Can the Earth Survive Four Years of a Trump Presidency?
There are two major would shaping forces at risk with a Trump presidency; an economic meltdown brought on by a sharp decline in American productivity, and, a much more important one, the environment. I will leave the economy to another forum, for it is the environment I am much more worried about.
Why, because the world can and has recovered from economic disasters before, the 2008 Great Recession being the latest. But, Earth cannot recover if, as almost all climate scientists agree, the atmosphere passes the point-of-no-return. That point is near the end of this century if nothing is done. The Paris Climate Accords were designed to stop from getting to that point, estimate to be around 2042 at the current rate of growth in CO2 in the air.
President-elect's rhetoric and his cabinet picks all but guarantee America will NOT abide by those accords.
So, the question is "Will the Earth Survive Trump given emissions must be reduced beginning now.?"It's always interesting to hear what "almost all scientists" have to say. Have they, as of yet, determined just why the rate of temperature climb has slowed far below their predictions? Or are these "almost all scientists" continuing to used outdated data in their dire predictions of the end of the world?
Wonder what those computer projections from almost all scientists would show as to conditions on and above earth's surface weeks, months or decades after that big rock fell in the Yucatan? After all plant life burned in the firestorms worldwide?
But the answer your question: The earth survived a collision with another planet. It survived an almost pure CO2 and nitrogen atmosphere. It survived being covered for millions of years with miles of ice. It has survived horrendous solar flares that engulfed the entire planet. It survived the "dinosaur killer" that covered the surface with vaporized rock and created a nuclear winter. This old ball of rock and water has come through events far worse than anything puny man can throw at it.
So yes, the earth will survive 4 years of any person. Personally, I don't think Trump will even manage to kill off all 7 B of those funny little bipeds running around and starting fires everywhere, or even set in progress any specific actions that lead to their extinction a few decades down the road.
Chicken little is alive and well, isn't he?Yeah, the fact is the majority of scientists are skeptical of a Global Warming Crisis vs the alleged “consensus” . No such alarmist consensus exists in the science community. Gosh, and Co2 is not a pollutant. Anthropogenic (man-caused) global-warming is a proven myth.
The climate alarmists just don’t seem to want to fit in with the reasonable minds even though they know better.
The world will be a better place with adults in charge again.Here is a little fact checking:
http://www.politifact.com/virginia/stat … eve-human/
The article has references to numerous studies concerning the number of scientists who hold that climate change is real and that human beings are making a major contribution to warming.
A quote:
of 'the more active publishing climate science experts ...... 93 percent believed that humans were contributing to global warming'.
You can fact check the article itself, if you like, starting with the links to studies that it cites.Surely the most suspicious “97 percent” study was conducted in 2013 by Australian scientist John Cook — author of the 2011 book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand and creator of the blog Skeptical Science (subtitle: “Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism.”). In an analysis of 12,000 abstracts, he found “a 97% consensus among papers taking a position on the cause of global warming in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are responsible.” “Among papers taking a position” is a significant qualifier: Only 34 percent of the papers Cook examined expressed any opinion about anthropogenic climate change at all. Since 33 percent appeared to endorse anthropogenic climate change, he divided 33 by 34 and — voilà — 97 percent! When David Legates, a University of Delaware professor who formerly headed the university’s Center for Climatic Research, recreated Cook’s study, he found that “only 41 papers — 0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent,” endorsed what Cook claimed. Several scientists whose papers were included in Cook’s initial sample also protested that they had been misinterpreted. “Significant questions about anthropogenic influences on climate remain,” Legates concluded.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 … ian-tuttle
William Happer "The Real Inconvenient Truth; More CO2 Benefits the Earth"
EXPERTS: https://www.freedomforceinternational.o … ress-2016/
Politifact is a joke. This is about science, not politics an excuses for regulations.That freedomdorceinternational website is fantastic! The lead expert is Christopher Walter Monckton, the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and his qualifications are, well, his conservative views. No kind of science background.
Mr. Griffin is known for the book 'World without Cancer' (he believes cancer is caused by a nutritional deficiency). He also claims to know where Noah's Ark is buried
William Happer is the only genuine scientist on the page. His specialty is atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy. That does not give you much expertise in climate science, but again, he is well known for his conservative views and that was enough to get him into the George W Bush government.
No one else has any kind of science background but most have made a lot of money from writing wild speculation about any number of subjects that catch the popular imagination. Mostly, they would be described as conspiracy theorists.
ps don't forget to buy the DVD: only $35 for Freedom Force members, lol.
"Gosh, and Co2 is not a pollutant. "
Which has exactly zero to do with any (rational) discussion of global warming. CO2 IS a chemical that promotes warming of the globe; trying to say that you wish to define it as a "non-pollutant" has nothing whatsoever to do with that property.
Such statements are just as bad as some of the claims coming from the "warming" group - they pretty effectively destroy any credence that might otherwise be given to a fact filled commentary.It is logical to me that "Fukushima, nuclear testing, extensive military operations, fracking, aerosol spraying of aluminum, barium, strontium and gawd knows what else”...should be looked at as the pollutions in the air that need regulations. They are causing many problems.
CO2 increases is causing many plants to thrive, its plant food. Plants will live on while we die off from gawd who knows what else. While 'they' want to increase carbon-tax and regulations.
"The anthropomorphic mantra of most global-warming proponents is that the “man-made” cause is CO2. Period. They claim that CO2 is the byproduct of industry and consumption and that it produces a “carbon footprint”. Therefore, they seek expanded government power and funding to reduce CO2. That’s the basis for all the carbon-tax and regulatory nonsense. None of these people are talking about taxing or regulating “Fukushima, nuclear testing, extensive military operations, fracking, aerosol spraying of aluminum, barium, strontium and gawd knows what else”. They talk only about CO2, the greenhouse gas that does NOT cause global warming. The global-warming hoaxers are very good at lumping together pollution (which is real) and man-made global warming (which is not). If we are not thinking analytically, we can be led to think they are one-in-the-same. We are not supposed to notice the trick."Exactly. You wish to lump in pollutants with global warming, and talk about them rather than the causes of that warming, as a distraction to what is actually happening.
Which, again, has exactly zero to do with the known effect of CO2 on sunlight and warming. It needs left out of the equation entirely unless you wish to discuss that more CO2 means more plants which in turn means turning more CO2 into O2. That point, and ONLY that point is germane when discussing plants and global warming.
And you have fallen for the trick of thinking that pollution is being discussed in connection with global warming. It isn't, and unless you are a chemist and an atmospheric expert I submit that you have no idea if CO2 warms the planet. Certainly you can find people that say no, but you still won't know because you won't compare them, and their credentials, to those that say yes.
Finally, I'll submit that the term "pollution", in this context, means anything in the air, and the levels of that anything, that isn't happening from nature and not man. Anything man puts there, including CO2 (and including the CO2 we breathe out), is pollution.A 20 year (negative feedback) Study Finds Plant Growth Surges as CO2 Levels Rise. We all need plant life to live.
* http://www.climatecentral.org/news/stud … rise-16094
Even a 1% increase (would be better than 0.33%) in the average global warmth is nothing to be alarmed about. It means a longer growing season of plants and better harvests to sustain life. My gardens die off too soon because of frost., and I can't plant as early in the year as I would like because of freezing temperatures 2-3 weeks before spring (in the USA).
Remember the prediction of the ice age by the year 2000?If I remember correctly, a couple of degree rise is killing off coral in massive amounts. And the tremendous sea life that inhabited the reefs is gone as a result.
Yes, a 1% increase in warmth (whatever the might mean) is a big deal.
(The freezing point, using no warmth as the zero point, is 273 degrees K. 1% increase makes the temperature 300 degrees K, or 27.3 degrees C. Which is 81 Degrees F instead of 32. A great deal of life would perish, including most of mankind.)
On the other hand, increased CO2 means increased plant life, which in turn means lower CO2 and more oxygen. A self correcting system, in other words, to at least some degree.There are 72 ionospheric heaters in the world.
Added: Do you remember when the spirals opened up the sky in Norway? That went viral across the internet. Obama was there somewhere before or during that time period.General trends in climate change are well understood but understanding the details will take generations.
There are plenty of scenarios that lead to rapid warming such as the release of huge quantities of methane from permafrost in Canada and Russia. The permafrost is already melting in large areas.
There are certain mechanisms that will help mitigate temperature change such as increased plant growth but those plants will die and the carbon they contain will be released over short times periods. Carbon capture via the formation of oil and coal plays out over millennia.
The fact is, rapid change in climate is always bad for living things (including us) and is associated with mass extinctions in the past.
How it plays out in detail will only be known after the event.I can agree with all that, except perhaps the insinuation that plant growth will cause harm. Yes, plants will increase in size and number, and yes they will die. But when they do another will take it's place and the decomposition doesn't happen quickly. There are redwood logs that have been there for millenia, and that's not "quickly".
In truth, that's one of those mechanisms that will take a long time to fully understand.The plant growth won't cause harm, it just won't help much. Trees can sequester carbon for a few hundred years but most of the forests are gone. Crop plants like wheat or rice only sequester carbon for a few months before the crop is cut and the carbon returns to the atmosphere. A massive reforestation program could help but that is not going to happen.
97% of publishing climate scientists believe that humans are causing recent global warming.
You, on the other hand, are just making things up.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.10 … 1/4/048002
Do you think there is a problem with the trend line on this graph?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/ … ng-hiatus/A problem to the planet earth? Certainly not - we have yet to even come within shouting distance of what was present in distant history. That was the comment in the OP...
You know, I read an article the other day that said some areas of the north pole were up 36 degrees from normal. 36 degrees! That puts part of it room temperature, in November!
Turns out that if the article was dissected carefully, the rise was 6 degrees C (plainly stated in the text). Somehow those "scientists" had translated a 6 degree C rise into a 36 degree F one. Adding insult to injury, that huge rise was found in only a half dozen specific spots; something a climate scientist would consider "weather" rather than "climate". And one wonders why "scientific" reports are taken with a grain of salt. And doubly so when it is an emotionally or politically charged topic.
Wlderness, you and Trump can keep your heads in the sand as much as you want; and you can point to a couple short-term inconsistencies in variable data or highlight a few debunked observations by non-climatologists all you want. To do so, though makes you and especially Trump extremely dangerous.
I have to laugh when you suggest thousands of scientist don't have clue on how to analyze date, yet you do ... bad data indeed (BTW, that urban myth has also been debunked.)Wilderness, please quote me correctly when you want to take issue with something.
I DID NOT say "almost all scientists" agree.
I DID say "almost all climate scientists" agree; which is factual. You will in fact find non-climate scientists to agree with who don't know what they are talking about and who have a political agenda.
You will not find more than a small handful of unbiased experts in climatology who disagree with their peers.
I think you believe the climate will change by "x" amount. I believe that the climate will change X x 10. From my perspective you are a climate change X x 10 denier.
My question is:
How could you?Personally I think China is the biggest problem regarding global warming. First thing monday I plan on sending them a strongly worded email. Im doing my part, unlike others.
First it was called Global Cooling, then it was called Global Warming, and they were both debunked as false. So then, they come up with Climate Change (politically correct)...since the climate is always changing there is no denying that...But, the agenda hasn't changed even though they finally found the perfect words to define it.
No one denies that climate changes, it always has and always will. But, it is proven that CO2 is not the problem. CO2 is plant food!
"How could you?" ... think otherwise?
Remember when Al Gore told everybody that Manhattan would be completely submerged by 2016? That would be an inconvenient truth for the climate alarmists.
Show me his actual quote, not one suggested by climate change deniers.
