Quote: (12-17-2013 01:46 PM)Kid Strangelove Wrote:
If global warming turns out to be a sham, then what do we have to show for it? Oh I know, a better environment that we try to take care of
Not to sound all Dwight Shrute, but...
False. If Anthropic Global Warming caused by CO2 emissions turns out to be a chimera, then we will have spent billions of dollars doing precisely nothing. Meanwhile, very real environmental threats such as excess plastics in the oceans, birth control in the water supply (screwing up the mating rituals of tons of species, not just our own), the increase of rare-earth-metals and mining, possible over-use of industrial fertilizers, irresponsible GMO development, nuclear fallout, and oil spills will fall by the wayside. Our planet will be more messed up because we followed the apocalyptic visions of the IPCC.
I'm agnostic on AGW, leaning towards suspicious - the science never acknowledges the roles of the sun or cosmic radiation in cloud formation, and the process for funding the research seems innately biased. It's the academic equivalent of asking "How often do you beat your wife?" The structure is such that OF COURSE it winds up proving the privileged hypothesis correct.
Far more worrying, however, is that the proposed 'solutions' to Global Warming are obviously ineffectual to anybody who's studied basic economics. Like most socialist/SJW solutions, they actually harm what they're proposing to help, while providing a tidy income for a tiny number of elites who are in charge of the whole thing.
Ergo, I'm left with the political conclusion that - even if the IPCC is right about AGW (and even if they are, that's more attributable to blind luck than intelligence), I must take a stand against the Green movement, because the Green movement is ultimately responsible for destroying the environment.
In other words, to save the planet, we must first destroy the Green movement.
EDIT: There has only been one policy coming out of the Greenwash that actually makes sense, and which I'd support even if I knew for a fact that AGW was utter bunk - Obama's recent proposed tax on petroleum resources.
If I were God Emperor, I'd institute a 300% tax on petroleum, not because of CO2, but because - by all indications - it's a one-time endowment for our civilization, and we're wasting it on long road trips and plastic crap from McDonalds.
Everything else, however - Carbon Credits, government subsidization of nepotistic Solar Panel companies (when solar isn't a soultion to begin with) - do absolutely nothing to reduce carbon consumption, they create the illusion of making a change, and they benefit a small number of elitists.