Slashdot Mirror

RE: Cosmetics. Some mascaras (the gunk used to enhance/thicken/lengthen eyelashes to you guys) can go moldy. It's pretty rare, but if you develop pink eye, it may be the source of some nasty bacteria or mold, and even if it isn't throw it out because you've cross-contaminated it if you've used it recently. That's one reason never to share mascara or eye liner. Even lipstick can be risky if the other person has a cold sore, etc. If someone wants to borrow it, just gift it to them.

Then there are things like allergies and contact dermatitis, and environmental damage caused by using nanobeads in cosmetics, and all the dangerous chemicals listed here that are allowed because cosmetics don't undergo as rigorous testing and approval as, say, food or medicines (or gasoline).

Organic started being labelled because companies performing genetic modification failed to label

Considering that organic food labeling started in 1973 and the first GMO crop was approved in 1994 you statement is false. Organic was originally concerned with pesticides and not GMO.

Of course you establish an additional red herring by claiming a label that was never mentioned, never discussed, and has no relation to genetic modification.

You brought up the organic label not me. Voluntarily labelling something "organic" is very different than requiring something to be labelled "contains GMO". I am stating the latter is closer to requiring all non-organics to be labelled "produces with pesticides".

It's normal when people are trying to poison the bees with flupyradifurone/neonics and simultaneously taking their habitat away. Of course they're dying out.

Climate change is another issue but you can't debate the dangers of bee toxins being sprayed on agricultural crops, and habitat loss is easy to demonstrate.

Too bad this audience is all basement dwellers, you guys should really take up bee friendly gardening.

How would this do:

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/iss...

yet at the same time they're also flying around in private jets

Hah! What environmentalist flys around in a private jet? Environmentalists I know prefer not to fly, and when they do, many pay the carbon tax (by buying an offset):
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/publications/resources/2009/purchasing-carbon-offsets/?gclid=CLuRyLjgi7QCFcN_Qgodi1QA_w

Besides, what sway should the behaviour of a rich "elite type" have on your choices? Why do you care what they do?

And actually, if families, communities, nations used less energy and were able to generate some of their own energy (roof mounted solar panels, personal wind generators) they would be more financially independent. Same goes for growing your own food in a garden, composting much of your own waste, etc.

Sure McDonalds is cheap but home grown food is cheaper. Sure, your old beater car is cheap, but the bus is cheaper. Sure, coal is cheap, but when global warming ends up turning all our crop lands into deserts, there are going to be a lot more hungry lower class people around.

btw, here's how true environmentalists live: http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/

I'm no chemophobe, I just want to not put any of these 12 harmful chemical groups on my skin or down my drain. Unfortunately they're in EVERY!! SINGLE!! mass produced skin lotion and shampoo.

Heheh. You notice some of those "harmful chemical groups" are "harmful" because they may or may not have harmful contaminants, even though they aren't harmful (that is to say, calling them "harmful chemical groups" is a lie)? Of course not...

BTW the most common artificial sweeteners (saccharin, aspartame) are not only far from organic, they were discovered in labs by accident, not even trying to work on anything edible. See, if a sweetener is organic, it's not artificial then is it?

Organic has a meaning. Anything with a C6 ring is most definitely organic, anyone who says it's not (i.e. you) is an idiot. Thanks for letting us all know, we might not have realized it otherwise.

I'm no chemophobe, I just want ...

I'm no racist, I just think all niggers should work for me.

I'm no acrophobe, I just want to not stand near any large changes in elevation.

I'm no bullshitter, I just say a whole lot of rubbish that's completely untrue.

Get the point, bullshitter?

I'm no chemophobe, I just want to not put any of these 12 harmful chemical groups on my skin or down my drain. Unfortunately they're in EVERY!! SINGLE!! mass produced skin lotion and shampoo.

(Had to upstage your exclamation point emphasis to show that even in the extreme it doesn't make words any more meaningful.)

BTW the most common artificial sweeteners (saccharin, aspartame) are not only far from organic, they were discovered in labs by accident, not even trying to work on anything edible. See, if a sweetener is organic, it's not artificial then is it?