Al Gore himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX9lWwixKc8
Exactly where in that clip does Gore give a timeline? He doesn't. What he did say is IF 1/2 of Greenland's and 1/2 of West Antarctica's ice mass melted, THEN those things would happen.
Did you watch the next one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVfgkFaswn4 ... SCARY!!
It survived an asteroid strike that created massive global winter that wiped out the dinosaurs and most life on Earth.
It survived shifting from a constant temperature warmer than today up through 40 million years ago (no ice on the poles between 150 and 40 million years ago) to shifting to a permanent cooler climate with period ice ages (because the Himalayas formed to speed up weathering and Antarctica broke free of South America and polar currents allowed it to pile up two miles of ice).
It will survive slightly higher CO2 levels that are no where near as high as they were when the dinosaurs were around.
The environmental catastrophism that gets ever more apocalyptic in an effort to scare people into doing all the things environmentalists want us to do is a disservice to society, an immoral politicization of science and reaching the fevered pitch of a religion (do this because Mother Earth says, you evil unbelievers should be burned at the stake!")
Crichton: Environmentalism is a religion
http://principia-scientific.org/crichto … -religion/I agree, the earth will survive. We humans on the other hand are a bit more delicate.
Are we? We live on the Antarctica, we live on the driest mountains in the world, we live at the bottom of the ocean. We occupy every environment on earth and even in outer space. Are we truly so fragile, then?
More fragile than the earth. It was here long before us, and most likely will be here long after we are gone.
No doubt of that - I'm not as strong or long lived as a rock. Or even a mountain range. Plus, the earth will one day survive being engulfed by the sun, but I don't think I could manage that trick.
I think our civilization is. If the worst theories come to pass, then there will be massive disruption to our cities and our infrastructure. Today's human beings don't know how to survive without mobile phones, cars, shops etc. If supply chains fall apart, I think people will quite possibly destroy each other
I saw a photo on Facebook on Black Friday showing a crowd trampling people underfoot, with the slogan "if this is what people will do for a TV, what will they do when we run out of food?"
I'm in my sixties. If there had been an apocalypse in my twenties, I'd have known how to grow vegetables, but I have only the most rudimentary idea of how to make or mend my own clothes. I can knit but I wouldn't know how to make yarn. I have no idea how to preserve meat and other foods without a fridge or freezer. Many women younger than me, don't even know how to take up a hem or sew on a button, and wouldn't have a clue about gardening. In fact recently, I discovered they don't even know how to light a fire! They won't know how to survive a catastrophe by going back to the land, because they won't know how - so their only choice will be looting and thieving.
If we were changing our lifestyles to adapt to what will be the new reality, then I'd be more optimistic. But we're all just barrelling along at the same frantic pace.I'm not a survivalist, either. But some people are - enough that I don't see the species dying off from climate change. And there are actually quite a few that could become a survivalist if their life depended on it.
I'm sure there are. If you're fine with the idea that the bulk of humanity will tear each other to shreds or die of starvation, leaving small pockets of people living a subsistence existence, then I guess I can understand why you don't think action is necessary.
Now, now - don't put words in my mouth. I think we need to limit our output of CO2 and other warming agents - but I also think that we will fail to do so.
So global warming will continue up to the point that natural limits are imposed. And humanity will find itself in hot water (pun intended) and many will die. The only bright spot is that the species will live on.
The question could perhaps be, will Trump survive 4 years of presidency, my money would be on a stroke.
I don't know if earth will survive a four year Tump presidency or not.
I do not that EARTH WILL NOT SURVIVE CONSUMERISM.
While most attention is on getting rid of fossil fuels, that's only one small part of it. It's what's behind the fossil fuel agenda that needs some rethinking.
1. The idea that a system of unequal exchange will allow everybody to flourish encourages inequality. This means profit makers do whatever it takes to make money at the expense of both the environment and the rest of humanity.
2. Advertising is a form of soft brainwashing introduced by Edward Bernays (nephew of Freud) at the end of the Great Depression. Hitler was the first to use it successfully. We have been in a state of over-production since the 60s - that's why the landfills are so full.
3. The desire for acceptance by others is what makes us human. Status - much more admiration - is what drives so many people to do whatever it takes to accrue more and more, reagardless of who and what it destroys in the process. Those billionaries are NOT greedy. They are desperate to be accepted by their peers as 'one of the boys'. So, if one billionaire overtakes the other, then the one that is overtaken has to work harder to get more money to keep up in the status field.
While it is a disaster that Trump has become president of the deadliest financial empire in history, it is also understandable. 25% of Americans have a life long mental illness and 25% have episodic incidences (Please google that.) America also has a particular culture that results in excessive competitiveness plus a system of hedonism (pursuit of happiness) that results in overwhelming stress and a desperate need to alleviate that stress through imbibing too many chemicals, food, etc. Mentally unstable people elect mentally unstable people because they identify with them. Worse, they don't see it.
Cause and effect.
Climate denial is an effect of the need to make money. Despite 97% of climate scientists (the other scientists don't count because they are not qualified in this particular science) indicating that climate change is a result of pollution caused by people, there is big money behind the denial. That's because most billionaires will lose both STATUS AND MONEY.
Solutions? I don't have any.
On the day that the DNC nominated Clinton as opposed to Bernie, I had my say. "Trump will be the next president of the USA."
I am a global progressive following international politics who was convnced of climate change in 1970 when I read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring."Some environmentalists still take the line that we should consume less but there are so many problems with that approach that the hard-headed abandoned that line long ago.
For one thing, humans are very bad at self denial. For another, millions are still malnourished.
And of course capitalism requires GDP growth or it falls into chaos.
Given that there no tested and attractive political alternatives to capitalism, the practical reality is that you need to work with the devil you know.
So, most environmentalists these days advocate a move to a high consumption but sustainable economic system based on what we know.
It's all a high wire act and the stakes are very high if you care about an advanced, knowledge-based civilization.
The addiction based, having rather than being. cultures we support now might be fixable if we are still around to fix them.I guess human beings have a choice between feeling bad and being dead. Take your pick. However, it's not human beings - it's Americans.
After Leonardo Di Caprio filmed Blood Diamonds in Africa, he said he would never feel sorry for an American again. He had witnessed African children happier than he had ever seen other children, and they had absolutely nothing and lived in the worst circumstances possible.
As I pointed out, Americans have been socialized in a particular way a) want constant affirmation and flattery 2) want constant things 3) feel entitled to a life of happiness.
https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blog … ovely.html
So, um, no, this has nothing to do with self-denial.
"For another capitalism requires GDP growth or it falls into chaos. There are no tested and attractive political alternatives to capitalism."
Capitalism is deadly, and it has to go. As for there being no testesd and attractive political alternatives, no, there aren't. That's why we have to create one. Capitalism is only 250 years old. Most people confuse capitalism with trade. Trade is as old as human beings. Capitalism was preceded by Mercantilism and before that feudalism. There is no reason why we cannot invent/create another system of production and distribution. All that an economy is, is a system of production and distribution. We simply have to find a way where we manufacture the required goods and distribute them to the people who need them. That is the basis of all economic systems. There is no need for some to make a profit from them at the expense of others.
"So, most environmentalists these days advocate a move to a high consumption but sustainable economic system based on the economic systems we know."
Sorry, that's not true. I read for approximately 5 hours each day, plus a book a day, and I have read extensively about this, and I have never seen that.
http://grist.org/living/consumerism-pla … te-change/
http://www.globalissues.org/article/238 … onsumerismWell, if you can foment a revolution, keep people fed and find the resources to fund the development of a sustainable economy, in the time scale available, please go ahead.
I will keep with the priorities: hanging on to a culture of truthfulness, promoting some kind of respect for human beings simply because they happen to be human, preserving as many democratic virtues as is practical, and dealing with sustainability issues. Those all happen to be linked, of course.And all those values are fine. But they won't stop global warming.
"We simply have to find a way where we manufacture the required goods and distribute them to the people who need them. That is the basis of all economic systems. There is no need for some to make a profit from them at the expense of others."
What you are looking for is people that will work hard and produce much...then give it all away to someone else. Good luck with that; most people like to be compensated in some way for their efforts, and calling it "profits at the expense of others" in an effort to degrade that compensation into something evil, isn't going to change the desire for it.Poor reasoning.
Believe it or not, if you took the time to google alternative economies, there are many ideas out there.
The fear by some that they would do all this hard work and then other people would actually get the benefits of this hard work while they get less than they deserve/want is somewhat unevolved.Your concept denies the worker the fruits of their labor. "There is no need for some to make a profit from them at the expense of others." pretty much says it all; the most that can be recouped is the cost of materials, and personal labor is lost forever. That denied profit, after all, is what is used to purchase groceries for tomorrow, is at someone else's expense and is utterly necessary if trade of any kind is to be successful.
No, my concept does NOT deny the worker the fruit of his labour. It's capitalists and profit-mongerers that underpay workers in order to over pay themselves.
What you are defending is the right of business owners to not only take a massive salary, massive holiday pay, but to have massive 'profit' as well.
The idea that business men and entrepreneurs are these brilliant people who are responsible for 'jobs,' and that somehow people who do these jobs are inferior to people who open up business is pure propagada. There is nothing superior about people who own businesses.
I know that because I grew up with highly successful busines owners, was educated at private schools with the elite and spent a decade in my 20s mixing with them.For nearly 10 years, I only dated CEOs. I did not find them particularly intelligent. In fact, I find most of them to be crooks.
"That denied profit, after all, is what is used to purchase groceries for tomorrow, is at someone else's expense and is utterly necessary if trade of any kind is to be successful."
You clearly (like most small business owners in America), do not have the foggiest what profit actually is, so let me explain it to you. I did the business courses and the accounting courses plus I grew up in my late father's very successful business, so I do know.
The business has a gross income of $500,000 per yeear.
Goods cost $50,000 per year.
Salaries and wages cost $100,000 per year.for 9 people. (That's basic wage)
Rent and other expenditure including marketing cost $100,000 per year
Putting aside 10% for extraneous needs $50,000
Owner draws a salary of $120,000
Total outgoings $420,000. The owner, apart from drawing a salary of $10,000 per month totalling $120,000 for the year, then gets the extra profits of $80,000.
Profit is NOT used to buy groceries. Profit is used to buy gold plated yachts. You seem to be under the impression that the difference between income and outgoings is profit. NO, It's not.
If you are running a small business and you're not making enough to draw a salary, that means the business isn't feasible. It also means that there is no profit.You seem to be posting with the expectation that you can make up your own definitions for words and everyone automatically knows what you mean.
The idea of profit for instance, being only such sums as are excessive in your opinion. "Profit" has no such meaning; it is the difference between expenses and sales. The size of the number does not determine whether it is "profit" or not: the owners of the Mom and Pop corner store that have a profit of only $10,000/year and are using it to buy groceries are showing a profit whether you think it is too small or not.
prof·it
[ˈpräfət]
NOUN
a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something:
Nowhere in that dictionary definition is there anything about Tess Schlesinger being the determining factor in what minimum values determine "profit". In fact, there IS no minimum at all!
So when you say that "There is no need for some to make a profit from them at the expense of others." it includes the profit of a nickel. Not just such sums as you might find objectionable.
And when you decide that I am "defending" profits you find objectionable because I say that profits are necessary in order to eat, well, you are making claims without having the smallest smidgeon of evidence to support them.Not even going to bother to read further first line.
Yes, it is certainly the difference between expenses and sales. However, expenses INCLUDE the salary of the owners and the salary of everybody else.
Note that salaries are deducted BEFORE profit is arrived at.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/acc … profit.asp
Profit is paid out annually not monthly.
You're using the term 'profit' as a layman who has never done an accounting course and doesn't understand the technical meaning of what profit is. Read an accounting book. I've done numerous accounting courses in my life.
