Good damn. I can't believe that bullshit got modded insightful.
unless we're TV installers, auto workers, hair stylists, garment workers, or food service workers, in which case wed be unemployed and living on $0.
Or working 10 hours per week in one of the sector that are essential.
You think your DSL is going to be maintained and operated by a bunch of guys working 2 hours a day?
Actually, such maintainance guys would probably work better under something like a 5 hours 2 days a week (or maybe even longer streches at a time) as they need to be able to work for a longer period at a time. And yes, you would a need more people working on maintainance of infrastructure (electricity, communications) and other basics if the work times were that low, but that is offset by needing less people working in luxury goods sectors.
The basics are the same. A society could work very well with shorter work times as long as everyone gets paid equally less (as they don't need the money). Of course, the grand parent is an extreme supporting a whole family with very little work time.
Anyone saying bullshit like we need to spend money to create jobs is a liar. We need to work enough to support our consumption rate, nothing more, nothing less. If people consume less, less work is needed. It is as simple as that.
Sure, you can easily come up with some job types where it is better having a single person working for longer stretches of time instead of spreading it out on more people. But even in the more extreme cases it is usually enough to allow someone to work fulltime for a while and then have a very long vacation.
The "taxing and spending" clause. Atleast that is the simplest one to choose from as it gives the federal goverment near unlimited power in taxing/spending because of the subjective "general welfare" part.
Really, the US constitution is so full of loopholes and interpetations that I am amazed at how much otherwise reasonable people swear by it. Swearing at it is more appropriate at times.
Never mind that the goverment can make an unconstitutional law and it can still take years for the law to get repelled with no consequences to those who made the law. For something that involves spending the money will be used up by then so it is a total win for goverment power in any case.
Even worse. The actual politicians also vote along party lines due to pressure from above.
What that means is that countries are ruled by a small minority of the actual politicians. Those in the real power positions that can dictate what a party should vote on each specific issue. (which usually deviate from the actual party programs)
Your premise is flawed. Pirates obviously do value the product even if it's not free, which they show by taking the time and effort to get it.
There is an interesting concept here that is rarely mentioned and it is the important difference between investment buying and consumption buying.
Investment buying is the real purpose of a free market economy and is what companies do. Take for example the raw material markets. Businesses buy raw materials as an investment so they can make even more money than they pay for it from producing products. Each buyer values the raw material based on what he can produce and earn from it. And after that, supply & demand kicks in to determine who gets what.
However, this doesn't work the same way with end consumer buying. An end consumer doesn't buy something because he can use it to produce more value. He buys it because he wants to consume it. And most end consumers want more than they can afford so they have to prioritize. What does this mean for the market? Simply put, end consumers only buy products when the real value they put on it is much higher than the price.
I hope that explains why a pirate can value something while still not be willing to pay anything for it.
You are taking the copyright owner's IP without there permission.
Actually, no. I am copying their IP without their permission. If I planned to take it I would come into their offices and take the original at gunpoint.
but in the end you're still a thief.
And you are a rapist for raping the language like that.
It's no different then someone taking GPL'd code and redistributing it without complying with the GPL.
True. And that is not theft either. And as I try my best to not be a hypocrite I have no problem with people doing such a thing non commercially.
Commercial piracy i do look down upon (and you'll find that many pirates do).
As for which torrent client to use to download? Most recommend utorrent because of its small size. If you are using linux or mac, there are other alternatives. As always when it comes to filesharing, you should seed back as much as much as you take. It is the polite thing to do.
Unless you are knowledgable in where to get video codecs it is also nice to have Videolan installed as a video player. It is unintrusive and completly seperate from the rest of the system and supports pretty much everything. Personally I prefer to use a player that use codecs that the system have installed, but I still have Videolan as a backup.
Finally, always be skeptical and a little paranoid. Never download executables (.exe,.msi) from non trustable sources. Still, it should be pretty easy to pick out fakes from real material just by reading comments on the torrent sites. This is not meant to scare you. Just use your brain and you should be fine.
One thing I have always wondered is why the whole "not taxing churches" isn't against the constitution. How can you claim that church and state is seperated when churches get benefits that other organisations don't?
