The caveat being that you have to be a card carrying pinko to ever get to be tenured. Anyone that would deny that academia is a seething cauldron of lefties is probably the local chapter president. Most if not all environmentalists are watermelons.
We have a bunch of communist-hunting "right-wing" democrats that are experts on climate change here on Tiger Forums... who knew?
Careful how you categorize an environmentalist there gump. There are plenty of us out there looking for real solutions like sustainable building, leaching landfill gasses to power, and building a better alternative fuel. Point is there are more of us figuring out NOW what we can do with what is there, then there are those who concern them selves with the survivability of the flathead minnow. YOU find a cheaper way to transport styrofoam to the recyclers then chime in otherwise, stop eating all the damn strawberries.
What a load of crap. Have you ever been to a business school? The notion that academia is controlled by the left is postulated by the same fools who cower and cry about the "liberal media."
True dat'. I don't recall any of my professors wanting to discuss politics in the 7 years that I was an undergrad in college.
Utter nonsense. They are motivated by finding valid answers to scientific questions, for which they receive respect from their peers and a job from their employer (not all research is government research, you know). The funding that they get comes based on rigorous, peer-reviewed proposals that do not pre-suppose results. And not all funding comes from tax dollars. Industry funds a lot of university research and even more comes from non-profit foundations. The notion that "never-ending" research is somehow bad is laughable. Of course research can never end, there are always new mysteries to be answered and problems to be solved. This does not mean that conclusions cannot be reached in the meantime.[/QUOTE] Now this is a political objection that I can understand. I do not wholly advocate buying and selling environmental credits, but I do promote the adoption of better technology as it is developed. While cap and trade may indeed provide environmental benefits, it also seems to be wasteful and too full of middlemen.
Of course we can. The earth's pre-human history has been studied extensively and a great deal is known. Obviously some things can be fixed without the expenditure of $Trillions. Requiring polluters to use smokestack scrubbers is a proven, affordable, and effective technology to reduce emissions. So is increased use of hybrids, alternative fuels, and electric vehicles. Use of wind power has the potential for replacing a huge portion of our national electric generation capacity that is renewable and non-polluting. Such techniques that stop the problem up front save a fortune in costs associated with remediating the problem down the road. You see? There is always some political objection at the heart of the opponents of environmentalism. :dis: Modernizing the economies of poor countries and the development of cleaner energy technology are NOT mutually exclusive efforts. Geez, its nice to have a civil debate again. :thumb:
I love it when people actually make complete fools of themselves and require no rebuttle whatsoever. :insane: I can see why you don't want to actually debate the global warming issue. :lol:
and that history always shows global warming and then global cooling. given that we are coming out of an ice age, we should expect warming. the question is how much, and there is no way to know how much it would warm were we not here. as far as your solutions go, some of them are fine and not that bad, but most of them have to be voluntary. that means if we want hybrid cars we buy them without having tax money pay for it. if oil prices are such that we are all want to have hybrids or motorcycles, fine. but forcing things hurts economies. and damaging the economy is really bad. not so much for americans as much as the poor folks making junk for americans to buy. there would be no objection if the issue would stay away from politics. you dont see us debating string theory here, because no al gore is trying to use string theory to manipulate anyone. the environmentalists are trying to force their will on everyone. science should be totally independent from politics. global warming should never enter a politician's agenda. i suppose. but assuming the end-goal is to make humans be happy and alive, every dime you could invest in green tech would be better spent on third world development. there are so many problems that are bigger than the envorinment. people are still starving and dying of curable disease. of course the goal really is simply for white first world liberals to feel good about themselves.