SALARIES ARE PART OF EXPENDITURE, INCLUDING THE SALARY OF THE OWNER AND CEO. PROFIT IS WHAT IS LEFT AT YEAR END AND CAN BE DIVIDED BETWEEN SHAREHOLDERS.You should have kept reading: the third paragraph is a dictionary definition of what "profit" is. And it is far removed from your own made up definition.
And when that owner does not take a salary? When they exist only on the profits of the business (difference between expense and sales)? Does it suddenly become something else?
Sorry, profits of large corporations are distributed quarterly, and small companies give it out monthly if not more often.
So you might want to take some accounting courses yourself. I repeat: you don't get to define what profit is, what figure is minimum or anything else about it. At best you get to exclaim loudly that what you consider to be excessive profits are excessive profits in your opinion. And that's about all.
You certainly don't get to define what my opinion is or what I might be defending.I'm not interested in your opinion or anyone else's opinion. I am only interested in facts. That is why you are on the losing end of this argument.
Profits are NOT necessary in order to run a business successfully. It merely needs to be sustainable.
It is the lust for profits that is killing our environment. We have been in a state of over-production on this planet since the mid 60s.
It is all related.
Because we are in a state of over-production, advertising (brainwashing and indoctrination) is essental because there is no basic need for all these products.
In addition, the economic system (all economic systems are systems of production and distribution) is not particularly effective. It is highly wasteful (check the pollution just from waste) and it many products don't reach the people who need them because it's not profitable for companies to send them to outlying areas, or because people can't afford them.
It really depends what your value system is.
My value system sees all people as entitled to living a stressfree life with sufficient resources to live well. I think we have sufficient data and brains to be able to design a new system for humanity. The issue are those who are not particularly bright enough to think of this plus all those who have immense wealth and they don't want to lose it. They don't care about poverty on earth or the negative outcomes like massive pollution.
We're done, Wilderness. We don't agree and we will never agree.
Profit is necessary but we've gone way beyond profit to the concept of "continual growth".
I worked for a big, profitable insurance company once. It was originally a privately-owned company, which had 45 branches, every single one of them making a healthy profit year in, year out for over 50 years.
Then they decided to list on the stock exchange. That changed everything, because to please the share market, the company's profits had to rise significantly each year. So they made a rule. Every branch had to increase its profits by 10% each year, or it would be closed. The fact that they were already highly profitable was irrelevant, because the company had to find a way to continually increase profit for the whole company, every single year, in a market that wasn't growing.
So they built a big call centre, and closed down every branch that couldn't meet the targets. Of course they saved money on bricks and mortar, so it worked. But if they'd stayed the way they were, they still would've been returning a profit to the company's owners just like they had for all those years, and they would've been providing a better service to the community.
That's why management buyouts (where the managers buy a struggling company) often work and I wish they happened more often. Big corporate owners can't make enough money from the company to satisfy their mania for constant growth - but if it's a private company, management and staff can create enough profit to pay all their salaries comfortably.I agree that reasonable profit is somehow subverted by the stock market into...something else. I worked on building one store for a small corporation. The original owner, still majority stockholder, was on site and demanding it be finished and open for business by the end of the month - something to do with the stock market and stock prices. When it wasn't going to happen that man nearly had a heart attack, following the building inspector outside like a little puppy and literally begging him to allow the store to open. Never did understand what was so all fired important about today instead of tomorrow, but it certainly wasn't about profit.
Maybe one of the problems is that stock prices are such huge multiples of dividends paid and stock owners want a more reasonable return on their investment? I don't know.The stock market is basically a gambling den! The gamblers (stockholders) have rules which they use to decide which shares to invest in and which to dump. One of the rules is that if a company's profits don't increase every year, they are a bad risk and you need to sell. It doesn't matter if the company makes a consistent profit, that's not enough, it has to grow and grow and grow from one year to the next.
There is really no justification for that on a business level, but it's become almost a religious creed!
That one "rule" is responsible for an awful lot of misery because the big public companies will close down subsidiaries that are perfectly profitable, just because they don't have the capacity to continue growing. I've seen it at several companies now.75% of the stock market is to do with speculation and 25% to do with investment (capital to ensure the expansion of a business).
I believe the stockmarket to be a negative concept as crowdfunding is more effective in funding a business. I think shareholders need to be eliminated.Release the hounds, lol.
There are certainly multiple evils associated with capitalism, but in the West the powerful are more or less bound by the law and they are less of a menace to individual health than the overlords of an all powerful state.
Of course, Overlord Trump could change all that accountability stuff.
Marisa, I disagree.
Profit is not necessary.
There are three states in business:
1. Loss.
2. Sustainability.
3. Profit.
Business can be sustainable without having either a profit or a loss. One of the reasons that Mondragon in Spain has done so well is that they don't make a profit. The area of Basque in Spain is the most prosperous area in the entire European Union for exactly that reason. The company focuses on being sustainable. It pays everybody a good salary. It introduced the concept that the CEO was never to be paid more than 5 times what the lowest worker was paid.
Whent the company is sustainable, it brings in sufficient money from its sales to be able to pay all its expensies, put away for capital expenses and emergencies in the future, plus pay all its workers wages and salaries, but it doesn't have excess beyond that.
Loss is when the company brings in less money that it expends. Profit is when the company has money left over after all its expenses. Those expenses include salaries.
A business has income and outgoings. Profit is certainly the difference between income and outgoings, but so long as the outgoings are not greater than than the income, the business is sustainable.
Can you please explain to me why you think that a profit is necesssary. Remember that owner is already receiving his salary.I understand what you are saying - it comes down to definition.
If by profit, you mean surplus that is available AFTER all parties have been paid a salary or other benefit - then yes, I agree that profit is not necessary.
However, in most private businesses, the owner is not salaried. He or she lives on the profits from the business. Therefore there must be a profit, otherwise the owner gets no benefit from operating the business.It appears that most private businesses in America are sustainable and not profit making. it's not a matter of how I define profit. I am using the correct definition of profit. Go on any accounting course and it will be explained to you.
Small business owners in America are obviously drawing a salary, but this is not profit. They are using the income left over after business expenses to live on. They are drawing it as a salary. That is not profit.
When I ran my own small business in the UK, I was drawing a salary but not making any profit.
My parents had quite a large business. They both drew substantial salaries plus had profit over at the end of the year.
I want to stress that I am not wrong in my understanding of what profit is. Clearly most poeple do not understand the difference in meaning between the terms income, profit, and salary/wages.Without profit there is no investment in new projects and countries stagnate or go backwards.
If the rich are held accountable and kept to an investment role they are a huge benefit, much more effective than merely state-directed investment. If the rich are allowed to grab more and more power (as has been the case in the last thirty years) they are a menace to everyone.I am unaware that I said that there should be no new investment.
Saying that the method of investment is not optimal does not mean that one shouldn't invest in new technology. Also, saying that one the stockmarket has outlived its usefulness as a tool of investment doesn't mean that the only other means of investment is the government.. We do not only have two alternatives of everything. There are many, many ways of doing things.
Crowdsourcing has raised millions for many a start up. The advantage of crowdsourcing is that there are no shareholders to maintain.
You said "Without profit there is no investment in new projects and countries stagnate or go backwards."
Again, you misunderstand profit. Mondragon, in Spain, invests in massive new technology. The company was set up never to make a profit - just to be sustainable. However, even in profit making companies, new investment is taken out of INCOME. Investment IS NOT TAKEN OUT OF PROFIT. Profit is what is left when all expenses including insurance, salaries, rent, wages, money set aside for new capital expenditure and investment, plus a thousand other things have been paid for. Profit is absolutely and utterly only what is left when everything else is catered for. Have you ever even looked at a balance sheet?
"If the rich are held accountable and kept to an investment role they are a huge benefit, much more effective than merely state-directed investment."
So, in your perspective, there are only two forms of leadership - the rich and the government. In your worldview, only the rich and the government can make investment.
Quite apart from the fact that it was government investment between the 30s and the 60s that led to the massive success of the last century, there are other ways of investment. Crowd investment (as per crowdsourcing) is also an option. The Internet was government funded (DARPA). The railway system in the British Empire was government funded. Roads and bridges and dams and virtually all infrastructure was government funded. Education was government funded. Most scientific research is government funded.
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/who_pays
I think you are under the impression that if something isn't black, it must be white, and visa versa. There are millions of shades of grey in addition to a multiplicity of colours.
You understand that by your reasoning that no company in the country owes any taxes, which are based on net profit (income - expenses)? Somehow I don't think the IRS will agree with your definition.
You also understand that Mondrangon can only put money aside for future expansion/emergencies...from their profits? That merely changing the name from "profits" to "savings" doesn't change the fact that Mondrangon has profited at least the amount being set aside?
And lastly, you do understand that owners, whether sole proprietorship or stockholder, are paid profits, not salaries? No simple stockholder gets a wage, but they DO share in the profits of the business.I'm done. Please go and do an accounting course and advanced business courses. I've done many - on three continents (intermittently) during the past 50 years. I also achieved straight As for all of them. You clearly do not undesrstand how business is set up.
Working owners are paid salaries. Owners that do not work are paid out of profits. If there are no profits, they are not paid.
The American tax service taxes people on both income and profit.
I'm curious as to the level of your education and what you were educated in.And I'm not particularly interested in the legal opinions of someone using European, South African or Australian law to tell us what American law is, so we're pretty much even.
You're right - profits are not necessary. Stockholders will replace any management team that can't give them a return on their investment, though.
While it is a fine ideal to provide whatever anyone needs (or thinks they need), it is often impossible without driving a company into bankruptcy. Ideals are often (usually) set without regard to practical reality, but in the end it will always bite those that pretend reality isn't waiting just around the corner. Like your value system that wishes to re-distribute all income to the point that there is insufficient for anyone at all. Reality and human reaction both say it can't happen.
Here; something that might be of interest to you, even though you already know all the answers:
"A sole proprietor is not entitled to tax deductions on salary paid to himself because these payments are not business expenses. When a sole proprietor pays himself a salary, he merely is transferring funds from a business account he owns to a personal account he owns. As far as the Internal Revenue Service is concerned, the amount of profit a sole proprietorship earns is the owner's earnings, whether those funds are held in a business or a personal account." Notice that a sole owner cannot pay himself a salary, no matter how you might wish to define profits and salaries. Not in the US, and not in a sole proprietorship form of ownership. Perhaps you need some courses in American accounting.
Here's some more: "The amount left over after subtracting a company's expenses from its sales receipts is the company's earnings, or profit. If a sole proprietor owns a shoe store that sells $100,000 worth of shoes, and her rent, inventory, payroll, advertising and other business expenses add up to $80,000, her company's profit is $20,000. When a sole proprietor fills out her personal tax return each year, she calculates her company's profit on the Schedule C section of her income tax return, which lists each category of allowable business expenses, and then she reports this amount as her income from the business." It is not salary and may not be deducted as such although all salaries are deductible as expenses.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/sole-pro … 11191.html
4 year college degree in Chemistry, 4 year trade school. Non-formal education to learn to do the accounting for 10 years of my wife's business - good enough to pass IRS scrutiny. I've filled out many a "schedule C - business profit and loss" for small business. How about you - have you ever done business P&L statements in the US? You are very misinformed on ownership and salaries as well as what constitutes a business profit - I assume none of your experience was in a US business.And your name is? Please give me your linked in profile so that I can check the validity of your claims.
If you're really that interested, it's on my profile here. But you're going to check the validity of my claims by going to LinkedIn and seeing what I say there?
You never answered; what was your own education and have you done accounting work in the US?
