Global Warming Conspiracy? [Split from 'Global Warming Alert']

[Groakes]

Only if the actions taken are appropriate and intelligent, and the law of unintended consequences doesn't alter the end result.

The Law of Unintended consequence is already having a drastic impact on the environment at the moment you would have to say.

Currently there's almost a one to one correlation between the amount of carbon emitted by a nation and it's percentage of the world's GDP. Until that number changes, drastic changes in carbon emissions could have drastic effects on human lives.

That's because our economies are at the moment wholly carbon driven. A similiar study in the 1880s could have found a similiar corellation between the number of children working in coal mines and a nation's GDP.

A restructuring of the economy along sustainable lines will develop new technologies and new forms of economy. For example, a shift toward hydrogen and solar would result in capital investment in significant infrastructure supporting transport, energy, manufacturing and agriculture.

But looking at things in terms of purely economic terms is a bit of a dead end. Current economic models, particularly those driven by monetarist policies are based on numerous flawed assumptions as to how the market operates and as to how resources are delivered. There is, for example, little modelling of the feedback consequences of unintended output from market transactions impacting upon supply.

Most economic models assume the earth as being both an infinite supplier of resources and an infinite container fro growth. Neither of these assumptions are valid. Even Adam Smith, whose "The Wealth of Nations" defined the operating parameters for a free market, would not have recognised or condoned the current market state. He specifically spoke of a market where transactions between supplier and producer were conducted on EQUAL grounds and the impact of the transaction had no consequences outside the transaction itself. The capital power of corporations and the leverage of advertising, for example, imbalances the transaction massively in favour of the producer. And the outputs of manufacturing are having direct and quaintifiable impacts on the resource base.

The market is in danger of consuming itself. The carbon economy cannot be sustained at current growth rates with a rapidly diminishing supply of oil.

The best way to get there is science, and the best way to fund science is not to ruin our economies.

Perhaps. But caution needs to be applied as scientific output often reflects the opinions of its funding base. "Scientific" studies funded by tobacco industry found that there was little cause to link smoking to lung and heart disease. "Scientific" studies by the oil and coal industries (using, coincidentally, some of the same scientists that the tobacco industry used - Fred Singer, and Fred Seitz for example) have found no connection between global warming and carbon output. Funding of research that supports anthropogenic global warming, particulalrly in the early days, was independantly funded.

And I do think that the best way to get there is actually through society. Our society has been moulded in such a way as to convince us that happiness is dependant upon consumption. This supports the current economic models and supports the corporate entities that are largely responsible for this view. However changing a society so that it's goal become focussed on creation (the true source of happiness) rather consumption (merely the source of pleasure) is a lot more difficult than redesigning and restructuring a global economy....

However, I have high hopes that there will be significant improvements in greening of the West's economies in the next decade or two. Lot's of good things on the horizon, from improvements in solar efficiency, alternative fuel sources, carbon sequestration plans, to a new generation of building materials from carbon nanotubes that will pay huge dividends in infrastructure improvements. NASA just completed a new photovoltaic cell using carbon nanotubes that uses three dimensions of the surface to absorb solar energy instead of just a two dimensional flat plain.

I agree. And here in Australia, the CSIRO is carrying out similiar important work. But the danger remains in obfuscation and denial by vested interests.

I hate to quote from the Al Gore movie cos it makes me look like some sort of greenie fan boy BUT, he did quote that arch imperialist Winston Churchill (some what ironically in my eyes as I do suspect that Winnie would have been quite supportive of those vested interests).

That said...

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…

And the consequences of doing nothing, of failing to act in the face of massive scientific evidence are morally reprehensible.

[Vivec]

Well it would still remove the excuse for 90% of wars wouldnt it, which has to be a good thing.

Thankfully between 1000 and 10000 years from now there will be no more of our wars, either through extinction or civilsation.




Another advantage is we could move live and work around OUR world freely without the endless passport/visa checks beaurocracy insanity.
Europe's open borders policy is going in the right direction whereas the USA recently implementing full passport control even for Canadians is going in reverse..

Cheers mate! You are totally right about that! Couldn't agree more!
BAN THE VISAS!!! *lol*