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Politics of Global Warming


It is not a socialist scam. Strange thinking. Nothing of the kind has been exposed. If you have read some of the articles on this thread you see that it is the fossil fuel companies - notably Exxon - who have been exposed for the dis-information campaign they have been waging. They have understood the science for decades but purposefully paid people off to say otherwise.

You are living in the dis-information dream world of the oil companies - trying to re-formulate the facts. It is exactly science based on the scientific method that is telling us what we have done and what we need to do to off-set our bad choices in the past.

There is nothing pseudo or faith based about this thread. This thread is about the politics - and your post exemplifies what the scientists have been up against. Even the oil companies knew the science regarding the impact of what their industry was doing.

What is amazing is how many fell for the dis-information campaign the oil companies launched in the 1990's. Further, when presented with the facts of that dis-information campaign, refuse to budge in their thinking. That's 'faith based' thinking.

The world has moved on. Climate Change is occurring. We know it is tied to human activity. Changes are taking place to address it. The luddites may rail against the needed changes - wanting the energy production of the 19th century to continue - but the world moves on, and is.

You are standing the facts on their head - it is you who have fallen for the dis-information propaganda (of the fossil fuel industry) launched in the 1990's. You are an example of how easily people can be 'socially manipulated'.

Nearly everything you post is faith based and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.

YES climate change is occurring, it has to. That is how evolution happens. If it never did we and all the life forms around us would not be here.To think the earth's climate should remain constant and never changing is to deny Mother Nature and her work. There never has been a set temperature or climate for this awesome chaotic planet. Please stop thinking you are so self important that you should control normal functions of this planet.
 
Nearly everything you post is faith based and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.
I can only assume - from what you say here - that you have a unique definition of what 'actual science' is. But I am not here to argue that with you, nor to try to change your thinking. My disinterest in changing your thinking should be clear by this point. In fact, your blanket disregard for science makes it hard to take you seriously. The science speaks for itself.
YES climate change is occurring, it has to. That is how evolution happens.
Not that it gets anyone anywhere to so do (as demonstrated time-and-again on countless threads devoted to this topic) but doing a splice-and-dice of your rhetoric is sometimes hard to resist. :rolleyes:

Climate Change does not 'have to' occur in order for 'evolution' to happen. Are you positing an 'intelligent design' when you say this? Meaning, are you positing that there is an end-game that an 'intelligence' is aiming for? If so, that is a scope that science itself does not pretend to encompass. (Conflating religious belief with the scientific approach is not helpful). Adaptation is a process that takes place endlessly regardless of whether a micro-climate shifts, or there is a macro-climate shift.
If it never did we and all the life forms around us would not be here. To think the earth's climate should remain constant and never changing is to deny Mother Nature and her work.
The underlying religious/spiritual nature of your expressed sentiment is beyond the scope of science. I'm not sure any (current) scientist has posited that the 'earth's climate should remain constant and never changing'. It is scientific research itself that has demonstrated that the earth has had fluctuations in climate. It has been over a half century since science adhered to the idea of uniformitarianism.
There never has been a set temperature or climate for this awesome chaotic planet.
For human life there has been. The planet itself has gone through many fluctuations, and will doubtless go through many more on the cosmic scale of things. However, for human life there most definitely has been 'a set temperature or climate' for human existence. Outside of those parameters we have not existed, nor will we exist, unless we take matters into our own hands, as we are facing right now.
Please stop thinking you are so self important
I assume you mean not me personally but humankind as a whole. Why do you believe that humankind must not be held accountable for it's actions on the planet? Even migratory tribes understood their human impact on an environment. They made sure they moved their herds at regular intervals so that the grasslands could 'recover' from the human habitation. Humanity has always factored in it's impact on it's environment and adjusted accordingly - adapted accordingly - and where it could not, or did not, meant a civilization died. The scale of impact now is global.
that you should control normal functions of this planet.
The above is an example of why 'arguing' with you is pointless. Observation of the natural world should illustrate how profoundly we as humanity do indeed impact (control) the 'normal functions' of the environment (planet). Humanity is an integral (and significant) part of the whole, and when we fail to pay attention to how our actions impact that whole, we 'reap the whirlwind'. (e.g. Dust Bowl of the 1930's, etc.).

To re-state: Why are you so self-important (to the point of recklessness) that you think you are not to be held accountable for your actions on this planet? You are putting-off humanity's responsibility to some amorphous 'Mother Nature' who will - or is - 'managing' the world to some unclear 'evolutionary' end. That's head-in-the-sand thinking - as well as 'faith-based'. (I am aware that certain fundamentalist Christians believe that all this is part of the 'End Times' that will usher in Jesus' 'Second Coming' - so they have a vested interest in letting all this unfold without check).
 
A bit of a rant but point being made regarding how political climate change is in the US Congress.

Republicans Are Too Scared To Let The Pentagon Talk About Climate Change!
TEXT: "Published on Jul 5, 2016: Thom talks about the recent Republican vote to bar the Pentagon from dealing with climate change."
 
Came into my newsfeed today - a petition. In case there are some who are not aware of how grubby the corporatists are. :(

Nestlé's water privatization push

LINK: "Human beings don't have a right to water."
TEXT: "Across the globe, Nestlé is pushing to privatize and control public water resources.

"Nestlé's Chairman of the Board, Peter Brabeck, has explained his philosophy with 'The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution.'

"Since that quote has gotten widespread attention, Brabeck has backtracked, but his company has not. Around the world, Nestlé is bullying communities into giving up control of their water. [...]