I own dvd boxes of most seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (hey, I happened to enjoy the show in general). Anyway, I can say that I much prefer watching a ripped version.
Why? Because I don't have to sit through the FBI warnings, intros and crappy menu systems. Instead I can just click on a video file and run it immediatly. Sure, the pirated version I have doesn't have the extra commentry soundtracks or subtitles. You usually have to look for non-scene releases to get encodings with such material in it.
obtaining something in a way that is against the wishes of the people creating it, and violating their contract of sale
I guess that makes second hand sales stealing. Actually, I have heard that being argued so it isn't a long stretch at all.
The item that you are pirating has some sort of price that has been set on the market.
No, it has a prices based on monopoly distribution of a pretty non fungible goods.
The creators of the work are not receiving the compensation that they asked for.
True. Although, unless every pirate pirates 100% of what he uses they are getting some percentage of the compensation.
I have but one question for the pirates: how does this not make you an asshole? Can you see past your own self-entitlement complex and realize that your actions have an effect on other people? That the world isn't something you exploit to get ahead?
Not every pirate spends nothing on media. In fact, looking at (non-mafiaa biased) statistics, you'll find that the largest media buyers also tend to be frequent pirates.
I have yet to explain the PC game market though which tends to be an anomaly with a high piracy rate. Not sure why actually. It may be because gamers use multiple platforms and with their limited budget they choose to spend more on the hard to copy console games while pirating the easier to copy PC games. (Actually sounds like a valid theory, but would need real statistical polling to verify it a connection between owning consoles and copying PC games)
Really, the most hilarious thing is that I know there is some subset of people out there who see their own piracy as acceptable, yet are infuriated by GPL violations.
This is usually a matter of business vs private usage. You'll find that a lot of pirates thrown upon commercial piracy. Also, the same attitude holds for businesses that pirate software.
It's simple - you don't like the price, don't buy it.
Exactly. Pirate it.
. Simply because you don't like the price doesn't mean you can copy the item for free and somehow think it's not stealing.
You are completly correct. Not liking the price has nothing to do with copying not being stealing. Copying not being the same as taking is what makes them different.
Thanks. I didn't know that there was a term for that concept. Very good to know for future intellectual property discussions. Makes it far easier to make a strong monopoly argument while immediatly lowering the value of a response like the GP.
Anyone who can afford the hardware to run these titles can spring $60 to buy the game
You mean adding a sub $100 graphic card to a computer that was bought for other purposes? And yes, with my sub $100 graphic card I can run an AAA game as Crysis or Fallout 3 at high quality (excluding AA/AS) and resolution at an acceptable frame rate.
Hell, a new CD costs 10-15 bucks these days but people still download the shit out of those too.
If you listen on music 8 hours a day you could listen to 240 CDs in a month (Assuming the CDs are actually decently well filled). I doubt you can find a lot of people with $2400-3600 disposable income per month.
And that is why anti piracy outfits don't get it. It isn't about being able to afford a single specific game or music CD. Imagine a modern media consuming person that does a little of each. This specific person listens quite a lot to music, probably likes to sample new artists. He games some and watches the occasional movie and keeps his computer updated with the latest software. Not too much I think. Here would be his estimated spendings:
* 2 Games (2x60=$120) * 20 Music CDs (20x15=$300) * 5 Movies (5x20=$100) * 20 Hours of TV shows (20x2=$40) * 1 Software product (1x60=$60) Total: $620/month
Suddenly doesn't look as affordable unless you are a software programmer or other professional on a high salary. Sure, the anti pirate will begin talking about how if you can't afford it then you should just not get it. But any sane person will question that argument and ask "Why? It doesn't hurt anyone as it is copied data and nothing physical."
This isn't to say that piracy doesn't reduce sales. It probably does to a smaller degree. Especially money that is funneled to the ISP and media storage industries to support the demand for piracy. There is always people who pirate because they are cheap and then of course you always have people who find it easier to just pirate everything instead of buying. (The main reason why someone would pirate a $5 game as mentioned somewhere else in this discussion)
"I am proud to rape those RIAA bastards." or "I raped Britney Spears yesterday" (Only an example. I wouldn't admit listening to BS)
The only way to fight the modern newspeech facists is to embrace it and use it against them.
