In the book, the tripods weren't invincible, they were simply overpowering. If I remember correctly, two of them are destroyed in the novel, one by a clever ambush and one by a battleship. However, Welles also basically invented the the ideas of chemical warfare, biological warfare and fixed wing aircraft* in that book.
* I'm not sure if he was the first, but he described something that seems a lot like a jet aircraft before the Wright brothers made their historic flight.
He's pandering, he sees that Obama's supporters want the deal so he's determined it is bad because of that. He's right this time, but a stopped clock is still right twice a day.
If you have to hold you nose while voting, you're probably voting for the wrong people. Vote for the pirate party or the libertarian party or anyone else, really. If there's a significant increase in votes for other parties that'll scare both the Democrats and the Republicans.
You wouldn't be in favor of the government forcing vegan restaurant to server meat, would you? This is very similar, except even more so: this is more like the government forcing the vegans to slaughter the animals on-site, then serve the meat.
Actually this is exactly like allowing a vegan restaurant to refuse to pay for health insurance that covers heart surgery because they decided their employees shouldn't be eating meat (and thus shouldn't have cholesterol issues).
The problem with allowing an organization to choose an official religion and use that to determine acceptable health coverage is that you'll find some of the less enlightened businesses are suddenly Christian Science businesses and offer no actual health coverage. It's not right for the employer to force their religious beliefs on the employee. It tramples the employees right to freedom of religious expression.
The primary message of this issue seems to me to be that employers shouldn't be involved in providing health insurance for employees.
One big problem with the death penalty is that it's more expensive than keeping someone in jail for the rest of their lives*. A second problem is that the death penalty is perceived to be better than life in prison (at least until people are facing the executioner), so it is a less effective deterrent than prison time. Rationally speaking the death penalty is a waste of money, and that doesn't include any of the ethical questions about whether the state should be entitled to perform executions.
Prisons being unpleasant (taken to extremes) can also be counter-productive. One of the goals of a prison system should be to release the inmates back into the population in a manner where they are unlikely to commit a crime again. If the prison conditions are barbarous the inmates will have great difficulty rejoining society as productive members and will instead act as they've been conditioned to act. They will be violent, dangerous, and will likely be returned to prison shortly thereafter because of that conditioning. Which means the system has failed to accomplish anything, this approach tends to appeal to conservatives who believe that criminals can never be reformed, but objective evidence indicates otherwise.
The point of the system isn't to ensure that prisoners don't like prison. It's to hold and reform them before they're released back into society, otherwise there's no reason to ever release them.
* The cost to the state to contest appeals and eventually carry out the execution.
On the other hand, it's probably best to just ignore whatever Fox news says. After all, 7 studies have now confirmed that Fox viewers are among the worst informed Americans. Any time someone says "I saw this on Fox News", my first response will likely be "Do you have a credible source to confirm it?". That should be a source that is not also owned by Rupert Murdoch. There's just too much disinformation on Fox News for it to be worth my time to sort out what's true, what's half-true, and what's out and out lies.
Actually, I seem to remember several studies have produced statistically significant negative results. The studies found that praying for people actually made them slightly less likely to recover. If I remember correctly, the scientists conducting the studying said the effect need further study but hypothesised that the patients and their praying guardians tended to be overly optimistic about their chances and were more likely to refuse treatments that had more serious side effects in preference for less effective treatments with no side effects.
While that may be true, you have a piss poor voting system that encourages corruption by effectively limiting choice. As long as first past the post voting systems dominate you're going to have trouble getting any type of ethical elections. People will always be torn between voting their conscience and voting for one of the front runners. If Bad and Worst are the frunt runners and Best is a distant third, the system will punish those who vote for Best by allowing Worst to rule for years.
Change the system and you'll change the politicians, the voters and the choices.