I appreciate that you have studied accounting and therefore you are using the words with precision as you see it. I can't comment on that.
I think you need to make allowances for how ordinary people understand these words.
To a lay person, a salary is a fixed amount which is contracted in advance and paid regularly. I have never met a small business owner who pays themselves THAT kind of salary. They draw what the business can afford from its profits, i.e. the money left over after it has paid salaries to employees and other expenses. Of course, once the owner takes that money, it no longer shows on the books as a profit - but if there isn't surplus money at that point, the owner gets nothing.
So let's stop calling it profit or salary, and substitute "surplus money" in the previous conversations, then we can have no misunderstandings. If a business does not make enough SURPLUS MONEY to pay its owners, no one would have any incentive to own a business. Owning a business is more stressful and less certain, so that surplus money needs to be worth more than an average salary, to compensate the owner for their risk. Owners have good years and bad years, too, so that needs to be taken into account.
You and I, and I think Wilderness as well, feel that the amount of surplus being demanded of businesses today is excessive. How to reign in that excess is easy to talk about in theory, but the fat cats are highly unlikely to ever listen.I do mot know of any people who do not draw a salary from their own bisinesses. Both my parents did and both my sister and in laws did. Alsi in the days I did bookking (in the 70s and 80s intermittently, every owner drew a salary.
I would be happy to call it income because that is what it is.
That said, business only needs to be sustainable. It doesn't need toake a profit.Somewhere along the line, you're ignoring the needs of the owners for an income. Not small business owners: stockholders of a major corporation who all expect and demand a return for their investment. You're forgetting monies that might be spent on expansion, on building new stores or factories, but must come from profits of the company. Even if a bank loan is used for initial investment, that loan must still be paid back...paid back from profits (call it surplus income if it makes you feel better) that could have gone to employees or owners were it not for the loan. You're ignoring the difference between net profit and gross profit, with nothing earmarked for taxes that are paid only on profits.
You seem to be lumping all these things into "expenses" and therefore there is zero profit, while at the same time saying that profits are excessive today.
"I think Wilderness as well, feel that the amount of surplus being demanded of businesses today is excessive."
I think that must be approached with good bit of caution today. There is no doubt that there are companies out there that are profiting far beyond anything reasonable. But there is no doubt, either, that it is both easy and common to look at giant profits from giant corporations and think that because the number is large it is abusive. Never stopping to consider that with a huge corporation comes huge number of owners, all that need a share of the profits.
So I think a percentage, an ROI number perhaps, is more precise in discussing excessive profits. While a $30 billion profit may sound terrible high, if it is only 2% of income then suddenly it isn't so awful. If that $30B is to be spread among 3B owners, each with a $100 investment, suddenly it isn't so bad. And if loan principle, expansion needs, taxes, etc. are deducted before it is distributed it becomes even more reasonable.
So I think we often vilify our mega- corporations with their mega profits without ever stopping to think that those profits per employee or per owner are not out of line at all.
Marisa, the income in small business must exceed outgoings, sufficient to pay a salary. The salary may vary from month to month, but it is still salary. Technically, it is not a profit. The fact that the kind of people who run these small businesses have never had an education in accounting doesn't mean that it's profit.
You might also like to read this article. It appeared today in the Guardian. I am not alone in my views. Most independent thinkers see this.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr … human-life"Technically, it is not a profit."
Except that the US IRS says an owner cannot draw a salary from a wholly owned business. It is income, but it is not a salary, cannot be used as a business deduction and is considered income from the business. Profit, then.Income would be the word I used. I filled in self-employed forms for about 6 years - nothing sophisticated. The word used was 'income.'
That said, I take your point that the IRS doesn't permit business owners to draw a salary. My parents both drew salaries as did my sister and her husband.
However, they weren't one man concerns.
In the context that I am speaking about, I am referring to big business which is highly destructive in manufacturing practice.If it's terminology that's getting in the way of communication (and I suspect it is), line 31 of schedule C ("Profit or Loss From Business") says "Net profit or (loss). Subtract line 30 from line 29."
That figure is then entered on form 1040, line 12, which says "Business income or loss" and Form SE, line 2, which says "Net profit or (loss) from Schedule C, line 31.
While there is some variation, most people would consider business "income" to be "profits". Nowhere on the forms is an owners salary mentioned at all; although there is space for "wages" on Schedule C it is not for any "salary" paid to an owner. Only wages paid to employees.I have been glancing at this conversation, I thought I might jump in since I spent my DoD career worrying about contractor "excess profits". My after-retirement life has been co-owner and CFO of a small business, about $5 M in sales.
As to owners drawing income, I think you guys are arguing about semantics.
Sole Proprietorships, Partnerships, and LLC's organized as partnerships. - There are no owner's "wages" per se. For bookkeeping purposes, an owner can take a "guaranteed salary". Bottom line, when personal taxes are figured. The net profit (Sales less expenses less the guarantee) is added to the guarantee and that is the owner's reportable income. (Wages to employees are normal expenses.)
LLC's organized as a S Corp and S Corps, owners (who act as officers) are employees and receive a W-2 which is normal income. Profit is figured the normal way and passed to the owners (whether they receive any actual cash or not) via a K-1 and declared as business income.
C Corps pay their own taxes, if any shareholders are employees, they get W-2s. If dividends are paid to shareholders, that is reported on personal income taxes (but not necessarily taxed).
None of the above, of course, has anything to do with so-called excess profits. Excess profits (or salary) is all subjective and relative (as Wilderness suggested). Excess profits are hard to tallk about, but excess salaries are not.
A salary is excess if it is more than the "rent" of the person receiving it to the company, meaning excess wages are when an executive is paid more than he or she is worth or has contributed to the profits of the corporation."A salary is excess if it is more than the "rent" of the person receiving it to the company, meaning excess wages are when an executive is paid more than he or she is worth or has contributed to the profits of the corporation."
And here I would agree, with the caveat that "worth" is not so easily determined when market value is ignored. It is also difficult to figure out just how much has been contributed to profits (by a CEO, for example) - if company profits are 5B, does that mean that with a different (lousy) CEO they would have been negative, and thus the CEO contributed all 5B? Seems like that would be more than a little difficult to show!
And yes, after going round and round it does seem that 90% of it is about semantics.No doubt there have been a few extraordinary CEO's. But it seems to me it would be more beneficial to the company to pay a reasonable salary, funnel all that extra money back into the company to grow, and reap their reward from higher stock prices and dividends.
But more common are the excessive salaries that executives pay themselves (stockholders have little control over this) which do more harm than good to the bottom line, let alone to those who do the actual work.There are not enough individual shareholders for 'shareholder democracy' to be meaningful.
There also seems to some kind of unwritten rule among the wealthy that they do not complain about each others profiteering, even when it damages businesses.
Excessive markups and overcharging in key areas of the economy like health and education are a drag on any economy but they go unremarked.
There has only ever been one answer to executives and investors helping themselves to more than they deserve: trade unions.
US Bureau of Labor StatisticsUnfortunately, unions have proven rather thoroughly over the years that they are no more concerned with business or jobs than management is, and they are quite willing to run a business into the ground to get a few dollars more for their members. And just like management they have proven that they don't care one whit for anyone outside their group; indeed without lower paid, non-union workers, they could not exist.
It IS hopeful, though, that in the last few years unions and management have at last began to actually work together for the betterment of all. Perhaps both sides have learned something, hard though it was.You don't have to like unions anymore than you have to like dentists but for unskilled and semi skilled workers, unions are the only hope of ever getting a decent wage.
Anyway, the Republican Party is now a populist working class party according to Trump's economic adviser, Stephen Moore. Reagan's GOP is no more.
Apparently Republican lawmakers were rather shocked to be told this, lol.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/30 … gans-party
So we will get to see how old-fashioned paternalism works out.
My own feeling is that expecting a cabinet of billionaires to take the poor and downtrodden by the hand and lead then to the promised land is, well... Lets say unrealistic.
But, Esoteric, inherent in this post is that YOU know what is "reasonable" and what is not. Without knowing the specific companies in question, without going over their business at all, let alone with a fine tooth comb, without ever researching what CEO's in that business are paid you still somehow know what would be reasonable.
Then somehow you also know that other people could do the job with higher profit margins. That the company would be better off, pay better wages and compensate stockholders better than a high priced CEO.
And then finally it is apparent that you don't think CEO's do any work; that they just take a salary without contributing anything at all.
I'd have the question all of those assumptions. I don't think you know what a reasonable salary is for anybody except yourself - I think you just don't like big numbers. I don't think you know that replacement, lower cost, CEO's will or even could produce higher profits. And I don't think you have much of an idea what a CEO of a major corporation does.
What part of expenses is money paid to owners? You know, those people that supplied capital and actual have ownership of the company? (who owns Mondrangon and what do they get from owning it?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
It helps to google and to read widely. It was set up by a Roman Catholic Priest and 3 college students 70 years ago.
HOAX:
Global warming is caused by weather-modification programs and pollution. Therefore, it IS man-made.
2016 Nov 18 from Nikeros
To Ed Griffin:
You don’t believe that Fukushima, nuclear testing, extensive military operations involving gawd knows what, fracking, aerosol spraying of aluminum, barium, strontium and gawd knows what else worldwide and on and on has no effect on the earths climate? Ok fine. I will say no more.
REPLY BY GEG:
The anthropomorphic mantra of most global-warming proponents is that the “man-made” cause is CO2. Period. They claim that CO2 is the byproduct of industry and consumption and that it produces a “carbon footprint”. Therefore, they seek expanded government power and funding to reduce CO2. That’s the basis for all the carbon-tax and regulatory nonsense. None of these people are talking about taxing or regulating “Fukushima, nuclear testing, extensive military operations, fracking, aerosol spraying of aluminum, barium, strontium and gawd knows what else”. They talk only about CO2, the greenhouse gas that does NOT cause global warming. The global-warming hoaxers are very good at lumping together pollution (which is real) and man-made global warming (which is not). If we are not thinking analytically, we can be led to think they are one-in-the-same. We are not supposed to notice the trick.
* https://www.freedomforceinternational.o … l-warming/There has been a major scientific effort dedicated to understanding by so many people in the US reject the mass of evidence surrounding man made climate change. Scientists need studies to understand even simple stuff, lol.
There are a few standout conclusions:
...some people believe that private enterprise can solve every problem and should never be interfered with
...some people find the thought that have somehow caused harm (even inadvertently) too hard to bear
...some people do not understand even the basic science (which is pretty simple)
...some people will lose money from a change to a sustainable economy
...some people really are indifferent to the future
None of these things, as human as they are, have anything to do with the facts.It's fake that's why. Some of us here in America aren't as stupid as other people in the world. Our reasons for not believing in global warming include: 1. There is no global warming. 2. There is no global warming. 3. Even if there were global warming we don't care. 4. There is no global warming. 5. I like warmer weather. 6. I've never met a polar bear but if I had I would have wished he were dead rather than make a meal out of me. 7. There is no global warming. 8. If it were warmer the world would be better off. 9. There is no global warming. 10. It's been proven by scientist that we are actually entering an ice age. and finally 11. There is no global warming
Okay now that you have the proof right in front of you it's time to admit there is no global warming and even if there were no body cares at all not one bit!Yeah, that sums up the denier position, lol.
The only problem is that you make denial sound like something negative. If I were to call your mother a pig and you denied that to be fact than you would be a denier. And, we would all laugh at you like you were some kind of fool.
I think denial is negative more often than not - especially if used in the context of "in denial", which is how environmentalists see the deniers.
If you're "in denial" about having cancer, you'll still die.
<Earth cannot recover if, as almost all climate scientists agree, (Not) the atmosphere passes the point-of-no-return.> Impossible.