Re:The author is wrong about accupuncture
on
Trick or Treatment
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· Score: 1
But if it has an effect you can measure it in repeatable experiments and then you can give it a name.
Re:The author is wrong about accupuncture
on
Trick or Treatment
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· Score: 1
They might as well not have existed. There is an important difference between that and "They didn't exist".
If something doesn't create experimental results, then it is treated like it doesn't exist, because it might as well not. If we come up with a new experiment that can detect something we previously couldn't, then we acknowledge it and add it to our knowledge base. But before we can detect something directly or indirectly it simply doesn't matter.
This is btw the thing most religious people don't seem to grasp. There may be a god or many gods, christian or muslim or greek gods. Evil or good or neutral, powerful or weak. However, as long as a god isn't detectable using scientific means, he might as well not exist.
"Places like Manhattan becoming flood prone, grain growing "bread baskets" shifting north, small islands becoming flooded out"
You mean business like usual. Climate changing is nothing new. Some places become less habitable with time, other becomes more habitable.
The people who don't move get stuck in worse conditions while those who move to better places can live better. Of course, there are people who refuse to move because of sentimental reasons but they die eventually. And there are always people who move to bad (often floodable) areas because they simply lack common sense.
But in general it works out nicely over time. Things don't go from livable to unlivable in a day. It takes a long time. And it doesn't matter if some cities gets flooded, because cities have been rebuilt and rebuilt time and time again during our short history. And the changes happens in a timespan that make it manageable.
If you want to live in the same place for your whole life as a general rule don't settle in a place that could be prone to flooding, earthquakes or hurricanes. If you are willing to take the risk, sure go ahead and live in those areas but be prepared to pay the extra premium for it. Coastal properties have always been worth a lot because people like living near water, but they should also be aware that the extra price of the property isn't all they are paying for it. They are also paying with the extra risk that comes from living near water.
As for the "bread basket" comment. Again, some areas become better to grow food in while others get worse. Climate change is far less likely to cause problems here than human stupidity in other areas such as cutting down too many trees and leaving soil exposed. Such changes can cause problems that are difficult to fix.
"The problem is you seem to be avoiding the simple point that global temperatures HAVE been rising. I'm sorry, but it's a recorded fact. "
That link is lying. It claims to have global temperatures back to the 1860s, but we didn't really have the equipment nescessary to measure global temperatures until the 1978 when we began using satellites to measure temperature.
Before that we only had local temperature measurements. And such measurements have proven to be pretty useless due to local temperature shifts because of change in population (and as a result energy usage). Especially as we are talking about an overall change in temperature that is less than one degree.
When the winters and summers are extra warm everyone blames Global warming. Why when it is extra cold can we not discount global warming?
Blaiming warm summers at Global Warming is as stupid and ignorant as using Cold winters to discount global warming. You can only get the real story by looking at an aggregate measure of the whole planet.
If all the glaciers are melting where is the rise in sea levels?
Because a lot of the the water is accumulating in the eastern Antarctic which acts as the number one water storage in the world. And I doubt we will see the eastern antarctic melt any time soon.
Glaciers are melting (which isn't strange as we have been coming out of some colder times such as an iceage) and water levels are rising some. It just won't flood the world like the international panic creation club want you to believe.
Just something that I found spending 20 seconds on google. There are probably some bad articles in there, but then again there is bad science on both sides...... Both sides, what a misnomer. Many skeptics are just that, skeptics. They are tired of the obvious propaganda spouted from all directions. And yes, it is obvious. IPCC for example has so lost its credibility that even though they do have many good scientists that work with them, the way they handle the research makes the whole process and organisation useless.
And I know I am not providing anything useful in this post except the link I posted, but sometimes you just need to vent, and slashdot is as good a place as any.
And in the scientific community, you cannot one day be for something and then the next day be against it without being labeled either wishy-washy or someone who doesn't fact check first (which leads to a serious credibility problem).
