# Global warming is cancelled. Sorry.......



## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

I know alot of people were counting on global warming, but its been cancelled. Sorry for the inconvienience.............

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1399900408121222150&q=global+warming+cancelled+duration:long


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## Stratocaster (Feb 2, 2006)




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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

So thats where my pet bear wondered off to..........


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Diesel Jeans and clothing would be pissed. Their summer clothing line is depending on it. The marketing is in place, "Global Warming Ready"


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## mandocaster (Jan 11, 2007)

"It's a beaut-i-ful-day-in-the-neigh-bor-hood-
A-beaut-i-ful-day-in-the-neigh-bor-hood-
Oh-shit-we-spent-all-that-money-on-that-dum-com-mer-ci-al
pleease-give-me-a-tax-write-off......."
:zzz:


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Here is An Inconvient Truth for those who have not seen it. Unlike certain people, I urge you to watch both as they both do have good points......

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-247117336401221166&q=inconvienient+truth+duration:long


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

sorry for _your_ inconvenience.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Friends_of_Science

Watch the video here:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/index.html

Singer, the denial poster boy, actually has NO data!:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1480279,00.html


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Thats nice, keep attacking the other side blindly. Keep telling the world we are all going to die unless we send billions to Africa. There are III sides to every story unless youre a global warming activist, then its only your opinion that has any relevance.........


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Why do you assume I am "attacking" the other side "blindly" ?

Why do you assume I am an "activist"?

There is no way you could have seriously considered or even read/watched the info in my post given your almost instant response. That seems like a blind attack to me.

TG




Accept2 said:


> Thats nice, keep attacking the other side blindly. Keep telling the world we are all going to die unless we send billions to Africa. There are III sides to every story unless youre a global warming activist, then its only your opinion that has any relevance.........


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

I've already watched the Denial machine. I am in Canada, and I do have a TV, and it does have the CBC. As for the others, should I really believe whatever I read on the internet? If you post a link to Zundel, should I consider all my beliefs wrong because he has a website that attacks them? Watch both movies, and the truth is somewhere there and its probobly in the middle............


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Accept2 said:


> should I really believe whatever I read on the internet?


No, but you should actually read things first before dismissing them.

I'm getting out of this before it goes into a 1000 page thread. I already wasted a ton of energy on another board showing the methodological problems with many of the studies refuting global warming. All of it was consistently ignored and then yet another Al Gore attack emerged :confused-smiley-010 

Suffice to say, when research is deemed "peer reviewed" but the author was one of the people who peer reviewed it, credibility is out the window. When research cites studies and data that don't actually exist, credibility is again out the window. When you claim CO2 isn't really a problem because life needs CO2, you are just constructing strawmen (we need water too, but if we drink too much of it we die: water intoxication).

Nobody can guarantee 100% that the data on global warming is being interpreted correctly. But science NEVER produces 100% consensus on any complex issue (thankfully, otherwise it would stagnate and become dogmatic); it is critical that other voices are heard and all research is evaluated. Yet to exploit science's critical reflexivity and scepticism as "proof" there is "no evidence" of global warming is just wrong. To show that oil companies are funding PR campaign's that exploit this "dis-sensus" is not a political left/right issue. It does raise important questions about contemporary mass media. On that note . . .

If you seriously want to research this, go to a university and start reading peer reviewed, academic journals. A very different picture will emerge. Are academics infallible? Of course not, but there are some very real dangers associated with global warming and C02 emissions that cannot simply be dismissed.

TG


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## ne1roc (Mar 4, 2006)

Was the end of the ice age the result of global warming? If the answer is yes, I believe global warming started long before man entered the equation. If the answer is no.......then I blame disco.


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## Xanadu (Feb 3, 2006)

That video's too long to watch. Can you sum it up for me?
:tongue:


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

*"Swallow it ALL, now!"*



ne1roc said:


> Was the end of the ice age the result of global warming? If the answer is yes, I believe global warming started long before man entered the equation. If the answer is no.......then I blame disco.


You've put your finger on a big part of the problem, Mr. Roc. Much of the environmental movement has become politicized and applies marketing tactics to get you to accept more than just the basic premise of global warming.