That's a different problem, and one that has to be shown to be significant. The measured glaciers show about 10% of glaciers increasing in mass, so growing glaciers have been sampled. As I understand it, a pair of satellites have been used to measure the global change in glacial mass and they confirm that the measured results are broadly correct and the total glacial mass on earth is shrinking at around 500 billion tons a year.
Assuming, for the moment, that your numbers are accurate here:
That said, out of about 200,000 glaciers worldwide, only 0.075% were actually measured in the last decade (with some areas such as the Alps being heavily over-represented) and those 0.075% necessarily form the base on which scientific claims have made. A base which is just too small to make any claims.
A random sample of 150 glaciers would actually be sufficient to get a reasonably accurate view (+- 10%) of the overall trend.
Really? There is work showing CO2 emissions are necessary and sufficient to cause the observed warming?
More or less. The work tends to be more detailed than your over simplication, but recent studies that have attempted to separate natural and human effects on temperature have found that human activity accounts for over 100% of the warming. This is possible because natural effects have recently been cooling rather than warming the atmosphere. For example, we've had back-to-back La Nina's and the sun is in a period of minimal activity. However, the increase in CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) and the attendant feedback effects are still causing the oceans and the atmosphere to warm despite the natural effects.
So, is gravity settled? Or are you currently floating off into space?
Every claim in climate science is scrutinized and challenged. However, it's far more helpful when actual scientists do it, rather than say retired engineers who used to work for oil companies who are paid by libertarian think tanks to take a hostile position and then lie to the people who read their blog all while claiming to be "impartial" and "neutral".
The science is settled because people more qualified than you haven't been able to disprove the claims. You're free to dedicate your life to proving them wrong, but better people than you have tried and failed. That's what it means. Not that you can't question it, but that it's has been through the crucible already.
Even the Black Death didn't wipe out European civilization
And some man-made disaster did? I suspect you underestimate the effect of the Black Death:
The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe's population,[2] reducing world population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in the 14th century. The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague returned at various times, killing more people, until it left Europe in the 19th century.
I find it interesting that you seem to think a carbon tax would be much worse than losing 30-60% of the country's population.
The more routine harmful predictions made for the effects of AGW just aren't that significant to humanity either: slightly higher sea levels, modestly less rainfall in some locations, slightly higher temperatures (except in the upper northern hemisphere) slightly more acidic oceans, slightly more extreme weather, etc. Most of that can be solved just by having people move out of less safe or productive areas over the decades or centuries.
That view represents a failure to appreciate the magnitude of the changes. The difference between glacial and interglacial is about 5 degrees. The predicted warming by the end of 2100 is about 4 degrees. That means in a little over a century we will be as far removed from our 20th century climate as it was from a climate where much of North America was under a mile thick sheet of ice. We don't know precisely what the effect of going up another 5 degrees will be, but we can try to estimate the impacts.
Obviously, I dont see the suggested imposed costs as being in line with the externalities in question.
The experts disagree with you, they say the costs of inaction greatly exceeds the cost of taking action. Only 2.1% of the economists surveyed indicated that the thought the U.S. shouldn't take action to address climate change, presumably that means only 2.1% of the economists thought the costs of action would be equal to or higher than the costs of inaction.
Strangely enough either way this goes it's an issue. Either the taxpayer money is being wasted or it's being spent on a private corporation to spy on American citizens. Maybe the real issue is that giving money to these guys is both wasteful and unethical.
It might be, who paid for your mayors election campaign? Of course, it could also just be "conservative idiocy". There's at least one mayor of a major metropolitan area who's opposed to alternate forms of transportation like street cars, bikes, and buses because "people like cars". Seriously. He's for subways, though because "people like subways". People like him because "he's a straight talker" and he never changes his mind on any issue.
It's also worth noting that natural disaster is far less harmful to society than the man-made ones. And that's the problem here. Global warming could be a global natural disaster, while the fix for AGW is a global man-made disaster. Both are global in scale with global warming, if it hurts us, does so in the distant future while the fix hurts us, drives our people into poverty, and cripples our industries now.