And there is the biggest problem. I have heavy trust problems with anyone who isn't "wishy-washy" in a complex area like global climate theory. People who claim to know the truth doesn't belong in science. They should become preachers instead. Trying to find flaws in his own theories is exactly what a good scientist should do. Calling that "wishy-washy" is an insult to science itself.
But the GP to your first post was lying. There is no "pollution" movement, because as the responses concluded, CO2 isn't really pollution but a naturally occuring atmospheric gas.
And that is the real danger of the CO2 GW religion. They take attention away from the real pollution issues that occur such as the release of heavy metals and radioactive materials into the atmosphere as well as many other important environmental issues.
Most global warming data just tells you that humans are more active in an area which causes temperature to increase some. As the global population has increased a lot in the last 30 years it isn't strange that temperature has gone up. Especially combined with a lot of the population using more energy intensive tools. Humans are basically releasing far more warmth into the atmosphere than we did 30 years ago. Oh, and as CO2 in the atmosphere increases growth that is even more lifeforms that generate warmth.
The CO2 theories simply makes no sense as there have been periods in earths history with far larger CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The runaway doomsday scenarios are simply wishful thinking and propaganda from organisations that thrive on panic and fear.
I am not saying that CO2 doesn't affect temperature to some degree. It does, but I am sick and tired of all the CO2 environmentalists that take up all the spotlight while pushing the real environmental issues such as real dangerous pollution, the rapidly decreasing amount of fish in our seas and increasing global population. The slight temperature increase that CO2 gives is minor compared to the real issue of sustainable life on earth.
And that is the real reason for the economic downturn.
Creating wealth is about doing mutually benefital deals. When both parts no longer tries to do that, but instead just are interested in screwing the other part for your own profit, you don't get a wealth creating economy, but instead just an economy that shuffles money around.
Society can tolerate a smaller amount of foul play, but when the general attitude becomes that it is ok to screw anyone to earn money it falls apart. This is no different than the 1920s. People's attitude were just as bad back then from what I have read. And it took a world war to get people cooperating again.
Slashdot Mirror
Good damn. I can't believe that bullshit got modded insightful.
unless we're TV installers, auto workers, hair stylists, garment workers, or food service workers, in which case wed be unemployed and living on $0.
Or working 10 hours per week in one of the sector that are essential.
You think your DSL is going to be maintained and operated by a bunch of guys working 2 hours a day?
Actually, such maintainance guys would probably work better under something like a 5 hours 2 days a week (or maybe even longer streches at a time) as they need to be able to work for a longer period at a time. And yes, you would a need more people working on maintainance of infrastructure (electricity, communications) and other basics if the work times were that low, but that is offset by needing less people working in luxury goods sectors.
The basics are the same. A society could work very well with shorter work times as long as everyone gets paid equally less (as they don't need the money). Of course, the grand parent is an extreme supporting a whole family with very little work time.
Anyone saying bullshit like we need to spend money to create jobs is a liar. We need to work enough to support our consumption rate, nothing more, nothing less. If people consume less, less work is needed. It is as simple as that.
Sure, you can easily come up with some job types where it is better having a single person working for longer stretches of time instead of spreading it out on more people. But even in the more extreme cases it is usually enough to allow someone to work fulltime for a while and then have a very long vacation.
The "taxing and spending" clause. Atleast that is the simplest one to choose from as it gives the federal goverment near unlimited power in taxing/spending because of the subjective "general welfare" part.
Really, the US constitution is so full of loopholes and interpetations that I am amazed at how much otherwise reasonable people swear by it. Swearing at it is more appropriate at times.
Never mind that the goverment can make an unconstitutional law and it can still take years for the law to get repelled with no consequences to those who made the law. For something that involves spending the money will be used up by then so it is a total win for goverment power in any case.
Even worse. The actual politicians also vote along party lines due to pressure from above.
What that means is that countries are ruled by a small minority of the actual politicians. Those in the real power positions that can dictate what a party should vote on each specific issue. (which usually deviate from the actual party programs)
Your premise is flawed. Pirates obviously do value the product even if it's not free, which they show by taking the time and effort to get it.
There is an interesting concept here that is rarely mentioned and it is the important difference between investment buying and consumption buying.
