Three Feet High and Rising
Uncategorized - - Posted on December, 16 at 3:56 am by Eric Martin
More warning signs from the Earth’s ecosystems [emphasis mine throughout]:
The world’s oceans may rise up to 140 cms (4 ft 7 in) by 2100 due to global warming, a faster than expected increase that could threaten low-lying coasts from Florida to Bangladesh, a researcher said on Thursday. [...]
A rise of one meter might swamp low-lying Pacific islands such as Tuvalu, flood large areas of Bangladesh or Florida and threaten cities from New York to Buenos Aires.
On top of that, there is this obviously linked news, passed along by greenboy at Needlenose, that the polar ice caps are melting at a faster rate than expected - and this pace will continue absent some significant and fundamental changes in global energy policies:
The increasing rate of melting sea ice is contributing to a positive feedback system, which feeds global warming further because open ocean absorbs heat from the sun rather than reflects back into space as does ice.
Increasingly, we are uncovering evidence that the scientists who were derided as global warming scaremongerers over the past three decades were actually being conservative to a fault in their estimates. The implications cannot be overstated.
Despite the tragedy unfolding in Iraq, I predict that the historians that Bush is so preoccupied with these days will treat him much more harshly on this front in the long run. As bad a strategic blunder as the invasion of Iraq was, and as many negative repercussions as could emanate from that maelstrom, large scale environmental catastrophe of the magnitude described above would easily dwarf Iraq’s parade of horribles.
The foreign policy/national security elite are rightly concerned with threats from an emerging China, regressing Russia and hostile non-state actors/terrorists - especially fear that the latter could acquire some sort of WMD that could wreak havoc on an American city like New York (my home).
But Ansar al-Carbon Dioxide could end up doing a much more effective job of it, rendering all those concerns, and many others, moot. There is no foreign policy if there is no planet after all, and business interests migh suffer a bit if Wall Street is made to resemble an octopus’s garden. But concern about the environment lacks the exhiliration of military conflicts, and international power politics, and so it goes largely ignored. I am certainaly not without blame on this front, I acknowledge.
Maybe it would help if we called it the War on Global Warming?
In Bush’s defense, unlike Iraq, he didn’t create the current environmental crisis. But at a time when the world seemed to be finally taking notice, as manifested by movement toward adopting the Kyoto Protocol, Bush chose to abstain from that regime and block any effort at reaching an alternative plan that would have included the United States. For eight long, costly, vital years he fiddled - and the world suffered for our lack of leadership on this issue. Now we’ll have to wait until 2008 and beyond, and hope that Bush’s successor takes a more realistic approach - and that the environment will continue to indulge our fecklessness.
That is the truth, and it is well beyond inconvenient. Speaking of which, it was a bitter pill to swallow to see so many in the media relish the opportunity to relive their bizarre fixation with Al Gore’s personality traits after his commendable effort to shake America out of its slumber on the issue of global warming. Instead of grappling with the important ideas presented in An Inconvenient Truth, we were treated to more complaints about Gore’s “know it all” attitude. How dare he.
You’d think, by now, that Americans would be wondering whether we might prefer our leaders to possess a certain advanced level of knowledge, prudence, mastery of facts, expertise and the like. But no, it’s still high school writ large - and everybody hates the nerds! So we continue to be plagued by a resurgent anti-intellectualism that, in part, brings to power leaders like the ’folksy’ George Bush. While perhaps a better drinking buddy than Gore, Bush has let this country down time and again through his galling ignorance and the resulting inability to steer policy in his own administration.
Rather than Gore’s empirism and dialectical approach to policy making and analysis, our environmental policies have been guided by Bush’s “gut” and the influence of his fossil fuel industry patrons. The two do seem to agree with a remarkable level of consistency, don’t they. The confluence of Bush’s “gut” and energy industry interests, also, has been more than inconvenient. But hey, maybe me and Bush can split a six pack in my life boat as we float away from what used to be the island of Manhattan, shooting spitballs at all the Tri-Lams.
Wouldn’t that be a blast.
Posted in Uncategorized |
December 16th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Not if the fates of the Wars on Drugs/Crime/Poverty/Terror are any guide.
I agree that history is likely to judge somebody harshly for the refusal to confront the reality of global warming, along with all the other consequences of environmental degradation that are now coming home to roost. However I think it would be a bit rough to blame individual politicians when the fault lies in a collective social refusal to face up to the facts coupled with a democratic system that prevented any government taking the steps that would be required to reverse environmental damage.
I think history is likely to attribute blame for environmental disaster to the masses who embraced global market capitalism … and rightly so.
December 16th, 2006 at 8:38 am
Curses Ken. It was so much easier to pin it all on Bush.
