Jane, the first error is in the first paragraph, but frankly you don't pay me enough to work as your research assistant to detail the rest of the errors:
"Alker finds the models are dependent only on carbon dioxide (CO2) to change temperature. Incredibly, the models seem to be pre-programmed so that no other atmospheric variable is allowed to alter climate."
There many different models and different types of models, this claim is broad and easily falsified. From Real Climate:
Initially (ca. 1975), GCMs were based purely on atmospheric processes – the winds, radiation, and with simplified clouds. By the mid-1980s, there were simple treatments of the upper ocean and sea ice, and clouds parameterisations started to get slightly more sophisticated. In the 1990s, fully coupled ocean-atmosphere models started to become available. This is when the first Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) was started. This has subsequently seen two further iterations, the latest (CMIP3) being the database used in support of much of the model work in the IPCC AR4. Over that time, model simulations have become demonstrably more realistic (Reichler and Kim, 2008) as resolution has increased and parameterisations have become more sophisticated. Nowadays, models also include dynamic sea ice, aerosols and atmospheric chemistry modules. Issues like excessive ‘climate drift’ (the tendency for a coupled model to move away from the a state resembling the actual climate) which were problematic in the early days are now much minimised.
Here are some links to the myths most commonly spread by Murry Salby and Christopher Moncton.
Moncton, in particular, is fond of a tactic called the Gish Gallop where you throw out reasonable sounding claims that are false in such rapid succession that the goal is make it nigh impossible for your opponent to rebut all the errors in your statements without sounding tedious and pedantic and losing the interest of the crowd.
Because taxpayers want public schools to provide the cheapest education possible. The large runs for Texas push the books that Texas use down the economy of scales slide, making them cheaper per page than equivalent books that actually have the correct information in them. Combined with the knowledge that the people responsible for choosing the books often won't know what Texas has had done to the books, and have no actual reponsiblility for student outcomes, only for purchasing X number of books within the alloted budget, you can easily see how it comes to pass that Texas can influence many other states.
But then you run into the problem of explaining away the previous record - was it evidence for global warming as well?
It may have been. In a relatively stable climate, we would expect the number of record breaking weather events to become less frequent over time. Instead we've seen a trend of increased record breaking events. This in itself is an indication that the probabilities have shifted. This not only means more frequent record breaking weather events, but it also makes it possible to have events that would have been effectively impossible without the underlying changes. Think about rolling a standard die with six sides numbered 1 through 6. If you add one to the number on each side, you can now get a seven, and can't get a 1.
Imagine for a moment that we can't actually look at the die, except the side that shows face up. If we start getting 7s when rolling the die, we can be pretty sure someone has changed the numbers on the die. So, if we're getting the equivalent of that metaphorical 7 from our weather then that would be evidence of the underlying change in the distribution. To torture the metaphor a bit more, whether the previous record was also evidence of global warming would require determining whether it was a 6 or a 7.
I love how when anti-global warming types point at a big snow storm or what-have-you and say 'look, global warming can't be real!' and the pro-global warming crowd points out, rightly, 'weather isn't climate'... but then when there is a big wind storm or what-have-you the pro-global warming types start crying 'look what global warming is doing! waaaaa!'
It's called Loading the Dice. Big snowstorms acn actually be evidence for global warming (if it's warmer but still below freezing that means more snow in wet areas and less snow in dry areas). But when we start seeing events which probably could not have occurred under previous climate conditions, those individual extreme events may be actually evidence that the baseline has shifted due to global warming. Hot days aren't evidence for global warming, but record-breaking heatwaves and droughts? They probably are.
That being said, any fantasy about humanity being at risk for significant biological hardship is ludicrous considering that we can eat almost anything, live almost anywhere, are more resistant and adaptive to toxins and pathogens than most other large animals, and we have this thing called "technology" that allows us to move anything anywhere, radically adjust our environments, etc. etc.
Actually, the list of domesticated plants and domesticated animals isn't actually that long. If we had significant reductions in the production of just a few staple crops, we could face famine at a level the modern world has never seen. For example, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, maize and wheat alone make up close to two-thirds of the world’s food energy intake. One of the long term consequences of global warming is expected to be reductions in our crop production. Which may leave us dependent on bio-engineering firms like Monsanto to provide us with newly engineered versions of our crops that are adapated to the new climate. Knowing Monsanto, that could get very expensive.
Actually, government predates free enterprise by a long shot. It was government that moved you ancestors out of caves (albeit probably a pretty small government, probably nothing more than a tribal elder recommending it be done).
I'm no anthropologist, but from what I understand, free enterprise requires a certain population level that could only be achieved after early cheiftains ordered the construction of works for the public good. Those early works were focused on increasing the available supply of food thus creating the carrying capacity to actually allow non-food producing population to exist. Without that additional food production, there would be no one to develop mercantilism, they'd be too busy trying not to starve.