Except of course, as indicated in quote I presented you earlier, idiots like you say that every single time one of these issues comes up and you've always been wrong. Without even looking at the details, chances are you're wrong again. Many economics say you're wrong, the only "experts" who agree with you are directly in the pay of libertarian propaganda think tank. You have no credible evidence to back up your hysterionics just your biases and hand waving. You make many claims but consistently fail to back them up with any evidence to support them. And you think other people are fools becuase they present evidence to support their assertions? You really are a waste of time and space.
Increasing efficiency and applying a moderate carbon tax would be moderate actions
Yes, restricting human industry.
You don't really know what restricting is, do you?
so reducing our rate of oil consumption would be a smart hedge against rising prices
Reducing rate of oil consumption? Restricting human industry.
Really, so every time a company discovers a more efficient way to do something, they are being restricted?
And killing people so long as it can't be directly linked to your actions is a hallmark of unfettered capitalism
No, that's a hallmark of a lot of human systems. Capitalism, fettered or not, isn't even notable in this respect.
Oh, it is very notable. You just have a big libertarian shaped blind spot that hides it from you.
Environmentalism is another such system in which this applies. For example, there are numerous times when human safety has been compromised for some environmental concern. A number of environmentalist arguments favoring radical carbon dioxide emission reduction are based on such a calculus. Being willing to harm billions of people merely to achieve narrow-minded environmental goals is not the calling card of unfettered capitalism.
Of course, the same people who favor reducing carbon dioxide emissions usually also have evidence that indicates that their course of action will be less harmful than business as usual. Their case is actually based on improved human safety, now you are free to disbelieve them, but it's hardly fair to claim they are willing to harm billions when they are making the case to reduce harm to billions. You're going to have to find some convincing evidence that your allegations have any basis in reality. I've already provided some evidence on the balance of effects, and the actual consensus is that in the short-to-medium terms that (the next few centuries) the effects will be overwhelming negative. You, on the other hand, have provided nothing but your opinion that profit should trump every other consideration.
I'm sorry, but you're going to have to do better job than cite one study out of 54 and claim it's not broad enough for your liking.
No word about the vast wealth generated by not restricting human industry on a global scale or the add-on effects of increasing human poverty.
Of course, climate change may already be making human poverty worse. Please remember the policy I gave you does not restrict human industry. That is a potential solution to the problem, but one which I would place in the "extreme" reactions. We could pass laws that restrict the ability of industry to release carbon dioxide. However, it's highly probable that it would cheaper and less disruptive to introduce a carbon tax. A carbon tax doesn't restrict human industry, it puts a price on the externality of carbon dioxide emissions and thus corrects a fundamental flaw in the marketplace. Implemented in a revenue neutral way, a carbon tax can shift the tax burden from activity we want to encourage (investment, employment) to activity we want to discourage (carbon emissions).
The first thing to remember about this remarkable display of ignorance and shallow blitheness is that one doesn't see opportunity costs. One doesn't see the industry and productivity the developed world could have had, if they hadn't chased that industry off to China and elsewhere.
That's a pretty simplistic analysis of the Chinese situation. Lax environmental regulations are a common reason for offshoring to China. Low wage rates is usually the primary motivating factor, although Apple, of course, appreciates the fact that Foxconn basically employ slaves who can be literally worked to death.
Well, there's a lot of bitter, powerless people on Slashdot who complain ineffectually that the business world treats them unfairly, employing cheap Chinese or whatever workers in an unregulated environment rather. Well, that's a consequence of environmental regulation. They also complain that they don't get the free shit that they picked up a right for. Well, that's a psychological consequence of environmental regulation, that what petty thing you want is actually some high-minded principle.
I've heard more people shocked be how bad the environmental degradation in China has become than I've heard people claiming they're out of job because of that. Frankly, I don't think I've ever heard someone complain that their job was shipped to China because China has no environmental regulations. Interestingly enough, China is going through a bit of an environmental revolution. It turns out that Chinese workers don't like living in smog covered cities any more than Americans do.