You are right in many respects though. But it should be noted that some people have been expending considerable amounts of energy (pun!) trying to get the world to notice, and act.
They, perhaps, deserve less blame.
Also, as the President of the US of A, it is incumbent on him to actually lead. This means being in the vanguard, not the rear guard restraining those that offer a way forward.
December 16th, 2006 at 9:37 am
I agree. I should have made it clear I wasn’t suggesting it was deliberate, thinking collective responsibility. Just that our version of representative government inevitably privileges short-term expediency over long-term good policy, because most people have neither the time nor the inclination to develop considered opinions about complex issues.
As an example of what I mean, there’s a general tendency to blame Neville Chamberlain and a bunch of useless French premiers for not acting to stop Hitler in the 1930s, but once you understand the mood of the times you realise that if they had tried, they would quickly have been kicked out of office by the masses.
It’s a system that produces as many good results as bad ones; for example it was mass popular opinion that finally over-rode dumb American policies in Asia based on the unfounded domino theory. But global environmental degradation is an entirely unprecedented problem in the history of the human race and market capitalism is singularly unsuited to resolve it. Mind you, it’s quite likely that no alternative system would do much better.
December 16th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Short term expediency over long term policy indeed. How about the quasi-religious dogma of budget surpluses? Even governments whose policy position is budget balance over the business - or electoral - cycle suddenly find they need to produce a surplus every year, or ‘the market’ (the ratings agencies) will mark them down. How do you get the investment you need (alternative technologies, preservation of natural endowments) when there’s no moolah to do it with? PPPs? No, they’re just black boxes to transfer more profit to the suppliers (imho, of course).
December 16th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Short term expediency over long term policy indeed. How about the quasi-religious dogma of budget surpluses? Even governments whose policy position is budget balance over the business - or electoral - cycle suddenly find they need to produce a surplus every year, or ‘the market’ (the ratings agencies) will mark them down. How do you get the investment you need (alternative technologies, preservation of natural endowments) when there’s no moolah to do it with? PPPs? No, they’re just black boxes to transfer more profit to the suppliers (imho, of course).
What I’m saying is that you mightthink you’re voting for a policy position, but what you get is something else because ‘undemocratic’forces (do ratings agencies get a vote, for example?) render any ‘thoughtful’ vote irrelevant.
December 16th, 2006 at 10:44 am
“However I think it would be a bit rough to blame individual politicians when the fault lies in a collective social refusal to face up to the facts coupled with a democratic system that prevented any government taking the steps that would be required to reverse environmental damage.”
Cowardice. Cowardice on the part of the people to DEMAND change, but even more cowardice on the part of our leaders to lead.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
My main problem with trying to ‘fix’ global warming is that judging by past experience we are just as likely to completely fuck everything up. You only have to see the result over the last century where despite the best of intentions, efforts to ‘fix’ capitalism killed, oh, in round figures, 250 million. Destroyed the lives and aspirations of countless millions as well. The same people who demanded capitalism be ‘fixed’ (by socialism) are now insisting that the climate be fixed by what - socialism again. Some people never learn.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
‘Increasingly, we are uncovering evidence that the scientists who were derided as global warming scaremongerers over the past three decades were actually being conservative to a fault in their estimates.’
There is an analogue to this head in the sand-ism with the road to Iraq, paved as it was with non-existent WMD. I was aware there was unlikely to be WMD having read articles by Scott Ritter and Andrew Wilkie and statements by that brave woman in the UK military intel apparatus who resigned rather than provide any more cover for a war of choice. These people were obviously experts AND straight shooters (unlike the cheerleaders for invasion, most of whom were neither) and their warnings should have been taken more seriously by any halfway prudent leadership.
They have their doppelgangers in the scientific establishment, who have for years been derided by fools like Andrew Bolt and Miranda Devine, sinecured establishment guard dogs who are even now still barking, even though the caravan has moved on. It’s a living I guess.
Both sets of experts are like the boy who cried wolf, ignored by the ‘adults.’ (It’s been nice to have those grown-ups in charge for the last 6 years hasn’t it?)
‘Despite the tragedy unfolding in Iraq, I predict that the historians that Bush is so preoccupied with these days will treat him much more harshly on this front in the long run.’
I dunno. He should cop heaps for his efforts, or rather his lack of effort and absence of leadership, but this is a negligence of which we are all guilty and the problem was not fathered by he and his crew. Conversely, he and the cabal he heads OWN Iraq and it’s consequences because they didn’t just let it happen, they commissioned it.
