Hypocrisy Regarding Climate Change

Arts & Sciences Science & Nature
1

Climate change naysayers are really beginning to chap my ass. Not because they are stout in their resolve and provide a challenging argument, but because they are basically hypocrites who talk out both sides of their mouth and have no problem directly contradicting themselves when a bigger issue comes along. Check this article on Fox’s website (long time giver of tacit if not direct approval to climate change naysayers) and all the various factions who contribute (military figures, political figures and others who also ‘naysay’ climate change when it suits their best interest). It is almost like “OK lads, this shit is important, so none of that ‘Global warming is BS’ nonsense we normally like to spew because this shit is more important, its about war, which means security, which means making $$$ and we gotta bring the real.”

let me pull a few quotes for you:

[quote]To the world’s military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts.
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[quote]Shipping lanes could be regularly open across the Arctic by 2030 as rising temperatures continue to melt the sea ice, according to a National Research Council analysis commissioned by the U.S. Navy last year.
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this one is my fave:

[quote]What countries should do about climate change remains a heated political debate. But that has not stopped north-looking militaries from moving ahead with strategies that assume current trends will continue.
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[quote]We have an entire ocean region that had previously been closed to the world now opening up
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[quote]the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe, the U.S. Navy in 2009 announced a beefed-up Arctic Roadmap by its own task force on climate change that called for a three-stage strategy to increase readiness, build cooperative relations with Arctic nations and identify areas of potential conflict
[/quote]

Tell me again about Climate Change being a farce…

And for those of you keeping score at home, when you say Climate Change is a conspiracy, a joke or a farce, you are basically laughing in the face of US servicemen, and other military personnel from the 7 other Arctic bordering nations.

foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/ … latestnews

2

Exactly DD. As soon as there are significant economic interests in FAVOUR of arguing the case for climate change, the political viewpoint will fall into line.

3

[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]Tell me again about Climate Change being a farce…

And for those of you keeping score at home, when you say Climate Change is a conspiracy, a joke or a farce, you are basically laughing in the face of US servicemen, and other military personnel from the 7 other Arctic bordering nations.[/quote]

Can’t you do any better than straw men? :laughing:

4

The last sentence doesn’t invalidate the rest of the post. The fact is, when the people with the $ are betting on the reality of climate change in order to make more $, you can be pretty certain it’s not a fabrication or a conspiracy. People with $ (even when it’s the bottomless pit of taxpayer $) generally aren’t that stupid.

5

Yes, but this is quoting from Fox news.
Didn’t the USGS warn about a horrific impending economic and social disaster due to increasingly cold temperatures encroaching on northern Europe over the next 50 years, what, less than 10 years ago? And wasn’t there a strategy based around this? I remember reading a damn big PDF about it, in any case.
Just goes to show, you can’t trust anything you read or hear anywhere. Ever.

6

My personal view is those who look at the policies that follow an admission of global warming, are horrified. Countries like India wanting billions in aid, while at the same time promising to quadruple their own emission and would like exemption. Dubious methods of combating a problem like carbon trading schemes that is rife for abuse and with uncertainties what this will achieve and at what cost, trillions of dollars with everyone looking for a piece of the action. Even evaluating who should receive aid, under what circumstances and how much.

What will be the effect on businesses, on international competitiveness. I know, this has NOTHING to do with is global warming happening or not. But those who are in the denailist camp realize all this pivots on the certainty that global warming is happening. So they weigh up bullshitting and stretching what is uncertain, playing up any mistakes, as this stops action from taking place. I truly think for some of the more well informed deniers, they think this is the lesser of the two evils.

7

Sounds like someone’s been watching X-Files re-runs again :slight_smile:

I think there are some more prosaic examples. I heard some of the big seed companies are working on “improved” maize varieties that will cope with the expected higher temperature profile of maize-growing regions in Africa.

Yes, all that is a real pity, because (as I’ve said before) those particular countries have a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get their shit together. If they fail to grow their economies around sustainable technologies (instead of oil/coal/cars) they will be in deep trouble when those commodities become more expensive and the infrastructure that relies upon them can no longer function. The main advantage of (for example) solar power is that it is completely predicable, both in terms of costs and output, for many years into the future. Fossil-fuel prospects are completely unknown.