This is typical of the blindness that surrounds so much of environmentalism.
And killing people so long as it can't be directly linked to your actions is a hallmark of unfettered capitalism (see cigarettes, asbestos, dow chemicals*). As it turns out, most people would like a middle ground where businesses don't poison their neighbours and kill their employees but still provide a robust capitalistic system.
* As it turns out cigarettes, asbestos and climate change deniers have one thing in common: the same PR firms.
My take is that you should provide evidence for that conditional or stop wasting my time.
My point was that you need to actually consider the negatives and positives. Current research points to far more negative effects than positives.
I agree. It's worth noting here that "do nothing, but build wealth" is one such moderate action.
Actually, no that would be inaction. Increasing efficiency and applying a moderate carbon tax would be moderate actions, in part, because with peak oil looming, prices are rising and supply is not increasing to match, so reducing our rate of oil consumption would be a smart hedge against rising prices. Following the current trends, the world needs at least 43 million barrels a day of new production by 2030. That's to replace 1/2 of our current daily production which will decline over the next 20 years. We have no idea if that production can be found and if so, where that production will come from and that's for the low growth scenario.
Here's a interesting quote (from Bradley Plumer):
I've noted before that pretty much every environmental regulation that's ever been enacted has been greeted with predictions of economic doom—yet those dire warnings have never panned out. Pollution restrictions invariably turn out to be much cheaper than expected, in part because they trigger the development of new technologies. (By contrast, nature isn't nearly so forgiving when we try to muck with it.)
I don't think you understand my point, if point 4 is false, then it has no impact on global warming. It's something you really need to think about. The consensus of researchers and economists who are not paid by the Heartland Institute is that taking moderate actions now will dramatically reduce the costs of global warming if there are no catastrophic consequences. If catastrophic consequences do occur the cost benefits of preventive action increase.
Generally speaking most of the plans to reduce global warming are also good ideas on their own merits. The primary reason it is opposed by groups like the Heartland Institute is that acknowledging it is really an issue brings their very identities into question. Asked privately, several of the directors of the Heartland Institute actually believe in climate change, they just can't stand that widespread acceptance of it would reduce their influence and that of their allies in the Republican party. They can't stand to lose the power they've accumulated, so they fight it. You see they recognize that acceptance of climate change will shift the political balance towards statism, because it a problem that can't be addressed by libertarianism. Their end goal can be a simple as preventing governments from dealing with the issue until it is a huge problem, then they can safely blame the government for not acting sooner to keep their flock securely under control. They'll say something "Look this is something the government could have fixed, but it couldn't even do that, how can we trust it do anything else?" and continue forward with their flock blissfully unaware of how they are being manipulated.
Is it a coincdence that most of the prominent climate change deniers are paid by the Heartland Institute? Some people might point out that they're not paid a whole lost, but we've seen the books for just one such organization. There are a number of other groups who also be funding these so-called "skeptics". The problem is that now that they are paid to hold a particular view in public, that view can not change. They can't admit that they are wrong until after the funding dries up, or else they risk losing money, prestige and power. A wise man once said "it is very difficult to get a man to believe something if his livelyhood relies on him not believing it".
We have documented evidence of bias and of failure to disclose conflicts of interest from the leaders of the climate change denial movement. The only thing that can change the status quo is for people like you to wise up to the fact that you are being manipulated with talking points from paid shills. Before you engage in false equivalency, the climate change side also has tonnes of evidence and thousands of studies and research papers which all point to the same conclusion. Now you can doubt the effects of climate change, but beware as the other poster pointed out, it's part of the plan that you do so.
Slashdot Mirror
In the book, the tripods weren't invincible, they were simply overpowering. If I remember correctly, two of them are destroyed in the novel, one by a clever ambush and one by a battleship. However, Welles also basically invented the the ideas of chemical warfare, biological warfare and fixed wing aircraft* in that book.