"At the World Water Forum in 2000, Nestlé successfully lobbied to stop water from being declared a universal right -- declaring open hunting season on our local water resources by the multinational corporations looking to control them. For Nestlé, this means billions of dollars in profits. For us, it means paying up to 2,000 times more for drinking water because it comes from a plastic bottle.

"Now, in countries around the world, Nestlé is promoting bottled water as a status symbol. As it pumps out fresh water at high volume, water tables lower and local wells become degraded. Safe water becomes a privilege only affordable for the wealthy.

"In our story, clean water is a resource that should be available to all. It should be something we look after for the public good, to keep safe for generations, not something we pump out by billions of gallons to fuel short-term private profits. Nestlé thinks our opinion is 'extreme' [...] it's not 'extreme 's treat water like a public right.
 
So it begins......

Department Of Energy Defies Trump, Won't Name Climate Change Workers
LINK:
Department Of Energy Defies Trump, Won't Name Climate Change Workers
TEXT: "The Department of Energy is refusing the Trump transition team's request to name those who have worked on climate change within the department, because of concerns about what the incoming administration will do with the names. President-elect Donald Trump has denied climate change is real.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden tells our Newscast unit the request of such names was included in a 74-question document distributed to the agency's workforce. Jennifer says, "The Trump team wants the names of career employees and contractors who have attended U.N. climate talks over the past five years. It also wants emails about those meetings."

The full list of questions can be found here.

On Tuesday, the department released a statement saying the questionnaire had "unsettled" many in its workforce, that it would "be forthcoming with all [publicly] available information" but it would withhold "any individual names."

"We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department," said spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder.

The questionnaire had been seen among employees and critics as a precursor to a purge of climate scientists from the next administration. Jennifer told Weekend Edition last Saturday:

"They're unnerved. They're concerned. They say this kind of letter is not really normal. ... [Sen. Ed Markey] sent a letter to Trump warning that if people are penalized for simply doing their jobs that it's going to amount to an 'illegal political witch hunt' — that's a quote. The Union of Concerned Scientists ... also issued a statement saying this seems designed to intimidate workers. And they said it, quote, 'smacks of McCarthyism.' "

As pointed out in that interview, Trump has signaled plans to break from the Obama administration's policies to reduce carbon emissions. Jennifer says:

"He said he wants to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal. He's talked about ... job-killing regulations he wants to end. And then ... we got more insight this week. He named his head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. [Pruitt] has expressed skepticism about climate change, and he helped spearhead this lawsuit by 28 states to try to overturn President Obama's Clean Power Plan. Now, I should say that at this point we've not heard of any list of questions like this going around at the EPA."
 
Yay, Governor Jerry Brown of California - but can he do it? California certainly has the brain power to so do. Interesting times ahead, indeed. If Trump continues on the course we see, there will inevitably eventuate fractures in the 'united' of the USofA. What will come of it all by 2020......?

We Are Witnessing The Next Flat-Earth Administration!

TEXT: "Published on Dec 15, 2016: Thom talks about the incoming Trump Administration and their desire to silence information they disagree with regarding climate change, just as Sam Brownback did in Kansas with information regarding his terrible economy."
 
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'We're ready to fight.' Gov. Jerry Brown unloads on Trump and climate issues
LINK:
'We're ready to fight.' Gov. Jerry Brown unloads on Trump and climate issues
TEXT: "In perhaps his most fiery comments since Donald Trump won the presidency, Gov. Jerry Brown said on Wednesday California will push back against any effort to stop or reverse policies fighting global climate change.

"We've got the scientists, we've got the lawyers and we're ready to fight," Brown said to applause during a speech to the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

The governor has mostly held back in recent weeks from commenting on the potential policy changes promised by the president-elect during the campaign. But in the impassioned speech to a group of scientists, Brown lamented what he described as a "miasma of nonsense" on important issues facing the nation and world.

The only direct comment about the president-elect came in a reference to worries that climate research conducted by NASA could come to an end under the new administration. Brown reminded the crowd of the nickname he was given by a newspaper columnist in 1976, "Governor Moonbeam," for his interest in a state-sponsored satellite.

"If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite," roared Brown to the crowd.

And referring to Rick Perry, the former Texas governor Trump has selected to lead the Dept. of Energy, Brown reminded everyone of California's advantages over Texas when it comes to renewable energy.

"We've got more sun than you've got oil," he quipped.

 
Tomorrow morning the catastrophic warming of the planet will cause it to be -25F here in my neck of the woods.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
On the flip side.

High-quality data
Far from being a fudge to make warming look more severe than it is, most of the Bureau’s data manipulation has in fact had the effect of reducing the apparent extreme temperature trends across Australia. Cherrypicking weather stations where data have been corrected in a warming direction doesn’t mean the overall picture is wrong.

Data homogenisation is not aimed at producing a predetermined outcome, but rather is an essential process in improving weather data by spotting where temperature records need to be corrected, in either direction. If the Bureau didn’t do it, then we and our fellow climatologists wouldn’t use its data because it would be misleading. What we need are data from which spurious warming or cooling trends have been removed, so that we can see the actual trends.

Marshalling all of the data from the Bureau’s weather stations can be a complicated process, which is why it has been subjected to international peer-review. The Bureau has provided the details of how it is done,
This process has been the basis of all scientific advances in the past couple of centuries and has led to profoundly important advances in knowledge. Abandoning peer-reviewed journals in favour of newspaper articles when adjudicating on scientific methods would be profoundly misguided.

No, the Bureau of Meteorology is not fiddling its weather data

Climate sceptics see a conspiracy in Australia's record breaking heat | Graham Readfearn
 
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