Frankly, the history of humans has been a history of successive governments, each one corrupt and when that corrupt grows too great, it is overthrown and replaced by a new government. In our history, the fat of people with weak goverments was to become the slaves of those with strong governments. It isn't pretty, but it's how history has gone through the ages. That's probably what makes libertarians so preposterous, they hate government and yet seem to know nothing at all about it.
Speaking of double-speak, libertarians seem to be masters of it. They like to declare things to be what they are not, like taxes are theft and propaganda is reason.
There is no functional difference between a tax break and a subsidy. Your linked article lies, in the face of a constant budget, the failure to tax Exxon $10 imposes a $10 debt on the people of the United States of America. The author assumes that if the government does not tax that $10 it will be removed from the expenditures the government makes. Government budgets just don't work that way. In fact, everyone who knows what the word "deficit" means should have a jolly laugh at Mr. Hinkle's expense.
It doesn't matter if you call the $10 you gave to Exxon a subsidy or tax relief, you just gave them $10. The foolishness here is in assuming that money is not fungible.
Aren't they the same thing, though. Doesn it really matter to you if I give you $10 and say it's new money or I give you $10 and say it's money you previously gave me? In both cases I gave you $10. It doesn't even matter if you owe me $10 and I say you can keep it. It's all the same.
How would you know if you were seeing the results of that funding or not?
Propaganda is pretty damn obvious. That's why.
Not if you believe it. If propaganda weren't effective, no one would bother using it.
So why is it that the Koch brothers only need to provide a little doubt and not the AGW theory advocates? Where's this magic asymmetry coming from?
That's a good question, why do you think the AGW theory advocates need to provide more evidence that the do nothing advocates? If you want a real answer, you could try reading a little.
Those numbers ignore that most of the programs can easily be linked to climate change propaganda.
Is it really propaganda if climate change is actually threatening the species the WWF is trying to protect?
Last I checked, those made up most of the news stories that WWF puts on its main website.
I checked today and 1 out of the top 5 stories is potentially linked to climate change (solar panels for families in need).
I consider that situation analogous to some Christian soup kitchens. They feed the poor ass their primary mission, but those they help get some Christian propaganda with their food.
Whether or not that's an apt comparison, I don't see how it impacts your original argument that the Koch brothers are obviously out-spent by Greenpeace and the WWF. All of this is besides the point, which is that combined Greenpeace and the WWF spend roughly $100 million per year on advocacy, which is 0.1% of the estimated gross revenue of Koch industries. Koch industries, if they though it was important to do so, could easily outspend them. Please stop trying to move the goalposts.
The problem with such breezy assumptions is that if the Koch brothers really are spending that kind of money, then why aren't we seeing the results? They should be able to get a lot of reporters to downplay climate change for example. Instead, we see reporters who strain to get climate change into a story.
How would you know if you were seeing the results of that funding or not? It takes a lot of money to conceal the truth. Have you ever considered that maybe your own opposition is one of the end results of that funding? The Koch brothers don't need to generate certainty that climate change isn't a problem, they only need to create enough doubt to enable themselves to continue operating the way they always have.
Incidentally, you are the one who claimed that the Koch brothers "are greatly outspent". What I've provided is a simple analysis that says the Koch brothers could relatively easily outspend what each of those organizations spends on climate change. We don't know whether they spend more or less because they are not obligated to reveal that. Do you have any evidence to support the assertion that you made?
The EU plans to spend roughly 30 billion Euro per year on climate change for 2014-2020. That's apparently 20% of its budget.
You seem to imply that's 30 billion a year on climate change propaganda, but that spending includes greenhouse gas emission reductions, energy efficiency improvements, and adaptation programs. I'm not sure any of it will be spent on advocacy, other than incidentally in the promotion of some specific programs such as a trade-in program for old appliances. Much of the reason for that spending is focused on mitigating risk and saving the EU money through reductions in energy import costs, pollution clean up and reduced medical costs.
And while Greenpeace and the WWF have other things to spend money on, they're primarily propaganda organizations.
While true of Greenpeace, both organizations combined are much, much, smaller than Koch Industries (less than 1% of the size). Additionally, they only spend a part of their budget on climate change issues. From their financial statements, greenpeace spends about $35 million a year on climate change programs. The WWF spends about 80 percent of their budget on programs, and about two thirds of that is spent directly on conservation programs, leaving about 25% (33% of 80%) or roughly $66 million of their total budget that is spent on education and advocacy campaigns, most of which have little to do with climate change.
Which is a large amount and probably underestimated by the people who made the study in question. Public sanitation is an obvious public good. Stopping global warming "in its tracks" is not.
That evaluation is dependent on what you believe. You believe that public sanitation is an obvious public good, but it wasn't perceived as such when it was first introduced. It was highly controversial, there were people who said sewers would begger the United Kingdom for no benefit. Does that sound familiar at all?
If the predictions are accurate, at a minimum spending 2% of GDP on prevention could save us 6% of GDP on adaptation. The EU believes it will also result in less pollution, lower medical costs, and reduced vulnerability to oil price shocks, which is why they're commiting to spend 20% of their budget on making those changes regardless of what the rest of the world is doing.