In religious terms, the lack of foresight re warming, whatever the extent of the consequences, is a venial sin, and one widely shared. Choosing to murder hundreds of thousands of people, whatever the justification, is a mortal sin and the lion’s share of responsibility for that lies in Bush’s court, an increasingly apt descriptor for the highest office of our leading democracy.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Interesting insight Peter but I don’t follow. What ‘attempts to “fix” capitalism’ killed 250 million people?
December 16th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Ken asked: What ‘attempts to “fix” capitalism’ killed 250 million people?
Socialism. Hadn’t you heard?
December 16th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
No I hadn’t actually Peter, and as a reasonably well-read student of hostory I admit that I’ve never read such a proposition before. I’d be fascinated to know the basis upon which you make it. You can expand beyond blunt assertion, it’s Saturday and I’ve got time to read a considered argument. Or suggest some links that I can follow to explore the justification for the statement. I’d genuinely appreciate any assistance.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
*history.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Whilst the World burns the Neo-CONS & their enablers fiddle.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Ken, I know you are being deliberately obtuse in some sort of attempt to draw me out vis the role of socialism in the carnage of the last century, however I’m not going to play along. My sole point is that previous attempts to ‘fix’ something that appears by (I presume) well meaning people, to need fixing, was not a pretty sight.
For figures try: Power Kills
December 16th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Nasking - was that directed at me? If so, get over it. Believe it or not the world is in ‘much’ better shape than you seem to think. I used to be a doomster also, but eventually realised that the world is and always will be full of people who believe the ‘end is nigh’ and that something orta be done about it. It’s a kind of religion - people need to believe in something even if it is the end of the world. I too, read the Club of Rome and Paul Erlichs books and believed it. Not any more.
December 16th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I just took a quick look at the NeedleNose post and what do we get:
Fat chance of that happening in the absence of a global will to address the problem and a global authority to execute appropriate measures
Yep - global authority - that should fix it. We need to ‘force’ people to change - for their own good of course. Of course the smart ones, the ones who ‘know’, who ‘really care’, ie people much like some here should be in charge, no?
He’s a wanker.
December 16th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Peter I’m not being ‘deliberately obtuse’, I’m asking you to justify an extraordinary claim. It’s not a trick question.
I infer from the link that you provided that you believe the Maoist revolution in China, two world wars, European colonialism and so on were ‘attempts to fix capitalism’. You’re entitled to your opinion of course but I would be amazed if any mainstream historian agreed with your interpretation.
December 16th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Ken - sorry, you are splitting hairs and trying to take me to task over what I said ‘roughly’. I actually had a lower figure of 150 million before I changed it. Fact is between the Soviets, the Chinese and Hitler you are talking a lot of people dead for an idea that capitalism was wrong and needed fixing. The same ‘fix’ is now apparently required to mitigate climate change. Lots of people are understandably reluctant to go down that path.
December 16th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I’m not splitting hairs at all Peter. The Russian and Chinese revolutions weren’t attempts to ‘fix capitalism’. Apart from anything else there was bugger-all capitalism in those countries prior to the revolutions to fix. Russia was still basically a feudal society in 1917 and China pre-Mao was an authoritarian one-party agrarian state. The idea that Hitler’s wars of aggression were aimed at ‘fixing capitalism’ is just bizarre.
You are completely correct that a lot of people died through the actions of stupid or evil people, but there is no basis for claiming that they were motivated by the ‘idea that capitalism was wrong and needed fixing’. It’s as unsustainable as the argument that capitalism itself was the culprit.
As a matter of interest, since you clearly reject the notion of addressing climate change by any kind of global regulation, how do you see global environmental problems being solved?
December 16th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Apart from the vapid nature of Peter’s “argument” so far, I have to wonder about the use of the word socialism.
Why then, the mention Mao, Hitler and the Soviets? Because they were all socialists? Really?
December 16th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
OK Ken. If you don’t think socialism had anything to do with the disasters of the last century I surely won’t convince you. And I doubt anyone will. For your reading pleasure:
We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” –Adolf Hitler
link
As for fixing the environment well thats a big question - one I’m not qualified to answer. In general I prefer market based solutions and I am extremely wary of people who see a fix in putting a spanner in our semi-capitalist system. I personally think that since the abandonment of socialism (sort of) by much of the world the true believers have cottoned on to the environment as a way to get their policies implemented. After all who could be against the environment? This has been quite successful. The trick - as always - is to get the US to yield, the rest will follow in a blink. And leftist everywhere know this.
The other thing I would argue is that things are actually much better than we are led to believe. The worst problems by far are where there is little or no capitalism (most of Africa and Middle East). I have been interested in environmental issues for many years and have seen one so called crises after another either turn out to be BS or quite easily solvable. Hell, even things ‘I’ thought to be true such as DDT causing egg shell thinning is not nearly so clear cut - and more or less banning it killed a ‘lot’ of people. Solving the so called climate change problem will no doubt do the same.