Investment buying is the real purpose of a free market economy and is what companies do. Take for example the raw material markets. Businesses buy raw materials as an investment so they can make even more money than they pay for it from producing products. Each buyer values the raw material based on what he can produce and earn from it. And after that, supply & demand kicks in to determine who gets what.
However, this doesn't work the same way with end consumer buying. An end consumer doesn't buy something because he can use it to produce more value. He buys it because he wants to consume it. And most end consumers want more than they can afford so they have to prioritize. What does this mean for the market? Simply put, end consumers only buy products when the real value they put on it is much higher than the price.
I hope that explains why a pirate can value something while still not be willing to pay anything for it.
You are taking the copyright owner's IP without there permission.
Actually, no. I am copying their IP without their permission. If I planned to take it I would come into their offices and take the original at gunpoint.
but in the end you're still a thief.
And you are a rapist for raping the language like that.
It's no different then someone taking GPL'd code and redistributing it without complying with the GPL.
True. And that is not theft either. And as I try my best to not be a hypocrite I have no problem with people doing such a thing non commercially.
Commercial piracy i do look down upon (and you'll find that many pirates do).
www.isohunt.com
www.mininova.org
Just go to one of those sites and search.
As for which torrent client to use to download? Most recommend utorrent because of its small size. If you are using linux or mac, there are other alternatives. As always when it comes to filesharing, you should seed back as much as much as you take. It is the polite thing to do.
Unless you are knowledgable in where to get video codecs it is also nice to have Videolan installed as a video player. It is unintrusive and completly seperate from the rest of the system and supports pretty much everything. Personally I prefer to use a player that use codecs that the system have installed, but I still have Videolan as a backup.
Finally, always be skeptical and a little paranoid. Never download executables (.exe,.msi) from non trustable sources. Still, it should be pretty easy to pick out fakes from real material just by reading comments on the torrent sites. This is not meant to scare you. Just use your brain and you should be fine.
One thing I have always wondered is why the whole "not taxing churches" isn't against the constitution. How can you claim that church and state is seperated when churches get benefits that other organisations don't?
I own dvd boxes of most seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (hey, I happened to enjoy the show in general). Anyway, I can say that I much prefer watching a ripped version.
Why? Because I don't have to sit through the FBI warnings, intros and crappy menu systems. Instead I can just click on a video file and run it immediatly. Sure, the pirated version I have doesn't have the extra commentry soundtracks or subtitles. You usually have to look for non-scene releases to get encodings with such material in it.
If i pirate the game. I don't have any of that
You still get the semi-beta game. No way of getting around that unfortunally. Mostly right though.
obtaining something in a way that is against the wishes of the people creating it, and violating their contract of sale
I guess that makes second hand sales stealing. Actually, I have heard that being argued so it isn't a long stretch at all.
The item that you are pirating has some sort of price that has been set on the market.
No, it has a prices based on monopoly distribution of a pretty non fungible goods.
The creators of the work are not receiving the compensation that they asked for.
True. Although, unless every pirate pirates 100% of what he uses they are getting some percentage of the compensation.
I have but one question for the pirates: how does this not make you an asshole? Can you see past your own self-entitlement complex and realize that your actions have an effect on other people? That the world isn't something you exploit to get ahead?
Not every pirate spends nothing on media. In fact, looking at (non-mafiaa biased) statistics, you'll find that the largest media buyers also tend to be frequent pirates.
I have yet to explain the PC game market though which tends to be an anomaly with a high piracy rate. Not sure why actually. It may be because gamers use multiple platforms and with their limited budget they choose to spend more on the hard to copy console games while pirating the easier to copy PC games. (Actually sounds like a valid theory, but would need real statistical polling to verify it a connection between owning consoles and copying PC games)
Really, the most hilarious thing is that I know there is some subset of people out there who see their own piracy as acceptable, yet are infuriated by GPL violations.
This is usually a matter of business vs private usage. You'll find that a lot of pirates thrown upon commercial piracy. Also, the same attitude holds for businesses that pirate software.
It's simple - you don't like the price, don't buy it.
Exactly. Pirate it.
. Simply because you don't like the price doesn't mean you can copy the item for free and somehow think it's not stealing.
