The other difference between now and 1000 years ago that you might have overlooked was the scary morons actually taking away your freedom to live whenever they saw fit. In the name of God, sometimes, but they didn't really feel a need to justify themselves, since there really wasn't much of an opposing philosophy to contradict their wishes.
Only politicians are cheaper to buy than corporations. Getting Exxon and all of it's customers to support your cause is difficult. Getting John Murtha to do so is less difficult (although moreso than with some other politicians.)
No, the producers of "An Inconvenient Truth" believe, quoting from their press release:
"every student in every school in the United States [needs] to see this movie."
The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) decided not to endorse this viewpoint and probably could not enforce it either. I'm sure if the producers are sincere, they could still give copies of the movie to every science teacher who requests it. The NSTA has simply chosen not to be a distribution channel for their propoganda. Whether it is because they accepted money from Exxon or not is, as they used to like to say on Slashdot, completely orthogonal.
I think you'd be surprised how many skeptics are not building beachfront homes in Alberta with the money we've received from BIG OIL. It seems like they have a lot of allies to their enemies, but that's just because the global warming believers aren't very smart, and by invading Switzerland, they piss off more than international bankers and skiers.
I guarantee you every time a scientist gets quoted in a newspaper or magazine he cuts out an clipping and frames it. If he were concerned about being misquoted, he'd raise as big a stink as he can, same as an athlete who gets a rebound shaved off his stats.
I predict it will be warmer next summer than this winter. I predict Canada will be colder than Australia. Such generalities are easy to predict. "A 1 degree temperature increase on average over 100 data points over 100 years might possibly cause Europe to plunge into a new ice age" are easy to dismiss with relative certainty.
Well, given that it is illegal to take actions that reduce shareholder value and the "moral duty" of a corporation is to increase shareholder value...
And I find that statement just silly. And false. Okay, just silly and false and stupid. Well, just silly and false and stupid and a naive misunderstanding of reality. Among the many dubious qualities of that statement are it's silliness, falsity, stupidity, and exemplification of a naive misunderstanding of reality.
Many, many real world examples support the scientific studies you cite, specifically that people will put away their personal beliefs and do some very bad things if they believe what they are doing is part of their duty or some authority has authorized it.
Examples include governments, religions, armies, non-profit organizations, protest movements, homeowners associations, parent teacher organizations, and the department of motor vehicles.
Dollars are a measurement of lives, property, and whatever natural resources can be traded. Everyone votes (with their dollars) which is most valuable.
You're misunderstanding the problem. The problem isn't producing CO2. The problem is using lies and scare tactics to attempt to take away people's freedoms and destroy the economic and technological advances we've worked for thousands of years to attain. We can adapt to a world with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Millions of brown people could enjoy a higher standard of living by manufacturing respirators or selling suntan lotion to eskimos. They'll die with whitey if you take away western civilizations prosperity out of spite over losing the cold war.
I'm completely terrified that you are partially wrong, and the data you have examined is sadly, upsidedown, but fortunately wildly inaccurate and slightly irrelevant.
Let's kill off half the earth's population and revert to a stone age level of civilization before a catastrophe of algorean proportions kills off half the earth's population and reverts us to a stone age level of civilization.
The real problem is that science isn't something you "believe in." It's not a religion, though so many people try to foist it as an alternative to Christianity or some other religion. It's just like those who try to claim that everyone from Alexander the Great to Peter I. Tchaikovsky were homosexuals. Most of what is considered "science" was "discovered" by religious men. And most purely scientific "atheists" are full of silly notions about fairies and orcs and space aliens.
Those that want you to believe in science really want you to believe in their particular fairy tales and try to lend credibility to their arguments by trying to associate themselves with Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. But even smart folks like these aren't infallible. Newton believed in alchemy and Einstein in relativity.
2500 dropouts per day, 180 school days a year is 450,000 dropouts per year.
I saw one number of 3,000,0001 graduating seniors, definitely a conservative2 number.
That gives a dropout rate of 15%, similar to more official numbers, showing a decrease between 1972 and 1992 from either 15% to 11% or from 11% to 6%, depending on how you measure it.3 Another source says the dropout rate has remained flat between 1992 and 2002, although their results are questionable, since theirdropout numbers are actually much higher than even the deliberately skewed results from the original article, which reports on only some of the most troubled school districts. Although it claims to have studied "100 of the largest school districts in the country", it chooses to highlight only the distressed districts.
Well, I'm making $100/hour, and 3 hours work pays most of my weekly rent in a crackerbox apartment complex in a boring suburb an hour from a lousy beach, as long as there's no traffic. Not all of us have rich parents who let us freeload on their vacation property.