I have been pretty skeptical of the whole (human caused) climate change idea for many years, since at least 1985. I have seen the waters so completely muddied that Science itself is close to being repudiated. I mean when you get such a thing as ‘Feminist Science’ and ‘ways of knowing’ you know you are in trouble. It also seems that the whole issue has become completely partisan where the motives of people (skeptics) are questioned. Vast public funds are also now involved. Reputations to be made. I also see increasingly authoritarian solutions being proposed for these ‘problems’ and even hints of censoring denialists. Not good. Most of this unfortunately comes from the left.
I think it is important for people to appreciate that there are very few people actually qualified to comment on climate. Most of what you read is of the ‘if the models are correct then this may happen’ type. This is very easy to do and gives a very misleading view of what is happening. We often see headlines predicting a certain outcome - if the globe warms up sea levels will rise - which is likely true but it doesnt really say much about what is causing the globe to heat up. But it does give the impression that even the oceanographers ‘know’ its true ( and will say so ) even though it is probably outside their field and they are relying on the ‘truth’ of the climatologist as an input to their own models.
December 16th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Mars - I am aware that you deny Soviets as socialist and prefer to call them red fascists. Clever and convenient. The left has pretty much convinced the world that Hitler was some how right wing. No doubt you will be successful re the Soviets as well! Good luck!
Sorry about the vapid argument. I was never much of a debater.
December 16th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Your quote is something Hitler said (in 1927, 12 years before he started the second world war). Politicians often make misleading statements about their beliefs and intentions to curry favour with the electorate. Indeed John Howard once described himself as a liberal.
Looking at what Hitler did, not what he said, he courted big business as soon as he came to power and got rid of the trade unions. He made no attempt to transfer privately owned means of production into public ownership, in fact German owners of capital made vast fortunes during the war. The Nazis were socialists in name only, they identified the communist (not socialist) USSR as their natural enemy from very early in the piece.
I understand your position on climate change. I’m no climate scientist either, but those who are seem to be increasingly agreed on the facts and their implications. The problem with waiting until we know for certain is that if the bad predictions turn out to be correct, it will be much too late to do anything about it. The Rupert Murdoch approach seems more prudent to me, even for people who are sceptics.
Now it’s time for a beer and some cricket.
December 16th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Ken - we will just have to agree to disagree. Sure Hitler didn’t implement his plans in the way a socialist blogger (say) would do it but the result was similar. That some businessmen became rich is par for the course. Surprisingly, very few businessmen are ‘capitalist’ in outlook, much prefering a government granted monopoly or controls to prevent competitors entering the market. Take our current free to air TV system with a couple of very rich businessmen having a virtual monopoly on the airwaves. I would submit that most leftist would equate this with ‘capitalism’ however this is in fact far from the case. It is closer to fascism where the government leaves much economic activity in nominally private hands but actually controls everything. The difference between this and socialism is not that great, but one that leftist have desperately tried to muddy - to great effect. As mars shows, the process is continuing with the Soviets. In 50 years, younger versions of mars will no doubt be convinced that Stalin was right wing also.
More for your reading pleasure:
Hitler was named “Man of the Year” in 1938 by Time Magazine. They noted Hitler’s anti-capitalistic economic policies:
“Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed National Socialism as a means of saving Germany’s bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism.”
(Source: Time Magazine; Jaunuary 2, 1939.)
Enjoy that beer!
December 16th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Also Ken one final point. Although it is true that Hilter and the Soviets were natural enemies (didn’t they have a secret pact?) this doesn’t prove that they were in any way ‘opposites’ in economic viewpoint. Often groups who believe fundamentally the same thing are the bitterest enemies. Case in point: Islam.
December 16th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
“If it is admitted that the nineteenth century has been the century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy, it does not follow that the twentieth must also be the century of Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy. Political doctrines pass; peoples remain. It is to be expected that this century may be that of authority, a century of the “Right,” a Fascist century.”
~Benito Mussolini {The Doctrine of Fascism, 1932}
And yet Hitler, apparently a rabid socialist, had this guy as his closest ally. How very peculiar.
December 16th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Mars - I don’t think you even bothered to read my post above.
Yes it is a peculiar world. Mussolini - originally a socialist, completely changed his spots and became a… Fascist! Wow who would have thought that someone would have gone from one extreme to another in such a short time. According to Wiki Ms father and brother were both socialist also. And his brother then became a Fascist!