You are completly correct. Not liking the price has nothing to do with copying not being stealing. Copying not being the same as taking is what makes them different.
Thanks. I didn't know that there was a term for that concept. Very good to know for future intellectual property discussions. Makes it far easier to make a strong monopoly argument while immediatly lowering the value of a response like the GP.
Anyone who can afford the hardware to run these titles can spring $60 to buy the game
You mean adding a sub $100 graphic card to a computer that was bought for other purposes? And yes, with my sub $100 graphic card I can run an AAA game as Crysis or Fallout 3 at high quality (excluding AA/AS) and resolution at an acceptable frame rate.
Hell, a new CD costs 10-15 bucks these days but people still download the shit out of those too.
If you listen on music 8 hours a day you could listen to 240 CDs in a month (Assuming the CDs are actually decently well filled). I doubt you can find a lot of people with $2400-3600 disposable income per month.
And that is why anti piracy outfits don't get it. It isn't about being able to afford a single specific game or music CD. Imagine a modern media consuming person that does a little of each. This specific person listens quite a lot to music, probably likes to sample new artists. He games some and watches the occasional movie and keeps his computer updated with the latest software. Not too much I think. Here would be his estimated spendings:
* 2 Games (2x60=$120)
* 20 Music CDs (20x15=$300)
* 5 Movies (5x20=$100)
* 20 Hours of TV shows (20x2=$40)
* 1 Software product (1x60=$60)
Total: $620/month
Suddenly doesn't look as affordable unless you are a software programmer or other professional on a high salary. Sure, the anti pirate will begin talking about how if you can't afford it then you should just not get it. But any sane person will question that argument and ask "Why? It doesn't hurt anyone as it is copied data and nothing physical."
This isn't to say that piracy doesn't reduce sales. It probably does to a smaller degree. Especially money that is funneled to the ISP and media storage industries to support the demand for piracy. There is always people who pirate because they are cheap and then of course you always have people who find it easier to just pirate everything instead of buying. (The main reason why someone would pirate a $5 game as mentioned somewhere else in this discussion)
Actually, I prefer calling piracy, raping, as in
"I am proud to rape those RIAA bastards."
or
"I raped Britney Spears yesterday" (Only an example. I wouldn't admit listening to BS)
The only way to fight the modern newspeech facists is to embrace it and use it against them.
But if it has an effect you can measure it in repeatable experiments and then you can give it a name.
They might as well not have existed. There is an important difference between that and "They didn't exist".
If something doesn't create experimental results, then it is treated like it doesn't exist, because it might as well not. If we come up with a new experiment that can detect something we previously couldn't, then we acknowledge it and add it to our knowledge base. But before we can detect something directly or indirectly it simply doesn't matter.
This is btw the thing most religious people don't seem to grasp. There may be a god or many gods, christian or muslim or greek gods. Evil or good or neutral, powerful or weak. However, as long as a god isn't detectable using scientific means, he might as well not exist.
"Are we still living in the dark ages of pre-internet where telcos being monopolists could charge whatever price they wanted for pnone calls?"
Yes?
"Places like Manhattan becoming flood prone, grain growing "bread baskets" shifting north, small islands becoming flooded out"
You mean business like usual. Climate changing is nothing new. Some places become less habitable with time, other becomes more habitable.
The people who don't move get stuck in worse conditions while those who move to better places can live better. Of course, there are people who refuse to move because of sentimental reasons but they die eventually. And there are always people who move to bad (often floodable) areas because they simply lack common sense.
But in general it works out nicely over time. Things don't go from livable to unlivable in a day. It takes a long time. And it doesn't matter if some cities gets flooded, because cities have been rebuilt and rebuilt time and time again during our short history. And the changes happens in a timespan that make it manageable.
If you want to live in the same place for your whole life as a general rule don't settle in a place that could be prone to flooding, earthquakes or hurricanes. If you are willing to take the risk, sure go ahead and live in those areas but be prepared to pay the extra premium for it. Coastal properties have always been worth a lot because people like living near water, but they should also be aware that the extra price of the property isn't all they are paying for it. They are also paying with the extra risk that comes from living near water.