Here, the Koch brothers are attributed with a near mythical level of persuasion even though on the propaganda front they're greatly outspent, for example, by Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and the EU.
I hope you realize that's not a very fair comparison. There are at least three fundamental errors that make the comparison misleading:
1) You are comparing two oil tycoons to Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the European Union
The Koch brothers run a privately owned company with an estimated income of around $100 billion per year
Greenpeace has an income of around 0.35% of Koch industries, around 350 million.
The World Wildlife fund has an income of around 0.25% of Koch industries, around 250 million.
The European Union has a budget of around 160% of Koch industries, around $160 billion per year
You needed to throw the European Union into the comparison to make the comparison look even remotely reasonable. Otherwise the groups you're looking at would be at a more than 100 to 1 funding disadvantage. However, other than to make the comparison look less ridiculous, it doesn't really seem reasonable to include the EU in your comparison.
2) You seem to categorizing all money spent by Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the European Union (which includes 28 different countries) as propaganda.
This is a ridiculous assumption to make, however, it may surprise you to know that Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the European Union have other things to spend their money on than climate change. Greenpeace maintains a small fleet of ships, and runs a variety of different environmental campaigns, the World Wildlife Fund is more concerned with Wilflife preservationt than Global Warming and the European Union is a government that runs many programs that have nothing to do with climate change.
3) No one know how much money the Koch brothers spend on climate change propaganda.
Koch industries is a privately owned company and thus doesn't have to reveal how much money it spends on anti-climate change propaganda. It seems likely, however, if they spend as little as 1% on opposing climate change they'd outspend the Greenpeace and the WWF entirely. Once you account for the actual breakdown of spending on climate change for those groups, the Koch brothers could easily outspend them with 0.1% of annual revenue.
While I agree that some people do have Koch brother myopia, they are in fact, one of the largest funders of anti-regulatory and right-wing propaganda groups in the world. Most of that funding is done in secret because they are not compelled to reveal any of it. They are in fact, running a shadowy propaganda war against environmental groups because they directly profit from lax environmental laws (because of lower costs, and increased ability to shift clean up burdens to tax payers).
I know I became disenchanted when Greenpeace (US branch, I believe) libeled Du Pont (incidentally with global warming FUD) while I was working there around 1990.
Ah, yes. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." Incidentally, I've never really been a big fan of Greenpeace either, but I try not to let the messenger colour the message.
People might still be willing to make small but meaningless sacrifices (such as recycling programs) for the environment, but when it affects your life and those you care about for little, if any, gain, people get more discerning.
That is probably true. However, the problem may be the perception of the gain versus the perception of the cost. I know many people (on Slashdot even) have claimed that switching to a low carbon energy infrastructure would result in global poverty. But to stop global warming completely in it's tracks would cost us close to 2% of world GDP, fairly close to what the world spends on sewers and sewage treatment. If you figure the cost is everyth
The problem is that the vast majority of Repubmocrats don't work for us anymore: they work for the corporations.
Gerrymandering contributes to this problem. Congressional representatives with safe seats (which is around 410 out of 435 seats) are required to raise a certain amount of money for the party if they want to keep them. Effectively, they are guaranteed re-election as long as they appease the corporate doners and keep the cash rolling in. Is any wonder the U.S. government responds poorly to the public when, in additional to rampant yellow journalism, the vast majority of your elected representatives are minimally, if at all, responsible to their constituents.
No, fanatical was what I wanted to use. It's fanatical on your part in an effort to force the concept of "Corps trump Governments".
I think you should be more careful when throwing accusations of fatanticism around.
Corporations can influence Government; so can individuals (see Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, and others). But Government ultimately wins in the war of power. Government can take everything you want, and you have no recourse - other than Government. Government can execute you, and your family has no recourse - other than Government. Government can (and has) nationalize - take over by fiat - corporations. In the battle of power, Government wins, hands down.
I think you failed to comprehend the points I was making, however, as long as you are happy with the idea that a corporation which controlled a government would be less powerful than the government it controlled, I will accept your argument. I think two people can disagree civily over who's more powerful, the horse or the rider, and both can even be correct according to the value they place on the various types of power.
I'll let your fanatical "NewsCorp topples America" hypothesis stand on its own merits.
It's fantastical, not fanatical. It would be fanatical if I were proposing that NewCorp should or would do it. You didn't ask that though, you asked if they could do it, and with enough money it's certainly possible. And any company were to try it, I wouldn't bet on them being able to control the country after they toppled the government. A much more likely scenario is NewsCorp providing favourable media coverage to try and influence elections so that the government works for them. But, of course, that would neverhappen.
Thank you for proving my point that Government trumps corporations, in terms of power.
It helps if you actually show how an argument supports your position rather than just claiming victory empty-handed. You might want to read up on NewsCorp's assets, for starters. I don't think you give corporations enough credit for the soft power that they wield.
Government can revoke NewsCorp's charter and thus terminate it - lock, stock and barrel.