And you, sir, are not helping by demonizing those who think differently than you.

With all due respect, there was consensus on the science in 1979. The talk includes a very good section about how political action groups have muddied the waters and turned the debate "laughable".

I think this short video deftly serves as an example of how the debate is enacted.

Also, David Suzuki has an excellent page on the topic of AGW. You don't think he's one of those ignoring science for financial gain do you?

btw, the merits of the arguments can be assessed independent of the motives of each "side". All you got to do is read the sources yourself. It is not a daunting as it seems, because you will very quickly discover that one side is just completely full of !#%@

Look, what part of "Most people won't be aware that they have a parasite " don't you understand?

Did I mention cod worm specifically there? No. Did I go on to mention another worm (pinworm) in that context? Yes. Do between 30% and 80% of people have pinworm? Yes. Do most know it? No.

The fact is that people are hosts to many parasites at any one time; some of them, over time, we've evolved a symbiotic relationship with (the flora and fauna in your gut are a good example, and if you go back far enough in time, mitachondria). People can go around for a LONG time with a tapeworm. And idiots obviously DO eat fresh-water fish undercooked. That's why we call them idiots :-)

The basic problem is that we're resorting to things like salmon farming because we've seriously impacted the natural resource. Unfortunately, the fish farms also impact the local environment in a negative way.

Your source is not evidence at all. McIntyre and McKitrick published their article, it had statistical mistakes in it, and the mistakes were never corrected.

I applaud McIntyre and McKitrick for making pretty much the only skeptic argument within the scientific discourse. You see, skeptics don't actually practice science, but rather, they write articles like the one above. They sound impressive, but if you dig beneath the surface, you'll find nothing but echoes of already discredited arguments. I highly recommend that you do that for yourself

As a hint: you can find information about the McIntyre & McKitrick paper here.

Read the paper. Look at the references, so that you can see that they really are what they say they are. Look at the dates of the refutation. Note the date of your linked article is 3 years after McIntyre & McKitrick were shown to be wrong.

Here is an excellent page by David Suzuki, which might help you make sense of what's going on with this debate.

It's not skepticism that's met with derision my friend.

If you've got an open mind, see what David Suzuki has to say on the subject.

See here, and my previous (grandparent link), for who the skeptics actually are. That's an important point that you should address in your reply.

Is today's society really any different than in the past?

What's different is industrial capitalism. Industrial capitalism demands continuous economic growth, which means continuous growth in consumption. As populations stabilize opportunities for colonialism decline, that mean you have to consume more and more stuff every year.

After WWII, the U.S. government quite deliberately began to build a culture of consumption to prop up capitalism. (Great little artcile by David Suzuki here.) It's no coincidence that after 9/11, the one thing the government wanted everyone to do was to buy stuff. It's your patriotic duty to consume, consume, consume!

And how do we get everyone to keep buying stuff? Advertising. Advertising everywhere. It was when they started selling ad space on the handles of gas pumps that I knew it had gone too far...

It's a little more subtle than that "Ending is better than mending" of Brave New World, but not by much.

Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society. Considering the available societal alternatives (China, Myanmar, and Cuba come to mind)

Riiiiiight. Those are the only possible alternatives: our current system, or even more repressive dictatorships.

Thank you for more evidence toward Kreider's Thesis: "[T]he most fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is not over issues of individual freedom vs. authority or progress vs. traditional values, but imagination. Conservatives don't have any."

The dispute is over hardwood,

The dispute is about softwood. This can be confirmed in about two minutes on Google.

and NAFTA clearly shouldn't apply when you are destroying the environment to undercut your competitors.

Do you really think that the US was imposing duties for environmental reasons? Seriously?

Can't argue with you about the government's action re: the preservation of the spotted owl though. I'm not a big fan of North America's lack of respect for the environment as a whole. Then again, I could be doing a hell of a lot more personally.

There will never be an end to the number of people who will fight any mention that humans are causing climate change. No one is saying we are the ONLY factor. But we are a big part of it, and we can control our actions, compared to trying to control other natural factors. Shouldn't we do so... just in case?