* I'm not sure if he was the first, but he described something that seems a lot like a jet aircraft before the Wright brothers made their historic flight.
He's pandering, he sees that Obama's supporters want the deal so he's determined it is bad because of that. He's right this time, but a stopped clock is still right twice a day.
If you have to hold you nose while voting, you're probably voting for the wrong people. Vote for the pirate party or the libertarian party or anyone else, really. If there's a significant increase in votes for other parties that'll scare both the Democrats and the Republicans.
You wouldn't be in favor of the government forcing vegan restaurant to server meat, would you? This is very similar, except even more so: this is more like the government forcing the vegans to slaughter the animals on-site, then serve the meat.
Actually this is exactly like allowing a vegan restaurant to refuse to pay for health insurance that covers heart surgery because they decided their employees shouldn't be eating meat (and thus shouldn't have cholesterol issues).
The problem with allowing an organization to choose an official religion and use that to determine acceptable health coverage is that you'll find some of the less enlightened businesses are suddenly Christian Science businesses and offer no actual health coverage. It's not right for the employer to force their religious beliefs on the employee. It tramples the employees right to freedom of religious expression.
The primary message of this issue seems to me to be that employers shouldn't be involved in providing health insurance for employees.
There are many references to the studies.
One big problem with the death penalty is that it's more expensive than keeping someone in jail for the rest of their lives*. A second problem is that the death penalty is perceived to be better than life in prison (at least until people are facing the executioner), so it is a less effective deterrent than prison time. Rationally speaking the death penalty is a waste of money, and that doesn't include any of the ethical questions about whether the state should be entitled to perform executions.
Prisons being unpleasant (taken to extremes) can also be counter-productive. One of the goals of a prison system should be to release the inmates back into the population in a manner where they are unlikely to commit a crime again. If the prison conditions are barbarous the inmates will have great difficulty rejoining society as productive members and will instead act as they've been conditioned to act. They will be violent, dangerous, and will likely be returned to prison shortly thereafter because of that conditioning. Which means the system has failed to accomplish anything, this approach tends to appeal to conservatives who believe that criminals can never be reformed, but objective evidence indicates otherwise.
The point of the system isn't to ensure that prisoners don't like prison. It's to hold and reform them before they're released back into society, otherwise there's no reason to ever release them.
* The cost to the state to contest appeals and eventually carry out the execution.
And it can be surprisingly effective, Canada's recidivism rate is 3% over the felon's lifetime while the U.S. rate is 66% in the first 3 years.
On the other hand, it's probably best to just ignore whatever Fox news says. After all, 7 studies have now confirmed that Fox viewers are among the worst informed Americans. Any time someone says "I saw this on Fox News", my first response will likely be "Do you have a credible source to confirm it?". That should be a source that is not also owned by Rupert Murdoch. There's just too much disinformation on Fox News for it to be worth my time to sort out what's true, what's half-true, and what's out and out lies.
Actually, I seem to remember several studies have produced statistically significant negative results. The studies found that praying for people actually made them slightly less likely to recover. If I remember correctly, the scientists conducting the studying said the effect need further study but hypothesised that the patients and their praying guardians tended to be overly optimistic about their chances and were more likely to refuse treatments that had more serious side effects in preference for less effective treatments with no side effects.
While that may be true, you have a piss poor voting system that encourages corruption by effectively limiting choice. As long as first past the post voting systems dominate you're going to have trouble getting any type of ethical elections. People will always be torn between voting their conscience and voting for one of the front runners. If Bad and Worst are the frunt runners and Best is a distant third, the system will punish those who vote for Best by allowing Worst to rule for years.
Change the system and you'll change the politicians, the voters and the choices.
That's a different problem, and one that has to be shown to be significant. The measured glaciers show about 10% of glaciers increasing in mass, so growing glaciers have been sampled. As I understand it, a pair of satellites have been used to measure the global change in glacial mass and they confirm that the measured results are broadly correct and the total glacial mass on earth is shrinking at around 500 billion tons a year.
