Then tell us, oh wise one: what ever shall we do? You're big on criticism and short on ideas.Originally Posted by Justin '77
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Then tell us, oh wise one: what ever shall we do? You're big on criticism and short on ideas.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
He sees his shadow more often than not. He saw it today.
http://animaltracks.today.msnbc.msn....groundhog-says
But like Pat said, it means nothing to the rest us in other areas of the country. Down in Texas, where I live, spring weather generally arrives around mid to late February. We are pretty much done with winter by March 1st. But I don't even think we really even had winter here this year. The weeds have already taken over my yard.The Associated Press reports that the groundhog has seen his shadow 99 times since 1886; he's not seen it only 16 times, according to the Groundhog Club's Inner Circle. Though Phil gets all the credit, it's 15 members of the Inner Circle who decide the news in advance.
When you stop deliberately misunderstanding my posts, maybe then we can have a dialog.
I didn't say that LADWP was not working on green energy, just that the city council had UNREALISTIC expectations. The whole point of my
original post was to point out that having unrealistic expectations (i.e. setting too high a goal within a specific time frame and thus costing
ratepayers a lot in rate increases) can have consequences and just because you dream of green energy, doesn't mean you can realistically have
it overnight at reasonable costs.
You go on to post an agenda piece by an arm of the Sierra Club with false numbers and a link to a LADWP proposal that proposes green energy and miss the point of my post (on purpose, I'm sure) entirely.
That's fine, and I don't want to misunderstand your posts, if I did so. I think the actual decisions of the LAWPD is what we need to be concerned with, not some dreams by city council members.
Why are the Sierra Club numbers false? They posted numbers that have to do with various alternatives that could be chosen. Just because the Sierra Club are environmentalists does not mean they can't do math.You go on to post an agenda piece by an arm of the Sierra Club with false numbers and a link to a LADWP proposal that proposes green energy and miss the point of my post (on purpose, I'm sure) entirely.
Gee, I hope it works for CA! We need more Winter! We're starting to get like Texas again.
Eric,
You are perhaps one of the most complex and therefore interesting folks here, but …
I get that Global Warming has a high probability of being an authentic phenomenon, and I get that, as a species, it would be smart of us to decrease the many and deleterious impacts that we have on the earth (Gaia?). Global Warming may be very high on the list of harmful impacts that we have, but it is a long way from being the only one.
What interests me, however, is how you totally embrace the models of AGW that support your desire to see us DO something about it. Maybe it’s a good bet to decrease the amount of greenhouse gases that we release into the atmosphere. And, given the obvious limitations on fossil fuels, it’s obvious that someday we will HAVE to switch over to something non-fossil in nature. And I’m all for that. It seems obvious to me that developing new and innovative technologies is a win-win. Why anyone would object to that confounds me – for example I find the argument in support of short-term “jobs” to be woefully short-sighted by the coal/oil advocates.
Yet, despite your embrace of models supporting AGW, you have rejected other scientific models in other discussions that you and I have had on topics spiritual on other threads. And not just reject, but reject out of hand, some of the most useful and most ubiquitous of scientific models – i.e – spirit vs. matter vs. energy, etc.
Perhaps I suffer from that malady known as “foolish consistency,” as in “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of the small mind.” But my view of science and scientific models is that they (models) are ALL imperfect and ALL suffer from inadequacies at the margin of knowledge. Still, they are hugely useful. But any and all must be viewed with some degree of skepticism. As a species we must be wary of emotional attachment to ideas, lest they lead us down, at least, ineffectual, or worst, tragic paths. There is after all, the concept of “Opportunity Cost.” If we are doing something ineffectual, then we are not doing something effectual.
“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect.” And skepticism has to be the hallmark of one who values scientific inquiry.
My question: Is there some thread of logic or consistency that joins your total rejection of useful scientific models on the spiritual hand, with your total embrace of the AGW scientific model?
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
That depends. What are we gambling? What are the conditions? Interesting that you can't name the consequences...
Ahh yes, websites low on scientific content and high in political content. Exactly as expected.
Would it trouble you to know that quite contrary to your rather unscientific "safe upper limit" that we are in a rather unusual period of low atmospheric CO2 concentrations? In fact the last time CO2 concentrations (in PPM) were this low there was a prolonged ice age. It might further concern you to know that there have only been two periods in the history of the planet where CO2 concentrations have been under 400ppm. One of those periods is right now.
You might shit your pants to know that our little rat-like, mammalian ancestors lived and evolved when the atmospheric CO2 concentrations were around 1800ppm to 3000ppm. If I tell you that during the most bio-diverse period of life in the history of the planet the CO2 concentrations were around 7000ppm (some 20 times higher than today) do you think your ticker might pop?
So again, I just have to ask: At what CO2 concentration can we expect to see the human race just keel over and die?
Last edited by Copperfield; 02-02-2012 at 08:02 PM.
This sums up the answer pretty well.
Oh, well, if that's the model of survival you're aiming at, little ratlike beings, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!
How to spot a shill, by John Michael Greer: "What you watch for is (a) a brand new commenter who (b) has nothing to say about the topic under discussion but (c) trots out a smoothly written opinion piece that (d) hits all the standard talking points currently being used by a specific political or corporate interest, while (e) avoiding any other points anyone else has made on that subject."
"If the shoe fits..." The Grey Badger.
Big wind brewing. This is interesting . ( Note:I am not familiar with this site)
Go Big with Homegrown: South Korea To Build Massive Wind Project
http://www.ecomagination.com/go-big-...e-wind-project
"How much wind power can you get for $9 billion? According to South Korea, about 2.5 gigawatts, or 71 percent of the total offshore capacity available today."...