Which government? NewsCorp is a powerful force in at least Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. I sincerely doubt any of those governments can actually shut down all of NewsCorp on their own. Maybe if all three ganged up on them, they could destroy the entirety of NewsCorp.
Can NewsCorp do the same to the Government?
I'm sure NewsCorp could actually afford to hire a (small) mercenary army to commit a military coup in Washington. Heck, their reporters already have access to all of the top chain of command in the United States, they could, in theory, assassinate the President and Vice-president nearly simulatenously if they really, really wanted to. So, I'm going to give the point to NewsCorp. The American government can severely inconvenience NewsCorp on their own, but NewsCorp could actually topple the American government.
Not from corporate profits. and seriously, do you think a government operated bureaucracy would have LESS overhead in its' operation?
In a word: yes.
What planet do you live on if you think that?
Earth. Down here in reality we can look at every other developed nation and see that they all have some form of universal health care and they all have lower overhead. According to a World Health Organization study the average is 4% for other countries with a maximum of 7%. As I understand it, in the U.S. overhead costs run from 7% for the largest company plans to 30% for individual plans (and the smaller the pool, the larger the percentage dedicated to overhead).
So the worst out of 58 other countries is as good as the most efficient private health insurance plan in the U.S. and the average is almost twice as good as the best U.S. plan and 7 times better than the worst U.S. plan.
Re:All scientific conclusions should be questioned
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Nothing you have said addresses his point.
On the contrary, I provided a link to a child demonstrating how to do something that was claimed to be impossible.
Of course, the reason the AC wouldn't be able to measure the effect is because his experiment was incompetent designed, which calls into question his "solid ground" science credentials. If you stand by a smokestack of a running coal plant, what are you proving? How are you going to measure the CO2 concentration at that location? If you can't measure the levels how are going to observe a change in them over time? Why would anyone expect there to be significant change in the local CO2 concentration while the plant is running? It was running before you got there and will be running after you leave. The proposed experiment demonstrates nothing to do with CO2 because it was designed by an angry and ignorant man who couldn't even be bothered to imagine doing the work correctly.
What he is talking about is settled science. Water vapor is not only the #1 greenhouse contributor, its effects are greater than all the other contributors combined.
Indeed it is. However, it is at saturation levels in the atmosphere, so globally it can't really be increased or decreased except by changes in the global average temperature. Which means it's a feedback mechanism which turn small temperature changes, like from increasing CO2 levels, into larger temperature changes. Which is why we're concerned with CO2 instead of water vapour.
"Trust but verify." I hate that phrase. It's used all over the place, but it is meaningless.
Interestingly enough it's a Russian proverb made famous in the United States by Ronald Reagan.
In any situation where verification is appropriate, trust is not.
In the specific context in which Reagan used it, it indicated that both countries would trust the other enough to begin dismantling warheads, but would verify each other's progress towards the agreed upon targets. It took trust to start the process, and verification would keep it going.
I guess people just don't know what "trust" means any more.
That's entirely possible. However, in this case I think it means you should generally trust that the experiment was done in good faith, however, if you need to actually use the results, you should verify them first.
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If your own verifiable experimental evidence doesn't convince you that this climate nonsense is just that nonsense then you are an idiot!!
How many taxpayers paid that 95% tax rate around WW2?
I had trouble finding reliable information on that account, but from what I did find it looks like around 0.1% would have been in the top bracket, but they didn't actually pay the full 94% (1944-1945), the people who would have been affected were all wealthy enough to hire tax accountants to reduce actual taxes paid to about 70% on income in the top bracket using tax loop holes.
The Republicans in congress can't change the law legally, because they don't have the votes in the Senate to get it passed, or the votes in Congress to overrule a presidential veto. Despite knowing this, they've tried 42 times to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.
It's supposed to, however, during the last boom period the Republicans decided to spend that money on wars and tax cuts with the express purpose of making sure the money would not be there later. They call it "starving the beast". You should probably thank them for the foresight in making sure the government wouldn't have enough money.
Even Boehner knew it, but this little dance had to go all the way because the moderate Republicans are as terrified of the Tea Party as they are of voters.
I would say most of the House Republicans are more terrified of the Tea Party than voters. I think most of the "competitive" districts went Democrat last time around (not that there are that many of them in the first place), which leaves most (if not all) of the Republicans are in safe seats where the biggest threat is a primary challenge from the far right.
The biggest problem you're facing down the road is when some bureaucrat decides that keeping you alive is not cost-effective.
Strangely enough, I keep hearing that is one of the many problems with the American system that Obamacare is supposed to fix? Oh I see, the guy who denies your private American insurance claims is intrinsically different from the guy you imagine in the Australian system.
Want to know the difference? The Austrlians guy doesn't exist.
The government isn't allowed to decide who gets health coverage on a case by case basis (which certain exceptions like prisoners) because that's a ridiculous stupid power to give to any government that is just asking for abuse. Besides, deciding who needs which treatments is something your doctor is supposed to be good at. So in every socialized system that I'm aware of, the doctors decide what treatments you will get and the government pays for them.