Hey, someone did that. The IPCC won.
Assuming, for the moment, that your numbers are accurate here:
That said, out of about 200,000 glaciers worldwide, only 0.075% were actually measured in the last decade (with some areas such as the Alps being heavily over-represented) and those 0.075% necessarily form the base on which scientific claims have made. A base which is just too small to make any claims.
A random sample of 150 glaciers would actually be sufficient to get a reasonably accurate view (+- 10%) of the overall trend.
Really? There is work showing CO2 emissions are necessary and sufficient to cause the observed warming?
More or less. The work tends to be more detailed than your over simplication, but recent studies that have attempted to separate natural and human effects on temperature have found that human activity accounts for over 100% of the warming. This is possible because natural effects have recently been cooling rather than warming the atmosphere. For example, we've had back-to-back La Nina's and the sun is in a period of minimal activity. However, the increase in CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) and the attendant feedback effects are still causing the oceans and the atmosphere to warm despite the natural effects.
This graph shows what I'm talking about, it's from this review of the causes of global warming.
So, is gravity settled? Or are you currently floating off into space?
Every claim in climate science is scrutinized and challenged. However, it's far more helpful when actual scientists do it, rather than say retired engineers who used to work for oil companies who are paid by libertarian think tanks to take a hostile position and then lie to the people who read their blog all while claiming to be "impartial" and "neutral".
The science is settled because people more qualified than you haven't been able to disprove the claims. You're free to dedicate your life to proving them wrong, but better people than you have tried and failed. That's what it means. Not that you can't question it, but that it's has been through the crucible already.
Even the Black Death didn't wipe out European civilization
And some man-made disaster did? I suspect you underestimate the effect of the Black Death:
The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe's population,[2] reducing world population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in the 14th century. The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague returned at various times, killing more people, until it left Europe in the 19th century.
I find it interesting that you seem to think a carbon tax would be much worse than losing 30-60% of the country's population.
The more routine harmful predictions made for the effects of AGW just aren't that significant to humanity either: slightly higher sea levels, modestly less rainfall in some locations, slightly higher temperatures (except in the upper northern hemisphere) slightly more acidic oceans, slightly more extreme weather, etc. Most of that can be solved just by having people move out of less safe or productive areas over the decades or centuries.
That view represents a failure to appreciate the magnitude of the changes. The difference between glacial and interglacial is about 5 degrees. The predicted warming by the end of 2100 is about 4 degrees. That means in a little over a century we will be as far removed from our 20th century climate as it was from a climate where much of North America was under a mile thick sheet of ice. We don't know precisely what the effect of going up another 5 degrees will be, but we can try to estimate the impacts.
Obviously, I dont see the suggested imposed costs as being in line with the externalities in question.
The experts disagree with you, they say the costs of inaction greatly exceeds the cost of taking action. Only 2.1% of the economists surveyed indicated that the thought the U.S. shouldn't take action to address climate change, presumably that means only 2.1% of the economists thought the costs of action would be equal to or higher than the costs of inaction.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought the American Government was paying them for their services?
Strangely enough either way this goes it's an issue. Either the taxpayer money is being wasted or it's being spent on a private corporation to spy on American citizens. Maybe the real issue is that giving money to these guys is both wasteful and unethical.
It might be, who paid for your mayors election campaign? Of course, it could also just be "conservative idiocy". There's at least one mayor of a major metropolitan area who's opposed to alternate forms of transportation like street cars, bikes, and buses because "people like cars". Seriously. He's for subways, though because "people like subways". People like him because "he's a straight talker" and he never changes his mind on any issue.
Of course Anthropogenic Climate Change is, by definition, a man-made disaster.