Oh, my. If people didn't like descending from apes, what will they say to a "ratlike ancestor"? "Shouldn't we be immune from the plague?"
Well evolution did design you to live in a lower oxygen environment. Compared to those days (much closer to average conditions) we live on a CO2 deprived earth.
And again, what "survival" are you talking about? Where does life cease? 450ppm? 500ppm? 10,000ppm? If advanced animal life existed on an earth with a 7000ppm atmospheric concentration of CO2 should I really worry about breaching 400ppm?
Funny you should ask. Did you know that European wages rose as a direct result of the Bubonic Plague (Black Death)? Americans love getting raises right?
You answered his request for a specific, scientific number with snark. And how exactly does that advance our cause of determining the truth?
Someday is not good enough; we need to do it now.
You should ask me on the other thread. I disagree that I reject useful scientific models. I reject scientism philosophies that degrade and reduce our dignity as human beings, just as I reject economic philosophies that reduce us to commodities. But perhaps you can continue the discussion on the other thread if you like. Or look more carefully at what I have already written there. If I have rejected a so-called scientific model, it is because I think it deserves to be rejected, and maybe you need to look at it too, given the logic and reality of the situation. You are right, scientists can be mistaken, but that usually happens when they go beyond their proper sphere.My question: Is there some thread of logic or consistency that joins your total rejection of useful scientific models on the spiritual hand, with your total embrace of the AGW scientific model?
Last edited by Eric the Green; 02-03-2012 at 03:57 AM.
Copperfield continues to live in his own universe, carefully guarded with that gun under his bed.
No, he answered a post that was pure baloney, which is only good for a laugh. I had already given him the scientific number. If Copperfield is not really interested in information, as he claimed in his post, why ask the question?
There is considerable interest now in a documentary producer about gas fracking being excluded yesterday from a Republican-dominated congressional hearing. He is documenting cases where fracking, which fractures shale rock to extract natural gas, poisons the water supply of nearby communities. If natural gas is a good transition fuel, this is obviously not the case when it endangers health and ruins the land. This episode proves again how much in the pocket of oil and gas companies the Republicans are; we must not interfere with the free market after all. The EPA is having to go in and help people who are being ignored by the companies and state agencies, and are being told their experiences are illusions.
It is not terribly surprising that a sudden drop in the population would improve conditions for the ones that survived. So, is this the Right's new solution to unemployment? Heh, it is usually the left that squawks about excess population. I agree, there are just too many damn people on the earth.Funny you should ask. Did you know that European wages rose as a direct result of the Bubonic Plague (Black Death)? Americans love getting raises right?
He posted factual number that do not support your agenda so you villify him. Sounds like you are a Repuglican - thats what they do - when confronted with science, they ignore it and try to villify the speaker.
There is little difference between the fundies on the right who reject things like evolution and people like you who reject science if it tends not
to support your fantasy of how the world works.
THIS is the kind of thing that prevents us from having fruitful discussions about things like global warming. You have the hippies on the left who hate anything to do with technology and want us all living in communes in caves and on the other side, you have corporate greed that wants more money and couldn't care less about the "99%".
Most people here focus on corporate greed, but your attitude is equally unhelpful. Do you dispute the fact that, during the most bio-diverse portion of our planet's history that the CO2 concentrations were 7000ppm?? You didn't refute his statement with scientific proof, just with insults.
Your auxiliary Extraverted Sensing is showing, Justin!
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
"When does life cease" is the wrong question. The correct question is "how high does the CO2 have to get before we flip from the Ice-House World we evolved in, and are adapted for, to a Greenhouse World like in the early Tertiary that will be very uncomfortable for us"?
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
This is Copperfield's chief policy proposal; he's made it many times before.
He posted numbers that are nonsense to anyone with a brain, after not reading valid scientific numbers that I posted in the links. His post does not deserve an intelligent reply, and so Grey's response was perfectly appropriate. Why are you continuing to debate this? You'll lose credibility if you do.
Worth discussing on the other thread. Perhaps I will. But for starters, I don't think my own consciousness is a fantasy. The "way the world works" according to you, apparently, wants to just forget about the one doing the fantasizing and observing of how the world works. It's your choice. Keep the spirit alive.There is little difference between the fundies on the right who reject things like evolution and people like you who reject science if it tends not to support your fantasy of how the world works.
YOu think unless you have all your dirty oil and coal and fracking and nucs that screw up the environment, that we will have to go back in caves. That's pretty extreme and fundie if you ask me (I know, you didn't ask meTHIS is the kind of thing that prevents us from having fruitful discussions about things like global warming. You have the hippies on the left who hate anything to do with technology and want us all living in communes in caves and on the other side, you have corporate greed that wants more money and couldn't care less about the "99%".). Stop spewing hot air and get back to reality. It would help the global temperature.
Your so-called facts are insulting to anyone with any degree of sense. Science shows that if we keep allowing CO2 to rise above 350, we will cook the planet and kill off species and all the other harmful effects of global warming you ought to know about by now (but don't apparently). What happened billions of years ago is not relevant, except to make yourself a laughing stock and a pro-growth fundie, as you and Copperfield are doing.Most people here focus on corporate greed, but your attitude is equally unhelpful. Do you dispute the fact that, during the most bio-diverse portion of our planet's history that the CO2 concentrations were 7000ppm?? You didn't refute his statement with scientific proof, just with insults.