Now, the government does get to decide what treatments are covered, what it will pay for various treatments and what standards the doctors must meet to be certified. Of course, different governments have different answers to each of those questions. However, in the end, the government actually has less ability to decide that you are not cost-effective than any private insurance provider.
Slashdot Mirror
There many different models and different types of models, this claim is broad and easily falsified. From Real Climate:
Here are some links to the myths most commonly spread by Murry Salby and Christopher Moncton. Moncton, in particular, is fond of a tactic called the Gish Gallop where you throw out reasonable sounding claims that are false in such rapid succession that the goal is make it nigh impossible for your opponent to rebut all the errors in your statements without sounding tedious and pedantic and losing the interest of the crowd.
Because taxpayers want public schools to provide the cheapest education possible. The large runs for Texas push the books that Texas use down the economy of scales slide, making them cheaper per page than equivalent books that actually have the correct information in them. Combined with the knowledge that the people responsible for choosing the books often won't know what Texas has had done to the books, and have no actual reponsiblility for student outcomes, only for purchasing X number of books within the alloted budget, you can easily see how it comes to pass that Texas can influence many other states.
But then you run into the problem of explaining away the previous record - was it evidence for global warming as well?
It may have been. In a relatively stable climate, we would expect the number of record breaking weather events to become less frequent over time. Instead we've seen a trend of increased record breaking events. This in itself is an indication that the probabilities have shifted. This not only means more frequent record breaking weather events, but it also makes it possible to have events that would have been effectively impossible without the underlying changes. Think about rolling a standard die with six sides numbered 1 through 6. If you add one to the number on each side, you can now get a seven, and can't get a 1.
Imagine for a moment that we can't actually look at the die, except the side that shows face up. If we start getting 7s when rolling the die, we can be pretty sure someone has changed the numbers on the die. So, if we're getting the equivalent of that metaphorical 7 from our weather then that would be evidence of the underlying change in the distribution. To torture the metaphor a bit more, whether the previous record was also evidence of global warming would require determining whether it was a 6 or a 7.
I love how when anti-global warming types point at a big snow storm or what-have-you and say 'look, global warming can't be real!' and the pro-global warming crowd points out, rightly, 'weather isn't climate' ... but then when there is a big wind storm or what-have-you the pro-global warming types start crying 'look what global warming is doing! waaaaa!'
It's called Loading the Dice. Big snowstorms acn actually be evidence for global warming (if it's warmer but still below freezing that means more snow in wet areas and less snow in dry areas). But when we start seeing events which probably could not have occurred under previous climate conditions, those individual extreme events may be actually evidence that the baseline has shifted due to global warming. Hot days aren't evidence for global warming, but record-breaking heatwaves and droughts? They probably are.
That being said, any fantasy about humanity being at risk for significant biological hardship is ludicrous considering that we can eat almost anything, live almost anywhere, are more resistant and adaptive to toxins and pathogens than most other large animals, and we have this thing called "technology" that allows us to move anything anywhere, radically adjust our environments, etc. etc.
Actually, the list of domesticated plants and domesticated animals isn't actually that long. If we had significant reductions in the production of just a few staple crops, we could face famine at a level the modern world has never seen. For example, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, maize and wheat alone make up close to two-thirds of the world’s food energy intake. One of the long term consequences of global warming is expected to be reductions in our crop production. Which may leave us dependent on bio-engineering firms like Monsanto to provide us with newly engineered versions of our crops that are adapated to the new climate. Knowing Monsanto, that could get very expensive.
Actually, government predates free enterprise by a long shot. It was government that moved you ancestors out of caves (albeit probably a pretty small government, probably nothing more than a tribal elder recommending it be done).
I'm no anthropologist, but from what I understand, free enterprise requires a certain population level that could only be achieved after early cheiftains ordered the construction of works for the public good. Those early works were focused on increasing the available supply of food thus creating the carrying capacity to actually allow non-food producing population to exist. Without that additional food production, there would be no one to develop mercantilism, they'd be too busy trying not to starve.
Frankly, the history of humans has been a history of successive governments, each one corrupt and when that corrupt grows too great, it is overthrown and replaced by a new government. In our history, the fat of people with weak goverments was to become the slaves of those with strong governments. It isn't pretty, but it's how history has gone through the ages. That's probably what makes libertarians so preposterous, they hate government and yet seem to know nothing at all about it.
Speaking of double-speak, libertarians seem to be masters of it. They like to declare things to be what they are not, like taxes are theft and propaganda is reason.
There is no functional difference between a tax break and a subsidy. Your linked article lies, in the face of a constant budget, the failure to tax Exxon $10 imposes a $10 debt on the people of the United States of America. The author assumes that if the government does not tax that $10 it will be removed from the expenditures the government makes. Government budgets just don't work that way. In fact, everyone who knows what the word "deficit" means should have a jolly laugh at Mr. Hinkle's expense.