I always notice that in my local paper, when they publish articles from global warming skeptics... these individuals are often the heads of various organizations and groups, professors, history buffs, basically anything but actual climatologists or environmental scientists. Not always, but often. I find that interesting.

The MAJORITY of climate scientists agree that humans are contributing to warming. I'm going to go with that conclusion because it's better to be safe than sorry, and because I can see the proof with my own eyes.

Climate Myths Examined: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

As for Mr. Gore and the IPCC winning the peace prize... good for them. Someone is standing up and shouting about this. Yes, I feel Mr. Gore is a bit of a phony in his personal life, but his message isn't. If I had the choice I would have recognized Canada's Dr. David Suzuki ( http://www.davidsuzuki.org/ ) for his work educating the public about all kinds of environmental issues... and he does so in a more science based rather than hollywood-dazzle kind of way. He recently toured across Canada giving talks and raising awareness in a very locally focused down to earth way and he's been doing this for DECADES. He deserves this prize as much if not more than Gore.

Either way, I'm glad environmental issues get a nod of recognition here.

But in 1996, a Swiss animal behaviourist noticed that mice and rats reared this way might actually be decidedly abnormal. Using infrared cameras to spy on the nocturnal lab mice in the dark, researchers found that most of them behaved very strangely after their handlers had gone home for the day. The mice continuously repeated seemingly meaningless behaviours, for example, like cage biting and cage scratching. Such repetitive actions by animals are called "stereotypies" and they are often considered signs of boredom or stress...Rodents spend a great deal of their lives searching for food and building nests. Denied an outlet for such basic instincts, the animals suffer stress and possibly impaired brain function. Indeed, studies have found that rodents kept in enriched environments perform better in memory tests.

You may be interested in the following article, Caged Animals Can Go Stir Crazy.

There is no question as the technology is perhaps the worst kind. A lucrative defense contract that produced a system that doesnt work in real world scenarios. Are you so misled by a defense contractor's press release to ask a followup question or are you being sarcastic?

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suzuk i/Article_Archives/weekly07250301.asp to give you a high school primer on the physics of distance vs speed, which is noticeably independent of the targetting concerns. We wont hear about this until the system " unfortunately fails to counter" a simple rocket launched from a truck somewhere near Washington D.C.

"If you build a missile defense that is so fragile almost anything an adversary does will cause it to collapse, then you invite a weak adversary to (attack)" - Theodore A. Postol

By the way, how far did those nations that you mention miss their goals by? Did any of them make progress toward reducing emissions (the real goal of the accords)?

Don't worry, he was lying. About half of industrialized nations reached and even exceeded their goals. More than one third have gone significantly beyond their requirements for emission reductions. David Suzuki has a nice writeup on his website.

"Next time at the super, buy farm raised fish. Every little bit helps..."

Umm that actually hurts far more than it helps. It hurts both the person who eats the farm raised fish as well as non-farm raised fish. You can educate yourself on the process of fish farming on the web. Below are a couple of very relevant websites:

WILD VS FARM RAISED FISH, WHICH IS SAFER?
FROM: http://www.deliciousorganics.com/Controversies/wil dvsfarmfish.htm
"Farmed salmon have more antibiotics administered by weight than any other form of livestock. Farmed salmon have significantly higher levels of PCBs, dioxin, and other cancer causing agents over wild salmon."

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T EAT FARM RAISED FISH: (PDF)
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/PSF_Salmon_Brochu re.pdf
FROM: "Farmed salmon are grown in floating netcages and impact wild salmon and other marine species by spreading diseases and parasites. Farmed salmon are given antibiotics and pesticides and other drugs. Drug laden waste from surplus food and feces of these fish pollute the marine environment (ever looked at the surrounding sea floor under a netcage used for farming fish? All the plant sea-life is dead). Most farm raised fish are not the natural species to where they are being farmed, and escaped fish (often by the thousands) can become new predetors to other rare forms of fish and marine life."