<That point is near the end of this century if nothing is done.> proof?
<The Paris Climate Accords were designed to stop from getting to that point, estimate to be around 2042 at the current rate of growth in CO2 in the air.> Who made the participants of the PCA the boss(es) of the world?
<President-elect's rhetoric and his cabinet picks all but guarantee America will NOT abide by those accords.> and how do you know this?
I just read (yesterday, 12/9/16) in a fifth grade science textbook at a public school that scientists agree that global warning is probably NOT man made.
Paris Climate Accords:
"The Paris Agreement, reached in December among 195 countries, was never imagined as the silver bullet for global warming. Rather, the goal of the agreement was to stave off the most devastating effects of climate change by limiting the increase in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius, and to just 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible.
But even that may prove problematic. If every country fully accomplishes its initial pledges, the increase would be closer to 2.7 degrees, according Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, which is based in Paris. (In the next several years, countries are supposed to set additional goals for deeper reductions.)
Nor have all the countries actually ratified the Paris Agreement. Ségolène Royal, France’s minister for ecology, sustainable development and energy, announced at the conference on Thursday morning that 94 countries that had signed the agreement had ratified it, representing 66 percent of global emissions.
From a market perspective, many companies do not yet have a strong financial imperative to make sweeping changes to address climate change."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/busin … .html?_r=0Furthermore:
"Part of it is
that climate change has been framed as a question of belief ...
... climate activists’ insistence on individual sacrifice drives conservatives crazy. “When you say you’re shivering or sweating in the dark to save the planet, conservatives don’t cotton to it,” Mr. Inglis said. More effective, he said, would be to argue that addressing climate change would result in “greater independence, more mobility and more freedom.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/scien … l-pew.html"If half the cars sold worldwide were electric starting next year and continuing for the next 20 years, worldwide oil demand would keep rising, Mr. Birol said at the conference, citing an analysis that his agency plans to release on Nov. 16.
The problem is that trucks, aviation and petrochemical production are now the main drivers of the growth in oil consumption.
Patrick Pouyanné, the chairman and chief executive of Total, the French oil and gas giant, predicted that electric cars would not represent more than a third of sales until 2025 and would not represent a third of all cars on the road until a decade later. That will be too late and too little to make a big difference in global oil consumption, he said.
Even so, automakers view electric as crucial to their future profits.
They are convinced that regulators will keep loading more rules onto gasoline- and diesel-powered cars.“If you don’t have 20 percent-plus of your sales in electric cars, you’re not going to make it,” said Carlos Ghosn, the chairman and chief executive of Nissan and Renault and the chairman of Mitsubishi Motors.
There are other forces at work, too. A common refrain among many executives these days is that they are feeling more social pressure to address global warming — sometimes from within their own families.
Mr. van Beurden of Shell (SHELL!) said that a year ago he found his 9-year-old daughter inconsolable, and initially thought it was because he and his wife were leaving the children for a short excursion. But when he spoke to his daughter, he learned that her teacher had talked about dire risks from climate change, blamed oil companies for causing it and suggested that the answer was giving money to Greenpeace.
He said he reassured his daughter that global warming would be addressed and that he would help in the struggle. “She said, ‘Of course, I trust you,’” Mr. van Beurden said, adding, “and in that sense she is different from the rest of society.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/busin … .html?_r=0"They are convinced that regulators will keep loading more rules onto gasoline- and diesel-powered cars."
Happened in Idaho - our good legislator found reason to increase registration fees by $100 per year for plug in hybrids and electrics. The "logic" is that these (so far) tiny cars don't pay their way in gas taxes...while ignoring that the initial cost is enough higher for increased sales tax to more than make up for the loss of gas taxes and their size means almost no damage to roadways. As these cars will never "pay for" themselves with gasoline savings anyway, it makes a good argument to go back to the gas guzzling, polluting monsters that are still popular.
Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis
* http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor … 7968171b79The author of that article is James Taylor from the conservative/libertarian think tank, The Heartland Institute.
Take a look at its wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute
A couple of quotes:
[A leak showed that] Donors to the Heartland Institute disclosed included the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Microsoft, General Motors, Comcast, Reynolds American, Philip Morris, Amgen, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Eli Lilly, liquor companies, and an anonymous donor who had given $13 million over the past five years.
'The Heartland Institute no longer discloses its funding sources'
Essentially, The Heartland Institute takes a lot of money from unpopular businesses and tries to defend/promote them. A profitable line of work to be in, I imagine.
That gives you an idea of where the writer is coming from, but what about the article he bases his piece on?
The article is based largely on a paper published in a Sage Journal. Sage is a peculiar private publishing company run by an American business woman who is happy to give ultra conservatives a platform. It is not especially reputable.
Dig into the article itself and you get this key quote:
... we reconstruct the frames of one group of experts who have not received much attention in previous research and yet play a central role in understanding industry responses – professional experts in petroleum and related industries
In other words, the paper asked engineers and scientists in the oil industry what they thought about climate change.
The results are predicable.You have to do some critical thinking, not just blindly post stories because they agree with what you think.
The survey you are citing is a survey of industry engineers and geoscientists who work in the oil and gas industry (members of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists) in Alberta (Canada's most oil-rich province).
It says that people employed by oil and gas companies (in Alberta) are more likely to be skeptical of mainstream climate science. That's all.
In contrast, this study (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.10 … 1/4/048002) demonstrates that 97% of the world's published climate scientists believe that humans are causing recent global warming.
Let me state that again for you so it's clear:
97% of the world's published climate scientists believe that humans are causing recent global warming.
Climate change is a scientific fact, and there is a consensus among the world's published climate scientists that it is being caused by human activity.When nearly half of the largest oil producer's city in Alberta, burns down. Then the Canada Government reopens this black death energy along with it's service in NATO in connection with US Fracking and pipeline system. Then you know who the Government is working, it is not for the people and alternative green energy.
Let me ask you this. We know global warming is a fact. We also know that at some period in human history the poles have been ice free. We know humans couldn't have contributed to that global warming (or we assume they couldn't) and we don't have a clear handle on what causes global changes of this type but we are here so we know the last time didn't annihilate the human race. Now, I'm a better safe than sorry person when it comes to questions on a global scale but I think being alarmist about it (like the premise of this thread) is pointless. What do you think?
I'm not a climate scientist. I have neither the time, resources, or expertise to personally verify that climate change is caused by human activity. So I have to look at the overall picture:
97% of the world's published climate scientists believe humans are causing recent global warming, and have no reason to lie about it. The gas and oil industry says climate change is nothing to worry about, but has every reason to lie about it because burning fossil fuels is one of the activities that is causing the problem, and that's the product they sell.
So for me it's a no brainer. It's like when the scientific community warned that smoking can cause cancer, but the tobacco industry denied it, and even used doctors to advertise cigarettes. That's what the oil and gas industry is doing now.
Being alarmist about it is a personal choice. Some people accept that we are causing climate change, but don't care because they likely won't see the worst effects in their lifetime. That's a valid (albeit selfish) choice. But for me, denying the role human activity is playing in climate change is even worst than not caring or being alarmist. It's just unreasonable. It's willful ignorance. In my opinion that is worse than selfishness or alarmism.I agree that only a fool would think we aren't part of the problem. Unfortunately know one knows how much of the problem, if any suggested courses of action can reverse the problem or even if we have already crossed the tipping point, or not. And, yes, special interests are taking an active role in hopes that their agendas can be served by pushing the alarmist buttons.
We aren't going to change human nature in the course of a few decades. No one I know crying wolf has done anything to negate their personal carbon footprint. So, the way I see it is everyone is defeatist. They just want to blame everyone else.
Critical think would indicate that anyone claiming agreement by 97% of scientists is either lying or is defining "scientist" in such a way as to skew the results. You won't get that high a number even in agreement that species change through natural evolution, and that process is well documented, well observed and thoroughly understood.
I made no such claim. Read the post again. Even better, don't rely on me at all. Read the study for yourself. It's completely free.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.10 … 1/4/048002"Let me state that again for you so it's clear:
97% of the world's published climate scientists believe that humans are causing recent global warming. "
Perhaps you meant to type something else?You said: "97% of scientists"
I said: "97% of the world's published climate scientists"
Significant difference. Perhaps you misread it.No, I didn't misread it, I was just sloppy in what I said. I meant the same thing you did, and stand behind what I said: that you cannot get any group of scientists, published climate scientists or other, to agree to 97%. Not unless you're pretty careful about who and how you pick them.
And yet there is the study that demonstrates it, and there is the link. It's a meta-study (a study of studies) examining the level of consensus, so it's not that technical, i.e. you don't need to be a scientist to understand it.
This type of post-truth denial of facts is nothing less than the abandonment of reason.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.10 … 1/4/048002The operative words are "published" and "climate". That makes the determination countable there are only so many published (meaning peer-reviewed in the scientific world) articles by climate scientists. So the question is, of every 100 such articles published, are 97 in agreement with 1) global warming is real and not a hoax as many on the Right think and 2) the primary cause of the rapid increase is human activity.
Did you know that Darwin refused to publish for many months, afraid for his very life? Did you know that if a scientist today crosses the establishment any funding dries up very quickly? Did you know that quite a few scientists have been, and currently are, blacklisted for publishing conclusions not widely accepted; that they are immediately considered as far out weirdo's or worse?
Just an interesting line of though you might want to follow. Or just toss around when considering scientists and man made climate change that will end the world in a decade or two...Yes,, for the first, but no for all of the rest; that is your paranoia speaking.
I didn't know that Darwin was afraid to publish, but I knew about the rest. Thank you, for refreshing my memory. There is so much more to that. Endless!
Something interesting I just became aware of recently:
The White House October 13, 2016 For Immediate Release
Executive Order - Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of … her-events
Kinda' gotta' read between the lines. But, they have been preparing us, its just that people are focusing on the distractions (the science fiction), instead of the cause. Nibiru, Planet X. Wormwood is Biblical.
The meteorite strike over Russia in 2013. OMG!
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOySixrY7joDarwin refused to publish for 2 decades but that had nothing to do with special interest groups standing in his way. He knew how much controversy his work would cause and either he wanted to put off dealing with it, or make sure his case was absolutely watertight, depending on the accounts you prefer.
I have never heard any account suggesting that his life was ever threatened.
Anyway, Trump's team seems to be gearing up for a witch hunt at the Department of Energy. See how that plays out.I'm thinking the Church would have put out a contract on him. In any case, how Darwin was received has no bearing on the Right being made of of largely social Darwinists who hold no responsibility to the society they live in and that allows them to live in liberty..
LOL That "special interest" group you mention was the church. The church that was well known for severely punishing heretics that did not agree with church dogma.
Although Darwin repeatedly said he did not address the origin of life (just change of existing species) it was close enough to heresy to cause a great deal of concern. Galileo was another that paid quite a price for his heresy; house arrest for the last 9 years of his life.
Moral of the story: Don't mess with the powerful leaders and their beliefs! If you don't agree with them, keep your mouth firmly shut! We drifted from that position for a while, but government funding practices has re-instated it with a vengeance.While with Trump and the conservatives (the Church) taking power, we may end up like that again. In fact, we got a taste of that under Bush when politics trumped science for eight years. But, America has not been like that, in the main, since its founding since that violates the liberal idea.
It has only been evangelicals and fundamentalists that have tried, and sometimes succeeded, in suppressing free thought and replaced it with their own.Sorry - the "liberal idea" is not to accept what is, it is to accept whatever keeps it in power and makes it money. And, currently, that is global warming and the efforts to end it - anyone saying different is a pariah and to be ignored.