It's what I've long called the "Joe Witness" technique, based on reading some of those religious magazines they hand out. Every mag seemed to have a "scientific" article and every article seemed to have the same "logical" flow. They would start with something that pretty well everyone knew and agreed, like how the moon orbits the earth. Then they'd jump to how the earth orbits the Sun and how the Sun orbits around the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy and how this galaxy in turn has its own orbit...the reader usually is beyond his own knowledge by this point but has gotten used to nodding his head up and down. A bit more of "scientific" info that is over his head and ZAPPO! They hit him with a total non sequitur like "Christ is therefore our personal savior!"

Please note that I am not questioning any personal religious beliefs but rather a dubious method of trying to prove them. These articles were not scientific proofs at all but merely marketing ploys using science to "train" the ignorant into agreement.

How does this relate to that portion of the modern eco-movement? Well, global warming is one issue. The fault being Man, Nature or whatever is quite another. The Kyoto Accord being a fair and efficient vehicle to correct global warming is distinctly a third point that would depend on the other two being settled before its terms and parameters could be intelligently framed.

Yet if you follow the media it's all the same thing! We are flooded with info claiming global warming is happening and all the other points seem to be assumed as given! If you criticize the politics and methods of Kyoto then you must be a global warming denier who is trying to ensure that his grandkids fry!

How about this "creed"? Global warming may be real but I'm still not convinced of the causes and not knowing the causes makes it hard to know the best and most cost-efficient solutions. Meanwhile Kyoto looks like a leftwing guilt trip to transfer the hard-earned tax money of western citizens to Russia, China, India and third world nations supposedly to help them pay for their own modernization of anti-warming gas technologies. The worst flaws are that Kyoto exempts those three countries I've named, when they are perhaps the worst offenders on the planet and appear to be doing little or nothing but pocketing the money. Also, there is no mention of any audit trail for these monies. If you buy emission credits from the Sudan they can use it to buy all the guns and rocket launchers they want and no one would pay attention. Except for hundreds of thousands of poor souls in Darfur, of course.

After that UN "report" was issued a week or so ago I was stunned to hear a young lady reporter on CBC NewsWorld ranting at how "The Debate is over! All scientists everywhere agree! It's all a fact exactly as these guys say and we should do as they tell us!"

Obviously, she dropped science in the 3rd grade in favour of art courses. Later in her schooling to become a journalist she probably went to Queens or Ryerson. Fine schools but I've never heard of them as leaders in the hard sciences. Law, politics and journalism, rather. I haven't seen ANY reporter outside of The Discovery Channel who appeared to have ever studied more science than he or she needed to stuff a paper towel in a jar and germinate some bean seeds!

Oh well, environmentalism seems to be the new religion. Like with other religions, you can't debate with faith. You can only rant and argue.

Meanwhile, I'm more worried that Kyoto-based environmentalism is a distraction from other possible causes of global warming. I've read reports about the variability of solar radiation, that even other planets are showing signs of warming. If this is happening on Mars which has so little atmosphere what does that say about the effectiveness of taxing gas and making cars more expensive with emission controls here on Earth?

Or how about the effects of jet exhaust gases in the upper atmosphere? Apparently, gases emitted at 30,000 feet linger up there for years and help trap heat reflected from the surface. You have to google this one for yourselves because everywhere else it seems to be studiously IGNORED! I guess no one wants to contemplate losing the convenience of air travel so we have to dink around in other areas that may not be as significant but are an easier sell.

Are we going to impoverish ourselves fighting in the wrong areas and then when the real causes become painfully clear find ourselves too broke and tired to cope?

Meanwhile, I refuse to accept someone's viewpoint simply because it's popular. Or that he has a lot of "friends" with whiter coats than mine that agree with him. I'm perfectly aware that there are vast numbers of folks much smarter than me. This doesn't mean that I should swallow anything they say as gospel. If they are so smart then they should find it easy to give me a convincing argument that I can understand! If they try to hide behind their degrees or their social status then to me they are mere intellectual bullies and charlatans. 

This old hippy believes that NO ONE has the right to DEMAND someone agree with them! If someone tries, you should just turn away. 