Wiki: Birth of Fascism
The term Fascism derives from the word “Fascio” which had existed in Italian politics for some time. A section of revolutionary syndicalists broke with the Socialists over the issue of Italy’s entry into the First World War. The ambitious Mussolini quickly sided with them in 1914, when the war broke out. These syndicalists formed a group called Fasci d’azione rivoluzionaria internazionalista in October 1914.
See a pattern there mars? No thought not. Much as it drives most commited leftists like yourself to apoplexy, in truth Fascism and Socialism are brothers, differing only in style and emphasis. The left has done a sterling job in hiding this fact. But it really is just about power and that is why both ‘groups’ hate its true opposite (freedum,demokracy as you call them) and will often ally themselves.
December 16th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
So by 1932, Mussolini had denounced “Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy” and turned to Fascism. In other words he was a Fascist when he took Italy into the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936. With Hitler, he finally found his niche.
And a bunch of American neocons once considered themselves to be liberals.
And Bod Dylan started out playing rock and roll on electric guitar before he went folk and acoustic.
Does that mean that all neocons are still closet liberals and all folk singers want to be rockers?
But you’re right on one point, Peter. I can hardly be bothered reading any of your posts.
December 16th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Peter Said
Often groups who believe fundamentally the same thing are the bitterest enemies. Case in point: Islam.
December 16th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Haven’t got those “quote thingies” right yet
December 16th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
poor mars - reduced to abuse. So typical of you. You really shouldn’t have mentioned Mussolini mars - got you there. Only a true denier like yourself could fail to see the so so smooooooth transition of Mussolini from socialist to fascist.
The fascists were a breakaway group from the Syndicalists - itself a type of socialism.
To be blunt mars, there is only one freedom but there are many types of slavery. Calling them by different names changes little, except to confuse.
December 16th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
reduced to abuse?
Good Grief! Toughen up boy!
So let’s see if I’ve got this right:
Socialism is the same as fascism and slavery (and communism, no doubt)
Therefore anything that can be tagged as socialism is unquestionably evil.
Sorted!
December 16th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
The same people who demanded capitalism be ‘fixed’ (by socialism) are now insisting that the climate be fixed by what - socialism again. Some people never learn. Peter.
Oh Brother, here we go again. The terrible “socialist” evil. Just like those utterly depraved economic and moral basket cases, the Scandanavian countries.
The truth is that you can find examples of appalling failures with any form of government and society humans have tried. Raw market capitalism among them. Does anyone (besides Howard and his hardcore supporters) really wish to return to nineteenth century labour conditions for the vast majority of us?
And once again, well said Glenn Condell, 14:06:58.
December 16th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Seeker is another one obviously in denial about the truly appalling cost of his beloved socialism. Don’t worry seeker despite your best efforts your descendents will be both healther and richer than you can possibly imagine. And the market will rule. Even in Sweden.
BTW Why is the left so keen on Sweden? Just looking around it seems they have dumped most of the really silly stuff and is much like any other high taxing modern state with its own set of problems. Just Googling ’swedish socialism’ doesn’t exactly inspire.
December 16th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
“And the market will rule”
I assume that means scrapping the First Home Grant, Parenting Allowance, Negative Gearing, Health Cards for self-funded retirees, LPG Conversion Rebate, Private Health Care rebate, Drought Assist, tax breaks of 4WD vehicles, the Baby Bonus and payroll tax incentives. Good luck with that.
December 17th, 2006 at 12:07 am
You agree with most of these? I agree it won’t happen though. Most people love these freebees, especially when someone else is paying for it.
Actually, negative gearing doesnt belong in that list. I take it by negative gearing you mean when you borrow to invest in an income producing asset and the cost of borrowing exceeds the returns (income) from that asset. (commbank definition). As a small property investor I can tell you it is quite easy for costs to vary considerably year to year. I haven’t been in a negatively geared situation but I can easily imagine it, where income and expenses are finely balanced. What about a business that takes a loss for the year?
December 17th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Actually the wiki has an interesting entry on negative gearing in Australia. Apparently some of the reasons not to have negative gearing are:
Opponents of negative gearing say
It encourages overinvestment in residential property, an essentially “unproductive” asset, which is an economic distortion.
Investors inflate the residential property market, making it less affordable for first home buyers or other owner-occupiers.
It encourages speculators into the property market, inflating for instance the property bubble of 2003.
Further down it mentions when and how the tax has been implemented and modified over the years. Talk about unintended consequences! In each case rents and/or property values rose. Careful what you wish for mars.
December 17th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Seeker is another one obviously in denial about the truly appalling cost of his beloved socialism. Peter
Assuming I am a socialist. But your abitrary assumption that I am just fits in with your general argument style. So go right ahead. Makes no difference to me.