As for the "bread basket" comment. Again, some areas become better to grow food in while others get worse. Climate change is far less likely to cause problems here than human stupidity in other areas such as cutting down too many trees and leaving soil exposed. Such changes can cause problems that are difficult to fix.
"The problem is you seem to be avoiding the simple point that global temperatures HAVE been rising. I'm sorry, but it's a recorded fact. "
That link is lying. It claims to have global temperatures back to the 1860s, but we didn't really have the equipment nescessary to measure global temperatures until the 1978 when we began using satellites to measure temperature.
Before that we only had local temperature measurements. And such measurements have proven to be pretty useless due to local temperature shifts because of change in population (and as a result energy usage). Especially as we are talking about an overall change in temperature that is less than one degree.
When the winters and summers are extra warm everyone blames Global warming. Why when it is extra cold can we not discount global warming?
Blaiming warm summers at Global Warming is as stupid and ignorant as using Cold winters to discount global warming. You can only get the real story by looking at an aggregate measure of the whole planet.
If all the glaciers are melting where is the rise in sea levels?
Because a lot of the the water is accumulating in the eastern Antarctic which acts as the number one water storage in the world. And I doubt we will see the eastern antarctic melt any time soon.
Glaciers are melting (which isn't strange as we have been coming out of some colder times such as an iceage) and water levels are rising some. It just won't flood the world like the international panic creation club want you to believe.
Hmm, I guess you could start here
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2008/04/peer-reviewed-articles-skeptical-of-man.html
Just something that I found spending 20 seconds on google. There are probably some bad articles in there, but then again there is bad science on both sides...... Both sides, what a misnomer. Many skeptics are just that, skeptics. They are tired of the obvious propaganda spouted from all directions. And yes, it is obvious. IPCC for example has so lost its credibility that even though they do have many good scientists that work with them, the way they handle the research makes the whole process and organisation useless.
And I know I am not providing anything useful in this post except the link I posted, but sometimes you just need to vent, and slashdot is as good a place as any.
And in the scientific community, you cannot one day be for something and then the next day be against it without being labeled either wishy-washy or someone who doesn't fact check first (which leads to a serious credibility problem).
And there is the biggest problem. I have heavy trust problems with anyone who isn't "wishy-washy" in a complex area like global climate theory. People who claim to know the truth doesn't belong in science. They should become preachers instead. Trying to find flaws in his own theories is exactly what a good scientist should do. Calling that "wishy-washy" is an insult to science itself.
But the GP to your first post was lying. There is no "pollution" movement, because as the responses concluded, CO2 isn't really pollution but a naturally occuring atmospheric gas.
And that is the real danger of the CO2 GW religion. They take attention away from the real pollution issues that occur such as the release of heavy metals and radioactive materials into the atmosphere as well as many other important environmental issues.
Most global warming data just tells you that humans are more active in an area which causes temperature to increase some. As the global population has increased a lot in the last 30 years it isn't strange that temperature has gone up. Especially combined with a lot of the population using more energy intensive tools. Humans are basically releasing far more warmth into the atmosphere than we did 30 years ago. Oh, and as CO2 in the atmosphere increases growth that is even more lifeforms that generate warmth.
The CO2 theories simply makes no sense as there have been periods in earths history with far larger CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The runaway doomsday scenarios are simply wishful thinking and propaganda from organisations that thrive on panic and fear.
I am not saying that CO2 doesn't affect temperature to some degree. It does, but I am sick and tired of all the CO2 environmentalists that take up all the spotlight while pushing the real environmental issues such as real dangerous pollution, the rapidly decreasing amount of fish in our seas and increasing global population. The slight temperature increase that CO2 gives is minor compared to the real issue of sustainable life on earth.
And that is the real reason for the economic downturn.
Creating wealth is about doing mutually benefital deals. When both parts no longer tries to do that, but instead just are interested in screwing the other part for your own profit, you don't get a wealth creating economy, but instead just an economy that shuffles money around.
Society can tolerate a smaller amount of foul play, but when the general attitude becomes that it is ok to screw anyone to earn money it falls apart. This is no different than the 1920s. People's attitude were just as bad back then from what I have read. And it took a world war to get people cooperating again.