It's also worth noting that natural disaster is far less harmful to society than the man-made ones. And that's the problem here. Global warming could be a global natural disaster, while the fix for AGW is a global man-made disaster. Both are global in scale with global warming, if it hurts us, does so in the distant future while the fix hurts us, drives our people into poverty, and cripples our industries now.
Except of course, as indicated in quote I presented you earlier, idiots like you say that every single time one of these issues comes up and you've always been wrong. Without even looking at the details, chances are you're wrong again. Many economics say you're wrong, the only "experts" who agree with you are directly in the pay of libertarian propaganda think tank. You have no credible evidence to back up your hysterionics just your biases and hand waving. You make many claims but consistently fail to back them up with any evidence to support them. And you think other people are fools becuase they present evidence to support their assertions? You really are a waste of time and space.
Increasing efficiency and applying a moderate carbon tax would be moderate actions
Yes, restricting human industry.
You don't really know what restricting is, do you?
so reducing our rate of oil consumption would be a smart hedge against rising prices
Reducing rate of oil consumption? Restricting human industry.
Really, so every time a company discovers a more efficient way to do something, they are being restricted?
And killing people so long as it can't be directly linked to your actions is a hallmark of unfettered capitalism
No, that's a hallmark of a lot of human systems. Capitalism, fettered or not, isn't even notable in this respect.
Oh, it is very notable. You just have a big libertarian shaped blind spot that hides it from you.
Environmentalism is another such system in which this applies. For example, there are numerous times when human safety has been compromised for some environmental concern. A number of environmentalist arguments favoring radical carbon dioxide emission reduction are based on such a calculus. Being willing to harm billions of people merely to achieve narrow-minded environmental goals is not the calling card of unfettered capitalism.
Of course, the same people who favor reducing carbon dioxide emissions usually also have evidence that indicates that their course of action will be less harmful than business as usual. Their case is actually based on improved human safety, now you are free to disbelieve them, but it's hardly fair to claim they are willing to harm billions when they are making the case to reduce harm to billions. You're going to have to find some convincing evidence that your allegations have any basis in reality. I've already provided some evidence on the balance of effects, and the actual consensus is that in the short-to-medium terms that (the next few centuries) the effects will be overwhelming negative. You, on the other hand, have provided nothing but your opinion that profit should trump every other consideration.
The link you gave is grievously flawed.
I'm sorry, but you're going to have to do better job than cite one study out of 54 and claim it's not broad enough for your liking.
No word about the vast wealth generated by not restricting human industry on a global scale or the add-on effects of increasing human poverty.
Of course, climate change may already be making human poverty worse. Please remember the policy I gave you does not restrict human industry. That is a potential solution to the problem, but one which I would place in the "extreme" reactions. We could pass laws that restrict the ability of industry to release carbon dioxide. However, it's highly probable that it would cheaper and less disruptive to introduce a carbon tax. A carbon tax doesn't restrict human industry, it puts a price on the externality of carbon dioxide emissions and thus corrects a fundamental flaw in the marketplace. Implemented in a revenue neutral way, a carbon tax can shift the tax burden from activity we want to encourage (investment, employment) to activity we want to discourage (carbon emissions).
The first thing to remember about this remarkable display of ignorance and shallow blitheness is that one doesn't see opportunity costs. One doesn't see the industry and productivity the developed world could have had, if they hadn't chased that industry off to China and elsewhere.
That's a pretty simplistic analysis of the Chinese situation. Lax environmental regulations are a common reason for offshoring to China. Low wage rates is usually the primary motivating factor, although Apple, of course, appreciates the fact that Foxconn basically employ slaves who can be literally worked to death.
Well, there's a lot of bitter, powerless people on Slashdot who complain ineffectually that the business world treats them unfairly, employing cheap Chinese or whatever workers in an unregulated environment rather. Well, that's a consequence of environmental regulation. They also complain that they don't get the free shit that they picked up a right for. Well, that's a psychological consequence of environmental regulation, that what petty thing you want is actually some high-minded principle.