For it is most definitely NOT only fundamentalists that have tried to suppress science; it is anyone in power that doesn't like what is being said. Current methods of suppression are primarily financial and blacklisting from publications instead of house arrest or simple beheading, but that doesn't make them non-existent.It is hard to have a discussion with someone who makes up their own definitions of things like "liberal". Personally, I use the ones accept by academics, it is the only common reference.
Also, you don't know much about the history of Fundamentalism, do you. You know that Church you reference about suppressing Darwin's and Galilao's thoughts? That is a Fundamentalism. You know all those beheadings Daesh is doing because someone doesn't believe in their religious belief? That is Fundamentalism. You know about the Salem Witch Trials? That was Fundamentalism? Do I make my point? Fundamentalist are no different today.The difference today is that fundamentalists are not the government (in the US - they still are in other parts of the world). But that doesn't mean that your belief that government doesn't repress research and findings it doesn't like is true - the two are completely disconnected from each other although you would like to think they are not.
Our government not only represses scientific work it doesn't like, it actively promotes work it does like. Anything PC is great - research that is not is covered up and left to wither on the vine. Research, for instance, into differences in races or the sexes. Do it if you must, but do not publish (unless you wish to claim there is none). And if you do it and don't come up with the right answer any and all federal money will quietly vanish. Same for global warming, it's effects and solutions. Do whatever research you wish, but don't expect any funding unless your conclusions are that it is man made, that it will end the world in a reasonable short time (short enough to thoroughly scare everyone) and that there are solutions we can apply that will earn companies lots of money.
Do I make my point? That it is not religious fundamentalists controlling science today but the money of Big Business and their pet politicians. Galileo and Darwin fought the fundamentalists; truth seekers today fight the PC crowd and Big Business.David R. Legates received his Ph.D. in Climatology in 1988
Much grant money and fame is to be had for those who follow the environmental advocates’ game plan. Conversely, the penalty for not going along with the alarmist position is quite severe.
For example, one of the films shown at the University of Delaware’s film festival presents those who disagree with climate change extremism as mere pundits for hire who misrepresent themselves as a scientific authority. Young faculty members were thereby sent a pointed message: Adopt the advocacy position or you jeopardize your career.
Making matters worse, consider Senate Bill 3074, which was introduced into the U.S. Senate on June 16 of this year. It authorizes the establishment of a national climate change education program. Once again, the emphasis lies on teaching advocacy rather than teaching science and increasing scientific knowledge and comprehension.
* https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/ … e-science/
Great reading material on that site!
Climate change deniers are not the equivalent of Darwin and Galileo in this situation. That's quite laughable.
They are the equivalent of tobacco industry "scientists" in the 50s going against the scientific consensus to deny that tobacco is bad for your health.
Moral of the story: Don't do bad science that puts public health in jeopardy, just to line your own pockets.You're right - climate change deniers are rather laughable. It is happening before our eyes, just as evolution is and does, and to deny that is silly.
Denying that climate change will destroy the earth in a few decades, or that it is due almost solely to activities by humans, however, is a different kettle of fish. The first absolutely will NOT happen and the second is unproven at best.
Moral of the story: pay careful attention when scientists speak, for every word counts. You don't get to exclude half of what they say, like we do with politicians, and still understand perfectly what is meant (like we do with politicians).I don't know anyone who denies climate change. All we need to do is look around. Its been -40 below with the wind chill here today, last month I could go outside with a light jacket. We're suppose to warm up a bit next week. No snow for a few days now, but we have about 2' of snow so far. Its always changing...
I live in the southwest. Its. 7 degrees here right now. A couple of years ago a town in my state hit an all time record low. Ice ages are normal. Sometimes low solar activity causes mini ice ages. We are due for one. Now if the global temperature would raise to the point that climate change people were to spontaneously combust then maybe and only after that would I become alarmed although conflicted.
You obviously don't understand the difference between the temperature in your backyard and the combined average temperature over all global land and ocean surfaces.
Let me explain it:
Global means across the entire world
Land is the hard stuff
The ocean is softer
'Average' means taking many different temperatures across the hard and soft bits, adding them all up and dividing by the sample size.
The ten hottest years on record have all happened since 1998. 2016 is likely to be hotter than any other by the time it finishes.Maybe it will offset the next ice age. But if it did that it would be less likely for climate people to spontaneously combust. Either of these things are much more likely to happen than using your ability to maunder it to change or maunder it minimum to change.
Lol, I'm sure anything is possible in your personalized and cherry-picked universe. Most are stuck with the real world.
Let me tell you about the real world. Talking gets nothing done. Here they will actually chain themselves to a treehouse to save a freckled face opossum. Now if someone had that same resolve they could chain themselves to a smokestack. Maybe the tv or radio would pick up the story. Folks would hear about it on their car radios and pull over on I-5 and abandon their Lexus in solidarity. Liberals would think the guy chained was David Copperfield.
There we go, solar activity is where its at. Its amazing. The White House is getting nervous, the media is talking (hints), but people are more interested in the Kardashians. I think it was 2005 when NASA announced the discovery of a tenth planet. Another one more recently, coming closer.
The White House October 13, 2016 For Immediate Release
Executive Order - Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of … her-events
Let me rephrase: those who deny climate change is caused by humans, are the equivalent of those in the 50s who denied that tobacco can cause cancer.
As with tobacco, there is no ongoing scientific debate about this. Global warming is being caused, to a large degree, by human activity.
And the question is not: will climate change destroy the earth in a few decades? The question is, how much warming can be tolerated without human beings experiencing the most destructive effects?
The international scientific community says we can tolerate a rise of 2C above pre-industrial levels, which will still have effects, but less severe. A greater rise will likely result in the most destructive effects. Whether the temperature rises beyond 2C (or when) depends on what we do about it.
I trust the international scientific community more than you, and I want government policy to be based on facts established by them, not opinions expressed by you (and others who share your views).You're still not getting it. You just made the claim that humans are 100% responsible for climate change. That methane from cows is 0% of the reason. Not .000000001%, but zero. That there is zero warming gases coming from the ocean floor (although we see them and measure them).
But maybe that's OK, because the very next paragraph goes on to waffle it's way to human activity contributes an indeterminate amount. Somewhere between, say, 5% and 100% (doubt anyone would consider 4% to be "large"). Of course that huge variation possible kind of ruins any real use from the statement, but it is technically correct.
Can we define "most destructive effects" as something more destructive than the planet that crashed into the earth and became our moon? Would you consider that to be "most destructive"? If so, it becomes pretty obvious that nothing man has or can do will come close to being "most destructive". Did you mean "any measurable amount of harm" instead? As in the extinction of a single plant, fish or insect species with everything else going on it's merry way?
Here we see that "most destructive" once more. I will come right out and say, without waffling or exaggeration, without any unspecified insinuations, that a rise of 3C will NOT produce effects more destructive than that planet. I therefore assume that you mean "any effect at all that we can detect", but have a really hard time getting concerned about it, either.
So the bottom line here is that you want facts, but not facts that actually mean anything. Facts the politicians like, that mean nothing at all. That are open to "interpretation" to whatever the listener would like to hear. Where "large degree" is used, and can mean anything at all. Where "most destructive" is the same. And because of that, neither man's contribution nor expected harm is even estimated, let alone projected and any scientist on earth would be a fool to contradict it.My lack of time (and inclination) to spoon-feed you facts, doesn't mean those facts don't exist.
If you want more detail, go to the IPCC website(1). All their reports are available for free, and include information like:
"It is extremely likely [95 percent confidence] more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together."(2)
In other words, recent global warming is caused largely by human activity.
If you have scientific evidence that refutes that, or demonstrates errors in methodology, results etc, I suggest you inform the IPCC immediately and publish the response so their is a public record of your correspondence.
I'm not making any scientific claims. I am telling you what the international scientific community agrees are the facts on climate change.
Bottom line is, if you want facts they are available. If you want uninformed, slightly paranoid, unsubstantiated opinions, those are available too. Your embrace of the latter over the former, is part of a worrying and dangerous trend.
(1) https://www.ipcc.ch/
(2) http://www.climatechange2013.org/images … _FINAL.pdf (30MB)And it has now become an IPPC (hardly an unbiased outfit, aren't they?) claim that, with 95% confidence, that 51% of a global increase in temperature from 1951 to 2010 was cause by humanity.
I might even accept that, or something close to it. It is, after all, a far cry from "97% of environmental scientists claim that humanity caused all climate change and it will be the greatest disaster the earth has ever seen". Don't you agree?
(Did you notice that if the temperature has risen 2C, that man has caused only 1C of it? And that there is every indication that it will gain another 1C without man doing a thing? And another? And then we will be beyond that terrible 2C that indicates the end of the earth? We are lost, and nothing we can do will change that.)What on Earth makes you think that the IPCC is politically biased? Whose interests might it be serving? The plants?
I would love to hear some evidence of malfeasance.Wilderness, are you ever going to get quotes correct so that their meaning doesn't change to something other than what was said? You just wrote " "97% of environmental scientists claim that humanity caused all climate change ..."; which you imply is quoting somebody else. Your misrepresentation of truth really diminishes your veracity.
Just so everybody reading this is reminded of what was really said, the proper quote and meaning is " 97% of published climate scientists agree humans are causing recent global warming.(Don W)" That obviously is a far cry from the misinformation you offered.
1. "published climate scientists" is NOT "environmental scientists"
2. "humans are causing RECENT global warming" is NOT "humanity caused ALL climate change".
When you do that, WIlderness, why should anybody believe you?Well, let's take a look at it. When the quote is a carefully chosen subset of scientists, chosen for their view on climate change, is there any reason to indicate that 97% agree? Is that figure relevant at all, given the limitations of who will be considered?
I submit that it is not; it is just excess verbiage. Therefore Don must actually mean something else (we've been discussing the failure to actually say what is meant) - it would seem that if the 97% figure is to be of any value at all it must be 97% of all climate scientists. Would you disagree there? Or would you say Don was playing a game with words, trying to give the impression that 97% of climate scientists agree (false) while keeping it technically true by limiting the sample to only those scientists that agree with established claims close enough that publishers will include them?
If you wish to affirm that our listener is too ignorant to understand that the climate change under discussion was not a million years ago (before man existed), 100,000 years ago (before man's abilities outstripped other animals) or even 1,000 years ago, I have no objections. The term "recent" is of zero value, however - can we not give some actual values? After all, "recent" in geological terms is a million years, in climatology terminology at least 10,000 years and in terms of universal age it would be a billion. So lets limit it to climate change only in the last 60 years, as Don did and quit trying to insinuate something that isn't true.Yes, Wilderness, "published climate scientists" IS a carefully chosen subset of scientists. Why? Because they are the ones who know what they are actually talking about and can prove it.
"All climate scientists" are NOT peer-reviewed; their opinions and analyses have NOT been rigorously scrubbed. You can listen to their logic and make judgments on that, but only peer-reviewed analysis has any real weight.
Face it WIlderness, you are simply wrong.""published climate scientists" IS a carefully chosen subset of scientists. Why? Because they are the ones who know what they are actually talking about and can prove it."
LOL Pretty easy to prove, isn't it, when anyone with a different opinion is automatically removed from any discussion?
Esoteric, it's like this. While I personally feel that the climate is changing, and that humanity is playing a part in that change, I highly doubt we are a major contributor and do not believe that we are the single biggest contributor.
I also look around at what science has become in our country and other countries of the world. Where government funding is a necessity, when opinions that do not promote power for politicians and their handlers are set aside and blacklisted. That you put ultimate faith in your government that it doesn't happen is, IMO, quite foolish for it is well known that it DOES happen. And the single larges area where it is obvious is the environmental sciences, the whole green movement. It is very PC, very highly promoted by big political and social names, and it has become necessary to agree with it just to survive.