Adeptus

Fish farming, particularly sea cage farming of saltwater species, has plenty of problems itself. The big five appear to be:

the wastes produced by farming
the fish that escape
the diseases and parasites that occur in farms
the chemicals used to treat diseased fish
the problems of stock depletion and contamination of feed.

See:

http://www.focs.ca/fishfarming/index.asp
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2000/july12/ fishfarms-712.html
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Oceans/Aquaculture/Salm on/
http://www.westcoastaquatic.ca/article_fishfarms_p roblems_muchalat0205.htm

And many others.

What I find to be self evident is that the real issue is simply to many people, not enough planet.

Worthless to whom? Certainly to a physicist such works are worthless, but the days of the polymath are long past. I read somewhere that Goethe is considered to be the last polymath who was thought to be in command of all and everything as it was understood in his time. Today we are in need of informed and adventurous popularizers who can at least attempt to bring the latests discoveries of science to the public. David Suzuki is an example.

Visit http://www.davidsuzuki.org/ to find out what sorts of things you can do. This site is Canadian-oriented on the surface, but applicable none the less. You don't need a protest to make a difference at all. You just need people to open their eyes and see that there is a better way to live.

cheers

For those of us who choose to take action, the David Suzuki foundation (based in Canada, but relevant everywhere) lists the 10 most important things you can do.

I'm in Halifax now, and getting sick of this series of storms we've been having.

There's a few things we can do. All Canadians by now have probably heard of the one-ton challenge- even Rick Mercer's helping promote it.

For a bit more comprehensive fare, you can try David Suzuki's solutions.

Political pressure helps, but right now market solutions are probably the easiest way to deal with the crisis. If you have the means to install solar panels or can invest in renewables, go for it.

The most cost-effective and elegant solutions are conservation oriented. Compact fluorescent light-bulbs, LCD rather than CRT monitors, etc... Hybrid or other efficient cars are better than conventional, mass transit beats any car, and changing lifestyles and city planning to reduce the trips we need to make is most elegant.

Energy use estimates have been wildly inaccurate in the past as we got more efficient in using it. At the same time, better tech is getting cheaper as more people buy it and it reaches commodity status. Buying compact fluorescent bulbs 10 years ago didn't just save the energy of that bulb, it helped set in motion a market dynamic that has made them 4 to 5 times cheaper today, and more widely available. Same with LCDs... we as techies can be advocates for this and emerging technology- stuff that meets the same or more needs with less energy.

what aspects of science? I often wonder about factual content of *drama* television. If you talk to real scientists discussing CSI this year on www.RRR.org.au (radio live to web) you would get comments like 'equipment product placement', 'test that take days, weeks are solved in hours', 'people who happen to have expert knowledge in too many areas'. I cant find the exact link to the show but a couple of forensic scientists working in St Vincents Hospital, Melbourne ripped the shreds as to the factual content let alone scient content.

Real science is about discovery, measuring, observing then (the kicker) do some experiments, observe and write it up. The closest I see on television that emulates this is the BBC nature programmes started by David Attenborough. Though Americans may probably be more familiar to that other David, Canadas own David Suzuki.

Watch a show from one of these blokes and you will see the difference b/w the candy-coated hollywood version and the real messy world. Which leads me to my next observation ...

inbetween miami vice and the simpsons

Found something on this topic... the following is from David Suzuki's FAQ on the Kyoto Protocol:

What about industry claims that Kyoto will cost Canada 450,000 jobs?

There are no studies to support this number. Industry lobby groups continue to use it for scare purposes.

There may be a drop in total employment in conventional energy production in Canada, but this is a trend that has been underway for several years. According to Natural Resources Canada, the energy sector employed almost 81,000 fewer workers in 1998 than it did in 1990.

However, a shift of investment away conventional energy production into other activities is likely to create more jobs. With 20 per cent of capital investment by Canadian businesses, the oil, gas and electricity industries produce just 2 per cent of the jobs. The Communications Energy & Paperworkers Union, the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Canadian Auto Workers, and the Canadian Labour Congress all publicly support the Kyoto Protocol.