It doesn't matter if you call the $10 you gave to Exxon a subsidy or tax relief, you just gave them $10. The foolishness here is in assuming that money is not fungible.
the Blue Haired and the AARP.
Otherwise known as the people most likely to vote. Is it any wonder politicians protect the people who vote for them the most?
Aren't they the same thing, though. Doesn it really matter to you if I give you $10 and say it's new money or I give you $10 and say it's money you previously gave me? In both cases I gave you $10. It doesn't even matter if you owe me $10 and I say you can keep it. It's all the same.
How would you know if you were seeing the results of that funding or not?
Propaganda is pretty damn obvious. That's why.
Not if you believe it. If propaganda weren't effective, no one would bother using it.
So why is it that the Koch brothers only need to provide a little doubt and not the AGW theory advocates? Where's this magic asymmetry coming from?
That's a good question, why do you think the AGW theory advocates need to provide more evidence that the do nothing advocates? If you want a real answer, you could try reading a little.
Those numbers ignore that most of the programs can easily be linked to climate change propaganda.
Is it really propaganda if climate change is actually threatening the species the WWF is trying to protect?
Last I checked, those made up most of the news stories that WWF puts on its main website.
I checked today and 1 out of the top 5 stories is potentially linked to climate change (solar panels for families in need).
I consider that situation analogous to some Christian soup kitchens. They feed the poor ass their primary mission, but those they help get some Christian propaganda with their food.
Whether or not that's an apt comparison, I don't see how it impacts your original argument that the Koch brothers are obviously out-spent by Greenpeace and the WWF. All of this is besides the point, which is that combined Greenpeace and the WWF spend roughly $100 million per year on advocacy, which is 0.1% of the estimated gross revenue of Koch industries. Koch industries, if they though it was important to do so, could easily outspend them. Please stop trying to move the goalposts.
The problem with such breezy assumptions is that if the Koch brothers really are spending that kind of money, then why aren't we seeing the results? They should be able to get a lot of reporters to downplay climate change for example. Instead, we see reporters who strain to get climate change into a story.
How would you know if you were seeing the results of that funding or not? It takes a lot of money to conceal the truth. Have you ever considered that maybe your own opposition is one of the end results of that funding? The Koch brothers don't need to generate certainty that climate change isn't a problem, they only need to create enough doubt to enable themselves to continue operating the way they always have.
Incidentally, you are the one who claimed that the Koch brothers "are greatly outspent". What I've provided is a simple analysis that says the Koch brothers could relatively easily outspend what each of those organizations spends on climate change. We don't know whether they spend more or less because they are not obligated to reveal that. Do you have any evidence to support the assertion that you made?
The EU plans to spend roughly 30 billion Euro per year on climate change for 2014-2020. That's apparently 20% of its budget.
You seem to imply that's 30 billion a year on climate change propaganda, but that spending includes greenhouse gas emission reductions, energy efficiency improvements, and adaptation programs. I'm not sure any of it will be spent on advocacy, other than incidentally in the promotion of some specific programs such as a trade-in program for old appliances. Much of the reason for that spending is focused on mitigating risk and saving the EU money through reductions in energy import costs, pollution clean up and reduced medical costs.
And while Greenpeace and the WWF have other things to spend money on, they're primarily propaganda organizations.
While true of Greenpeace, both organizations combined are much, much, smaller than Koch Industries (less than 1% of the size). Additionally, they only spend a part of their budget on climate change issues. From their financial statements, greenpeace spends about $35 million a year on climate change programs. The WWF spends about 80 percent of their budget on programs, and about two thirds of that is spent directly on conservation programs, leaving about 25% (33% of 80%) or roughly $66 million of their total budget that is spent on education and advocacy campaigns, most of which have little to do with climate change.
Which is a large amount and probably underestimated by the people who made the study in question. Public sanitation is an obvious public good. Stopping global warming "in its tracks" is not.
That evaluation is dependent on what you believe. You believe that public sanitation is an obvious public good, but it wasn't perceived as such when it was first introduced. It was highly controversial, there were people who said sewers would begger the United Kingdom for no benefit. Does that sound familiar at all?
If the predictions are accurate, at a minimum spending 2% of GDP on prevention could save us 6% of GDP on adaptation. The EU believes it will also result in less pollution, lower medical costs, and reduced vulnerability to oil price shocks, which is why they're commiting to spend 20% of their budget on making those changes regardless of what the rest of the world is doing.
Here, the Koch brothers are attributed with a near mythical level of persuasion even though on the propaganda front they're greatly outspent, for example, by Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and the EU.
I hope you realize that's not a very fair comparison. There are at least three fundamental errors that make the comparison misleading:
1) You are comparing two oil tycoons to Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the European Union
The Koch brothers run a privately owned company with an estimated income of around $100 billion per year
Greenpeace has an income of around 0.35% of Koch industries, around 350 million.
The World Wildlife fund has an income of around 0.25% of Koch industries, around 250 million.