I've heard more people shocked be how bad the environmental degradation in China has become than I've heard people claiming they're out of job because of that. Frankly, I don't think I've ever heard someone complain that their job was shipped to China because China has no environmental regulations. Interestingly enough, China is going through a bit of an environmental revolution. It turns out that Chinese workers don't like living in smog covered cities any more than Americans do.
This is typical of the blindness that surrounds so much of environmentalism.
And killing people so long as it can't be directly linked to your actions is a hallmark of unfettered capitalism (see cigarettes, asbestos, dow chemicals*). As it turns out, most people would like a middle ground where businesses don't poison their neighbours and kill their employees but still provide a robust capitalistic system.
* As it turns out cigarettes, asbestos and climate change deniers have one thing in common: the same PR firms.
My take is that you should provide evidence for that conditional or stop wasting my time.
My point was that you need to actually consider the negatives and positives. Current research points to far more negative effects than positives.
I agree. It's worth noting here that "do nothing, but build wealth" is one such moderate action.
Actually, no that would be inaction. Increasing efficiency and applying a moderate carbon tax would be moderate actions, in part, because with peak oil looming, prices are rising and supply is not increasing to match, so reducing our rate of oil consumption would be a smart hedge against rising prices. Following the current trends, the world needs at least 43 million barrels a day of new production by 2030. That's to replace 1/2 of our current daily production which will decline over the next 20 years. We have no idea if that production can be found and if so, where that production will come from and that's for the low growth scenario.
Here's a interesting quote (from Bradley Plumer):
I've noted before that pretty much every environmental regulation that's ever been enacted has been greeted with predictions of economic doom—yet those dire warnings have never panned out. Pollution restrictions invariably turn out to be much cheaper than expected, in part because they trigger the development of new technologies. (By contrast, nature isn't nearly so forgiving when we try to muck with it.)
I don't think you understand my point, if point 4 is false, then it has no impact on global warming. It's something you really need to think about. The consensus of researchers and economists who are not paid by the Heartland Institute is that taking moderate actions now will dramatically reduce the costs of global warming if there are no catastrophic consequences. If catastrophic consequences do occur the cost benefits of preventive action increase.
Generally speaking most of the plans to reduce global warming are also good ideas on their own merits. The primary reason it is opposed by groups like the Heartland Institute is that acknowledging it is really an issue brings their very identities into question. Asked privately, several of the directors of the Heartland Institute actually believe in climate change, they just can't stand that widespread acceptance of it would reduce their influence and that of their allies in the Republican party. They can't stand to lose the power they've accumulated, so they fight it. You see they recognize that acceptance of climate change will shift the political balance towards statism, because it a problem that can't be addressed by libertarianism. Their end goal can be a simple as preventing governments from dealing with the issue until it is a huge problem, then they can safely blame the government for not acting sooner to keep their flock securely under control. They'll say something "Look this is something the government could have fixed, but it couldn't even do that, how can we trust it do anything else?" and continue forward with their flock blissfully unaware of how they are being manipulated.
Is it a coincdence that most of the prominent climate change deniers are paid by the Heartland Institute? Some people might point out that they're not paid a whole lost, but we've seen the books for just one such organization. There are a number of other groups who also be funding these so-called "skeptics". The problem is that now that they are paid to hold a particular view in public, that view can not change. They can't admit that they are wrong until after the funding dries up, or else they risk losing money, prestige and power. A wise man once said "it is very difficult to get a man to believe something if his livelyhood relies on him not believing it".
We have documented evidence of bias and of failure to disclose conflicts of interest from the leaders of the climate change denial movement. The only thing that can change the status quo is for people like you to wise up to the fact that you are being manipulated with talking points from paid shills. Before you engage in false equivalency, the climate change side also has tonnes of evidence and thousands of studies and research papers which all point to the same conclusion. Now you can doubt the effects of climate change, but beware as the other poster pointed out, it's part of the plan that you do so.