Just because a lot of people liked Disco did not mean that disco guitarists were of the same calibre as Pat Travers or Frank Marino...


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## rippinglickfest (Jan 1, 2006)

*Gw*

The planet is always/has always been undergoing change.....including warming and cooling. In fact some scientists say that the pollution in the atmosphere is diminishing the effects of the sun.........GlobalWarming.
But, nobody can say that man is not a negative impact on the earth


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Actually this thread is doing very well. I posted the same 2 videos on a US forum, and I was accused twice of being a holocost denier. Yes, thats the WWII era genecide holocost. What the holocost has to do with global warming is beyond me, but it shows that some people will do anything to villinize the other side of the argument, rather than admit they have good points............


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

Just a hint- learn to spell "holocaust" before you argue with someone about it. :tongue:

And in my opinion, this thread is as useless as arguing that George Bush is a terrible president to one of his rabid supporters. Neither side is going to listen to the other because they're not going to change thier minds.


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

.........And thats why it will never get solved. I can see clear good ideas on both sides, why cant they? I figure if the activist side dropped Kyoto and the UN, they may actually get more support from the other side. You'd think that since Kyoto is 10 years old, it would be easy to do. For the "denier" side as theyre called, they really need to get organized better. They pretty much treat the whole thing like theyre dealing with UFOologists, and they simply dismiss them and dont put much effort into dealing with their thoughts..........


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

The thing is, people that deny that global warming exists kind of ARE like UFOlogists. You can put data in front of them and they'll say that it's biased. Or wrong. Or they just choose to ignore it altogether because they can't come up with anything else.

It's like trying to convince a creationist that evolution exists. Or a conspiracy theorist that "Loose Change" is a gigantic load of uninformed crap. They just don't believe it and no amount of data will prove them othewise. There's no way they'll accept it.

That's frustrating to me. Science changes its mind all the time. Not because they're "flip floppers" or some stupid political term like that, but because they take new information and add it to what they know to create a clearer view. They're open to new information. In fact, I'd say they want it. 

To me, the bottom line is that there are people out there that study the environment and global warming for a living. They're smart. Way smarter and more knowlegeable than you or I. Personally, I trust that they know what the frig they're talking about. And most of them think that humans have had an effect on global warming. Yes, yes, there are fluctuations and stuff. Please don't bust that stuff out. If you read what they're actually saying, it's not just that we're in a fluctuation, but it's higher than normal. 

People thought the world was flat at one point. Or rode on a turtles back. And that the stars and sun revolved around the earth. Anyone that challenged that was considered a nutjob. Now, it's common knowlege that all of these things are wrong and that's thanks to science. I trust that the majority of scientists are searching for truth and not fame or any other stupid thing that would cause them to lose their objectiveness.

Accept- you have to admit, you're just as closed minded as any of the anti-global warming types. You claim to see both sides, but all one has to do is simply look at the title of this thread to see where you stand on it. It's not much better than some jackass in Florida, on experiencing one cold day, saying "Well, that's it- that Al Gore is a damn liar. Global warming is a load of crap!".


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## ne1roc (Mar 4, 2006)

All I want is the truth man. Give me the cold hard facts, what the world will look like in 10 years, not what it may look like in 50 years. Scare the crap out of us!

The problem we face right now are people like me who believe that alot of this stuff is about money. A reason to raise oil prices, or prices of manufactured products that are considered to be made safer for landfill. Corporations are the biggest problem of all. They capitalize on stuff like this and don't have a care in the world about the future of our planet.


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

The problem I have with the pro side is their evidence is based on corelations and rationality. Those are fine things when creating an hypothesis, but its not evidence, and thats a big problem. I also have a problem with their use of "denier" if you disagree with them. Its like they learned that from the guys who think the earth is 5000 years old. They too use "evidence" to prove it, and its also based on corelations and rationality. I sit more on the "denier" side because they are the side that admits it doesnt have all the answers. Whenever I hear someone claim they have all the answers, well you know the rest..........