In other sectors, many analysts see a net gain in employment. In fact, the Canadian economy is projected to grow by 30.4 per cent by 2012, from $1 trillion to $1.315 trillion if we meet out Kyoto targets. For more information, read the Tellus Institute's report, The Bottom Line on Kyoto.

What about industry claims that Kyoto will cost Canada tens of billions of dollars?

Most of the so-called "costs" of Kyoto will be related to investments in energy efficiency, with payback times of a few years or even months. These investments will be made when it is normal to make them - that is, when it is time to purchase new and better industrial equipment, motor vehicles or home furnaces.

Such investments in energy efficiency since 1970 have produced net cost savings for Canadian consumers of more than $50 billion, and the annual savings amount is rising.

A well-executed emissions reduction program can provide all kinds of benefits to industry. These include

* energy savings;
* reduced energy dependency;
* a better competitive position through efficiency;
* an improved capacity to innovate, and a chance to market new processes and technologies in a global market;
* better relations with local communities as industries clean up the air and show leadership on the environment..

Further, any discussion of costs and benefits needs to consider the costs of doing nothing about climate change and air pollution. We are already absorbing the high costs of inaction - including droughts, floods, more extreme weather events, and impacts on natural resource industries. As well, fossil fuel air pollution imposes immense human and financial costs related health impacts. In other words, taking action to reduce energy use has substantial economic benefits in many areas of our lives.

Why is the U.S. opposed to Kyoto?

The U.S. has opposed or opted out of many international initiatives in recent years. The convention on land mines and the international war crimes tribunal are prominent examples.

With Kyoto in particular, the current U.S. administration has expressed fears similar to those of Alberta: that reducing the burning of fossil fuels will reduce the incomes of oil and coal companies. In its energy plan, the Bush administration continues to rely on fossil fuels. It is not seriously challenging the status quo despite the costs of climate change and air pollution.

The Bush administration has adopted a weak plan to encourage industries to reduce emissions, assuming an 18 per cent increase in emissions by 2012. The good news in the U.S. is that many states are taking steps to cut emissions, including California, New York, Michigan and Massachusetts. Read a releated report from the Pembina Institute called How Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol will Benefit Canada's Competiti

Found something on this topic... the following is from David Suzuki's FAQ on the Kyoto Protocol:

What about industry claims that Kyoto will cost Canada 450,000 jobs?

There are no studies to support this number. Industry lobby groups continue to use it for scare purposes.

There may be a drop in total employment in conventional energy production in Canada, but this is a trend that has been underway for several years. According to Natural Resources Canada, the energy sector employed almost 81,000 fewer workers in 1998 than it did in 1990.

However, a shift of investment away conventional energy production into other activities is likely to create more jobs. With 20 per cent of capital investment by Canadian businesses, the oil, gas and electricity industries produce just 2 per cent of the jobs. The Communications Energy & Paperworkers Union, the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Canadian Auto Workers, and the Canadian Labour Congress all publicly support the Kyoto Protocol.

In other sectors, many analysts see a net gain in employment. In fact, the Canadian economy is projected to grow by 30.4 per cent by 2012, from $1 trillion to $1.315 trillion if we meet out Kyoto targets. For more information, read the Tellus Institute's report, The Bottom Line on Kyoto.

What about industry claims that Kyoto will cost Canada tens of billions of dollars?

Most of the so-called "costs" of Kyoto will be related to investments in energy efficiency, with payback times of a few years or even months. These investments will be made when it is normal to make them - that is, when it is time to purchase new and better industrial equipment, motor vehicles or home furnaces.

Such investments in energy efficiency since 1970 have produced net cost savings for Canadian consumers of more than $50 billion, and the annual savings amount is rising.

A well-executed emissions reduction program can provide all kinds of benefits to industry. These include

* energy savings;
* reduced energy dependency;
* a better competitive position through efficiency;
* an improved capacity to innovate, and a chance to market new processes and technologies in a global market;
* better relations with local communities as industries clean up the air and show leadership on the environment..