December 17th, 2006 at 1:11 am
Great post, thanks. Not sure if you’ve seen this brief recent CNN piece on Gore, but I think it’s quite well done. Here’s a link to the youtube video http://www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com
December 17th, 2006 at 1:17 am
“Careful what you wish for mars.”
Indeed…
December 17th, 2006 at 5:51 am
I used to be a doomster also, but eventually realised that the world is and always will be full of people who believe the ‘end is nigh’ and that something orta be done about it. It’s a kind of religion - people need to believe in something even if it is the end of the world. I too, read the Club of Rome and Paul Erlichs books and believed it. Not any more.
Peter, heal thyself.
You simply swapped one form of religion for another. You traded in one world view that annointed you the “saved” and all else the “damned” and adopted another.
Now you are in the church of capitalism - or, perhaps, “anti-socialism.” A dogma that seems to sweep up all things undesirable, related and not, and place them under one roof.
Some dogmatists call this Satan. Others Ahriman. You call it socialism.
But one thing that doesn’t appear to have changed is the rigidity in your thinking, the lack of dialectical thought, the lack of balance.
Once again you have found “certainty” and the one true path to intellectual salvation. You have discovered the one answer for all questions.
All the non-believers and skeptics have simply not yet received the annunciation, and are thus doomed to toil in intellectual purgatory.
Same old song, you just changed the lyrics.
December 17th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Seeker I never said that you were a socialist but your big yawn over the disasters of socialism says a lot. By mentioning the scandanavian countries I assumed you thought they were worth emulating. However Sweden in particular is slowly moving away from the economic model you seem to advocate. Its actually been a bit of a disaster.
December 17th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Eric - a bit over the top for me. I don’t need religion to see that developing countries which impliment a market based economy are doing well while those that don’t, aren’t ( unless they happen to have oil or something like Venezuela ). I don’t need religion to see India - having followed a socialist path for 40 years - dump a very small part of that ideology, and suddenly within 15 years look like they may actually get somewhere.
Its not rigid thinking to continuously see negative results of a policy and reject it as unworkable. I think you are pretty well accusing me of something that in fact many here are doing.
Is it balanced to see good and bad in freedom and slavery? Honesty and dishonesty? Balance is nice but there are limits.
So yeah call me dogmatic if I think a 20% tax rate, no middle class welfare, closing down Aboriginal ‘reservations’ and sacking the tens of thousands of public servants administering these useless programs is a good idea. What are ‘you’ afraid of? That it might work?
Anyway this is getting pretty off topic. What I personally think about the causes of global warming is pretty much irrelevant. The skeptics have been overwhelmingly rejected. Intervention is the order of the day. On this particular issue, you guys have won. Go for it.
December 17th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
I wish it were so, but last time I checked, the pessimists were driving the ship.
December 17th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Ken Lovell said:
‘our version of representative government inevitably privileges short-term expediency over long-term good policy, because most people have neither the time nor the inclination to develop considered opinions about complex issues’
and as if he’d been hired to demonstrate this, Peter enters the fray.
‘despite the best of intentions, efforts to ‘fix’ capitalism killed, oh, in round figures, 250 million’
Some people seem to need a bogeyman well into adulthood, even dotage, don’t they?
Lenin I think would have been amused to learn he was ‘fixing’ capitalism. Mao likewise. They sought power, took it and abused it; this sort of behaviour is found ecumenically across the political spectrum, since before such a spectrum existed. The clothes it wears, the team colours, are less important than you might think.
Those that pretend, or worse, sincerely believe, that the source of all evil resides in the lair of the Other team run the risk of not noticing the sins of their own, or worse, they try to shrink a potentially lethal planetary problem into the limited dualism of their world view, where it atrophies into just another chance to score a point. Or to imagine they’ve scored a point.
‘Ken, I know you are being deliberately obtuse in some sort of attempt to draw me out vis the role of socialism in the carnage of the last century, however I’m not going to play along.’
First, Ken was the precise opposite of obtuse; he was open, clear, even welcoming. Second, why not play with a ball you started rolling? It is an old and sadly deflated ball, lacking any contemporary bounce (the rest of us got sick of playing with it years ago) but mate you threw it, it is returned to your court, and you don’t want to play? Who was obtuse again?
Jesus, I didn’t realise how much I missed wronwright. (Are you wronwright?)
‘I used to be a doomster also, but eventually realised that the world is and always will be full of people who believe the ‘end is nigh’ and that something orta be done about it.’
Yairs, yairs, terrible aren’t they, someone orta do something about them. I find myself personally to be allergic to that other group of drones, you know the ones that re always chuntering on about how other people are chuntering on about ‘the end of the world’? Oh and people who exaggerate too.