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

*"Yeah! What he said!"*



Accept2 said:


> The problem I have with the pro side is their evidence is based on corelations and rationality. Those are fine things when creating an hypothesis, but its not evidence, and thats a big problem. I also have a problem with their use of "denier" if you disagree with them. Its like they learned that from the guys who think the earth is 5000 years old. They too use "evidence" to prove it, and its also based on corelations and rationality. I sit more on the "denier" side because they are the side that admits it doesnt have all the answers. Whenever I hear someone claim they have all the answers, well you know the rest..........



You've put your finger on it again, A2! What you're describing is called "confidence".

Consider Mr. Nine's words:



Nine said:


> To me, the bottom line is that there are people out there that study the environment and global warming for a living. They're smart. Way smarter and more knowlegeable than you or I. Personally, I trust that they know what the frig they're talking about. And most of them think that humans have had an effect on global warming. Yes, yes, there are fluctuations and stuff. Please don't bust that stuff out. If you read what they're actually saying, it's not just that we're in a fluctuation, but it's higher than normal.


Please don't take this personally Mr. Nine but I think you are making a very human mistake that is almost impossible to avoid. When faced with a problem that is more complicated than your experience and abilities are enough to cope with we often tend to pick a "hero" who has impressed us enough to gain our confidence and follow him.

You wrote that you trust those who study the environment because you accept that they are "smarter and more knowledgeable" than you think you or I are. It's indeed sensible to bow to the experts when you're in over your head but sometimes we are too quick to accept someone as an expert. 

Despite that UN report there are indeed "experts" on BOTH sides of the fence! There is NO concensus! There is a VERY scary tendency of the people who side with such reports to accept contributions ONLY from those scientists who agree with them and to snub or even scold or attack those who disagree. The Sunday Sun mentioned two spectacular examples of such action. Dr. Christopher Landsea, a leading expert on hurricanes and tropical storms resigned from the IPCC report on climate change, citing the IPCC was "motivated by pre-conceived scientific agendas" and was "scientifically unsound". They also mentioned James Lovelock, the very founder of the Green Movement and how angry he has become at the present-day leaders of the eco-movement. As the columnist wrote:" He compares the greens to clueless passengers flying on an airplane over the Atlantic who, having discovered that it is pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, tell the pilot to turn the engines off, thinking that will solve the problem."

So if you're gonna have confidence in a hero to handle your problems you'd best spend some time in picking the best one. The world's problems have indeed gotten too complicated for us to understand all the time so we sometimes have to pick our "experts" very, very carefully. 

Which brings us to A2's point. Consider the character of those claiming to be experts. If they seem arrogant and condescending it's very likely they also believe their own BS!

Poor choices for heroes.


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

It's not hero worship in any way at all. It is simply accepting that people do this for a living and know more than you or I arguing about it. In the same way that you'd bring your guitar to someone to get a broken neck fixed instead of bringing it to a bank manager. They've spent their lives training and researching in order to become experts at what they do. 

Please don't paint me as some naive child that's looking for Superman to save us.


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Nuclear scientists worked on nucleur science all their life. They thought duck and cover was a good defence against a nuclear attack and educated the public on that premise. Dont always believe the "experts".........................


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

nine said:


> It's not hero worship in any way at all. It is simply accepting that people do this for a living and know more than you or I arguing about it. In the same way that you'd bring your guitar to someone to get a broken neck fixed instead of bringing it to a bank manager. They've spent their lives training and researching in order to become experts at what they do.
> 
> Please don't paint me as some naive child that's looking for Superman to save us.


I meant no such insult! Please forgive me if that's the impression I left. I simply pointed out that you seemed to have accepted the "experts" that championed global warming without considering that they did NOT speak for all environmental scientists! I too choose to follow specific environmental scientists, for the SAME reasons you gave yet "my guys" would seem not to be "your guys".

If we are to follow those who study the environment for a living then it seems we still have the problem of WHICH ones to follow!


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

To me, this is the one to follow:

*Be Responsible.*

I don't care which camp you're in, but it seems to me to be common sense that being responsible is not a bad thing. People get lazy and greedy and inevitably start doing things like pumping sewage into harbours. Deep down, everyone knows it's bad. Sure, some people will come up with studies that say that it's not that bad, but they're transparent justifications for not wanting to do things the right way. And then 20 years down the road you have to mount a gigantic cleanup to fix the disgusting mess you've made (Boston Harbour, Halifax Harbour), when in the first place, if people were being honest, they knew it wasn't a good idea. They knew they were taking the shortcut.