The European Union has a budget of around 160% of Koch industries, around $160 billion per year
You needed to throw the European Union into the comparison to make the comparison look even remotely reasonable. Otherwise the groups you're looking at would be at a more than 100 to 1 funding disadvantage. However, other than to make the comparison look less ridiculous, it doesn't really seem reasonable to include the EU in your comparison.
2) You seem to categorizing all money spent by Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the European Union (which includes 28 different countries) as propaganda.
This is a ridiculous assumption to make, however, it may surprise you to know that Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the European Union have other things to spend their money on than climate change. Greenpeace maintains a small fleet of ships, and runs a variety of different environmental campaigns, the World Wildlife Fund is more concerned with Wilflife preservationt than Global Warming and the European Union is a government that runs many programs that have nothing to do with climate change.
3) No one know how much money the Koch brothers spend on climate change propaganda.
Koch industries is a privately owned company and thus doesn't have to reveal how much money it spends on anti-climate change propaganda. It seems likely, however, if they spend as little as 1% on opposing climate change they'd outspend the Greenpeace and the WWF entirely. Once you account for the actual breakdown of spending on climate change for those groups, the Koch brothers could easily outspend them with 0.1% of annual revenue.
While I agree that some people do have Koch brother myopia, they are in fact, one of the largest funders of anti-regulatory and right-wing propaganda groups in the world. Most of that funding is done in secret because they are not compelled to reveal any of it. They are in fact, running a shadowy propaganda war against environmental groups because they directly profit from lax environmental laws (because of lower costs, and increased ability to shift clean up burdens to tax payers).
I know I became disenchanted when Greenpeace (US branch, I believe) libeled Du Pont (incidentally with global warming FUD) while I was working there around 1990.
Ah, yes. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." Incidentally, I've never really been a big fan of Greenpeace either, but I try not to let the messenger colour the message.
People might still be willing to make small but meaningless sacrifices (such as recycling programs) for the environment, but when it affects your life and those you care about for little, if any, gain, people get more discerning.
That is probably true. However, the problem may be the perception of the gain versus the perception of the cost. I know many people (on Slashdot even) have claimed that switching to a low carbon energy infrastructure would result in global poverty. But to stop global warming completely in it's tracks would cost us close to 2% of world GDP, fairly close to what the world spends on sewers and sewage treatment. If you figure the cost is everyth
The problem is that the vast majority of Repubmocrats don't work for us anymore: they work for the corporations.
Gerrymandering contributes to this problem. Congressional representatives with safe seats (which is around 410 out of 435 seats) are required to raise a certain amount of money for the party if they want to keep them. Effectively, they are guaranteed re-election as long as they appease the corporate doners and keep the cash rolling in. Is any wonder the U.S. government responds poorly to the public when, in additional to rampant yellow journalism, the vast majority of your elected representatives are minimally, if at all, responsible to their constituents.
No, fanatical was what I wanted to use. It's fanatical on your part in an effort to force the concept of "Corps trump Governments".
I think you should be more careful when throwing accusations of fatanticism around.
Corporations can influence Government; so can individuals (see Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, and others). But Government ultimately wins in the war of power. Government can take everything you want, and you have no recourse - other than Government. Government can execute you, and your family has no recourse - other than Government. Government can (and has) nationalize - take over by fiat - corporations. In the battle of power, Government wins, hands down.
I think you failed to comprehend the points I was making, however, as long as you are happy with the idea that a corporation which controlled a government would be less powerful than the government it controlled, I will accept your argument. I think two people can disagree civily over who's more powerful, the horse or the rider, and both can even be correct according to the value they place on the various types of power.
I'll let your fanatical "NewsCorp topples America" hypothesis stand on its own merits.
It's fantastical, not fanatical. It would be fanatical if I were proposing that NewCorp should or would do it. You didn't ask that though, you asked if they could do it, and with enough money it's certainly possible. And any company were to try it, I wouldn't bet on them being able to control the country after they toppled the government. A much more likely scenario is NewsCorp providing favourable media coverage to try and influence elections so that the government works for them. But, of course, that would never happen.
Thank you for proving my point that Government trumps corporations, in terms of power.
It helps if you actually show how an argument supports your position rather than just claiming victory empty-handed. You might want to read up on NewsCorp's assets, for starters. I don't think you give corporations enough credit for the soft power that they wield.
Government can revoke NewsCorp's charter and thus terminate it - lock, stock and barrel.
Which government? NewsCorp is a powerful force in at least Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. I sincerely doubt any of those governments can actually shut down all of NewsCorp on their own. Maybe if all three ganged up on them, they could destroy the entirety of NewsCorp.
Can NewsCorp do the same to the Government?
I'm sure NewsCorp could actually afford to hire a (small) mercenary army to commit a military coup in Washington. Heck, their reporters already have access to all of the top chain of command in the United States, they could, in theory, assassinate the President and Vice-president nearly simulatenously if they really, really wanted to. So, I'm going to give the point to NewsCorp. The American government can severely inconvenience NewsCorp on their own, but NewsCorp could actually topple the American government.
Obama is a leftist, what part of that don't you get?