I can understand where the denialists are coming from on the “compensation” issue, but those arguments have little to do with the reality of climate change.

8

Who argues that climate change is a conspiracy? Not Fred Smith. Neither do I. Fred argues that the science is not as settled as many argue, and believes that man may be only a a small contributor to warming, if it is happening.

The fact that armies and companies are looking out for diferent scenarios suggests only that they are prudent. It does not suggest that anyone, such as FS, is arguing that conspiracies exist or that warming is absolutely not happening.

9

Quite so. And that’s all the “believers” are suggesting too. Fred Smith wants certainty, but he’s not going to get it and the reality is that we don’t need it (science has always been about balance of probabilities). The consequences of being prudent are all positive. There is no downside. None. The consequences of pretending that everything’s just fine and “we don’t need to do anything” are pretty serious: at best, we get stuck in a technological and social cul-de-sac, with no innovation and a whole host of ongoing problems related to general environmental mismanagement. At worst, we’re all scratching around in the dust eating grass.

10

Quite so. And that’s all the “believers” are suggesting too. Fred Smith wants certainty, but he’s not going to get it and the reality is that we don’t need it (science has always been about balance of probabilities). The consequences of being prudent are all positive. There is no downside. None. The consequences of pretending that everything’s just fine and “we don’t need to do anything” are pretty serious: at best, we get stuck in a technological and social cul-de-sac, with no innovation and a whole host of ongoing problems related to general environmental mismanagement. At worst, we’re all scratching around in the dust eating grass.[/quote]

But is it all good really? Was Kyoto all good? How about the carbon trading scheme they have going in Europe where companies are apparently able to make billions off poorly fashioned legislation. Is it fair to exempt some countries (those who will be contributing the most in CO2 emissions) while at the same time getting the more developed countries to pay trillions for their emissions and trillions more to reduce a certain amount, that is pointless in the grand scheme of things as developing countries emissions are soaring?

At worst, CO2 emissions continue to rise, minor reductions are made in the West at the cost of trillions, crippling the economy, forcing companies to close, where they might move to cheaper locations, like China and India, where they produce even more emissions from less efficient power stations.

11

how he came up with 15%, I have no clue. on what grounds does he believe it’s 15%? so what is the aggregate warming according to FS?

12

Has anyone ever here, such as FS, argued that “we don’t need to do anything”?

I don’t expect straw men from you… :eh:

13

I’ve no idea. But, that proves that FS accepts that there is warming, and that DD’s OP is essentially a straw man.

14

Has anyone ever here, such as FS, argued that “we don’t need to do anything”?

I don’t expect straw men from you… :eh:[/quote]

FS believes that some unknown, uninvented, non-existent technology to be created at some future unknown time will miraculously save mankind from all troubles… nothing to worry about.

while I understand investment in technology, I think mitigation is pretty important too. business-as-usual, especially in this day and age, doesn’t work.

15

[quote=“Jack Burton”]FS believes that some unknown, uninvented, non-existent technology to be created at some future unknown time will miraculously save mankind from all troubles… nothing to worry about.

while I understand investment in technology, I think mitigation is pretty important too. business-as-usual, especially in this day and age, doesn’t work.[/quote]

I think quite a bit of technology already exists. I think the developing nations should invest in it. That’s much better, IMO, than any Kyoto-type redistribution of cash that does nothing to address the problem.

16

[quote=“Tigerman”][quote=“Jack Burton”]FS believes that some unknown, uninvented, non-existent technology to be created at some future unknown time will miraculously save mankind from all troubles… nothing to worry about.

while I understand investment in technology, I think mitigation is pretty important too. business-as-usual, especially in this day and age, doesn’t work.[/quote]

I think quite a bit of technology already exists. I think the developing nations should invest in it. That’s much better, IMO, than any Kyoto-type redistribution of cash that does nothing to address the problem.[/quote]

Kyoto wasn’t simply a redistribution of cash, and what cash was supposed to flow from the developed world to the undeveloped / underdeveloped was intended so that the poorer countries would be able to invest in efficient and alternative energies, and adapt in situations where they couldn’t.