In the same way that good, long lasting things that you buy and use are seldom cheap, our relationship to the environment shouldn't be based on cheaping out and essentially shitting all over the world. 

It's the people that have to say stuff like "Well, Canada only contributes 2% to the world's pollution" that drive me nuts. Oh, that's all? So we can continue being irresponsible jackasses in terms of our relationship with our land? That's just such bullshit to me. Considering our population, I find that number shameful. I don't care what the number is that we contribute to hurting the planet because I think that any time we cheap out on emissions standards or sewage treatment or ruining natural habitats, we're just being short-sighted, greedy, lazy jackasses. If someone providing a service to us (fixing our cars or building our houses) had that kind of attitude, they'd provide a crap service or product and nobody would use them more than once. 

It's such common sense, but our culture has grown to the point that we're very disconnected from the world around us. We buy TVs and stuff and don't have to see the damage it does to our planet (mainly developing countries that are greedy enough to ruin their own environment for profit). I bet, though, if we were still all farmers and stuff, relying on the land to keep us alive every day, we wouldn't be proceeding so foolishly. It's so easy to dismiss this as some concept that only hippies like to talk about, but deep down everyone knows this to be true. It's like that saying, "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.". 

So, I think that scientists tend to err on the side of caution because they know that if things really are as bad as projected or theorized, there isn't going to be many people left around to say "I told you so!". And even if there are, what's the point? Things will be wrecked.

And what's wrong with being responsible anyway? I think it's one of the most important things about being a civilized human. It's a concept that keeps society intact.


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Sounds like someone is starting to think like a Libertarian. Good we need more people..........


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

...global warming? environmental "concerns"? baloney! i say we continue to rape this planet and ignore the warnings from the wet blanket scientists. ultimately it will be someone else's problem, anyway...

-dh


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## rippinglickfest (Jan 1, 2006)

*Percentage*



nine said:


> To me, this is the one to follow:
> 
> *Be Responsible.*
> 
> ...


Actually 2 percent of the worlds pollution comes from the Inco SuperStack here in Sudbury,.........and that was a few years back in 2000-01.....and a Stat by Inco's own admission. They are apparently developing a more environment friendly way of treating the emissions via water...........I'll be pushing up daisies before that happens.


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

Yeah, I was born in Sudbury. I'm convinced that at some point in my life I'm going to grow a third arm out of my back or something. Haha.


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

It amazes me that someone in the US has seen the work of Canadians........
http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/6345050 Hot & Cold Media.pdf


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

*"Ass, grass or gas! Nobody rides for free!"*



nine said:


> To me, this is the one to follow:
> 
> *Be Responsible.*
> 
> ...


Interesting. I AM an old hippy! And I agree totally with all you have written!

Yet my conclusions seem very different. For the very reasons you cited I can't support the Kyoto Accord or the stance of the Liberal Party under Stephane Dion. I believe that their approach and past actions will not and has not decreased emissions or cleaned up a damn thing!

I want to see actual cleanup, not BS, technobabble and touchy-feely politics. So far I've seen nothing from those camps except schemes that can't work and will make us all poorer, colder and hungrier. Perhaps if I was a Liberal MP I would be feeling so comfortable that it wouldn't hurt to waste time and money but that's just not MY situation!

I don't know if you are or are not a Kyoto supporter, Mr. Nine. Doesn't matter and you're certainly entitled to your opinion. It's just that I've read the long and kinda boring thing and I don't see it as a positive approach at all. For Canada to comply just to "err on the side of caution" would be so ferociously expensive that we would be bankrupt. How much could we afford to clean up then?

Dion trumpets that we would actually become rich by developing new industries based around anti-pollution technologies. It's easy to see that his career has been as a professor and not in business. Starting up such businesses is difficult and the competition would be fierce. Most likely you'd find that a week after you put a product on the international market the Chinese would have copied it at a cheaper price and you'd lose your shirt. And has he done any form of marketing survey or research to know if there are enough world-wide customers for Canada? It really sounds like he just pulled the concept out of his butt! Let him put up his OWN money and show us, not tell us!