Further, any discussion of costs and benefits needs to consider the costs of doing nothing about climate change and air pollution. We are already absorbing the high costs of inaction - including droughts, floods, more extreme weather events, and impacts on natural resource industries. As well, fossil fuel air pollution imposes immense human and financial costs related health impacts. In other words, taking action to reduce energy use has substantial economic benefits in many areas of our lives.

Why is the U.S. opposed to Kyoto?

The U.S. has opposed or opted out of many international initiatives in recent years. The convention on land mines and the international war crimes tribunal are prominent examples.

With Kyoto in particular, the current U.S. administration has expressed fears similar to those of Alberta: that reducing the burning of fossil fuels will reduce the incomes of oil and coal companies. In its energy plan, the Bush administration continues to rely on fossil fuels. It is not seriously challenging the status quo despite the costs of climate change and air pollution.

The Bush administration has adopted a weak plan to encourage industries to reduce emissions, assuming an 18 per cent increase in emissions by 2012. The good news in the U.S. is that many states are taking steps to cut emissions, including California, New York, Michigan and Massachusetts. Read a releated report from the Pembina Institute called How Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol will Benefit Canada's Competiti

Going at 15 mph, there's not much safety equipment required.

Fuel efficiency is a difficult thing to deal with - engines have the highest efficiency (power out/fuel in) basically at the minimum point in the power band. Yes: this means that a common engine is getting terrible gas mileage if you're moving along at ~15 mph normally. This is why a car's maximum fuel efficient speed is complicated (and is rarely 55 mph, regardless of what hundreds of websites with terrible math will tell you!) and depends very strongly on the car's gearing. Many cars with overdrive will actually have a "two hump" fuel efficiency curve - that is, they'll be most efficient at about 30 mph or so if you're in 3rd gear, but also have another efficiency peak at 65-70 mph that's lower than the first (but still higher than going 55 mph in the overdrive gear).

The way to get good fuel efficiency with a standard design engine is twofold - make the car light, make the engine underpowered, and go slow. If the engine is always struggling, it's always in the power band, and always efficient. Hence the reason that a Geo Metro gets great gas efficiency.

Note the details of these cars - slow speed (15 mph), massively underpowered engine (3-4 hp), and very light chassis.

Here is a very good explanation.

(As an aside, most websites are crap at explaning this. See here, where they state that going from 100 kph to 120 kph increases the fuel consumption by 20%. Since you're moving 20% faster, a 20% increased fuel consumption means exactly the same gas mileage.)

this post is spot on. In David Suzuki's latest series, The Sacred Balence , he talked to a scientist Brian Goodman about Ants. Goodman gathered data on the communication between ants that are working and ants not working.

• "... Some kind of collective emergent behaviour will be observed as the result of local coupling. In neural organizations, retrieval of associative memory (and maybe consciousness) can be thought of as emergent properties. ..." (www.sacredbalance.com/web/antsociety.html)

Plotting the results, he found that once the number of connections between ants got to a particular number, the results created a sort of harmonic wave representing systematic organisation occuring. This goes some way to explaining how multitude of ants, each with specialised behaviour and functions know what to do just at the right time.

There's a simulation on this page (java applet) with detailed information (or where to get it) on the maths behind the model.

I haven't had a chance to read your article yet but I will after I post this link.

It's to an old David Suzuki "Science Matters" article. In the article it goes over the problems that game farms might actually be causing wildlife. Anyways here is the post.

At least not without dooming your children to a world of one massive natural disastor to another. Global climate change is real, it's already happening, and we need to faze out "fossil fuels" now.

CDN government .. impacts

Floods, droughts, massive crop failures.... the list even includes the possibility of another ice age within a few decades. It's not worth the risk.

CDN government.. understanding

This is recognized by most scientists, who have even managed to convince a lot of national governments to sign agreements commiting to a policy of reduced fossil fuel use. Unfortunatly, none of them are doing anything to follow through, so it was all just talk to appease a few iconoclastic environmentalists.

A couple more links:

West Coast Environmental Law

International Red Cross

David Suzuki Foundation