Slashdot Mirror
The other difference between now and 1000 years ago that you might have overlooked was the scary morons actually taking away your freedom to live whenever they saw fit. In the name of God, sometimes, but they didn't really feel a need to justify themselves, since there really wasn't much of an opposing philosophy to contradict their wishes.
Hmmm.... maybe control of the oil is THEIR real purpose?
Only politicians are cheaper to buy than corporations. Getting Exxon and all of it's customers to support your cause is difficult. Getting John Murtha to do so is less difficult (although moreso than with some other politicians.)
You're only saying that because most of the science teachers agree with you politically. You'd say the opposite about economics or history teachers.
Funny how leftists believe the "right to bear arms" extends to Hezbollah and Hamas owning mortars and rockets, but not to Americans owning AK-47s.
No, the producers of "An Inconvenient Truth" believe, quoting from their press release: "every student in every school in the United States [needs] to see this movie." The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) decided not to endorse this viewpoint and probably could not enforce it either. I'm sure if the producers are sincere, they could still give copies of the movie to every science teacher who requests it. The NSTA has simply chosen not to be a distribution channel for their propoganda. Whether it is because they accepted money from Exxon or not is, as they used to like to say on Slashdot, completely orthogonal.
And oil companies are funding research that says to climatologists, "your experiment is not repeatable and these are the flaws we see in it."
who will rally for corpses rights?
I think you'd be surprised how many skeptics are not building beachfront homes in Alberta with the money we've received from BIG OIL. It seems like they have a lot of allies to their enemies, but that's just because the global warming believers aren't very smart, and by invading Switzerland, they piss off more than international bankers and skiers.
I guarantee you every time a scientist gets quoted in a newspaper or magazine he cuts out an clipping and frames it. If he were concerned about being misquoted, he'd raise as big a stink as he can, same as an athlete who gets a rebound shaved off his stats.
I predict it will be warmer next summer than this winter. I predict Canada will be colder than Australia. Such generalities are easy to predict. "A 1 degree temperature increase on average over 100 data points over 100 years might possibly cause Europe to plunge into a new ice age" are easy to dismiss with relative certainty.
Call someone and all his friends idiots and see if you get invited to his convention or published in his fanzine.
Many, many real world examples support the scientific studies you cite, specifically that people will put away their personal beliefs and do some very bad things if they believe what they are doing is part of their duty or some authority has authorized it.
Examples include governments, religions, armies, non-profit organizations, protest movements, homeowners associations, parent teacher organizations, and the department of motor vehicles.
So is your definition of "scientist" someone who has patches on his elbows and smokes a pipe?
Dollars are a measurement of lives, property, and whatever natural resources can be traded. Everyone votes (with their dollars) which is most valuable.
You're misunderstanding the problem. The problem isn't producing CO2. The problem is using lies and scare tactics to attempt to take away people's freedoms and destroy the economic and technological advances we've worked for thousands of years to attain. We can adapt to a world with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Millions of brown people could enjoy a higher standard of living by manufacturing respirators or selling suntan lotion to eskimos. They'll die with whitey if you take away western civilizations prosperity out of spite over losing the cold war.
I'm completely terrified that you are partially wrong, and the data you have examined is sadly, upsidedown, but fortunately wildly inaccurate and slightly irrelevant.
Let's kill off half the earth's population and revert to a stone age level of civilization before a catastrophe of algorean proportions kills off half the earth's population and reverts us to a stone age level of civilization.
Who's the pope of science, chump? What if there were a schism?
The real problem is that science isn't something you "believe in." It's not a religion, though so many people try to foist it as an alternative to Christianity or some other religion. It's just like those who try to claim that everyone from Alexander the Great to Peter I. Tchaikovsky were homosexuals. Most of what is considered "science" was "discovered" by religious men. And most purely scientific "atheists" are full of silly notions about fairies and orcs and space aliens.
Those that want you to believe in science really want you to believe in their particular fairy tales and try to lend credibility to their arguments by trying to associate themselves with Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. But even smart folks like these aren't infallible. Newton believed in alchemy and Einstein in relativity.
1 - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june
2 - If there are 300,000,000 Americans evenly distributed between ages 1 and 100, this number is realistic.
3 - http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/dropout.
4 - http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ewp_08.ht
Damascus steel didn't come from India. Sorry, India has a fine history, but that wasn't part of it.
Money doesn't equal happiness. It is a measurement of happiness, with a quotient of power.
Well, I'm making $100/hour, and 3 hours work pays most of my weekly rent in a crackerbox apartment complex in a boring suburb an hour from a lousy beach, as long as there's no traffic. Not all of us have rich parents who let us freeload on their vacation property.