Besides, one thing we've all learned about new technologies is that while it may indeed bring more jobs for the young it usually leaves older workers out on their ass with little hope of finding a job at equivalent pay and worse yet, if your company went bankrupt you don't even get a pension.

Meanwhile, Harper talks about instead putting legal caps on our own polluters and tax/financial incentives to reduce our own emissions instead of buying emission credits from dirty old Russia and China, under Kyoto. In return our media brands him as " a VERY BAD MAN!"

I just don't understand it at all.

I would rather support initiatives that actually clean up our mess here at home. Let other countries look after their own mess too. And before I'd support giving some of those countries a dime of our already excessive taxes I'd demand a strong audit trail so that if they bought so much as a BB gun with the money instead of using it to reduce their pollution they'd be cut off forever without another cent!


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

I knew we'd agree on that. Personally, I don't care how we get there, just that we do. As long as the time-sucking political bickering in the government is kept to a minimum and something is actually done, I'm a happy camper.

That said, yeah, Kyoto has all sort of problems but that's the way goverment things always work. Add in that it's all sorts of governments involved in it and it's sure to be a bit toothless. But it's a start. And it raises public awareness. I guess I'm a bit of an optimist that way.

Want to hear the funniest thing I've heard recently? When our environment minister was at that global warming conference thing in France a bit ago, he remarked something along the lines of "I didn't realize that humans were making an impact on global warming before this". I found that embarassing. That's our environmental minister and it was as if someone just told him that the earth wasn't actually flat. Like, his job is to know about this stuff and he said that. Whew. No wonder we get nowhere when there are chumps like him in charge of policy. And that's not a conservative/liberal thing. It's a dummy thing.


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

Oh yeah- and don't champion Harper too much. Remember that he's the one that removed all traces of Kyoto from government web sites in short order after he took power. He's just doing all of this environmentally focused stuff lately to counter Dion and the public's recent (and if history serves, fickle) interest in the topic. The guy's from Alberta, so I'm pretty sure he isn't going to tighten down the screws on his voter base.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34363

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/30/harper-kyoto.html


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## mandocaster (Jan 11, 2007)

Keep in mind that for every bit of carbon we stop pumping in, developing countries like China and India are upping the ante tenfold. They didn't endorse Kyoto. So we are being asked to sacrifice so that they can spew....and the worst kind of acid pollution at that. Doesn't make much sense to me, especially seeing how we have efficient technologies to bear down on pollutants. And be careful of the media....this is a darling topic of theirs because it utilizes fear in the foulest of ways. One of the biggest fear-generators is the idea of sea level fluctuations being abnormal, based on the erroneous assumption of a constant sea level. It isn't. Never has been. Never will be. Remember, Alberta was under water 70 million years back, and we walked from Siberia to Alaska 12,000 years ago. And we haven't seen what Ma Nature can do yet, although the Indian Ocean Tsunami was a dinger. Try another Toba or Tambora or Krakatau, the latter of which caused major upheavals around 630 AD. Or a restless Yellowstone doing the Fart of the Century.

Just some things to consider. And our beloved gear, made of varnish, trees, tolex, ABS and Styrene, Chromium & Nickel, Germanium & Silicon.....


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

nine said:


> Want to hear the funniest thing I've heard recently? When our environment minister was at that global warming conference thing in France a bit ago, he remarked something along the lines of "I didn't realize that humans were making an impact on global warming before this". I found that embarassing. That's our environmental minister and it was as if someone just told him that the earth wasn't actually flat. Like, his job is to know about this stuff and he said that. Whew. No wonder we get nowhere when there are chumps like him in charge of policy. And that's not a conservative/liberal thing. It's a dummy thing.


Thats actually my fault. I hit him too hard in the head with that snowball when he was shovelling the laneway.............


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

nine said:


> Oh yeah- and don't champion Harper too much. Remember that he's the one that removed all traces of Kyoto from government web sites in short order after he took power. He's just doing all of this environmentally focused stuff lately to counter Dion and the public's recent (and if history serves, fickle) interest in the topic. The guy's from Alberta, so I'm pretty sure he isn't going to tighten down the screws on his voter base.