I’ll tell you what the world is always full of Peter, and that is people who are happy to keep fiddling as the outskirts of Rome catch fire. Case in point, the USA in the last 5 years. You’d have pooh-poohed anyone in 1929 who warned you of depression. If you were around in the 30’s you’d have given Hitler the benefit of the doubt because he hated socialism. You’d have gone long on those Dutch tulips too I reckon. No worries mate, she’ll be apples, eh?
‘Hey, everything’s all right - well, I am at least; there’s no problem - well, none that I can make out, so lighten up everyone, and enjoy our secure and endless prosperity without a backward glance, just like me’
Tell me, were you quite so laid back about Saddam and his WMD back in 02? I’d be interested to know. If you were skeptical of the claims and opposed the war then your counter-intuitive but Right-thinking opinions on climate change are just another chapter in the story of a ruggedly individual bloke who doesn’t trust anyone or believe anything he’s told. But if you went along with it, if you thought invading Iraq was a pretty good idea, then your whole ‘you can’t pull the wool over my eyes’ schtick is just that - schtick. Politically juvenile schtick, revealing your apparent independence on global warming as just that – apparent. Rather than a rugged individual, you’d be just another useful idiot. If that’s the case, you probably read and admire Andrew Bolt. He’d be your kind of pundit and you’re his kind of reader, or target.
So which is it?
I can see how the doubting Thomases amongst us have a killjoy aspect for those of a sunnily optimistic, even carefree mien such as yourself. Or should that be careless? But don’t you see the crucial importance of naysayers, contrarians and skeptics? Doubt is the vehicle of the vanguard of progess after all; things don’t improve by staying the same. Jeez, they don’t even stay the same if you don’t keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel – they get worse. It’s not just freedom that needs eternal vigilance; life itself does too, unless your metaphysics are of the fundamentally God-bothering variety, in which case I can understand why you don’t seem to give a shit – it’s all in His hands.
Recieved wisdom should always be questioned, especially when the issue is a mere bagatelle like the future of our planet. I’m aware that you are, in your own way, doing just that with your brave ‘little guy’ stance in opposition to the weight of respected scientific opinion across the world, but someone has to be wrong (though these days being a right-winger seems to mean never having to admit you’re wrong, even when it sticks out like dog’s balls) and if you choose your bete-noirs according to what you imagine their political genesis to be rather than on their intrinsic pluses or minuses, being wrong is something you’ll have to get used to. Oppositionism, bucking the status quo like the early climate change theorists did, must rest on a foundation more firm than a sneering contempt. Facts are always a good start.
‘I think it is important for people to appreciate that there are very few people actually qualified to comment on climate.’
How’s the weather up there on your petard Peter? So good you feel comfortable following that admonition with ‘Most of what you read is of the ‘if the models are correct then this may happen’ type. This is very easy to do and gives a very misleading view of what is happening.’ No kidding. Whew. But are you qualified to comment?
‘even things ‘I’ thought to be true such as DDT causing egg shell thinning is not nearly so clear cut - and more or less banning it killed a ‘lot’ of people’
Always look on the bright side of death, eh? The glass is half-full if you read widely, or indeed narrowly enough.
‘I have seen the waters so completely muddied that Science itself is close to being repudiated’
That’s a big call. I reckon Science will survive. And btw, who is doing the muddying?
‘I mean when you get such a thing as ‘Feminist Science’ and ‘ways of knowing’ you know you are in trouble.’
A daft, though revealing comment. The facts don’t matter as much as who it is that utters them. You drag the poor old sisters into it for pity’s sake - WTF have they got to do with this? Oh I know, they’re on the same team as the Greenie scientists and Socialist scientists and probably Gay Pride boffins as well.
‘It also seems that the whole issue has become completely partisan where the motives of people (skeptics) are questioned.’
Well, they keep turning out to be in the pay of the polluters Peter. When reporters go looking for denialists with no such baggage nowadays they bother some fuddled old coot at East Anglia Uni whose name eludes me, and probably him too much of the time. He’s a dear old thing but I’ll the word of the peak bodies thanks very much. We’re all sceptical of the motives of the skeptics now.
‘Sure Hitler didn’t implement his plans in the way a socialist blogger (say) would do it but the result was similar.’
ROTFLMAO (or whatever it is) You are actually Peter Garrett having huge lend of aren’t you. You can’t be for real. Either that or you’ve spent too much time at Tim Blair’s place. If the world was going to end in environmental catastrophe tomorrow you’d march off the cliff with likeminded lemmings chanting it was all the left’s fault, despite the evidence.
Ken says: ‘The Rupert Murdoch approach seems more prudent to me, even for people who are sceptics.’