We see it in Clinton's notion of covering the nation with solar cells. We see it in the Dakotas, where a group of greenies has violated the law with full support of our President in doing so. We see it in a large solar cell manufacturing plant given huge subsidies in my state - a plant that was never built, just those subsidies gathered in and the project halted. We see it in requirements that utilities buy, at exorbitant costs, the "green" power produced as inefficiently as possible. We see it in "carbon taxes". It's all about money; follow the money trail and you will find the root of it all and it isn't about science. It's about making large sums of money.
You want to reduce carbon emissions? Build another 100 or so nuke plants. We know how to do it safely, we know how to operate one safely and we know how to do it with little radioactive waste. But the green movement doesn't like nuclear power so the politics of it doesn't work and we don't have nuclear plants like the rest of the world does. While sobbing about burning fossil fuels and that we so desperately need solar cells built into every highway and roof top. Bah! We can solve this countries contribution to CO2 without doing anything new at all, we just don't want to. Not unless we can make the greenies rich as we do it.I see several problems with this.
Firstly, one of the huge problems that environmentalists have, is that most politicians around the world don't want to know. It may be different in America - but if you look at what environmentalists want and what laws are actually passed, they fall far short. In fact if you look at them, even the Paris Accord isn't much more than window-dressing, to shut the environmental lobby up without actually doing much.
Meanwhile, you're overlooking the large amount of science that is funded by corporations. Every time you see someone disputing climate change, take a look at who's funding them and you'll often find it's some kind of "think tank". Think tanks are funded by corporations, often covertly. It's the same tactic as was used by the tobacco industry.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti … al-effort/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment … -lawmakers
Also bear in mind, the corporations are more media-savvy than universities and other research bodies, and they spend millions on that too.
Claiming the IPCC is biased, is the equivalent of claiming the scientific community is biased because it discovered a link between tobacco and cancer. That's not bias, it's science.
You seem to think your personal opinions on climate change are equivalent to (or more insightful than) the reports published by the IPCC. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the international scientific community know more about climate change than you (and the Koch brothers) do.
I'm not interested in your homebrew theories about climate change. I'm interested in what the science tells us, as reported through the scientific community.
The current consensus is that recent climate change is largely caused by human activity, and a rise above 2C of pre-industrial levels will have the most destructive effects. I don't care whether you accept that, just as I don't care whether you accept the link between tobacco and cancer. Both remain true, regardless of your opinion. That's how science works.
I have no idea where this stuff comes from.
Conservative elements in the Anglican Church reacted against Origin of the Species but some liberal elements in the Church were supportive, coming up with early versions of 'theistic evolutionism' pretty fast.
Theistic evolutionism is a way of interpreting evolution as part of a divine plan and the Catholic Church and most Protestant Churches take that line these days.
There was plenty of debate including a famous one at Oxford University.
No one was threatened with death or charges of heresy.
You might be confusing reaction in the UK with reaction in the US or conflating Galileo with Darwin.
So on one side we have this fact: 97% of published climate scientists agree humans are causing recent global warming.
On the other we have this opinion: "quite a few scientists have been, and currently are, blacklisted for publishing conclusions not widely accepted; that they are immediately considered as far out weirdo's or worse"
These two things are not equivalent.
You can believe the opinion as much as you want, but that doesn't make it a fact.
Show me evidence from reliable sources that scientists have been "blacklisted" for disagreeing with the consensus, and not just criticized for doing bad science and shilling for the oil and gas industry. Without evidence, it's no more than a paranoid fantasy.
Public policy decisions should be made on facts not paranoid fantasies.Of course they are not. But you don't seem to understand (or accept?) just why the situation has been mentioned at all.
We know that scientists going against the establishment are blacklisted. Why, then, would you want to only talk about climate scientists that agree with the establishment by publishing? You have cherry picked a small group of people whose claim to fame is that they agree with current politics on global warming and made a big thing out of that they all agree. And, somehow, can't seem to see the silliness of going down that road.
"Public policy decisions should be made on facts not paranoid fantasies."
Very, very true. Unfortunately they are made on political considerations, with facts far in the background. And if you don't think that is absolutely true, well, there isn't much more to be said.
The question of how much scientific agreement there is regarding well-documented theories should be brought up more often. It'd give people some much needed context.
I did some digging and found a couple of Pew Polls that do just that.
The first is from 2009: http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/528.pdf
Human beings and other living beings have...
Evolved over time... 97%
Due to natural processes 87%
Guided by supreme being 8%
Views on climate change...
Warming is due to human activity 84%
Warming is due to natural changes 10%
No solid evidence earth is warming 4%
The second is from last year: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/23/a … sts-views/
Humans have evolved over time: 98%
Climate change is mostly due to human activity: 87%
Taking these surveys at face value, it seems there is a strong consensus about both evolution and climate change as occurrences, with a slight edge for evolution (97% believe in evolution and 94% believe in climate change). There's less consensus on the causes but still a strong majority (87% believe evolution is due to natural processes and 84% believe climate change is [primarily] due to human activity).My special interest in US politics relates to the way that no more than a few dozen individuals have managed to hold up action on climate change in the US.
The Koch Brothers and others in the oil and coal industry have dug in to preserve their financial interests, funding think tanks to produce false analysis and junk science.
People like Rupert Murdoch, who believe that all government is essentially evil have lent their media outlets to spread misinformation.
PR companies have simply taken the money to place 'climate experts' with no science background on TV debates and 'cast doubt' on scientific evidence.
This approach has only worked in the US. What makes the US so uniquely vulnerable to manipulation by special interest groups?Are you suggesting that only the US has been successfully manipulated by special interest groups?
When it comes to climate change, people and governments in other countries generally listen to the scientists.
Of course, in other countries there are trusted news providers and those news providers will fact check information before publishing it.
Reputable news providers also have rules which include finding spokes people for all sides in a dispute and giving readers an idea of what qualifies those people to speak.
In the US, when it comes to climate change debates, many broadcasters will simply use oil industry PR men for the denier side, mainly because reputable scientists who think climate change is not man-made are very hard to come by.
I will put it as simply as possible. Trump Administration will most likely de-fund the Global Warming agenda, because there's nothing in it for us. Follow the money! Fact is, private investors aren't interested in investing in it, because there isn't anything in it for them. So! It will just go away like Global Cooling did.
That's the spirit! Forget future generations get it now!
I much prefer honest, reckless greed to deliberate distortion of reality. The truth is always worth hanging on to, no matter how disagreeable."The truth is always worth hanging on to, no matter how disagreeable." - That is good, but first people need to know the truth.
I will believe you are simply being sarcastic, because of disinformation. I don't forget the future generations, I have grandchildren and their peers are my concern.
I don't suppose you honestly remember the Rockefeller's reckless greed to deliberately distort reality with climate change? Or, don't care? Would you rather act as a devil's advocate for the religion of global warming / global cooling / climate change alarmists? The globalist Rockefeller family wanted to use Exxon Mobil (Standard Oil) to establish carbon taxes through fiat through Exxon Mobil.
Thankfully for people like, Rex Tillerson, (CEO of Exxon), who I am a big fan of because it was he that took Standard Oil away from the Rockefeller Family, and stopped them.
Now, the CIA government-made fake news propaganda is trying to make Tillerson out to be a Russian agent. That's utterly ridiculous! I have nothing but praise for honest men with integrity looking out for future generations.
I find conversation is limited with you...unless it becomes enlightened, I see no reason to linger discourse.A choice between reckless greed and distortion of reality. That is like choosing from coke or alcohol addiction.
When I see 2 of the worst Presidential candidate that people must choose from along with all the phony cheering over lies from all the empty promises and empty foresight . Then I know we are all living in a rapidly growing fictitious North America. Because I am a positive person and aim for natural enlightenment I perfer to move rather than live in a synthetic world, that promotes more pollution, imprisonment, mentally ill guns and war.
Mr. Trump is a Grinch that stole it for predominately whites, for a white house congress, for a white Jesus and Christmas.
But no matter how small a minority group is or how small a person is. A person is a person and no matter how huge Trump wall is. Or how fascist and racists Trump police are. Or homophob, or sexist Trump is, it will ever stop Americans minority babies out producing white babies. Or how Trump greedy bunch will nuke the the poor , the Zionist families will die too. Or how Trump short fuse hate will never out last the love of the Majority. In all in all it makes me still very optimistic about the future.
Mr. Trump stoled it from the middle class , minority from the land and giving it all to himself and his greedy dogs. Will this Mr Trump ever give it back ? not likely, yet the people will take it back for themselves.One comment here fascinates me. About Trump needing to accept minorities will have more babies than whites. Funny that you would think he someone to fear on that count since it is always voices aligned with the left demanding population control; even to the extent of government forced birth control with only those fortunate few allowed to conceive. Those are white voices. Who do you think they think the fortunate few should be?
If you really dig deep in world history you will find Zionist created the communist and capitist system that grew into the corporatioism system. Banking, oil and creating wars has always profitable for Zionist since world war 1. Alcohol prohibition war was because it had greater efficiency and cleaner than gas, it is the same story with cannabis. Zionist are fake jews so they will tool or create war between race, class, communist/corperationism, religion, pollution or any fake monster they can make up. UN and NATO was created after second world war to give Zionist their assumed homeland back. Then they have an agenda to reduce world population down to two billion. Starting with lowering our life expectancy for the first time in modern history through synthetic and food, drugs, and pollution. Only through great abuse people do raise to great travesties throughout history and change things for the better.
That's right! You can always trust big business to know what's good for society.
The lead petroleum industry, the asbestos industry, the tobacco industry - investors kept investing in them, long after those industries knew they were killing people. I've worked for companies at management level, and I've seen them take decisions that made them more money at the expense of their customers' wellbeing, though thankfully not on that scale.
That is the whole problem with the climate change debate. No, renewable resources and cutting down consumption do not make money. That's the point - if we want to save the planet, then we need to do things that go directly against the profit culture and consumerism which has become the cornerstone of our lives. They're not things you can make a profit from, what a surprise.
Whether or not humans are responsible, the climate is changing. I think the Earth will survive but I am increasingly doubtful that our civilisation will, because people are fundamentally greedy.
The best I can hope for is that it survives for the rest of my lifetime.I see I made a serious typo, sorry for the misunderstanding that must have caused. It should have been ... "Trump Administration will most likely de-fund the 'man-made' Global Warming agenda, because there's nothing in it for us." ... I do not deny Climate Change, just the science-fiction.
I listened to an interview with Bill Gates recently, he meet with Trump and is very optimistic about future meetings to discus energy resource plans that he and some other wealthy investors have already pooled a billion dollars to bankroll. He did not go into any details, but he is looking forward to finding solutions.
I believe the best and first thing anyone should do is develop a strong spiritual belief. Its not for me to say what that spiritual belief would be for anyone else. Its proven scientifically that people who do have a strong spiritual belief have a much higher rate of surviving the same circumstances as people without any. Then, prepare for natural disasters the best we can.I believe that is money to show 'good faith'. Money isn't am obstacle for Bill Gates, pretty sure of that. I don't know that much about him personally, but he believes he has some solutions. Time will tell.
Bill Gates believes government needs to put in the sort of R&D effort made during the Manhattan or Apollo projects to solve climate change issues.
He has no faith in private enterprise to solve the technical problems needed to provide clean energy fast enough and points out that virtually all significant tech advances were the result of government research.
He should know. His billions would not have been possible without the mass of pure research in the electronics field.
Given that Trump's team are talking about decommissioning climate monitoring satellites, it is hard to believe he will see eye to eye with Bill Gates.