Well, I don't so much champion Harper so much as I find him not as stinky a choice as Dion. And I'm glad you recognise we have much in common.

As for removing references to Kyoto, I would say Thank God! You see, while I too like to see raised awareness and such Kyoto is NOT just a declaration of good intentions. It is a legally binding document with provision for punishment for not reaching targets. It is a mathematical fact that under the Libs we actually went backwards from the targets we signed. It is a mathematical fact that we have no hope of ever reaching the target that Dion signed. The only way we could do it is to shut down at least 50% of the industry in Canada TODAY or to pay out $24 BILLION dollars for emission credits from dirty polluting countries that will not spend a dime of the money on actual emission reductions!

Dion is either on the most useless gov't grown medicinal pot produced so far or he's blatantly lying when he says that we CAN reach the targets. He must know that if he got in power and took the steps necessary he would become the most hated prime minister since Mulroney! You can't hit a voter harder than by killing his job and leaving him unable to feed his kids. Even if Dion was correct in his predictions about Canada getting rich on anti-pollution technology jobs that couldn't happen in a few weekends. People would be jobless a LONG time and older workers might never find anything beyond being a greeter at the local Wal-Mart again.

This is an old political trick. You promise that you will produce a miracle, knowing that once you get in you can claim that now you're in power you have access to information that the other guys had previously spitefully hidden and it's THEIR FAULT you can't deliver! If you do a good enough job selling snake oil you'll likely get away with it.

So I've obviously got little use for Dion but that doesn't mean I automatically approve of Harper. I still haven't forgiven him for returning us to the status quo of the Mulroney years, with the same ruthless party solidarity of MPs toeing the party line and not voting the wishes of their constituents. As I said in a previous thread, Harper has driven a stake through the heart of Manning's dream. 

There's a natural human tendency to think digitally about choices, either for one or another. A politician will try to tear his opponent down, in the hope that voters will automatically assume that he must be better! If A is bad then B must be good. I learned long ago that this is a logical fallacy. Both A and B can be bad, especially in politics. We can only chose those who smell the least and sadly the stink can be so strong it's hard to draw distinctions.

Sorry to sound cynical but I've been following politics for nearly 40 years so it's hard not to be. I've just seen so many examples. What upsets me the most is that I see very little questioning of the details of political promises or repercussions of broken ones. Many citizens seem to just pick their political heroes and back them like a hockey team, through thick and thin. Issues can be difficult to follow and understand and there's a tendency to demonize opposing points of view, rather than answering those awkward questions. 

By heroes I don't mean like Superman but rather champions to lead a fight for us. I too have heroes but I've been burnt many times before by getting so disgusted at the opposing side's heroes that I've failed to see the flaws in my own.

Anyhow, I totally support cleaning up our mess. Even if it's not a factor in global warming it makes a better world to live in. I just don't want to pay for snake oil. I'll wait to see what Harper accomplishes before I'll pass judgement. It's not enough to bail us out of a nutso plan like Kyoto. He has to replace it with something that WORKS before he'll get my approval!


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

Wild Bill said:


> If A is bad then B must be good. I learned long ago that this is a logical fallacy.


And with that, you've just explained how the Conservatives won the last election. Heh heh. :banana:


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## mandocaster (Jan 11, 2007)

Wild Bill said:


> Sorry to sound cynical but I've been following politics for nearly 40 years so it's hard not to be. I've just seen so many examples. What upsets me the most is that I see *very little questioning of the details of political promises or repercussions of broken ones. Many citizens seem to just pick their political heroes and back them like a hockey team, through thick and thin.* Issues can be difficult to follow and understand and there's a tendency to demonize opposing points of view, rather than answering those awkward questions.


As plain an indicator of Canadian political illiteracy as can be seen. And the Pols know it. That's what is so stinky about it, is the blatant cynicism of Canada's system. We have been governed by rich lawyers from Quebec and for once are governed by an 'upstart' from Calgary (we tried with Joe from High River a generation ago)...and both are vilified for taking a different stance, or being 'naive', etc, etc. Yer right, Bill. Canada, once again on the brink of selling itself down the river. Holy Crap.


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