Debunking Global warming

[Mikee]

Marcus Bachler posted this video on another site. I watched it in it's entirety and it is very good. Hopefully it will bring some sense to this hysteria:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...warming+swindle

[heusdens]

Marcus Bachler posted this video on another site. I watched it in it's entirety and it is very good. Hopefully it will bring some sense to this hysteria:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...warming+swindle

So, it's all a complot?

I don't know, but CO2 has something to do with climate and temperature. That is not disputed by scientists.

Look at Venus. It's temperatur at surface is higher then Mercury, although Mercury is closer to the sun.

Why? Green house gasses (CO2) on Venus add to a higher temperature on Venus.

Climate changes always, that is very much true.

In fact we are approaching an Ice age.

The weather system and climate are very complex systems.

Anyway, this is an interesting video, with some interesting points about what causes warming.

We do not even know if climate change and global warming (which is a fact) is going to be destructive or beneficial. If arctic and cold regions warm up, this could be beneficial. Large parts of Siberia could become inhabitable.

Personally I think that climate change is not the most important problem (that is to say, even to the extend that it is imporant and human actions have a real influance on it, I realy doubt we could avoid these problems), but the problem is how to replace fossil fuels. At least we know is that fossil fuels are going to be depleted in the long run. Which might not be too long from now (even if there is still plenty of coal, but as gas and oil run down, usage of coal goes up, and so this great abundance of coal might decrease much more rapidly as currently is foreseen).

I think that (when nothing is done and we simply increase energy usage per capita with an increasing population) this will cause much more problems then the consequences of climate change.

The problems are economical, since prices will go up if oil and gas are going to be scarcer.

So we should solve that problem: how to replace fossil fuels. And I think that task is for the already industrialized nations to solve since we can develop the tecnique to solve that problem, leaving more oil, gas and coal reserves for developing nations.

Coal we have still plenty, but if we replace gas and oil with coal, and increase energy usage, also coal is not plentifull.

I am some confident that new technologies will be available in time to solve the energy problem.

Like for instance a new solar technology based on plastics, that can be produced very cheaply.

(see www.nanosolar.com)

Within some 5-10 years this can become available and can provide cheap electricity for households, etc.

The technique promises that it pays itself back within a month, and has virtually inlimited usage possibilities (every surface that gets solar radiation can be used).

The real problem is that we need to transform the economy to using durable and renewable resources, and this transition has to take place within a couple of decennia (on this short scale of time almost all oil and gas resources will run down).

Even if human induced climate change is a lie, it does not change anything to this real problem, and reducing CO2 levels (based on gas, oil, coal) is beneficial in the light of the necessary energy transition.

Edited March 11, 2007 by heusdens

[heusdens]

As to environment movement and developing third world countries:

I think the fact is that with current usage of gas and oil, since the 1st world countries take a major portion of it, there is simply not enough left for third world countries to develop themselves. That is the real problem, and has nothing to do with wether human induced global warming/climate change happens or not.

That increasingly injust distribution of the world's resources is not the fault of the "environementalist" but is the fault of capitalism itself, the neo-colonialist and capitalist world structure, that disables poor countries to develop themselves.

Third world countries have a hard time developing themselves, not by lack of natural resources (most developing countries are rich in natural resources) but because the profits of exploiting those natural resources are not reinvested in those countries, but end up in western capitalist countries.

Venezuela (and Bolivia) currently is an exception to this, because the oil and gas profits now also go to the ordinary people, and helps develop them (education, healthcare, etc.), not just the elites.

Latin america is currently recovering from years of capitalist policy which was detremental.

Chavez is increasingly popular and successfull in his policy for developing 21-st century socialism.

It sets an example how a poor and underdeveloped country can develop itself, using it's own resources for the benefit of the poor masses, helps them to get education and healthcare, etc.

The former example of how a poor nation could develop itself quickly was the former Soviet union, which was a rather poor and unindustrialized country before the revolution of 1917, and developed quickly afterwards, and was a leading nation in the field of science (first unmanned/manned space travel!) and education.

The Soviet Union did not collapse just because of internal economic and political problems, but to a large extend the Reagan doctrine and policy to combat the former Soviet Union lead to the downfall and desintegration of the Soviet Union, since this Reagan policy acted on three terrains:

- Reducing the oil price based on deals with the Saudi's to pump up more oil, causing Soviet export of oil income to fall down dramatically

- Tricking the Soviet Union into a war in Afghanistan by the support of Islamic Jihad/ fundamentalism in Afghanistan (the later Al Queda network)

- Starting a new arms race in outer space: the SDI ("starwars") arms program.

These three factors induceed the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 80-ies, and caused Michael Gorbatsjov to sign unilateral treaties to reduce arms and give up the control of the eastern part of europe.

I don't say that also internal factors played a role (bureaucracy and corruption and inefficient methods of production) but they were not the only factor, and without the Reagan policy, maybe the events at the end of the 80-ies (the downfall of socialist countries and the tearing down of the Berlin wall) maybe would not have happened.

[Mikee]

Mr. Heusdens,

Reading your two posts makes me less hopeful that the video I posted a link to will have much of a positive effect. Evidently you've misunderstood or dismissed most of what it had to say.

"So, it's all a complot?"

The "environmental" movement is political not scientific, yes.

"In fact, we are approaching an Ice age." [!!??]

God, I can't read anymore.