That’s the word I was after. Prudence. Peter, don’t you think that if there’s even chance, particularly a good chance according to the best evidence and expert interpretation, that we are in dire straits or soon will be, that the prudent thing to do is hold our horses? Whatever happened to conservatives whose idea of governance could be summed up in the word ‘prudent’? Do you have kids? I’ve found they tend to concentrate the mind wonderfully on issues like this.
Eric says ‘You simply swapped one form of religion for another. You traded in one world view that annointed you the “saved” and all else the “damned” and adopted another..Now you are in the church of capitalism - or, perhaps, “anti-socialism.” A dogma that seems to sweep up all things undesirable, related and not, and place them under one roof.Some dogmatists call this Satan. Others Ahriman. You call it socialism… But one thing that doesn’t appear to have changed is the rigidity in your thinking, the lack of dialectical thought, the lack of balance.’
I could have saved myself, and anyone still here, a fair amount of time if I’d read that before posting. Nail on the head.
‘Anyway this is getting pretty off topic.’
We can agree on that I guess.
December 17th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Wow, Glenn. That was outstanding. You said everything I wanted to, and them some, and with far greater civility and eloquence. I feel humbled (and redundant :-)).
December 18th, 2006 at 4:40 am
I could have saved myself, and anyone still here, a fair amount of time if I’d read that before posting. Nail on the head.
No Glenn. Absolutely not. I’m thrilled you didn’t read my comment first. That was one of the best comments I’ve read in a long…oh hell, perhaps ever.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Peter, just thought you would like to know that your “skepticism” about socialism and global warming has now been tagged by crooksandliars.com in the USA - and Glenn’s response of course.
Have you checked out Frank Luntz yet? Political spinmeister for the republican global warming septics (sorry sceptics), and a man after your own heart I would imagine. I left some links for you at the last post here on global warming.
December 18th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Peter, yours is an infantile world view. We can’t plan collectively? Even if you’re right and every politically derived death the the C20th can be ascribed to “socialism” (which is balls but for the purpose of the argument):
Most of Stalin’s reasonably direct victims died of starvation in the rural reorganisations. Any plan to combat global warming doesn’t have to consist of kicking people out of their sole livelihoods without providing another.
As for Hitler, I can’t see how invading eastern and western Europe at the same time would decrease carbon emmissions. I suppose a massive cull of the population would reduce emmissions, but that’s actually what we’re hoping to avoid.
Do you get this? Acting against global warming is not an attempt to set up a utopia, but to avoid some fairly major level of catastrophe which will lead to human suffering. Stalin caused starvation and so will global warming.
Leaving our decisions up to the actors in the oil market, in turn basing their decisions on dividends and share prices, has given us Iraq. Not exactly a cheap exercise either in terms of human life orcarbon emmissions.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
[...] Three feet high and rising - Eric Martin on global warming and sea level rise. Nothing terrbly new but well expressed. [...]
December 19th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Aw, thanks Seeker and Ecka. I was powered by Grinders Crema Cafe coffee, which has run out today so I’m relatively speechless.
Where’d Peter go?
December 19th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
The Stern Report stated that preventing global warming (starting rigt now) would take about 1 per cent of global GDP. Recovering from the effects if we do nothing will cost 20%. The first option sounds like the most economical, no?
December 20th, 2006 at 3:22 am
[...] Can It Be That It Was All So Simple Then?: Eric Martin, mars, Eric Martin, mars, A new era in governance: Seeker, Ken Lovell, Muskiemp, Tim, mars, mG, MetaSurfdom: gandhi, Three Feet High and Rising: mars, Glenn Condell, Club Troppo », Sean, grace pettigrew, Eric Martin, Carols as performance art: grace pettigrew, mG, Tim, New Fighter Flies… apparently.: Sean, anthony, Colin Campbell, Friday Meltdown: Tim, Ken Lovell, Eric Martin, Howard opens window, looks outside…: grace pettigrew, Peter, pattipatpat, What the World Needs Now: Jack Strocchi, [...]
January 6th, 2007 at 3:04 am
[...] Taking a break from redefining the guiding principles of US foreign policy in the 21st Century, Anatol Lieven has written a clarion call that we ignore at our peril. Lieven’s piece - about the dangers of global warming - is provocatively titled, “The End of the West As We Know It?” As I have argued recently, the stakes truly are that high: Every political, social and economic system ever created has sooner or later encountered a challenge that its very nature has made it incapable of meeting. The Confucian ruling system of imperial China, which lasted for more than 2,000 years, has some claim still to be the most successful in history, but because it was founded on values of stability and continuity, rather than dynamism and inventiveness, it eventually proved unable to survive in the face of Western imperial capitalism. [...]