Leaving the non-annex I countries out of the mandatory reduction was basically because they were responsible for very little GG emissions at the time (1997), and also to give them time to put environmental regulations in place before a successor to Kyoto was established.

Unfortunately any hope of it working was dashed in the first couple of years when certain countries refused to ratify and abide by it, which in turn caused the China’s and India’s of the world to subsequently decide to ignore their obligations.

17

Not explicitly, but it’s the unspoken assumption. If climate change isn’t real, why would we need to mitigate it? Besides, if human CO2 emissions aren’t affecting the climate anyway, then reducing our emissions … also won’t affect the climate. So we can’t mitigate the problem even if we wanted to.

No, of course it’s not. It’s all a load of vacuous wibble. When I say mitigation, I mean things which will actually produce measurable, economically-productive results. Politicans don’t have any training in systems design and are mostly completely unaware of what technology is available, how it’s supposed to be used, and what its relative pros and cons are. If there are policy decisions to be made, I would suggest:

  1. Rapid phase-out of all subsidies for fossil fuel and fossil-fuel-driven processes (such as agriculture). Say five years. Commercial organisations selling advanced solutions for renewable power, natural agriculture, etc will then be able to compete on (I hate this phrase, but it fits here) a level playing field, and their products will be so obviously cheaper than the old tech that people will be queueing up to buy them.

  2. Instant cessation of foreign aid to “poor” countries.

Those two things would achieve what Tigerman just suggested: backward, fucked-up countries will have no choice except to start buying low-cost renewable solutions if they want to stay alive, because they won’t have the cash to afford anything else. Rich-country suppliers of technology will be able to offer credit terms rather as the Chinese are doing now with their African investments - by taking a big slice of future profits. Elimination of foreign aid would pay for UN occupation forces in countries ruled by crooks that refuse to sort themselves out and just allow their people to die. The better-run parts of the third world would, about 10-20 years down the line, find themselves in the position China are in now: able to offer low-cost services and carbon credits to The West, who will not be able to replace their existing infrastructure anytime this century because it’s not economically feasible.

Thing is, even without that “level playing field”, it would still be possible for poor countries to invest in the latest tech. They’d be at a significant disadvantage because of the massive subsidy regime propping up the status quo, but it would still be worth it.

18

No. It is not.

19

Well, what is it then? There must BE some “therefore” that follows from the assertion that climate change is not real (or that it’s not anthropogenic). Otherwise, the naysayers wouldn’t be so vehement. They’d just write dry-as-dust papers about it.

There are various commentators who do spell it out explicitly. FS has quoted a couple of them. I can’t figure out exactly what his own standpoint is on deployment of improved technology. He seems to be in favour of solar etc but doesn’t have any coherent reason why.

20

You say its not simply a redistribution, but a flow of cash from one place to the other is just that and on who’s terms? India wan’ts to look at things from per capita emissions, because that works well in a country of 1.3 billion people, who decided that was a fair measure? Would individuals working in a company be compensated by the number of children they have?

Lets take the case of the Himalayan glaciers, water melt is used for agriculture and if they go, there will be problems for millions (10’s perhaps 100’s of millions). Global warming is claimed to be the cause, so do the developed countries have to pay for mitigation, lets say a bunch of dams? Yet then it turns out all the smoke from their own cities is turning the glaciers black and that absorbs sunlight and that is causing most of the melting. Is it still the Wests responsibility to help those adapt, spending hundreds of billions of dollars?

China doesn’t want any binding targets, its emissions are going through the roof, is the suggestion that China can rely on other countries to build more efficient power stations for them while at the same time they are manipulating their currency, stealing companies intellectual property with teams of hackers and claiming the measure they would like to use is historical responsibility for CO2 emissions? I’m sure China will say thank you very much.

All the while using a cap and trade method to try and reduce emissions, which is overly complex and prone to abuse and has what level of success and at what cost. Is this vast amount of money being used wisely or even effectively?

I think these are valid questions. All the while the western countries are mitigating and making other countries facilities more efficient, they are becoming weaker and less competitive, less money to deal with problems of their own, while the opposite is true of those countries receiving aid. You say India and China never met their obligations, my recollection is they never had any, not binding anyway, nor do they want any now.