[Brant Gaede]

Mr. H.: I found your analysis ignorant and offensive. It's just not quite as bad as I originally thought.

--Brant

Edited March 13, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Jody Gomez]

Mikee-

Thanks for that link. I've been wanting to watch that. Don't worry about the aforementioned poster who hasn't even the foggiest idea about the difference between the climate of Venus and that of Earth.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Latin america is currently recovering from years of capitalist policy which was detremental.

heusdens,

There are many things to say about your posts (which seem tailor made to push the buttons of Objectivists), but I am resisting as I size you up and learn your premises. Still, I can't resist one comment. I have to say something about the above quote. I have lived in a 3rd world country (Brazil) for over 3 decades and I have been near the centers of power in Brazil and in a couple of other Latin American countries.

What has gone on down there has very little to do with capitalism and more to do with protectionism. What hindered the development of most economies was the vast number of government-owned companies or mixed economy companies. When foreign multinationals have been involved, they have been in cahoots with the different governments for decades. There has been nothing like the free market competition these companies have had to face in other places. They have been exploiters. I grant you that. But they have been exploiters because they catered to politicians, but not because of capitalism. It was because they stopped being capitalist and got in bed with the dictators.

The reason some of the markets are freeing up is because a model has been adopted of getting the government out of direct involvement in the economy and into being solely a regulator instead. (I know this for a fact because I translated a lot of high-level documents about it in Brazil.) Not perfect, but far, far better than before. And the results show it.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Latin america is currently recovering from years of capitalist policy which was detremental.

Chavez is increasingly popular and successfull in his policy for developing 21-st century socialism.

It sets an example how a poor and underdeveloped country can develop itself, using it's own resources for the benefit of the poor masses, helps them to get education and healthcare, etc.

Chavez is another Alliende. After he gets through running the Venezuelan economy into the ground either the U.S. or China will have to bail him out along with what is left of the oil production capacity of Venezuela. I am worried some that it will be the Chines.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

The real problem is that we need to transform the economy to using durable and renewable resources, and this transition has to take place within a couple of decennia (on this short scale of time almost all oil and gas resources will run down).

Even if human induced climate change is a lie, it does not change anything to this real problem, and reducing CO2 levels (based on gas, oil, coal) is beneficial in the light of the necessary energy transition.

The quickest and surest way to drive the transition is for the cost of oil and natural gas to go sky high, which it almost certainly will. The Chinese are coming on-line. Since they gave up Marxist-Leninist Communism and have become garden variety fascist thugs, they have been very busy, they are working very hard and above all they are -hungry-. Confucianism meets Industrialism (in a way). The result will be the Chinese will bid up the price of oil. Our rational response will be to further develop non-petroleum based energy sources.

Our best bet is to silence the eco-phreaks and build lots of fission power plants including fast breeder reactors. That way we can make so much electricity we will only need petroleum as a chemical feedstock for making polymers and other useful chemical. For that we have quite enough oil reserves domestically. In a pinch we can use make use of coal of which we have 200 years in reserve (at least). There are methods of burning coal in which the nasty gases SO2, NO2 and H2S are sequestered. CO2 can also be sequestered (use lots of calcium to make calcium carbonate).

When the use of oil starts pinching us in the wallet we will be on our way to a better future.

It has taken about 120 years for us to dig ourselves in the Oil Hole. And in a way, oil based energy makes a lot of sense. Oil is very energy dense; lots of joules per kilogram. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density. But we are in a hole. In response to this I invoke The Three Laws of the Hole:

1. stop digging

2. put the shovel down

3. climb out of the hole

We did it with whale oil, we can do it with petroleum.

This is all doable, but the main impediment is our very own politicians. You see, they LOVE scarcity. Why? Because when things are scarce they can print up ration stamps and we will all have to tug our forelocks and ask pretty please for our mite and meager allotments.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited April 17, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

Those are very good suggestions. But the problem is not only the politicians. You forgot their bitches (the ones in bed with them): the oil companies.

Try convincing an oil company to give up its political privileges and go back to free market competition in a switch to nuclear.

Michael

[John Dailey]

~ I'm confused as to what is supposedly meant by 'capitalism' in a clear-and-present dictatorship. Mere money-usage by govt-favored (ergo controlled) crony-filled buisnesses?

LLAP

J:D

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

~ I'm confused as to what is supposedly meant by 'capitalism' in a clear-and-present dictatorship. Mere money-usage by govt-favored (ergo controlled) crony-filled buisnesses?

John,

This is one of the frustrations I have with Objectivists in general. They equate big business activities in a dictatorship with capitalism. The advice of the orthodoxy to the American government, for example, is to use the military to conquer, say, Saudi Arabia, to obtain oil fields that were nationalized years ago. They close their eyes to the fact that the initial arrangement was not capitalism by any stretch of the imagination, and to the fact that the major players continued to be major players after the nationalization.

Rand, of course, was very clear about this issue. In the things I read and heard from her, laissez-faire meant no government favors to business, much less a monopoly from a dictatorship.

Michael

[John Dailey]

MSK:

~ This discussion probably belongs more in your POLITICS section, but, given your response here, I've got to admit something. For all that Rand wrote about Capitalism, it took me a l-o-n-g time to figure out why (unfortunately she never explicitly clarified this) she referred to it as a Political system and not merely an Economic (as in 'symbolic bartering') one.

~ I'll refer to more on this...over there...one day.

LLAP

J:D