economically destructive effects of the command-and-control responses that GW's most fervent purveyors are enamored of. As Bjorn Lomborg has eloquently described, the wealth-destroying effect and opportunity costs of those responses will generate a whole lot more real pain and suffering for millions of people than the more responsible assessments of this highly speculative threat suggest that it will cause.

Roxanne Appleby said:

The problem is, if someone thinks they might smell smoke in the house it's not really prudent to drown the house with 100,000 gallons of water on the mere suspicion. (Especially if that someone has been hollering "Fire" on a phalanx of issues for almost 40 years, many of which turned out to be wildly overstated or bogus.) The 100,000 gallons refer to the economically destructive effects of the command-and-control responses that GW's most fervent purveyors are enamored of. As Bjorn Lomborg has eloquently described, the wealth-destroying effect and opportunity costs of those responses will generate a whole lot more real pain and suffering for millions of people than the more responsible assessments of this highly speculative threat suggest that it will cause.

Click to expand...

yeah, yeah, yeah, I know-- any remote possibility that you can refrain from your particular version of hyperbole?

I mean-- WOW! people have been talking about this for FORTY YEARS! Geeze you'd think they'd shut up by now, it's obvious that forty years is too long for it to be important anymore. You betcha.

Like so many other people, you read the newspaper reports that-- as usual-- report theory and conversation as Stated Fact. And when a theory turns out to be disprovable, or not-yet-provable, you point to it as an example of how wrong, how wildly overstated, how bogus the whole idea is. But-- there are lots of theories, dealing with mechanisms, effects, possible cures, timelines. What is generally accepted is that the globe is warming. You can pretend that, because science is not monolithically behind ONE BIG (and sound-biteable) theory, it can't be TRUE. But good luck with that.

And, oh gosh, the wealth-destroying effect, how HORRIBLE! I say that Bjorn Lomberg's wildly stated (my read, you call him "eloquent") theory will turn out to be bogus.

I'm not talking about drowning the house, as you so patronisingly put it, I'm talking about taking the matches away from the children. As I so patronisingly put it.

Stella_Omega said:

yeah, yeah, yeah, I know-- any remote possibility that you can refrain from your particular version of hyperbole?

Click to expand...

But darling, life would be so dull then!

Stella_Omega said:

I mean-- WOW! people have been talking about this for FORTY YEARS! Geeze you'd think they'd shut up by now, it's obvious that forty years is too long for it to be important anymore. You betcha.

Click to expand...

Actually, I was thinking of people like Paul Erlich and related issues like his hobbyhorse, the "population bomb." I was young and dumb when that came out, was was convinced that, yes indeed, we really were all gonna die, and quite soon, too. Then it was the global cooling craze of the early '70s, followed by the we're all gonna die because we are quickly running out of stuff craze of the late '70s, and so on and so on. At some point I got wise, stopped buying gold instead of S&P 500 index funds, moved back to the city from the rural compound (figuratively speaking), and decided to enjoy The Good Life. Those were good choices.

I'll bet anyone $1,000 that within five years GW will be seen as just one more in an continuing series of "we're all gonna die " hype-jobs, probably going back to concerns about stone depletion back in the caveman days (although the "we're using up the mastodons!" alarmists did turn out to have a point).

As far as slowing economic growth, it's not an issue of whether Joe Sixpack up in Minnesota will be able to buy a third snowmobile in 2012. It's about allowing hundreds of millions who hunger for the comforts, conveniences and broadened horizons we take for granted to more rapidly and surely get movin' on up from subsistence-level living standards. They may look quaint in their picturesque mud huts and cute little donkey wagons, but what they are literally dying for is indoor plumbing, electricity and a Vespa. Holding them back from that is the brutal reality of slow growth, and I mean that with all sincerity and feeling, notwithstaning the preceeding playful sarcasm

Roxanne Appleby said:

But darling, life would be so dull then!


Actually, I was thinking of people like Paul Erlich and related issues like his hobbyhorse, the "population bomb." I was young and dumb when that came out, was was convinced that, yes indeed, we really were all gonna die, and quite soon, too. Then it was the global cooling craze of the early '70s, followed by the we're all gonna die because we are quickly running out of stuff craze of the late '70s, and so on and so on. At some point I got wise, stopped buying gold instead of S&P 500 index funds, moved back to the city from the rural compound (figuratively speaking), and decided to enjoy The Good Life. Those were good choices.

I'll bet anyone $1,000 that within five years GW will be seen as just one more in an continuing series of "we're all gonna die " hype-jobs, probably going back to concerns about stone depletion back in the caveman days (although the "we're using up the mastodons!" alarmists did turn out to have a point).

As far as slowing economic growth, it's not an issue of whether Joe Sixpack up in Minnesota will be able to buy a third snowmobile in 2012. It's about allowing hundreds of millions who hunger for the comforts, conveniences and broadened horizons we take for granted to more rapidly and surely get movin' on up from subsistence-level living standards. They may look quaint in their picturesque mud huts and cute little donkey wagons, but what they are literally dying for is indoor plumbing, electricity and a Vespa. Holding them back from that is the brutal reality of slow growth, and I mean that with all sincerity and feeling, notwithstaning the preceeding playful sarcasm

Click to expand...

Why do you put a five-year limit on the issue? I don't. I think in longer timeframes than that.

I'm really not interested in your "playful sarcasm" at all. I would be interested in your respectful restraint, in an attempt on your part to avoid patronising hyperbole, stop putting assuming you know my thoughts or the range of my opinions-- "drown the house" indeed! Thank you for your kind advice!

I am actually, fairly moderate on the subject, but you'd never know that. You have never once taken even one moment to find out where actually I sit, you've simply told me that I am childish and unfeeling and economically ignorant. I am tired of conducting these conversations on the defensive, and in fact you've been on ignore for a good two months, for that reason-- just so I don't have to see your right-wing threads.

And your reasoning is bullshit;
"Oh, Paul Erhlich was wrong!"

You know what? One small reason why he's wrong right now-- is because of his book! It actually made a difference!

"Oh, the Ice age scare turned out to be a flop, so global warming must be wrong too!" That's excellent logic-- not. It's entirely possible that ther reason why the earth hasn't cooled down is beacuse we've been warming it at the same time. You know, like having a fever in the middle of winter.

You might have been young and dumb-- You seem to have retained one of those characteristics, darling. Just because you got tired of being scared doesn't prove a thing. Humans are notorious for stopping being scared. that's one of the problems here. "forty years is too long!" What time frame would be reasonable to you-- a half-hour, like a sitcom?

Look, I do not give a fuck if you do or don't worry about global warming or any other thing. My parents don't let it bother them, I'm fine with it. Just be honest and say you have decided not to let it bother you. Don't shove your bullshit rationales into the conversation. Don't tell me that I am stupid for worrying about it. Don't tell me that my priorities have to be your car and your airconditioner. I, unlike you, have children to think about. It matters to me that they, and their generation, have a life to live after I die. You once asked me; "why should you care, you'll be dead" Don't think I haven't forgotten that. It took my breath away, and made me lose what was left of my respect for you.

And don't talk to me about "Picturesque mud huts", because I do NOT want to see my kids living in them themselves. You and your oh so eloquent economic experts are going to put them there.

Get over yourself.

I have had to constantly delete perjoratives and expletives from this post-- I found myself typing nearly as many as regular words. You are quite welcome.