The part that makes him a leftist. Obama's definitely seems like a right of center politician.
Not from corporate profits. and seriously, do you think a government operated bureaucracy would have LESS overhead in its' operation?
In a word: yes.
What planet do you live on if you think that?
Earth. Down here in reality we can look at every other developed nation and see that they all have some form of universal health care and they all have lower overhead. According to a World Health Organization study the average is 4% for other countries with a maximum of 7%. As I understand it, in the U.S. overhead costs run from 7% for the largest company plans to 30% for individual plans (and the smaller the pool, the larger the percentage dedicated to overhead). So the worst out of 58 other countries is as good as the most efficient private health insurance plan in the U.S. and the average is almost twice as good as the best U.S. plan and 7 times better than the worst U.S. plan.
Nothing you have said addresses his point.
On the contrary, I provided a link to a child demonstrating how to do something that was claimed to be impossible.
Of course, the reason the AC wouldn't be able to measure the effect is because his experiment was incompetent designed, which calls into question his "solid ground" science credentials. If you stand by a smokestack of a running coal plant, what are you proving? How are you going to measure the CO2 concentration at that location? If you can't measure the levels how are going to observe a change in them over time? Why would anyone expect there to be significant change in the local CO2 concentration while the plant is running? It was running before you got there and will be running after you leave. The proposed experiment demonstrates nothing to do with CO2 because it was designed by an angry and ignorant man who couldn't even be bothered to imagine doing the work correctly.
What he is talking about is settled science. Water vapor is not only the #1 greenhouse contributor, its effects are greater than all the other contributors combined.
Indeed it is. However, it is at saturation levels in the atmosphere, so globally it can't really be increased or decreased except by changes in the global average temperature. Which means it's a feedback mechanism which turn small temperature changes, like from increasing CO2 levels, into larger temperature changes. Which is why we're concerned with CO2 instead of water vapour.
But, of course, you already knew that.
"Trust but verify." I hate that phrase. It's used all over the place, but it is meaningless.
Interestingly enough it's a Russian proverb made famous in the United States by Ronald Reagan.
In any situation where verification is appropriate, trust is not.
In the specific context in which Reagan used it, it indicated that both countries would trust the other enough to begin dismantling warheads, but would verify each other's progress towards the agreed upon targets. It took trust to start the process, and verification would keep it going.
I guess people just don't know what "trust" means any more.
That's entirely possible. However, in this case I think it means you should generally trust that the experiment was done in good faith, however, if you need to actually use the results, you should verify them first.
If your own verifiable experimental evidence doesn't convince you that this climate nonsense is just that nonsense then you are an idiot!!
Here's a video of a 10 year old successfully demonstrating that CO2 is a green house gas. I have no idea why someone who claims to have a doctorate in physics doesn't understand the physics of the greenhouse effect and is so incompetent that they can't design a legitimate experiment to replicate it. We're talking science that was hypothesized in 1824 and first verified in 1859
How many taxpayers paid that 95% tax rate around WW2?
I had trouble finding reliable information on that account, but from what I did find it looks like around 0.1% would have been in the top bracket, but they didn't actually pay the full 94% (1944-1945), the people who would have been affected were all wealthy enough to hire tax accountants to reduce actual taxes paid to about 70% on income in the top bracket using tax loop holes.
The Republicans in congress can't change the law legally, because they don't have the votes in the Senate to get it passed, or the votes in Congress to overrule a presidential veto. Despite knowing this, they've tried 42 times to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.
It's supposed to, however, during the last boom period the Republicans decided to spend that money on wars and tax cuts with the express purpose of making sure the money would not be there later. They call it "starving the beast". You should probably thank them for the foresight in making sure the government wouldn't have enough money.
Even Boehner knew it, but this little dance had to go all the way because the moderate Republicans are as terrified of the Tea Party as they are of voters.
I would say most of the House Republicans are more terrified of the Tea Party than voters. I think most of the "competitive" districts went Democrat last time around (not that there are that many of them in the first place), which leaves most (if not all) of the Republicans are in safe seats where the biggest threat is a primary challenge from the far right.
The biggest problem you're facing down the road is when some bureaucrat decides that keeping you alive is not cost-effective.
Strangely enough, I keep hearing that is one of the many problems with the American system that Obamacare is supposed to fix? Oh I see, the guy who denies your private American insurance claims is intrinsically different from the guy you imagine in the Australian system.
Want to know the difference? The Austrlians guy doesn't exist.
The government isn't allowed to decide who gets health coverage on a case by case basis (which certain exceptions like prisoners) because that's a ridiculous stupid power to give to any government that is just asking for abuse. Besides, deciding who needs which treatments is something your doctor is supposed to be good at. So in every socialized system that I'm aware of, the doctors decide what treatments you will get and the government pays for them.
Now, the government does get to decide what treatments are covered, what it will pay for various treatments and what standards the doctors must meet to be certified. Of course, different governments have different answers to each of those questions. However, in the end, the government actually has less ability to decide that you are not cost-effective than any private insurance provider.