Actually it is said that you will know a person better when hw hold power... Every one are only considering the bad impact of Trump being president....but not many of us are considering good impact of Trump being president...one good thing i see is thatTrump is a investor, a person who know the value of money and how to play with it....i guess hw will not lead US to suffer like great depression of 1990s......
Not according to the OP. It appears he thinks there will be an economic meltdown coinciding with the complete annihilation of Mother Earth.
Armageddon, courtesy of democrat imaginations.
Before
After
112% Of scientists polled by Facebook authenticated news sources paint a grim picture of the results of global warning on arctic regions.In Vancouver Canada already succulent, cati, palm trees and banana tree can grow.
The pacific coast is temperate. I worry about the next ice age though. If there was only something we could do.
A good start would be handcuffing the major centro bankers. But people would rather suffer through nuclear fallout and call me insane than to do anything like that.
The US is experiencing an Arctic Blast, get set. We're all going to freeze!
Vast majority of Scientist would not agree we would freeze, more like drown or unable to grow food enough. Good science won't be found in Religious books or Trump's pocket book.
No one really knows. Everyone is speculating. So far, all predictions made have not panned out. If we are lucky, whatever happens, we will work together as a world community to live through it together.
OH, I know personally, most of my business in the winter time was building world record snow playgrounds and sculptures. I needed to stop my snow (show business) business due to a lack of snow and freezing temperatures. Now turn to building Eco communities, far away from where Governments and greedy are busy tearing them down because they are not on the corporation grid as to being green is illegal more and more so.
Well, for sure Castle. You've lived through tens of thousands of years and have personally seen climate changes as they occurred, you are soo sooo very smart that you understood all of the factors associated with them each time around and you know this time around exactly what will happen and why it will happen (we are pretty sure you'll blame this time around on the Zionists)
Thank God for Castle.Zionist don't know they are mentally ill psychopaths, so the blame equally goes to the Majority of the people for allowing this sickness to spread everywhere. While I am on earth, I will do everything in my power to make it a healthier, happy, friendlier and kinder world.
I would say 65% is natural causes is the planet itself. Yet mankind 35% damages to nature is enough to destroy our species to extinction. Already 95% of the species have gone extinct in world natural history, one less negative parasite gone a parasite that is getting worst make a difference. Thanks to Mother nature that earth can and will do better when we are gone. Unless we can grow up and use our brain for positive reasons for all earthlings.Since you have apparently been here tens of thousands of years already we can assume you'll be here for that much time to come. Lucky us.
Most people rather believe in fairy tale God or Politician to guild them. I rather follow love and kindness being the only thing that penetrate my heart. I am sure all earthling over 10,000 year can be connected by love perhaps the Universe. Someone have to use their brain+love for all earthlings or we are next to go extincted.
An atheist can get it wrong. dead wrong.
Just to let you know.I found most of the impressive great people throughout Hunan history. Who were the ones that found answers between the extemes of living .
Hierarchy between Solitude
or
Religion between Atheist.
In 1969 was the first ship to make it through the NorthWest passage way. Ice has melted the size of Alaska and Texas combined since than. Now huge cruise ship tour the Antarctica.
I have worked ice hotels and snow playgrounds in Antarctic, ice has melted a least 1% per year. I have done 14 world record scale ice and snow sculpture and don't need to have scientist tell me the north is melting very rapidly. Because I live it and experience it. Maybe Trump can make enough ice cubes from his tower and ship it up north to fit that problem too.Scientists today agree that just a few thousands years ago, The Arctic region was a tropical paradise, complete with palm trees, warm breezes, sea turtles, and more. Perhaps THAT was the normal and we are going back to that. The entire continent of North America, also according to these expert scientists, was covered by an ocean. So any rise in sea levels would be going back to normal.
I got maybe 30 years left of my life. The Greatest cause of immigrants is war and environmental related. Since my Government has stomps on everything I have done for a healthy environmental, like being green is illegal.
People are blind if they don't see farming and wildlife being destroyed at a very rapid rate. As our freedom and healthy choices have become very limited. As people are being gathered into prison's and work camps. I won't see the earth turn to a total burning ball of shit. I just don't want to imagine what we have passed down to our children.
I declare myself an environmental refugee and moved to an area of indigenous people because I think they are my last faith or saviors of humanity.Pretty cool that you still have internet service.
Farming is being destroyed as we produce more food than ever before?
Or do you mean that small, inefficient farms are being left out of the picture in favor of more productive methods that feed more people?
We live in a world that worships money way above the environment. The air is polluted by corporations. The water is polluted by corporations. The food you eat contains corporate chemicals that don't belong in your body. But those corporations make money and it is ok the create earthquakes in Oklahoma and pollute the water that people drink. In fact it is ok to make money even if what you do kills a few people. That is a side effect. The environment is tipping over and at some point it will fall. Humans may or may not survive the destruction.
You might like reading this. I read it recently.
Dr. Velikovsky, "Earth and Upheaval" book. Highly condensed observation of what happens in a Pole Shift..observation he found going around the planet and finding the evidence.
Titled "A Working Hypothesis"
https://henrithibodeau.files.wordpress. … thesis.pdf
'Let us assume, as a working hypothesis, that under the impact of a force or the influence of an agent - and the Earth does not travel in an empty universe - the axis of the earth shifted or tilted. At that moment an earthquake would make the globe shudder. Air and water would continue to move through inertia; hurricanes would sweep the Earth, and the seas would rush over continents, carrying gravel and sand and marine animals, and casting them onto land. Heat would be developed, rocks would melt, volcanoes would erupt, lava would flow from fissures in the ruptured ground and cover vast areas. Mountains would spring up from the plains and would climb and travel upon the shoulders of other mountains, causing faults and rifts. Lakes would be tilted and emptied, rivers would change their beds; large land areas and all their inhabitants would slip under the sea. Forests would burn, and the hurricanes and wild seas would wrest them from the ground on which they grew and pile them, branch and root, in heaps. Seas would turn into deserts, their waters rolling away.
'And if the change in the velocity of the diurnal rotation [slowing the planet down] should accompany the shifting of the axis, the water confined to the equatorial oceans by centrifugal force would retreat to the poles, and high tides and hurricanes would rush from pole to pole, carrying reindeers and seals to the tropics and desert lions to the Arctic, moving from the equator up to the mountain ridges of the Himalayas and down the African jungles; and crumbled rocks torn from splintering mountains would be scattered over large distances; and herds of animals would be washed from the plains of Siberia. The shifting of the axis would change the climate in every place, leaving corals in Newfoundland and elephants in Alaska, fig trees in northern Greenland and luxuriant forests in Antarctica. In the event of a rapid shift of the axis, many species and genera of animals on land and in the sea would be destroyed, and civilizations, if any, would be reduced to ruins.'
At least we won't have to suffer through 4 years of Hilary....
When dealing with environmentals I sometimes have to step back and watch a relaxing video on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tNhw0Rio9s
The climate change is real, but let's be simple and direct be about this.
1. The Earth will survive anything, the question is whether we, the life forms, will survive the Global warming.
2. What do you mean by a Trump Presidency? How is it related to the climate change? It has started before Trump was even born. Is it a some king of ill will towards him?
3. A knife kills faster than climate, better be worried for that first.
4. We have caused this climate change, we have to enjoy it.
5. Every gallon of gas we burn, every minutes of air-conditioning, lighting - in toto every second of comfort - has an upward kink in the graph. It's a collective contribution. Are we going to give up all that? No. The answer it obvious.Dear Tess Schlesinger
sorry for interrupt
you are right, I agree with you
but all depend your corporate practices, administration and strategy of business.Liberals can rest assured that we got this and know what's best for you.
I don't think the average liberal has much more interest in the people at the bottom of the heap than Trumps' billionaires. Liberals might do a little more hand wringing...
The bottom of the heap needs to look out for itself.So if you think trump and his billionaires don't care about the average person and you don't think liberals care about the average person who do you think would? In government, that is.
You have nobody in the US. Which is why Trump was elected. I read that Obama finally noticed that rural and suburban voters exist. Bit late now.
Other countries, like Germany, Denmark, Holland have deep networks of trade unions, and workers organisation of all kinds. Governments cannot ignore them. Wages have remained high despite globalization.
The French have so far refused to allow investors to create low wage jobs. They tolerate higher unemployment as a price.
The US and UK have both more or less crushed trade unions and doubled down on contingent workers who have virtually no rights. They love the cheap labor immigration provides.
Trump has picked up on the misery in the US but will not fix it. He will rule for himself and his friends.It's interesting that you put so much weight and value on trade unions. Perhaps they are different in Europe and actually care about others, perhaps they are philanthropists working for the betterment of all.
But in the states, unions cared nothing for anyone not a "brother". They were happiest when they could get every last dime from a business, when business owners were forced to live as paupers because the union wanted it all. They were happy to earn multiples of what the peons outside the union could do (necessary or there was no reason for a union at all), and they were quite happy to be the single biggest driving force behind inflation.
Although unions have done considerable good in the US, they have also done great harm and closed the doors on more than a few businesses. Wherever possible, the union elite have run roughshod over the rest of the workers and treated them as no more than trash under the boots of the order givers.
Perhaps European unions are different, but I rather doubt it.My experience with unions was they didn't want to bid the jobs we needed done and then scared the living heck out of those who did want to do the work, because the weren't union.
I'd rather take up strong arm robbery than be involved with a union. That way I would not have to break my word, my handshake, when I accepted the job and agreed to a wage.
You live in a very naive world if you truly think individual workers have one iota of leverage against large employers. Handshakes to them mean absolutely nothing.
Global warming is just one of many things that are going on today. We live in a sound bite world and those people who control the media, control the minds of many. We also live in a world that worships money. We are 100% dependent on nature not money. We need the air we breath, the water we drink and the food we eat to be good for us. Corporations pollute air, water and food to make money. Some people die or become ill because of the pollution but making a good profit is more important. Just look at tobacco and how long those companies denied causing illness that kills people. Many of the comments here were written with sound bite information but everyone here breaths the air, drinks the water, and eats the food. Do some research on the air, water and food and you will begin to see what is going on. Or you can worship money and enjoy destroying nature.
Have you considered that rather than "destroying nature", man should actually be applauded for his attempts, however feeble, to restore nature to it's proper composition? You know - the natural state of things before that infestation of self-replicating, nature destroying, chemical monstrocities called "life".? The earth had a truly fine atmosphere before it was polluted and destroyed by vast amounts of oxygen that viscious "life" thing spewed out!
From my studies that people"s life spans are being shorten, they are not living longer. Until people wake up from this horrible and be aware of the abuse to all bio organisms , this will continue to mankind greatest suffering in the future. You would think even the cold heartless greedy bastards and beurocroc would realizes their children are dying faster too. Too bad we are smoothered in a fictional synthetic world.
Never mind. Just a little humor that didn't come through.
The House passed the Koch Brother's sponsored REINS bill which, if the Senate agrees, which would require ANY regulation that has an economic impact of over $100 million to pass the House and Senate again. This Act will make certain all those things you are afraid of will happen!
Fortunately, I don't think it can get by a filibuster by Ds and is probably an unconstitutional breech of Separation of Powers.Saw a proposal once to require a 2/3rds majority in each house to pass any law under the theory that if less than 2/3rds found it a good and valuable addition to the country then it probably should not be there anyway.
Setting aside the tiny problem that our glorious leaders do not vote based on value but instead on party affiliation it actually made some sense, and this proposal is much the same. Now if we can only clean up the swamp and convince those leaders to cast votes based on their actual opinion of a law it might be of some value.
Instead, I expect you're right and we'll play games with the Rules of Order rather than make any rational decisions. But what's that about separation of powers? You lost me there.
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