"'The Inconvenient Truth' is indeed inconvenient to alarmists"

for any topic that is subject to public dialogue where one side is percieved as good for the environment or "part of the solution" or righteous in some way, there is a big skew of public opinion tht direction, because everyone wants to be percieved as righteous. people get involved and want to find ways for them to support the "good" side. and the people on the bad side are potrayed as greedy corporate shills.

so for any issue that is a real political hot-button, like the intelligence of one race vs another, or the environment, there is a huge skew of the position of the public towards what makes people feel good to say. and this effect is always pushing the debate away from reality and towards what people think is righteous.

plus there is a tendency for people to want to be controlled and regulated, as well as a tendency for all governments to want to pass laws and grow and control more and more things, and "protect" people from everything. because governments never want to do less. they want there to be problems for them to save us from.

and these things are a factor in the global warming debate. the dialogue is skewed towards the righteous protectors of the planet. everyone, and particularly politicians, wants to be on the righteous bandwagon.

i actually do think there are potential disasters we need to consider. the possibility of another massive flu pandemic, for example. but it is pretty clear to me that almost any environmental concern is bunk and driben by the egos of people who like to think of themselves as world-protectors.

 

Maybe im a dumbass or something but how does the sun grow larger? I woulda guessed the opposite? Some starts are bigger/smaller then others.. I woulda guessed that the bigger ones were younger stars then the smaller ones... Can someone explain this or should I google it?

As far as the global warming, I really don't think it's that big of issue. Sure we all seen the predictions that in X amount of years Miami will be 50 miles offshore under 20 ft of water. Yea, right.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nclimate10.xml



"UN downgrades man's impact on the climate

Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:37am GMT 11/12/2006

Mankind has had less effect on global warming than previously supposed, a United Nations report on climate change will claim next year."

25% error? man, that is some seriously bad research. who would have thought the UN could ever do anything wrong?

 

even better than the shoddy UN research
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece

and

Amazing, who would've thought that cows had a bigger impact than humans?

 

Good stuff... Man-kind sure is vain to believe everything is our fault. I should've known it would be the cows, always causing problems - especially those Chik-Fil-A ones.

I'm going to try to do my part though, and eat steak as often as possible.

 

well said. i think what people try to portray as righteous concern is often grounded in vanity, as well as the curious tendency of humans to pretend that what they do is always "unnatural" and in opposition to all the rest of the animals and the earth.

but speaking of warming, the northeast is making me sweat my balls off. i am literally sweating. joggers are on the street, running in shorts and sweaty t-shirts. in DC, people are going to pools. the temp was in the 70's today! i can play golf in shorts in january.

my snow boots are still deep in my closet. the news weather guy said we are setting a record for longest time until the first flakes of snow. i think the average for early january is highs in the low 30's.